Linux programmers are moving toward a change that would put virtualization software from VMware on a more even footing with open-source rival Xen. Xen was expected to be built tightly into the Linux kernel at the heart of the open-source operating system. But Andrew Morton is advocating an interface in the Linux kernel that would let it work with any virtualization foundation.

As promised earlier, YellowTAB has released an official statement concerning the bankruptcy rumours. "Rumours have been circulating for a few days now: yellowTAB has been put under bankruptcy protection. This causes many questions and uncertainties. We wish to explain how bancruptcy protection affects our product."

"There are plenty Linux reviews, though almost none of them are about Linux. You see, Linux is only a kernel, but most Linux reviews are about KDE, SuSE, the desktop and so on. Those reviews aren't about Linux, strictly speaking. In contrary, this review is about Linux, made for the people who normally don't configure and compile their own kernel."

"This article is a one-year report on the experiments with Donationware at DonationCoder.com. Throughout the article I will focus on the specific experiences of our site in attempting to strike a kind of middle ground - keeping software free but making enough money from donations to fund the site."

FreeBSD 6.1-RC1 has been released. "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 6.1-RC1. It is meant to be a refinement of the 6-STABLE, branch with few dramatic changes. A lot of bugfixes have been made, some drivers have been updated, and some areas have been tweaked for better performance, etc., but no large changes have been made to the basic architecture."

The AROS Show has an interview with AROS Developer Hogne T. "AROS Native gives me no troubles with compiling anything. I use it for the whole development process. I do not even run Linux Hosted at the moment. AROS Native with SFS has some problems with unix ported apps, and I have to compile in RAM:, but other than that, I use Native without any problems." Screenshots included.

Virtualization software that's all the rage today - chiefly VMware, Microsoft Virtual Server, and Xen - lets a single computer run multiple operating systems. Now, a newer variety of virtualization is emerging that employs a lighter-weight approach so that a single operating system can be sliced into independent sections. While details of the concept are just beginning to emerge, it's likely only a matter of time before it shows up in Windows and Linux.

GNOME 2.14.1 has been released, as the first maintenance release in the 2.14 series. Download the tarballs of the platform, desktop and bindings.

Will the delay in Microsoft's Windows Vista have a domino effect on other planned releases of Windows? Partner sources close to the company said that Microsoft has sketched out plans for Windows 'Fiji' (also referred to by some Microsoft watchers as Vista R2) - the version of Windows set to follow Vista - as for Windows 'Vienna', the successor to Fiji, partner sources close to the company said.

Sun Microsystems has begun selling a lower-end server using the UltraSparc T1 'Niagara' processor and has passed an important milestone in the development of the chip's successor. Its Niagara II, now officially named UltraSparc T2, is due to arrive in servers in the second half of 2007, and a higher-end cousin code-named Rock is due to arrive in servers in 2008.

"From time to time over the last few months, I’ve heard an argument along the following lines, often from people who should know better. 'Operating systems are commodities. There’s no special value in them. Operating system A may have a small technical advantage in one area, and operating system B may have a small technical advantage in another area, but there’s little to choose between them.' But there are many, many things wrong this argument."

TuxMachines reviews the SuperGamer-1 DVD, a live-DVD based on PCLinuxOS, optimised for gaming (incl. 3D drivers), and concludes: "The Supergamer-1 DVD performed very well. I had no stability issues and lag was very minimal. Only after long periods of inactivity or loading a new gaming level did I experience delays while the DVD was spun and accessed. Hardware detection was spot-on with, just to name a few, the net connection, graphics, and sound automagically enabled. It was a completely enjoyable experience and I can't find anything to complain about."

"Last summer, IBM set up Power,org, to promote its PowerPC chip as what it called 'open hardware.' This year, Sun launched the OpenSPARC.net open source project around the source code for its Niagera microprocessor. But what does "open" mean in the context of hardware? You have to pay to participate meaningfully in Power.org, as well as pay royalties to implement - it's built on a traditional RAND consortium model. To use the Sun code, though, its just download the code under an open source license, and you're good to go to use anything except the SPARC name. All of which leads to the questions: 'what does open mean in hardware, and which approach will work?"

The first-mover advantage is well chronicled, but it didn't help Netscape when Microsoft launched Internet Explorer. What drives technology adoption, and do browser upstarts such as Firefox stand a chance? A Q&A with professor Pai-Ling Yin of Harvard Business School. On a related note, a development version of Firefox now passes the Acid2 test.