Computer Associates joined IBM in its effort to expand the use of Linux on host

systems and announced that it has ported a suite of Internet-based business management software to Linux on the S/390.

Independent Unix is effectively becoming Linux, and over time, Linux will acquire the high-end features of Unix.

It's probably, in a certain sense, our primary competitor. But if you look at

the value in an operating system, Linux just competes with one piece [of Microsoft's Windows business]. There's no new features in Linux. Linux is just 1960s-era Unix deployed in a very interesting development model.

The crown jewels of the acquisition are a mature server Unix, and clustering technologies. The Linux environment in which Caldera operates expects these to be returned as open source, and frowns on the laggardly time-release ploy used by TurboLinux.

Those in the Linux camp for any length of time know that in most cases, Linux outperforms SCO UNIX. Allowing the customer to choose without having to change vendors or support organizations should help Linux penetrate new markets quickly.

Linux is getting an added push from Hewlett Packard and Intel by way of the IA-64 Developer's Kit for Linux which enables Linux developers to develop, test, debug and run IA-64 applications for the upcoming Itanium processor.

Linux 2.4 isn't soup yet. So Linux distributors are finding themselves faced with the choice of building products around the older kernel or the beta, bleeding-edge version.

A team of IBM summer interns has created a free, new tool that eases the task of writing Linux-based software. The tool, called Sash Weblications, allows Web developers who don't have extensive programming experience to write software that runs on Linux.

Struggling Linuxcare has received $30 million from Lehman Brothers and several other investors, enough to carry the company to planned profitability in the fourth quarter of 2001, the company said.

Caldera, bought the Server (Unix) and Professional Services division of SCO, the long-standing leader of Intel Unix. With this single move, Linux and Unix are unified for the first time under one company. The enterprise operating-system world will never be the same.