Comic: "Sigh".

"KDE 4.1 will be what everyone expected 4.0 to be - a fully functional revolutionary Linux desktop. I took a look at the revision 777000 of this desktop environment and what you get is a visual changelog describing the current progress in terms of look and feel and the features." It has Bejeweled KDiamond? I'm sold.

"For the past several weeks we have been referencing AMD's 'tcore' in several of our articles, which is a user-space software suite that has been developed and used internally at ATI by engineers to work on various aspects of their binary drivers. Tcore is primarily used for testing prior to the availability of the actual silicon for their forthcoming graphics processors. John Bridgman and Alex Deucher have been working tediously to get this tcore source-code sanitized and cleared for public release, and finally they have reached this milestone. AMD has just published the first bits of open-source 3D programming documentation for ATI GPUs. This 3D programming documentation covers the R500 series and even goes back with information on the R300/400 series as well. The R600 3D programming guide will also be out soon. This information available today is what will foster the growth of open-source R500/600 3D support for the Radeon and RadeonHD drivers as well as R600 2D acceleration."

The time may come where you will have to burn both a Blu-Ray disc for your family, and an HD-DVD disc for your boss who got hurried out and bought that HD-DVD player just so he can show off to all of you who waited for the format war outcome. Besides, while the HD format war is over, there are still over 1.3 million HD-DVD devices out there. I have modified some HD authoring methods found on the net in a way that 80% of the work to be done is the same for both formats, and with the rest 20% of the work only taking an additional 10 minutes for each format to be muxed and burned. Blu-Ray method is here, and the HD-DVD method is here (methods are identical up to step #7). Not only that, but you won't even need an HD burner, as these methods exercise plain DVD-R discs and they are using freeware tools.

"A little over a year after the first appearance of Vista, Service Pack 1 is nearly ready for download. SP1 is a useful but not crucial update to the OS, and one that won't greatly affect your computing day, at least not outwardly. The bulk of the development effort has gone toward upgrading security subsystems - elements that enterprise clients find appealing but consumers and small-business users won't really notice (although they'll feel better knowing about them). The bottom line is that there's absolutely no reason not to download SP1 (which you'll receive automatically if you have AutoUpdate turned on), so it's almost a given that it will become the standard in the very near future."

JNode 0.2.6 has been released. "JNode is a free, open source Java technology based OS written fully in Java language (with a very small assembler nano-kernel). This release features over 99 percent java 6 api compatibility, hotswapping, nfs, hfs+, even more openJDK integration, jetty6 and of course bug fixes and improvements."

Microsoft rolled out its big guns, including CEO Steve Ballmer and Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, to underscore its commitment to the set of new interoperability principles announced Feb. 21 that are designed to increase the openness of its high-volume products and drive greater interoperability. In fact, Microsoft's long-term success depends on its ability to deliver a software and services platform that is open and flexible and provides customers and developers with choice, Ballmer said during a media teleconference. The EU is skeptical on Microsoft's pledges, according to Ars.

A few days ago the AROS team published quite an extensive update on AROS' status. Progress has been made on porting AROS to the sam440 board, Traveller (Webkit-based browser for AROS) has made some strides, and work has begun on a load of manuals for AROS, among other things.

"Leopard started out with a generous share of first-version glitches, but almost all of them have now been resolved by the second of two automated updates, which brings Leopard up to version 10.5.2. Finally, Leopard is extravagantly overdressed for the jobs that it's designed to do, and its pervasive eye-candy starts out looking dazzling but soon becomes distracting. Fortunately, from the beginning, the OS started out with options that let you put it on a low-eye-sugar diet, and the latest update has even more."

Opera Software's CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner explains why they will not release the Opera browser as open source, arguing that open standards are more important than open source. Von Tetzchner also talks about the company's antitrust complaint to the European Commission in which it accuses Microsoft of abusing its dominant position by tying Internet Explorer to Windows.

Ars has reviewed the new Mac Pro. "The performance of Harpertown and Stoakley is more evidence that Intel is doing right by Apple, and this eight-core monster is a worthy successor to the Mac Pro name. At USD 3599, it's expensive; the USD 800 cheaper 2.8GHz model will likely be adequate for the majority of users. But if you want maximum performance and a machine that's unlikely to show its age anytime soon, the Mac Pro is a good buy."

Microsoft has flung open the door for anyone interested in getting their mitts on release candidate 2 of Windows XP SP3. The software giant had made RC2 of the final service pack of XP already available to several thousand beta testers a few weeks ago. Now, it feels brave enough to pump it out to the masses.

"Although I have some doubts that XFCE is 'so very much lighter' than GNOME (GNOME 2.20 doesn't take too much memory if you don't start all kind of crap), it is still lighter, and in a few years there will be less and less antiquated computers who require extra-light window managers (Fluxbox, Openbox, Blackbox, WindowMaker, IceWM). XFCE is reasonably mature, and constantly improving, so it has all the chances to become the mid-weighted Desktop Environment of choice pretty soon! What is XFCE needing to reach the Nirvana? Here's the way I see things."

KDE 3.5.9 has been released. "The KDE Community today announced the immediate availability of KDE 3.5.9, a maintenance release for the latest generation of the most advanced and powerful free desktop for GNU/Linux and other UNIXes. The most important changes have been made to the KDE-PIM applications, including the KMail email client, KOrganizer, a planning application and other components."