With Apologies to the Wizard of Oz

“Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead”

Microsoft’s so-called “Get the Facts” site trumpeted long and hard how well Windows compared with Linux for TCO, at times making almost fantastic claims about how inexpensive Windows was compared to a totally free product like Linux.

In what could be a sign of a kinder-gentler relationship with Linux, Microsoft recently took this decrepit site out back and drove a stake through it’s heart.

The site has been replaced by a Windows Server Comparison site, much less controversial and flame-worthy.

R.I.P., or as my co-worker commented: “R.I.H.”

RossB

Red Hat Kernel Developer files Patents for DRM

Yeah, sure, Patents are Evil, but look who has applied for some patents, apparently they aren’t SO evil, he just had to get him some.

Novell’s OpenSUSE #1 on Distrowatch

Ubuntu is # 2 and Fedora falls from grace to # 3.  Article talks about how well Novell is doing with it’s free supported product and how Fedora Legacy is failing miserably.

Preview of the coming Year from the ZD Guys

3. Microsoft’s partnership with Novell actually works for customers–everyone else hates it. Say what you will about the nuances and motivation of the Microsoft and Novell Linux pact, but it does touch on a key theme–mixed source environments are here to stay. Proprietary code such as Microsoft’s is going to coexist with Linux. No CIO is going to rip out years of infrastructure for open source religion. The reality: CIOs want some reassurance open source software and proprietary code will play nice. Microsoft’s deal with Novell plays to that need. If Novell gains any business–I’m doubtful since Novell has more lifelines than I can count–perhaps Red Hat and Microsoft also do some sort of interoperability agreement.

 More Here

CIO Study finds Linux ready for Prime-Time

Recap article here

The War is Over

And Linux Won, or so the columnist proclaims.  See if you agree, is this a “Bush” declaration of victory or simply the end of the first major battle for the hearts, minds and motherboards of the computing public???

My, how original, a Linux distro with Xen support

Red Hat is hoping to ship their version of Linux on time, but it doesn’t look like they’ll make it…

Microsoft Hands Out 16,000 SUSE Linux Subscriptions

Damn, they did it…  We all knew there were these 70,000 subs for MS to hand out to customers, but seeing them use them, and for such large customers, it’s shock and awe…

Survey Says!…

2100 IT professionals polled and the results are in:  The MS/Novell deal is a good thing.

Novell’s Open Office is NOT a fork

Steven Vaughan-Nichols makes the point that with every piece of the OO and ODF/XML translators either BSD/LGPL or GPL licensed, it’s hard to make the point that this is a fork, it’s more like an “interested add-on”, in my own opinion.

Some people need to get more of a life, go focus on why Ubuntu seems to be desirous of putting non-GPL code into it’s distro and give the whole Novell crew a break for a while…