The article yesterday on KDE4 triggered both Sebastian Kuegler and Aaron Seigo to respond via their blogs. Kuegler writes: "The Free Desktop and KDE have come a long way during the last years. There have been various huge changes in KDE's social structure, in it's infrastructure and of course in the sourcecode itself. I've split this into three different areas where I think a shift in paradigm has taken place." Seigo writes: "Mark my words: KDE4 is a revolution unfolding and you're getting to watch it all happen from the very beginning."

"The first service pack for Windows Vista is slated for release to manufacturing in the first quarter of 2008. The announcement was made via Microsoft’s Windows Window Vista Blog by Nick White, a product manager at Microsoft. We got a chance to sit down with White to talk about SP1."

I hear often that when something new appears that "competition is good". The primary reasons competition is seen as good, are: it drives down prices; it gives consumers more choice; it pushes technology forward, quicker. Competition is not good because: competition is why consumers have to choose between HD-DVD and BluRay; competition is why DRM exists; and more. In this article, each of the supposed benefits of competition will be looked at in more detail.

"Microsoft partners think it's great that the vendor has been aggressively battling software piracy. But some partners say the task of ensuring that their clients are in compliance with Microsoft's Byzantine software licensing structure is steadily growing more difficult. Making matters worse, several sources told CMP Channel that Microsoft sometimes expects partners to act as foot soldiers in its ongoing campaign against so-called 'unintentional' software piracy by reporting organizations that aren't in compliance, which is threatening their role as trusted advisors to their clients."

Microsoft is finally talking about the much-anticipated first service pack for Windows Vista and will release the first beta to a select group of about 15,000 customer and partner testers within the next few weeks. The software maker will release the beta for Windows XP Service Pack 3 at the same time. Microsoft acknowledged Aug. 29 that it has already shared beta previews of Windows XP SP3 and Vista SP1 with small group of testers, a fact it refused to admit until recently despite numerous leaks on the Internet.

"Ubuntu Xorg maintainer Bryce Harrington recently demonstrated the BulletProof-X feature that is planned for inclusion in Ubuntu 7.10. BulletProof-X provides a failsafe mode which will ensure that users never have to manually configure their graphics hardware settings from the command line."

The AutoPatcher project has been asked by Microsoft to stop operations. "Today we received an e-mail from Microsoft, requesting the immediate take-down of the download page, which of course means that AutoPatcher is probably history. As much as we disagree, we can do very little, and although the download page is merely a collection of mirrors, we took the download page down. We would like to thank you for your support. For the past 4 years, it has been a blast. Unfortunately, it seems like it's the end of AutoPatcher as we know it."

The fourth alpha release of Gnash has just been made at version 0.8.1. Gnash is a GPL'd Flash movie player and browser plugin for Firefox, Mozilla, Konqueror, and Opera. Gnash supports many SWF v7 features and ActionScript2 classes. Gnash also runs on many GNU/Linux distributions, embedded GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, non x86 processors, and 64 bit architectures. Ports to Darwin and Windows are in progress for a future release. The plugin works best with Firefox 1.0.4 or newer, and should work in any Mozilla based browser. There is also a standalone player for GNOME or KDE based desktops.

"The next-generation of the KDE open source project, version 4.0, has been touted as the beginning of a new era in desktop computing, but only two months from the first release some users are wondering if it's just all hype. KDE 4.0 will bring a collection of new technologies to the Linux and Unix desktop, but there are uncertainties around how much of it will be included in the initial release. KDE user Andreas Pakulat expressed doubt about how the release will take shape in a blog post titled 'Where's the KDE4 desktop?'." KDE's Aaron Seigo also shares his thoughts on this.

"After years of encouragement from the OpenBSD community for others to use Reyk Floeter's free atheros wireless driver, it seems that the Linux world is finally listening. Unfortunately, they seem to think that they can strip the BSD license right out of it." Update: The issue has been fixed, but sadly, lkml.org is down, so I cannot give any links just yet.

"It seems like just yesterday that the GNOME Project got its start, but actually it was a decade ago that Miguel de Icaza got the ball rolling. While de Icaza has largely focused his time on Mono recently, the GNOME community has kept making progress. To get some perspective on GNOME's history, I spoke to de Icaza and longtime GNOME contributor and GNOME Foundation board member Jeff Waugh."

"Today's launch of the latest version of Intel's vPro platform is a much bigger deal than you might think, with implications for end users that extend far beyond the enterprise arena at which vPro is initially aimed. The 2007 version of vPro represents the culmination of two of Intel's most ambitious and important plans for the PC platform: the transformation of x86 into a fully virtualizable ISA complete with virtualized I/O, and the first fully-complete implementation of all the parts of Intel's controversial contribution to 'trusted computing' technology, formerly codenamed 'LaGrande' but now called Trusted Execution Technology. Let's take a look at the new vPro and what its new virtualization and 'trusted computing' capabilities mean for ordinary users."

"This guest whitepaper explains how a hypervisor can be used to leverage GPL software while isolating it from proprietary code, in order to ensure compliance with the requirements of the GPL. It was written by a TRANGO Virtual Processors product manager, and uses that company's hypervisor as an example."

"With the release of Windows Vista, using your PC to watch and record TV has become a whole lot easier. Now, for the first time, Windows Media Center comes bundled with Home Premium and Ultimate versions of the standard Desktop operating system. However, Vista is pricey, and its form and function are of course dictated by Microsoft. If you want full control over your Home Theater PC, and don’t want to have to pay Microsoft for it, then Linux is a more than capable alternative base for building a system of your own."