tom66 writes "Seems like a long time coming, as Microsoft today has axed it's Anti-Linux campaign 'Get the Facts', and Microsoft has replaced it with a new campaign, called 'compare'. This article touches up on why they may have done it, and the criticism surrounding Get the Facts."

dsinc writes "A guy who uploaded the latest Star Wars movie got arrested, pleaded guilty to 'conspiracy to commit copyright infringement' and 'criminal copyright infringement' and got jail and home confinement. As part of his home confinement, he agreed to install some tracking software on his computer. The problem is He's an Ubuntu Linux user and the gov't doesn't have any tracking software for Linux. So he's been told that he must use Windows for the term of his confinement. Looks like a case of cruel and unusual punishment to me"

SlinkySausage writes "Linus Torvalds has laid out his plans for the future of Linux, including the 3.0 kernel [there probably won't be one], problems with the Linux release cycles and which distro he personally runs on his home PC. '"Compile everything by hand" ones simply weren't interesting to me,' Torvalds says."

An anonymous reader writes "The all-new Linux Fund Visa Card launched on July 24th. The Linux Fund began in 1999, and lasted until Bank of America bought MBNA and canceled the program earlier this year. Before that time the fund had distributed $100,000 a year on average. US Bank has inked a new deal to resurrect the program with new features. Currently, the project is open to ideas for supporting well-loved and community-supported software that is underfunded. The current list of supported projects includes Debian, Wikipedia, FreeGeek, Freenode, and Blender."

victor77 writes "Linus has repeatedly slammed Subversion and CVS, questioning their basic architecture. Subversion community has responded...how valid is Linus's statement?" This and many other subjects are covered in this interview with Linus.

seven7h writes "Linux.com currently has an interesting story regarding Microsoft's new Permissive License, which they are currently trying to get certified by the OSI (Open Source Initiative). What I find interesting is not just that this has received a lot of criticism and opposition, but that one of the key opponents is Chris DiBona, open source programs manager for Google, Inc. Microsoft's strategies of creating open source like programs (ie Shared Source) has been called into question and whether the open source industry should become associated with Microsoft. This looks like it may be something to watch as it could allow Microsoft a foot in the door into Linux/Open Source, or define a line between Linux/Open Source and Microsoft."

An anonymous reader writes "'Citrix has signed a definitive agreement to acquire XenSource a leader in enterprise-grade virtual infrastructure solutions. The acquisition moves Citrix into adjacent and fast growing datacenter and desktop virtualization markets.' For nearly $500 million, including about $100 million of unvested options, Citrix would be purchasing VMWare's closest competitor in the server virtualization market, with XenEnterprise v4 offering technology similar to VMWare's flagship product — and arguably overtake them as a combined solution, as VMWare offers little in the realm of application and desktop virtualization. Though subject to the customary closing conditions, both boards of directors have approved the transaction, and the deal is expected to close in Q4 of 2007."

mrcgran writes "In eight months since Office 2007 was released to the general public (10 months since release to enterprise customers), there are fewer than 2,000 of these office documents posted on the Web. In the last three months, 13,400 more ODF documents have been added to the Web, with only 1,329 OOXML documents added. It would be hard for the Microsoft camp to spin ten times as many ODF documents added as OOXML documents, especially since 34% of those new documents were added on Microsoft.com. That isn't what I would call good traction for Microsoft's overwhelmingly dominant office suite."

kwabbles writes "The Linux Foundation launched the Linux Weather Forecast yesterday. It features 'current conditions' for kernel development, a 'short-term forecast,' and a 'long-term forecast.' Now developers and organizations that want to see when certain implementations/fixes are planned can find answers at this informative and handy site."

jmglov writes "Dave Gutteridge has an unusual take on why people are not interested in saving money by using a free-as-in-beer OS like Linux or *BSD: because Windows is free. At least, that is an all-too-common perception, thanks to bundling and piracy. Bundling is a well-known problem to the adoption of open source operating systems, so Dave takes a look at the piracy issue in depth. His title may offend you, but his well-written article will most likely get you thinking hard about the question, 'how much does Windows cost?'"

willdavid sends us to the ZDNet blogs for a provocative opinion piece by John Carroll. He points to Microsoft's evident cross-platform strategy with Silverlight, and wonders whether the company couldn't make money — and win friends — by extending its excellent development ecosystem cross-platorm. "Microsoft, apparently, is helping the folks at Mono to port Silverlight to Linux. This is good news, as the primary fear I've heard from developers is that Silverlight will be locked to Microsoft platforms and products. Microsoft has already committed to supporting Silverlight cross-browser on Windows, and has a version that runs on Mac OS X (which is even available from the Apple web site). The last step is Linux, and Microsoft is working with Novell and Mono to make this happen."

E5Rebel writes "Novell has promised not to sue anybody over the Unix copyrights that a US court last week ruled it owned. They said there was no Unix in Linux and now they are sticking by it. Perhaps they had no option, but Novell deserve praise for taking on the fight with SCO...."

An anonymous reader noted that "Ubuntu had to shutdown 5 of 8 production servers that are sponsored by Canonical, when they started attacking other systems. Canonical blames the community, saying they were community hosted, and were poorly maintained. However, kernel upgrades couldn't be done because of poor backwards compatibility with the very hardware that Canonical had sponsored! While people point fingers at each other it is pretty clear that both sides are equally to blame, the community administrators for practicing bad security practices, such as using unencrypted FTP transfers with accounts, not properly maintaining the system. However Canonical should have been well aware of what they are hosting. The question remains, if any of the files distributed to users have been compromised. A major blow for Canonical though who are attempting to enter the business market with Ubuntu Server."

Nailer writes "Bloomberg believe VMware's IPO today may the largest technology offering since Google. But doubts have been cast over the company's supposedly proprietary ESX product, as top 10 Linux contributor Christopher Hellwig claims the software may violate Linux kernel copyrights. 'Is Hellwig right, and is VMware a derived product of Linux? Unless vmkernel can be loaded without the Linux kernel, it would appear so. VMware was developed from another, long ago OS created as a research project, but it's unclear whether vmkernel was ported from that OS or rewritten as the Linux-requiring binary blob. What's more of an issue is that VMware had these serious questions posed directly to them a year ago, repeated in a public forum many times since, but have yet to respond at all.'"

twitter writes "The defeat of SCO's infamous copyright attack has Forbes wondering if a GNU/Linux boom is upon us. They discuss how this will benefit Novel, IBM, Chrysler, AutoZone and Red Hat. 'The SCO Group frightened potential business users away from Linux with lawsuits demanding billions in royalties. But the litigious company's claims were shot down in a ruling that will likely boost uptake of the operating system.'"

AlexGr writes to point out a really good point Matt Asay raises in his CNET News Blog: Why do we praise closed source companies who open up a little bit, but damn open source companies who close down a little bit? "Deja vu. Remember 2002? That's when Red Hat decided to split its code into Red Hat Advanced Server (now Red Hat Enterprise Linux) and Fedora. Howls of protest and endless hand-wringing ensued: How dare Red Hat not give everything away for free? Enter 2007. MySQL decides to comply with the GNU General Public License and only give its tested, certified Enterprise code to those who pay for the service underlying that code (gasp!). Immediately cries of protest are raised, How dare MySQL not give everything away for free?"

An anonymous reader writes "The Linux source code is a great way to learn about the design of device drivers for a multitude of device types, including network device drivers. This article will show you the basic architecture of the Linux networking stack and dig into its interfaces for system calls, protocols, and device drivers."

tobyj writes "MadPenguin.org discusses the great divide that will separate corporate Linux (companies that are working with Microsoft) and community Linux (companies that haven't yet partnered with Microsoft) and their impact on Linux as a whole. Matt Hartley writes, "For Linux enthusiasts, the rules are simple and clear to interpret. But for Microsoft and its Linux partners, we will see plenty of them pointing to self-created loopholes, which will result in fierce debate, and perhaps even worse, blatant defiance. As a collective community, we'd like to think that this whole issue will just blow over, but with the massive migration of so many Windows users and companies that wish to capitalize on this migration, defiance of the GPL will happen and more so than ever before."

davidmwilliams writes "Out of the box, many Linux systems are insecure with open ports and unpatched vulnerabilities. Read about the essential steps to secure your server as well as how to solve them manually and via automated tools like Bastille."

Sniper223 writes with a link to an interview on the Network World site with Linus Torvalds. Linus goes through the usual spiel about stuff like why he released the Linux OS in the first place, and how the future is open source. He also has some interesting commentary on the Microsoft/Novell deal: "I actually thought that whole discussion was interesting, not because of any Novell versus MS issues at all, but because all the people talking about them so clearly showed their own biases. The actual partnership itself seemed pretty much a nonissue to me, and not nearly as interesting as the reaction it got from people, and how it was reported ... I don't actually personally think the Novell-MS agreement kind of thing matters all that much in the end, but it's interesting to see the signs that the sides are at least talking to each other. I don't know what the end result will be, but I think it would be healthier for everybody if there wasn't the kind of rabid hatred on both sides. Some people get a bit too excited about MS, I think. I don't think they are that interesting." An interesting contrast to our earlier conversation.