The second beta of Vista will not come until next year. Microsoft did not give a time frame for the release of Beta 2 of the operating system, and said only that it would have more to say next year. MS had not said when Beta 2 will come, but some had expected it might come in December or January. More here, and here is a review of build 5259 that was supposed to be the November CTP, but actually wasn't (get it?). In related news, Microsoft has entered the beta period for Windows OneCare Live.

"How can Microsoft kill Python? When I say 'kill', I mean 'seriously damage the relevance of Python'. I don't mean that Microsoft, as some have suggested, will work on IronPython for a while, get people using it, then hijack the language by seriously changing the syntax of it and thereby breaking compatibility with CPython. So, how does this damage the relevance of Python? If Microsoft, who is investing considerable time and money to create a .Net implementation of Python, only refers to IronPython as a 'dynamic language' and only pushes it as a 'scripting language', many people will begin to assume that that's all that it is good for."

Move your application from CodeWarrior to Xcode and be ready for Intel-based Macs. It's easier than you may think, and this article gets you started.

"Genesi is pleased to announce the development of the 4U2 sub-laptop based on the EFIKA 5K2 reference design and the Freescale MPC5200B. The 4U2 will be produced in Asia and be available in Q2 2006. The 4U2 board can be deployed in a variety of configurations and uses and includes both mobile and WIFI wireless capability." More here. The price will be $299 (EUR 255), but may drop if demand is great enough.

"Basically the operation is shutting down." With these words, Tal Danzig, the owner and technical lead for the Libranet distribution, quietly announced in his blog on November 25 the news that users had been dreading ever since his announcement two months ago that the distribution was "restructuring." Danzig did not rule out the possibility of reviving the distribution after his return in February 2006 from a three-month trip to Israel. Yet, for now, the announcement seems to mark the end of one of the oldest and best-loved Debian-based distributions. On Distrowatch, Libranet's status is now marked as "dormant." On June 1st, 2005, Jon Danzig, co-founder of Libranet and father of Tal Danzig passed away.

In a reversal, the state government of Massachusetts has thrown its support to Microsoft in an ongoing battle over office software formats and has launched an investigation into the state’s former IT chief, who had been championing open-source software. "The Commonwealth is very pleased with Microsoft’s progress in creating an open document format," said the state’s Administration and Finance Secretary Tom Trimarco in a short statement on Thanksgiving eve. "If Microsoft follows through as planned, we are optimistic that Office Open XML will meet our new standards for acceptable open formats."