On January 27, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison will share his vision for the Oracle-Sun Microsystems business combination. But before the Oracle webcast kicks off, industry rivals and partners are offering a key piece of advice to Ellison: Don’t mess up Sun’s Java programming language. Here’s the scoop — including perspectives from Red Hat’s middleware team.

Opinion on the risks of losing track of the goals which distinguish GNU/Linux from other platforms

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is pretty darn confident the European Union will soon approve Oracle’s takeover of Sun Microsystems and MySQL. Still skeptical? Ellison is planning a big announcement on January 27. Here are the details.

IDC figures show that Linux has actually lost market share to Windows Server over the last three years.

So it is time to start screaming in panic, start selling Novell and Red Hat stock for anything we can get, and enroll in MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer) night classes? Eh, I don't think so.

Losing one's job for uttering the truth about security problems in Windows.

Google and Microsoft eat Novell's lunch and nobody is offering to buy Novell despite its implicit invitation

"According to a recent comprehensive Web browser report, Microsoft's Internet Explorer is losing market share to Mozilla Firefox. The overall report shows that IE has dropped below 70 percent. [...] Each month since October, IE has dropped a point while Firefox gained a point..."

In many ways, Microsoft has little to worry about, at least not for now. Sure, they are losing market share steadily, but for their lead to be toppled it would take years and years, or would it?

Regardless of what you think Microsoft is doing wrong, no one seems to think that Microsoft is doing a great job. They may still have the top position (by a lot) in desktop market share, but they are losing it fast. The point is, Microsoft seems to be shooting themselves in the foot.