Several up-and-coming scripting languages--some open-source--are gaining popularity among software developers. These dynamic programming languages, including Groovy, Scala, Lua, F#, Clojure and Boo, deserve more attention for your enterprise software development, even if your shop is dedicated to Java or .NET. Here's why.

New software packs were released in comparable versions for both Syllable Desktop and Syllable Server. Shell Essentials is a new collection pack with tools for the command line. Network Necessities with networking programs, Developer's Delight with developer tools and The Perl Pit with Perl and its modules were released in new versions with updated package collections. Also, Syllable was accepted for listing on DistroWatch.

James Morris, one of the Red Hat SELinux developers has a blog covering the numerous SELinux related changes and general security improvements made in the new 2.6.27 Linux released recently. It is a impressive amount of changes and there is a large number waiting on queue to go into the next revision as well.

Linux Foundation is organizing a end user collaboration summit this week. A major topic will be a presentation on the new upcoming filesystems - Ext4 and Btrfs. Ted Tso, who is a Linux kernel filesystem developer on a sabbatical from IBM working for Linux Foundation for a year, has talked about the two-pronged approach for the Linux kernel, taking a incremental approach with Ext4 while simultaneously working on the next generation filesystem called btrfs. Read more for details.

Eric Raymond is working on an essay, putatively titled "Why C++ Is Not My Favorite Programming Language". In his announcement, he calls it "an overcomplexity generator", "bloated, obfuscated, unwieldy, rigid, and brittle", and alleges that these characteristics appear in C++ applications also. I contend that many of the complaints about C++ are petty or are aimed at specific libraries or poor documentation and that many of the features commonly regarded as unnecessary (and excluded from intended replacements) are, in fact, highly useful. C++: the Ugly Useful Programming Language

HP has released a roadmap outlining future development of OpenVMS, the operating system that commercialized many features that are now considered standard requirements for any high-end server operating system. (Such as Integrated networking, Symmetrical, asymmetrical, and NUMA multiprocessing, including clustering, distributed file system (Files-11), Integrated database features, support for multiple computer programming languages, hardware partitioning of multiprocessors, etc). With over 30 years of development, OpenVMS has stood the test of time and has continued to evolve as one of the most secure and trusted mission critical OS's of our time.

Mozilla Labs recently offered a sneak peak and download of Geode. Geode is one of the first applications to use the new W3C geolocation specification API. It is currently available as a plug-in for Firefox 3 (and seems to only support Windows and Mac systems at this time). Mozilla Labs indicates it will likely be a new feature integrated in an upcoming browser release.

PolishLinux has an interview with the KPackageKit developers. PackageKit is a abstraction layer over the different Linux package management tools. It is primarily designed to unify the graphical tools and provide a consistent distribution neutral framework for application developers to install add-ons as well. This project was initiated and continues to be maintained by Red Hat developer Richard Hughes who also wrote the initial GNOME frontend to it, called gpk-application. Multiple backends currently exist and it is the default for Fedora and Foresight Linux already. Other distributions including Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Mandriva, and Gentoo are actively participating in the development of different backends. A KDE interface has been under rapid development recently and just did a 1.0 release last week. This interview provides more details.

Linus Torvalds who has recently started blogging, writes about the new 2.6.27 release. The developer's viewpoint on releases tend to be different from end users. Some interesting bits...

Linux 2.6.27 has been released. It adds a new filesystem (UBIFS) for "pure" flash-based storage, the page-cache is now lockless, much improved Direct I/O scalability and performance, delayed allocation support for ext4, multiqueue networking, data integrity support in the block layer, a function tracer, a mmio tracer, sysprof support, improved webcam support, support for the Intel wifi 5000 series and RTL8187B network cards, a new ath9k driver for the Atheros AR5008 and AR9001 chipsets, more new drivers, and many other improvements and fixes. Full list of changes can be found here.

Python 2.6 has been released on October 1st. The major theme of this release is preparing the migration path to Python 3.0, a major redesign of the language. Whenever possible, Python 2.6 incorporates new features and syntax from 3.0 while remaining compatible with existing code by not removing older features or syntax. See the what's new docs for more details.

Mandriva has today released Mandriva Linux 2009, the new major release of the popular distribution. 2009 is a bold release which brings the new KDE 4 as the default desktop, along with a re-designed installer and Mandriva Control Center and many other new features. Other significant updates include GNOME 2.24, OpenOffice.org 3, Mozilla Firefox 3, and kernel 2.6.27. Key features include new graphical in-line upgrade capability, netbook compatibility, class-leading hardware support, and further improved support for working with mobile devices. For more details, see the Release Tour and the Release Notes. Get it at the download page, or go straight to the torrent list.

"Slackware remains Slackware. It's been around for a very long time and it has a very loyal following. It's an excellent choice for the Linux hobbyist who wants to build, configure, and tweak their system to the nth degree. Slackware certainly gives you absolute control over your system. Nothing is made to be easy or user friendly", writes Caitlyn Martin.

AMD finally fleshed out the "Asset Smart" strategy it has been talking about since, at least, last December. The result: AMD is now fabless.