Money certainly isn't everything. But when you’ve worth nearly $50-billion it tends to alter prejudices. In person, Bill Gates might still be a living example of the Super Nerd - gangly, bespectacled, and hugely intelligent with only the pocket protector missing. But unlike most other geeks, when Gates talks, everybody listens. Elsewhere, In an effort to boost sales of Windows, Microsoft has its sights set on its nearest competitor.

So you want to be a Debian developer? You're not the only one. Preparing software packages for the distribution, writing documentation, and testing a release are all endless, thankless tasks. Yet, at any given time, hundreds have applied to do them. However, before candidates are trusted with such tasks, they have to prove not only their programming skills, but also their understanding of Debian processes and philosophy. The process takes months, and there are few exceptions.

NetWare and GroupWise will continue to be supported until 2010 and beyond 'unless market conditions determine otherwise'.

Developers of the Linux kernel created a security mailing list this week to air future vulnerability information regarding the open-source operating system's core code.

Groklaw is reporting that the Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) of the European Parliament has decided today to apply the article 55.1. of the Rules of Procedure and ask for a new first reading on the Computer-Implemented Inventions directive. The decision was reached with an overwhelming majority of the Committee, and with the support of all major political groups.

The global handheld market continued to slide in 2004, with shipments slipping to below 10 million for the first time since 1999, according to a new IDC report. Update: The German division of T-Mobile today unveiled the latest addition to its venerable line of Windows Mobile based communicators, the MDA IV, with a swiveling VGA display and a 520 MHz Intel XScale. It offers not only GSM, GPRS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, but also adds support for WCDMA-based 3G. It will also include two integrated cameras, as well as a unique swiveling screen concept. The device can either be used laptop-style with both its screen and integrated thumbboard accessible, or tablet-style with only its screen accessible.

Serenity Systems International is pleased to announce the availability of an eComStation 1.2 beta release that installs on AMD Athlon 64-based systems (as a 32bit OS).

Linux creator Linus Torvalds defended the open source movement against critics who say that the so-called "community of communities" should band together or risk ending up like Unix.

Two open-source leaders joined Linux founder Linus Torvalds in disparaging software patents Tuesday, the newest volley in a battle that pits the cooperative programming philosophy against Microsoft.

Floating point provides a convenient, approximate representation of real numbers that can greatly simplify scientific and engineering algorithms. This article gives an overview of two floating point formats used in the z990 architecture and discusses key FPU issues that system architects should consider in new designs.

Microsoft downplayed the significance of a reported flaw in its latest update to Windows XP.

In an effort to further commoditize computing, Sun is now selling computing and storage utilities, modeled after other "grids" like electrical, water, and oil distribution. Instead of paying by the kilowatt-hour or gallon/litre, customers pay by the CPU-hour or the gigabyte-month.In a way, this is a natural extention of other hosting services, such as web hosting, except that general computational workloads are supported on many processors.

This paper introduces basic clustering components and software tools that can be used to build a Linux cluster on IBM eServer OpenPower 710 by utilizing its 64-bit POWER5 architecture. This paper is intended as an introduction for someone interested in building a new Linux cluster running on OpenPower 710 servers or converting an existing cluster to OpenPower 710 servers.

Technology Insider has a skeptical review of the new Mac Mini. It gives a good overview of a Windows user's impression of the Mini and Macs in general. Note: read the whole review before rushing to judgement. If you read it carefully, you might be able to discern the author's hidden adgenda. Also check out the same site's article on setting grandma up with a Linux box.