Linux, Apache, and FreeBSD are often cited as examples of successful examples of free software projects. Mozilla is not, but I think its reputation as a failure is undeserved.

The Sun-Netscape Alliance announced iPlanet Web Server, Enterprise Edition 4.1 and the new FastTrack Edition 4.1 software, both of which now include support for the Linux operating system and the latest Java technologies.

Will making the BeOS free open up the operating system to new developers? Or just dry up Be's revenues?

VA Linux Systems, Nvidia and SGI are to bring workstation-class graphics to Linux through the joint development of an OpenGL 1.2-based 2D and 3D graphics acceleration sub-system.

If 1999 was the year of Red Hat's honeymoon, then watch for flying pots and pans in 2000. Led by the ever-grinning visage of Chairman Bob Young, Linux distributor Red Hat had a yearlong free ride in the press, and investors responded in kind.

Linux desktop environments KDE and GNOME -- which give the hackerish operating system a Windows-Icons-Menus-Pointer-type interface -- are nowhere near ready for prime time, but when they are, the winners in the software world will be either Web-driven and platform-agnostic or all over Linux.

I could even make a business case for supporting the growth and development of these alternative markets, development methodologies, etc. If Microsoft, for example, is going to lose several billion per year to software piracy, then if someone gets the same functionality from a standard Linux distribution, Microsoft has not necessarily 'lost' a customer. They might well have not had that 'customer' in the first place.

I am proud to announce what I believe to be the first ever Linux-based class to be held in any public school. Today begins the start of Linux' inroads into the mainstream educational arena here at the Davis Applied Technology Center.

Hardware support has always been one of the biggest concerns for the Linux platform. Although Linux supports an incredibly wide variety of hardware platforms, specific hardware device support can sometimes be sketchy at best.

In a move to escalate its challenge to Linux vendors Caldera Systems and Red Hat, TurboLinux announced this week that it has pulled in close to $57 million (US$) in a second round of funding.