OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

AmiWest Interviews and AmigaOS 4 Presentation Available

Mike Bouma 2003-07-27 Amiga & AROS 25 Comments

Amiga Inc has made available Ben Herman's AmigaOS 4 presentation from AmiWest 2003. Also interviews with Ben Hermans of Hyperion, Alan Rednouse of Eyetech and a panel speech/discussion with various Amiga community leaders who attended this event are now available in MP3 format.

Gates on Linux, IPs, GPL, SCO and More

Eugenia Loli 2003-07-27 Microsoft 90 Comments

Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates said the intellectual property battle between SCO and IBM is hurting the business of Linux. Gates said the SCO controversy has exposed a fundamental weakness of Linux--that the General Public License (GPL) makes it difficult for companies to engage in the cross-licensing deals that have become standard in the software industry. That's a big Achilles heel, Gates said.

Why Windows Isn’t Hell Or Why Linux Isn’t Bliss, Part II

Guest post by Thom "Slakje" Holwerda 2003-07-27 Editorial 125 Comments

Misinterpreted. I think that is about the best word around to describe the reactions to my previous article. Whether it has been misinterpreted due to people only reading what they want to read, due to an unclear choice of words on my behalf, or other factors, I am going to try it again. I will try to explain my position, again. Now, more stable, the code has been rewritten from scratch!

Comparing Server OSes: Why SCO UNIX Is A Bad Idea

Eugenia Loli 2003-07-27 Unix 33 Comments

"It's a rather difficult mission to shop for an operating system for a server. When most people think of server OSes they think of Unix, and when they think of Unix they think of SCO, the company that owns the Unix source code. But there are so many more choices out there, the least of which offers a dearth of advantages over SCO's Unix products. Having said that, let's explore the Unix world and take a look at what it has to offer the server and workstation market." Read the article at TheJemReport.

Poll: Do you Use a Web Browser with your Mobile Phone or PDA?

Eugenia Loli 2003-07-27 Internet 52 Comments

At OSNews we are interested to see how many people are using our special version of OSNews (no nested tables, no ads but still *full-featured* version, screenshots here and here) that is able to browse on "lesser" browsers. In the following polls, please vote and let us know if you are generally using an HTML-capable web browser with your PDA or your mobile phone.

Apple Seeds Panther build 7B21, new Xcode

Eugenia Loli 2003-07-27 Apple 22 Comments

Apple provided testers and developers with a new pre-release version of Mac OS X 10.3, code-named Panther. The update was marked build 7B21, the first "B" series Panther build to be seeded. A new version of Xcode Suite was also seeded, with "issues addressed in almost every component," according to the read me. Read more about it at ThinkSecret.

GNUstep 0.8.8 Released

Eugenia Loli 2003-07-27 OpenStep, GNUstep 24 Comments

GNUstep is a set of general-purpose Objective-C libraries based on the OpenStep standard developed by NeXT. In the new version, the LanguageSetup docs were updated to better help users settings fonts for their language, especially with regard to non-Latin fonts. An improved RTF reader with better Unicode support was added. Slightly better EWMH support was also added. The Art backend now works with more versions of Freetype.

Reiser4 Benchmarks Available

Eugenia Loli 2003-07-26 General Development 30 Comments

From Slashdot: "Hans Reiser has benchmarked Reiser4 against ext3 and Reiserfs 3. Reiser4 turns out to be way faster than V3, and for ext3, why don't you check out the results yourself ? Han's Reiser states, "these benchmarks mean to me that our performance is now good enough to ship V4 to users", and he will be probably sending in a patch within the next couple of weeks to be included in the 2.6/2.5 kernel." Benchmarks against XFS would be most interesting too.

Tide Turns Against SCO

Submitted by Anonymous 2003-07-26 SCO 95 Comments

SCO shares fell nearly 10% Friday, after an IBM memo rejecting SCO's Linux claims turned up. Meanwhile, Andy Butler of Gartner said "Users should not start waving their cheque books" in apparent contradiction of earlier comments by his colleague George Weiss. GROKLAW lists several other analysts taking anti-SCO positions on Linux licensing. Form-4 filings with the SEC reveal SCO Executives have been cashing out stock. They made $398,833.90 in June, and $781,964.70 in July.

Hacker Code Could Unleash Windows Worm

Eugenia Loli 2003-07-26 Privacy, Security 41 Comments

A hacker group released code designed to exploit a widespread Windows flaw, paving the way for a major worm attack as soon as this weekend, security researchers warned.

Why Windows Isn’t Hell Or Why Linux Isn’t Bliss

Guest post by Thom "Slakje" Holwerda 2003-07-25 Editorial 171 Comments

To me, it's a miracle how every tiny article on OSNews.com, or any other tech-site, ends up in people shouting all sorts of nonsense at each other like "Linux is gonna bring back Elvis", "Windows shot president Kennedy", "Linux kept the cold war cold" or "Bill Gates wants to buy the moon and charge people for looking at it". Do these people really know what they are saying, or are they just going with the Open-Source flow? Update: Rebuttal article here.

Bill Gates : 5% Of Windows Machines Crash More Than Twice A Day

Eugenia Loli 2003-07-25 Windows 94 Comments

According to a NYTimes article, Bill Gates says that 5% of all Windows installations crash more than twice a day. Elsewhere, at Silicon.com Microsoft CEO talks on the Longhorn 'big bang', $49bn cash mountain and more.

Richard Stallman: “Free software is neither to the right nor to the left”

Eugenia Loli 2003-07-25 Open Source 58 Comments

RMS fights against private software and its social implications is a battle to the death. As he highlights in his speeches, the law created more problems for those who want to publish free software than to those who would like to unveil plans for an atomic bomb. This is what he stated at Zaragoza, during an event organised by Zaralinux and the Giunta citizens.

Suddenly, Things are Turning up NanoTech

Eugenia Loli 2003-07-25 Geek stuff 25 Comments

Scientists are wrestling with individual atoms to develop molecule-sized computers, tiny cancer-fighting robots that travel the bloodstream and stain-resistant trousers.

Apple Removes ‘Switch’ Ads

Eugenia Loli 2003-07-25 Apple 279 Comments

From the Mac news site MacMinute: It appears as though Apple has removed all of the "Switch" commercials from its web site. When trying to view the ads, which used to be available here, you are redirected to Apple's "Switching to Mac: Real Stories" page. In April, Apple removed the "Switch" tab graphic from the top of its web site navigation to make room for the "Music" tab, although all of the content remained at apple.com/switch. Several media outlets have recently claimed that the campaign was a failure, citing stagnant Apple market share numbers. Also, read our interview with a switcher here.

Multiple Linux 2.4 Kernel Vulnerabilities

Submitted by Rob 2003-07-25 Linux 41 Comments

Red Hat has released an updated advisory reporting the existence of multiple vulnerabilities in the Linux 2.4 kernel. Exploitation of these issues could expose sensitive information to local attackers, permit denial of service attacks or allow malicious local users to gain elevated privileges.

eCosCentric partners with SuperH; More Embedded News

Eugenia Loli 2003-07-24 Hardware No Comments

eCosCentric today announced their partnership with SuperH Inc to deliver the eCos real-time operating system and RedBoot firmware on SuperH RISC CPU cores. The partnership will extend the existing eCos coverage of SuperH embedded development boards to include the SH-4 MicroDev Platform. On other embedded CPU news, both QNX and MontaVista Linux said that will support the new Motorola MPC5200 CPU while Samsung says it has developed the world's fastest mobile CPU, which runs at a speed of 533MHz, and outpaces Intel's CPU. Get similar news on our sister site, NewMobileComputing.

Bill Gates: Longhorn ‘Big Bet’ For Company

Eugenia Loli 2003-07-24 Windows 94 Comments

Microsoft Corp. will spend about $6.8 billion on research and development in its new fiscal year, an increase of 8% from the previous 12 months, said Bill Gates. They will be moving more deeply into the model-based programming space, said company chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates.

Inside Panther: A Look at Preview and Font Book

Eugenia Loli 2003-07-24 macOS 34 Comments

This is the fifth installment of ThinkSecret's "Inside Panther" series, covering Mac OS X Version 10.3. Elsewhere, the iTunes Store puts the Apple company at forefront of digital media market.

Microsoft Forges Ahead With New Compiler Technology

Eugenia Loli 2003-07-24 Microsoft 72 Comments

Phoenix is the next generation .NET optimization framework which will be the basis for code generation for all future Microsoft optimizing compilers," such as Microsoft's Visual Basic, Visual C++, and Visual C# ones, according to a description of the Faculty Summit session on the technology. On other Microsoft news, check the FAQ for the Advanced Networking Pack for Windows XP and download it.