Linux antagonist SCO Group is seeking to add $2 billion to its legal claim against computing giant IBM while changing the scope of the suit.

KernelTrap reports that David Weinehall has released the 2.0.40 stable Linux kernel, calling it the "Moss-covered Tortoise". It earned this name by being released over 3 years after its predecessor, 2.0.39. Those still using the 2.0 kernel are recommended to upgrade for numerous reasons, including fixes to local exploits and remote information leaks. View the changelog and download the new kernel from a kernel.org mirror.

Microsoft Corp. is hard at work to make "Longhorn," the next iteration of its Windows Server product, do more for less by integrating various server software systems. To do it, the company plans to extend .Net's capabilities even further with common execution environments and complete .Net Common Language Runtime support, said Valerie Olague, a Windows Server System director, in an interview.

As of February 4, 2004 IRIX 6.5.23 is releasing with all new systems shipping from SGI worldwide manufacturing centers. The IRIX 6.5.23 release continues the focus on stability, reliability, security and compatibility required in the IRIX 6.5.xx quarterly release process.

ACMQueue has four interesting articles on developer's collaboration and distributed development: "Building Collaboration into IDEs", "Culture Surprises in Remote Software Development Teams", "The Sun Never Sets on Distributed Development" and "Distributed Development Lessons Learned".

After 13 years with Borland, Hejlsberg joined Microsoft in 1996, where he initially worked as an architect of Visual J++ and the Windows Foundation Classes (WFC). Then, Hejlsberg was chief designer of C# and a key participant in the creation of the Microsoft .NET Framework. Today, he leads the ongoing development of the C# programming language. On July 30, 2003, Bruce Eckel, author of Thinking in C++ and Thinking in Java, and Bill Venners, editor-in-chief of Artima.com, met with Anders Hejlsberg in his office at Microsoft. Check out the entire eight-part interview here.

Reasons why the Firebird database is a viable option for your next project. In the open-source world, much has been made about the need for a full-featured, robust and reliable database that can handle substantial loads and yet be able to play well with such open-source tools as Perl and PHP. The two main contenders are PostgreSQL and MySQL, but a new arrival in this arena is the Firebird RDBMS.

"Software innovation is dead. All that's left is compatibility fixes, security patches, and minor-version-number incremental improvements. The problem isn't a lack of ideas; it's a lack of motivated developers. The next generation of software engineers, who will be producing software in the next twenty-odd years, are simply not able to produce innovative software. Thirty years ago, programming was a niche area, an art, under constant evolution and requiring intellect and ability. New software was really just that -- completely new." Read the editorial at NewsForge.

Following the previous benchmarking article between the two classic virtual machines, Hernán Di Pietro wrote the 2nd part of the article, where WinXP is used as a guest. Check out the new results.

One contributing factor to Mandrake's minimal presence in the enterprise is its unusual business model. After legions of Linux salespeople have educated corporate buyers into the open-source methodology -- buying low-cost software, but expecting to pay for services -- Mandrake persists in taking the opposite approach. Read the article at Enterprise-Linux-IT.

LinuxDevices.com has published an article by veteran Linux author William von Hagen about changes to the configuration process in the 2.6 Linux kernel. The article is the first in a series of articles that will discuss using the Linux kernel and device drivers, etc., in embedded devices. However, the article is generally relevant to servers and desktops, too. Be aware, the author did not mention on the "migration from kernel 2.4" section of the article that you will need to download the latest module-init-tools (and the new 'udev', 'hotplug' packages if you were using these too) in order to fully & correctly migrate to 2.6.

This guide mainly focuses prime issues that are involved in writing professional code, which is very efficient both in terms of space & time as well as be easily ported to other systems with small changes.

yellowTAB has announced that they are expanding internationally. They will be opening offices in Canada and Italy, in order to reach users and markets around the world. yellowTAB North America will be opening it's own store, Zelect.com. In other yellowTAB news, recently an educational edition of Zeta RC2 was released.

Sun Microsystems is experimenting (as we have reported in the past) with a three-dimensional desktop interface that could alter the way users see their screens--without the dorky glasses. First demonstrated at LinuxWorld in January, the "Project Looking Glass" initiative is a 3D Java-based, open source desktop that runs on Linux.