Focus On: Linux

When we first built our newsblog, existing blogging software was dumb and ugly. So we wrote our own blogware in Python, using Zope as the platform. It was beyond state-of-the-art. But blogging software grew up with lots of exciting features, while simply maintaining our custom-built platform became more and more painful for our guy with more important things to do. In the end, we gained a lot, and lost a little.

After a year of testing, French virus experts have concluded that Microsoft Office is less dangerous than its competitor, OpenOffice. In the short term, this is great news for Microsoft... outside of Europe. More anti-open source FUD will delay some planned migrations. Longer term, OpenOffice will benefit, as France and Germany pour resources into securing the product they now rely upon. The race is, as they say, afoot.

The ink hadn't yet dried on IBM's announcement of Lotus Notes on Linux, before anti-Lotus partisans unleashed their venom. Few gave weight to the thought that desktop Linux has suddenly gained collaboration abilities acceptable to enterprise-level buyers. But like it or not, Lotus Notes just raised Linux to a breathtaking, Microsoft-defying, new level. Question is, how long will it take Redmond to do what needs to be done?

Microsoft's corporate vice president of Windows Live and MSN marketing, Martin Taylor, occupied the chair for just three months before he was unceremoniously "disappeared." This is bad news for Windows Live competitors, who have been thoroughly enjoying pratfalls similar to those made by Taylor in his previous assignment: Microsoft's silly anti-Linux crusade, "Get the Facts."

Proponents of Windows Small Business Server sell it as Microsoft's cheap answer to Linux and other free open source operating systems. The customer gets a Swiss Army knife of Windows software, as long as it's all loaded on a single server. That's where the problem starts. Every loaded program brings its own vulnerabilities which, in the aggregrate, can bring down the whole computer. On the other hand, Linux suffers from fewer critical vulnerabilities, and none of the restrictions. UPDATE: Vladfire rains down on Email Battles!