The Linux Journal Editors\' Choice Awards are open to both open-source and proprietary software, and among this year\'s picks in the software categories you\'ll find representations of both.

In remarks at a Microsoft stockholders\' meeting, Bill Gates recently claimed that Microsoft was responsible for the success of open source.\"Really,\" he said \"the reason you see open source there at all is because we came in and said there should be a platform that\'s identical with millions and millions of machines.\"

Covalent Technologies will release its long-awaited version 2.0 of the Apache Web server software Monday--ahead of software from the larger Apache project itself.

The Polywell Poly ServerStation 890T shows world-class potential as a highly customizable graphics workstation. You can configure it in a zillion different ways, which range from mere overkill to supercomputer. It can run any of a number of operating systems--including Linux, Solaris, SCO Unix, and OS/2--in either single or multiple boot environments.

Linux-bashing remains high on the list of qualifications for a job with The Beast, it seems. An eagle eyed reader spotted this in the brief for a technical marketing position at Microsoft banging the drum for .NET:- "The Developer Evangelist will be responsible for identifying and engaging J2EE and Linux focused developers in existing accounts, ISVs, and SIs as well as existing Visual Studio customers."

An otherwise typical set of release notes for the latest version of GNU libc ended in an angry broadside against Richard Stallman, accusing the Free Software Foundation's President of trying to stage a "hostile takeover" of the project's development. According to Ulrich Drepper, a Red Hat developer and the GNU libc maintainer, Stallman's efforts to control the project failed after a steering committee designed to handle policy and planning issues "acknowledged the status quo" on the project.

Linux advocates have an advantage - logic and reason are on our side. We can dispel the myths, deflect the fud and rattle off the many reasons why our favourite OS is the best choice for most situations. We have all the facts at our fingertips and can use them to reply to any question. Any question that is, until we are asked "if it's so good, why isn't everyone using it?" We all know that Microsoft has used tactics, many unethical, some illegal, to keep the sheep together; but even knowing this the sheep follow each other and stay in the pasture.

With the familiar look and feel of a standard GUI desktop environment, Workstation 7 gives PC and workstation manufacturers the opportunity to provide their business users with easy access to the tools, applications, support, and stability of Linux. It includes e-mail, Mozilla, and PDA hot-sync capabilities. Its graphical user interface installer allows the user to complete installation by entering a single password. It also allows for optional installation of Windows95/98 in free disk space or optional dual-boot installation with Windows95/98.

The RC2 version of Ogg Vorbis has been released on the vorbis.com website. An MP3 competitor, Ogg was created to offer a patent free open source file compression format. Ogg Vorbis can handle more than 2 audio channels while MP3 can't. If you are serving audio streams, you can actually strip away parts of the files to make lower bitrate streams--without re-coding. MP3 can't. The most important of the many changes in the latest version is channel coupling, which means that Vorbis can now encode bitsteams at a much lower bitrate than before.

Companies including Oracle, IBM and HP are successfully utilizing open source software-including GPL software-with no harmful side effects or infection of their intellectual property. Further, as others have pointed out, many open source licenses such as the IBM Public License, the MPL, and BSD-type licenses, enable and facilitate the peaceful co-existence of open source and proprietary software in different ways.