Software Free

InfoWorld announced their winners of the 2008 Best of Open Source Software (BOSSIE) awards this week.  The complete list is available here.  Several of the winners are included and supported as part of SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell.  One of note is that AppArmor beat out SELinux for the BOSSIE in the category of Application Security.  Why?  I’ll let InfoWorld’s words do all the talking…

From the article: Nautilus is the graphical file manager (along with a few other nice features) in GNOME. Most users only use the bare minimum features of Nautilus (including me, as I’m mainly a console jockey) and don’t realize how powerful and flexible Nautilus truly is. Read More.

What happens when a sysadmin who loves to work and loves their operating system wins the lottery? Enjoy this and many other videos on our YouTube Channel, where we’ll be featuring Linuxworld San Francisco 2008 coverage. RossB

Judging from this interview and the articles around it, he does. RAY OZZIE: Well, my position toward Open Source generally is that it’s a part of the environment. It’s very useful for developers to be able to get the source code to certain things, to modify them. This is the Chief Software Architect of MS, the Father of Lotus Notes and the founder of Groove Networks, which Microsoft bought. Here is the full transcript etc. of Ray’s MVP Summit talk. You be the judge. RossB

Ok, so don’t get your hackles up, we all know that it’s not like this, all golf and table-hockey, but you have to admit it’s most techies dream job… Don’t forget to check out our Youtube channel and enjoy all the fun and informative videos. Enjoy, RossB

   Customers, Partners Run Top Supercomputers on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for High Performance Computing Press Release World’s three most powerful supercomputers run SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell WALTHAM, Mass.— 11 Jun 2008— Supercomputers around the world are running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell®. According to TOP500, a project that tracks and detects trends in high-performance computing, SUSE Linux Enterprise is the Linux* of choice on the world’s largest HPC supercomputers today. Of the top 50 supercomputers worldwide, 40 percent are running on SUSE Linux Enterprise, including the top three – IBM* eServer Blue Gene at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, IBM eServer BlueGene/P (JUGENE) at the Juelich Research Center and SGI* Altix 8200 at the New Mexico Computing Applications Center.

From the article: IBM’s Corp.’s Cognos segment has chosen Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise to debut its Cognos 8 business intelligence software on the mainframe. Cognos, which IBM bought for $4.9 billion last November, bypassed three IBM operating systems (z/OS, z/VM and z/VSE) and instead chose IBM System z for Linux and Novell’s SUSE for its entrée into the mainframe market. An IBM mainframe version for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is also in the works.

Enjoy the rest of our videos on the Novell Video Youtube channel. Enjoy, RossB

Press Release: The openSUSE Project is proud to announce the release of openSUSE 11.0 — everything you need to get started with Linux on the desktop and on the server. Promoting the use of Linux everywhere, the openSUSE Project provides free, easy access to the world’s most usable Linux distribution, openSUSE. The 11.0 release of openSUSE includes more than 200 new features specific to openSUSE, a redesigned installer that makes openSUSE even easier to install, faster package management thanks to major updates in the ZYpp stack, and KDE 4, GNOME 2.22, Compiz Fusion, and much more. Read More.

What happens when you treat the IT department badly? Click below to find out… Click on the video to watch it or just go to our Youtube channel and enjoy the other fun stuff we have! Enjoy, RossB

Wow, I really liked this article, it had me alternatively laughing and shivering over the uses people have made of Microsoft’s Flagship product. From the article: After all these years I am willing to admit that Microsoft has won the desktop and server wars. Thanks to VMWare Windows is spreading throughout the datacenter. And, of course, there is only one operating system to use if you are dependent on Microsoft apps like Outlook, Word, and Excel. While I have joined the chorus of security folks who rail against the Microsoft Monoculture I still cannot believe some of the uses for Windows. Some of them are just downright silly, some you may claim are criminally negligent. Read More.

PlateSpin PowerConvert 7.0 delivers most comprehensive multi-platform support for Windows and Linux in mixed data center environments ORLANDO, Fla. (Gartner IT Infrastructure, Operations & Management Summit)— 23 Jun 2008— PlateSpin ULC, a Novell® company, today announced the launch of PlateSpin PowerConvert® Version 7.0 with new backup and recovery features and expanded multi-platform support to help enterprises migrate and protect server workloads across heterogeneous physical and virtual IT environments. The first major product release since the company was acquired by Novell in March 2008, PowerConvert 7.0 gives customers a true enterprise-class solution to simplify the management of server workloads in their heterogeneous data centers.

Click on the video to watch it or just go to our Youtube channel and enjoy the other fun stuff we have! Enjoy, RossB

With all the smaller players in the Virtualization game suddenly feeling like extras on the set of a badly-animated Godzilla movie, VMWare has fired it’s visionary CEO and looks to lose one of it’s most valuable engineers (her husband) all at a time when Microsoft is spooling up it’s Hyperbole-V engine to take on VMWare directly. Best article about this so far is from the Register: EMC CEO’s Ego Has Cost Investors Billions, where the situation is laid out along withe resulting consequences for VMWare.  Basically it looks like VMWare’s CEO was axed by EMC’s CEO over personality differences, with Paul Maritz (Yes, THAT Paul Maritz so recently of Microsoft) taking the helm.

Wow, now there’s a subject that’s pregnant with complex issues and conflicting feelings.  Bridget Botelho’s article over on SearchServerVirtualization.com really got me to thinking… Let’s see, I work for a company that is partnered WITH Microsoft including Virtualization of our and their products in a pretty unique way.  My company is ALSO partnered with VMWare to make sure our products run well virtualized on their platform and also to make sure their platform/products run on our products.  Lost yet?