Software Free

There's a CS/informatics competition for high school students being held this weekend in Cluj and it is combined with educational software presentations from software companies for informatics professors.

Novell plays tricky games to prevent Red Hat and other free GNU/Linux distributions from entering the mainframe

LOCAL IT developers are being stifled by the dominance of US software companies that hold on to government business through "vendor lock-in", industry observers say.

In January, I wrote at length about the perception that Linux is not ‘officially’ supported. Yesterday, Linux-Watch released some figures that demonstrate how much of work toward the development of the Linux kernel has been contributed by paid professionals hired by large, profit-seeking corporations. Yes, I said paid professionals.

Two great quotes from Linux Foundation Marketing Director, Amanda McPherson, can be found in the last few paragraphs, both in relation to the unthinkable notion that profit-seeking companies would expend resources (money, time, people) improving something that they do not exclusively own and cannot sell. She notes that a savings from shared R&D costs do ultimately impact the bottom line (i.e. profit increases due to a decrease in expense, not an increase in revenue). I suspect that she wouldn’t be mentioning this if the cost savings weren’t (or weren’t expected to be) material.

Linux FUD Pattern #6: Linux is low-quality software

Every once in a while, an article or post will appear, claiming that Linux is just not good enough for everyday use. The reason? Concerns over quality. Such ‘blog fodder can range from the sensationalist author’s “Is Linux Ready for Prime Time?” teaser to the rants of the disgruntled because his experience with Linux was sub par. Neither contain anything resembling an objective approach to quality and neither result in a useful conclusion. That’s the topic of this sixth installment of my Top 10 List of Linux FUD patterns, the accusation that Linux is low-quality software. To recognize when FUD of this kind occurs, we must first have a working knowledge of quality measurement.

Quality Defined

Internet Explorer has held a virtual monopoly on the mainland, home to 160 million Internet users. Now, Firefox is pushing for more market share.

When it comes down to identity management, the Windows and Linux operating systems fail to play by the same tune. But at the same time, Windows Server can be leveraged in order to manage both platforms. This is the promise of a whitepaper authored by Chris Travers, the owner of Metatron Technology Consulting and Contributing Author to the Microsoft Open Source Software Lab. Travers revealed that Windows Server 2003 R2 was effectively a turning point for the streamlining of the implementation Windows-based identity management solutions tailored for Linux.