Weekly news wrap-up: Everything LinuxWorld

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By Grant Gross

LinuxWorld, that semi-annual tribute to all things Linux, was in San Francisco this past week, so it was hard to find news this week that wasn’t connected to the conference. A couple of commentators, including Robin “Roblimo” Miller, noted that LinuxWorld had a distinctly business feel to it, as compared with past events.
But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Robin wrote in the third installment of his LinuxWorld diary. Attendees were in a buying mood and several booth operators said they had a very good show. Also check out part one of Robin’s diary and the wrap-up, where he chronicles the infighting among big tech companies over who’s most Linux-friendly.

Some other LinuxWorld reporting

  • Here’s a series of stories from TechWorld.

  • Wired.com notes some of the international flavor of LinuxWorld.

  • ZDNet reports on three major Linux distributions certified with the Linux Standards Base.

  • Wired.com also reports on Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s keynote, including Oracle’s open-sourcing of some cluster file system code.

  • IBM executive Doug Elix talked up Linux’s momentum in a story from CRN.com.

  • ZDNet reported on Red Hat’s and Sun’s plans to sell Linux on desktops.

  • The Register noted that Sun’s Linux effort is a Red Hat clone.

  • C|Net previewed LinuxWorld by saying Linux has become an unavoidable part of the tech landscape.

    Odds ‘n’ ends

  • Tech book publisher Tim O’Reilly decried the “growing politicization” of Open Source in a controversial column this week.

  • Xandros announced its newbie-friendly Linux distribution will be released next month.

    Newly released

  • The UnitedLinux coalition announced its beta release.

  • Version 0.89 of SharpDevelop, the GPL IDE for .NET, was released this week.

  • XBox Linux 0.1 was also released.

  • The Mandrake 9.0 beta 3 version was released.

  • Opera 6.03 for Linux became available.

  • Websh 3.5.0 was released by the Apache Foundation.

    New at NewsForge/Linux.com

    Among the other stories we reported first this week:

  • Actor Wil Wheaton, famous for his Star Trek: The Next Generation role, has been playing with Linux and likes it a lot, Tina Gasperson reports.

  • Robin reports on OEone’s release of a groundbreaking desktop for Linux.

    Stock news

    The Nasdaq was up for the second week in a row, closing at 1,361.01 Friday, after closing at 1,306.12 August 9. Ten of our 11 Open Source-related stocks were up for the week, perhaps aided by all the news coming out of LinuxWorld this week. Only TiVO took a small tumble for the week.

    Here’s how Open Source and related stocks ended this past week:

    Company Name Symbol 8/9 Close 8/16 Close
    Apple AAPL 15.00 15.81
    Borland Software Int’l BORL 9.29 9.77
    Caldera International CALD 1.13 1.4792
    Hewlett-Packard HPQ 13.41 15.06
    IBM IBM 71.83 79.35
    MandrakeSoft 4477.PA e2.15 e2.20
    Red Hat RHAT 4.94 5.09
    Sun Microsystems SUNW 4.17 4.21
    TiVo TIVO 3.35 3.32
    VA Software LNUX .75 1.39
    Wind River Systems WIND 4.58 4.80