"Not all major software versions carry the same weight. Consider the last two releases of the Fedora distribution. Fedora 7 offered little that was obvious to desktop users, despite some behind-the-scenes improvements and the opening of the release process to public scrutiny. By contrast, if Test 3 of Fedora 8 is any indication, the upcoming release, scheduled for next month, returns to the distribution's tradition of introducing a variety of innovations. Some of these innovations, like the new firewall tool, are minor, if still welcome. Others, like the IcedTea version of Java and Codec Buddy, are flawed, but may eventually find their way into other distributions."

Sun's starting to phase out mobile Java that's been the standard on cellphones and other small devices in favor of their standard edition, which are made for PCs everywhere. Sun VP James Gosling's reasoning for shifting everyone over to Java Standard Edition is because 'cellphones and TV set-top boxes are growing up', meaning they're getting enough processing power to handle all the demands of full-featured Java.

Microsoft ended three years of resistance on Monday and finally agreed to comply with a landmark 2004 antitrust decision by the European Commission. The defeated software giant announced it would not appeal against a decisive European Union court ruling two months ago that backed the Commission.

APCMag has a lenghty article on switching from Windows to Ubuntu. "When I was first given this task I had to sit and blink a few times, if for nothing else than dramatic pause. I'm a self-confessed Linux nut, as some of you may know, but even I'm cautious to do away with Windows completely. There's a reason I have a dual-boot Windows and Linux machine. Several of them, in fact. But have I just been conditioned into using Windows because of past experience, or applications, or file formats, or the myriad other reasons that make Windows a comfort zone because it's all so familiar?"

NetBSD 4.0 RC3 has been released. "On behalf of the NetBSD Release Engineering team, I am happy to announce the availability of NetBSD 4.0 Release Candidate 3. The list of changes from the 3.0 release is available in the release notes. This release candidate has several bug fixes and other changes since the previous release candidate."

"Buried deep within Windows' bosom is a carbon-crusted fossil from the ancient days of computing. This aged wart on Windows' soul harkens back to a more primitive time, when computers lacked the oomph to go graphical and mice were nothing but rodents. I speak of the command prompt, whose roots lie in DOS, that antique operating system of the 1980s. DOS is gone now. Yet despite Windows' glorious graphical goodness, a wispy memory of text-based computer life still exists. It's a program called CMD.EXE, and it appears in Windows as the command prompt window. Believe it or not, the command prompt to this day still serves as a useful alternative way to control your computer. Indeed, there are some things you can do in the command prompt window that in Windows' graphical interface are tedious, slow or darn near impossible. Come with me as we discover how an old warhorse like DOS can once again find purpose."