"Microsoft said last week it plans to hire 4,000 to 5,000 new workers and to increase research spending by about 8 percent, to $6.9 billion per year. The company also said it has $49 billion lying around collecting interest. So what should Bill and Steve do with these wondrous resources? My suggestion: Start over." It's radical, but interesting. Check out the rest on zdnet.

From their press release: "Now, yellowTAB presents a fully-functional, fully-featured implementation of ODBC (Open DataBase Connectivity) for Zeta! Both the API and the user interface for configuring ODBC connections is 100% compatible with the original Windows version and its UNIX clones."

Fleecy Moss has answered 10 new Amiga community questions addressing various topics at the AmigaWorld.net portal. This week AmigaOS4 events are sheduled for New York and Denmark.

InceptionOS, a Linux distribution aimed at full LSB compliance, but not based on an existing Linux distribution, is currently looking for people to participate in the creation of a new distribution. If you're interested, read on.

For over an hour today, the Microsoft website was brought offline. Reports indicate that it was a standard Denial of Service attack, rather than an exploit in their hosting platform itself (Windows Server 2003, at last check). However, there is a certain likelyhood that the launch-points for this attack were themselves exploited Windows-based computers. The Department of Homeland Security today issued an unprecedented second warning regaring recent Windows exploits. Is this an isolated incident, or is it an ominous indication of pending cyber attacks on popular internet sites?

LinuxTag, Europe's largest Linux show was held from the 10th to the 13th of July 2003 in Karlsruhe Kongresszentrum, Germany. Myself and a colleague (Debian developer Sven Luther) were there for 3 of those days. The organisers took to the free software philosophy with some enthusiasm, the entrance is free but the downloadable ticket is supplied with LaTex source code! Then again this is the same organisation which, knowing German law didn't allow you to threaten legal action without proof told SCO to put up or shut up, SCO promptly shut up.

In an interview with LinuxQuestions.org Asa discusses the formation of the the Mozilla Foundation, the direction Mozilla is headed, Microsoft's decision to no longer offer IE as a standalone product, acceptance of the browser as a client interface to applications and more. Additionally, Mozilla 1.5A, Mozilla Thunderbird 0.1 and Mozilla Firebird 0.6.1 were released recently.

The XPde Team released XPde 0.4.0, a major upgrade to the XPde desktop environment and window manager. Check out the announcement, view the screenshots or read the detailed ChangeLog. Go to the downloads section to get the binaries and sources.

The online German magazine Technoids features a long and interesting interview with Axel Dörfler, OpenBFS developer of the OpenBeOS project. The magazine can be downloaded in PDF format and it is in German language as of now (some translations are planned, hopefully english too). Update: In another interview, at BeOSJournal, Nathan discusses his personal life, loves and hates, and getting in shape so as not to end up like some programmers.

The next release of the .NET Framework will include both 32- and 64-bit native support. Christopher Brown discusses how developers writing managed code today will be able to easily port and, in many cases, just copy existing applications to this new environment.

The B-Free project is a collaborative work aimed at creating a BTRON operating system from scratch, with free distribution. It is a preemptive multitasking operating system constructed through micro-kernel technology, which assumes 32-bit or higher CPUs. The BTRON operating system is a subset of the TRON project, which in turn, is a worldwide open Real Time Operating System (RTOS) specification.

IBM updated the Java Development Kit (javaintk) and the Run Time (javainrt) files which are distributed through Software Choice for OS2. These files are now available on the eComStation site. Two drivers were also updated, the SciTech SNAP SE 2.1.5, to include support for ATI Radeon 9000 Pro and the NVidia GeForce4 MX440 8X, and the OS/2 Gigabit Ethernet Fiber Adapter Driver, which provides support for select Intel PRO/1000 Fiber Ethernet controllers (82542 / 82543GC / 82544EI). Additionally, Serenity Systems announced the release of the eComStation 1.1 German Beta CD1. It is accesible for those who are registered Upgrade Protection customers.

Scott McNealy, the chairman, president and CEO of systems vendor Sun Microsystems, has dramatically warned companies of the legal dangers of using open source software such as the Linux operating system. Following on from SCO Group's threats to sue Linux users over its intellectual property claims, McNealy told an audience of UK businesses that they should steer clear of open source software unless their suppliers can offer insurance against such legal action.

Microsoft said Thursday it has now let a dozen national governments see its Windows source code in its battle to win lucrative public-sector contracts and to muffle mounting hype over rival OS, Linux.