From BSDForums: Marko Zec has setup patches against FreeBSD 4.7 kernel sources, which provide the functionality of maintaining multiple independent network stack images within a single operating system kernel. No userland patches are necessary, except an additional virtual image management util.

As Microsoft awaits court approval of its landmark antitrust settlement with the government, the company has angered some competitors by tightly limiting the technical data it promised to release. Microsoft says the restrictions are normal for the software industry and do not violate the terms of the settlement. But competitors contend that Microsoft's actions are reminiscent of the behavior that led to the antitrust case and reinforce their claim that the entire settlement is inadequate.

"As most of you desktop users already know, the KDE Project recently released KDE 3.1beta2, which will be the final development release before KDE 3.1. The good news is, KDE 3.1 is scheduled for release in just a few weeks. KDE 3.1, the strongest KDE release to date, promises new goodies for just about everyone who gets to enjoy the full KDE desktop experience. Here is a sampling of what is in store for you:" Read the promotional article at promo.kde.org. In the meantime, KDevelop reached the alpha release of KDevelop-3.0 (Gideon). Changelog here.

"A Brief Look at the PowerPC 970" explains what the new IBM CPU is all about and how does it stand against the x86 competition today, and in a year from now (release time). Another article is titled "When is PowerPC Not PowerPC?". On ExtremeTech you will find "AMD Tips Opteron Benchmarks". Two articles at EETimes, "Intel describes billion-transistor four-core Itanium processor" and "Intel to debut 90-nm 'Banias' processor in 2H '03". Of embedded interest: "MemoryLogix to disclose '586 core' for SoC applications", a CPU to compete with ARM.

This document illustrates guidelines and best practices required to port existing UNIX applications to the Windows environment, which can potentially reduce the time, cost, and risk associated with a traditionally painful migration process. This guide covers planning and practical issues involved in migration or co-existence between UNIX and Windows and provides a review of the different ways in which such a migration can be done. Ideal for both UNIX programmers as well as Windows programmers, this is a valuable source of information for anyone looking to take advantage of Windows.

Red Hat has struck a small blow against the DMCA, by publishing a security patch which can only be explained fully to people who are not within US jurisdiction. The company's position here seems to be not altogether voluntary - according to a spokesman "it is bizarre, and unfortunately something Red Hat cannot easily do much about," but like it or not Red Hat has been recruited to the campaign to make the DMCA look ridiculous.

Robert Love provides details at KernelTrap on a recent patch he's backported from the 2.5 development kernel to the 2.4 stable kernel. The patch allows one to adjust the frequency of the timer interrupt, defined in 2.4 with "HZ=100". Robert explains, "The timer interrupt is at the heart of the system. Everything lives and dies based on it. Its period is basically the granularity of the system: timers hit on 10ms intervals, timeslices come due at 10ms intervals, etc."

Wasabi Systems, a provider of embedded BSD products and services, today announced completion of a port of NetBSD to the 64-bit SH-5 processor from SuperH, Inc., on the Cayman Development System. In June, Wasabi Systems became a founding member of the SuperH Partner Program for providing services to SuperH Licensees.

Psyco is a Python specializing compiler and is an external module, but it could someday be included in Python itself. With only a tiny amount of extra programming, Psyco can often be used to increase the speed of Python code by orders of magnitude. This article looks at what Psyco is, and tests it in various applications.

The journaled file system, which will run atop the Mac's traditional HFS file scheme, will be switched off by default; users will be able to switch it on via the command line, sources said. They reported that while "Elvis" runs in the background, enabling Journaling FS will slow current system performance by 10 percent to 15 percent. Read the full report at eWeek.

"Yes, after two anti-trust violations you're obligated to offer equitable pricing to the largest computer builders for the Microsoft Windows XP software, but what Microsoft does now is use MDF (market development funds) to pressure the behavior you want from many OEMs. You give computer companies a price break on Microsoft software in the form of a rebate for every computer they've sold. This program is disguised as a "marketing" program but OEMs only qualify if they agree to terms such as not working with competitor's products." Read Lindows' Michael Robertson open letter to Steve Ballmer.

RISCOS Ltd have been busy bees over the summer and the fruits of their work are now available for all subscribers to download. RISC OS Select 1 was a step up from RISC OS 4.0 and Select 2 shows as much improvement again. As the Select site reports, the beta version of Select 2 is now online for download if you're a Select subscriber. A full stable CD based release is expected in 3 weeks time.

"This will come as no surprise to many of you, but I have been somewhat lost and wandering in the desert these past few months. Five years of involvement in many of the major issues related to Java had left me questioning whether the ideas I believe in, ideas that many of us share in common, could make a meaningful difference. This summer has been a sabbatical that I didn't know I needed, and the long pondering of the core issues has helped me refocus and reorder my priorities." Read the article at JavaLobby (free reg. required).

The Qwt library contains GUI Components and utility classes which are primarily useful for programs with a technical background. Beside a 2D plot widget it provides scales, sliders, thermometers, wheels and knobs to control or display values, arrays, or ranges of type double. In the meantime, Trolltech released Qtopia 1.6 beta, A complete mobile computing platform.