The Open Source Census is collaborative project that attempts to collect and share quantitative data relating to the use of open source software in the enterprise.

The Open Source Census has a tool called OSS Discovery that scans individual machines and generate anonymous reports regarding what open source software that machine has installed. It is completely voluntary and any individual or company can participate in The Open Source Census.

If you're looking to transition from Windows to Linux but your users are not technically inclined you may want to evaluate Linux XP Desktop 2008. Linux XP tries to emulate the look and feel of Microsoft Windows. The goal being to make the transition to Linux easier for those used to Microsoft like operating systems.

Harvard Business School and other major Universities are beginning to add open source into the curriculum. This is a sign that open source is starting to get the attention of many in the business world and curriculum's are adjusting to address this shift. In the April 2008 edition of Harvard Business Review we see a fictional case study involving the decision process required to decide whether or not a company should embrace open source business model or keep their software closed.

Forget OpenSolaris, and hello to Ubuntu. In a bold move Sun seems to be adopting Ubuntu Linux and leaving behind OpenSolaris as well as some of the other major linux distros like RedHat and Suse.

In an interview with Reuters on April 2, Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth reinforced the "growing relations" between Sun and Ubuntu. This release comes just before the scheduled release of "Hardy Heron" Cononical's latest Ubuntu version due in late April.

Help solve the worlds problems by donating your unused CPU cycles to solve complex computational challenges. Known as grid or distributed computing it allows you to share your CPU to perform units of work when your PC is sitting idle. Most machines actually sit idle for a majority of the time. The idea is to take advantage of that idle time and scavenge cpu cycles.

A new survey from Forrester Research asked 50,000 large enterprise employees which browser they use on a daily basis. They found that over the course of 2007, Internet Explorer's overall market share in the enterprise decreased by 10%. During that same period they saw Firefox's share almost doubled from 9.8% to 18%.

The survey also showed that most companies are using the 6-year-old Internet Explorer 6. Only 23.4% of companies officially used IE7 as their standard browser.

Hugh MacLeod posted a question on his site: If open source is such a phenomenon, where are all the open source billionaires? That is the premise of a recent Wired IT article.

Some would say that not all rewards are financial ones. Open source is motivated by community, social interactions, and peer recognition.

The CEO of Red Hat at the recent Open Source Business Conference claimed that open source technologies are benefiting from the unpopularity of the US. He suggests that people are resentful of sending billions of dollars back to the U.S. in "intellectual property" taxes. He claims that he's talked to governments like China and Russia and they are very keen on deploying technologies that are not tied to any IP laws of the US.

The CEO of Red Hat at the recent Open Source Business Conference claimed that open source technologies are benefiting from the unpopularity of the US. He suggests that people are resentful of sending billions of dollars back to the U.S. in "intellectual property" taxes. He claims that he's talked to governments like China and Russia and they are very keen on deploying technologies that are not tied to any IP laws of the US.

Computing infrastructures are growing rapidly. Hardware has become less expensive and their form factors smaller and smaller. With the advent of grid technologies, virtualization,and other distributed computing methods we need to find better ways to manage the the sheer number of resources being created.

If you ever want to carry a functional linux distribution around on your keychain you may want to look at "Damn Small Linux" (DSL).

DSL was originally developed as an experiment to see how many usable desktop applications could fit inside a 50MB. It has since evolved to be a complete desktop system.

Some advantages of DSL include:
1) The ability to boot of USB or CD
2) Ability to boot DSL from within Windows or other OS's.
3) DSL can also transform into a full Debian install using a traditional hard drive.

CNET has rated the most current beta versions of IE8, Opera, and Safari and has rated Firefox the best.

Some of the characteristics giving it its top rating include performance in memory handling (also reported in this village post), the amount and quality of plugins, their new bookmarking system, and the ease of use.

Cfengine is an open source tool that allows system administrators to maintain 1 to thousands of unix based systems. It automates almost every aspect of system administration. Cfengine is a direct competitor to commercial software from Blade Logic and OPsware. Both of these commercial packages come with fancy GUIs and nice features, but they also come with hefty licensing fees (can get close to $1K per server managed + maintenance fees).

Need a good list of open source tools that you can run on your mac?
I came across this site that outlines a pretty comprehensive list of some of the most popular tools used on the Mac. See open source tools for MacOS .

The list is well organized and easy to follow.
Happy downloading :)

Skooliki
--
http://www.outervillage.com

EyeOS is trying to redefine the operating system. It is an open source initiative that aims to create an operating system that is accessible over over the web from anywhere around the world. OuterVillage in its top five strategic technologies for 2008 suggested the need for "enhanced web platforms that deliver applications over the web reducing the need for stand-alone OS's". That is what EyeOS seems to want to deliver on.