From Information Week: “Despite a lack of marketing resources, more
businesses are discovering and deploying
open-source software in their back offices. Support
has improved, and capable tools quickly become the
standard by which commercial products are measured.”

“When most people talk about open source software, technologies such as the Apache Web server, BSD and Linux tend to dominate the conversation.

But open source software is starting to make its presence felt beyond Web servers and operating systems, showing up in a host of key enterprise
network products from network management suites to remote access offerings, including VPNs.” From ITWorld.com.

What a concept! This Seattle Post-Intelligencer story touts the idea that “pure” online retailers who serve obscure niches overlooked by the giants (either online or off) may have a better chance at success than companies that try to be all things to everyone. Sometimes all you have to do is stick to your guns (and your niche) and what was a hot idea, then pooh-poohed, gets hot again. Think about it: NewsForge is a niche news site. We work to cover Open Source like a second skin (with a little bit of other stuff to keep from getting boring) but we do not try to be all things to all people. It’s nice to see this “new” business model finally catching on with the ecommerce crowd, too.

Just in time to whine about misplaced, undelivered or broken holiday gifts, MSNBC tells us (with a story that originally appeared in The Washington Post) about half-a-dozen Web sites that help customers complain about — or compliment — businesses with which they have dealt.

If you have the dialog, gnupg or stunnel packages installed, please check the appropriate security advisory at LWN.net. All three were submitted by Debian’s Wichert Akkerman, but they are not Debian-specific problems.

“North Americans celebrating Christmas might not have much luck
hunting for the Star of Bethlehem in the night sky – but they could
catch sight of something just as dramatic,” says BBC News.

– By Grant Gross –

Open Source news doesn’t only revolve around falling stock prices, the technology media decided this week. Indeed, there were stories that could be considered good news, like a TechWeb story about Open Source software creeping into large corporations, often from the bottom up.

NewsForge’s business columnist Jack Bryar wrote that large corporations seem to have an all-or-nothing attitude about Open Source products, with IBM investing billions of dollars, and Corel ready to dump its Linux products. Who’s right?

The mainstream tech media can turn good stories into bad ones, as evidenced by Sm@rt Partner’s followup story on IBM’s decision to invest more than $1 billion in Linux. The story caught one Linux company executive griping that “Linux helps IBM sell things, but IBM doesn’t really help Linux companies.” The executive didn’t explain what he expected IBM to do for its potential competitors.

NewsForge’s editor in chief Robin Miller responds by saying IBM’s investment will be good for smaller hardware manufacturers. “A rising Linux tide lifts all boats, and large ships make waves big enough to swamp small boats, but skillfully-handled small boats can catch and surf the waves created by the big ships,” he writes.

Score one (finally) for Linux

Sick of Microsoft getting all the games and hardware support first? Score one for Linux, as Intel’s upcoming high-end Itanium chip will be available for Linux first.

Linux overwhelming to users?

Linux must “become less overwhelming in order to capture the desktop,” so says a column from ZD Net, which wonders if Linux is ready for widespread desktop use. “Linux is too bountiful for most computer users,” says the article. Gee, too many applications is a bad thing? It’s like having 157 TV channels — just ignore the ones you don’t care about.

The writer of one story published this week thinks Linux is overwhelming in a different way, installing the darned thing. The writer, who says he or she has user experience with DOS, MSDOS, Unix, and Windows, puts it this way: “As of this morning, I have not been able to *ever* successfully install a USEABLE Linux system.”

Nearly everyone covered the story this week that Sun plans to adopt Eazel’s Nautilus desktop environment for Solaris. If it’s good enough for Linux, it’s good enough for Sun.

New in NewsForge

A Linux user has organized a petition protesting British Telecom’s decision to sue over its claim that it owns a patent on hyperlinks.

If you’re hoping for all the latest desktop games to be available for Linux, don’t hold your breath, say gaming enthusiasts and Linux fans. Most think desktop gaming parity with Windows is still a couple of years away.

News editor Tina Gasperson reviews the Linux Knowledge Base. There are some parts to recommend, including but not limited to the fully clothed woman in the logo, but the site is tough to navigate.

NewsForge editors read and respond to comments posted on our discussion page.

In an Ask Slashdot posted today, a user asks what ‘we,’ the community, want from IBM. This is in response to claims by Robert LeBlanc that IBM would open any part of AIX for the benefit of Linux.

It’s going to be in Los Angeles, held in conjuction with the 16th annual CSUN International Conferemce. Click below for full text of the announcement.
Summary:
The Linux Accessibility
Conference
March 22-23, 2001
Los Angeles Airport
Hilton Hotel, Plaza D

• Taking place at CSUN’s Sixteenth
  Annual International Conference, which averages 4000 attendees.
• Free admission to the Linux
  Accessibility Conference (not including the price of attending to CSUN,
  consult link for admission costs).

Join us for two days of:

• Speeches by prominent figures
  in the free software and accessibility community. Individuals who have
  tentatively agreed to speak include Judy Brewer (Director of WAI), Alan
  Black (Creator of Festival Speech Synthesizer), Peter Korn (Sun Microsystems’
  GNOME Accessibility Lab), and Aaron Leventhal (Mozilla accessibility).
  Other noteworthy people who have said they plan to attend include T.V.
  Raman (Creator of Emacspeak).
• Demonstrations of free software
  such as Emacspeak, Festival, BRLTTY, and Speechd.
• Workgroups on GNOME (run by
  Sun Microsystems’ GNOME Accessibility Lab), KDE, X Windows, Console, Braille,
  Speech, Internationalization and Localization (i18n and l10n), Internet
  Applications (Mozilla), and a Universal Accessibility Standard.
• Planning and organizing for
  the future of Linux accessibility.

If you are interested
in attending, join the ocularis-announce mailing list by visiting link

The Linux Accessibility Conference
stems from Project Ocularis, a volunteer-run effort to make Linux and the
free software world accessible to all. Visit Project Ocularis at link

Mission:
The mission of the conference
is twofold:
1) To demonstrate the potential
of Linux and free software in the accessibility arena.

2) To formulate a course
of action for advancing Linux accessibility and to begin to organize interested
supporters and developers into working groups focusing on specific topics.
These topics include: GNOME, KDE, X Windows, Console, Braille, Speech,
Internationalization and Localization (i18n and l10n), Internet Applications
(Mozilla), and Universal Accessibility Standard.

Who Should Attend:

• Companies or developers who
  want to make their applications more accessible under Linux.
• Companies or developers in the
  AT industry who are interested in better serving impaired users through
  creating and using free software.
• Anyone who is interested in
  making Linux and the free software world more accessible to all.

Tentative Schedule:
Thursday, March 23rd:

• Speakers
• Presentations
• Demos
• Transition (technical overview
  and introduction to the distinct role of each working group)
• Break up into working groups

Friday, March, 24th:

• Reconvene the next morning for
  another speaker
• Hear reports from each of the
  working groups
• Long-term planning

Travel and Accommodations:
See link
for information about accommodations and travel.

Remote Attendance:
Join the ocularis-announce
mailing list by visiting link
for details about remote attendance.

Interested in Being a
Speaker or Involving your Business or Free Software Project?
Contact JP Schnapper-CasterasConference
Organizer
jpsc@users.sourceforge.net
Additional contact information
available upon request

Please forward this announcement
to a friend or colleague.

Linux is a registered trademark
of Linus Torvalds. All other trademarks and copyrights are owned by their
respective owners.–JP Schnapper-Casteras

Upside today has a story which discusses the merits of Sendmail, Inc, the company built around the Sendmail MTA, and their recent acquisition of Nascent Technology. It also discusses GNU/Linux distributions from a business perspective.