Richard Hillesley

In-depth Richard Hillesley discusses the pros and cons of the GCC and LLVM compiler collections, and the difference a licence makes.

In-depth Richard Hillesley charts the trials and tribulations of PCLinuxOS.

In-depth Richard Hillesley ponders the future of Mandriva.

In-depth Richard Hillesley looks at whether Haiku will get the opportunity to move from a hobby to a viable open source alternative.

In-depth The latest release of the Xandros Linux desktop edition was in June 2006, which is several lifetimes in the history of Linux. Is this the end of the line for the Xandros desktop?

In-depth Red Hat is a perfect example of how open source firms need to trade on their reputation, not just their product.

In-depth Linus Torvalds has said Linux wouldn't have happened if 386BSD had been around when he started up. We trace the history of FreeBSD and how it's affected the open source world.

In-depth Slackware is the oldest Linux distribution still with us and has a loyal following among those long term Linux users who pine for the old fashioned virtues of simplicity, straightforwardness and lack of bloat.

In-depth Puppy Linux is something different, a tiny version of Linux that can be stored on a USB memory drive, will run in memory, and can be used for working on the move.

In-depth Has open source become a victim of its own success?

In-depth Like the bad actor in a Victorian melodrama, SCO refuses to lie down, and keeps coming back for more.

In-depth Open source software might be cheaper than alternatives, but it has many other business benefits, too.

In-depth It’s no Windows killer and it'll take some belief in the cloud before Chrome OS can change things.

In-depth How can GNOME and KDE developers create the modern Linux desktop?

In-depth During the ongoing flirtation between IBM and Sun Microsystems, little has been said about OpenOffice.org, which has been viewed as one of the less significant parts of Sun's open source portfolio.

In-depth Free software has lead to communities of diverse individuals forming to fight for a common cause.

In-depth Microsoft's IP claim against TomTom could just be the first salvo in an open source patent war.

In-depth It may be open source, but Linux has frequently required corporate support, including from the proprietary software market.

In-depth UK firm 64 Studios is using Componentised Linux and the Platform Development Kit to offer customised Linux to companies.

In-depth Can software piracy help boost sales, or should vendors give up the battle and set their products free?

In-depth The origins of the free software movement can be traced back to to the hackers of MIT's Tech Model Railroad Club, but more recently model railways have played a significant part in validating copyright law.

In-depth Documenting the development of open source software is key to keeping it easy to use, but some disagree on its necessity.

In-depth Open source drivers will become an imperative, rather than a choice, for device manufacturers who want to break into new markets and extend their user base.

In-depth Strip mining of open source can be interpreted as the appropriation of free software code for proprietary gain with no intention of feeding code changes back to the community. Open source software developers beware...

In-depth Is Microsoft's Office Open XML a functional standard, and if not, why is it being rushed through the process?