"RuDI is an architectural approach whose goal is to achieve loose coupling among interacting software components instead of linking to libraries. A service is a unit of work of the desktop done by a service provider to achieve desired end results for a 3rd party service consumer. How does RuDI achieve loose coupling among interacting software agents? It does so by employing two architectural constraints: An extensible XML schema allows new versions of services to be introduced without breaking existing services. Second we send messages over a protocol instead of calling explicit individual member functions."

"Localhost is a program that lets you access a shared, world-wide file system through your web browser. This file system is maintained in a fully decentralized way by all of the computers running Localhost. The program uses BitTorrent technology, and new distributed hashtable technology called Kademlia. Every user accesses the system from the same root folder. You can change any folder (including the root folder) by adding files and/or folders to it."

This may not be news for the experienced Linux users here, but for those who are new to Linux, someone sent me a link to this new online Linux magazine geared towards new Linux users. The magazine is published by the same company as publishes the Linux Journal, it is well laid out and is free to subscribe to.

Simon Wilson has released the first public version of his 3D graphics driver for Iyonix users. The software library, ported from BeOS and compatible with the popular OpenGL interface, employs the Nvidia PCI graphics card used in the XScale powered Iyonix. OpenGL based applications built with Simon's port should enjoy hardware accelerated graphics, thanks to the modest GeForece 2 MX card which, until now, has been left unutilised under RISC OS.

Microsoft plans to build more Unix features into future versions of its Windows Server operating system and cease work on its separate Services For Unix product. Microsoft plans to include some of those features in Windows Server 2003 R2, an update to the server OS due at the end of this year. At the same time, the company said it is not planning any further releases of the standalone Services For Unix product. DiStasio, a director in the Windows Server unit, said the plan is to build Unix tools into releases beyond R2 as well, but he did not rule out that there might be some tools offered separate from the OS.

Sun Microsystems has quietly open-sourced its web user interface building tool: JavaServer Faces 1.2. Sun released the source code last week under the company's CDDL.