Update: Conversion to RAID is done and is working. Took a little longer than I had hoped because I was trying to figure out how to actually boot from a RAID 1 drive, but I finally decided it wasn't worth the effort. The most important stuff is RAIDed now.

eWeek's open source columnist Stephen Vaughn-Nichols says that Gartner analysts are delivering a new message about Linux in the enterprise at their annual Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando. In past years the show's focus was decidedly anti-open source says Vaughn-Nichols, but this year the enterprise Linux session featured Gartner vice president George Weiss predicting Linux will equal any other operating system still in business by 2010. No longer is open source taboo at Gartner, according to the report in which analyst Mark Driver advises companies that they would "be stupid not to use open source as part of your application management strategy."

Research firms have frequently come under fire from the Linux community for being biased toward proprietary vendors in their recommendations. Some critics have questioned analyst methodology, including the inability to accurately account for the number of deployments of an operating system that is freely available, or at least freely copied within an enterprise. Some pundits have discredited studies citing the funding source alone.

The UNDP-APDIP International Open Source Network (IOSN) has published a guide for new computer users that highlights the Linux desktop. "User Guide to Using the Linux Desktop" introduces computer neophytes to Internet access and applications such as email and browsers, managing files and folders, and how to use the OpenOffice.org suite. After going through the guide, the reader should be in a position to start using a Linux desktop for both personal and office use.

The guide was developed and is released through IOSN, a Center of Excellence for FOSS (free and open source software) in the Asia-Pacific Region, and the Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (APDIP), an initiative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that aims to promote the development and application of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for poverty alleviation and sustainable human development, also in the Asia-Pacific region. Both organizations are working to bridge the digital divide and foster economic growth using FOSS and other open source technologies.

IBM has turned the tables on SCO in a maneuver that could provide the first major legal test of the GNU General Public License (GPL), and which could leave SCO all but unable to continue selling and supporting products based on Linux and Unix.

In a motion for partial summary judgement filed August 16 in a Utah court, IBM asserts that SCO lost its right to distribute GPL code, including 16 packages copyrighted to IBM, when it "renounced, disclaimed, and breached" the GPL. Should the IBM motion succeed, SCO's ability to do business in the computer industry would be drastically curtailed, given the large amount of software not only in Linux but also in Unix that is now licensed under the GPL.

According to the IBM filing, "The GPL and LGPL provide that a person may rely on the GPL or LGPL as a license or grant of permission ... only if the person abides by the terms of the GPL or LGPL."

The IBM filing goes on to assert that SCO failed to abide by the terms of the GPL when it "repudiated and disclaimed" the GPL, claiming the GPL (IBM quoting SCO, here) "is unenforceable, void and/or voidable" and "violates the U.S. Constitution, together with copyright, antitrust and export control laws."

IBM further asserts that SCO breached the GPL "at least as early as May 2003 and thus... automatically lost any rights it might have had under the GPL and LGPL to copy and distribute the IBM Copyrighted Works."

Specifically, IBM asserts that SCO violated the GPL when it attempted to collect royalties or licensing fees for the use of Linux (see this article for a brief history of SCO's efforts to extract royalties from Linux users, including embedded Linux users). According to IBM, in a memorandum in support of its motion, the GPL expressly forbids a person distributing GPL code from adding "further restrictions" such as royalties or licensing fees, except for the "physical act of transferring a copy" -- reproduction fees, in other words.

Despite its attacks on and violations of the GPL, SCO continued to distribute products such as its SCO Linux 4.0 that included IBM copyrighted software (among many other GPL- and LGPL-licensed packages), offering the products for public download from its Internet site as recently as August 4 of this year, according to IBM.

The IBM memo sums up the case neatly in this sentence: "By its breaches of the GPL and LGPL, SCO has forfeited any protection against claims of copyright infringement that it may have enjoyed by virtue fo the GPL or LGPL."

Thus, through its "motion for summary judgment," IBM is attempting to extract a ruling from a court of law "summarily," that is, without further debate, that SCO should no longer be allowed to distribute GPL code.

Open source software licensing expert Bruce Perens summed up the motion this way, "IBM's going for the jugular."

Perens said that if the motion succeeds, SCO won't have to withdraw previous software that they've distributed. "But it's possible they may have to remedy copyright," he added, suggesting SCO could be forced to pay damages to IBM and other copyright holders of GPL software that it distributed.

Asked if he thought the IBM motion would carry, Perens was neutral, suggesting the motion could be denied if the judge felt the matter might be more appropriate to a separate case.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Public Safety, and the Department of Homeland Security are using open-source software in their operations. In fact, they all are using technology from tiny YHD Software.

Ft. Worth, TX-based YHD Software was tapped by the Dallas FBI to provide a better, faster tool to connect resources. YHD CEO Jo Balderas says her company currently uses an enterprise open-source software stack known as "LAMP" (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP) and redeployed an existing technology to FBI specifications. For three years this software has powered the emergency response network (ERN). As a result of her efforts, Balderas was recently honored by Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge.

In June, DHS and the FBI launched the first Homeland Security Information Network-Critical Infrastructure Program in Dallas using ERN. Launching a pilot program that includes satellite sites in Seattle, Indianapolis, and Atlanta, DHS is currently evaluating the software for a broad rollout.

Dallas' ERN uses the LAMP open source software stack and connects a database of strategic contacts globally across the public and private sector. The software was used as a critical communications tool in the wake of both 9/11 and the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. In fact, ERN was able to connect FEMA to the cell phone of the Johnson Space Center's Director of Security within minutes, at a time when the published number at JSC was unreachable.

ERN is described by Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge as "a cross-agency, cross-sector, cross-discipline, public and private information-sharing and alert notification system. And it is locally governed and administered by knowledgeable, respected domain experts and decision makers from the private and public sectors . . . HSIN-CI will provide unobstructed information sharing to the right people -- those who need to know and those who need to act."

In his government column at Linux Journal, Tom Adelstein fills in some more details, noting that ERN provides the immediate dispatch of the country's assets to disaster areas. According to Adelstein's interview, the system can simultaneously support 10,000 voice calls per minute, 30,000 inbound calls, 3,000 faxes, and 5,000 each of email and text messages. The open source software runs on Red Hat's Enterprise Linux in Dallas.