Ximian's Dave Camp posted a draft Gnome Roadmap for versions 2.8+. Issues up for discussion are Mozilla/Epiphany, incorportation of peer to peer filesharing, blogging, addition of more media widgets etc. Also, ULB Gnome 0.8.0 for SuSE & Dropline Gnome 2.6.1 for Slackware are out.

Desktop/LX 1.4 (formerly known as Update 4) is coming in July. It features an updated desktop powered by KDE 3.2.2 and its newer kernel supports even more hardware.

CVS users, don't let the next-generation version control system scare you. The basic functionality in Arch can be just as simple as CVS. LinuxJournal covers the basic commands you need to get started.

PalmSource ain't gonna make a birthday party for BeOS but it would only be fair if the rest of us, users, remember the "media OS" as the innovative operating system of the late '90s, still used by some. Depending on how you count, it was early 1994 when the first BeOS version left the Be, Inc. offices and headed toward Be's "partners" and "developers". It was 1994 when the word started to spread around among geeks about this "new and exciting" OS and soon, external devs got access to it.

The GNOME project just released 2.7.1 of the popular DE. More info and changelogs follow:

SUSE LINUX has opened its entire 9.1 directory tree for free download and installation via FTP/HTTP.

The first Pocket PC with Windows Mobile 2003 is out, and Brighthand's Ed Hardy brings us his impressions of the new version of Microsoft's handheld operating system.

It's all Waterloo-Maple's fault, really: if they had maintained a version of their computer algebra system for the Amiga, I wouldn't have found it necessary to switch to Mac. Or maybe it's Commodore's fault for mismanaging themselves into oblivion; I don't know. Either way, I became painfully aware three years ago that my little Amiga would no longer satisfy my computing needs. I needed a new home computer.

A new white paper positioning the IBM J2EE Middleware Platform vs. the Microsoft .NET Platform is now available and reflects IBM's overall marketing plan to aggressively combat Microsoft. While it will be useful to many, its primary target is CEOs, CFOs, and other high-level decision makers at ISV companies who are focused on the mid-market and looking to make a platform/partnering choice in the next 12 months. The outcome of the J2EE vs. .NET decision by ISVs is critical to IBM's ongoing success and relevance in the midmarket arena, traditionally a Microsoft stronghold.

The performance of computer hardware typically increases monotonically with time. Even if the same could be said of software, the rate at which software performance improves is usually very slow compared to that of hardware. In fact, many might opine that there is plenty of software whose performance has deteriorated consistently with time. Moreover, it is rather difficult to establish an objective performance metric for software as complex as an operating system: a "faster OS" is a very subjective, context dependent phrase. Read the article at KernelThread.

Analysts report that the shift toward both Linux and Windows dominance in the data center has begun and traditional UNIX is on the way out.

I worked for Microsoft for eight years. I'm a long time Windows loyalist. And, I admit - I mocked Apple's switch ads and Macintosh users in general - even as recently as a few months ago. But gradually, I grew tired of Windows' many problems and began to notice, even envy Apple products..." Read his blog here.

QNX Software Systems released today the QNX Momentics development suite v6.3. In the coming weeks, there will be a 30-day QNX Momentics Professional Edition evaluation available for download.

During the majority of my time working with computers, Windows was the operating system of choice. Reason being, it's all I've known. In 2002, I took a college course titled "Linux Administration" which entitled me to a few cd-roms of Redhat 7.x. While this course was nothing more than a few extra credits for me, I fell in love with Linux and went through the entire textbook a week into the class. It was a nice feeling to use something "different" than what I was used to.