missing_myself writes "Linux.com has nice summary on 'How major distributions are dealing with potential violations of patents and trademarks, cryptography, packaging proprietary software and consequential damages' from Bruce Byfield (a journalist from OSTG)." From the article: "Slowly, some commercial distributions are taking a different route. In the last few years, indemnification has become an increasingly important issue in FOSS communities, largely because of the SCO-IBM case. Claiming ownership of Unix, SCO alleges that IBM has allowed copyrighted code to pass from System V Unix to GNU/Linux. Although no evidence has been released and the trial is not scheduled until February 26, 2007, the issues in the case have made both commercial and community FOSS participants reevaluate their practices."

duffbeer703 asks: "My employer runs alot of desktop and laptop computers -- something in the neighborhood of 40,000 PCs. Currently they are all Windows 2000 & XP managed by Active Directory and other big, complicated enterprise management tools, all of which can support Linux in one form or another. I'm looking for ways of making Linux (and maybe Unix or even Apple desktops) an option as we replace or add PCs. The problem is, most of the resources that you find online about deploying Linux focuses on server environment, and the articles that I do find about desktop Linux focus on standalone developer workstations, the IBM conversion to Linux (which doesn't seem to have happened) or things like LTSP, that won't integrate well with our infrastructure. Is anyone out there successfully using Linux for regular users? How did it go, and how did your IT and user communities adapt to the new kid on the block?"

Last week you submitted questions for Dr. Herb Thompson, author of the latest Microsoft-sponsored Windows vs. Linux study. Here are his answers. Please feel free to ask follow-up questions. Dr. Thompson says he'll respond to as many as he can. He's registered a new Slashdot username, FFE4, specifically to participate in this discussion. All others claiming to be him are imposters. So read, post, ask, and enjoy.

That the Internet is a big, scary place is hardly worth mentioning. For every respectable site, there are three or four seedy places that you wouldn't want to be seen surfing by relatives. While LiveJournal has a reputation as an angst-fest, there are many individuals using the power of self-publishing to impressive ends. Every once in a while, one of those self-publishers even moves beyond the confines of the electronic medium to the world of dead-tree publishing. Movies in Fifteen Minutes (M15M) is just such a project, born on the Internet to high acclaim, with the core idea transferred extremely successfully to a traditional book format. Read on for my impressions of the only book on the market today to feature a hilarious version of Braveheart's evisceration scene. Good times.

Spencerian writes "The surge of Unix-derived operating systems such as Mac OS X, Linux, and the now-free Solaris is not slowing against the fortified but embattled breakwaters of the Microsoft operating system family. But new power users of other operating systems, including those just starting with Unix as well as the graphical interface of the operating system (such as the Mac OS Finder, or the navigators of KDE or Gnome), remain in need of a comprehensive primer for Unix that complements their previous knowledge. The fourth edition of Dave Taylor's "Teach Yourself Unix in 24 Hours" should remain on the top of the buy list for computer users in need of a strong Unix reference where they may find themselves managing or using the subtle variants of Unix flavors." Read the rest of Spencerians' review.

Mortimer.CA writes "In a weblog entry, Paul Murphy mentions a Microsoft report (40 page PDF) that in many instances FreeBSD 5.3 and Linux perform better than Windows XP SP2. The report is about MS' Singularity kernel (which does perform better than the OSS kernels by many of the metrics they use), and some future directions in OS design (as well as examination of the way things have been done in the past)." From the post: "What's noteworthy about it is that Microsoft compared Singularity to FreeBSD and Linux as well as Windows/XP - and almost every result shows Windows losing to the two Unix variants. For example, they show the number of CPU cycles needed to "create and start a process" as 1,032,000 for FreeBSD, 719,000 for Linux, and 5,376,000 for Windows/XP."

sunBoy asks: "A number of OpenSolaris-based Operating Systems are popping up on the map. BeleniX (screenshots), SchilliX and Nexenta (screenshots) are a few OSes which have hit the headlines in the past couple of weeks. Some say OpenSolaris has a leg up on Linux - 'For Linux, we're trying to push many distributions through to compress them into a standard. With OpenSolaris, we are already at the small end of standardization. What will follow is more OpenSolaris distributions spreading out from that core.' Is OpenSolaris really a threat to Linux?" Less of a threat and more of an alternative. Would more Unix-based alternatives on the market really be a bad thing?

Amiga Trombone writes to tell us that IBM and Sun have reached an agreement allowing Solaris 10 to be supported on IBM BladeCenter servers. From the article: "IBM confirmed the move in a statement, saying Sun is among more than 700 partners in the "BladeCenter ecosystem" and that as an operating system option, Solaris joins Windows, Linux for x86 and Power chips, and IBM's AIX version of Unix. IBM won't sell Solaris or support for the operating system to customers, IBM said. Anyone interested will have to purchase the software and support from Sun."

linumax writes "It took more than two and a half years, but the SCO Group finally has disclosed a list of areas it believes IBM violated its Unix contract, allegedly by moving proprietary Unix technology into open-source Linux. In a five-page document filed Friday, SCO attorneys say they identify 217 areas in which it believes IBM or Sequent, a Unix server company IBM acquired, violated contracts under which SCO and its predecessors licensed the Unix operating system. However, the curious won't be able to see for themselves the details of SCO's claims: The full list of alleged abuses were filed in a separate document under court seal. The Lindon, Utah-based company did provide some information about what it believes IBM moved improperly to Linux, though."

jsuda writes "The Definitive Guide to MYSQL 3rd Edition certainly deserves its title. It is a large, dense, complete guide to MySQL and updates its predecessor edition by covering new MySQL5 and new auxiliary software including database administration tools and interfaces. MySQL is the open-source database software which has become very popular for web-based database applications now being used by Yahoo, NASA, Slashdot, and other entities. Read on for the rest of Jsudas' review

duffbeer703 writes "As a UNIX guy dragged kicking and screaming into the Windows world, I've never really been able to enjoy Windows programming. Charles Petzold, who is a long-time developer for DOS & Windows really laid out the reasons for me at the NYC .NET Dev group. Visual Studio and Microsoft tools force you to adopt programming techniques designed around implementation speed, not understanding or quality."

norburym writes "Mark G. Sobell is well known for several comprehensive and well-written volumes: A Practical Guide to Solaris; A Practical Guide to Red Hat Linux: Fedora Core and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (2nd ed.); and A Practical Guide to the Unix System (3rd ed.). It seems only natural for the author to follow these exceptional examples with yet another excellent book entitled A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming . Read on for Norburyms' review.

VitaminB52 writes "Microsoft is only winning about one out of four deals where IT shops are trying to move off of proprietary Unix. To turn that trend around, there are four specific Linux strongholds where Microsoft is focusing its attention." From the article: "After discussing server clustering, Web hosting, and server appliances, Ballmer was cut off by the interviewees before he could identify the fourth. But my guess is that, given the way Ballmer emphasized Software as a Service (SaaS) as a core theme for all the work that's taking place at Microsoft right now, the fourth stronghold of Linux that Microsoft wants is the SaaS stronghold where Linux is the operating system behind a Java-based application server technology ... Ballmer knows he's got a long roe to hoe. 'The day I come in front of the Gartner audience and say we have a better Unix than Linux, that'll be a good day.'"

jasonmicron asks: "I am curious as to what you Linux/UNIX people use for a media player that supports both license lookup on the internet and DVD Playback support. I am quite sick of Microsoft's media player telling me that my 'license is invalid', even on DVDs that I own. I find that VERY lame. I ask because not only does Microsoft tell me that my license is invalid but Real Network's Real Player tells me the same thing (even though I place my totally VALID and self-owned DVD in my DVD-ROM player in my DVD-ROM, which runs on Windows). What media players does Slashdot recommend to bypass the total ignorance of Microsoft and Real Networks? I am looking for a Windows solution, though any Linux / UNIX solution is completely welcome."

xcleetusx wonders: "I've been a fan of Apple for years, and with their current strangle-hold on mainstream media my desire to make the switch has been growing ever more, but the same nagging issue that has prevented my switch for years still remains: I'm an engineer, and I simply can't invest in a computer that won't run modeling/simulation software like CATIA and Solidworks. Since this software is available on Unix (which Mac OS X is built on) and also on Windows (Intel hardware), is the Apple switch to Intel-based hardware going to better my chances for a Mac OS X CAD workstation, or will it remain a pipedream?"

An anonymous reader writes "According to ZDNET Microsoft is going to be keynoting the Australian Unix and Open Systems Users Group conference. From the article: '"Don't be put off by Chris' Microsoft badge -- he is actually a long time Unix hacker," the user group said today in a statement updating users on presentations at the conference ... Green, Microsoft's local Unix Interoperability and High Performance Computing specialist, will update the conference on his company's "Unix and open source-related activities, including their efforts to provide a POSIX environment in Windows, and to integrate Windows and Unix systems."'"

An anonymous reader writes "There's an article by Jason Miller on innovation in Unix that talks about OpenBSD's new heap protection mechanism as a major boon for security. Sounds like OpenBSD is going to be the first to support this new security method."

JDStone writes to tell us eWeek is reporting that claims of OpenSSH not being an 'enterprise-class product' by SSH Communications, the creators of SSH, is being met with a great deal of resistance. Theo de Raadt, of OpenBSD fame and a member of the OpenSSH development team was quoted saying "OpenSSH is built into all Unix and Linux vendor operating systems, and is also built into almost all larger managed network switches, from Cisco through Foundry. It comes on Linksys and D-Link wireless and security routers too."

sebFlyte writes "Builder UK is reporting that Linus Torvalds is concerned that the Linux production kernel maintainence process might be overly taxing Andrew Morton, saying: "One issue is that I actually worry that Andrew will at some point be where I was a couple of years ago -- overworked and stressed out by just tons and tons of patches. If Andrew burns out, we'll all suffer hugely." Morton himself wants to make -mm releases more often. He sees bugs as more of a problem, rather than patches themselves. His solution is simple: "I'd like to release -mm's more often and I'd like -mm to have less of a wild-and-crappy reputation. Both of these would happen if originators were to test their stuff more carefully.""

BSDanimation asks: "I want to create slide based cartoon-like animations with speech bubbles and simple programmable 2D effects in a widely accepted format like MPEG or AVI. I have considered using Ming to code a Flash animation, but then decided against Flash and would prefer to stay away from such proprietary formats. Blender seems nice, but is too complex and a complete overkill. OpenOffice presentations seem promising, but I am not sure if it is possible to program effects and speech bubbles in it and export such presentations into a format other than Flash. What free UNIX-like OS based open source software is there for such simple 2D animation that would also allow me to distribute my animations commercially without any licensing restrictions?"