Getting Started with eXtreme Programming

General Development 40 Comments
The second edition of 'Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change' explains how and why to use XP. But where to start? XP Explained uses the analogy of entering a swimming pool to describe how organizations get started with XP. There are toe dippers, racing divers, cannonballers, and all manner of variations in between. In this paper Kent Beck and Cynthia Andres characterize these styles.
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Review: Debian 3.1

Debian 54 Comments
As the first Debian release to use the new installer, version 3.1, a.k.a. Sarge, goes a long way to detonating the myth that Debian is hard to install. Moreover, because it includes -- for the most part -- up-to-the-moment software while conforming to strict free software guidelines and offering better than average security, 3.1 is easily the most accessible version of Debian ever released.
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Apple’s Glass House

Apple 139 Comments
Was it Palol Rossetti that one said, "People in glass house shouldn't throw stones?” Push away the Intel this, the Pentium-M that, or perhaps the ability to use the Dual Core Pentium 4, Apple has a much bigger challenge ahead of them. For years, they have been throwing down the MHz myth and now? They are sleeping with the "enemy" according to PowerPC zealots.
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Virus-safe Computing

  Submitted by tm Bugs & Viruses 20 Comments
Many virus attacks aren't really exploiting weaknesses in your operating sytem: they're simply tricking you into telling the OS to do things that it shouldn't do. The OS is just doing its job, executing code when you say so. Researchers at HP Labs are working on a solution to this problem using the Principle of Least Authority, or POLA -- "limiting the rights of each program to only the ones needed for the job the user wants done"
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Does ‘community’ still exist in open source?

Open Source 58 Comments
"The nature of the open source community is changing. I'm not exactly sure what "open source community" means anymore. When I first got involved with open source in 1998/99, the community was distinct: It was Eric Raymond, Bruce Perens, Robin Miller, and others like them. Developers. Gear heads. Hackers. Today, it's unclear whether that community still exists in any separate, discernible form." Read more here.
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KDE 3.5-beta Observations

  Submitted by Eric (Borbzz) KDE 89 Comments
A few screenshots of an early build of the upcoming KDE 3.5 release. Among notable features, Konqueror gets Adblock, and KDE gets some usability features that were introduced in GNOME 2.10. This will be the final release of KDE in the 3 series.
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The Java open source debate

Java 42 Comments
The recent announcement from Apache regarding their plans to embark on their own J2SE implementation called Harmony has re-ignited the long-running Java/OSS debate. James "Father of Java" Gosling reacted in an unexpected way by giving a misleading view of what open source is really all about. Now that the dust has settled a little bit, it's time for an article that is not championing the cause for the relicensing of Sun's implementation under more permissive, open source terms, but simply a look at what could (and could not) happen under the open source model.
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Tiger Tweaks Could Kill Folders

macOS 45 Comments
User-interface experts at one of the world's top design houses say Mac OS X Tiger is the beginning of the end for the Macintosh Finder -- the era of organizing files in nested folders is over. Experts at Silicon Valley's frog design say new features like the systemwide Spotlight search are far more useful for locating information than the hierarchy of files and folders that underpins most computing interfaces, whether on Macs or Windows-based PCs.
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