OSS_ilation writes "IBM touted 2006 as a resurgence year for the mainframe, but not so fast. At R.L. Polk and Co., one of the oldest automobile analytics firms in the U.S., an aging mainframe couldn't cut it, so the IT staff looked elsewhere. Their search led to a grid computing environment — more specifically, a grid computing environment running Linux on more than 120 Dell servers. The mainframe's still there, apparently, but after an internal comparison showed the Linux grid outperforming the mainframe by 70% with a 65% reduction in hardware costs, Polk seemed content banishing the big box to a dark, lonely corner for more medial tasks."

An anonymous reader writes "In recent times, a lot of discussion has been generated about the state of KDE version 4.0 and as Linux users we are ever inquisitive about what the final user experience is going to be. This article throws light on some of the features that we can look forward to when KDE 4.0 is finally released some time this year. The article indicates that the most exciting fact about KDE 4.0 is going to be that it is developed using the Qt 4.0 library. This is significant because Qt 4.0 is released under a GPL license even for non-Unix platforms. So this clears the ideological path for KDE 4.0 to be ported to Windows and other non-Unix/X11 platforms."

aprasadh writes "The government of Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India, has begun initiatives to convert all of their IT systems fully to OSS-based software. (The link is a copy of a news item that appeared recently in the Deccan Chronicle, an English-language daily.) The managing director of the IT procurement, consulting, and training agency for the Tamil Nadu government describes the reasons why he has chosen OSS, and also how he dealt with Microsoft executives." From the article: "Initially, 99 per cent of government systems have been running on Microsoft systems but then 2007 will be a watershed year for the state IT sector... We have already dispatched 6,500 Linux systems to village panchayats and another 6,100 Acer desktop systems with Suse Linux operating systems are on their way. We are procuring 20,000 desktop systems for schools, which will run only on Suse Linux... I require at least 500 trainers to train 30,000 state officials across Tamil Nadu in the next six months."

firenurse writes to point out a story in The Inquirer about how one small business switched to Ubuntu. It describes a maddening comedy of errors, a series of circular screw-ups among Microsoft, HP, and a RAID vendor. From the article: "You never quite wrap your head around how anti-consumer Microsoft's policies are until they bite you in the bum. Add in the customer antagonistic policies of its patsies, HP in this case, and vendors like Promise, and you have quite a recipe for pain. Guess what I did today?"

An anonymous reader writes "The Council of the EU has a streaming service so that we can watch its meetings — but the service can only be accessed by Mac or MS Windows users. This is because they employ WMV format for the videos. In the FAQ they express a really strange opinion about this: 'The live streaming media service of the Council of the European Union can be viewed on Microsoft Windows and Macintosh platforms. We cannot support Linux in a legal way. So the answer is: No support for Linux.' An online petition has been set up to create pressure to convince the EU council to change its service to one that is platform independent."

An anonymous reader writes to pass on the news that the Fedora Legacy project is going away. The project has been providing security updates and critical bugfixes to end-of-life Red Hat and Fedora Core releases. From the article: "In case any of you are not aware, the Fedora Legacy project is in the process of shutting down. The current model for supporting maintenance distributions is being re-examined. In the meantime, we are unable to extend support to older Fedora Core releases as we had planned. As of now, Fedora Core 4 and earlier distributions are no longer being maintained. Discussions... on the #Fedora-Legacy channel have brought to light the fact that certain Fedora Legacy properties (servers) may be going away soon, such as the repository at http://download.fedoralegacy.org and the build server."

An anonymous reader tipped us to a Techworld article proclaiming Linux as the next big thing ... again. A study of IT directors, VPs and CIOs has concluded that within five years the open-source OS will be running more than half of all important business applications. From the article: "In short, open source, especially Linux, is being legitimized by the major enterprise vendors, and user executives are more than happy to believe them ... Microsoft's thawing toward Linux is now easier to understand when faced with such data - even as Windows continues to grow as the other main server platform of choice."

nanday writes "Linux.com is running a story about how the Free Software Foundation has transformed itself into an activist organization in the past year. From the story: 'At the start of 2006, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) was largely inward-looking, focused on the GNU Project and high-level strategic concerns such as licensing. Now, without abandoning these issues, the FSF had transformed into an openly activist organization, reaching out to its supporters and encouraging their participation in civic campaigns often designed to enlist non-hackers in their causes. Yet what happened seems to bemuse even FSF employees.'" Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.

chris1646 asks: "Currently we are a small organization that is entirely a Windows shop. Next year much of the server and desktop hardware we run will need replacing. I am looking for creative ways to introduce Linux as my desktop and server OS of choice, however a couple of our core applications run exclusively on Windows. Has anyone had any success hosting Windows applications via terminal server while using Linux as the client OS? Has anyone handled a AD to open source LDAP migration?"

An anonymous reader writes "Borland's tools spinoff, CodeGear, is laying plans to revive the classic developer products — but Kylix is staying dead, the CEO says. "I hear lots of discussions about Kylix, but I didn't see lots of revenue in my reports about Kylix," he told CRN."

Exter-C asks: "2006 was the year that a large amount of people started to talk Ubuntu as a possible contender for the Enterprise Linux desktop. There are several key issues that have to be raised: Is Ubuntu/Canonical really capable of maintaining Dapper Drake (6.06 LTS) for 5 years? I know this is not a new question but the evidence after 6 months seems to be negative. A case in point is the 4-5+ day delay for critical updates to packages like Firefox. Given that such a large percentage of people use their desktop systems on the web critical, browser vulnerabilities seem to be one of the core pieces of a secure desktop environment (user stupidity excluded). Can Ubuntu/Canonical really compete with the likes of Red Hat, who had patches available (RHSA-2006:0758) the day that the updates came out?"

spiffyman asks: "In the next year, I'll begin advanced work in mathematics, and I'll also be upgrading my desktop box. In light of the advantages of Linux and FOSS in the area of science and mathematics, I want to convert from a Windows system to a dual-boot one with Linux. Primary tasks aside from math/logic activities will include learning intermediate programming, web maintenance, some computational linguistics (in Python), and LOTS of LaTeX work for my publishing activities. What do Slashdot readers recommend in terms of hardware, OS, software, and perhaps reading for a quasi-power Windows user (with no previous Linux experience) to convert to an all-Linux system?"

An anonymous reader writes "What happens when the editor of a popular Linux website attempts to install a Debian Etch desktop on an old ThinkPad? How does it turn out? Surprisingly well! The article comprises an entertaining account of the entire process, complete with lots of informative screenshots, from downloading the net-install to tangling with Wi-Fi and modem PCMCIA cards as the last step — and everything in between. A great primer for Debian newbies... Go Debian!"

VE3OGG writes "The SCO Group — the litigation firm currently in dispute with, among many, IBM, over supposed copyright infringing code in Unix — has quietly asked the courts to reconsider IBM's request to toss the case out. SCO argued that the court's November decision was procedurally and substantially flawed and they say 'the rules of procedure do not support such a result under the circumstances of this case.' If allowed to reopen the case, the SCO Group argues, that new evidence would present itself through the deposition of several IBM programmers who had previously been interviewed."

El Lobo writes "For the Linux desktop, 2002 was an important year. Since then, we have continuously been fed point releases which added bits of functionality and speed improvements, but no major revision has yet seen the light of day. What's going on? A big problem with GNOME is that it lacks any form of a vision, a goal, for the next big revision. GNOME 3.0 is just that- a name. All GNOME 3.0 has are some random ideas by random people in random places. KDE developers are indeed planning big things for KDE4 — but that is what they are stuck at. Show me where the results are.KDE's biggest problem is a lack of manpower and financial backing by big companies. In the meantime, the competition has not exactly been standing still. Apple has continuously been improving its Mac OS X operating system. Microsoft has not been resting on its laurels either. Windows Vista is already available. Many anti-MS fanboys complain that Vista is nothing more than XP with a new coat, but anyone with an open mind realizes this is absolutely not the case."

narramissic writes "According to an article on ITworld, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank AG, and AIG Technologies have signed on for Microsoft's technical support for Novell Inc.'s Suse Enterprise Linux. This follows last month's announcement of a deal between Novell and Microsoft that Steve Ballmer described as an effort to 'bridge the divide between open-source and proprietary-source software.' None of the companies cited the price of the support certificates, nor would they say how many they were activating. Even more interesting, Credit Suisse is a brand new cusomter for Novell."

walterbyrd writes to alert us to word from groklaw.net that Jeremy Allison has turned in his resignation at Novell. "The legendary Jeremy Allison (of Samba fame) has resigned from Novell in protest over the Microsoft-Novell patent agreement, which he calls 'a mistake' that will be 'damaging to Novell's success in the future.' His main issue with the deal, though, is 'that even if it does not violate the letter of the license, it violates the intent of the GPL license the Samba code is released under, which is to treat all recipients of the code equally.' He leaves the company at the end of this month. He explained why in a message sent to several Novell email lists, and the message included his letter to management."

Torus Kas writes "Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 was supposed to be due by December 4 and development is currently frozen. Apparently the saga was triggered by disenchantment towards funding of $6,000 for each of the 2 release managers to work full-time in order to speed up the development. Many unpaid developers simply put off Debian work to work on something else."

An anonymous reader, perhaps the blogger himself, writes to tell us about a new blog aimed at getting non-techies excited over the idea of running from a Live CD. The blogger doesn't call it that, preferring instead "Internet Freedom Disk"; Linux is never mentioned. The submitter adds: "This is just a great gift to drop on your non-geek friends and potentially wake up a sleeping giant." Cheap, last-minute, and you can make them yourself. The blogger isn't selling anything; he provides links to Ubuntu and Knoppix Live CDs. Or pick your favorite.

An anonymous reader tipped us off to an article on the Information World site looking at the Novell/Microsoft deal from a new angle. Article author Tom Yager is of the opinion that the deal is Microsoft's punishment for throwing in with SCO. The very public announcement was made, in his opinion, as a stopgap measure against a future lawsuit on Novell's part. From the article: "Novell has exhibited the patience and cunning of a trap door spider. It waited for SCO to taunt from too short a distance. Then Novell would spring, feed a little (saving plenty for later), inject some stupidity serum, and let SCO stride off still cocksure enough to make another run at the nest. That cycle is bleeding SCO, which was the last to notice its own terminal anemia. When it became clear that SCO wouldn't prevail, Microsoft expected only to face close partner IBM. Microsoft did not brace for Novell, an adversary with a decades-long score to settle with Redmond. Through discovery, Microsoft's correspondence with SCO is, or soon will be in, Novell's hands, and it's a safe bet that it will contain more than demand for a license fee and a copy of a certified check."