It's final. After several months of intensive research and debate, the Munich city government has decided to migrate its entire computer network to the open source Linux operating system, dropping Microsoft Corp.'s Windows system in the process.

Novell said it never transferred the copyrights and patents of Unix System V when it sold the software to SCO in 1995.

The SCO Group reported a profit in its second fiscal quarter thanks in part to its recently launched initiative to more aggressively collect licensing fees for its Unix operating system software.

Microsoft agreed to license Unix technology from The SCO Group in a move that could support SCO's controversial efforts to collect royalties from companies using the open source Linux operating system, a Unix clone.

SCO says Linux developers, distributors, and customers are using code that doesn't belong to them and if they don't settle up with the Lindon, Utah, software company, they can expect to see their day in court.

The mainframe may be a dinosaur, but it is a carnivorous one. That was IBM's message at a press event in San Francisco where it launched its new line of mainframe computers.

European enterprises interested in a different approach to acquiring the Linux operating system may want to take a good look at a bundled service package now available from Fujitsu Siemens Computers

Fujitsu Ltd. and Red Hat Inc. plan to strengthen their ties with an extensive partnership to collaborate in sales, marketing, support and engineering, the companies announced.

Didn't do it. That's the clear message IBM sent with its reply to The SCO Group's $1 billion lawsuit in which it accuses Big Blue of illegally trying to damage Unix to build up Linux.

Marten Mickos, MySQL's chief executive officer, sat down with IDG News Service for an interview at the company's first user show last week in San Jose, California. He talked about how businesses can use MySQL, its competitors, and why the Nordic region might be a cradle for open-source...

None other than Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer paid a personal visit to Munich city mayor Christian Ude at the end of last month to drum up support for the company's operating system software, which faces growing competition from open-source Linux.

The government is a key buyer of information technology in India, and backers of open-source software were hoping that the Indian government would throw its weight behind open source.

Despite a vaguely defined purpose, no track record and several known risks, organizations are starting to implement projects based in .Net. Carmine Mangione delves into the .Net enigma and explains why jumping on the .Net bandwagon — like blindly adopting any technology without fi...

To each his own, but I like eye candy. For all its benefits and power, X11 and X Window System managers have been among the most drab and poorly rendered graphical environments for years. Recent versions of XFree86 began to support anti-aliased fonts, which helped. But that's pure prot...

Over the past two years, Texas has become ground zero in the war between proprietary and free/open-source software for use in state and local government. Our unilateral correspondent gives an update on three key battles in the Lone Star state. (1,700 words)

Motorola grabbed a lot of headlines in February when it announced the world's first mobile phone that runs Linux. However, developers won't be able to create Linux applications and run those on the phone because Linux is not secure enough, Motorola spokesman David Rudd said this week.

In monitoring his son-in-law's performance in the Busch Series, Joe Barr discovers that NASCAR.com is packed with great information and features for racing fans. Unfortunately for Linux and Macintosh users, the site's most-exciting feature -- streaming audio and video -- is rigged to w...

There are dozens of reasons why people have underestimated how quickly Linux has been grabbing Windows' market share. Windows starts out with a false boost and maintains its illusory market share even as it gets replaced by Linux. In 2004, don't be surprised when Linux overtakes Window...

We put a microscope to SCO's complaint and find logical leaps, factual gaffes and a heap of trouble for IBM if SCO's main contention is true. (2,600 words)

Showcasing a questionable understanding of the history of Unix, open-source software and computing in general, SCO's lawsuit against IBM has sent shockwaves rippling across the IT community. Parts of SCO's complaint would be laugh-out-loud funny if only the possible repercussions for L...

Unix developer The SCO Group has filed a lawsuit against IBM Corp. charging it with misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition and other illegal actions related to IBM's Linux business. The suit seeks at least US$1 billion in damages.

A software vulnerability in the widely used Snort open-source intrusion detection system (IDS) software could allow an attacker to crash the Snort sensor or gain control of the host device on which the sensor runs.

Now that Linux boasts full-featured office suites, there's no reason it can't become a boon for small- and home-offices. Joe Barr compares two Optical Character Recognition packages -- Kooka & Gocr (free software) and OCR Shop (proprietary) -- that may be of special value in the legal ...

A security vulnerability in one of the most commonly used e-mail server software packages could have a wide ranging impact akin to the Microsoft SQL Server vulnerability that spawned the recent Slammer worm, according to an advisory published Monday by Internet Security Systems.

Ximian and SuSE Linux AG have partnered to link SuSE's e-mail and groupware server with a desktop front-end from Ximian, which will give users of the SuSE product another choice for client software.

The first version of the Embedded Linux Consortium Platform Specification is hoped to aid application interoperability and spur interest in Linux development in the market for built-in systems software.

Our Hero installs and compares the two most popular window managers for Linux & other Unixes. His recommendation? It depends... (2,000 words)

The new browser, dubbed the Opera 7 'Bork' edition, translates the language on the MSN page to that of the famous Swedish Chef Bork from The Muppet Show.

Motorola will launch a mobile phone that runs Linux later this year, it said, introducing yet another software platform for mobile phones.

A group of free software advocates plan to protest at a Washington conference designed to promote open source and free software to governments because a representative from Microsoft is scheduled to speak there.

Our Hero uncovers Microsoft's ingenious, covert marketing efforts to promote Linux and open source via its own products' security vulnerabilities. This column is intended for mature audiences with a keen eye for sarcasm. (1,600 words)

In a quarterly report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Microsoft has confirmed it sees the open-source software movement as a threat to its commercial business model.

Walmart.com has begun selling Lindows.com's Linux-based operating system, the first stand-alone operating system not made by Microsoft to be featured at Wal-Mart's online store.

MontaVista Software, a privately held developer of embedded Linux software, said Tuesday its revenue doubled in 2002 compared to the previous year.

The name sounds like it might be a disease, but thanks to the German IT-Security Agency, KDE users will soon have a functioning open-source groupware application suite. Building on and integrating existing personal information management tools, the Kroupware project is beta testing a s...

Bill Gates outlined his optimistic vision of the coming digital decade in a speech to the Italian Senate as open source advocates in penguin suits protested his visit and called on the Italian government to legislate in favor of the use of open-source software by the state administrati...

Sun Microsystems made a filing to a federal appeals court on Tuesday laying out its objections to Microsoft's request for more time to include Java technology in Windows operating systems.

Microsoft fell victim to a software vulnerability in one of its own products on Saturday, when the W32.Slammer worm infested host machines on the Redmond, Washington company's network, flooding that network with traffic.

The story of how BitKeeper became Linus Torvalds's (and many other kernel hackers') tool of choice in maintaining the Linux-development tree is worthy of a book. Here's the Cliffs Notes version of McVoy's contribution to Linux kernel development, BitKeeper, and countless hours of flami...

With the core prototype awaiting user reaction, Murphy examines consolidation and software pricing issues raised by readers. He finds Moore's Law has been working its magic on Unix software costs while only Nixon's Law seems to have applied to Microsoft's. (2,600 words)