Weekend Review: June 17, 2000

IBM increases its Linux support. IBM extends its support of Linux with its products, including RS/6000 servers, ThinkPad laptops, and the WebSphere Web server. This move continues IBM's moves to provide Linux to its customers, which it started with Linux support for Netfinity servers and the DB2 database.

SCO plans to create its own distribution. SCO announces its intentions to produce a new Linux distribution. Features of the new SCO Linux distribution include SCO's NonStop Clusters technology and SMP enhancements.

Tuesday

LinSight folds. LinSight, a Linux community information resource created by Linux Today co-founder Dave Whitinger and sponsored by Atipa Linux Solutions, shut down today. LinSight sub-sites LinEvents and LinTraining will continue to be run as separate sites, however.

Wednesday

IBM develops Logical Volume Management for Linux. IBM has decided to develop their Logical Volume Management (LVM) architecture into Linux. Although several LVM implementations already exist for Linux, IBM's has some unique features and is poised to help Linux come closer to the enterprise.

KDE 2.0 Beta 2 is available. The developers of the K Desktop Environment are inching closer to the 2.0 release of the project. Today they release the second beta candidate of KDE, which contains numerous new features and enhancements.

Thursday

Akopia buys MiniVend. MiniVend, one of the leading open source e-commerce packages, is purchased by e-commerce developer Akopia. Akopia hopes to use the best of both MiniVend's features and Akopia's features to create one of the most advanced e-commerce software packages available.

Friday

Red Hat posts strong financial results. Linux distributor Red Hat Inc. found itself with a pleasant financial surprise -- the revenues more the expected and the losses less than expected. Red Hat is aiming for profitability in calendar year 2001.

Jeff Alami, jeff@linux.com