Sun, Oracle Team for Low-End Server Onslaught

Sun has ample reason to tout low-cost computing. Its Solaris is the leading Unix OS, running primarily on the company's proprietary servers. But Sun faces the erosion of its server business as lower cost Intel-based servers become the industry standard. Sun will replace its own Sparc processors with Intel and AMD chips to create a 'budget' range of blade servers, running on Solaris x86. Also, Sun is to distribute Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat is to distribute Sun's Java.

The Top 8 Operating Systems According to Google

Google, one of the most visited sites worldwide, posted their OS results for April 2003. In the No1 spot, Windows 98 is steadily losing 1% every month to the always rising Windows XP, while MacOS is down to 3% from the 4% of the previous month. Linux is steady at around 1%. The "Other" OSes are also steady at 4% (note that the "other" section also includes other Microsoft OSes, like Windows ME).

FreeBSD: Todo Lists for 5.1 and 5.2

"Robert Watson has started the automatic posting of open issues for the upcoming 5.1 and 5.2 releases. The list for 5.1 is automatically posted to -current every other day, with the most up-to-date version found here. The list is divided into the following four sections: "Must Resolve Issues", "Desired Features", "Documentation items that must be resolved", and "Areas requiring immediate testing". Read it at KernelTrap.

BeFree 0.1.0 Released

The first version of BeFree is released today. It is a GPL/LGPL graphical system that doesn't rely on X11 and is developed under FreeBSD 5.x (should also work on Linux). It is a BeOS 5 API clone (and not a Be OS clone) but the source compatibility will be probably broken in the future, the developer says. The release notes are here.

What If SCO Is Right?

"Almost no one knows what's really going on. Very few people know what's in both Linux and Unix source code, and most of them aren't talking, and the ones who are talking aren't providing specifics. Some Linux advocates say that SCO is somehow being unfair in not disclosing its evidence now, but if SCO is indeed the wronged party then they have no obligation to do any favors to the people who wronged them. So what happens if SCO is right?" Read the article at Internet Week.