It was an interesting week for Hewlett-Packard in the Open Source realm. The company announced it was building a $24.5 million Linux supercomputer for the U.S. Department of Energy, then caught some flak for what appeared to be an in-house anti-Linux ad. Also, this week, NewsForge/Linux.com has a Linux gaming theme, and the AbiWord word-processing program celebrates its 1.0 release.
Back to HP. It turns out an ad encouraging Linux users to be rebels and switch to Windows XP was commissioned by an HP reseller, not the company itself. HP officials say they are taking steps to make sure an ad contrary to the company’s multi-OS strategy won’t happen again.
Gaming week: Loki redux and moving on
Our own Tina Gasperson looks at the human toll of the bankruptcy of Loki Software, which was porting Windows games to Linux. It’s an interesting story from the perspective of the former employees vs. founder Scott Draeker. The comments are interesting, too, including one from Draeker himself.
In light of Loki’s failure, our own Norbert Cartagena provides a nice introduction to creating 3D Linux games. Norbert offers a great list of tools you can use to get started making games for Linux.
Also, Peter Gebauer interviews the authors of two popular Linux games, EgoBoo and FreeCraft, and asks for advice on how to create Linux games.
In other news …
No pro Hancom Office: LinuxandMain reported that version 2.0 of Hancom Office Professional has been scrapped, with little explanation of why that version of the office suite for Linux wouldn’t ship.
IBM presses patent: An IBM patent claim on the ebXML set of definitions for electronic transactions and business collaboration is raising concerns from United Nations members who expected the Internet standard to be royalty-free.
Kernel maintainer deported: Marcelo Tosatti, the Linux 2.4 kernel maintainer, was deported by the United States because of a visa mix-up.
Newly released
Newly reviewed
New at NewsForge/Linux.com
Among the other stories we reported first this week:
There were a couple of interesting guest commentaries on marketing Linux and Free Software. First, Jesse Smith suggests a personal, non-techie approach to people who don’t really care about the politics of choosing an operating system. Then, Henrik Nilsen Omma wrote about his idea of a Free Software CD, offering Windows versions of programs like AbiWord and Mozilla to the uninitiated first, then slowly switching them over to an Open Source operating system. Both ideas drew lots of comments.
Stock news
The Nasdaq ended the week at 1,796.83, up more than 40 from the April 12 close of 1,756.19. Among our list of Open Source-related stocks, only three were down, and only Wind River Systems suffered a loss of more than a couple of cents.
TiVO, the Linux-based television recorder, announced TiVo Series2, which the company touted as easier to install. Its stock edged up 4 cents for the week.
IBM reported an earnings drop of 31% for the quarter, but its stock rebounded following a report last week of an SEC investigation that was quickly dropped. IBM gained $3.40 a share for the week.
Here’s how Open Source and related stocks ended this past week:
| Company Name | Symbol | 4/12 Close | 4/19 Close |
| Apple | AAPL | 25.06 | 24.98 |
| Borland Software Int’l | BORL | 12.27 | 12.21 |
| Caldera International | CALD | 1.03 | 1.17 |
| Hewlett-Packard | HWP | 17.80 | 18.69 |
| IBM | IBM | 85.60 | 89.00 |
| MandrakeSoft | 4477.PA | e2.65 | e2.85 |
| Red Hat | RHAT | 5.10 | 5.18 |
| Sun Microsystems | SUNW | 7.97 | 9.15 |
| TiVo | TIVO | 4.91 | 4.95 |
| VA Software | LNUX | 1.25 | 1.44 |
| Wind River Systems | WIND | 12.64 | 12.13 |
