Microsoft Research – The Company in 10 Years

Microsoft 33 Comments
Research and development, or R&D, is a big deal with the Gates Gang. After all, in 2003, they spent over (all figures US) $4.6 billion on it. For a company that had revenues of $32.1 billion in the corresponding period, this is an impressive figure and to put in perspective, they spent $6.5 billion on sales and marketing during the same period. Clearly, R&D is important to the company. Read the article at Canoe.ca.
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Reflections on Trusting Trust

  Submitted by Roberto J. Dohnert Privacy, Security 32 Comments
This paper was written by Ken Thompson around August 1984. Ken Thompson is the co-father of UNIX: "You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code. In demonstrating the possibility of this kind of attack, I picked on the C compiler. I could have picked on any program-handling program such as an assembler, a loader, or even hardware microcode. As the level of program gets lower, these bugs will be harder and harder to detect. A well installed microcode bug will be almost impossible to detect."
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What’s New in System.Xml for VS2005 & the .NET Framework 2.0

.NET 10 Comments
This article by Mark Fussell provides an in-depth overview through a climax-building top ten countdown of the best features of the core XML classes in System.Xml in the forthcoming .NET Frameworks Beta 1 release. These enable you to read, write, manipulate, and transform XML. With improvements in performance, usability, typing, and querying the XML support in the V2.0 release continues to lead the industry in innovation, standards support, and ease of use.
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The Changing Face of Open Source

  Submitted by InternetNews Open Source 17 Comments
While Linux is by no means complete, the broad strokes have been filled in: the operating system, the server software, the database. But at the same time, the stereotype of the lonely programmer working in the wee hours is seriously outdated. The second generation of open source projects responds to specific business demands, and the people building these applications are getting paid -- even if the code they write will be free.
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Introducing “Cooperative Linux” – Linux for Windows, No Less

Linux 21 Comments
A month ago, a trial version of a little-known Linux application called "CoLinux" was released that is the first working free and open source method for optimally running Linux on Microsoft Windows natively. It's the work of a 21 year-old Israeli computer science student and some Japanese open source programmers; in Israel, analysts are already saying it could help transform the software world.
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Testing Frameworks in Python

General Development 1 Comment
In this installment, David looks at Python's two standard modules for unit testing: unittest and doctest. These modules expand on the capability of the built-in assert statement, which is used for validation of pre-conditions and post-conditions within functions. He discusses the best ways to incorporate testing into Python development, weighing the advantages of different styles for different types of projects.
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Design Patterns for High Availability using an RTOS

  Submitted by David Kalinsky OS News No Comments
This technical overview by veteran real-time instructor David Kalinsky examines a number of design patterns used to architect high-availability embedded systems that utilize a real-time operating system. The design of high availability systems is based on a combination of redundant hardware components and software to manage fault detection and correction, to achieve "five-nines" (99.999%) or greater availability, equivalent to less than 1 second of downtime per day.
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