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CBR is reporting that open source use in the workplace is continuing to grow at an astonishing rate. Up 26% since last year, businesses are using 94 different open source tools to get the job done. "[OpenLogic's] breakdown of licenses for the top 25 packages found that Apache, not the GPL, is the most common license. 62% of the packages use Apache, 27% use some variant of GPL and 4% each use BSD, CPL, Eclipse, MPL and Perl licenses (since packages may be released under two or more licenses, percentages total to more than 100%).

prostoalex writes "MySQL CEO Marten Mickos told Computer Business Review the company plans to go public: 'Now entering its twelfth year, the company has built up just less than 10,000 paying customers, and an installed base estimated to be close to 10 million... When it does go public, MySQL will be one of only a handful of open source vendors to do so. Red Hat, VA Linux (now VA Software), and Caldera (now SCO Group) led the way in 1999 and 2000...'"

munchola writes "MySQL CEO, Marten Mickos, has revealed to CBRonline that Oracle has threatened to provide support for MySQL and is already distributing the open source database. "They have hinted to us that they will," said Mickos, indicating that the database giant is planning to repeat its October 2006 Unbreakable Linux plan, which saw it undercut Red Hat with enterprise Linux support. Despite the competitive threat, Mickos is unmoved. "I hope they do that," he said, noting that it would be seen as an endorsement of the open source database.""

munchola writes "MySQL has quietly changed the license it uses for its database to avoid being forced to move to the forthcoming GPLv3. CBRonline is reporting that Kaj Arno, MySQL VP of community relations, revealed the license change on his blog, noting it was made 'in order to make it an option, not an obligation for the company to move to GPLv3.'"

munchola wrote in with news that Palm has just announced a one-time payment for perpetual, royalty-free use of Palm OS. In 2005 Palm spun off PalmSource to an outside company, Access Systems Americas, and since that time has been paying out royalties for its use. At the same time Palm announced products based on Windows Mobile. Palm's latest announcement reduces the uncertainty among Palm OS developers. From the article: "In an unsurprising but symbolically important move, handheld and smartphone maker Palm this month signed a perpetual license with Access Systems Americas, which gives Palm the right to use Access' Palm OS operating system in whole or in part in any Palm device forever more. It sounds like a no-brainer, but the context is interesting, in particular what it means for the army of Palm OS developers out there. Believe it or not there are at least 160,000 Palm OS developers — and they're just the ones that Palm knows about."

munchola writes "Novell and Microsoft have commissioned a survey to prove that customers love their interoperability and patent deal. According to the survey 'Ninety-five percent approve of the collaboration between Novell and Microsoft,' while 'four out of five believe their organization would consider doing more business with Linux dealers if Linux providers establish an alliance with Microsoft.' As CBRonline notes, however: 'Few people have claimed the deal is bad for Novell or Microsoft's customers. The question has been whether it is good for the open source movement, open source developers, or indeed Novell itself. Those issues do not appear to have been addressed by the survey.'"

munchola writes "The Software Freedom Law Center has declared that Microsoft's patent pledge to open source developers is 'worse than useless'. SFLC chief technology officer, Bradley Kuhn, has written to FOSS developers warning them that 'developers are no safer from Microsoft patents now than they were before'. According to Kuhn: 'The patent covenant only applies to software that you develop at home and keep for yourself; the promises don't extend to others when you distribute. You cannot pass the rights to your downstream recipients, even to the maintainers of larger projects on which your contribution is built.'"

munchola writes "CBRonline has put together an article looking at the state of open source adoption in the UK , bringing together data on central government policy and adoption within local government, public services, education, and the private sector. While overall the transition to OSS has been successful, there have been a few setbacks." From the article: "Not all of the organisations involved in the open source proof of concept trials have proceeded with open source adoption, however. In particular, the Central Scotland Police dealt a blow to open source supporters in August 2005 when it abandoned Linux and Sun's StarOffice in favour of Windows. The police force moved to StarOffice in 2000 and later adopted Linux for a new Area Command office at Falkirk. It also worked with IBM Corp to adopt Linux for a server-based document management system to meet Freedom of Information Act requirements, claiming savings of between 20,000 and 30,000 pounds ($36,000 and $54,000) over five years on hardware costs."

Slashback tonight brings some clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories including: the possibility of selling OpenGL to save SGI, a denial from Dell that it knew of the overheating battery problem, an update on the Skype competitor Gizmo, and a response from the Chinese folks that reverse-engineered the Skype protocol. Read on for details. SGI's McKenna Considers sale of OpenGL. delire writes "The Computer Business Review has an article on McKenna's strategies to salvage the flailing SGI from bankruptcy ... one of which may include selling assets like OpenGL. As Gnome developer Christian Schaller aptly put it, 'I hope this gets picked up by a friendly entity, especially if there are some patents still attached to OpenGL.'"

Dell Denies It Knew of Overheating Battery Problem. Billosaur writes "A report from ConsumerAffairs.com staties that according to inside information, Dell knew about the overheating problem in its laptop batteries for years. According to the report, an un-named insider 'leaked scores of documents to CRN, a computer industry publication, that indicated Dell knew of a dangerous battery malfunction for two years before a shocking video of an exploding laptop forced the company to recall batteries for about 22,000 laptops.' This on top of Dell's warning about lower than expected second quarter profits may cause the company some problems on Wall Street."

Gizmo: free VoIP to landlines in 60 countries. KrispyGlider writes "The more-standards-compliant Skype competitor Gizmo has launched a promotion in a bid to rapidly grow its userbase: free VoIP-to-landline calls to 60 countries, and even to mobiles in many countries. There aren't too many onerous catches to the deal Gizmo was previously covered in a Slashdot article from 2005 where it was noted that the Gizmo network has interoperability with other SIP networks, unlike Skype. However, the new version, 2.0 also has the ability to directly log in to open-source Asterisk VoIP servers, so you don't even have to use Gizmo's VoIP network any more."

When is it Okay to Reverse Engineer? Charlie Paglee writes "Last week Slashdot covered a story about a team of engineers in China reverse engineering Skype. Reaction on Slashdot was largely negative and raised many questions: Just when is it okay to reverse engineer and then innovate? The Chinese team issued a statement clarifying their actions: 'The domain of P2P innovation is limitless. We are very honored to work side by side Skype to promote P2P technologies in the VOIP industry. Our team is composed of the most talented P2P engineers in the world. We are working day and night to build a superior quality P2P network.'"

Rob writes to mention a Computer Business Review article looking at the bankruptcy of SGI, and whether the company is planning on a comeback. CEO Dennis McKenna is emphatic that the company isn't just looking for an exit strategy, but it's hard to see where they could go from here. From the article: "SGI has more challenges ahead, and I still find it hard to believe that after all of the chances it has had to run a profitable server and visualization business in the past it can miraculously do so now, selling lower-end boxes on even slimmer margins. But I'm hoping that the Chapter 11 has provided the necessary wake-up call for the company to get really lean really fast, because only from a more stable financial footing does it have any hope of fighting its way back onto new technology buyers' wish-lists."

munchola writes "A new report from the Department of Defense's Advanced Systems and Concepts Office recommends that the DoD move to adopt open source software and methodologies as well as open standards in order to make the most efficient use of internal resources. According to CBR, the report states that a move to 'Open Technology Development' is not only in the U.S. national interest, but in the interests of U.S. national security. OTD incorporates open source methodologies and open standards, but also takes into account the fact that the DoD has systems that it would rather keep secret."

munchola writes "CBR has created a map of current open source software providers that contradicts the recent assertion of Alfresco's Matt Asay that "open source is not a Silicon Valley phenomenon". That statement has prompted a debate about the importance of location, involving Asay, Robert Scoble, and Dana Blankenhorn. A closer look shows that open source is very much a Silicon Valley phenomenon."

Rob writes "News that Sun co-founder and long-serving CEO, Scott McNealy is stepping aside, heaps a load of pressure on incoming CEO Jonathan Schwartz - he will have to get working on his anti-Microsoft gags quick-sharp. Aside from Sun's strategy and his execution of it, McNealy's tenure as CEO will be remembered for his constant Microsoft sniping. CBR remembers some of his favourite quotes."

Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories including the Supreme Court declines Falwell's appeal, GP2X now shipping in the US, a new version of Systrace released, Lessig and Stallman look back at Sun's OpenDRM, NASA jumps on the anti-matter propulsion bandwagon, GoDaddy donates $10,000 to OpenSSH, Ellison explains why he would NOT acquire Novell or Red Hat, and pictures of the Ball State wireless 'sculpture' -- Read on for details.

The Supreme Court declines Falwell's Appeal. yEvb0 writes "The US Supreme Court has refused to hear the appeal of Jerry Falwell, who claims that "gripe site" http://www.fallwell.com/ infringes on his trademark by luring surfers away from his own site. Despite winning a case in federal court, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with Falwell last year and said that operator Christopher Lamparello was free to operate his site about Falwell's views on gays because he 'clearly created his Web site intending only to provide a forum to criticize ideas, not to steal customers.'"

GP2X now shipping in the US. An anonymous reader writes "The Gamepark GP2X, a Linux-based handheld gaming platform that runs native and emulated games, is now shipping in the US, according to LinuxDevices. The device can reportedly run more than a thousand classic arcade games, through open-source console game emulators such as MAME, SNES, Genesis, and PC Engine. It has a 3.5-inch QVGA (320x240) color TFT LCD screen, and includes a media player supporting MPEG, JPEG, and MP3 formats."

New version of Systrace released. Niels writes "I just recently released a new version of Systrace that runs on Linux without requiring any kernel patches. I termed it the Phoenix release because it has been almost three years since I did any work on Systrace. However, I finally had the need to do some sandboxing on Linux without being able to change the kernel. So, voila, after a few late nights, here we go: Systrace for Linux using a ptrace back end."

Lessig and Stallman look back at Sun's OpenDRM. H4x0r Jim Duggan writes "The Register has an excellent article featuring Lessig and Stallman on 'Open Source' DRM. The spark for the article came from comments made about Sun's 'OpenDRM' by Lessig which were not wholly negative and were interpreted by some as an endorsement. Lessig clarifies: 'There's no disagreement about where we should end up - No DRM.'"

NASA jumps on the anti-matter propulsion bandwagon. steveo777 writes "NASA has an interesting read about creating yet another form of rocket propulsion. They plan on using Anti-electrons (positrons) combine with normal electrons to release enough energy to fuel the way to Mars and back. Its byproduct will be lower energy gamma radiation. From the article, '"Our advanced designs, like the gas core and the ablative engine concepts, could take astronauts to Mars in half that time, and perhaps even in as little as 45 days," said Kirby Meyer, an engineer with Positronics Research on the study.'"

GoDaddy donates $10,000 to OpenSSH. wcbrown writes "Go Daddy has donated $10,000 to the OpenSSH project, which is apparently used extensively within the company." This is another great donation in what hopefully will continue to be a trend within the community. No word on when the blinking will stop.

Ellison explains why he would NOT acquire Novell or Red Hat. Robert writes to tell us CBROnline is reporting that a recent statement by Larry Ellison covered so extensively in the news regarding speculation about why Oracle might be "planning to buy Novell or Red Hat" may have been a little off base. The full transcript of his interview with the FT is illuminating precisely because it reveals why the company would NOT acquire either Novell or Red Hat, and - apparently - why the company did not buy JBoss.

Pictures of the Ball State Wireless 'sculpture'. popeguilty writes "Slashdot readers may recall the story about the Wireless 'Sculpture' at Ball State University. The artwork is up and running, and I've got a few pictures posted for general consumption."

Robert writes to tell us CBROnline is reporting that almost two years after discussing the possibility, Xandros has finally named a date for their first Linux server product. From the article: "While there are plenty of Linux server distributions on the market, the market is undoubtedly dominated by Red Hat, Novell's SUSE Linux a distant second. In order to find a gap in the market with Xandros Server, due May 1, the company will have to differentiate it from the pack."