markdavis asks: "For Linux to really succeed in business, it must first have support by vendors for the core financial applications: General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, and Payroll/HR. I am the IT Director for a long-term-care medical facility (400 employees) and found out a few weeks ago that the vendor that supplies our GL, AP, HR, and Payroll software is dropping support for Linux, in November (after using them for four years). They code in Progress and have decided to convert to a proprietary web GUI (IIS + IE6 + ActiveX) rather than use Progress + Apache + any browser. This means we either abandon Linux, or we are in the market for new accounting software modules (I bet you know which is my preferred choice). Does anyone use Linux server AND client (or web browser under Linux) software for financials in a medium or smaller/medium sized organization? If so, what do you use? Do you like it? What problems did you have in using it? What other advice can you give to someone trying to use Linux in this manner?"

Readers VE3OGG and FFFFHALTFFFF write in with three pieces of a global picture that is emerging of governments and corporations moving away from Microsoft and towards open source. First, France: the French automaker Peugot Citroen has announced that over the next several years they will be integrating up to 20,000 Novell SUSE desktops as well as 2,500 SUSE servers into their facilities. (Let's hope that, in Novell, Peugeot Citroen hasn't bought a lemon.) Next, Sweden: the Swedish Armed Forces has made a decision to migrate its Windows NT servers to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Finally, Russia. VE3OGG writes: "It would seem that after the recent Russian piracy debacle that could see a school headmaster jailed in a Siberian work camp for purchasing pirated copies of Windows for his school, the Ministry of Education in Russia has decided that the school boards will no longer be purchasing any commercial software."

polar_bear` writes "Yet another open source advocacy group is in the offing, but trying to keep the lid on until its official launch at LinuxWorld OpenSolutions Summit. Robin 'Roblimo' Miller ferrets out a few details of the nascent Open Solutions Alliance on Linux.com: 'Our anonymous interviewee says 'at least 10' companies have signed up, and that they are 'talking to dozens more.' While he refused to name any participants, Linux.com has confirmed that SpikeSource and JasperSoft are both involved.'" Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.

boyko.at.netqos writes "Jim Sampson at Network Performance Daily writes about his attempts over a decade to get Linux working in a business/enterprise environment, but each time, he says, something critical just didn't work, and eventually, he just gave up. The article caps with his attempts to use Ubuntu Edgy Eft — only to find a bug that still prevented him from doing work." Quoting: "For the next ten years, I would go off and on back to this thought: I wanted to support the Open Source community, and to use Linux, but every time, the reality was that Linux just was not ready... Over the last six years, I've tried periodically to get Linux working in the enterprise, thinking, logically, that things must have improved. But every time, something — sometimes something very basic — prevented me from doing what I needed to do in Linux."

lisah writes "When Fedora released Fedora Core 6 late last year, the team decided to track the number of users with unique IP addresses who connected to yum in search of updates for a new installation of FC6. According to the data they collected, FC6 crossed the one-million user mark in just 74 days. Fedora Project Leader Max Spevack says that while it's great to use metrics to better understand what users want, the real value lies in its ability to encourage hardware vendors to more offer more Linux-oriented goods and services. Spevack told Linux.com: '[W]e always say we wish hardware vendors had more [Linux-capable] drivers. Well, if you can go to them and say, "Hey, there's millions of people using this," then maybe they will listen. In the real world, you need data to prove your case. Well, here it is.'" Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by OSTG.

inetsee writes "According to Groklaw, SCO has admitted in a 10K filing that if the court grants any or all of IBM's six motions for summary judgement, 'We can not guarantee whether our claims against IBM or Novell will be heard by a jury.' The site goes through a statement by statement run-down of SCO's filing, noting things like the absence of employee numbers (a piece of information they told investors they would disclose). Elsewhere in the document, it is revealed that SCO's stock is in danger of being delisted from NASDAQ, they may come under further litigation from an unrelated legal matter, and SCO is now claiming that OSes like HP-UX and Solaris are derivatives of code that they 'own'. Despite the dire pronouncements throughout the filing, if everything else runs according to plan their 10K indicates they could keep fighting the good fight for another 12 months."

derrida writes "The OSDL's Desktop Linux Working Group has published its first year-end report on the state of the overall desktop Linux ecosystem. The report provides insight into the year's key accomplishments in functionality, standards, applications, distributions, market penetration, and more. Of great interest is the Market Growth part. Quoting from there: 'Most observers believe that much of the growth will take place outside of the United States. "It will be in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries," said Gerry Riveros, Red Hat, "because of the price and because they aren't locked in yet."'"

Lo5 writes with the excellent news that Dell is selling desktop computers without Windows preinstalled. They are called "n Series"; you can choose from Dimension E520, E521, or C521 desktops. The hard drive comes unformatted.

Several readers wrote in to let us know that Wal-Mart is planning to buy SUSE Linux vouchers from Microsoft in the course of building out its infrastructure. These are the support vouchers that Microsoft must distribute to hold up its end of the bargain with Novell. Wal-Mart has been a customer of Red Hat Linux. CBR Online notes that the deal is not entirely unexpected because Microsoft's COO, Kevin Turner, is the former CIO of Wal-Mart.

S3Indiana writes with news that Linspire is opening its Click 'N Run installation software to other Linux distributions. After 5 years of development on CNR, the new site cnr.com will be a single source repository for Linux users. Distributions to be supported initially during 2007 are (alphabetically): Debian, Fedora, Freespire, Linspire, OpenSUSE, and Ubuntu; other distributions will follow. See the FAQ and the screenshots for more details.

Andy Updegrove writes "On Sunday afternoon, the Free Standards Group (FSG) signed an agreement to combine forces with Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) to form a new organization — The Linux Foundation. The result of this consolidation will be to dedicate the resources of the combined membership to 'accelerate the growth of Linux by providing a comprehensive set of services to compete effectively with closed platforms.' Jim Zemlin, currently the head of FSG, will lead the new organization as its Executive Director. The new organization will continue to support Linux in a variety of ways, including by providing economic support to Linus Torvalds and other key kernel developers, managing the Linux trademark, and providing legal protection to developers through such initiatives as the Open Source as Prior Art project, the Patent Commons, and the Linux Legal Defense Fund. All in all, a tall order, but eminently possible given its membership: The Linux Foundation's founding members will include every major company in the Linux industry, including Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Intel, NEC, Novell, Oracle and Red Hat, as well as many community groups, universities and industry end users."

mrops writes "CNET has up a short article about IBM's reaction to Oracle's recent acquisitions. From the article: 'Handy was responding to comments made by Oracle CEO Ellison to the Financial Times, where he said that he wanted Oracle to control a 'full stack' of software, including the Linux operating system. If Oracle did try to buy a Linux distributor, such as Red Hat or Novell, Handy said 'we'd stick to our strategy of having two or more independent distributors and have to wait and see what happens.'" It should be pointed out, as noted in yesterday's Slashback, that Ellison has no intentions of purchasing Red Hat.

Red Hat and Intel announced today at LinuxWorld Boston that they would be entering a partnership to help customers "plan for, accelerate and optimize their deployments of Linux solutions." From the article: "'We're responding to what customers have told us they really need to support their advanced deployments of Linux and open source,' said Tim Yeaton, executive vice president of Enterprise Solutions at Red Hat. 'The programs Intel and Red Hat have selected are aimed at equipping customers with in-depth domain knowledge and providing hard core data to make complex architectural decisions.'"

Eric Giguere writes "CNet is reporting that according to former Massachusetts CIO Peter Quinn 'the lax dress code of the open-source community is one of the reasons behind the software's slow uptake in commercial environments.' In particular, Quinn blames the 'sandal and ponytail set' for sluggish adoption of Linux by businesses and governments." From the article: "Quinn, who faced plenty of scrutiny over his support of the OpenDocument standards-based office document format, said proponents of open source in government faced formidable opposition from vested interests if they went public."

Christian Ahlert writes "OpenBusiness talked to Esther Dyson about how business models are adapting to an internet environment that champions openness. Esther's upcoming PC Forum focuses on how users are transforming the internet and placing new demands on businesses. From Open Source to Open Content, new forms of organization, production and distribution are emerging. But how can these ventures produce a revenue and sustain themselves? For how long can we give content away for free?"

Tangential writes "New story on LinuxBusiness week says SCO is about to mount an effort to get all Linux sites to pay a per cpu license for so-called patent violations."SCO has been proposing to charge users $96 per CPU for a so-called one-time System 5 for Linux software license to protect their systems from SCO-enforced patent issues if they ante up as soon as demand is made." They've retained David Boies (DOJ prosecutor of Microsoft) to handle the legal issues." Note: I've been unable to substantiate this - which are fairly incendiary claims. Further updates as more is heard.