Links: Volcanoes

Linux's Friends
First, we have IBM. There's something terribly ironic that Big Blue, the original Evil Empire, has been instrumental in Linux's explosive growth. But there it is. Of course, keep in mind that IBM is being good to Linux because Linux is good for IBM. Linux has given the company the universal, multi-platform operating system that they've always needed for their customers. HP is another company that needed Linux. HP-UX just wasn't cutting the mustard anymore at the middle, and, like IBM, Linux gives HP a server operating system that runs across multiple platforms. Notice a theme here? Even though most people think of Linux as a PC-centric operating system, its most important hardware vendor supporters are into it because it runs on so many different architectures That said, I think HP could do more by Linux. I'm looking forward to seeing where they'll go with it in the next few years. I'm hoping, expecting, that they'll do well by it. Which is more than I can say for Dell. Dell keeps flirting with Linux, but they never get serious about it. And then there's Sun. First, let me say thank you, Sun. Thank you for OpenOffice, thank you for StarOffice, thank you for your open source contributions in grid computing, and thank you for providing so many of the tools that open source programmers rely on every day.