Though Oracle and IBM deny that MySQL, PostgreSQL or other open-source offerings are a threat to their enterprise business, they are still taking steps to re-emphasize their low-end offerings. Read the article at NewsFactor.

"As the development of Windows 2000 wound down over three years ago, Microsoft was making a transition of another kind: The company's development focus was moving from delivering technology to delivering solutions that met real customer needs. It sounds like an obvious strategy, but consider the ramifications: In the past, Microsoft would determine what features to include in each revision of its products, deliver as many of those features as it could in the time allotted, and then move any dropped features into the next version." Read the article at WinSuperSite.

Microsoft is considering an open source approach to one of its software libraries, following heavy pressure from developers and sharp competition in the growing mobile device development arena. The decision would be a radical one for Microsoft, a fierce opponent of the open source model of making intellectual property available for modification and redistribution. The surprise move to open source is being considered for the Windows Template Library (WTL) - an enhancement of the C++ language.

"SuSE Linux has readied a set of high-end features that do for its Linux enterprise operating system what spinach does for Popeye. The features beef up SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 to enable it to run applications that require very high levels of reliability, availability, performance and security, such as the applications that telecommunications carriers use to provide their services. This is why the set of features is called SuSE Linux Carrier-Grade Linux (CGL)." Read the article at InfoWorld.

This is a desktop comparison of Red Hat Linux 9 and SuSE 8.2 Professional Edition. We have used Red Hat Linux 8 for all our work since last fall, and installed version 9 as soon as it became available. However, we have not been fully content with Red Hat, so we gave SuSE 8.2 a try when it became available this month.

A more advanced test version of Windows XP's successor has leaked onto the Web, and analysts say it indicates that Microsoft has stepped up work to deliver the new operating system. Read it story at CNet.

Avoid the overhead of large numbers of very similar classes with the Flyweight pattern. Learn how to recognize instances that are fundamentally the same except for a few parameters, move those variables outside the class instance, and pass them in as part of a method call. There is more development articles for C, C++, Java etc to read, here.

Two seemingly pretty contradictory articles: Why Linux rules and it is all that, and why Linux is not exactly what they say it is.

Today we feature an in-depth interview with three members of FreeBSD's Core (Wes Peters, Greg Lehey and M. Warner Losh) and also a major FreeBSD developer (Scott Long). It is a long read, but we touch a number of hot issues, from the Java port to corporate backing, the Linux competition, the 5.x branch and how it stacks up against the other Unices, UFS2, the possible XFree86 fork, SCO and its Unix IP situation, even re-unification of the BSDs. If you are into (any) Unix, this interview is a must read.

MacMinute and Maccentral have live coverage on the Apple online music initiative. Macslash also reports: "Steve Jobs announced a new music download service from Apple to go along with the new iPod and the updated version of iTunes. The music service offers a song catalog of over 200,000 songs from the top 5 record labels. It will allow unlimited burning to CDs, and will play on up to 3 Macs. There's a catch with the burning, though. It will require you to change a playlist after 10 burns in order to burn again. Online 30-second previews are available for each song, as is cover art. The service will include artists not available in other online catalogs."

Nicholas Blachford from Genesi (also ex-Amiga, ex-BeOS developer) sent us in an announcement regarding the new Pegasos machines, the BeOS connection and the availability of NewOS for Pegasos.

Analyst firm IDC believes Unix will remain the first choice for mission critical applications for at least another three years.

Matthias Ettrich is the creator of the KDE desktop environment. At LinuxJournal, Aleksey Dolya interviews Matthias about the process of creating KDE and what he's up to these days.

Following the merger, Rational Chief Scientist Grady Booch was assigned to serve as liaison between Rational and IBM Research. So far, he's identified nearly 300 projects that the company thinks will fit Rational tools.