"Two or three months ago, I ran into an interesting problem. It was interesting for a couple of reasons, the first being that it has since recurred a number of times. The second is that it highlights a rapidly growing trend in the IT world." Read the article at UnixReview.

From Slashdot: "Keith Packard wants to fork the XFree86 effort. The XFree86 team is trying to become more open, to combat the fork. Keith is a capable developer, having worked on FontConfig, Xft, the X render extension etc. Meanwhile, All is not good in how XFree86 drivers are being developed."

"I have read many articles and debates on USB vs. Firewire. Recently, some writers have covered Apple's stance on USB 2.0. I won't bother to go into a technical debate as to which technology is better, or holds a better edge in future generations of the spec -- let's put that aside. I want to focus on whether Apple is following the best long-term strategy. In my opinion, it is not." Read the editorial at MacSlash. On another editorial, on PCMag this time, Dvorak predicts: "Apple will switch to Intel processors within the next 12 to 18 months". Dvorak advocates the Itanium as the main candidate.

This week marks the tenth anniversary of the beginning of development of the NetBSD Operating System. Erik Reid has been working on getting DRI support for NetBSD to work. Under NetBSD/i386 1.6P, a Matrox G450 has been reported to work, Radeon and Riva128 should be functional as well.

Odius from Digital Drip has posted an article about his first-time experiences with Debian. The article has two parts, part one is Debian Installation and part two is Customization.

Five years after its debut, the original iMac, which many credit for restoring Apple Computer to fiscal health and profitability, is being pulled from the shelves. Also, following in the footsteps of larger competitors that sell Intel-based products, Apple Computer has begun offering a version of its server that can be linked in groups, or clusters, capable of tackling mammoth computing tasks.

This short preview is based on my experiences with Slackware Linux 9.0-RC3; Slackware Linux 9.0 has not yet been released at the moment of writing. UPDATE: And while this story was going live, Slackware 9.0 final is being released.

"Enterprises will see major changes in Microsoft’s competitive strategy as Linux and other open-source software continue to erode Microsoft's traditional sources of income. Don't expect Microsoft's bundling strategies to continue as before, and don't expect it to support Linux before 2006 at least -- if ever." Read the analysis on TechUpdate.

Microsoft Windows 2000 servers are vulnerable to a WebDAV security exploit. There's information and a patch available at Microsoft's web site.

FreeBSD Release Eng. Team's Murray Stokely announced the availability of FreeBSD 4.8 RC2 for i386 and he says that the alpha build is in progress.

So many operating systems and so many graphical desktop environments... This article is a comparison of the UI and usability of several Desktop Environments (DEs), that have been widely used, admired and reviled: Windows XP Luna, BeOS 6 (Dano/Zeta), Mac OS X Aqua and Unix's KDE and Gnome. Read on which one got our best score on our long term test and usage.

The new version of X11 for Mac OS X has been just released, with many fixes for annoying bugs. Update: MacDevCenter has a relevant article: "From Exile to X11: A Journey Through Time".

eCosCentric Limited working in conjunction with the eCos maintainers, today announced the release of eCos 2.0 Beta, the latest version of the eCos real-time operating system.

I just came back from the CeBIT, the anual fair in the Messehalle in Hannover Germany. It is one of the biggest computer and communications technology fairs in the world and certainly the biggest in Europe. Here's my mini report (which also includes information about YellowTAB's Zeta).