"The struggle between Microsoft and Java advocates for the hearts and minds of application developers is moving to its next battlefield--and this is a phase in which the number of installed licenses could eventually outnumber everything else to date by an order or magnitude. In the rounds fought so far, Microsoft comfortably repulsed Java's aspirations to displace it on the desktop (at least for now). The struggle for the server looks likely to be an uneasy standoff between entrenched .Net and Java 2 Enterprise Edition camps. But on mobile devices, everything is still in play. The battle to be the platform of choice across this wide range of devices has barely begun, but it already looks like the primary candidates to cover a large portion of the space will be Microsoft .Net Compact Framework and Java 2 Micro Edition." Read more at InformationWeek.

OSNews reader Alan Gilman writes: "I have made a one page website with information about the Linux alternative to Windows known as LindowsOS. Not really for die-hard Linux Geeks, but if you are using Windows and thinking about switching to Linux, LindowsOS makes the job real easy."

"It is a surprising fact that anyone studying GNUstep or the Cocoa Framework will notice they are nearly identical to the NEXTSTEP APIs that were defined ten years ago. A decade is an eternity in the software industry. If the framework (and its programming language--Objective C) came through untouched these past ten years, there must be something special about it. And Objective-C has done more than survive; some famous games including Quake and NuclearStrike were developed using Objective-C." Read the introduction to Objective-C at LinuxJournal.

In the run up to the launch of PlayStation 2, Sony set out its ultimate vision for gaming technology. In a series of commercials run in the United States, the PlayStation 2 was hailed as a step in the evolution of the surgically implanted PlayStation 9 controller, tipped to hook up to the a transparent glassy globe which is the console through the retina.

Here you can find the latest updates to QNX Momentics. These packages contain software to update your development environment. For the NC version, you would be able to download the PhShutdown and PhLocale Security patches and a Package Filesystem patch.

From SuSE Linux 8.1 on, YaST2 comes with a new, powerful package manager. It supersedes the classic YaST2 single package selection and integrates the YaST Online Update (YOU) and post-installation add-on selection at the same time. It lays the foundation for supporting multiple installation sources like a traditional set of SuSE CDs, add-on product CDs, patch CDs, FTP servers or even local directories - all of which may contain software packages to install. Specially optimized versions were implemented for both graphical user interface (the YaST2 Qt UI) or text interface (the YaST2 NCurses UI), providing each type of user with the tool that best fits his needs. Read more for the commentary.

A builder.com article discusses the increasing use of Java as a tool for developing embedded systems. Primarily because of the portability benefits that java brings, it has become a very popular option in the past year or so. The article covers the upsides and downsides of Java in embedded systems.

NetBSD 1.6 has been released, with binary releases for 39 architectures. More information is available in the 1.6 release announcement and in the following blurb.

" Is Sun going to open up Java? Certainly, Sun is moving in that direction. According to Gingell, Sun realized that it had to figure out a way to let open source organizations like the Apache Software Foundation license Java. Along those lines, Gingell says Sun intends to open-source Java, but that it's not a simple process because Sun doesn't own all the intellectual property in all the JSRs. For the same reasons it can't open source all of Solaris, Sun apparently can't legally open source all of Java either. The company is working on clearing the legal hurdles cleared." Read the article at TechUpdate.

AROS, the AmigaOS clone which is being developed by Amiga enthousiasts, and who many regard it as the real future of the AmigaOS, now includes a simple WorkBench clone. Screenshots are available.

With little fanfare, User Mode Linux (UML) has been merged into Linus' BitKeeper tree. The merge followed a patch by UML author Jeff Dike, resynching UML with the 2.5.34 development kernel.From the UML homepage, User-Mode Linux provides you with a virtual machine that offers "a safe, secure way of running Linux versions and Linux processes. Run buggy software, experiment with new Linux kernels or distributions, and poke around in the internals of Linux, all without risking your main Linux setup."

The OSNews team needs to rid itself of a snazzy Sony Superslim Vaio Z505HS. It's happily running Red Hat Linux 7.2, and to sell it on eBay would mean going to the trouble of installing Windows on it again. (perhaps only to have someone buy it and want to install Linux). Instead, we've decided to see if any OSNews reader wants it. Best offer over $700 gets it. Read more for specs.

I was reading the commenting section of our recent Gentoo Linux story about its 1.4-RC1 release. It seems that there is a chasm between Gentoo users, the users who are happy with it the way it is, and the users who can't stand its usage shortcomings. The first group are mostly developers, the second group seems to be only users. Linux always had such a "schism", but with (the source-based) Gentoo distribution it seems that this is even bigger. Here is a proposal to the Gentoo maintainers about a possible solution of how to change Gentoo's usagebility in order to satisfy all.

"'Yukon,' the code-name for a major overhaul of SQL Server, will be ready for general availability sometime during the 2004 fiscal year, and "Longhorn," the code-name for the Windows operating system release after Windows .NET Server 2003, is coming in 2005, according to a senior Microsoft official. As part of Longhorn, Allchin said customers can expect to see new features for intelligent auto configuration, such as BIOSes and firmware that can be 'automatically updated in a seamless way.' Also, Allchin said Longhorn will include new functionality for server resiliency, such as self-healing characteristics, a more componentized architecture, and additional monitoring services with filters that can 'dynamically' flow out to servers." Read the report at ENTnews.