OStatic

As Slashdot, Moblin Zone, and ZDNet UK are reporting, the very first netbook preinstalled with Moblin version 2 for Netbooks is likely to launch next week, very probably at Intel's Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, or at Portland's LinuxCon. ZDNet UK did an interview with Imad Sousou, head of Intel's Open Source Technology Center, in which he implied as much. Sousou has also confirmed that Moblin version 2 will be made widely available after that, with many new features.

While Microsoft's Windows 7, due in October, is going to be aggressively pushed in the netbook space, Moblin will join Ubuntu and Google's upcoming Chrome OS in the effort to keep innovative open source operating systems going in the fast-growing netbook space. Intel has handed stewardship of Moblin over to The Linux Foundation, which could help its chances. Netbooks represent an important frontier for open source adoption and innovation, and I have my own guess at who will be shipping the first Moblin v2 netbook.

?Boxee raises $6 million, announces other deals. The company behind the well-liked open source media center app is on a roll.

Investor reveals secret to $1.6 billion in open source success. VC Peter Fenton has spurred on four big open-source sales--JBoss ($350 million), Zimbra ($350 million), XenSource ($500 million), and SpringSource ($420 million).

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Consider Linux for secure online banking. Because it isn't a big target for hackers, and for other reasons, it's an ideal platform.

A Moblin netbook by this fall? The first netbook pre-installed with the Moblin v2 operating system technology may reach market in October--on Asus' Seashell system.

Doctor Who meets open source. Peter Murray-Rust explains how the open chemistry group known as the Blue Obelisk has evolved what he calls the Doctor Who Model of Open Source.

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Recording music with Linux on an EEE PC. This tutorial will show you how to install and setup a linux recording environment on your EEE PC or other netbook.

Will Google Wave reshape enterprise IT? Within enterprise IT departments, starved for compelling ways to collaborate on application development, it could have a big impact.

How much do desktops matter? Jim Zemlin of the Linux Foundation insists they don?t.

In conjunction with the CompuTex tradeshow, ASUS has announced a new Seashell line of netbooks, with larger screens and a whole lot of battery life. The 1101HA (shown) has an 11.6-inch display with 1366 x 768 resolution. There is a 160GB hard drive, and the company offers 10GB of online Eee storage. The new netbook comes with 1GB of RAM, has a Z-series Intel Atom chip, and ASUS is claiming it gets a whopping 11 hours of battery life. That's hard to believe given the size of the display.

ASUS is making other announcements at CompuTex too. It's not clear, though, how committed the company remains to shipping Linux-based systems.

24 open source apps for Asus netbooks. Good tools for Windows and Linux systems.

Apache better than GPL for open source business? What's the optimal license for commercial open source projects?

Linux fast-boot tech targets Windows users. Xandros' Presto utility can power up Windows notebooks and netbooks in seconds.

ReactOS improves its open source Windows clone. The operating system's server version has a very low memory footprint.

Mandriva Linux 2009 Spring is available. It features excellent hardware compatibility and the KDE 4.2 desktop environment.

David Coursey at PCWorld knew full well he'd opened a can of worms when he asked why anyone would want an Android netbook. Personally, I'd rather have an Ubuntu Netbook Remix powered one, or one with an operating system tailored with the latest Moblin Image Creator utility, but I'm sort of one of those types anyway.

I love and use open source software, nearly exclusively. I think the last time I really sat down to run Windows was when I transferred Windows XP on to my husband's newly built mostly playtime machine. As much as I love open source software, however, I am a stronger advocate for having the right tool for the job, and using the software that works best for the user and the task at hand. The right tool can vary greatly between users, tasks and even hardware. I have a few qualms about Coursey's statement that nobody could possibly ever want an Android netbook, unless the price was signficantly lower. I just don't believe it, and the nature of netbooks, people's expectations of what they can (or can't) do, and hardware disparities between Linux and Windows models further complicates the netbook operating system war.