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1st International DotGNU Collaborative Coding Competition

The DotGNU project is holding an international competition in the area of collaboratively implementing the System.Windows.Forms namespace in the C# class libraries, a GUI framework that will allow developers and end users to run and develop applications on many different platforms, anything from GNU/Linux, MS Windows, OS X to even handhelds. Participants will have a chance of winning one of fifteen monetary prizes totalling US$ 4500. The full anouncement is here.

Apple switching from tcsh to bash

According to MacNN, sources are reporting that the latest developer release of Mac OS X "Panther" has changed its default shell from tcsh to bash. From ISPs using both OSX and Linux, it's kind of good news. It seem that Linux's popularity gives some kind of "prefered shell" status to bash.

Report on the Future of Qt

The dot is running a piece on a recent presentation given by Matthias Ettrich, director of Qt development, author of LyX, and founder of KDE, in the annual KDE Developer's Conference in Nove Hardy, Czech Republic. He details what will be new in Qt 4.0, which will be used as a base for the next major version of KDE after 3.2. New features will include much faster startup speed and memory usage as well as a general cleanup of Qt's architecture, including the splitting of GUI and non-GUI related classes in Qt.

Jobs to Speak at Apple Expo in Paris

Rumors have been flying about new 15" Powerbooks, and now we learn that Steve Jobs will be giving a keynote speech at Apple Expo 2003 in Paris on September 16. Though I'm sure it's being saved for one of Steve's "and one more thing" zingers at the end of the speech, it's pretty likely that new 15" Powerbooks (still with a G4, but with illuminated keyboard) will be released.

Get the new Rational Developer PowerPack

Sign up for the free Developer PowerPack of your choice, and over the next 6 weeks you’ll get a robust collection of resources—designed by developers for developers—that will enable you to evaluate Rational developer tools. You can choose from the following PowerPacks: Java Platform edition, XDE Developer - .NET edition, Rose Enterprise for Windows, Embedded Solutions, and Rapid Developer for J2EE Development.

Linux 2.4.22 Kernel Released

Hours ago Marcello Tosatti released Linux 2.4.22. This release marks the next version in the 2.4.x stable series of the kernel. A host of changes have been made to wireless networking, adaptec drivers and the ia64 port in addition to many other bugfixes. You can get this new release as a patch from here or as a complete package from here. Changelog here.

It’s official: FreeBSD gets native Java support

No more hours of compiling! Binary distributions of Java on FreeBSD are finally here. The FreeBSD Foundation today announced the availability of a binary distribution of the Java JDK version 1.3.1 for the widely used FreeBSD operating system.Wes Peters of the FreeBSD Core Team commented "This announcement hallmarks a new era of Java support for FreeBSD. Having easy to install binary Java packages will ensure that all users can enjoy the benefits of Java technology on the FreeBSD platform."

ATAng Merged Into FreeBSD -current

Soeren Schmidt announced this weekend that ATAng has been merged into the FreeBSD -current kernel tree. Described by the author as "rather radical changes to the ATA driver", ATAng offers a number of impovements over the old ATA driver. This includes removal of the 'GIANT' lock, an improved framework that supports newer ATA controllers, merging of ATA and ATAPI code, and the removal of numerous bugs.

Developers Get First Good Look at “Longhorn”

After months of speculation, Microsoft plans to give developers their first hard look at the next version of Windows in October.The Redmond, Wash., company expects to release a "developers preview" of the new operating system, code-named Longhorn, at its professional developers conference in Los Angeles. Although it won't be a full beta, or test, version, Microsoft executives have promised it will be more than just "slideware," software that companies haven't been using and don't know when it will be coming.

Syllable Media Framework integrated

Arno Klenke has recently checked in the media framework to Syllable CVS. Functionality of this initial checkin is impressive, with video and audio playback in many common formats via the FFMpeg codec plugin, the ability to play multiple audio streams with stream mixing and video playback with video overlays or playback with a bitmap display on systems which do not support overlays. You can check out some screenshots of the Media Player and ColdFish in action.

SkyOS GUI Design Contest Underway

The official project for the replacement of the SkyOS GUI, the SkyOS GUI Design Contest, is now underway. You may view the current submissions at the website here. If you would like to contribute a design, please read the instructions on the first page of the site. Submissions will be accepted until September 8th. At that point, the designs will judged in an open community vote. The top 3 designs will move on, and will be judged by the designers, the community, and Robert (creator of SkyOS). The new GUI will appear in SkyOS v5.0. Update: The site's earlier bandwidth problems have been solved.

IRIX 6.5.21 Released

As of August 6, 2003, IRIX 6.5.21 is releasing with all new systems shipping from SGI worldwide manufacturing centers. The IRIX 6.5.21 release contains both maintenance and feature updates. This release continues the focus on stability, reliability, security, and compatibility required in the IRIX 6.5.XX quarterly release process.