It's been a good week for 64Bit. Following high Bit releases from Wine and Flash, Sun is now offering a Java Plug-In for 64Bit browsers.

The Open Invention Network (OIN) organization has instituted the Linux Defenders program with the goal to improve the overall quality of patents and shield against patent trolls.

Hewlett-Packard has partnered with Novell in developing a new, secure Linux desktop product. At the same time, HP has joined up with Mozilla to promote a desktop virtualization project for small business customers.

Slackware is widely regarded as the oldest active Linux distributions. Right on time for Christmas, the distro, which once served as a basis for (open) SUSE, is available in a new version.

In its upcoming version 11.1, the openSUSE Linux distro will be integrating the Smolt program, which collects hardware profiles in a central database from end users on a volunteer basis.

A Microsoft study once more tries to prove that a company is clearly better off with Windows as its platform. Our colleagues at the Australian iTWire Magazine have reported back with an analysis to dispute that claim.

The feud between Minix inventor and operating system czar Andrew W. Tanenbaum and Linux Torvalds is legendary in the OS world. Before Linux there was Minix. Torvalds used to be a Minix user who set up his first Linux version in 1991 on Professor Tanenbaum’s operating system. Mr. Tanenbaum has now agreed to write a guest editorial for Linux Magazine. His opinion has not changed over the years: Linux (and Windows) are “unreliable.”