Business News

Low-Price Linux Laptop At Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart has released a new laptop computer that will retail for US$ 498.00. According to Wal-Mart, the US$ 498 Balance laptop is Internet ready and is equipped for both modem and broadband connections. The Balance system comes with the Linux-based Linspire operating system. Included in the price is OpenOffice.org and over 1900 free software programs. The system comes with a 1.0 Ghz processor and a 14.1 inch screen. The weak point may be the standard 128 MB RAM. You can upgrade to 512 MB, but expect to pay for the additional memory. It is unlikely that power users and IT professionals will suddenly start buying their laptops from Wal-Mart, however, this unusually low price could bring lower prices from other vendors hoping to stay competitive. As profit margins dwindle, there will be more incentive for sellers to spend less on the operating system, which could lead to further pressure for vendors to adopt Linux. http://media.linspire.com/walmart

Open Solaris

Sun Microsystems has submitted the license they intend to use for Solaris 10 to the Open Source Initiative, and OSI's license approval committee has voted to approve the license as Open Source. The committee's recommendation must still be approved by the OSI board. The OSI publishes a definition of what they consider an Open Source license. Some of the requirements, such as free distribution and inclusion of source code, are well known. The definition also includes other lesser-known requirements, such as the need for the license to avoid discrimination against any field of endeavor and to be independent of a specific a product. OSI approval is essential to establishing credibility with the Open Source community. Sun's license, known as the Common Update and Distribution License (CDDL), is a variant of the Mozilla license. Sun has expressed enthusiasm for their new Solaris 10 licensing plan, which will place Sun in a stronger position to compete with Linux. http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php

Linux Music

The Kompany.com announced the launch of Mindawn, a music download service targeted for Linux users. The Mindawn music service provides downloads in Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, and other audio formats. According to company president Shawn Gordon, "Ogg Vorbis, unlike MP3, is a totally free and open sound format and offers superior quality compared to MP3 and other compression techniques. Meanwhile, FLAC is full CD quality, and, while 50% smaller, can easily be converted to AIFF or WAV files for use in standard CD players or converted to any other lossy format for use on any portable media player." Mindawn pays royalties to artists directly through PayPal. The service does not require any form of approval process for artists who wish to submit music. Artists can simply upload their recordings directly. Several smaller labels have already signed up to distribute their music through Mindawn, although some of the large, mainstream labels may be put off by Mindawn's full preview (of the entire song) and its relative lack of digital rights management (DRM) restrictions. http://www.thecompany.com

Window Crash

Microsoft founder Bill Gates's presentation at the International Computer Electronics show was interrupted when a Windows Media Center computer he was using for the presentation froze unexpectedly. Later in the same presentation, another speaker who was touting the benefits of a new computer game, caused a Microsoft computer to descend to an unexpected blue screen of death with the stark warning "out of system memory." The employment status of the backstage IT staff for the conference is not known at this writing. http://www.cesweb.org

Beer as in Beer

Danish IT students at IT-University of Copenhagen have launched what they call "the world's first open source beer." The recipe for the beer known as Vores ØL is published under the Creative Commons License. Anyone who adapts the recipe must publish their changes through the Creative Commons license also. Vores ØL is also probably the only beer that has a version number. According to the vendor, Version 1.0, which is the current release, offers new features such as "a deep golden red color" and "an original but familiar taste." http://www.voresoel.dk