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.
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.
In discussing the recent Novell agreement, Steve Ballmer of Microsoft has been quoted (by Todd Bishop at Seatllepi.com) saying “. . . Linux comes from the community — the fact that that product uses our patented intellectual property is a problem for our shareholders.” He gave no details.
As has been widely reported, Microsoft has apparently entered into an agreement with Novell regarding interoperability of SusSE Linux and Window.
This (a tacit admission of the important of Linux) is potentially a major development for Microsoft, and it will be interesting to see how it develops.
A must read article for anyone concerned with the legal limits of the GPL.
According to various news articles, including this CNET article, the judge in the SCO-IBM “voiced loud skepticism about SCO’s case”, although it did not grant IBM’s request to end the case.
