PolyServe, Inc., a provider of data center system software, announced today that it has launched a new generation of system software for corporate data centers. PolyServe Matrix Server enables a 50-percent reduction in total cost of ownership by allowing groups of low-cost, Intel-based servers to replace high-cost, proprietary servers running mission-critical applications.
Past attempts to use industry standard servers in mission-critical environments have been limited by three factors: the inability of multiple servers to concurrently read and write the same data; the difficulty of meeting availability requirements for mission-critical applications; and the complexity of managing large groups of servers. Matrix Server addresses these limitations and facilitates a more efficient computing architecture that PolyServe calls “matrix computing.”

“Matrix Server provides the first highly scalable, fully symmetric cluster file system available on Intel processors – a promise made by many, but delivered by no one, until now,” said Mike Stankey, president and chief executive officer of PolyServe.

PolyServe Matrix Server software binds a cluster of Intel-based servers into a highly flexible centrally managed server farm. This new file system, which is fully integrated with PolyServe’s proven high availability software, PolyServe Matrix HA, enables multiple Intel-based servers to read and write to the same files in a storage area network (SAN) and achieve the fault tolerance of expensive proprietary systems — all while being cost-effectively managed as a unified whole.

The highly resilient SAN-based file system ensures that the failure of a single server or application does not affect access to data formerly owned by that server. Centralized management enables customers to install and maintain application configurations and files in a single file system where they can be shared by multiple servers. Databases, business applications or infrastructure components are installed once, configured and maintained in one place, and made available to many servers by pointing servers to the files on a SAN.

Matrix Server is specifically designed to integrate well with Oracle9i Real Application Clusters, Oracle’s clustered database technology. Other enterprise applications supported by Matrix Server include general database fail over and maintenance, file serving, messaging, application servers and Web servers.

“The ability to manage a massive database application as a single file, across multiple industry standard servers running different operating systems is the holy grail CIOs have been waiting for,” said Arun Taneja, Senior Analyst, The Enterprise Storage Group. “Harnessing and managing multiple servers as a single pool of computing power is a giant step towards that goal.”

“Give any CIO the choice of buying and servicing expensive UNIX servers for their data centers, or getting better scalability and performance from a PolyServe-enabled industry standard server combination, at half the price, and the decision is a no-brainer,” said Mike Prince, CIO of Burlington Coat Factory.

Higher Server Utilization through Increased Flexibility
Treating multiple servers as a unified logical pool of computing power gives corporations the ability to respond quickly to changing application needs. New servers and applications can easily be added to the pool using Matrix Server. The software also gives customers the flexibility of re-purposing servers. For example, servers that might be used for processing credit card transactions during the day can be re-purposed within seconds to perform analytical number crunching at night.

Same Reliability as High-end UNIX SMP Systems
Matrix Server offers the same reliability as high-end SMP systems to a cluster of standard servers by supporting automatic failover and failback, eliminating single points of failure and enabling multiple backup configurations. This capability is delivered by PolyServe Matrix HA, an easy-to-use high-availability software product that is also available separately.

PolyServe Matrix Server is now available on Linux and will be released on the Microsoft Windows platform in the first quarter of 2003.

About PolyServe, Inc.
Based in San Francisco, Calif., with a development center in Beaverton, Ore., PolyServe provides system software products that enable customers to create flexible server farms with standard Intel-based servers attached to networked storage. PolyServe has attracted approximately $43 million in investment led by Greylock, New Enterprise Associates and The Roda Group. To learn more about matrix computing, see PolyServe’s Matrix Computing white paper available on our website at www.polyserve.com.

NOTE: PolyServe is a trademark of PolyServe, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between PolyServe and any other company.

From Computerwire via The Register: “Caldera International Inc has maintained its commitment to the Unix operating systems it acquired from Santa Cruz Operation Inc, despite admitting that it currently has no plans to port Open Unix to Intel Corp’s 64-bit Itanium processor.”

Vic writes: “In a story at itMatters, the Advanced Science and Technology Institute (ASTI) of the Philippine government’s Department of Science and Technology (DOST) announced the intitial release of ‘Bayanihan’ Linux as a local flavor of the popular open source operating system.
“‘Bayanihan’ is a Filipino term for ‘community assistance’ in which community members help a family relocate by literally carrying the nipa hut (a small Filipino house) from one place to another, and is based on the Red Hat flavor. ‘ASTI software division officer in charge Peter Banzon said that the agency developed the OS to offer government agencies an alternative to the more costly proprietary systems that are distributed commercially.’

The ASTI is headed by Director General Dr. Jay Sabido, who at the same time is the head of the National Computer Center (NCC) that provides IT policy guidelines in government and public education. Under Dr. Jay Sabido’s guidance and belief in Open Source and Linux, the ASTI and the NCC are actively promoting use of Linux and Open Source in government and are tapping the Philippine Linux Users Group (PLUG) to help in testing, deploying and promoting Bayanihan Linux.”

From Wired.com: ” Proprietary software makers say they don’t view Linux and its brethren as an immediate threat to their dominance inside the federal government.

A Wired News survey of 14 Cabinet-level agencies found little official adoption of free operating systems and bureaucratic obstacles such as lists of approved products that stand in the way of future gains.”

Jamie Harrison writes: “The Glen Burnie (MD) LUG is as much about recruitment and advocacy as about the exchange of knowledge and software. If Linux is to experience an explosion of popularity, then an explosion of ‘grass-roots’ advocacy must precede it. This advocacy includes community activities designed to aid in recruitment, fundraising and establishing a local identity for Linux. Growing the Linux user base in the LUG area should take precedence over all other objectives. Having fun would be a close second. (Of course, if you can’t have fun turning Windows users into Linux fanatics, then this LUG probably wouldn’t be for you.)

Visit us at http://gblug.linuxorbit.com.”

– By Robin “Roblimo” Miller –
When you hear about huge monetary losses from intellectual property theft, you are probably listening to complaints from the Business Software Alliance, Recording Industry Association of America, Motion Picture Association of America, or a cable TV company. But even a small-time individual like me can be the victim of intellectual property theft, and if I account for my losses the same way the software and entertainment industry yow-yowers do, I figure I have lost over $100 million from illegal Internet downloading, and one of my coworkers has lost at least $1 million. We demand government action! We want the FBI to take care of this! We want all you Internet pirates locked up right now!
This all started when I figured out the secret of making money on the Internet. I’m not joking about this. After all my years of online reporting, and tracking Internet business successes and failures, I really and truly do know how to turn a profit with an online business. I decided that because lots of other people, even executives at big companies, obviously don’t know how to use the Internet profitably, this secret ought to be worth a little money, like $1,000,000 to each person or company I shared it with. I figured this was quite a bargain, really, considering the many billions blown on money-losing Internet ventures over the last decade.

So I made a little Web page where they could learn the secret of Internet business profitability, by clicking on a link, but they had to pay me $1 million first. This was not a theoretical exercise. That page is still up, at roblimo.com/secret.html, although I may take it down before long because hundreds of people have clicked on the million-dollar link, but not one single person has sent me my million dollars!

Proof that you are a pirate

Don’t lie to me. You clicked on that link, and you didn’t pay me my million dollars before you did. This is just as evil as grabbing a copy of Photoshop a friend illegally copied. You have just stolen $1 million from me! I demand justice!

You can point out that you never would have bought a copy of Photoshop but were only using it because you got it free, and that you never would have paid me $1 million anyway, but this is a lame excuse, the sort of thing I’d expect to hear from a radical Free Software zealot, a music-stealing commie terrorist or a third-world entrepreneur trying to start a small Web design business who can’t afford to pay for Microsoft or Adobe licenses. You people all belong in prison, and if the BSA and RIAA have their way, that’s where you’re going to go.

Meanwhile, I am thinking about performing an intellectual property audit on everyone I suspect may have stolen my intellectual property. To avoid that audit — which will entail looking through every computer hard drive in your home and all the computers at your employer’s place of business, plus hypnosis and truth serum sessions for you, your family, and your coworkers — please send me my $1 million today!

Pudge has lost millions, too

Chris “Pudge” Nandor is a programmer who works for OSDN. He’s also one of the primary MacPerl maintainers, and once achieved fame (of a sort) by trying to “stuff” the online ballot box for Major League Baseball’s All-Star selections a few years back.

The program Pudge used to accomplish this feat — a Perl script he claims only took him five minutes to write — is available for download here. But be warned: If you download it you owe Pudge $1,000. It says so right on the page you download with your browser to see the program, in a bit of circular logic similar to the justification for “agreeing” to restrictive software licenses you can’t see until after you purchase the software or a computer on which it is preloaded.

If big commercial software publishers can claim they lose the retail value of a program every time someone downloads an unauthorized copy off the Internet or grabs an illicit copy from a friend, shouldn’t Pudge be able to claim damages every time someone downloads his intellectual property without payment?

If every downloaded song is one that would have been bought if it had not been available online for free, than my claim that I have lost millions because you have not paid me for my words of business wisdom ought to get me just as much sympathy from lawmakers and law enforcers as they give to recording companies that whine about their losses. right?

Who are the jokers here?

Pudge and I are intentionally playing with your heads. We put up our silly “intellectual property ransom” sites independently, without either one of us knowing the other had done it. We both love a good joke. We hope you have gotten a good laugh out of this one.

Now comes the question: If Pudge and I are joking about intellectual property theft over the Internet, why do we all assume the RIAA, BSA, MPAA and government people are serious when they talk about it?

Is it possible that this crowd has been pulling a major ha-ha on everyone all along? That on April Fool’s Day a year or two from now, they’ll let the rest of us in on the joke?

You’ve got to admit, the inflated piracy loss figures this crowd likes to trot out have produced plenty of hearty guffaws for almost everyone. Everyone, that is, except the companies and government agencies that have suffered through BSA software audits, who should be reimbursed, in cash, for their time and trouble.
Or, better yet, in the form of help for their inevitable conversion to Linux and other Open Source software, which would be the best joke of all*.

*Of course, people like Dmitry Sklyarov who have been directly persecuted by the intellectual property pranksters should receive seriously major compensation for their unwilling participation in this humor scenario. There is such a thing as taking a joke too far. Perhaps Adobe executives and their DoJ buddies considered their actions toward Dmitri amusing, but I believe almost everyone else thought they were just plain cruel.

Anonymous Reader writes: “Anthony Awtrey has written a commentary on the differences between the initial release and final release versions of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution whitepaper entitled “Opening the Open Source Debate”. His story on Linux and Main is The Changing AdTI Documents.”

A quick little commentary at EWeek on United Linux and why this author thinks its a “practical move to thwart Red Hat’s domination” and “to enable proprietary intellectual property to be added to Linux distributions.” Geez, where do they come up with this stuff? Is there a handbook they pass out to mainstream tech journalists called “Hot Buttons to Push When News is Slow”?

BEIJING, China –June 10, 2002 — Trolltech and Chinasoft, China’s biggest
software company, made an announcement today that prefigures a seismic shift
in the Chinese software markets. Working together, the two companies will
drive the acceptance of Qt and Qtopia as the standards for application
development, 3G cell phone applications, PDAs, set-top boxes, web pads, and
other embedded devices in China.
“Embedded Linux is blooming in China,” says Haavard Nord, Trolltech’s CEO.
“This country is both an enormous market and an active center for
embedded-device manufacturing,” he says. “We are extremely pleased to be
working with Chinasoft. Our agreement confirms the position of Qt and Qtopia
as de facto standards for this burgeoning technology.”

Terms of the agreement include: localization of Trolltech’s Qt/Embedded and
Qtopia; distribution of Qt desktop nationwide; development of a “reference
platform” for embedded devices, including 3G cell phones; promotion of the
use of Qt in educational and research institutions; and the creation of
professional services and training organizations to support Qt and Qtopia
developers and device manufacturers in China.

Chinasoft, which went public on May 17 2002, is one of the dominant players
in the Chinese software market, and has strong ties to the Chinese
government. The Chinese government has made a political decision to embrace
and promote open source and Linux – where Trolltech already is a de facto
standard.

The technological decisions Chinasoft makes will have tremendous influence
over the direction of embedded development in China and around the world.

About Chinasoft:
Chinasoft Co., Ltd., a core holding company of China National Computer
Software & Technology Service Corporation (CS&S), is the largest software
solution vendor in China. Chinasoft completed a successful IPO on May 17th.
The company develops copyright operating system, security, and industry
application technology for the telecommunications industry, postal services,
railway and infrastructural projects, educational institutions, medical
industry, and the Chinese government. Chinasoft also specializes in software
outsourcing and localization, as well as IT-related technical training and
services.

About Trolltech:
Trolltech is a software company with two flagship products: Qt and Qtopia.
Qt is a multiplatform C++ application framework developers can use to write
single-source applications that run-natively-on Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac OS
X and embedded Linux. Qt has been used to build thousands of successful
commercial applications worldwide, and is the basis of the open source KDE
desktop environment. Qtopia is the first comprehensive application
environment built for embedded Linux, and is used in Sharp’s new Zaurus
SL5500 personal mobile tool. Trolltech is headquartered in Oslo, Norway,
with offices in Brisbane, Australia, and Santa Clara, California. More
about Trolltech can be found at www.trolltech.com.

###

Trolltech, Qtopia and Qt are trademarks of Trolltech. All other trademarks
are the property of their respective owners.

For further information, please contact:

Tonje Sund

+47 21 60 48 78 (office)

tonje@trolltech.com

Do you remember that contraption in Star Trek where they could just speak a food
name and magically it would appear? I don’t remember what it was called, but I always
thought that would be an impressive contraption. With the announcement of (Lindows) SPX last
week, we’ve created the closest thing the world has seen to that device for software.
It’s called the Click-N-Run Warehouse.
Ok, you can’t just speak a word, instead you have to click a tiny icon next to the
program name, but after that, it operates just as the Star Trek machine does. You
indicate what you want, wait a few seconds (more if you’re behind a modem) and
presto, what you’ve requested is delivered. The software is downloaded on your
machine, installed, configured and ready to run. It alleviates trips to stores, cardboard
boxes, shrink wrap, registrations codes and all the usual complexities that come with
loading software onto a computer. Best of all, a year membership into the Warehouse is
bundled with the LindowsOS software you buy at Lindows.com. This means for one
price of $99, you get not only a modern operating system, but access to hundreds of
quality programs stocked in the Click-N-Run Warehouse all available at no additional
costs.

Click here to see the software genres.

So while the Click-N-Run Warehouse isn’t exactly the Star Trek food replicator gadget,
around the office we do talk about it like a futuristic refrigerator. We all know that
refrigerators are sold empty. You take them home, plug them in but they’re really not
useful until they are stocked and that ends up costing substantially more than the
purchase price of the refrigerator. There’s the constant hassle of trips to the store and
back to keep them full. Invariably, some of the food is going to go to waste.

Most of today’s computers are no better than an empty refrigerator. They are typically
sold mostly empty and you have to add programs you want to make them useful for
your needs. It’s time consuming to keep them stocked and it can be a huge cost with
individual titles costing hundreds of dollars. And just like your fridge, many products go
to waste. We all have a laundry list of applications in our program files that haven’t
been launched in months. Computer researchers from AMR Research, Inc. estimates
that only half of company software purchased since 1998 is currently in use,
acknowledging the high turnover in software usage which translates into lost money for
any business on a budget.

It’s time to change how people buy software and how much it costs and that’s what the
Click-N-Run Warehouse makes possible (along with Linux® and open source). SPX is
a refrigerator that comes complete with a huge variety of food. And even though it’s
‘all-you-can-eat’ – meaning you’re able to load as many of the hundreds of quality
programs as you’d like – you only pay one affordable price for unlimited service all year
long. Today there are many useful, fun and business-orientated programs in the
Warehouse and we’re adding more each day. Our goal is to have the best software
collection available, so that no matter what you want to use your computer for, you’ll find
the software you need.

It’s no secret that Microsoft has been able to offer a better solution for consumers than
Linux to date. The rollout of SPX with the Click-N-Run Warehouse means that
consumers will have an easier AND more affordable choice for their computers than
anything currently available.

If you haven’t tried Click-N-Run yet, you should. It’s ease-of-use is addictive. After a
few Click-N-Runs, I think you’ll agree that this is what the future will look like for desktop
computing. And I’m betting you’ll unplug that old icebox and never look back.

NOTE: You’re invited to browse the aisles of the Warehouse – just point your browser
to lindows.com/warehouse. You will need a copy of LindowsOS to take advantage of the
Click-N-Run Warehouse.

Michael Robertson

Please feel free to visit http://support.lindows.com to get
the answers to your questions you may have about LindowsOS or
Lindows.com.

Bringing choice to your computer!

Lindows.com has released LindowsOS SPX to a select group of
Insiders. The Sneak Previews are not fully completed products
but showcase many of the unique features such as a
“Friendly-Install” alongside an existing Microsoft Windows
operating system, a streamlined installation process which
requires no computer knowledge and the ability to run popular
Windows-based programs. This will be followed by the final
version due out later in the year. For more information see
www.lindows.com/products

LindowsOS and Lindows.com are trademarks of Lindows.com, Inc. Linux® is a registered
trademark of Linus Torvalds. Microsoft® Windows® operating system is a registered trademark
or service mark of the Microsoft Corporation.