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Sometimes there’s nothing like a good lawsuit to force people to acknowledge just how much something is worth. Take FOSS, for example. Sure, there are estimates made of its value from time to time — the latest, in fact, just recently put the kernel alone at $1.4 billion — but for many people out there, “free” in price tends to be viewed as free of value. So thank goodness for Matthew Katzer! It’s all because of him that the Model Train case went to court — and that there’s now an official outcome confirming that free software has real monetary value.

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A Big, Linuxy ‘Thank You’ to Matthew Katzer

There was a lot of news in the FOSS world last week, and it seems fair to say that the overall atmosphere was positive. First, following the widespread outcry that followed IBM and Canonical’s release of a Microsoft-free desktop package in Africa last month, the two companies announced last week that a similar offering is now available for companies in the U.S. as well. Then, from the ding-dong-the-witch-is-dead department, came word that SCO has fired its wildly litigious CEO Darl McBride.

Going Microsoft-Free, Saying Buh-Bye to McBride

It’s not every day a journalist gets to cover history-making news, but it’s truly amazing how often such opportunities seem to present themselves at the beginning of April. Take last week, for example. First, we nearly fell off our chairs when we learned that IBM had purchased Linus Torvalds — so soon after we had interviewed him, too! Alas, poor Linus — we hardly knew ye! We had just barely recovered our composure from that one when the news hit that TomTom had acquired Microsoft.

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Linuxy Pranks, Microsoft Duds, and Red Hat Suitors

Television viewers who use antennas and were expecting a few more months to prepare for digital TV may not have much time left before their sets go dark: Many stations still plan to drop analog broadcasts in less than two weeks. When Congress postponed the mandatory transition to digital TV until June, it also gave stations the option to stick to the originally scheduled date of Feb. 17. That means the shutdown of analog signals, which broadcasters had hoped would happen at nearly the same time nationwide, could now unfold in a confusing patchwork of different schedules.

Source:
Some TV Stations Will Ditch Analog Early

In a society far away and long ago, people mostly farmed and ran storefront businesses where they lived. Then came the migration to the cities, where a new generation of workers stuffed into bulging urban-based factory jobs. Many spent their entire adult lives working for The Man in an upstairs office. Then more social changes and transportation advancements happened. Those improvements let workers move to a suburban home and travel to city jobs in buses and trains and autos.

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How the Virtual Workforce Is Changing Everything