“The promise of more control over their computing environment was
all it took to persuade Komatsu IT managers to use the open-source
MySQL database management system, running on Version 6.2 of Red
Hat Inc.’s Red Hat Linux and servers from Penguin Computing Inc.
as the foundation of a major online, spare-parts cataloging and
tracking application.” ZDNET’s eWeek reports.

ZDNET reports: It’s beginning to look like 2001 is the year Linux gets down to
business. Systems managers who used to ask how Linux crept in the
back door now ask if they can get the server to run it through the
front door.

In Vancouver, British Columbia, for example, Metahost.net, a provider
of J.D. Edwards and other Enterprise Resource Planning applications,
runs Linux on a combination of two IBM z900s, the former
System/390 mainframe. Metahost supplements the two big servers
with hundreds of thin servers, according to Metahost spokesman Jag
Sandhu.

Linux Gram got the scoop on this one: “The Free Standards Group, the entity responsible for the Linux Standard Base (LSB), is about to get adult supervision. LSB, the vaunted
attempt to standardize Linux and ward off that old bugaboo, fragmentation, has spent most of its time twisted up in its own laundry. Now it’s
about to get some industry backing from the likes of the old-line Unix guard compliments of the Free Standards Group’s new unannounced
executive director, VA Linux loaner Scott McNeil, who will translate commercial necessities into terms the free-thinking open source
developers can understand and mediate between the open source community and commercial interests.”

Linux Gram reports that, this Wednesday at Linux World, a little-known but well-heeled company by the name of Nominum will burst on the scene with the first of a series of
offerings that could have prevented the massive outages Microsoft’s web complex experienced this week, the ones that were caused by a
technician misconfiguring its DNS servers.

Kelly McNeill at OSOpinion writes “Sooner or later, if copyright issues aren’t brought under control, copyright protection could extend for a length greater than the projected existence of the universe, or at least for “forever minus a day.” “Forever minus a day” sounds like a precise definition of how long the protection lasts, until one asks silly questions like, “Is ‘forever’ to be understood as ‘infinity?'” And “How do we know when to subtract one from infinity?” Not to forget, “Are we using integers, or can we use real numbers — and how about complex numbers?””

ZDNET.co.uk reports: “Visual Basic.Net, one of the primary pieces in Microsoft’s dot-Net
plan, is causing software developers concern, due to problems in
migrating software from existing Visual Basic editions.”

Wired.com: “The biggest U.S. DSL providers are in a quandary. Customers are clamoring to get the high-speed service in their neighborhood. But once it’s available, they say it’s too hard to set up.”

“Market demand for
handhelds has
mushroomed,” reports CNET, “and will
continue to do so as
cellular networks
upgrade to
third-generation, or 3G,
networks, which will
allow handheld
computers to have
always-on online
access. At the same time,
the market is so new that
few people have direct
experience writing code
for this market in
particular.”

From ZDNET.co.uk: “The attack that took many of Microsoft’s sites off the Web Thursday
afternoon may have been a new, and more dangerous, variant of the
distributed denial-of-service attacks that have hit many high-profile
sites over the last year.”

Nando Times says that Napster, the controversial but popular music file-sharing Web site, will start
charging users a membership fee later this year, the head of Bertelsmann, Napster’s parent company, said Monday.
“We have an idea of the price range but it is too early to publicize it,” Bertelsmann chief executive Thomas Middelhoff told journalists on
the fringes of the World Economic Forum held in this Swiss resort town.