Kennards has rolled out one of the biggest Linux desktop projects in Australia with around 400 IBM POS terminals running Fedora release 3. Fedora is a Linux distribution derived from Red Hat Linux.

Factors which triggered this big initiative from Kennards -

1. After investigating Windows options, as well as Citrix and Unix, Still said Linux proved to be the best based on support, user-friendliness and cost.
2. Cost is a big factor if you’re looking at 400 Windows computers
3. With Linux, the ability to lock it down so well was a big factor. [Our staff] could use it without problems, the patching for all the desktops was harder than doing it centrally for Linux.
4. To fix an issue on Linux, even as far as resetting the OS, the guys can do that very easily through Linux. It’s totally configurable remotely.

More details

Sun’s open source identity management with the Open Web Single Sign-On (OpenSSO) project. They are releasing source code for the significant chunks of its Java System Access Manager required for web-based single sign-on, including session management, policy and federation as well as administration capabilities.

In more simple words OpenSSO provide use a centralised user authentication system. Similarly as you can use your single Google account to log-in to Gmail, Google Analytics, AdwordsAdwords.

Reference: More open source moves by Sun: this time it’s identity management

Slowly and gradually India is also joining open source. Kerala the 100% literate state in India . If we will follow the statistics by the year 2011 everyone of us will be some using open source software on your mobile, desktop, or TV sets.

“We have decided that we will use only free software for computer education in Kerala schools. We have implemented the Linux platform in high schools; it will be implemented in other schools step by step,” Kerala Education Minister M A Baby. We want to make Kerala the FOSS (Free and Open Software Systems) destination in India. That is all

By throwing out Microsoft from high school desktops, Kerala is following the footsteps of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Goa, West Bengal, and Delhi, who are also in the thick of bringing Linux to schools.

In MP, nearly 2,600 primary schools are given computers with a Hindi language interface on Linux platforms. Rajasthan is already pushing it in 4,000 schools.

By 2008, 56,000 schoolteachers in the Kerala will be trained in Linux and students in the 2,650 government and government-aided high schools will be taught the open-source code software,” said Shankaran Nair, director of IT@school, responsible for promoting IT education in schools.

It’s important to mention that free software guru Richard Stallman is virtually the consultant to the Kerala government’s IT initiatives.

When you are switching to open source?