【正文】 m without needing any proprietary code.’’Evan Leibovitch, ZDNet Sun announces that StarOffice is to be released under the GPL. The code is going to be reworked, integrated with Bonobo and GTK, and released as a set of reusable ponents. StarOffice will also be reworked to use a set of open XMLbased file formats. Oracle’s Linuxbased inter appliance system hits the shelves. The ``New Inter Computer’’ (NIC) is the latest result of Larry Ellison’s long personal crusade to make nonMicrosoft systems available to the world. It’s aimed at people who only want access to the Net。 Linux International。 a lastminute repricing helps to create difficulties for people participating in the munity offering. The stock price immediately rises to $50。 it announces plans to release StarOffice under the Sun Community Source License and to make a webenabled version of the office suite. September 1999 ``‘Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corp. in Burlington, New Jersey is spending $1 million or so to buy 1,250 Linuxequipped PCs from Dell, but it won’t pay Red Hat a dime for support’, says Michael Prince, chief information officer. ‘I suppose Red Hat’s business model makes sense to somebody, but it makes no sense to us’, he says.’’Daniel Lyons, Forbes, May 31, 1999. Then in September, Burlington ended up purchasing support from Red Hat. The first big Linux stock rush happens. Shares in Applix more than double in volume, reaching nearly 27 million sharesthree times the 9 million shares that are actually on the market. SCO trashes Linux in a brochure distributed in Northern Europe: ``Linux at this moment can be considered more a plaything for IT students rather than a serious operating system in which to place the functioning, security and future of a business. Because Linux is basically a freeforall it means that no individual person/pany is accountable should anything go wrong, plus there is no way to predict which way Linux will evolve.’’ Stock in Red Hat hits $135/share. The price seems unbelievably high at the time. October 1999 Sun Microsystems announces that it will release the source to Solaris under the Sun Community Source License. The actual release drew criticism: ``In a move aimed at Linux, Sun said it will announce Wednesday that it is making the source code for its new Solaris 8 operating system ‘open’. Webster’s has lots of definitions for the word, including ‘not sealed, fastened, or locked’. But when you dig into the details of Sun’s announcement, you’ll find that what it is offering doesn’t e close to meeting the dictionary’s definition, let alone that of the Open Source movement.’’Lawrence Aragon, , January 26, 20xx November 1999 ``...if there’s one thing about Linux users, they’re doers, not whiners.’’Andy Patrizio, Red Hat buys Cygnus for almost $700 million in stock. Rumors of other acquisitions by Red Hat begin to circulate and show no signs of stopping. December 1999 VA Linux Systems goes public after two repricings (originally priced at $11$13/share). The final IPO price is $30/share。 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. (publishers of Linux Journal)。 they can only lead where they know the people will follow.’’``Innovation, Regulation, and the Inter’’ by Lawrence Lessig for The American Prospect. A new version of LILO is posted that is able to get past the 1024cylinder boot limit that has plagued PC systems for years. The latest Netcraft survey shows Apache running on just over 60% of the Web. Caldera Systems goes public after a short delay, on March 21. The stock, which was offered at $14/share, began trading at $26 and closed at $. It thus registered a 110% gain on its first day. ``Caldera knows of no pany that has built a profitable business based in whole or in part on opensource software.’’Caldera SEC filing Walnut Creek (the parent pany for Slackware) and BSDi announce their merger. Yahoo! will be taking an equity investment in the new pany. Motorola Computer Group announces the release of its HA Linux distribution. This distribution is aimed at telemunications applications that require very high amounts of uptime。 a great deal of attention resulted from both Informix’s and Oracle’s announcements. Informix announces support for Linux effectively moments after Oracle does so. Sybase later announces their support for Linux also. Linus appears on the cover of Forbes magazine. A lengthy story presents Linux in a highly positive manner and brings the system to the attention of many who had never heard of it before. Linux begins to bee a household word. September 1998 is launched by Dave Whitinger and Dwight Johnson. The site, later acquired by , arguably bees the most wellread and visited Linux portal of all time. Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer admits that they are ``worried’’ about free software and suggests that some of the Windows NT source code may be made available to developers. The same month Microsoft goes on to list Linux as a petitive threat in its annual SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission) filing. Speculation abounds that their real purpose is to influence the uping antitrust trial. October 1998 ``For the moment, however, the pany from Redmond, Washington, seems almost grateful for the rising profile of Linux, seeing it as an easy way of demonstrating that Windows is not a monopoly, ahead of its antitrust trial, scheduled to begin on October 15. That may be shortsighted. In the long run, Linux and other opensource programs could cause Mr. Gates much grief.’’The Economist, October 3, 1998 Intel and Netscape (and two venture capital firms) announce minority investments in Red Hat Software. The money is to be used to build an ``enterprise support division’’ within Red Hat. An unbelievable amount of press is generated by this event, which is seen as a bigbusiness endorsement of Lin