October 2009 marked an important milestone in the history of computing. It was exactly 40 years since the first Multics computer system was used for information management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service) is regarded as the foundation of modern time-sharing systems. Multics was the catalyst for the development of Unix and has been used as a model of operating system design since its release four decades ago. Here is a picture gallery of Multics' history.

Okay, so this is new. When it comes to graphical user interfaces, everyone is copying everyone, but you'll always find supporters of platform Abc claiming platform Xyz is stealing from them - and vice versa. Mac supporters have often stated that Vista and Windows 7 were copying from Apple, and according to Microsoft's partner group manager, Simon Aldous, this is true. Wait, what?

Google has invented a new programming language designed to reduce the complexity of coding without compromising the performance of applications. Called Go, the language has been tested internally at Google but is still at an experimental stage, so the company is releasing it as open-source code in the hope that it will get help with its future development.

As most of you will know, the GNOME team is hard at work on GNOME 3.0, the first major overhaul of the platform since 2002. The release of GNOME 3.0 was originally planned for March 2010, but it has now been pushed back for six months to September 2010.

Just when we were starting to worry that the OS world was becoming ossified around three increasingly-competent options, making it very boring for OS enthusiasts, along comes a re-energized mobile computing market and a furious land grab among established players and new entrants. Samsung, the #2 handset maker by marketshare, is releasing a new mobile OS called Bada and will be vying to become the seventh major mobile OS in the market.

Unless you're seriously into networking (and okay, maybe you are), all the features in the new Secure Remote Connection - not to mention the pieces required to make it work - can be fairly tough to figure out. But the benefits make sense: "With this feature," writes Steven Vaughan-Nichols, "a user on any Windows 7 system can gain access to the corporate intranet's resources. In short, with the right back-end setup you can run office-only programs and get to server-based files from any Windows 7 PC." He explains it all in Accessing Office Resources from Anywhere using Secure Remote Connection.

"I've been on a mission in recent months to establish just how common and mundane GPL violations are. Since 21 August 2009, I've been finding one new GPL violating company per day (on average) and I am still on target to find one per day for 365 days straight. When I tell this to people who are new to GPL enforcement, they are surprised and impressed. However, when I tell people who have done GPL enforcement themselves, they usually say some version of: Am I supposed to be impressed by that? Couldn't a monkey do that? Fact is, the latter are a little bit right: there are so many GPL violations that I might easily be able to go on finding one per day for two years straight."

"The major disadvantage of PLAIN text passwords on the server of course is that they are readable. Even if your communication with the server is encrypted it is troubling to have readable passwords on the server. You can easily change this by using the dovecotpw command and creating encrypted passwords."

Finally the silence is broken, a new episode is here! Thom was not available again this week, OSnews reader Mike Ferland takes his place and we discuss Windows 7 and The Perfect OS (no relation).

Apple has finally released Mac OS X 10.6.2, the latest version of its Snow Leopard operating system, and be prepared for a massive update for your Mac: 473MB. There's a lot of stuff in here, and among other things, it includes a fix for the guest account data loss bug.

TechCrunch broke the news today that Google has bought Gizmo5, the popular VoIP SIP provider, for $30 mil cash (not confirmed officially yet). The company was led by Michael Robertson, known for his times on mp3.com and Lindows. What does this mean for Google Voice? Read on.

Over the past few years, there have been persistent rumours that NVIDIA, the graphics chip maker, was working on an x86 chip to compete with Intel and AMD. Recently, these rumours gained some traction, but NVIDIA's CEO just shot them down, and denied the company will enter the x86 processor market.

Hands up if you use Firefox. Have used it? Know about it? Heard of it? 'Sites up and down the World Wide Web today will be celebrating five years of Firefox. When I sat down to write this I worried about having to list the history of its features and landmark events and the news of the past five years. Other sites will be comprehensively doing that, there is nothing I can add to that list that Google can't surmise. Instead I will be telling you what Google does not know, my story of Firefox and what Firefox has meant to all of us.

Despite reports to the contrary, current Mac OS X 10.6.2 Snow Leopard builds do not support the Intel Atom processor. The report that support had returned is a fake, and the most recent build 10C540 still does not support the Atom processor. C'est tout.