The Chrome OS announcement caused speculation from many sides as to what effect the Google platform would have on other Linux distros. At least Canonical could benefit from it.

The source code for Chrome OS, alias Chromium, the Linux-based operating system developed by Google, is now ready for download.

Google is just not getting enough. After its own browser and a Linux-based operating system, it's now coming up with its own programming language. Behind its development lurk some of the legends in UNIX history.

A further patent by Microsoft brings the software patent discussion to a renewed boil: the software giant has claims on "sudo."

What a few years ago might have been considered a joke has now become reality: thanks to the Mono Tools for Visual Studio, developers can create RPM packages directly from the MS environment.

OpenSUSE updates will, in future, be decided by a joint panel of Novell staff and community members. Only security updates will be decided by Novell alone.