A new version of Mono is available, the new features include: Cairo support, Remoting.Corba support, as well as a managed XSLT implementation. Existing features have been improved vastly: better Windows.Forms, runtime, faster compiler, web services, better compliance to the spec and more. On other C# news, the .NET Compact Framework 1.0 SP1 Redistributable is available.

The World Intellectual Property Organization was planning on having a discussion at its next conference on open collaborative projects (such as the internet), including open source software. So many participants were interested in the open source discussion that it started quite a buzz. Now, lobbyists with pockets full of money from Microsoft and other interests are pushing to have the meeting scuttled. They say that a discussion on open source has no place in a meeting about Intellectual Property (as if non-proprietary IP isn't IP too).

In order to protect itself from DDoS attacks, Microsoft is using the Akamai service to distribute its load. Ironically, as a result, the domain www.microsoft.com is now listed in the Netcraft report as being Linux running IIS. Netcraft has received so much mail asking about that, and the irony of Linux-bashing Microsoft now depending on "enterprise-class" Linux servers has generated so much discussion, Netcraft has posted a page explaining what's happening.

For those interested in looking at the screenshots for Solaris 10 (with gnome pre-installed) and a dmesg checkout here. Update: It seems that the site got OSNews'ed moments after the story went live.

Throngs of people flooded into the Moscone center in San Francisco to get a glimpse at what is new in the Linux world. Once again, the Linuxworld Expo came to the West Coast making a stop at the Moscone center in San Francisco August 5-7. The show floor was filled with a mix of software and hardware vendors. Somehow, I was not expecting to find so many hardware vendors at what is otherwise a show about simply an operating system. Editor's Note: Mr. Wread sumbitted this report the day after the expo, and it has been stuck in mailing list server purgatory.

WinSuperSite has obtained information and screenshots of the upcoming "Aero" UI for Windows Longhorn.

This is a review of the recently released version 1.4 of MorphOS running on the Pegasos computer system written by Kelly Samel of Emerald Imaging.

ThinkSecret reports that Apple is preparing updated iMacs and Powerbooks, while two new development seeds were also sent to beta testers.

Today at NewMobileComputing there's a feature article about a prototype Wireless LAN-based open alternative to traditonal woreless networks. There's also some info on Palm's OS marketshare, a PalmOS 6 preview, and a $299 Linux PDA.

The first publicly released sample that The SCO Group claims was improperly added to the Linux source code has every right to be in Linux, according to open-source advocate Bruce Perens. In analysis that he's published on his web site, he notes that the code in question is copyrighted by AT&T, but has been released under the BSD license...twice! See tecChannel and lwn for an overview. In other SCO News, McBride has stated his intention to start lawsuits against "illegitimate" end users of the Linux OS.

Linux guru Alan Cox is taking a year off from RedHat and kernel development to get his MBA (and learn Welsh). Alan has offered quite a lot to the Linux community, including work on the kernel itself, contributions to the Gnome project, and much more. He will be missed in his absence.

Sun's EVP of Software Jonathan Schwartz uses the popular metaphor of the natural ecosystem to describe the IT world. Most corporate IT departments are what ecologists call a "monoculture." As various blights and famines have proven, when there is too much of the same plant growing in one place, it's suceptable to being wiped out by a disease. Stressing the need for "genetic diversity on the desktop" to combat security threats, Schwartz points to a non-Microsoft desktop as a viable solution. The difficulty in implementing the new OS? Says Schwartz, "you might have to train the user that a home directory named 'My Computer' on Windows has been renamed 'This Computer' . . . "

Damn Small Linux is a Linux distribution based on the Knoppix live CD, but reduced enough to fit on a 50MB business-card shape CD. Damn Small Linux is a general purpose distribution to carry around in one's wallet; it comes with XFree86 and the Fluxbox window manager, while other light-weight applications for email, web browsing, word processing, instant messaging and playing music are also included. Read an interview with the author of Damn Small Linux - John Andrews.

SCO showed the disputed code at their SCO Forum conferece in Las Vegas to their partners and customers. SCO's CEO Darl McBride said tat they have hired pattern-recognition experts to find infringing code in linux, and that they have found "a mountain of code" and that "The DNA of Linux is coming from Unix" and thus Linux is more competitive because of it. They have also announced new version of their OpenServer code-named "Legend". More at news.com article. Heise News shows the code. The code seems to come from arch/ia64/sn/io/ate_utils.c, copyright by SGI. Possibly from here or here?