Impressions on DesktopBSD; DragonFly BSD News

  Submitted by Anon_Poster BSD & Darwin 33 Comments
A batch of BSD news today. Firstly, here are a few impressions on DesktopBSD 1.0 RC3. "DesktopBSD is a breeze to install. Desktop uses a crisp and clean KDE desktop with an attractive theme with a standard selection of applications." Secondly, DragonFly BSD asks its users to test some drivers for wireless networking. And lastly, also concerning DragonFly BSD: "Recently spent some time getting the Mach lite kernel up and running for research on the idea can the system be made to run in production."
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Linux Desktops Will Get Killed by Microsoft This Christmas

  Submitted by LinuxFanBoy Linux 128 Comments
"If you want a desktop or laptop and you want to move to Linux then you're cooked. You have very few options and retailers have used low-cost Linux systems to bait and switch users. Unsuspecting PC buyers will be faced with the need to upgrade to Vista in the near future. So, that bargain PC from Dell will probably keep on costing you money. Do alternatives exist? We like to think so."
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Why Open Source Projects Are Not Publicised

  Submitted by sebFlyte Open Source 21 Comments
Open source behind closed doors: in the first of a two part series (part II) ZDNet looks at why some open source projects remain secret. "Lots of companies are using our products, they just aren't talking about it", is a popular excuse from software companies, particularly those that offer open source software and services. Deployment of open source software, particularly in the private sector, often appears to be a clandestine activity, with few companies prepared to discuss their involvement.
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The Microsoft Covenant Reexamined

  Submitted by Andy Updegrove Office 1 Comment
"Last time I compared the Microsoft covenant not to sue implementers of its XML Reference Schema to Sun's commitment in support of ODF, and found Microsoft's commitment to be less effective. But when compared to its previous LML license terms, Microsoft has made a huge jump. Here's how this comparison comes out, and what it all means to someone deciding which alternative to support."
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Create Graphics the Smart Way with PHP

General Development 2 Comments
This article shows how to build an object-oriented graphics layer in PHP. Using object-oriented systems can make building complex graphics much easier than building the graphics using the primitives in the standard PHP library. Plus, you have the option of rendering to any size or type of image you like and the longer-term ability to use the same code to render to different types of media, such as SVG, PDF, Flash, and others.
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osFree Publishes First Screenshot

OS/2 58 Comments
The osFree project has published its first screenshot. "osFree is an open source free (non-commercial) software development project. Goals of the projects are to replace all (or most) of OS/2's subsystems with open-source analogues. The base compatibility system is OS/2 Warp 4 (Merlin), but that doesn't mean we won't be supporting features of newer versions of OS/2 like OS/2 WarpServer for e-business and eComStation by Serenity Systems."
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Maxell To Offer 300GB Holographic Discs ‘Late 2006’

Hardware 42 Comments
Maxell will ship its first holographic storage system late next year, the company has pledged. The storage specialist will initially offer a removable system based on 300GB media and capable of transfering data at a rate of 20MBps, Maxell said. However, the company said the technology, designed by InPhase Technologies, is capable of achieving 1.6TB per disk - and that's uncompressed capacity - with a 120MBps bandwidth.
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Browser Developers Agree on Common Security Features

Internet 30 Comments
In a historic agreement, the makers of Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Konqueror have agreed on a common set of security features that will be implemented into future versions of their respective browsers. The developers of the four applications had been in discussion for some time over ways in which they could make browsing safer by making it more obvious to users when a site is trying to pull a fast one on them.
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Desktop Linux for Small Business

  Submitted by sebFlyte Linux 119 Comments
"As desktop Linux becomes ever more professional, and with Microsoft still a year away from shipping its new Vista version of Windows, could now be the time to go open-source on the desktop? Of course, circumstances will vary from company to company, but if you're ready to make the move, there's a good crop of Linux distributions ready to accommodate your needs."
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NICTA Embedded OS Framework Released

  Submitted by navlrac OS News 2 Comments
Iguana and NICTA::Pistachio-embedded (yes, the two together), a new open-source operating system for mobile phones and embedded devices has been released by the ERTOS group of NICTA and adopted by Qualcomm for some of their phones. Iguana is a small and secure OS which runs on top of the L4 microkernel. It also runs Linux as an application alongside trusted programs, giving backward compatibility with legacy software. The system currently works on ARM, x86, and MIPS64.
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AROS for PPC, AmigaOS-68k, More

Amiga & AROS 17 Comments
AROS has seen a lot of under-the-hood work lately. Firstly, Joe Fenton has been able to run AROS PPC on his iMac using Fedora Core 4. Joe and Markuss Weiss are working hard on them, in order to give us a PPC version of AROS. Secondly, Bernd Roesch has compiled an AmigaOS-68k hosted version of AROS called AfA (AROS for AmigaOS): "AfA OS is a way to use AROS source without changes and compile them on every AmigaOS based operating system. It can run and be build hosted on every AmigaOS compatible system and provides a compatible API to all systems."
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