ZFS (an advanced file system) was not included in the latest Apple operating system (Snow Leopard). Some speculated it was because although available under open source licenses, Apple requested a “private” license. ZFS is licensed under the CDDL; it is not clear whether that licensing scheme would prevent Apple from using it as it wished.
Mark Shuttleworth wants to think so, he has reportedly set a goal: “our goal, very simply, is to make sure the Free software ecosystem can deliver a Mac OS-like experience, or an experience that will compete with the Mac OS. . . So Canonical will in fact launch an effort to try and spearhead that. And over a period of 2 years, really move the dial forward on the desktop experience.”
An interesting article on how Microsoft tactics push India toward Linux.
Here is an interesting survey on which Linux distributions remain popular: Which Linux Distributions Are Dying?
Linspire, a Linux distribution that was original supposed to be able to run some Windows software, is reportedly being acquired by Xandros, another Linux distribution.
Red Hat announced a new initiative in the “virtualization” area. according to the press release, Red Had has a new embedded Linux “Hypervisor” — a piece of software virtualization embedded within the Linux operating system (as opposed, for example, to the VMWare “separate application” method).
A UK statute provides that law enforcement can demand encryption keys to obtain text of encrypted materials. The Register has article on an animal rights activist to which an decryption demand was made recently.
Citrix Systems, Inc. acquired XenSource, Inc., for approximately $500 million in a combination of cash and Citrix common stock. The Xen project, which which develops a virtualization engine, was led by XenSource’s co-founder, who became a Citrix employee.
A federal district court judge in Utah ruled that Novell, not the SCO Group, is the rightful owner of the copyrights covering the Unix operating system. This is a potentially fatal blow to the SCO complaint against IBM, as it means that SCO may not own what SCO says IBM misappropriated.
According to one analysis of the SCO-IBM hearing earlier in March, evidence presented by SCO adds up to a total of 326 lines of code found exclusively in header files and similar items.
