"It wasn’t so long ago: 1999 and 2000 saw a great deal of innovation and interest, not to mention hype, about the Linux open-source operating system, and by extension, open-source software in general. This year the focus has been more on other technologies, such as application servers, portals, distributed component models and Web services. Does anyone still care about Linux? And if so, why the seemingly deafening silence? It seems that the open-source system moves past hype to serious implementation." Read the rest of the interesting editorial at SDTimes.

The Office XP Update Service Pack 1 released yesterday. Service Pack 1 (SP-1) provides the latest updates to Microsoft Office XP. SP-1 contains significant security enhancements and stability and performance improvements. Some of the fixes included with SP-1 have been previously released as separate updates. This service pack combines them into one integrated package, and it includes a number of other changes designed to improve the reliability and performance of your Office XP programs. You can read an overview of the service pack on the Microsoft website.

In this very interesting interview at MSDN, Miguel deIcaza, the founder of GNOME, Bonobo, Gnumeric and CTO at Ximian, talks about UNIX components, Bonobo, Mono, and Microsoft .NET.

"Microsoft on Thursday said a technology standards body has endorsed programming tools key to expanding the appeal of the company's .Net Web services plan. Microsoft said the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA), an international technology standards organization, has ratified Microsoft's C# (pronounced "see sharp"), a Java-like programming language, along with a component of its .Net Web services framework called the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI). That means that C# and the CLI are now officially standards administered by ECMA. But Microsoft will retain control over who gets to license the technology and how it will be distributed, a company spokesman said." Get the rest of the story at CNet|News.

Microsoft released a number of free entertainment enhancements to its Windows XP operating system today. Called Windows Media Bonus Pack for Windows XP, the free download includes tools for the OS' built-in media player. The download includes new visualizations and skins, playlist-to-spreadsheet export utility, and extra tools for amateur moviemakers. In the meantime, ActiveWin reports that MSN Explorer 8 has just passed the "M0" milestone and it is in closed beta. The aim for a release is for late spring/early summer 2002. This will be the first major release since the original release in 2000. There is work on integrating "natural language" instrumentation, meaning "speaking" or ordering MSN Explorer to do this task or that task. Also, Microsoft has released a new version 4.6.0071 of MSN Messenger. Features inlcude improved support for computer-to-phone calls, more flexibility in resizing the conversation window, Add-ins available, banner ads (If you download the Add-in).

"IBM claims that it's achieved 339,484 operations per second on a 32-way, POWER4 Regatta on the SPECjbb2000 benchmark. Which is higher than a 72-way Sun Fire 15K. IBM also brags that its Regatta, kitted out 128GB of memory and 36.4GB storage will cost - at $2 million - half as much as a Sun Fire 15K with 288GB memory and 288GB storage." Read the rest of the story at TheRegister.

Gobe Software, Inc. is now shipping gobeProductive for Microsoft Windows, "the "all-in-one" productivity package that brings increased productivity to "all-in-one" computer users - people who "wear many hats" in their computer use - including office workers, educators and small office/home office computer users." Read the rest of the press release ahead of everyone else on the Net, sent to OSNews directly from Gobe.

Who said that Microsoft has closed the doors for the alternative operating system's success? Here is how Microsoft and their technologies can help an alternative OS distribution: "1. Make a bootable image of your OS, 2. Attach it to an e-mail, 3. Attatch Rawrite.exe to the same e-mail, 4. Make a VBS script that writes it to the disk of the e-mail receiver, and also sends copies of itself on to all the receiver's friends, 5. Send the email to all _your_ friends and addresses in your contact list (at least they'll be for now). Unconfirmed step 6: Go to jail." The joke was first published on the alt.os.develop newsgroup.

Version 1.2 of the Athene Operating Environment is now available from the Rocklyte Systems web site. OSNews featured an exclusive interview with Rocklyte's Paul Manias recently. The new release (read more to see a brand new screenshot from version 1.2) is for Windows only (the Linux version will come in a few weeks) and includes the following changes:

Exactly four years after the release of Allegro 3.0 for DOS, the team announced the release of a new major version, Allegro 4.0. This release is a very important step in Allegro's development; 4.0 officially brings multi-platform support and it is now very stable. Allegro is a game library distributed freely, supporting the following platforms: DOS, Unix (Linux, FreeBSD, Irix, Solaris), Windows, and BeOS (MacOS and QNX ports are in alpha stage).

The Bochs IA-32 Emulator Project unveiled a new version of the popular Bochs emulator to the public today, improving on the stability and ground breaking improvements of Bochs 1.2. Bochs 1.3 includes many major enhancements including a powerful menu-based configuration system and networking support for Linux and Windows NT/2000. Other additions in this release include support for ISO-format disk images, improved mouse performance, physical CD-ROM support for all versions of Windows, parallel port emulation, enhanced debugger, and many cpu and device model improvements. Bochs 1.3 also adds native support for Mac OS X and Amiga MorphOS, along with improved support for BeOS.

The Windows XP Application Compatibility Update is a package of software updates that address common application issues, helping Windows XP either to support these applications or helping to avoid common issues users may experience with these applications. Microsoft recommends downloading this compatibility update if you are having problems with one of the applications this update is designed to support. The second is the Euro Conversion Tool: The Euro Conversion tool allows currency migration to the euro for user locales within the European Union. This tool does not change currency settings for user locales outside of the European Union.

"Antivirus software vendors said Monday they don't want to create a loophole in their security products to let the FBI or other government agencies use a virus to eavesdrop on the computer communications of suspected criminals. Under a project code-named "Magic Lantern," the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation is creating an e-mail-borne virus or Trojan horse that hides itself on the computer and captures all keystrokes made, including passwords that could be used to read encrypted mail. Despite subsequent reports to the contrary, officials at Symantec and Network Associates said they had no intention of voluntarily modifying their products to satisfy the FBI. Spokesmen at two other computer security companies, Japan-based Trend Micro and the U.S. subsidiary of U.K.-based Sophos made similar statements." Read the rest of the story on ZDNews.

TimeSys Linux GPL is a full Linux distribution for all supported embedded boards that includes everything needed to develop, deploy, and maintain an embedded platform, including not only (according to the company) the world's lowest-latency Linux kernel, but also all the libraries, tool chains, utilities, drivers, scripts, and documentation, all distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). TimeSys Linux GPL consists of a powerful, fully featured, preemptible Linux kernel and all other components needed to extend a standard Linux distribution to support predictable, extremely low-latency response. The fully preemptible capabilities mean the kernel has bounded, mutex-based kernel locking with a new fixed priority scheduler, schedulable (meaning the developer sets the priorities) interrupt handlers, and schedulable extended interrupt handlers, including the IP stack.