LinuxWorld columnist Joe Barr reviews Sam Willams’ book, Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman’s Crusade for Free Software.

A San Antonio Business Journal article says, ” As Microsoft continues to try to convince the Department of Justice and the federal courts that it is not a monopoly, Linux is gradually making its way into the folds of the business world.”

“The Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) study, from the University of Maastricht’s International Institute of Infonomics, argues that open-source software can bring substantial benefits to governments, including reduced costs, and that governments should require that the software they buy uses an open-source license,” says ZDNet.

Lindows.com, Inc. today announced an agreement with Datel System Incorporated, a San Diego-based system builder and retail store operator. Datel will offer, starting immediately, LindowsOS PCs in their stores. Read more details.

ZDNet piece raises good questions about 802.11x compatibility as more vendors turn to proprietary authentication solutions.

Today, FSF offically named freenode the IRC network for the GNU project. (Submitted by Bradley M. Kuhn.)

This rant at LinuxLaboratory should spur some interesting thought about the far reaching effects of the proprietary software development model, monopolies, and the ‘technological ecosystem’.
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“When you look at Microsoft’s financials, at their unearned revenue, it’s clear that companies bought into the licensing — not necessarily [the latest licensing structure], but they were buying updated licensing,” Gillen told NewsFactor.

Yet a joint Yankee Group and Sunbelt Software survey in May of this year said that just over a third of companies indicated that they would take no action on the licensing fees, while nearly a quarter of respondents said they would continue with or upgrade their Microsoft licenses.” More at NewsFactor.

“For mainframe Linux environments, CA has released new versions of Unicenter Software Delivery and Unicenter Asset Management and beta releases of Unicenter ServicePlus Service Desk and BrightStor Enterprise Backup. For distributed Linux environments, CA has released a new version of eTrust Admin and several BrightStor options and agents.
CA offers more than 50 distributed and mainframe solutions that enable customers to manage, secure, preserve and integrate Linux implementations across their heterogeneous enterprises.” More at AMEInfo.com.

“Linux was created as the people’s software, free and open for everyone to use, in an attempt to thwart the commercialisation of technology.

But now the decade-old operating system is getting as corporate as button-down shirts and PowerPoint presentations.” More at News24.com.