MontaVista Software today announced the release of version 4.0 of its embedded Linux OS, MontaVista Linux Professional Edition. The new release is based on the 2.6 Linux kernel and includes hard real-time capabilities.

"We are pleased to announce a new developer snapshot of GNU Classpath. GNU Classpath, essential libraries for java, is a project to create free core class libraries for use with runtimes, compilers and tools for the java programming language."

"Okay, I’ve had an opinion change I’d like to announce. I’m betting that the future of mobility will be Linux, and not Symbian, Windows or anything else. This is quite a change from my previous pro-Symbian stances, but I’ve been sort of leaning this way for a while - or rather, leaning away from Symbian as it fails to live up to its potential - and now I’ve finally come to a religious change of faith when it comes to mobile OSes."

Terrasoft Solution has published the pdfs of the last issue of the Linux User & Developer magazine in which you can find interviews with Terrasoft's Kai Staats and Genesi's Raquel Velasco and Bill Buck. In it they speak about what has been done with the Open Desktop Workstation and of course about future plans.

Here is a very long and comprehensive comparison of archiving tools for Microsoft Windows. Three awards are rewarded for best commercial, best freeware, and best open-source archiver.

Andrew Morton has provided a short list of features and fixes that will be included in the 2.6.14 kernel which include OCFS2, Relayfs, v9fs, FUSE, pcmcia and scheduler updates among other changes including hundreds of bug fixes.

"Colony CD 4 is ready. This is the fourth in a series of milestone CD images that will be released throughout the Breezy development cycle, as images that are known to be reasonably free of showstopper CD-build or installer bugs, while representing very current snapshots of Breezy. You can download it here." Bug reports can be filed here.

"Every major release of the 4.x series of Xfce has been pretty major. 4.0 was the result of over a years work, a major rewrite of the entire desktop. 4.2 saw the introduction of major features and enhancements that were incomplete for 4.0, and new developers as Xfce4 gained popularity. 4.4 is going to be a major upgrade to Xfce, with new components, major upgrades to old ones, and more tools for developers. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at what’s coming."

Open Virtuozzo (GPL/QPL) is an operating system-level server virtualization solution, built on Linux. Open Virtuozzo creates isolated, secure virtual private servers or virtual environments on a single physical server enabling better server utilization and ensuring that applications do not conflict. Each VPS performs and executes exactly like a stand-alone server; VPSs can be rebooted independently and have root access, users, IP addresses, memory, processes, files, applications, system libraries and configuration files.

SCO and MySQL announced Friday that the two would be working together to jointly deliver the commercial version of the MySQL database to SCO's latest Unix release, OpenServer 6. OpenServer 6 already includes the Apache Web server, the Apache Tomcat JSP (Java Server Pages) server, the PostgreSQL DBMS and the MySQL Community Edition.

Apple Computer without VisiCalc would have been an entirely different company. VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet, was a major cause of the success of the Apple II, and attracted the attention of IBM to the microcomputer market. Read about VisiCalc at creator Dan Bricklin's site and a brief history at Braeburn.

Objective Modula-2 (or ObjM2) is an extension to Modula-2 which follows the Objective-C object model and retains the bracketed Smalltalk message passing syntax introduced in Objective-C. Like Objective-C, Objective Modula-2 is a reflective, object oriented programming language with both static and dynamic typing. It is intended as a safer alternative to Objective-C for Cocoa and GNUstep software development.

Just weeks after releasing Windows Vista Beta 1, Microsoft has shifted our paradigms again, unveiling a preview of beta 2 at the TechEd 2005 developer conference. Also, "hardware vendors are going to love the news that Windows Vista is going to need very beefy hardware to run well. At Microsoft's TechEd conference, Dan Warne finally managed to squeeze blood from a stone - or rather, answers about Longhorn's hardware requirements from Microsoft."

"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."