Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Novell didnt win many friends in the open-source community with its Microsoft partnership. However, that deal, along with Novells growing partnerships with enterprise software players such as SAP and now Capgemini are bound to win it friends in big business. On June 5, Capgemini, a major global consulting and outsourcing services company, and Novell announced […]

Back in the beginning of SCOs all-out assault on Linux and IBM, the Unix company received a much-needed financial boost to its lawsuit plans with two major contracts. These deals with Microsoft and Sun brought SCO $26.5 million. This money, in turn, fueled SCOs lawsuits. At the time, many critics of SCO wondered what in […]

Microsoft on June 4 announced a set of broad collaboration agreements with Linux distributor Xandros. Chief among these agreements is an intellectual property assurance that Microsoft will provide patent covenants for Xandros Linux customers, along the lines of the recent Microsoft/Novell deal. David Kaefer, Microsofts general manager for IP (intellectual property) and licensing, told eWEEKs […]

At long last, the final draft of the GNU General Public License Version 3 is out. While companies and attorneys are taking their time in reacting to this latest version, two of the GPLv3s three primary authors have shared their opinions on the almost-completed work. In a public letter, “Why Upgrade to GPL Version 3,” […]

Novell has announced its financial results for its second fiscal quarter, which ended April 30. For the quarter, Novell reported net revenue of $239 million, compared with net revenue of $233 million for the second fiscal quarter of 2006. The loss available to common stockholders from continuing operations in the second fiscal quarter 2007 was […]

On May 31, Red Hats sponsored and community-supported open-source Fedora Project released the latest version of its distribution: Fedora 7. Besides being a cutting-edge Linux distribution, it features a new build capability that enables users to create their own custom distributions. Fedora 7 now boasts a completely open-source build process that greatly simplifies the creation […]

Doesnt the Milan, Microsofts “surface-based” computer look cool? Just to look at it, Id want one as my coffee-table even if is running Windows Vista, instead of Linux. But I suspect Ill never get one. In fact, Im not sure it will do well enough to have a second generation of systems for consumers. You […]

Most of the Novell/Microsoft patent deal is now out in the public. With this, the veil has been lifted in part from this controversial patent partnership. With this unveiling we now know that there is still no proof, other than Microsofts flat unsupported statement, that Linux violates any of Microsofts patents. We also know that […]

Patent fights are fights about money. The secondary issue, the one that makes the headlines, is control. To really understand whats going on in the current patent posturing involving Microsoft, Novell, and a host of open-source companies and groups, it helps to keep those factors firmly in mind. What makes this current brewing battle particularly […]

On May 24, Dell officially unveiled its three consumer systems–the XPS 410n and Dimension E520n desktops and the Inspiron E1505n notebook–that come with the Ubuntu 7.04 Linux distribution factory-installed. The three systems will be made available in the United States after 4 p.m. CDT on May 24 at the Dell Linux site. These systems are […]

Long expected, Dell finally officially released its first line of consumer PCs with pre-installed Linux, Ubuntu 7.04, on May 24. Heres a closer look at exactly whats what in Dells initial line of Ubuntu-powered desktops and laptops. Dimension E520n The first of these computers, the Dimension E520n, comes from Dells budget-priced desktop PC line. The […]

On the record, a Dell spokesman said he “cant comment on unannounced products,” when asked about Dells forthcoming Ubuntu-powered PCs. Over on Direct2Dell, meanwhile, John Hull, Dells manager of Linux OS technologies, on May 21 published “an overview of what customers can expect from our initial Ubuntu offering.” Heres what Hull had to say. First, […]