What’s Keeping Linux Off Desktops?

Linux 114 Comments
"The vision of running Linux on corporate desktops has gained ground during the past 18 months, as full- featured office productivity software has become a reality and improvements have been made to the Linux kernel and to installation and administration tools. But even though the open-source operating system has moved closer to filling desktop needs, nagging gaps remain, said users and analysts at last week's Enterprise Linux Forum Conference & Expo here. In some cases, they added, the lingering lack of needed functionality is making it hard for IT managers to switch their users to Linux." Read the article at PCWorld.
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Mono 0.17 Released

Mono 14 Comments
Mono 0.17 has been released. Check out the release notes for a more detailed list. Many new features as well as plenty of bug fixes. Many new System.Data providers and a more mature System.Web (ASP.NET) which can now be hosted in any web server. A simple test web server to host asp.net has been released as well. This version also integrates Neale's s390 port.
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Month with a Mac: Can the Mac replace my PC?

Apple 313 Comments
There are certain perennial debates amongst the technical community, constantly revisited with differing outcomes for each person. Linux vs. Windows, KDE vs. Gnome, Mac vs. PC - they are unwinnable arguments, and although the outcome varies overtime with each successive release or new piece of hardware, they consistently gain our attention. When presented with the opportunity to borrow a Macintosh for a little over a month, I jumped at the chance to resolve one of these debates for myself. The question was: Can the Mac replace my PC?
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Linux is No Longer Just an Upstart

Linux 21 Comments
"The upstart Linux operating system isn't an upstart any more, according to Linux executives meeting in Boston last week. The Enterprise Linux Forum brought together vendors and users of Linux systems at a time when the operating system seems to have established itself as a major force in corporate computing - to the chagrin of established giants like Microsoft Corp." Read the article at Boston Globe.
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Microsoft Loses .NET Ally Rational to IBM

Microsoft 16 Comments
Rational Software Corp is joining Big Blue's stable of industry leaders-turned-business units after IBM announced its $2.1bn acquisition of the application modeling and design specialist. The news is a blow to Microsoft Corp, which on Friday conceded executives had "talked internally" about an acquisition of Rational. Rational's XDE software modeling tool, launched in February, sat inside Microsoft' Visual Studio.NET integrated development environment (IDE) in addition to IBM's WebSphere. Read the article at ComputerWire.
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Phoenix 0.5 Released

Mozilla, Gecko 32 Comments
Phoenix is a redesign of the Mozilla browser component, similar to Galeon, K-Meleon and Chimera, but written using the XUL user interface language and designed to be cross-platform. Phoenix 0.5 (Naples) was just released for Linux and Windows. Other recent releases include Opera's 6.11 for Linux/FreeBSD and Opera 6-beta3 for Mac.
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Xandros is Managing Well, Thank You

Oracle and SUN 27 Comments
"What got me started on all this was a recent conversation I had with Ming Poon, the Xandros VP for software development, in which he explained why Xandros eschewed KDE's generic UNIX file manager in favor of a home-grown Xandros File Manager , that's tightly linked to the Linux OS. Now building a file manager has to be a huge task, and, in Ming's case, it's been his pet project ever since his days a manager of Corel Linux. Three questions come to mind: Why did they do it? Was it worth the effort? What’s the future of the XFM?" The article is focusing in the tweaked Xandros file manager.
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Obstacles Leave gobeProductive Closed

Office 94 Comments
We were the first to inform you about the buyout of gobeProductive 3.x by starter FreeRadicalSoftware (headed also by the Gobe CEO) back in August. One of the ideas was to make gobeProductive GPL (a beta Linux version already exists). Unfortunately, it seems that FreeRadicalSoftware might not succeed in this. Read more for Gobe's and FreeRadical's Scott Lindsey's email in the Gobe user mailing list regarding the status, as it was sent by OSNews readers and GP3 users Chris Rupnik and Greg. Update: Gobe's Tom Hoke comments here and Scott Lindsey comments here.
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IBM Acquires Rational

IBM 24 Comments
"In a surprise move, IBM agreed to acquire Rational Software Corp. Friday in a deal worth $2.1 billion. IBM officials said the acquisition of the major development toolmaker would be the biggest for IBM since the computer giant acquired Lotus Development Corp." Read the report at eWeek. Our Take: This could be a serious blow to traditional Unices, like HP-UX and Solaris, depending on how IBM will handle these platforms.
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