Can a Hero fly to Sprint's rescue in the battle for smartphone supremacy? If nothing else, Thursday's announcement that a second carrier will soon offer a phone using the Android operating system could be another blow for truth, justice and the American way of providing more gadgets for tech-hungry consumers. Beginning Oct. 11, Sprint will join T-Mobile as wireless providers offering Google Android OS phones. The HTC Hero will also join the Palm Pre as Sprint's answer to Apple's iPhone and other high-tech, feature-laden phones.

The European Commission on Thursday expanded its investigation into Oracle's plans to purchase Sun Microsystems. The EC wants to study the potential antitrust issues arising from proprietary database vendor Oracle's takeover of Sun's open source MySQL database application. It will issue its ruling on Jan. 19, 2010. The purchase has already been approved by the U.S. Department of Justice. Shares of both Oracle and Sun fell on the news of the EC's antitrust investigation.

Well September is here, and the final days of summer are hard upon us. Autumn is around the corner here in the Northern Hemisphere, and that means it's time to begin thinking ahead to the winter days to come. It isn't too surprising, then, that Linux bloggers have turned their attention in recent days to how they like to arrange things in the geeky counterpart of the proverbial nest -- the home office. "I used to keep everything in a single room and it was a nice setup," began Linux Today's Carla Schroder, kicking off the conversation.

Openbravo announced on Tuesday its next-generation enterprise resource planning product, called "QuickStart," an alternative to the company's generally more labor-intensive community package. QuickStart represents a change in strategy for Openbravo. Unlike the ERP product that bears the company's name, QuickStart is not open source. It is proprietary, not covered by the public license that covers Openbravo. The decision to go proprietary with QuickStart was based on business preferences to not allow some module developers to extend that functionality to QuickStart for free.

VMworld, VMware's signature annual user and partner event, is kicking off this week in San Francisco, so it seems worth reconsidering the company's recent acquisition of SpringSource. Along with critical human assets, the deal brings a host of tested technologies to VMware, including the Spring Framework, a Java programming model that makes applications portable across open source and commercial application server environments, and the Hyperic application monitoring and management tools.

Having secured funding from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Morgenthaler Ventures, MuleSource cofounder Ross Mason turned what was the Mule Project into an open source player on the fast track. Re-invigorated with new CEO Greg Schott when another cofounder, Dave Rosenberg, left the company, MuleSource has been ramping up its business in the wake of a recession that has gutted some proprietary legacy players. The Mule Project was an open source enterprise service bus and integration platform that gained notoriety early on.

Wikipedia plans to roll out a new feature with the goal of enhancing the site's credibility. Called "WikiTrust," the optional feature color codes entries based on reliability, according to a Wikipedia page describing the new development. The color-coding tool gives users a "check text tab" that reveals author, origin and reliability of the text. The intent is to highlight spam, surreptitious changes and outright information-tampering by contributors who might have ulterior motives for making changes.

You know it's a good day when included among all the dry-as-dust press releases that arrive on your virtual desk is one that promises to combine Linux, Twitter and "dangerously outrageous" fun. Sure enough, from none other than the Linux Foundation came the tantalizing announcement of the "Fake Linus Torvalds" promotion, which it kicked off last week. Believe it? It's true, and in no time Linux Girl's spine was tingling with excitement.

Why is Google promoting two open source operating systems that can both be run on netbooks -- Android and Chrome? Is this part of a larger strategy, where Google will direct the two along different paths -- Chrome for netbooks and Android for the smartphone? Or could the Internet search giant just be floundering, with different groups of techies each going their own merry way with no clear marketing position? Google announced the Chrome OS in July. This was many months after the release of the first smartphone to carry the Android operating system.

Nokia on Thursday announced the N900 smartphone, a mobile device running the Linux-based Maemo operating system that the company typically uses for its tablets. The device runs a Mozilla-based browser and offers still and video photography, an FM radio and 3.5G and WLAN connectivity. Maemo is the operating system used in Nokia's tablets, and the Finnish handset maker's description of the N900 shows it's moving to converge the computer, the Internet and the mobile phone. Nokia sees the Maemo OS as driving its new technology, and the N900 as merely the hardware to contain the OS.

It's a rare day on the Linux blogs when comparisons don't get made between Windows and our favorite operating system, but when those comparisons take the form of benchmarks, we can't help but sit up and listen. Sure enough, following a like comparison earlier this year, the bloggers over at TuxRadar recently put Windows 7, Vista and various versions of Ubuntu through their paces again to see just how they compare. Bottom line? "There's nothing in Windows 7 that Linux can't do, and in most cases, do it better," the TuxRadar bloggers wrote.

It appears that Wikipedia's reputation as the Internet's open source encyclopedia -- where any and all can contribute -- may itself be in need of some editing. Media reports quote a spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation, which manages the user-generated site, as saying that the English-language version will soon start experimenting with designated editors to check for errors, vandalism and opinions sneaking their way into entries involving public figures still living.

A federal appeals court on Monday reversed a judge's decision that granted the copyright of the Unix computer operating system to Novell. A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a judge erred in August 2007 by granting the copyright to Novell. The panel ordered a trial to determine ownership. Novell, a software and computer infrastructure company, has been locked in a years-long legal battle with The SCO Group of Lindon, Utah, over ownership to the copyright. SCO said the ruling paves the way for resumption of the court case.

It has been said that a great user experience in mobile phone offerings is a combination of good engineering, marketing and graphical and user interface design. More importantly, it is about keeping the balance between all these elements. This is why the term "trade-off" is a recurrent one in the mobile phone industry. In the current state of mobile device evolution, the UI screen size has reached the maximum deemed acceptable to customers; therefore, the focus by mobile experts is now more on depth-enhancing capabilities such as touchscreen UI with haptic feedback, for example.

Debunking long-held myths is always a gratifying exercise, but never is that more true than when said myths have done our favorite operating system harm. It was with great glee, then, that Linux Girl came across not one but two myth-debunking conversations on the blogs in recent days. A recent report from the Linux Foundation, for example, showed conclusively once and for all that the image of kernel hackers as basement-dwelling nerds who still live with their parents is just plain false.

Chris Lundberg has worked for years to drive the availability of technology to the masses. He has managed teams developing software for the Library of Congress, worked with the U.S. Navy to develop satellite communications software and consulted for Accenture in developing telecom Internet solutions. Prior to that, Lundberg produced Internet solutions for the financial and entertainment sectors as director of applications at Opion. He is an open source user and advocate.

It's been a relatively quiet few days on the Linux blogs, but that didn't stop geeks from taking time out last Sunday to wish Debian a happy birthday. Yes, it was exactly 16 years ago on the 16th that Ian Murdock announced the imminent arrival of what he called the "Debian Linux Release." Happy Birthday, Debian. There were several other low-key discussions on the Linux blogs in recent days, but perhaps none so widely discussed as whether there's any point to GPLv2 libraries.

Massachusetts is planning to "democratize the data" behind its public transportation network. It's providing software developers with all the coding and background data they will need to develop iPhone applications and other high-tech aids incorporating MBTA subway, bus, train and regional transit information. A restaurant owner, for example, could easily add official government data about the location and details of transit stops or bus schedules into a Web site about his business.

Google on Tuesday announced a new feature that will let users of its Chrome browser sync bookmarks on multiple computers. Announced only a few weeks after its developers began working on the project, the sync capability is yet another round fired in a browser war that appears to be drawing in even more players. However, it has also drawn some early criticism. A number of user complaints have sprung up, and there is some concern that the Sync feature could cause security problems.

Computer manufacturer Dell on Monday confirmed that it's making mobile devices for China Mobile, the world's largest wireless carrier in terms of subscribers. This followed China Mobile's announcement in Beijing on Monday of its new mobile app store. "We are developing devices for China Mobile, but we haven't named them yet," Dell spokesperson Matt Paretta told LinuxInsider. At the China Mobile announcement, Dell showed a handheld device that Paretta described as a proof of concept.