"Microsoft on Friday signed a pact with the Chinese government to reveal the Windows source code, making China among the first to benefit from its program to allay the security fears of governments. In addition, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates hinted that China will be privy to all, not just part, of the source code the government wishes to inspect. " Read the rest at ZDNet.

This is an update release targetting bug fixes and new optimizations. It does not change the functionality of original 1.4.1 release. Check out the release notes and/or download new Java VM. In a related note, the Java porting team at beunited.org reports that they have reached a significant milestone. The java and javac programs are now building under BeOS.

In this guest column at DesktopLinux.com, former SCO evangelist and Samba.org team leader John H. Terpstra weighs in on market perceptions about Linux and its suitability for the desktop. Interviewing a sample group –- that included 30 people evenly split in the Linux and MS camps -- Terpstra discovered each group cited the very same arguments in defending their OS of choice! The author sought definitive answers about the state of Desktop Linux and reasons for and against a switch to Linux. The results, and key factors, were not as expected.

The next major version of XFree86, the popular X11 windowing system for Unix, is now available from XFree86's FTP server and its mirrors. Version 4.3.0 offers many new features, including the RandR extension, new mouse cursors, better font engine, better ATi Radeon support and much more.

The new IBM PowerPC 970 is the heart of the PowerPC Blade. It is based on the 64-Bit Power 4 architecture which is also used in the processors of the IBM eServer pSeries. The 64-bit microprosessor offers full symmetrical multi-processing, has a high reliability (with parity L1, ECC L2 and parity checked system bus) and is manufactured in the latest 0,13 micrometer Copper/SOI CMOS technology. The CPU runs at frequences ranging from 1.8 GHz - 2.5 Ghz, therefore the IBMPowerPC 970 is the fastest PowerPC so far. It also features onchip 512 KB L2 Cache, Altivec Vector/SIMD unit, 6,4 GB/s I/O system bus throughput. Rumors want that chip to be the next CPU used by Apple when it's out.

Older document, but interesting read. ESR is comparing VMS, MacOS, OS/2, WinNT, BeOS & Linux.

Time to heat up those CPUs, Gentoo Linux 1.4_rc3 has been released. You can find LiveCDs, and stage tarballs at the Gentoo master mirror. At this time, the release includes basic x86 builds, PowerPC support for generic PowerPC, G3 and G4 systems, and Sparc and UltraSparc support.

"Nearly every IT director is familiar with Novell's NetWare operating system and its strong network directory. But despite a string of reorganizations and refocused marketing messages, Novell's fortunes remain tightly hewed to its base of NetWare customers, which has shrunk substantially at the expense of Windows. Chris Stone is out to change that. Stone rejoined Novell nearly one year ago as vice chairman after a three-year hiatus. His mission: explain how Novell's trove of slick networking technology solves thorny business problems, like security and identity management." Read the interview at C|Net News by Martin LaMonica.

Murphy's October 2001 TCO analysis generated much reader comment. In this article, the first installment in a two-part series, he revisits the Linux-versus-Windows decision for the faculty of a small college or university.

After spending time with Torsten Rahn and Everaldo Coelho earlier this year, we continue our Creative Penguin series in a discussion with Tuomas "Tigert" Kuosmanen and Jakub "Jimmac" Steiner of Ximian. If you've ever admired the beautiful artwork of GNOME, these are the gentlemen responsible for it. How did they get involved? Why should you be interested in desktop artwork? They now discuss all of this and more with Open for Business' Timothy R. Butler.

Columnist Tim Mullen from SecurityFocus wrote an interesting editorial about how the media are overeacting on some thought exploits/holes found on Windows 2k/XP, while in his opinion, other platforms/apps are also as vulnerable but they don't get as agressive reporting: "This kind of thing damages overall security. It clouds the issue, and rains on the wrong parade. The media should give its readers all the information-- not slant it in an effort to make Microsoft look like the bad guy every time."

Despite publicly saying that the top-line 17" PowerBook would be available in February, Apple executives privately told dealers in a meeting at Macworld Expo on January 8 not to expect the product until mid-March, if not later into April -- Apple's fiscal third-quarter. Customers only in the last 10 days are now being told the same information. In an official press release dated January 7, Apple clearly states, "The new 17-inch PowerBook G4 is expected to be available in February..." This is a blow to many customers who have ordered the 17" model 1,5 moths ago already, because the 17" is intended mostly as a desktop replacement, so it is kind of urgent for most customers to have it on time.

"Microsoft introduced additions to Windows XP designed to make the operating system better tuned for peer-to-peer applications. The software giant on Wednesday unveiled a beta, or testing version, of the Windows XP Peer-to-Peer Software Development Kit. The programming tools are designed to let software providers or corporate developers more easily build peer-to-peer applications on top of Windows XP." Read more at ZDNet.

"Michael Robertson has a software glitch in his belfry. He's a crazy man. Certifiable. And God bless him for it. Maybe he'll finally give the technology industry some spine when it comes to going up against Microsoft. That, or he is tech's Chuck "The Bayonne Bleeder" Wepner, about to get turned into goulash by the Muhammad Ali of software. Either way, this bout should be entertaining." Read the article at USA Today, by Kevin Maney.