IBM has packaged together the software for its three most requested servers -- database, e-mail and Web application -- into what it describes as the first integrated Linux solution for small businesses.

While substantial progress will occur, Linux will still face challenges in displacing mature, well-established OS environments that continue to benefit from the research and development resources of Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and IBM.

IBM has announced what it calls the biggest Linux deal ever. Big Blue will equip a Japanese convenience chain with 15,000 IBM servers running Hat Linux.

Paul Jones, Director of ibiblio.org, studied the demographics of the Linux developer community. The research showed German contributions to open-source software were greater than people with .edu e-mail addresses, and also greater than the number of people with .org and .gov. e-mail addresses.

Paul Jones, Director of ibiblio.org, studied the demographics of the Linux developer community. The research showed German contributions to open-source software were greater than people with .edu e-mail addresses, and also greater than the number of people with .org and .gov. e-mail addresses.

IBM has accused Sun of confusing customers with its Linux strategy and lacking sufficient understanding of the open source OS.

Linux is continuing its spread from the scrawniest to the burliest computing devices, with new products emerging this week for low-power chips all the way up to mainframes.

Companies need to develop an open-source strategy if they want faster access to better software. Users aren't choosing open-source software because it's free. They're choosing it because it's better.

Microsoft has posted the first official beta release of the successor to Windows 2000 to the private Whistler Web site for beta testers. At the same time, Linus Torvalds posted to kernel.org the near-final release of the Linux 2.4 kernel.

IBM is making its AFS enterprise file system product available to the open source community under the IBM Public License. AFS is a very scalable, highly available, and secure file system with a very robust data management model for ease of administration.