OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Microsoft Apologizes For Previous Anticompetitive Acts

Submitted by Tudy Parghel 2004-03-18 Legal 62 Comments

Microsoft apologized to jurors for its past anticompetitive practices during opening statements Wednesday in a case alleging the company's antitrust violations include word processing and spreadsheet software. "Yes, we acknowledge that and we apologize for it," said David Tulchin, a Microsoft attorney. "The conduct involved competition that went over the line. The question for you is whether or not consumers were overcharged."

Microsoft Releases Windows XP SP2 RC-1

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-18 Windows 23 Comments

The release candidate of Windows XP SP2 offers several new features not offered in the first beta that shipped in December, including the Windows Security Center accessible from the Windows Control Panel, the Pop-up Blocker on by default and for consumers, the Windows Update V5 RC1.

Binary Delta Compression Overview

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-18 General Development 27 Comments

This document describes Binary Delta Compression (BDC) technology and its use in software update deployment. This implementation of BDC technology developed by Microsoft reduces the download size of software update packages by downloading only the differences between old files and new files.

Patent Issues in the Software Industry

Submitted by special 2004-03-18 Legal 32 Comments

In response to Havoc Pennington's post on the future of open source desktop development, GNOME's in particular, two prominent GNOME and Mono Hackers, Miguel de Icaza and Paolo provide their interesting perspective on the subject here and here.

FreeBSD Jan-Feb 2004 Status Report available

Submitted by Zarafa 2004-03-18 FreeBSD 51 Comments

The FreeBSD January-February 2004 Status Report has been published to the freebsd-current and freebsd-stable mailing lists. The archived messages are available online here, and the report is here.

SkyOS Members Interviewed

Submitted by Nate Wienert 2004-03-18 SkyOS 24 Comments

Here is an interview with Robert and Kelly from SkyOS posted on SkyOSnet.

A Look at Win4Lin 5.1

Guest post by Daniël de Kok 2004-03-17 OS News 36 Comments

As a student I am quite often confronted with (closed-source) Windows programs. These days there are a few tools that can help running Windows applications on Linux. One of these tools is Win4Lin, Win4Lin allowsone to install Windows 95, 98 and ME under Linux. The Windows NT branch is not supported yet, because Win4Lin sets up a special DOS environmentin which Windows runs.

Apple Developing Remote Desktop 2

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-17 macOS 24 Comments

Apple is developing a major upgrade to Remote Desktop, the company's desktop management and screen-sharing software, Think Secret has learned. Sources said Apple Remote Desktop 2 will boast standards-based reporting, task scheduling, VNC support, and other new features.

Windows Server 2003 R2 FAQ Updated

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-17 Windows 2 Comments

Rrevealed at SuperSite for Windows, R2 will include all of the free out-of-band updates Microsoft shipped for Windows Server 2003 since April 2003, including the Group Policy Management Console and Windows SharePoint Services.

OpenBSD: SMP development; AMD K6 PowerNow Support

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-17 OpenBSD 7 Comments

AMD PowerNow support as found on AMD K6 cpus, the k6-2/3+ models now works on OpenBSD while SMP is going ahead too.

GUIdebook Graphical User Interface Gallery

Submitted by Tom Bierce 2004-03-17 Graphics 10 Comments

This site is dedicated to the preservation of GUI systems. Would be great if readers with access to older versions or other systems could enrich the collection.

The Future of OSS Desktop Development: Java, Mono, or C++?

Submitted by Erick Woods 2004-03-17 General Development 156 Comments

"Mono as it currently stands has serious problems, including strategic and intellectual property concerns. Java as provided by Sun is not open source or GPL-compatible and thus a nonstarter. Many strong proprietary companies such as Microsoft are moving full speed ahead on high-level managed language platforms. Can open source compete, or is it too unable to make hard decisions?" Read Havoc Pennington's article about the future platforms of OSS.

Apple ‘Spoken Interface’ Technology Coming

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-17 macOS 19 Comments

At the 19th annual Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference, which is taking place this week in Los Angeles, Apple announced "Spoken Interface," an upcoming Mac OS X feature that allows those with visual and learning disabilities to use a Mac through speech, audible cues and keyboard navigation. Read more at MacMinute.

Fedora: Road To The Desktop

Submitted by Gsurface 2004-03-17 Fedora Core 32 Comments

This article is intended on helping those that are interested in either switching to Linux or are curious as to what Linux has to offer. Flexbeta tries to cover the basic components of a desktop and how Fedora can perform these basic tasks.

Microsoft Aims to Double Windows Language Versions

Eugenia Loli 2004-03-17 Windows 31 Comments

Microsoft launched on Tuesday a program to create versions of Windows and its other programs in little spoken languages such as Amharic, Catalan, Gujarati and Welsh to spread its software to all corners of the globe. The Local Language Program aims to double the 40 languages now available on Microsoft's personal computer software with help from local governments.

Debian Installer Beta 3 Usability Review

Guest post by Marcus Thiesen 2004-03-17 Debian 29 Comments

Debian Installer Beta 3 was released two days ago and I wrote a small review concerning the installation part. The new debian installer is good way to set up your favorite distribution. Nontheless there are a few usability things and I thought that it might be a good idea to write a walkthrough from another point of view: Bob "average" User. Read more .