The basic program is called VistA; the name was chosen well before a Certain Other Company copied the move, and the code began life as an electronic health records system for U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

"Today, I think of Vista as the zombie operating system. It stumbles around, and from a distance you might think it's alive, but close up it's the walking dead..."

Not only did Windows Vista - billed by Microsoft as its biggest operating system for 10 years - fail to distinguish Microsoft's latest fiscal year from previous, non-Windows-Vista years, but Microsoft also missed its own expectations by several million dollars.

The Veterans Affairs Department sees advantages in using open-source software to modernize its Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) system, but it anticipates several problems if it takes that step. The VA issued a request for information Aug. 11 asking for industry to deal with anticipated concerns related to open-source development for VistA.

Is Windows Vista the biggest PR failure in Microsoft's history?

Once I got a good look at Vista, I knew desktop Linux was in for good times. Vista was, and still is, a disaster of an operating system. I was right too. When netbooks started coming out, it was Linux, not Vista, that ruled.

THERE ARE SIGNS of desperation at Redmond as Microsoft tries desperately to get punters to buy its latest operating system Vista.

Google open source guru Chris DiBona says that the web giant continues to ban the lightning-rod AGPL open source license within the company because doing so "saves engineering time" and because most AGPL projects are of no use to the company.

The Symbian Foundation expects its web sites to be shut down on the 17th of December. The source code for the Symbian operating system will continue to be available on the open source organisation's site until then. Thereafter, it will only be available on request