The creator of the Linux operating system, Linus Torvalds, has weighed in on the issue of backporting features from newer Linux kernels into older ones, calling the practice a good thing for the most part. When asked by e-mail to comment for internetnews.com, Torvalds wrote: "I think it makes sense from a company standpoint to basically 'cherry-pick' stuff from the development version that they feel is important to their customers. And in that sense I think the back-porting is actually a very good thing."

eWEEK Labs reviews the latest version of The GNOME Project's desktop environment for Linux and Unix and finds a faster and more polished release that further brightens the prospect of Linux as a viable corporate desktop replacement.

This article describes how to build a composite custom control with Borland C# Builder for MS .NET. However, once the control is built, you can use it in any other IDE, such as Visual Studio .NET.

N|vu is a web development application with a WYSIWYG interface that is aimed to be user friendly, easy and powerful, sponsored by Linspire. This review looks at this program in detail and aims to help users to get an idea about it.

An ancient e-mail message embarrasses Microsoft in a key legal case. A leaked memo has Linux antagonist SCO Group scrambling to explain apparently secret Microsoft connections. A leaked message from RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser reveals his behind-the-scenes maneuvering to get a stake in Apple Computer's booming iPod business. Read the analysis at C|Net News.com.

This article explores a solution for globalization applications in Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME). It describes this solution throughout the software development life cycle, including requirements analysis, design, implementation, testing, and deployment. You'll learn why globalization is important in J2ME applications, the guidelines for developing a globalization application, and how to implement these guidelines throughout the development cycle.

VMware has pledged to support the 64-bit extended architectures of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel for its virtual machine software running on both Windows and Linux over the next 18 months. Update: This article covers changes in VMWare Workstation 4.5 compared to the previous version, 4.0.

With his management team reshuffled, Sun's president and chief operating officer Jonathan Schwartz sat down again with eWEEK's Steve Gillmor to discuss Sun's contributions to the open-source community, the Sun-MS deal's impact on DRM, identity management and visual development tools, and the strategic role of Sun's auto-update technology in the emerging real-time enterprise platform.

Novell chief information office Debra Anderson has been charged with the task of migrating more than 5,000 employees onto desktop Linux and Open Office during the next 12 months.

Longhorn's arrival will indeed be monumental, as their research teams are finally producing something worthwhile. The OSS world has much to do in preparation for this release; this version of Microsoft's OS will not simply offer trivial UI "enhancements" that appeal to users, as it has done in the past - they are really targeting both users and developers very forcefully this time around.

Moataz Bhatti wrote an interesting article on the new Wireless Era that awaits computing, for our sister site, New Mobile Computing.

SUSE's chief technology officer said he believes the practice of "backporting" features from the 2.6 Linux kernel into older versions is a "bad thing" because it interferes with standardization of the open source operating system. During a keynote address at the Real World Linux Conference here Thursday, Juergen Geck also chided industry players to avoid practices that could further fragment open source standardization efforts.

On Monday, Michael Robertson of Linspire (née Lindows) preannounced two new applications, Lsongs (screenshot) and Lphoto (screenshot). Although details are scant, the applications appear to fill a gap in the Linux world currently being filled by iTunes, WinAmp, RealPlayer, iPhoto, and other apps on other platforms. The latest Michael's Minute has more, as does this flash presentation on Lphoto.

Metin Amiroff was the first of many readers to let us know that KDE 3.2.2 is now available. According to the press release, "The KDE Project today announced the immediate availability of KDE 3.2.2, a maintenance release for the latest generation of the most advanced and powerful free desktop for GNU/Linux and other UNIXes." Downloads can be found here.