http://www.infoworld.com/columnists/neil_mcallister.html Lead With Knowledge, from InfoWorld.com en-us Copyright (C) 2007 InfoWorld Media Group, Inc. Fri, 13 Apr 2007 04:01:48 PDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Kathy_Badertscher@InfoWorld.com webmaster@InfoWorld.com 40 http://images.infoworld.com/img/img_hdshot_82x74_Neil_McAllister.gif http://www.infoworld.com/columnists/neil_mcallister.html http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/redirect?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/04/09/15OPopenent_1.html By now you will have heard the news: InfoWorld has closed down its print edition and moved to a Web-only model. Over the coming weeks and months, InfoWorld will continue to evolve to take better advantage of the online medium. You can expect many changes -- some subtle, others less so. For example, this will be the last edition of Open Enterprise. Mon, 09 Apr 2007 03:00:00 PDT neil_mcallister@infoworld.com,letters@infoworld.com (Neil McAllister)http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/04/09/15OPopenent_1.html http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/redirect?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/04/02/14OPopenent_1.html Version 3 of the Gnu GPL (General Public License) is nearing completion. The third draft -- expected to be the last before the license is finalized -- was released last Wednesday, fully eight months after the first draft was made available for public comment. Yet despite the long and painstaking public ratification process, the new GPL remains embroiled in controversy. Mon, 02 Apr 2007 03:00:00 PDT neil_mcallister@infoworld.com,letters@infoworld.com (Neil McAllister)http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/04/02/14OPopenent_1.html http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/redirect?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/03/26/13OPopenent_1.html IBM's latest filing in the SCO case looks particularly damning; it may finally be curtains for SCO. But even if the judge dismisses the suit tomorrow, Linux customers won't be able to rest easy. As Bruce Perens reminds us, the Microsoft/Novell partnership has brought a host of new intellectual property issues to bear. And so, the cold war between Microsoft and open source software lumbers on into another year. Mon, 26 Mar 2007 03:00:00 PST neil_mcallister@infoworld.com,letters@infoworld.com (Neil McAllister)http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/03/26/13OPopenent_1.html http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/redirect?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/03/19/12OPopenent_1.html Thanks to Dell, soon it will be easier than ever to order a brand-new desktop or notebook PC with Linux pre-installed. But whether Dell's new program will really have an impact on the rate of Linux adoption in the enterprise is unclear at best. Mon, 19 Mar 2007 03:00:00 PST neil_mcallister@infoworld.com,letters@infoworld.com (Neil McAllister)http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/03/19/12OPopenent_1.html http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/redirect?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/03/12/11OPopenent_1.html In my previous column, I touched on the issue of what constitutes an open-source vendor. Ask Andy Astor that question, and his answer is a shrug. "Honestly," he says, "who cares?" To Astor, there are really two broad categories of companies with respect to their relationship to open-source code. Some are users. Others are joiners. Mon, 12 Mar 2007 03:00:00 PST neil_mcallister@infoworld.com,letters@infoworld.com (Neil McAllister)http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/03/12/11OPopenent_1.html http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/redirect?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/03/05/10OPopenent_1.html Nat Torkington stirred up some controversy when he asked, "Is 'Open Source' Now Completely Meaningless?" He has a good point, however. With so many companies claiming to be "open source" -- despite seemingly disparate business models and licensing schemes -- it's getting hard to tell what is legitimate open source and what isn't. The mere fact that so many voices have begun to weigh in on the issue is proof of how murky these waters have become. Mon, 05 Mar 2007 03:00:00 PST neil_mcallister@infoworld.com,letters@infoworld.com (Neil McAllister)http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/03/05/10OPopenent_1.html http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/redirect?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/02/26/09OPopenent_1.html Developers by the thousands flocked to the International Convention Center in Hyderabad, India last week as Sun Microsystems kicked off the second leg of its world-spanning series of Tech Days conferences. The theme of the event was "shape your future" -- and indeed, no slogan could be more appropriate for Sun, its developers, and its partners. Mon, 26 Feb 2007 03:05:00 PST neil_mcallister@infoworld.com,letters@infoworld.com (Neil McAllister)http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/02/26/09OPopenent_1.html http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/redirect?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/02/19/08OPopenent_1.html I came away from InfoWorld's Virtualization Executive Forum last week with two conclusions. First, server virtualization is definitely a big deal. This time last year, customers and ISVs still seemed to be struggling to come to terms with this new approach to deploying and managing servers; today it's full speed ahead. And, second, nowhere is virtualization hotter than in the Linux market. Mon, 19 Feb 2007 03:00:00 PST neil_mcallister@infoworld.com,letters@infoworld.com (Neil McAllister)http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/02/19/08OPopenent_1.html http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/redirect?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/02/12/07OPopenent_1.html Customers are getting annoyed. They spent good money on the latest and greatest PC peripherals, only to find out that the hardware is only partially supported on their operating system of choice. Without the kernel drivers necessary to power them, some of the best features of the new toys are going unused. Mon, 12 Feb 2007 03:00:00 PST neil_mcallister@infoworld.com,letters@infoworld.com (Neil McAllister)http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/02/12/07OPopenent_1.html http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/redirect?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/02/05/06OPopenent_1.html In October, Oracle sent Red Hat's stock plummeting on the announcement that the database vendor would offer cut-rate support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, under the "Unbreakable Linux" brand. Could Larry Ellison now be planning a repeat with "Unbreakable MySQL"? Mon, 05 Feb 2007 03:00:00 PST neil_mcallister@infoworld.com,letters@infoworld.com (Neil McAllister)http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/02/05/06OPopenent_1.html