A market study by the International Data Group (IDC) has come to the conclusion that the worldwide financial crisis is a growth opportunity for Linux, both on servers and desktops. Novell was the sponsor for the survey and whitepaper.

From now on, the schools in Germany's Rhineland-Palatinate federal state will be running Skolelinux on their computers, based on a decision made a year ago. The project is now announcing its next phase.

Commercial Wine variant provider CodeWeavers peers into the crystal ball and sees Direct X 10, PhotoShop CS3 and Quicken 2009.

The Gartner market research firm attests that the server market in Europe, the Middle East and Asia (EMEA) has shrunk by 9.2% in the fourth quarter of 2008 compared to the same quarter the previous year.

Linux New Media AG has presented its annual awards for outstanding contributions to Open Source at CeBIT 2009 in Hannover. The OpenStreetMap project ended up garnering two of the six Linux New Media awards.

At CeBIT Open Source 2009 Martin Michlmayr, past Debian project lead, presented his current projects FOSSology and FOSSBazaar, and spoke about the role his employer Hewlett-Packard is giving him in the governance project and how the FOSSBazaar work group is organized within the Linux Foundation.

Microsoft's current patent suit against navigation software maker TomTom has caused quite a stir in the Open Source arena and might turn into a wave of MS attacks on Linux.

In March (3-8, 2009), CeBIT will once again be opening its gates in Hannover, Germany. The world's largest and most renowned trade fair for the world of IT and telecommunications will be featuring Open Source topics in hall 6. The CeBIT Open Source Forum 2009 will be the venue of daily lectures on the use of Linux and free software - and you can watch them online, live and for free!