Tcl/Tk 8.5.0 has been released. "The 8.5 release was a long time in development, and brought about several good enhancements to Tcl/Tk. Source releases, the exact changes and ChangeLog for each release are available in the SourceForge Tcl project's file distribution area."

As we say in Dutch, de kogel is door de kerk: Think Secret will cease all activities after reaching a settlement with Apple in a lawsuit Apple had filed against the website. In exchange for closing down Think Secret, Nick DePlume, its owner, will not have to reveal its sources to Apple. The press release on the Think Secret website reads: "Apple and Think Secret have settled their lawsuit, reaching an agreement that results in a positive solution for both sides. As part of the confidential settlement, no sources were revealed and Think Secret will no longer be published." My take: I have respect for the way DePlume protected his sources; very commendable. I have, however, little respect for Apple in this case (I have written, rather controversially, about it before), and it just scares the living daylights out of me that a company can exert this much power over independent websites.

Straight from the ADC site (a free online account is enough to gain access to the download): "Java SE 6 Developer Preview 8 is an implementation of Sun's Java SE 6 for Mac OS X v10.5.1 and later. This Preview includes Java SE 6 version 1.6.0_01. This Developer Preview does not change the default version of Java. This release is only for Mac OS X v10.5.1 and later, and should not be installed on earlier versions of Mac OS X. This release is for 64-bit Intel-based Macs only and cannot run on PowerPC-based or 32-bit Intel-based Macs."

"The software development kit for Google's Linux-based Android mobile phone operating system has been out in the wild for a over a month now, plenty of time for developers to form opinions of the platform and assess the capabilities of the API. The verdict from seasoned mobile software programmers is somewhat mixed; some are even expressing serious frustration."

"Mac OS X 10.5.2 Update, the next in a year-long series of planned updates to Apple's new Leopard operating system, promises to be one of the most hefty maintenance releases put out by the company for its operating system software in recent years. According to people familiar with the matter, Tuesday evening gave way to the first test builds of the software update for developers, including a 354MB bare-bones delta build and a 362MB combo updater- both of which were labeled OS X 10.5.2 build 9C7."

"I recently sat down with Technical Fellow and SysInternals founder Mark Russinovich to dig a bit into what's new in the Windows Server 2008 kernel. Of course, we talk about many things including HyperV, application virtualization, kernel architecture (not everybody defines an OS kernel in the same way - tune in to understand why this is the case. Mark has his own definition that may not be the same as yours...)."

Trolltech has published a preview of Qt 4.4. "Qt 4.4 is one of the most exciting Qt releases ever, expanding the range of what is possible with Qt. While the release is still several months away, we would like to provide you with a sneak preview of several key new technologies set to be included in Qt 4.4."

"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce that release 4.0 of the NetBSD operating system is now available. NetBSD is a free, secure, and highly portable Unix-like Open Source operating system available for many platforms, from 64-bit Opteron machines and desktop systems to handheld and embedded devices. Its clean design and advanced features make it excellent in both production and research environments, and it is user-supported with complete source. Many applications are easily available through pkgsrc, the NetBSD Packages Collection."

There is a new edition of the FreeBSD Foundation newsletter. "The innovation of the past lives on in FreeBSD. From SMP and network scalability to innovations in security APIs and wireless networking, the technology of FreeBSD is making an impact on our world. What future piece of BSD technology will help foster a new public commodity like the Internet? I can't say, but the past shows us that investing in open source OS development and its commercial use pays large dividends. The two testimonials in this newsletter from Isilon and Network Appliance show this process at work."

"Following our policy strategy to publish releases on a regular basis, OpenOffice.org 2.3.1 is available for download now. Although it is primarily a maintenance release, we recommend users to install the release due to a security fix. Full details of the changes may be found in the Release Notes associated with the release."

Opera, based in Norway, announced Thursday that it had filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission, alleging that Microsoft is abusing its dominant position by bundling IE with the Windows operating system. Opera also claimed that Microsoft is hindering interoperability by not following accepted open Web standards. Microsoft struck back Friday, indicating that it would not willingly unbundle IE from Windows. "We believe the inclusion of the browser into the operating system benefits consumers, and that consumers and PC manufacturers are already free to choose to use any browsers they wish," a Microsoft representative said. "Internet Explorer has been an integral part of the Windows operating system for over a decade and supports a wide range of Web standards."

Richard Stallman sent a message to OpenBSD-Misc, explaining why he doesn't recommend OpenBSD. "From what I have heard, OpenBSD does not contain non-free software (though I am not sure whether it contains any non-free firmware blobs). However, its ports system does suggest non-free programs, or at least so I was told when I looked for some BSD variant that I could recommend. I therefore exercise my freedom of speech by not including OpenBSD in the list of systems that I recommend to the public." His mail started a huge thread (that's just page 1) and since then he's under a blast of messages from Theo de Raadt and the OpenBSD users. De Raadt replied: "Richard, you are wrong. You said very clearly in your interview that the ports tree contains non-free software. It does not. It is just a scaffold of Makefiles containing URLs, and an occasional patch here or there. You are just plain wrong. And you are not enough of a man to admit that you are wrong. I may be unfriendly at times, but you are a power-misusing hypocritical liar who attacks projects that try harder than any others to only make free software available. Shame on you."

"All promised features were cut from Vista." This is a commonly heard complaint about Windows Vista on the internet. While there certainly is a lot to complain about when it comes to Windows Vista, the mythical 'cancelled features' certainly is not one of them. Let me explain why.

A relatively lengthy Q&A with Ciaran McCreesh about Paludis, the Portage alternative for Gentoo.