OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

AOL to Release New Version of Netscape

Submitted by John D\'Agostino 2004-03-30 Mozilla, Gecko 49 Comments

The Inquirer is reporting that America Online is to release a new version of the Netscape browser. The upgrade will be a "'point' release based on the latest Mozilla code" and "will be made available in the very early summer timeframe."

Reminder: Less than Two Days for Our Xandros Competition

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-30 Gifts, Contests 13 Comments

This is a reminder for our 'Xandros Business Desktop 2.0 competition'. We only had 8 entries so far, so there is a huge chance that you will be able to win this prize (valued at $129 USD). The competition ends on Wednesday night (PST time), so if you would like to get so close on winning an online competition as never before, read here on how to enter the competition.

Microsoft Preparing to Release Code to Open Source

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-30 Microsoft 42 Comments

After years of railing against open source, Microsoft Corp is preparing to shift its stance by releasing code to the open source community. A member of Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative has told ComputerWire open source code is "coming". Stephen Walli, platform's business development manager, added Microsoft would likely release "non core" code.

Red Hat CEO: Business of Linux validated

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-30 Red Hat 31 Comments

Red Hat Inc. sits atop the heap of Linux distributors. As the 11-year-old publicly traded Raleigh, N.C.-based company steams toward adolescence, it has nearly $1 billion in cash in the back with which to beat back Novell Inc.'s challenge in the Linux market while continuing to drive innovation and maintain its enterprise focus. Szulik joined the Red Hat world wide tour yesterday as it made its first stop in the United States and in this interview talked about the competition, Red Hat's strategy and SCO.

Longhorn Alpha Due This Year

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-30 Windows 16 Comments

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates told attendees of the Gartner IT Expo on Monday that Microsoft will release an alpha test release of Longhorn later this year.

Firewall Failover with pfsync and CARP

Submitted by Daniel Hartmeier 2004-03-30 OpenBSD 9 Comments

OpenBSD developer Ryan McBride explains the new firewall redundancy features in the upcoming OpenBSD 3.5 release in his article Firewall Failover with pfsync and CARP.

.NET Enterprise Services Performance

Submitted by TT Foo 2004-03-30 .NET 19 Comments

See the performance of native COM+ and .NET Enterprise Services components when applied to different activation and calling patterns. Get guidelines to make .NET Enterprise Services components execute just as quickly as C++ COM+ components, and get key recommendations to help you create high-performance .NET Enterprise Service components.

Design, Features, and Applicability of Solaris File Systems

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-30 Solaris 10 Comments

The Solaris Operating System includes many file systems, and more are available as add-ons. Deciding which file system to apply to a particular application can be puzzling without insight into the design criteria and engineering tradeoffs that go into each product.

A Eulogy for HyperCard

Submitted by jayson knight 2004-03-30 General Development 28 Comments

"To the surprise of few, Apple's Hypercard passed away quietly this week, after life support was finally withdrawn by the company. It had a run of over 16 years - though the last were in circumstances of at best benign neglect. Not a bad duration for a software product, but it still hurts to see it go, since I had some part in its gestation." Read the interesting atricle at PacificAVC.

Open source development using C99

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-30 General Development 21 Comments

What is C99? Who needs it? Is it available yet? The author discusses the 1999 revision of the ISO C standard, with a focus on the availability of new features on Linux and BSD systems.

Mandrake Is On The Move

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-30 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 27 Comments

"Sandwiched between these two significant business events, MandrakeSoft released Mandrakelinux 10.0 Community, an early-adopter's release of Mandrakelinux 10.0 Official, due out in May. Even though it's only a public beta, the newest Mandrakelinux is definitely worth the download, some rough edges notwithstanding." Read Kurt Wall's Mandrake Linux 10.0 CE review at LinuxPlanet.

DR-DOS Still ‘Does It’ at 8.0

Submitted by Devestate 2004-03-30 OS News 29 Comments

Devicelogics, a company founded by former executives of Caldera and Lineo in Utah, says it has begun shipping version 8.0 of DR-DOS today. The company says the most significant enhancement in the latest version of this long-lived operating system is support for FAT32 large partitions, enabling DR-DOS "to keep up with market demand for DOS-based embedded solutions built on FAT32 platforms."

Open Source On the Slippery Slope of Zealotry

Submitted by Taurayi Chitaukire 2004-03-30 Rumors 54 Comments

"In any relationship between two or more entities, the "small" issues usually are the big issues or at least they evovle into big issues. Several of these type of public engagements a month, every month, for several months will result in some harm to the psyche of the community and lesser confidence by the commercial interests who will deem them as a form of instability or unpredictability of the open source model." Read the editorial here by Taurayi Chitaukire.

A Developer’s Perspective on WinFS

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-30 Windows 29 Comments

This article explains how WinFS defines types of objects that can be stored and examines the WinFS API. Using WinFS to store data in a cohesive data store, not just a file system, systems and users can store rich metadata about a myriad of objects.

Software Maintenance and Prototype Based Languages

Guest post by Trent Waddington 2004-03-29 General Development 20 Comments

Have you ever been using an Open Source application and noticed something horribly wrong? I have and as a skilled maintenance programmer it really tickles my fix-it bone. I know I could fix it if I wanted to but it's just so much effort. Usually it's only when a bug really annoys the hell out of me that I'll even go to the trouble of downloading the source code (or even finding out where I can download the source code from). In the rare moments that I have taken on the feat of fixing someone else's code I've found myself exercising my most mad maintenance programmer skills and I decided to make a little list.

What Is Bill Gates Thinking?

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-29 Microsoft 39 Comments

Microsoft's chief software architect recently returned from one of his fabled "Think Weeks" full of ideas on mesh networking, unified networking and more, says eWEEK. Elsewhere, the Internet firms riding a 'mini bubble' said Gates. Update: Another one with Bill: "Hardware to Be Nearly Free in 10 Years".

Miguel de Icaza On Novell and Toolkits; Novell Drops NetWare Name

Submitted by Tsykoduk 2004-03-29 Novell and Ximian 114 Comments

"My team and other teams within Novell continue to develop and use Gtk as their toolkit (recently open sourced Simias/iFolder for instance) and all of the Mono GUI development tools. The only use of Qt that am aware of today is SUSE's recently open sourced YAST" said Ximian's Miguel de Icaza replying on Heise's recent article on standardization of Novell on Qt.

Apple Endorses OpenAL

Submitted by Dago 2004-03-29 macOS 44 Comments

Apple is now officially endorsing OpenAL and has provided a new branch of Mac OS X code which is now in OpenAL's CVS (it requires to install Apple's latest CoreAudio SDK before compiling).

Extra Headaches of Securing XML

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-29 Privacy, Security 3 Comments

Creating a popular new computing approach always seems to bring with it a familiar catch-22: security issues. And Web services is no exception.

Update: The Independent Qt Tutorial

Submitted by Johan Thelin 2004-03-29 Qt 1 Comment

The Independent Qt Tutorial has been updated with a new chapter on the Qt canvas module. It consists of examples and in-depth discussions. The Independent Qt Tutorial is a book introducing the different areas of Qt step-by-step with task orientated chapters rich on examples and a detailed discussion of the different areas of the Qt toolkit.