Corel kept its Linux game plan rolling last week, showing a glimpse of a CorelDraw 9.0 version for the open source operating system. The Canadian software maker previewed the pre-beta version of its popular graphics suite at the Seybold Publishing 2000 conference here.

In reading through other articles that were posted on Linux.com recently, along with the public replies to those articles, one can only draw the conclusion that a number of readers see this site as somewhat of a "puppet" of VA Linux. I can absolutely guarantee you that in my own personal experience, nothing could be further from the truth!

Linux and the Internet have changed the rules of the game for Microsoft. While the Windows 2000 operating system may improve on earlier iterations of Windows, its official unveiling this week comes at a time when other competitive forces pose unprecedented challenges for Microsoft.

In order to fully understand the Linux phenomenon, it is helpful to understand a little bit of its history. In this section, we will briefly cover how Linux originated, how it grew from the pet project of one person to a project with contributors from all over the globe, and finally take a look at the current state of development.

SuSE Linux AG, MandrakeSoft and Linbox Inc. are partnering to develop and include in future versions of Linux distributions the key technologies of the Linbox Network Architecture. All SuSE Linux and MandrakeSoft users will soon be able to set up efficient diskless Network Computing solutions based on Linux.

Linux cornered 25% of the server operating system market last year, according to preliminary data from International Data Corp. (IDC). But in terms of revenue share, Linux remains a tiny fraction of the market.

What a difference six months can make. At the last LinuxWorld held August 1999 in San Jose, the Linux faithful gathered to celebrate the diversity of the Linux community, and just six months later, many of them were fabulously wealthy.

It is interesting that critics of Linux tend to exaggerate the potential for Linux to fragment as an argument against the open-source operating system. They usually point to the number of unique Linux distributions as evidence, because there are occasional incompatibilities among them.

What is the use of a digital camera if you cannot import the images for future storage on a computer? Problems arise when digital-camera manufacturers do not release their communication protocols, and developers have a much harder time developing software for non-proprietary operating systems.

Linus Torvalds gave the keynote speech at LinuxWorld Expo last month, right after announcing Transmeta Corp. Am I the only one to see that Torvalds and other open-source software revolutionaries are acting out the finale of George Orwell's Animal Farm?