First of all, I am very flattered that our recent editorials over at OpenBeOS have received so many responses in the OSNews commenting section.I would like to address some of the issues brought up in the many thought provoking comments, in the order that I read them:

eComStation (eCS) is an Internet enabled platform for business desktop computing. The focus of eCS is to provide an organization with a set of world class business applications and an application engine which can support multiple API sets. eCS is REXX enabled and comes with support for DOS, Java, Windows 3.1, OS/2 applications. Here are some screenshots of the installation process of the upcomming eComStation 1.1. We did a review of eCS 1.0 a few months ago. On a related note, IBM refreshed the Java Development Kit 1.3.1 for OS/2 (paid subscription required to download it).

"Microsoft is honing the user interfaces of a number of its forthcoming products in a way that the company hopes will help users find and access information. At the heart of the redesign is the so-called task shelf component, code-named Sideshow, that will likely debut first in MSN 8, and later, in the Longhorn Windows. The WinBeta Web site last week posted what it claimed to be a Microsoft-internal-only release of Sideshow. And the Neowin site posted what it claimed to be several Sideshow screen shots." Read the report at eWeek. Update: WinInformant reports that SideShow is not from Longhorn, but from an another version of Windows that it will be released sooner.

Good information at MacNN: "A PDF slideshow used at Siggraph 2002, written by Peter Graffagnino of Apple, provides information on Quartz Extreme. It will be available with Jaguar (10.2) on August 24th, and is the first OpenGL-based windowing system. It will feature true system integration (Quartz2D on a texture, Video on a texture), improved texture upload performance, programmable shaders, many new extensions, and new tools.". Read more to check out if your Mac can support Quartz Extreme.

"In early 1986, a team in Apple's Advanced Technology Group began a research project that was code-named Pink, with the goal to create an operating system for the next generation of computers. In 1990, the project became TalOS—the property of Taligent—a joint venture between Apple and IBM. In 1994, Pink's OS dreams died as Taligent redirected its efforts toward CommonPoint, a non-OS application environment which would exist as a layer on other operating systems (as an API)." Old, but good read. More information about the OS who's heart stopped beating around 1997 can be found here.

"In the fight for Web services dominance, the scuffle has barely begun and vendors are still scrambling for places in the ring. Although all the initiatives are still relatively young, IBM and Microsoft are eager to be the top Web services heavyweights. Each is heavily touting its offerings to companies interested in moving further toward e-commerce integration." Read the article at Yahoo!News. The article does not include any information about SunONE though.

"Microsoft Corp.'s new licensing programs take effect tomorrow, shifting the model for OS pricing but also for office productivity suites. Microsoft's Volume Licensing Program, delayed twice, kicks in on July 31. The most controversial feature of the plan, Software Assurance, is essentially Microsoft's subscription-based licensing plan for small- and medium-business owners. An enterprise version of Microsoft's software license already requires a yearly fee." Read the report at ExtremeTech, Yahoo!News, while News.com says that the majority of Microsoft's customers won't be signing up for a controversial licensing plan set to go into effect on Thursday, according to analysts' estimates.

"Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past few years, you know what Mozilla is in general. For those of you in the dark, check out the overview provided by Mozilla for a decent breakdown of the project. The purpose of this review is to assess the win32 port of Mozilla 1.0 and its immediate successors (1.1a and .1b) as a milestone in the development of what may prove to be the greatest challenger to the Internet Explorer empire. We'll consider the pros and cons of Mozilla's core renderer, its implementation (Navigator), Mail, Chatzilla (an IRC client), and the bundle as a whole." Read the review over at ArsTechnica.

"Sun and Apple have no concrete plans to codevelop a version of Sun's StarOffice productivity suite for the Mac OS X operating system, two open-source developers and a Sun official said Monday. Sun held a conference call with the two OpenOffice developers on Monday to clarify that Sun and Apple are not working on their own project to create a version of OpenOffice for Mac OS X by year end. Sun has been in ongoing talks with Apple to see "what it would take" to make a version of StarOffice that had the look and feel of an Apple application, Siress said. These talks, however, are really little more than the same theoretical discussions that have been going on over the last couple of years, he said." The report can be found at InfoWorld.

The NetBSD team has decided to do away with any selective moderation for postings originating from the openbsd.org domain based on an email announcement on behalf of NetBSD. This rule was instated to protect the NetBSD mailing lists from abuse or denial of service attacks by the founder of OpenBSD, Theo De Raadt, who some time ago threatened to attack the NetBSD project machines. The original report can be found at BSDForums.org.

"The software giant on Tuesday announced a new version of its Windows CE .Net operating system, adding broader support for its .Net services from within Windows CE, a slimmed down version of Windows used to power devices ranging from handheld computers to gas pumps." Report is at ZDNews.

"As we reported back in March, IBM Corp is said to be readying the next release of its Unix operating system, AIX 5L V5.2, to get it into the market by October of this year. It is expected to deliver the kicker to this release sometime in the second half of 2003." Read the report at TheRegister.

Read more to vote for the operating system that should have been the Next Big Thing (TM), but that never happened for whatever reason. Please make sure you vote an OS based on its *technical capabilities*, not because you used to be its user when you were 16, or because you like its background color, or because you heard good things about it once. Vote for the one that you truly think it was technically superior at its time.

"A letter was received by one member of the KDE development team asking the KDE Project to use Red Hat Linux on machines at LWCE and to display RedHat's shadow man logo on those machines. In exchange, the letter from RedHat explained, KDE would "benefit from many valuable marketing benefits in our booth, on our website, and in our newsletter." At press time, Open for Business was unaware of any response by Mann or others at RedHat concerning this PR disaster. It does, however, raise an interesting question of what the software vendor hopes to accomplish with its continuing near boycotting of KDE. As Red Hat's might is considerably weaker in the desktop segment, with its preferred desktop (GNOME) taking only about 20% of the desktop market versus KDE's over 50%, they would be wise to change course. While being at 70% market share 2-3 years ago, Red Hat hardly enjoys more than 25% market share nowdays." Read the whole story about the PR fiasko at OfB.