Sean Michael Kerner

Opponents of open source often use the specter of potential patent infringement charges to protect their proprietary turf. Questions over patent validity in software are never easy to answer, but it’s one that a new effort called Linux Defenders from the Open Invention Network (OIN) is trying help solve. Linux Defender includes facilities for peer-to-peer […]

Open source business intelligence (BI) vendor Jaspersoft has closed a new round of financing — thanks to backers that now include Linux vendor Red Hat, InternetNews.com has learned. The round marks the first time that Red Hat has invested in Jaspersoft, a company with which it also partners as part of its Red Hat Exchange […]

It will take some time, but the Domain Name Service (DNS) is on its way to be secured around the world with DNSSEC (DNS Security Extensions). A new industry consortium called the DNSSEC Industry Coalition has been formed to expedite the implementation of DNSSEC and in so doing will help to secure the Internet itself […]

How confident is Novell’s CEO Ron Hovsepian about the appeal of Linux? He is calling the open source operating system a key driver helping to push the company through the current global economic slowdown. His confidence comes in part from Novell’s (NASDAQ: NOVL) financial earnings for 2008, which show improvement in net revenue and a […]

IBM is taking another step forward in its bid to undercut Microsoft’s dominance on the PC. Together with Ubuntu Linux backer Canonical, Big Blue is now rolling out a virtual desktop solution that delivers IBM Lotus software to users. The new solution includes a Ubuntu desktop with IBM Lotus applications, delivered via a Linux virtual […]

Linux users are getting closer to full Microsoft Silverlight functionality to view rich media applications on the Web. The Novell-sponsored Moonlight project on Tuesday released its first beta of its Linux implementation of Microsoft’s Silverlight media framework. The beta release is considered to be feature complete and is the predecessor to a generally available Moonlight […]

Red Hat’s Spacewalk project is getting into place. The project wants to feed development of the Red Hat Network Satellite product for system management. Satellite is a critical tool for Red Hat users as it provides management capabilities for multiple servers for software deployment and updates. Almost six months ago, Red Hat kicked off the […]

Millions of miles above us, a new networking technology is taking shape that could one day help improve how applications are networked on Earth. NASA is testing a network layer technology that can withstand the rigorous demands of space communication better than the standard TCP/IP (define) protocol, which dominates terrestrial (non-space) networking technologies. Officially called […]

Counting Linux users is no easy task since there is typically no requirement for users to register their installations. Yet Linux distributions do try and count users in an attempt to quantify their user base and relative footprint in the operating systems space. Red Hat’s Fedora community Linux distribution has now tallied its user base, […]

Counting Linux users is no easy task since there is typically no requirement for users to register their installations. Yet Linux distributions do try and count users in an attempt to quantify their user base and relative footprint in the operating systems space. Red Hat’s Fedora community Linux distribution has now tallied its user base, […]