Microsoft's Chris Anderson responds to Novell's Miguel de Icaza and then Miguel responds back. Elsewhere, Red Hat's Havoc Pennington talks about Open Source software subscriptions.
Mark Mitchell recently announced the availability of GCC 3.4.2. Mark explains, "there are no new features in this release, but there are a lot of improvements for various languages and architectures."
The open-source OS still hasn't picked up much momentum in the mobile world, but maybe manufacturers are trying to introduce it in the wrong place, says TheFeature. BTW, we are looking for editors to help with active news posting at OSNews' sister site, NewMobileComputing.
Of the 10 most reliable hosting providers in August, Netcraft finds that five ran Linux. One site ran Windows, another, Solaris...and two ran that still-rising system called... FreeBSD. Read the article.
The following is a short review of Xandros Desktop OS Open Circulation Edition 2.01 otherwise known as the OC release. This is the first time there has been a freely downloadable version of Xandros in the companies history and I believed it was worth writing a review on. The OC Edition is a limited version of Xandros Desktop that is freely distributable, so you can get it for free and give it out. Read the Review at DesktopOS.com. Also at DesktopOS, a Libranet 2.8.1 review.
There are 100's of different Linux distributions and picking one can be difficult. So (:^tuxs.org) has devised the "Linux Distribution Chooser" to help you find a good distribution to try for the first time. Answer a few simple questions and the "Linux Distribution Chooser" will suggest a Linux distribution for you to try The Distribution Chooser has been now updated to version 0.2 following the
feedback from Distrowatch readers.
Yesterday Apple released a security patch that addresses 15 issues, including a serious Kerberos vulnerability. The patch repairs issues in OS X versions going back to 10.2. The patch is available through Software Update, and an advisory can be found at Apple's web site.
Microsoft had released a special registry key for large customers that delays Windows XP SP2's automatic download and installation for 120 days, to give companies time to prepare for the update. They have decided to extend that timeframe to 240 days, due to pressure from customers.
Some intrepid soul has ported the SIMH emulator to the GBA and is using that to run the PDP-6 version of UNIX v6. Actually, looking at the stats of the (ARM-based) GBA, it would have been eye-poppingly advanced back in the late 60s. There's a great article about it at Kernelthread. Update: Thanks to Vanders on setting me straight on which version of UNIX was actually ported.
Intel's high-end Itanium chip is not making the kinds of inroads that Intel had hoped. It's Xeon chip still rules the roost for servers. In response, the company will be launching a program that lets potential users try out Itanium hardware before they buy. A ZDNet article covers where Intel's going with the Itanium and Xeon.
Kompose'
is an Expose'-like (OS X) full screen task manager for KDE that has just
gone to release 0.4.1 in two months. You really have to see it to
understand, but imagine that tiny little box in your taskbar that
indicates all our running windows blown up and on the entire desktop.
Then add a tiny screenshot for each app. For those without an OS X box around we have provided these screenshots of Kompose' in action.
IBMs new Method Scheduler for Java (MS4J) is a scheduler component that allows developers to execute methods on Java objects asynchronously and/or repeatedly. MS4J can increase Web application page response times by performing certain input/output (I/O) operations (such as database updates) asynchronously, in parallel with or after page delivery to the client.
Jim Allchin is group vice president of Microsoft’s Platforms Group and has overall responsibility for the Windows operating system. He talks about Longhorn, security, 64 bit, open source, and life at Microsoft. Read the interview.
Tim O'Reilly has spoken often over the last year about how to apply the ideals of open source with the slow and eventual shift from dependence on software to dependence on information. The new software is 'infoware'. In Applying Distributed XML toward The Open Source Paradigm Shift to Infoware, I propose that we can preserve the freedoms to innovate with data and to fork infoware by working with locally hosted xml files like we do with RSS.
A Forbes article notes that competition from Linux has spurred Microsoft on to improve its product, lower prices, and spend more attention looking at its sales process. All that effort has resulted in healthy sales for Microsoft's products. It seems that, without a rival, Microsoft gets lazy.
DesktopOS published a Libranet GNU/Linux 2.8.1 review. The author describes the installation, configuration and community of Libranet, and gives some good tips as well.
