Weekly news wrap-up: Mandrake on Walmart.com PCs, the next Open Source business boom

We first reported in mid-June that Walmart.com was planning to offer Mandrake’s brand of Linux on PCs, in additional to offering Lindows OS and PCs without operating systems. Tina Gasperson was first to notice that the preloaded Mandrake PC went on sale this week.
The Walmart.com move received overwhelmingly positive reactions in our comments section, now we’ll have to see if the praise translates into profits for Walmart.com. Walmart.com may be on the front end of a trend — as we’ve noted, Outpost.com is also offering Linux preloaded on PCs, the east Asian Linux brand ThizLinux.

Battle over digital rights

In Washington this week, Free Software and fair use advocates raised a bit of a ruckus at a digital rights management workshop featuring a panel full of Big Hollywood and Big IT executives. That story and a follow-up commentary generated a lot of debate about digital rights “management,” and whether it’s needed or not. The Hollywood insiders at the U.S. Department of Commerce workshop were calling for the government to step in and mandate some kind of digital rights control, err, management.

Business is good?

Jack Bryar suggests that some Open Source-related businesses are riding out the current stock market troubles better than some other tech companies. The business columnist sees some opportunities for the “next boom.”

Tying the digital rights debate and business plans together in one neat package, Robin “Roblimo” Miller checks on how WashingtonPost.com is using Open Source tools to build a music download service featuring local musicians.

Also this week, Forbes.com published a special report this week, asking if Linux is a good bet for investors, and quoting analysts who are optimistic about Linux-related stocks.

On the down side, there were rumors of layoffs at UnitedLinux partner Turbolinux, but the company later denied those rumors.

Odds ‘n’ ends