Linux news is getting more and more exciting, and somehow, managing to get less and less interesting. Why? Because the speed of development is getting so rapid that it's hard to get excited for each upcoming release, keep your system completely up to date, and even remember what the current version of your favorite distributions are. This breakneck pace of development means good and bad things, but I have a few ideas about how I expect it to turn out.

GTK+OSX's project manager, Robin Rowe, is now in search of Mac/Unix developers to help him out with a native port of GTK+ for Mac OS X, based on Carbon and without the aid of X11. The port is already usable (CinePaint can run on it) but there is a lot of work still to be done. A stable native GTK+ port could enrich significantly the OSX application base with free open source like Gimp, Bluefish or Anjuta and add to the elegance without the use of X11 (Robin said the port will use an OSX theme by default).

This is a development release leading up to GTK+ 2.4. Changes since GTK+ 2.3.0 consist of numerous small bug fixes and enhancements, with a special focus on the new GtkFileChooser. Glib, Pango announcements. On other Gnome/GTK+ news, Gnomemeeting 0.99 was released today too (review).

"Everyone is talking about Windows clusters, Unix clusters and Linux cluster. But all we are saying, is that the 20 year-old architecture of clustered OpenVMS can teach these whippersnappers a thing or two. At OpenVMS.org there's a report about an OpenVMS cluster which handles the major processing for the Greater Amsterdam Police and naturally is required 24/7." Read the story at TheInquirer.

ActiveState today announced the release of Tcl Dev Kit 3.0. The solution includes new features for the rapid development and delivery of professional quality Tcl applications, and sets a new bar for developer productivity and performance for in-depth code analysis, management, debugging, and deployment.

2.4 stable kernel maintainer Marcelo Tosatti announced that XFS has been merged into the 2.4 kernel.

Anaconda-enabled Sarge install images are now available here.

The official release is here and you can start downloading the KDE 3.2-beta2 from here.

A 20-year IT consulting veteran and author of "The Unix Guide to Defenestration" offers the second in a series of four articles that examine the state of computing as he imagines it will be five years from now. Last week's article was on Microsoft's vision for its future software. This week, he looks at where the Unix and open source alternative is likely to go and, next week, at the hardware both groups can expect to have available to run their software. The last of the series will look at the impact these changes are likely to have on the IT industry itself.

If you are a DBA or a database programmer, your manager may have asked you to prepare a breakdown of employees by location and department, or a breakdown of products by category and provider. If your boss is a techie, instead of a breakdown she might have mentioned a pivot table, or, if she likes to use "the right words," a cross-tabulation, Giuseppe Maxia writes. Elsewhere on OnLamp.com another article advises on "Quick and Dirty RDBMS Tuning".

o3one, is a VMS-like hobby operating system with some UNIX features currently in development. It includes VMS version control in the filesystem dfs, as well as both stream and "mailbox" style pipes. Development is currently headed towards an Alpha port, and a GUI is in development.

For a limited time, you can order the full version of Microsoft Services for UNIX 3.0—at no charge (see conditions). A $99 retail value, Windows Services for UNIX 3.0 provides an integrated environment in which to run applications for both Windows and UNIX on a single system. This offer is available only in the United States while supplies last, so act now (offer expires Dec. 31, 2003).

This article discusses Jython, a software project that aims to provide seamless integration between Java and Python. This article requires a basic understanding of both languages.

My husband and I are thinking of buying the Canon Optura Xi camcorder soon (in our opinion, the best DV camera at this range). Because I run so many OSes I always have 'embedded' in me this "thing" to only buy supported hardware by the major OSes. I am sure Optura's DV part will work fine with some Linux tools, but then what? How do I easily edit my... masterpiece and burn DVDs or VCDs via an integrated solution and send them to our families in Greece and France?