http://codewars.osdever.net marks a new beginning in the OS Development Ring. A totally new idea of code wars? No, code wars aren't any new idea(Allegro SpeedHack) but coding an OS in such a short time? Even at all. OS development is a relatively new and growing hobby for programmers. Now you have a chance to openly develop OS code, have it judged, and win Challenges.

Malicious hackers and vandals are lazy and wait for Microsoft to issue patches before they produce tools to work out how to exploit loopholes in Windows, say experts.

Despite Microsoft's repeated denials, the company will indeed release an interim version of Windows XP that will bridge the gap between the initial XP release and Longhorn, which is currently due in late 2005 at the earliest. The interim XP version will ship as a new retail product that replaces existing retail boxed copies of XP and as a set of updates, called XP Reloaded, that existing XP users can install separately.

A Morphix-based GNUstep live CD has been released for i386. It includes many GS apps, such as MPlayer (GS port), GWorkspace, Preview, GNUmail, ProjectCenter and many more. It can be installed to a hard drive.

One of the most impressive aspects of even relatively modest PC hardware is its' ability to emulate a wide range of other platforms. Being a bit of an OS junkie myself, and lacking the space for a full computer room of weird and wonderful hardware, I emulate a range of systems from my humble desktop PC. In this article, I will describe the procedure through which you can run RISC OS 3.7 and others on a Windows-based PC and experience this classic OS (screenshots included).

Scott Long has announced the release of FreeBSD 5.2.1. This point release contains security and bug fixes, as well as improvements to the ATA/IDE and SATA handling. A list of mirror sites is here.

JSR 133, which has been active for nearly three years, has recently issued its public recommendation on what to do about the Java Memory Model (JMM). Several serious flaws were found in the original JMM, resulting in some surprisingly difficult semantics for concepts that were supposed to be simple, like volatile, final, and synchronized. In this installment of Java theory and practice, the author shows how the semantics of volatile and final will be strengthened in order to fix the JMM. Some of these changes have already been integrated in JDK 1.4; others are slated for inclusion in JDK 1.5. On other Java news, IBM urges Sun to make Java open source.

IBM widened its lead in the worldwide server market in 2003 at the expense of Sun Microsystems, making particular gains in the Unix server market, new figures show. In Unix servers, No. 3 IBM saw revenue grow 13 percent to $4.1 billion. Revenue for first-place Sun shrank 16 percent to $5.4 billion, while No. 2 HP saw revenue shrink 4 percent to $5.3 billion. The overall Unix server market shrank 4 percent to $16.7 billion, while the Linux server market grew 90 percent to $2.8 billion, Gartner said.

Mepis Linux is a liveCD, debian based distro, with some additional features, which makes it an excellent introduction to debian. A recent review provided a good overview of the background and basis of Mepis, my review aims to focus more on the day to day use for a desktop user.

European antitrust regulators are considering a requirement that Microsoft sell two versions of Windows in Europe--one with the music- and video-playing software stripped out--should they find the company to be an abusive monopoly, according to people close to the case.

REALbasic 5.5 is shipping from REAL Software, and the new version of development environment adds the ability to build Linux applications from Mac and Windows systems, as well as other features of particular interest to Mac OS X users. "Even if Mac users have never had any experience with programming before, they can learn REALbasic and create useful applications to improve their productivity," Geoff Perlman, president and CEO of REAL Software, told MacMinute.

The OpenPKG project released version 2.0 of their unique RPM-based cross-platform Unix software packaging facility.

This article assist developers of .NET, Windows client/server, and ASP applications make the jump to the Java platform. It provides a high-level guide for .NET developers who want to migrate their e-business applications to J2EE or build J2EE applications from the ground up.

For the past year, there has been a slow and steady stream of news events regarding XFree86, X11, or new X server implementations. To those not paying close attention (and even those who are), the meaning of some of these events may not be clear. In this brief article, I attempt to share my impression on what the changes mean for users of free software on the desktop. It appears that XFree86 is in some turmoil, and it may leave some to infer that free desktop systems will suffer.