A study from Zona research emerged earlier this week and it has, in some eyes, produced some rather worrying figures. The company set about with the aim of determining the state of Linux deployments, the factors that lead to such deployments and the user perception of the operating system. What it found though will do little to further the cause of the open source movement.

In a move that underlines the increasingly competitive nature of the open-source world, Caldera Systems has hired a key Linux programmer formerly employed by rival company Turbolinux.

There's no shortage of evidence to support this, particularly as large vendors such as IBM continue to embrace and actively promote the platform. Federal agencies are also turning to Linux. They recently called on Linux vendors to work aggressively toward its certification and approval, thereby giving agencies a much-wanted alternative to proprietary software, notably Windows systems from Microsoft.

Intel's e-Business Forum, held in Sydney, was promoted as a showcase of e-business success stories for the Intel platform. The event was not without Linux input, with Mark White, vice president and general manager of Red Hat Asia Pacific, giving a talk on how Red Hat Linux and open source software in general is being used to create successful e-business ventures.

Which commercial company is doing the most for Linux?

I have such a hard time judging that. Most of them tend to be in fairly

different markets. I think that there is a lot of power in just numbers.

That's what made Windows such an attractive platform. It wasn't Microsoft.

It was the fact that there were hundreds - thousands of companies

supporting it. I think that it would be wrong to single out any Linux

company.

Today most of the IT companies are embracing Linux. Are they giving

back enough to the community?

Trolltech's announcement followed within two days of a similar announcement by Century Software, the commercial distributor of the open source Microwindows windowing/GUI environment for Linux, were just the latest two among an accelerating

sequence of Linux PDA developments.

What is fascinating about the international side of Linux is that I've met a lot of people outside of the U.S. who are just doing their own thing and not just translating U.S.-based programs for their own locale. All these people can make their own decisions, and that's more important than IBM selling 15,000 terminals

in Japan.

By focusing on the new platform where the customer's requirements are, Fujitsu will strive to expand its server business. Different customers have different requirements, and by providing a range of different products and operating environments, we can meet these diverse requirements.

Inprise/Borland is joining the GNOME Foundation Advisory Board, which consists of IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Red Hat, and fosters development of the GNOME desktop environment and application framework. Inprise/Borland will support the GNOME

desktop interface within its open-source RAD tools, code-named Kylix.

The Linux operating system is a more practical solution than proprietary operating systems, especially in developing countries, its supporters claimed in a panel discussion about the open source platform here at Comdex.