Peter Galli

The gap that has threatened to split the Linux community appears to be closing. Though the GNOME (GNU Network Object Model Environment) Foundation and the KDE (K Desktop Environment) League and their respective user interfaces for Linux remain competitors, recent developments put them closer together regarding user support and interoperability. The new GNOME 1.4 desktop […]

Although the latest Linux kernel is only now starting to appear in commercial distributions of the operating system, the Linux development community is wasting no time in making the next version more suited to enterprise users. Linux creator Linus Torvalds, still working to stabilize the 2.4 kernel, was joined by about 50 other Linux developers […]

For all of its size and influence, Microsoft Corp. has been built to react rapidly to changing competition, user demands, computing models and, yes, legal pressure. At no time in its history has that ability to cope with change been tested as it has in the year since the government found the Redmond, Wash., company […]

In pledging conformance to open standards and protocols, Microsoft Corp. said all the right things with the launch here last week of HailStorm, the software makers building blocks initiative for Web services. But, potential users of the platform are skeptical about the companys commitment to openness, pointing to Java as an example of how Microsoft […]

Amid mergers and acquisitions and executive shifts, Novell Inc. is still finding time to crank out cutting-edge networking software. The Provo, Utah, company is set to include an Internet printing capability, known as Novell Internet Printing, in NetWare 6.0, the next version of its network operating system, due in the third quarter. This week, at […]

Now that Office XP has been released to manufacturing, the challenges are just beginning for Microsoft Corp. and its flagship desktop productivity suite. In addition to persuading Office users to upgrade—no small task, considering that about 70 percent of the 120 million installed Office users still run either Office 97 or Office 95—the Office team […]

Microsoft Corp.s decision last week to give its 1,000 top U.S. enterprise customers access to the Windows 2000 source code has been sharply criticized by smaller customers. Many of them are developers who feel they should be allowed to see the source code, too, so they can more effectively develop Windows applications. Mike Kuchenbrod, a […]

Microsoft Corp. fared so well last week in its first round of hearings before the U.S. Court of Appeals here that many believe the likelihood of splitting the company in two, as ruled by the U.S. District Court last year, is extremely slim. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit last week heard […]

A visibly perturbed bench of U.S Court of Appeals justices today heard arguments here from both Microsoft Corp. and the government over whether District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson should be removed from the landmark antitrust case going forward. They also actively debated whether the nature of his comments to the media and others during and […]

As Microsoft Corp. and the Department of Justice prepare to present oral arguments to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington this week, legal experts are divided over the approach the justices may take to the matter. Herb Hovenkamp, a law professor at the University of Iowa, in Iowa City, and an antitrust expert, said […]