http://www.linux-watch.com/?kc=rss Keeping an Eye on the Penguin en-us Just as Microsoft has being accused of playing dirty over sales tactics and patents, the software company has launched its first open source organization. The CodePlex Foundation aims to act as a liason between commercial enterprises and open source developers and communities while increasing open source participation, says the foundation. http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS3632061827.html?kc=rss An IDC study predicts that open source software will grow at a 22.4 percent rate to reach $8.1 billion by 2013, says eWEEK. Meanwhile, in an SEC filing, Microsoft has added Linux vendors Canonical and Red Hat to its list of as rivals, and acknowledges the growing threat of Android. http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS3927699066.html?kc=rss A lobbying group has been launched by more than 70 companies, academic institutions, and communities, to promote open source software as a "transparent and cost-effective option" for U.S. government agencies. "Open Source for America" counts AMD, Canonical, Google, Novell, Oracle, and Red Hat among its members. http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS2523288137.html?kc=rss A software company based in Redmond, Wash. has released 20,000 lines of code under GPLv2 for three Linux device drivers. Microsoft says its first open source Linux code contribution is designed to speed the performance of the operating system when it's run in a Hyper-V virtual machine. http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS6567014545.html?kc=rss Google followed up on Thursday's announcement of a Linux-based Chrome OS for netbooks by listing nine technology partners that are supporting the open-source platform. Meanwhile, one report claims that Intel, which is not on the list, is collaborating with Google on Chrome OS. http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS9174113805.html?kc=rss Google announced an open source operating system aimed at netbooks that combines the Linux kernel with its Chrome browser. Google expects to release open source code for the Google Chrome Operating System later this year, and will ship a final version in the second half of 2010, says the company. http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS9726082828.html?kc=rss As the Debian project releases a second update of its Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 ("Lenny") distribution, a controversy has broken out over the next version, "Squeeze." GNU guru Richard Stallman has warned that by including a Mono-based note-taking application called Tomboy, Debian runs the risk of Microsoft litigation over C# patents. http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS7392358109.html?kc=rss IDG World Expo has announced speakers for its inaugural OpenSource World 2009 show (formerly LinuxWorld) on Aug. 12-13 in San Francisco. California Secretary of State Debra Bowen will keynote the conference, which will feature presentations on Linux desktops, netbooks, Android, mobile devices, enterprise, security, troubleshooting, and numerous "cloud" topics. http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS9333020449.html?kc=rss Linus Torvalds (pictured) announced Linux kernel 2.6.30, adding several new filesystems, including the NILFS2 log-structured filesystem. Linux 2.6.30 enhancements include a local caching layer for NFS data, the RDS server cluster communications protocol, the Tomoyo security module, and support for LZMA and BZIP2 compression algorithms. http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS2720352534.html?kc=rss Intel announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Wind River Systems, one of the top providers of embedded Linux distributions and tools. Intel plans to acquire Wind River for $11.50 per share in cash, or about $884 million, making it a wholly owned subsidiary. http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS6104454041.html?kc=rss