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

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.

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' . . . "

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?

KGI, or Kernel Graphics Interface, provides a framework that allows full 3D accellerated video card drivers to compile on different platforms without any modification to the drivers themselves. KGI, which has been developed on Linux to the point that it's "rather stable," is now available for xBSD.

Syllable 0.4.5 is out! You can see the changelog here. This release is the last of the Syllable 0.4 releases, and comes after over a year of development. Development will now begin on Syllable 0.5, which we hope will bring great improvements and increased stability to Syllable.