Slated for release as a stable product in late summer or early fall, KDE 2 has been completely rewritten from the ground up, and sports hundreds of improvements and many new applications.

Linux's popularity as an alternative to Windows has come about because it successfully ran popular software like Netscape and Apache and not strictly because of the Linux kernel.

Analysts are beginning to take a closer look at the business models of Linux players with an eye to longer-term profitability. Some predict a long haul before the newly public Linux companies show a profit.

Moving to Linux doesn't mean writing your letters in a programmer's text editor. These days, the main Windows features you'd give up would be frequent system crashes, virus threats and expensive software upgrades.

Linux is not an alternative in that sense of the word. In many areas, it is the accepted standard, the highest common denominator, the platform that is the necessity, and not alternative by any means.

Warming up to the idea that an open palm is better than a clenched one, major computing companies are exploring the idea of porting open-source operating systems to their handheld computing platforms.

Helius,a Utah-based broadband satellite applications developer, intends to base its new gateway service on Caldera's OpenLinux, less than a month after announcing a line of satellite routers designed with Lineo's help.

Deckchair.com has scrapped its original flight search engine tool, powered by Microsoft's Windows NT and SQL Server, in favour of a Linux version of IBM's DB2 Universal Database.

There's a reason the Mac is so successful among creative types, and it's not just the translucent plastic.

The greatest advantages to consumers flow from Open Standards and cheap, interchangeable, commodity components. Java and Open Source are complementary technologies that work towards this goal.