Open for Business has an interesting and comprehensive interview with KDE core developer and multimedia guru Scott Wheeler of JuK and TagLib fame. He outlines the future of KDE's multimedia efforts. Looks like things move away from aRts as sound server and multimedia framework to a very open minded best-of-breed strategy for KDE 4.0, with GStreamer being preferred at the moment.

We had the pleasure of having a quick chat with Sun's COO, Jonathan Schwartz, yesterday. We talked about a variety of things, including Java, Solaris, Red Hat and good ol' Unix.

Sun Microsystems' Solaris 10 may be powerful enough to power a data grid, but for real market growth, Sun is looking inward to the embedded space. Despite the hoopla at this month's announcement party to launch Solaris 10, the focus for the operating system has been outside the usual realm of server rooms and desktops. Solaris Express 11/04 will be build 72 and should be available on or around November 30. The big thing for this one is... 64 bit Solaris on AMD.''

AROS Max is a pre-configured live bootable CD image, made to show off the best that AROS has to offer. It requires an AROS capable PC, your mileage may vary. Download from here.

In the aftermath of our last interview with Tom Lord, regardless of personalities, it became apparent that the idea of decentralizing CVS is a big deal. Many mentioned darcs as an alternative to Arch. Mark Strosberg has interviewed project head-hancho David Roundy about darcs, his "theory of patches", what's next, and on using Haskell for the project.

Its Workplace package is catching on with clients, and more software makers are signing on. Still, it's no Windows smasher. IBM launched a bold foray into desktop computing last spring, when it took on Microsoft's desktop monopolies -- Windows and Office -- with its own Workplace product. Now it looks like Big Blue's package of collaboration, communications, productivity, and desktop management software has struck a chord.

I recently downloaded and took a closer look at Novell Linux Desktop 9. While it is certainly aimed at the corporate environment, it's also somewhat suitable for home users. Read our review to find out what experiences I had with it and whether or not it might be right for you.

Watson developer Dan Wood has released his popular Mac OS X application free of charge--sort of. Mac users who want a copy must find and download it off the Web. Elsewhere, according to sources, Apple has seeded the second external build of Mac OS X 10.3.7 and is actively distributing recent builds of Tiger on DVD discs.

IBM increased its lead in a growing server market, nibbling away share from rivals Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems, according to figures to be released Wednesday.

"Show us the architecture of .NET on the whiteboard," is what Jason Zander was asked and that started out an interesting discussion of what .NET is.

In the '80s and most of the '90s, Novell ruled the roost for PC network operating systems. In fact, a term was coined, NOS (network operating system) to describe Novell's flagship product. But the Redmond juggernaut eventually overcame Novell's efforts. Novell shops still exist, but they're getting to be few and far between. As Microsoft consolidated its gain in servers, Novell's Linux began to make inroads on what had seemed to be secure territory. Also, Beagle 0.0.3 was released today (screenshot).

Reacting to claims by Sun COO Jonathan Schwartz that Red Hat is a proprietary incarnation of Linux, Red Hat's vice president of open source affairs Michael Tiemann believes Schwartz should get his facts straight and expressed doubts over how open any open source Solaris is likely to be.

Several new distributions make communicating with a Windows network more difficult than it should be.

Linux distros are advancing everywhere. Not only servers but also on the desktop pc and notebooks. There are wild discussions, if Linux-Distributions are ready for serious business work or personal use. This critical review will deal with two long awaited Linux-distributions, Fedora Core 3 and Ubuntus Warty Warhog. Why these two? Because both feature Gnome 2.8 and it would not be a comparision on equal terms to compare Gnome to e.g KDE. Also, both use kernel 2.6.8+ and have their very own theme for the default desktop. Bluecurve for Fedora and Human for Ubuntu.