Redherring ponders Corel’s future, specifically going over the recent refocusing done by Corel’s new CEO, Derek Burney.

ZDNet reports that Apple Computer’s
legal counsel has requested a Windows software company to get rid of all
themes and screen shots resembling the Mac OS X Aqua interface from its
Web site, saying they violate Apple’s intellectual property.

Stardock Corp. has complied with part of the request.

– By Jeff Field –

It used to be that, if you wanted to write stories on hardware and Linux you would get little help from hardware companies. A few years ago, they could have cared less about this little movement called Open Source. Fast forward to the year 2001, and suddenly everyone and the CEO are interested in Linux, and hardware companies are no exception to this rule.
Presentation
On the LinuxWorld floor, it is very easy to get lost in a sea of hardware companies, all with different products they want you to run on Linux. Some of them seem to have done their homework on Linux and really have a defined Linux strategy, such as VA Linux (parent company of NewsForge/OSDN), IBM, Compaq, and many other companies, some big some small. These companies have booths demonstrating their various products and services under Linux, with KDE on some, Gnome on others, and clearly they know what Linux users want to see — Linux.

However, some companies, even at a Linux event, still don’t quite get that many Linux users simply don’t like Microsoft, and certainly do not want to see their products being used to demonstrate the “Linux strategy” of a company. A few companies are perpetrators of such crimes, and I saw a few getting flak for this, such as one company who had Powerpoint running in Windowed-mode in their booth.

From the horse’s mouth
I talked to several companies to get first-hand information from their on what exactly their companies are doing with Open Source software, and what plans they have. 3Com discussed the support available for most of their desktop and some of their PCMCIA line of NICs. When asked about their PCMCIA 802.11 cards which are not supported under Linux, the 3Com people said that they couldn’t give a date but they were “sure” it would be worked on.

A company with a large presence for a company of its type was Adaptec. Adaptec had a booth demonstrating the video-decompression/compression equipment of one of its customers that uses an 11-channel custom-built product from Adaptec to deliver HDTV content. This system runs on FreeBSD and is used by major content providers, such as HBO, to run HDTV transmissions. The display was quite impressive, and the fact that it was an Open Source implentation was even more impressive.

Adaptec was also one of several companies to announce a site devoted to supporting people who run their products on Linux and other Open Source operating systems. The Adaptec folks said they wanted to “provide products the community can rely on,” which seems to be truly important to Adaptec because the company has quite a reputation to uphold.

Compaq also had a large presence at the show. At its booth the company was demonstrating servers and laptops running on Linux, as well as one very special device that can run on Linux, the iPaq handheld. With a distribution of Linux provided in cooperation with Handhelds.org, the iPaq can run applications designed for Linux with just a small amount of recompiling and in some cases minor recoding. The Handhelds.org representative present at the Compaq booth said Compaq was extremely cooperative, providing the technical documentation for the iPaq device, an action some hardware companies could definately learn from. Compaq was also another company that debuted an Open Source Web site to feature its products.

Taking Linux seriously
The number of hardware companies at this event clearly demonstrates that, to the business world, Linux has come of age. No longer can people say that Linux is simply a hobbyist operating system created by a group of rag-tag programmers. Now it is a professional, scalable business operating system, created by a group of rag-tag programmers.

For those Microsofties who had hoped to brush Linux under the carpet, this is unfortunate, but for everyone else the advancement of Linux in business is definately a positive move, allowing companies a reliable alternative to Microsoft-based solutions.

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

DebianPlanet has a short item about the beta 3 release of Progeny, which “appeared on archive.progeny.com in the
whee hours. Since this release follows Beta 2 so closely, it can
be assumed that it is some sort of a hotfix release, but the
release notes don’t really allude to that.”

Slashdotters debate news of the release of the Indigo Magic Desktop for Linux, base on the version for Irix. “The Linux
version contains a new window manager called 5dwm, an enhanced Motif
library that supports the Irix look and feel, and widget sets specific to
SGI. Also, check out an interview from LinuxWorld featuring Indigo Magic Desktop’s creator, Eric Masson.

From LinuxPR: LIGHTNING, a leading manufacturer of secure Internet access
gateways, today announces its contribution to the open source community: The company’s
Linux distribution is based on the very latest Linux kernel 2.4 and is used for advanced routing
and gateway functionality. It supports IP routing, extended address translation and filtering, load
sharing, transparent proxy redirection, DHCP client and server, syslog and firewalls. The Swiss
company will now give the open source community access to developments and modifications
made on the open source projects. The modified part of the open source project is also
available at LIGHTNING’s website.

The Standard reports on an effort to debunk questionable patents by offering prizes for people who dig up evidence against questionable patents.

Info World reports that Microsoft will be sharing its code with more customers, but will continue to not allow it to be modified. Windows source code has no user-serviceable parts inside, and should only be modified by a certified professional.

Computer World reports that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will be brought before a US Congress investigation into the selection of seven new top level domains last fall.

Tech Web reports that Transmeta is expecting to launch a 1 GHz processor, the TM 5800, within the year.