Season of the playful penguins from Oyonale

Novell are reporting that Linux is soon to be perceived as a discipline. Judge the article for yourself.

Masters in Linux down under

Novell has teamed up with Charles Sturt University in Australia to offer what we believe is the first Masters Degree focused on Linux. The university decided to debut the degree because of rapid growth in demand for Linux training and expertise. The degree program includes obtaining Novell’s Certified Linux Engineer certification, including passing of the Novell Practicum exam. This is good evidence of growing interest in Linux by new entrants into the IT workforce, and the University’s choice to go with Novell in the curriculum is a nice vote of confidence.

Related item: Open Source in Schools

RedHat Linux

EWLETT Packard are beginning to sell Linux laptops. An article was published today to follow a previous article from September last year, which was also mentioned in this blog.

From the article:

“HP South Africa is to release a range of Linux-based notebooks at the end of February. In an interview with Tectonic HP’s Sean Owen-Jones said the HP 6110 notebooks will sell for R5999-00 and will run the Linspire operating system.”

Ubuntu used to be the prospective choice when this was first announced:

“HP’s Sean Owen-Jones… said the company would shortly be releasing desktop and notebook PCs running Ubuntu Linux. The NX6110 notebook would be available shortly with Ubuntu and a desktop PC would also be available.”

Related item: KDE to Reach Africa

T can be rather amusing — if not frustrating — to see what diplomats and legislators know about technology. In an article from yesterday afternoon, Stephen Shankland describes the perils one has when it comes to educating politicians while evangelising Open Source.

Mike Evans, vice president of corporate development for top Linux seller Red Hat, traveled to California’s capitol to educate legislators in the state Senate about open-source software, but he ended up getting something of an education himself.

[...]

For example, several seemed to believe that if an administrator uses open-source software that anyone can peer into the inner workings of his or her computer system.

[...]

When Evans told the Senate’s information technology personnel he’d be brining his own Linux box to show his presentation, Evans recounted, “They said, ‘What is a Linux box?’”

[...]

And the Web site that offered streaming audio of the hearing only presents Windows Media audio files.

Consider reading this intersting article on the role and impact of Firefox extensions. Below is the foreword.

If you have any doubts about the source of innovation in information technology, you should look at the Mozilla web site. I just counted 1,028 extensions contributed by the community. Then take a look at the themes section. Even the colossus of Redmond with its billions of dollars hasn’t mustered that kind of development effort for IE from its community over the years. Now, let’s get familiar with underlying reasons.

Related items on Firefox extensions:

• Firefox Essentials
• Firefox FTP Client
• Firefox for Web Design
• Favourite Firefox Extensions

Season of the playful penguins from Oyonale

HE staged demise of commercial software can be attributed to a variety of factors. The major factor: Large-scale Open Source software with great involvement from talented volunteers. This brought about many wonderful products like Firefox, which managed to surpass, in terms of the quality, their commercial equivalent/s. This provided a well-founded precedence to those wishing to explore non-commercial projects.

Although the basis of these open projects was about freedom to change and extend, these were often free too. The only issue to have remains in the air is budgets and liability, particularly among wealthy organisations.

Season of the playful penguins from Oyonale

NFORTUNATELY I am departing tomorrow, so I decided to pull a few pearls of zeal off my mind. Linux advocacy is, after all, an out-of-the bag obsession to me. [wink /]

The outsider to Linux creates fear (or FUD) and in turn spreads it, due to personal fears. It is a certain awareness that drives this cycle of fear-to-fight-fear effect. One knows that when Linux becomes a hot commodity, many new users will require Linux expertise. It is then that people with knowledge of Open Source software have the most valued skills. Perhaps, just perhaps quite suddenly, they find themselves propsper in a market where there is shortage of such skills. It is then that an army of spyware removal ‘experts’ becomes redundant. It is then that Windows expertise no longer has its market. What Windows advocates essentially do by coming to Linux forums and peppering them with lies is defending their jobs.

But guess what? The road goes where the source is located. Closure leads to dead ends. The deficiencies of closed-source formats are perceived and condemned by more and more people and corporations.

Mainsoft and IBM will one day unveil their long-anticipated port of .NET Applications to Linux and J2EE. Finally, this important milestone which enables Windows-centric applications to be ‘opened’, becomes a reality.

Mainsoft Corp. and IBM Wednesday announced an effort to work together to extend the Linux ecosystem by helping Microsoft customers move to Linux.

Meanwhile, the word through the grapevine is that another pact will deliver many low-cost Linux workstations.

Computer maker Mirus Innovations LLC and software vendor Linspire Inc. have teamed to offer a line of Linux-based desktop PCs starting at $299.

The pace at which good news for Linux get delivered is encouraging. Later today, an official announcement will be made with regards to Hewlett Packard’s top executive departing from her duty to join Penguin Computing. Keep an eye on the business/technology news.