Peter Galli

SAN FRANCISCO — Enterprise IT users are looking for the major Linux vendors to update their enterprise products less frequently and to give them much more guidance about what is included in the patches and upgrades. That was the message from users at the Open Source Business Conference here May 22, who spoke about the […]

Microsoft does not believe there is an inherent contradiction between its recent statements that free and open-source software infringes on 235 of its patents, and the veiled legal threats that go along with that, and its attempts to reach out and build bridges with the open-source community. “In fact, one makes the other possible, especially […]

Microsoft plans to reach out and work more closely with IBM and Cisco Systems on the interoperability front, as this is what its customers have told the software maker they want. Specifically, these moves follow feedback from members of Microsofts Interoperability Executive Customer Council, which was established in June 2006 to solicit input from enterprise-level […]

Novell filed its delayed annual report with the SEC on May 25, including as attachments the technical co-operation and patent agreements it entered into with Microsoft in November 2006. The 10-K filing for the fiscal year, to Oct. 31, 2006, was delayed as a result of a stock option investigation, which was recently concluded, allowing […]

SAN FRANCISCO—Novell plans to share more details of its controversial patent and interoperability agreements with Microsoft when it files its 10-K annual report, which has been delayed due to a stock option investigation, with the SEC. “We will be making our SEC filing by the end of [May], and we will publish the Microsoft agreements […]

SAN FRANCISCO—Open-source software and the community around it does not need to be legitimized anymore as it is now legitimate, Red Hat CEO Matt Szulik said in the opening address at the Open Source Business Conference here on May 22. In his address titled “The Evolution of Open Source in the Enterprise,” Szulik said that […]

A new Microsoft-funded study has found that open-source developers do not believe that licenses such as the upcoming GNU General Public License 3.0 should enforce software patents or prevent deals like the Microsoft-Novell patent agreement. The study by Harvard Business School professor Alan MacCormack, in collaboration with Keystone Strategy, is titled “A Developers Bill of […]

SAN FRANCISCO—H&R Blocks use of open-source technologies is not about saving money, but rather about creating revenue, acquiring and retaining customers, and providing technologies they really care about, said Mark West, the companys CIO, at the annual Open Source Business Conference here on May 22. “Newest is not always best, but neither is the most […]

Microsoft will announce May 21 plans to create a project to develop an open-source translator project between Chinas Unified Office Format and the Ecma Open XML File Formats, which are closely tied to Microsoft Office. The Redmond, Wash., software company will also release the beta for its translation tools for PowerPoint and Excel that support […]

Microsoft has reshuffled its organizational chart again, this time adding the Developer and Platform Evangelism team to its Server and Tools division, and then moving that merged entity into the Business division. The server and tools business, which falls under the leadership of Senior Vice President Bob Muglia, was moved “intact” from the Platform and […]