Articles by Bill Weinberg

Enterprise Open Source Feature Story — "FOSS 101"

Fri, 21 Apr 2006 16:00:00 EDT

Linux and other Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) enjoy a reputation for ubiquitous use in educational settings. While FOSS openness and low acquisition costs resonate with the approach and needs of academia, it's proving difficult to establish a clear adoption trend. Certainly there exists ample anecdotal evidence of adoption, school-by-school, department-by-department. Certainly a range of Open Source projects arise from and also target education. However, close investigation reveals a mixed reality for Linux and FOSS in education: perusing college course listings, at least in the United States, doesn't support the notion of near-universal Linux/FOSS use across curricula - either in computer science or as a platform across other disciplines. It's even more difficult to measure Linux and FOSS adoption in K-12 settings where course catalogs don't exist and where classroom IT closely tracks home computing use.

OSDL Mobile Linux Initiative

Tue, 21 Feb 2006 13:15:00 EST

The global mobile phone market is enjoying explosive growth. With annual unit sales in the hundreds of millions, Gartner analysts estimate that by 2009 the worldwide installed based will top 2.6 billion mobile handsets. For the Linux and Open Source segment of the IT industry, such numbers are tantalizing, orders of magnitude beyond shipments and even the installed base for servers, and far greater in volume than the worldwide desktop market. For the Linux software and related hardware markets, mobile phones are an opportunity to 'break out' and enjoy greater market share in client devices, complementing the already important presence of Linux in the voice and data communications infrastructure.

Escola de Linux and Linux na escola

Thu, 15 Sep 2005 11:00:00 EDT

Brazil. Samba, Soccer, Carnaval, Caipirinhas and Churrasco. And, of course, Open Source. The Latin American nation of 180 million is among the world's leaders in both government-backed and grass-roots adoption of Free and Open Software (FOSS), with growing deployment in the public sector, in the banking and retail industries, and by educational institutions, both for infrastructure and curriculum use. Moreover, Brazil is home to dozens of FOSS projects and to some illustrious proponents of Linux, including kernel maintainer Marcelo Tosatti and pop star minister of culture, Gilberto Gil.

Linux.SYS-CON.com Exclusive: A Whirlwind Tour Of Open-Source Operating Systems

Sun, 17 Jul 2005 15:00:00 EDT

The enormous success of GNU/Linux as an operating system and as an open source project has captured the imagination of developers, IT staffers, business people, journalists, educators, and even politicians. Linux is so visible, its brand and allure so strong, that most people forget or never notice the existence of an array of other open source OSes.

Open Source Mobile Phones

Tue, 14 Jun 2005 11:00:00 EDT

In the past 18 months, mobile phone manufacturers in Asia and elsewhere have introduced over a dozen handset models based on Linux, and before the end of 2005, you can expect to see a dozen more smart and feature phones announced and shipping. While it's easy to gush over this emerging trend, and to wax eloquent over the technical particulars of these intelligent mobile devices, it may be more interesting to examine the drivers behind this wave of adoption.

Cover Story: OSDL - Linux's "Center of Gravity"

Thu, 10 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST

The year 2004 began auspiciously with the introduction of the 2.6 Linux kernel and advanced rapidly for the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), its membership and the communities it represents and serves. Let us reflect on OSDL's achievements over the last year. This article will introduce readers unfamiliar with OSDL to its activities, update long-time OSDL watchers and offer a glimpse into new activities envisioned for the next 12 months.

Control Your IT Roadmap

Tue, 27 Jul 2004 00:00:00 EDT

In today's proprietary-dominated software marketplace, companies large and small must live with the fact that their own priorities can and do diverge from those of their key suppliers. IT departments and other software and hardware consumers constantly face capability gaps from product end-of-life, features and functionality missing from product releases, and limited hosting options.