Week in review: March of the penguins

The LinuxWorld conference is proving to be more than just a meeting of Linux fans and sellers. It's now a venue for all sorts of open-source advocates.

In fact, allies gathered there this week to prevent software patents from putting a crimp in open source. Red Hat will finance outside programmers' efforts to obtain patents that may be used freely by open-source developers, the company announced at the San Franscisco show. At the same time, the Open Source Developer Lab launched a project that will provide a central list of patents that have been donated to the collaborative programming community.

The threat of patent-infringement lawsuits has long dogged collaborative development, leading some open-source programming advocates to turn against the patent system altogether.

The new initiatives signal a willingness on the part of the open-source community to combat the threat of such lawsuits more directly--and within the existing patent system.

		Special coverage LinuxWorld SF Open-source hopefuls join Linux stalwarts to talk shop and hawk wares at the confab.

As the acceptance of Linux continues to grow, open-source databases are becoming an increasingly viable option for corporate data centers. Databases have been available with open-source licenses for many years, but the past few months have seen a growing number of partnerships and products aimed at maturing the industry of add-ons and support services--which is vital to winning over corporate customers.

At the LinuxWorld conference, MySQL signed partners Novell and Dell to resell the upstart company's database and support service, making the product easier to procure. MySQL is also readying a release of its namesake database with features including stored procedures and distributed transactions, which large corporations often use.

The growing number of technology companies betting their businesses on open-source database products reflects a gradual shift in corporate spending patterns, according to analysts and industry executives. With many companies familiar with Linux, the Apache Web server and open-source development tools, databases are an obvious next step.

Indeed, within the next five years, half of Oracle's customers may be running Linux, Charles Phillips, one of the company's co-presidents, has predicted.

Oracle's customers have increasingly adopted Linux as they've become more comfortable with it and recognized its lower costs and greater predictability, said Phillips, who spoke at LinuxWorld. Twenty percent of Oracle's customers use Linux, but Phillips expects that figure to climb.

Not just fun and games
Microsoft is looking to squeeze a profit out of the game market with a new royalty program tied to its next Xbox console. Only accessory makers that get Microsoft's blessing and then fork over a slice of their sales to the software maker will be able to produce Xbox 360 game pads, steering wheels, joysticks and other controllers.

In addition, in order to ensure that only authorized products connect to the new console, Microsoft is adding a security mechanism that will be available exclusively to those who sign a deal with the company, according to documents that a peripherals company filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Xbox 360 console, announced in May, is slated to go on sale in time for the holiday shopping season.

"It's almost a wonder that MS did not install a quarter slide on the Xbox like on arcade games."
--Earl Benser

With the last Xbox release, Microsoft had a licensing program in which makers of such gadgets could either pay a royalty and display an Xbox logo, or offer the products without paying the fee or using the logo.

The new approach isn't sitting well with some CNET News.com readers. "MS is sure trying to set up a massive golden goose with the Xbox, especially now that MS is fixing it so only accessories from which MS gets a cut will work on the Xbox," wrote Earl Benser in TalkBack. "It's almost a wonder that MS did not install a quarter slide on the Xbox like on arcade games."

The issue of control was echoed in other readers' comments. "They have always felt that hardware was not important, only their OS matters," wrote Steve Barry in TalkBack. "Now all of a sudden, they think that hardware is important and should cost more money. Yeah, when they are in control."

Meanwhile, Rockstar Games is moving to calm the scandal surrounding its "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas." The company has released a patch that disables the infamous sexually oriented "Hot Coffee" scenes from its game.

In the wake of the scandal surrounding the best-selling video game of 2005, the Entertainment Software Rating Board changed the "Grand Theft Auto" rating from Mature to Adult. At the same time, Sen. Hillary