An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet is running an article on how Matalan has installed several thousand point of sale terminals running Linux rather than Windows. The reason? Reduced cost of ownership. It was a big consultancy that did the work, Capgemini, and IBM on the kit side. Sounds like some people can get Linux to work in an 'enterprise environment' after all."

zborgerd writes "Linux Game Publishing has announced the opening of their beta test for X2: The Threat. X2 was featured on Slashdot last month in LGP's mystery game contest. Linux gamers can apply for the beta at LGP's beta testing site. Per their usual policy, everyone who pre-orders the game from one of their resellers is automatically qualified to enter the beta test. X2: The Threat is Egosoft's epic space simulation that is often said to be greatly influenced by the the classic games of the Elite series. A third game in the series, X3: Reunion, will soon be available for Windows (and hopefully Linux and OS X as well, if the X2 ports attract a reasonable number of fans on these platforms)."

Stephen Samuel writes "Australia's NSW Office of State Revenue is speeding it's transition to a Linux desktop due in part to a lackluster interest in Microsoft's attempt to lock them into the Software Assurance Program, reports LinuxWorld. The agency's CIO and manager of client services both confirmed they would start scoping for a move to a Linux desktop within six months. Manager Pravash Babhoota seemed satisfied with a Linux move in their back office, citing Linux costs as being just over 1/6 the projected cost of a Windows upgrade, while processing doubled."

An anonymous reader writes "Bill Thompson, a regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Go Digital, criticizes current software licenses (including the GPL) for giving developers 'freedom from responsibility which would be considered wholly unacceptable in almost any other sphere of activity, public or private'." From the article: "A friend of mine is a children's writer. When she writes a non-fiction book she is typically asked to sign a contract that indemnifies the publisher against legal costs resulting from errors of fact in the book. If she was to suggest a school experiment that involved drinking sulphuric acid, because she'd confused it with acetic, then she'd be in big trouble. Yet I can't do anything when a company produces software that exposes my online banking details to any script kiddie with time to spare, because I've agreed a license that removes such liability. "

Open Source movements have been gaining popularity everywhere, but not everyone is happy about that. Johans wrote to mention a ZDNet Asia story discussing a controversy within the Malaysian computer industry over the government's 'Public Sector Open Source Software Masterplan. From the article: " ... the government has stated that its first choice in IT procurement are infocomm technology solutions developed on the open-source platform. It states that 'in situations where advantages and disadvantages of open-source software (OSS) and proprietary software are equal, preference shall be given to OSS' ... However, some industry consortiums have stepped out to voice their concerns over this policy." Meanwhile, Anonymous Coward wrote to mention a Fox News article entitled 'Massachusetts Should Close Down OpenDocument', calling the attention of journalists to the 'huge mistake' that Massachusetts is making by switching to OpenDocument. From that article: "Officials in the state have proposed a new policy that mandates that every state technology system use only applications designed around OpenDocument file formats. Such a policy might seem like something that should concern only a small group of technology professionals, but in fact the implications are staggering and far-reaching. The policy promises to burden taxpayers with new costs and to disrupt how state agencies interact with citizens, businesses and organizations."

nri writes "The Age writes, Linux misses Windows of opportunity. Crest Electronics chose a Linux operating system, then seven months on, the company chose to abandon it for Windows. Mr Horton says. ".. the machine would basically, putting it in Windows terms, core dump or blue screen at random. It would run for weeks or so and then just bang, it would stop....I fully support Linux but if I had to make the decision again I'd pick Windows. A big reason is the fact Windows was up and running in two hours at all the right patch levels. The installation of SAP took two days on Windows, the installation on Linux Red Hat took two weeks. The total cost of ownership is actually lower in this case than with Linux because of the hidden costs of the support.""

An anonymous reader writes "High Performance Computing (HPC) has become easier, and two reasons are the adoption of open source software concepts and the introduction and refinement of clustering technology. This first of two articles discusses the types of clusters available, uses for those clusters, reasons clusters have become popular for HPC, some fundamentals of HPC, and the role of Linux in HPC."

Jack writes "ITO is running a story on Red Hat's plan to become the most secure Linux platform. From the article: "Red Hat officially joined The National Information Assurance Partnership to bring an improved level of security and assurance to Linux. This means that the next version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux will contain kernel and Security Enhanced Linux policy enhancements, developed by IBM, Red Hat, TCS, NSA and the community.""

polar_bear` writes "NewsForge has an early review of Sun's StarOffice 8, set to be released in mid-October. From the article: 'StarOffice 8 is not perfect, but it is an excellent value for businesses that do not depend on proprietary Microsoft formats for production work.'" And yes, for the uninitiated, NewsForge is still owned by the same parent company as Slashdot.

sebFlyte writes "Builder UK is reporting that Linus Torvalds is concerned that the Linux production kernel maintainence process might be overly taxing Andrew Morton, saying: "One issue is that I actually worry that Andrew will at some point be where I was a couple of years ago -- overworked and stressed out by just tons and tons of patches. If Andrew burns out, we'll all suffer hugely." Morton himself wants to make -mm releases more often. He sees bugs as more of a problem, rather than patches themselves. His solution is simple: "I'd like to release -mm's more often and I'd like -mm to have less of a wild-and-crappy reputation. Both of these would happen if originators were to test their stuff more carefully.""

atrebuse wrote to mention a preview of the Ubuntu 5.10 Preview release, on Mad Penguin. From the article: " Every community has its heroes. From the beginning of time, we've all needed that special something to grasp onto and worship in one way or another. The Linux community is no different. Sure, there are a handful of people known as leaders or visionaries that people look up to, but what other altars do they worship at? The Altar of the Distro. That's the one I'm referring to. According to the DistroWatch page hit ranking sidebar, Ubuntu Linux has held the title of '"most worshiped distro' for quite some time now. So why is that? Is it because Ubuntu is just that good? Is it because the Ubuntu followers are just sitting there hitting their browsers refresh button on the DistroWatch Ubuntu page? What is it about Mary? "

Brett writes "Tommi Kyyrä, of IFPI Finland has said that being able to play music on a Linux or Apple computer is a privilege not a right, and that those that can't because of DRM'd CDs should just go out and buy a CD player. Is switching the debate to rights and privileges really where they want to go when we're talking about something we pay for?" From the article: "If the public and 'their' politicians believe that the entertainment industry is on the verge of collapse, they'll be much more likely to accept restrictions on use of content that they've paid for. For this reason, most industry talking heads keep their comments in check when talking about DRM schemes, but from time to time we've seen people truly speak their mind."

Onymous Hero writes "The amazing thing isn't that Windows beat the pants off Unix; it's that so many of the Unix companies survived until today. An article from eWeek looks at why Linux has been so successful where Unix failed." From the article: "While the Unix companies were busy ripping each other to shreds, Microsoft was smiling all the way to the bank. Because the Unix businesses couldn't settle on software development standards, ISVs (independent software vendors) had to write not a single application to get the whole Unix market, they had to write up to a half-dozen different versions. Which would you rather do? Write a single application that would run on all Windows systems, or six different ones, each with its own unique quality assurance and support problems? "

An anonymous reader writes "The OSS/developer community at large is paying more attention to the trademark issue, especially since Linus Torvalds bid to trademark the name 'Linux' in Australia failed recently. Branden Robinson, Debian's project leader, says the current trademark policy needs updating to ensure it has the appropriate level of protection against legal challenges. Robinson said there are various questions that project members must address when deciding how to change the policy. These include whether Debian Linux should have a trademark at all, and whether the trademark can be used to penalize those who 'prey upon' the community."

Rob writes "Linux distributor Red Hat has teamed up with Hewlett-Packard to create a new performance test lab to help customers deploy enterprise storage across Linux environments. The lab will focus on performance and integration testing in order to produce best practices and solutions guides, the companies said, and will also enable customers to preview new technological developments."

Magnus writes "Korean distributions of Mozilla and Thunderbird for Linux were infected with Virus.Linux.RST.b. This virus searches for executable ELF files in the current and /bin directories and infects them. It also contains a backdoor, which downloads scripts from another site, and executes them, using a standard shell."

An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices is reporting that a run of 100 Linux-powered humanoid robots goes on sale this Friday in Japan. From the article: 'priced at 1.5M Yen (about $14,000), not including 10,000 Yen (~$90) monthly service fees. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries conceived of Wakamuru as a pleasant companion offering a range of electronic-age valet services'."

Sam Lowry writes "In a recent post at his livejournal, Ulrich Drepper criticizes the LSB standard and urges the distributions to drop it." It's an interesting piece; Ulrich raises some good points.

[vmlinuz] writes "O'Reillynet is running an article about 'Opening the potential of OpenOffice.org' which explores how anyone can contribute to argubly one of the most important Open Source projects. The article also discusses the importance of a shorter release cycle."

Bryce writes "Looks like the main kernel.org machine has moved to the Oregon State University Open Source Lab. "Last night, Peter Anvin took master.kernel.org (hera) down and handed it off to his friend, Javier. This morning, Javier flew it up here to Corvallis in his Cessna Skylane. This is the first time the OSL has had a server hand-delivered by plane, and so we were giddy as schoolgirls." Kees Cook, the senior IT guy at OSDL helped them get it installed and configured."