IT Certification's top ten benefits

An IT certification is a quick and readily recognized benchmark mapped to a specific skill set based on standardized testing. A certification demonstrates your dedication, motivation and technical knowledge on a specific platform.

Once you earn an IT certification, you join a select group of individuals -- a peer group with demonstrated skills. Having a certification shows that you not only possess comprehensive knowledge of that technology but you also care enough about your own career to spend the time and money to get certified. Remember: You are your own best career manager!


1. Getting hired


Having an IT certification will certainly give you an advantage when hiring managers look at your resume. Competition for IT jobs can be stiff, and having a certification is a significant advantage compared to those who do not have one. In fact, a certification can be a qualifier for a position. Keep in mind that when two otherwise equal candidates are vying for the same job, the one who has a certification will have the edge over the candidate that does not. A certification may do nothing more than get your resume a second look -- which may be more than your competition gets.
2. Job retention



In a volatile economic environment, businesses are always looking for ways to cut costs. That may mean jobs are on the line. This is when having an IT certification (or more) can mean the difference between keeping your job and having a chance to seek a new one. Earning a certification demonstrates that you are determined to enhance your skill set and knowledge -- which benefits you and your employer. The bottom line is you must invest in yourself.

 3. Promotions



Want to move up the corporate ladder or into a better, higher-paying job in your company, then you will need to learn new technologies or enhance the skills you currently possess. There is no better way to show this than to earn a new certification or progress further up the certification chain in a current area of expertise.
4. Networking opportunities



Once you earn a certification with a specific vendor or manufacturer, then you join a unique group of certified and skilled professionals. This can prove to be an invaluable peer resource group when seeking answers to problems or sharing the solutions to your own challenging scenario. This peer group of certified professionals can also pass along guidance on how to further enhance your career or where to seek specific technical knowledge.
5. Professional credibility

 

Earning a certification, especially a series of certifications from the same vendor, will provide immediate professional credibility. Who is going to question a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE), a Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert (MCSE) or a Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA)? Having earned one (or more) of these certifications demonstrates your dedication and motivation to professional development. Many companies will actively support their employees in earning these certifications that may even lead to promotions and raises as well.
6. Partner programs



In some cases, companies may require that there be a certain number of certified individuals associated with their organization to maintain a current partner level (and more if they want to pursue a higher partner level). Most major manufacturers and many other vendors have this requirement. Earning a vendor's certification benefits you and your organization since it enables the company to meet the required number of certified associates on staff.

7. Certification renewal and retention



IT professionals may have a requirement by their respective certification bodies to recertify every two to three years. For example, Cisco requires that you either take and pass a recertification exam or take the next higher certification exam every three years. Red Hat requires you to recertify every three years. Microsoft requires you to recertify every three years for an MCSE or two years for an MCSD. In this instance, a certification or recertification exam can benefit both you and your employer. In some circumstances, customers may only want to work with companies that have certified individuals.

8. New and current technologies



Earning a certification on a recently released operating system, platform or application will demonstrate that you have achieved what few have done up to that point: become certified on a new product. Passing an exam for a recently released certification is challenging due to the lack of study material and advice available from other certified individuals. Earning an IT certification on a new product can make you the subject matter expert in your organization -- putting you in a positive light for your early efforts.

 9. Personal goal



You may have set a personal goal for yourself to earn a new certification, whether for professional recognition or personal achievement. Certifications you earn this way may be the most satisfying, as you are rewarding yourself for your own efforts. If it happens to lead to a raise, promotion and recognition -- so much the better. In many instances, these are also the hardest to earn because of the self-motivation and discipline required where there aren't any tangible rewards.

10. Professional or corporate requirement



One way to ensure that IT staff have the necessary skills and experience on existing and new technologies is through certifications and training. IT staff who have passed a certification exam or series of exams can be presumed to have the specific knowledge to be more productive members of the IT department and respond better to any incidents outside the normal environment. Companies that invest in their staff through training and certification will have a more technically advanced work force able to respond to new challenges quicker. Instructor-led IT training, especially training that leads to certification, usually includes some type of hands-on work (whether through a virtual environment or with physical equipment and software). The benefit of this is that you get to learn, play and experiment with new technologies in a non-production (read: safe) environment. This will enable you to gain new knowledge more quickly that you can bring back to your work environment. Certification exams usually become more complex and difficult the longer they have been out, so there is no time like the present to get started.

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Build your own computer under Rs 35,000

I want to assemble a PC for basic office productivity, web browsing, simple multimedia editing and light gaming. Kindly suggest components within a budget of Rs 30,000.

Given your budget and requirements for a machine that can handle simple multimedia and light gaming, we'd recommend...

Processor
The AMD A10-6600 K is a 3.9GHz quad-core processor that's more than equipped to handle officerelated work, web browsing, and simple multimedia editing. Besides, its integrated graphics chip will let you play almost all 3D games in HD resolution.
Price: Rs 7,500

Motherboard
Buy the MSI FM2-A 75MA-P 33. This board is compatible with  the A10-6600 K processor, comes with a DVI-D port (that can be used for the monitor we're suggesting), and offers a connector for USB 3.0
Price: Rs 4,400

RAM
4GB from Kingston or Transcend
Price: Rs 2,200

Monitor
Invest in the Dell S2240L that's equipped with an IPS panel for better colours and supports a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels
Price: Rs 9,500

Hard drive
500GB from Western Digital or Seagate
Price: Rs 3,200

Cabinet and power supply
The Cooler Master Elite 344 boasts of good build and comes with  front USB 3.0 ports, while the Corsair VS450 is a reliable and adequate power supply unit for a system like this
Price: Rs 2,500 and Rs 2,300 respectively

Keyboard and mouse
An entry-level set from Logitech or Microsoft
Price: Rs 700

DVD drive
If needed, pick from LG, Samsung or Asus
Price: Rs 900

Total price: Rs 33,200.

If you want to cut corners, buy a cabinet and power supply combo from VIP or Zebronics, which will cost around Rs 2,500. (All prices in approximation; local prices might vary slightly.) 

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Tips to manage employees working from remote locations

Operating in a highly competitive global environment, companies today strive to provide the best of services leveraging the best talent, irrespective of the talent’s location. Increasingly, companies are adopting the concept of remote working, including ‘Work from home’ to engage and retain talent. Technology has also helped in propagating this concept through various new tools/applications and sophisticated communication media.

Where, employees working from home have the opportunity to achieve a better work-life balance. At the same time, some associates can easily feel distant and de-motivated when they are in an isolated environment. This can happen for a number of reasons, including the lack of direct/face-to-face interaction with the manager, co-workers and clients.

Here is lists out important factors which play an important role while managing associates working from home or remote locations:

• Reward & recognition: Recognising an associate for doing something special and applauding his/her efforts, acts as a motivator for associates. This helps in developing a culture of appreciation.

• Communication: Regular communication with remote associates makes a big difference in keeping them motivated. Communication channels (conference calls, video calls etc.) blended with enabling technology (webcams, secured and high speed network) play an important role in involving and engaging remote associates. Scheduling face-to-face meetings (video calls) at regular intervals paves way for interpersonal interactions.

• Building trust: Motivating associates, who work from home/remote location is as good as expressing our faith in them. Associates need to know that they have their manager’s trust in terms of work ethics and ability to make decisions without direct supervision and micro management.

• Regular feedback: Seeking associate feedback on what's working for them and what's not in terms of performing their duties from a remote location helps them feel connected and develops a ‘caring organisation’ approach, which in turn helps to keep associates happy at work.

• Right technology for remote associates: Companies need to ensure remote associates have the right technology to get their job done, i.e. high speed data cards, latest laptops with web cam, secured communication tools (RSA token), BlackBerry or smart phone etc. Providing the right technology and open lines of communications enhances greater productivity from everyone.

Do’s• Assign a dedicated technical support lead/ manager to promptly address technical problems for remote associates
• Give them full and transparent access to the office systems/applications (using secured tools)
• Establish regular log-on times to help them better plan their day
• Guard against making unreasonable demands from remote associates and ensuring that they have a balanced life
• Ensure remote associates are part of regular email groups, so that they are fully updated in terms of company policies and other communication

Don'ts• Do not focus on pampering your remote staff, rather focus on engaging them
• Don’t micromanage to the last extent, as being in a remote location; trust is the most important factor for them
• Refrain from being judgmental about the behavior of an associate from his/her emails. Written communication can go miscomprehended at times
• Unless you have a specific reason, don’t question them on how they spent their day, just because you aren't there to monitor them
• Don’t schedule ad-hoc meetings at short notice. This disturbs their work schedule and impacts their productivity

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Ten essential tips for searching the Web

inding just the right page among the billions on the Web requires not only a search engine but also a bit of know-how. Here is a selection of my favorite tips for searching the Web.

1. Search for a phrase

To search for an exact, complete phrase and not just its constituent words, put it in quotation marks. For example, instead of typing at sunrise on my birthdaytype ”at sunrise on my birthday”. The number of hits will shrink dramatically, as you’ll see only pages that include that exact phrase.

2. Be more specific

If you want to find articles about managing bookmarks in Safari on an iPhone running iOS 7, don’t search for just manage bookmarks. Throw all those terms in: manage bookmarks safari iphone ios 7. The more information you provide, the more useful your results are likely to be.

3. Exclude a word

To make sure your search for information on the connector your iPhone uses doesn’t return matches about an atmospheric phenomenon or a fictional race car, put a hyphen (-) in front of terms that should disqualify a page from appearing in Google’s results—for example, lightning -thunder -storm -McQueen.

Get more specific by excluding certain words from your search.

4. Use your own words

If you visit Google.com in Google Chrome, you can click the microphone icon on the right side of the search field and speak your search terms out loud. As soon as you finish talking, Google displays matching results and sometimes offers a summary aloud.

In Google Chrome, go to the Google homepage, click the microphone icon (top), and start talking. Whatever you say appears on screen (bottom), followed shortly thereafter by matching search results.

5. Try an advanced search

If you want much more control over your searches, such as specifying which geographic regions to search in, how recently created a page should be, or the page’s reading level, go to Google’s Advanced Search page or, after performing a basic search, click the gear icon in the upper-right corner of the results page and choose Advanced Search from the pop-up menu.

Google’s Advanced Search page lets you fill out a form with options for a detailed, specific search.

6. Convert, calculate, and more

You can also use Google to find all sorts of information besides lists of webpages. Google can handle calculations (try 104 * 36.8), currency conversions (185 dollars in euros), time-zone conversions (time in Paris), weather forecasts (weather San Diego), word definitions (define: pedantic), and a great many other things.

You don’t need a calculator (or a calculator app) if you have a browser open.

7. Learn from the source

A great place to learn dozens of additional tips for using Google is Google itself. For example, Google’s “Basic search help” and “Tips & Tricks” pages have loads of tricks and shortcuts you can use.

8. Simplify Google URLs

One thing I’ve come to dislike about Google, however, is that the links on its results page are all Google URLs that redirect you to the original page. For example, if you search for macworld, the first hit is for www.macworld.com. However, if you try to copy the URL, it’ll look something like this:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.macworld.com%2F&ei=YL48UrOEPYbyQGA3ICIBg&usg=AFQjCNF8KJ4binisdLIm41H5qMrvHdQgw

And, depending on your browser, this sort of URL may also throw off your browsing history, making it difficult to see which sites you’ve been to.

Luckily, you can solve this problem with a browser extension. My pick for Apple’s Safari is Shaun Inman’s free Detox. (It was originally designed for Twitter, but it works great for Google, too.) For Google Chrome, first install the free Tampermonkey, and then add the script Scrub Google Redirect Links. For Mozilla Firefox, try Wladimir Palant’s free Google/Yandex search link fix.

9. Use another search engine

Even the best Google search won’t help you find pages that Google hasn’t indexed, or items that are on page 5987 out of 28,001. If Google isn’t cutting it, you have alternatives. Competitors, including Bing, Yahoo, Ask.com, and DuckDuckGo, may point you to sites that don’t show up in Google. And because each search engine prioritizes search results differently, the page you’re looking for may be more prominent in one than in another. If you get stuck, trying the same search in another engine may do the trick.

10. Try a metasearch

If you frequently need to search across multiple engines (and, perhaps, on highly specific databases that store information not indexed in general-purpose public search engines), you might be a good candidate for DevonAgent Pro (4 out of 5 rating), which can query many sites and services at once and summarize search results in a way that exposes connections between related concepts.

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All that you need to know about your camera

Getting good snapshots is pretty simple if you follow the basics. Javed Anwer explains camera jargon and helps you with a few tips to...

Know your camera

On any camera lens, its Focal Range is denoted in 'mm'. For example, most DSLRs come with an 18-55mm stock lens. You can also use these two numerals to arrive at the optical zoom on your point-and-shoot by dividing the larger value by the smaller value. For instance, an 18-55mm lens has an optical zoom that's a little over 3X. A lens with a 50-150mm focal range also has a 3X optical zoom. The difference, however, is that a 150mm lens will give you better depth (crisp foreground with a soft, defocused background). So if you're shooting a close-up of a flower, or even a portrait, use the maximum focal length at your disposal for better depth of field. When clicking a picture, most people tend to just press the Shutter Release Button. Instead, half press the button and hold it there. This allows the lens mechanism to adjust itself for proper focus. Once focus has been acquired, press the button all the way to click your photograph. The whole process takes a moment or two, but will result in better snapshots. The Camera Flash is a boon as well as a bane. In low light, it artificially illuminates the scene you are trying to capture. At the same time, it also distorts colours and may add too much light to photos and ruin the ambience. Wherever possible, try and shoot without using a flash. Your pictures will appear more natural. The Aperture (or in non-geeky words, the lens opening) is from where light enters the camera. A bigger opening means more light. Keep in mind that bigger aperture values means smaller lens opening. So in low light, an aperture of F3 is preferable to F5. Aperture also affects the sharpness of the image. Lower aperture values make everything (except the subject) appear softer. This means, you can use lower aperture values to highlight your subject.



Understand your camera display

The dots are Focus Points. If you are using a DSLR in manual mode, you can choose between the different focus dots. In most cases, it is advisable that you keep the centre dot as your focus.

Did you ever face a situation where you pressed the shutterrelease button, but your camera didn't snap a picture? Well, you should have kept an eye on the Focus Status (green dot). It turns solid when you've acquired focus. If it doesn't turn solid, your camera won't capture an image unless you are using manual focus (which is different from manual mode). In point-and-shoot cameras, or on smartphones, the focus status is generally denoted by a square around the subject. It turns green if the subject is in focus, and red or orange if it isn't.

Increase the ISO Value on your camera to make it more sensitive to light when shooting in low-light settings without a flash. Higher ISOs, however, result in grain and artefacts in photographs. So use this setting judiciously. Most point-and-shoot cameras can't handle an ISO of more than 800 or 1,600, regardless of what it says on the box. With most entry-level DSLRs, don't go above 3,200.

Shutter Speed, which is measured in fractions of a second, controls two things: the speed at which shutter closes to freeze a frame, and the amount of light that enters the camera.

If you are shooting fast-moving subjects, like an athlete in a sporting event, your pet dog, or even jumpy kids, always use fast shutter speeds. This will give you sharper images. Slower shutter speeds generally result in blurry snapshots. For best results, keep your shutter speed above 1/100. If you are going below 1/30, use a tripod.

This brings us to the connection between light and shutter speed. The faster the shutter speed, the lesser light the camera captures. So, if you are shooting in a dimly-lit area, use slower shutter speeds. But not slower than 1/30, or you'll require that tripod.

The figure preceded by the 'F' denotes Aperture Value (see camera section for aperture).

Metering shows you the balance of light. For ideal images, this value should be zero. 'Plus' indicates the camera is capturing more light than required. 'Minus indicates the light captured is less than optimum. More light means washed-out images. Less light means dark images.

Battery Status graphically indicates how much of juice you still have in your camera.

Although we've used a Nikon DSLR here, you will find similar controls in almost all brands of cameras. Besides, most of these tips and tricks can also be used to click pictures with your point and-shoot.




Tips & Tricks

Hold the camera steady: Regardless of what type of camera you use, hold it steady when shooting, and if possible, for a few extra seconds after taking the snapshot. You will get sharper photos. Isolate the subject or subjects: Click pictures where your subjects are highlighted and stand out from the rest of image. To do this, position your subjects against a background that doesn't overshadow them. This is the reason why photographers use plain backgrounds for passport photos. Also, make sure that your subject is wellilluminated. Strong lighting behind your subject will put them in the shadows. As a rule of thumb, shoot photos where the sun/light source is behind the camera and not in front of it.

Make it large and focus on the eyes: For portraits, fill your frame with your subject and focus on the eyes. This will create an intimate snapshot - and result in better photographs. Shoot twice (or thrice): Make it a habit to snap at least two or three pictures every time you press the shutter release button. Click, click, click... That's it. You will find that, out of five simultaneous shots, the second or third will be the sharpest. Use camera modes: All cameras come with pre-defined modes - portrait, outdoor, indoor, landscape, night, macro, etc - for different types of photos. Use these for best results.

Most importantly, compose your photograph: Don't shoot a photo. Compose it. Decide on how much of the scene you want to capture, the angle from which you want to capture it. Consider your light sources. Initially, it may take you a few minutes to compose an image, but with practice, you will soon be able to picture a composition within seconds.

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Linux the open source..

The Linux kernel has been marked by constant growth throughout its history. Since the initial release of its source code in 1991, it has grown from a small number of C files under a license prohibiting commercial distribution to its state in 2009 of over 370 megabytes of source under the GNU General Public License.

Events leading to creation

The Unix operating system was conceived and implemented in the 1960s and first released in 1970. Its availability and portability caused it to be widely adopted, copied and modified by academic institutions and businesses. Its design became influential to authors of other systems.In 1983, Richard Stallman started the GNU project with the goal of creating a free UNIX-like operating system.As part of this work, he wrote the GNU General Public License (GPL). By the early 1990s there was almost enough available software to create a full operating system. However, the GNU kernel, called Hurd, failed to attract enough attention from developers leaving GNU incomplete.

Another free operating system project in the 1980s was the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). This was developed by UC Berkeley from the 6th edition of Unix from AT&T. Since BSD contained Unix code that AT&T owned, AT&T filed a lawsuit (USL v. BSDi) in the early 1990s against the University of California. This strongly limited the development and adoption of BSD.

MINIX, a Unix-like system intended for academic use, was released by Andrew S. Tanenbaum in 1987. While source code for the system was available, modification and redistribution were restricted. In addition, MINIX's 16-bit design was not well adapted to the 32-bit features of the increasingly cheap and popular Intel 386 architecture for personal computers. These factors of a lack of a widely-adopted, free kernel provided the impetus for Torvalds's starting his project. He has stated that if either the GNU or 386BSD kernels were available at the time, he likely would not have written his own

The creation of Linux

Linus Torvalds in 2002

In 1991, in Helsinki, Linus Torvalds began a project that later became the Linux kernel. It was initially a terminal emulator, which Torvalds used to access the large UNIX servers of the university. He wrote the program specifically for the hardware he was using and independent of an operating system because he wanted to use the functions of his new PC with an 80386 processor. Development was done on Minix using the GNU C compiler, which is still the main choice for compiling Linux today (although the code can be built with other compilers, such as the Intel C Compiler).

The name

Floppy discs holding a very early version of Linux

Linus Torvalds had wanted to call his invention Freax, a portmanteau of "freak", "free", and "x" (as an allusion to Unix). During the start of his work on the system, he stored the files under the name "Freax" for about half of a year. Torvalds had already considered the name "Linux,".

In order to facilitate development, the files were uploaded to the FTP server of the Helsinki University of Technology (HUT) in September 1991. Ari Lemmke, Torvald's coworker at the HUT who was responsible for the servers at the time, did not think that "Freax" was a good name. So, he named the project "Linux" on the server without consulting Torvalds.Later, however, Torvalds consented to "Linux".

Linux under the GNU GPL

Torvalds first published the Linux kernel under its own licence, which had a restriction on commercial activity.

The software to use with the kernel was software developed as part of the GNU project licensed under the GNU General Public License, a free software license. The first release of the Linux kernel, Linux 0.01, included a binary of GNU's Bash shell. In 1992, he suggested releasing the kernel under the GNU General Public License. He first announced this decision in the release notes of version 0.12. In the middle of December 1992 he published version 0.99 using the GNU GPL.Linux and GNU developers worked to integrate GNU components with Linux to make a fully-functional and free operating system.

GNU/Linux naming controversy

The designation "Linux" was initially used by Torvalds only for the Linux kernel. The kernel was, however, frequently used together with other software, especially that of the GNU project. This quickly became the most popular adoption of GNU software. In June 1994 in GNU's bulletin, Linux was referred to as a "free UNIX clone", and the Debian project began calling its product Debian GNU/Linux. In May 1996, Richard Stallman published the editor Emacs, in which the type of system was renamed from Linux to Lignux. This spelling was intended to refer specifically to the combination of GNU and Linux, but this was soon abandoned in favor of "GNU/Linux".

Official mascot

Tux

Torvalds announced in 1996 that there would be a mascot for Linux, a penguin. Larry Ewing provided the original draft of today's well known mascot based on this description. The name Tux was suggested by James Hughes as derivative of Torvalds' UniX.

New development

Kernel

There are many other well-known maintainers for the Linux kernel beside Torvalds such as Alan Cox and Marcelo Tosatti. Cox maintained version 2.2 of the kernel until it was discontinued at the end of 2003. Likewise, Tosatti maintained version 2.4 of the kernel until the middle of 2006. Andrew Morton steers the development and administration of the 2.6 kernel, which was released on 18 December 2003 in its first stable incarnation. Also the older branches are still constantly improved.

Community

The largest part of the work on Linux is performed by the community: the thousands of programmers around the world that use Linux and send their suggested improvements to the maintainers. Various companies have also helped not only with the development of the Kernels, but also with the writing of the body of auxiliary software, which is distributed with Linux.

It is released both by organized projects such as Debian, and by projects connected directly with companies such as Fedora and openSUSE. The members of the respective projects meet at various conferences and fairs, in order to exchange ideas. One of the largest of these fairs is the LinuxTag in Germany (currently in Berlin), where about 10,000 people assemble annually, in order to discuss Linux and the projects associated with it.

Open Source Development Lab and Linux Foundation

The Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) was created in the year 2000, and is an independent nonprofit organization which pursues the goal of optimizing Linux for employment in data centers and in the carrier range. It served as sponsored working premises for Linus Torvalds and also for Andrew Morton (until the middle of 2006 when Morton transferred to Google). Torvalds works full-time on behalf the OSDL, developing the Linux Kernels.

Companies

Despite being open-source, a few companies profit from Linux. These companies, most of which are also members of the Open Source Development Lab, invest substantial resources into the advancement and development of Linux, in order to make it suited for various application areas. This includes hardware donations for driver developers, cash donations for people who develop Linux software, and the employment of Linux programmers at the company. Some examples are IBM and HP, which use Linux on their own servers, and Red Hat, which maintains its own distribution. Likewise Trolltech supports Linux by the development and GPL licensing of Qt, which makes the development of KDE possible, and by employing some of the X and KDE developers.

Competition from Microsoft

Although Torvalds has said that Microsoft's feeling threatened by Linux in the past was of no consequence to him, the Microsoft and Linux camps had a number of antagonistic interactions between 1997 and 2001. This became quite clear for the first time in 1998, when the first Halloween document was brought to light by Eric S. Raymond. This was a short essay by a Microsoft developer that sought to lay out the threats posed to Microsoft by free software and identified strategies to counter these perceived threats. However the Free Software Foundation issued a statement that Microsoft's production of proprietary software is bad for software users because it denies users "their rightful freedom."

Competition entered a new phase in the beginning of 2004, when Microsoft published results from customer case studies evaluating the use of Windows vs. Linux under the name “Get the Facts” on its own web page. Based on inquiries, research analysts, and some Microsoft sponsored investigations, the case studies claimed that enterprise use of Linux on servers compared unfavorably to the use of Windows in terms of reliability, security, and total cost of ownership.

In response, commercial Linux distributors produced their own studies, surveys and testimonials to counter Microsoft's campaign. Novell's web-based campaign at the end of 2004 was entitled “Unbending the truth” and sought to outline the advantages as well as dispelling the widely publicized legal liabilities of Linux deployment. Novell particularly referenced the Microsoft studies in many points. IBM also published a series of studies under the title “The Linux at IBM competitive advantage” to again parry Microsoft's campaign. Red Hat had a campaign called “Truth Happens” aimed at letting the performance of the product speak for itself, rather than advertising the product by studies

In the autumn of 2006, Novell and Microsoft announced an agreement to co-operate on software interoperability and patent protection.This included an agreement that customers of either Novell or Microsoft may not be sued by the other company for patent infringement. This patent protection was also expanded to non-free software developers. The last part was criticized because it only included non-commercial developers.

In July of 2009, Microsoft submitted 22,000 lines of source code to the Linux kernel under the GPLV2 license, which were subsequently accepted. (Although this has been referred to as "a historic move" and as a possible bellwether of an improvement in Microsoft's corporate attitudes toward Linux and open-source software, the decision is not altogether altruistic. According to the article cited, it promises to lead to significant competitive advantages for Microsoft.)

Trademark rights

In 1994 and 1995, several people from different countries attempted to register the name "Linux" as a trademark. Thereupon requests for royalty payments were issued to several Linux companies, a step with which many developers and users of Linux did not agree. Linus Torvalds clamped down on these companies with help from Linux International and was granted the trademark to the name, which he transferred to Linux International. Protection of the trademark was later administered by a dedicated foundation, the non-profit Linux Mark Institute. In 2000, Linus Torvalds specified the basic rules for the assignment of the licenses. This means that anyone who offers a product or a service with the name Linux must possess a license for it, which can be attained through a unique purchase.

Chronology

• 1983: Richard Stallman creates the GNU project with the goal of creating a free operating system.
• 1989: Richard Stallman writes the first version of the GNU General Public License.
• 1991: The Linux kernel is publicly announced on 25 August by the 21 year old Finnish student Linus Benedict Torvalds.


• 1992: The Linux kernel is relicensed under the GNU GPL. The first so called “Linux distributions” are created.
• 1993: Over 100 developers work on the Linux kernel. With their assistance the kernel is adapted to the GNU environment, which creates a large spectrum of application types for Linux. The oldest currently existing Linux distribution, Slackware, is released for the first time. Later in the same year, the Debian project is established. Today it is the largest community distribution.
• 1994: In March Torvalds judges all components of the kernel to be fully matured: he releases version 1.0 of Linux. The XFree86 project contributes a graphic user interface (GUI). In this year the companies Red Hat and SUSE publish version 1.0 of their Linux distributions.
• 1995: Linux is ported to the DEC Alpha and to the Sun SPARC. Over the following years it is ported to an ever greater number of platforms.
• 1996: Version 2.0 of the Linux kernel is released. The kernel can now serve several processors at the same time, and thereby becomes a serious alternative for many companies.
• 1998: Many major companies such as IBM, Compaq and Oracle announce their support for Linux. In addition a group of programmers begins developing the graphic user interface KDE.
• 1999: A group of developers begin work on the graphic environment GNOME, which should become a free replacement for KDE, which depended on the then proprietary Qt toolkit. During the year IBM announces an extensive project for the support of Linux.
• 2004: The XFree86 team splits up and joins with the existing X Window standards body to form the X.Org Foundation, which results in a substantially faster development of the X Window Server for Linux.

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