Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

Editors Note: This opinion is part of a new series of stories from the reporters and editors of Ziff Davis Internet. Instead of the usual mile-high viewpoint, these articles examine a particular technology or market in transition and tell you whats in store for the year ahead. The blind men had a heated argument over […]

Microsofts open standard Office XML format announcement may not be that big a deal, according to one standards attorney. When Microsoft announced Monday that it was submitting its Office 12 XML format specifications to Ecma International to become an open standard, many took a wait-and-see attitude toward it. They did so because Microsoft had not […]

Kids know that when one kid lies all the time, the next thing out of his mouth is likely to be another lie. So whats the IT buying publics excuse for thinking Microsofts new embrace of openness is anything other than a lie? Its one thing for Microsoft to declare that it will open up […]

Is Microsoft embracing open standards or strangling it with its proposed open XML Office standards? It all depends on who you ask. If you believe Jean Paoli, co-inventor of XML and a Microsoft senior developer, Microsoft hopes “to create an open standard that will enable customers, technology providers and developers around the globe to work […]

The newest version of Mono, the open-source implementation of Microsofts .Net, makes it much easier for developers to deploy .Net programs. The Mono Project, which is sponsored by Novell Inc., provides the software needed to run and develop Microsoft Corp. .Net client and server applications on Unix, Solaris, Linux and several other operating systems. Microsoft […]

On Wednesday, the Public Patent Foundation filed a formal request with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to revoke a data compression patent that Forgent Networks Inc. is asserting against the JPEG image standard. In recent years, JPEG has become the default file format for photo-quality images. It is commonly used in publishing, graphics and […]

This time around, Microsoft commissioned a study to show that Windows does a better job of serving e-commerce applications than Linux does. Of course, in the study, they didnt use the same e-commerce or back-engine DBMSs. OK, right there, without saying another word, anyone who really knows anything about benchmarking knows that the study is […]

The Open Source Development Labs announced Tuesday the launch of an online patent commons reference library, the Patent Commons Project. OSDL had called earlier this year for the creation of the Patent Commons Project. Now, about 90 days later, it has arrived. The new site hosts searchable databases containing more than 500 patents pledged to […]

The next-generation of Windows just keeps sounding better and better. It turns out I literally cant buy a system today that will run Vista successfully this time next year. What is Microsoft thinking? While Im sure the accountants at Dell, HP and Gateway (or not) are eagerly looking forward to this new revolution in software, […]

One of the most common reasons I hear most from people that they cant consider a Linux desktop is that they cant run their favorite Windows application on it. Think again. With CodeWeavers Inc.s latest CrossOver Office 5, you can run many of the most popular Windows applications on Linux. CodeWeavers has been doing this […]

Well, that was fast. When Novell gave up supporting KDE, I expected something to happen. But what I didnt expect Novell to do, as one KDE supporter put it to me, “was to cave in so fast.” What did we know? In a handful of days, Novell did a 180 degree turn and began supporting […]

A Linux distribution supporting IBM DB2 isnt usually that big a deal. But when its Canonical Ltd.s populist Ubuntu distribution, which is known far more for its community support than for its business savvy, its more noteworthy. Canonicals Ubuntu is a Debian Linux branch. In the past, its developers have emphasized its community Linux status. […]