Fun and Profit with Obsolete Computers

  Submitted by shykid Hardware 25 Comments
"In the first purchase of his collection, Sellam Ismail loaded the trunk of his car with old computers he stumbled upon at a flea market for USD 5 apiece. He soon had filled his three-car garage with what others would consider obsolete junk. Years later, his collection of early computers, printers and related parts is piled high across shelves and in chaotic heaps in a 4500-square-foot warehouse near Silicon Valley. And it is worth real money."
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‘Assertion That Microsoft’s ‘Dead’ Doesn’t Compute’

  Submitted by WillM Microsoft 95 Comments
""Microsoft is dead", wrote Paul Graham late last week in one of the silliest columns I've seen in a while. Graham is a smart guy, and probably the one most responsible for you not getting entirely inundated by spam. His 'A plan for spam' outlined the method now used by most anti-spam software. In this latest message, 'Microsoft Is Dead', Graham argues that the Redmond giant was killed by Google, which showed people that the desktop wasn't nearly as important in the age of Web-based applications. Plain and simple, Graham is wrong. There's no way anyone could argue that Microsoft is dead. Just look at the numbers. When a software runs more than 90% of the desktops on the planet - and will for the foreseeable future - it's simply not dead." Update: Paul Graham has clarified some of his statements and explicitly has stated that Microsoft is not in danger of going out of business.
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Why OSS/FS? Look at the Numbers!

  Submitted by npang Open Source 23 Comments
David Wheeler's paper, 'Why OSS/FS? Look at the Numbers!', is a collection of quantitative studies on free software, with the goal to "show that you should consider using OSS/FS when acquiring software". It has a set of different studies grouped into the categories market share, reliability, performance, scalability, security, and total cost of ownership. A brand-new 2007 edition is now available.
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Debian Redefines Itself with New Release

  Submitted by deanlinkous Debian 24 Comments
"For much of its history, Debian has been the major noncommercial, philosophically free distribution. Now, as Debian developers and users have deserted the distro for Ubuntu, does Debian have a purpose any more? Debian 4.0, which was released this week, represents a collective effort to answer that question. The philosophy behind the release is best summarized on the home page for the Debian on the Desktop subproject, which states, 'We will do everything we can to make things very easy for the novice, while allowing the expert to tweak things'."
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The Myth of Apple’s Insecurities

  Submitted by Francis Kuntz macOS 32 Comments
"In case you missed it, there's a virus for the iPod. Yep, that's right, your MP3 player is a veritable hotbed of virus activity - but only if you're running the iPod Linux distribution, and only if you take great pains to make the virus function, since it doesn't really work. We can argue about whether or not this code actually constitutes a virus, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. The point here is that if it has a CPU, hackers will try to break it, and virus writers will try to write a virus for it. Given that there are probably only a few hundred - maybe a thousand - iPods running Linux out there, the fact that someone took the time to write this virus, or malicious code is an example of why Apple detractors clamoring that Macs aren't a target due to the lower market share are all wet."
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Linux, Solaris Face Off

  Submitted by flanque Rumors 64 Comments
"One reason that people might choose to miss out on OpenSolaris is because we're (in general) a conservative lot and a lot of people have had bad experiences with Solaris (and, dare we say it, also with Windows and Linux) in the past. No matter how much software and UI improves, it takes ages for the community to accept this. A reputation that took years to build can be lost with one bad release - but won't be quickly reinstated with one good one. So there will always be people who resist change - and why not, if what they have now works for them. However, various people pointed us at Ubuntu and 'an OpenSolaris-based distro focused specifically on developers'. So perhaps things have improved for Solaris lately and, as I said in the original article, it's now worth another look."
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Bill Gates on Making ACPI Not Work with Linux

Microsoft 87 Comments
"It seems unfortunate if we do this work and get our partners to do the work and the result is that Linux works great without having to do the work" said Bill Gates in 1999 (pdf). While we don't know if he actually managed to do just that (creating problems to other OSes to work well with ACPI), but if he did, it is a good explanation why ACPI has been flaky on the majority of x86 computers with anything else other than Windows (the older, APM standard, seemed more compatible with alternative OSes).
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Vasper Starts Work on Haiku-Based Max Edition

Haiku 87 Comments
Vassilis 'vasper' Perantzakis, of BeOS Max Edition fame, has announced that he will start work on WalterOS, the Haiku-based version of BeOS Max. "All code developed for this OS will be given to Haiku with the same MIT license 1 month after release at the latest. 50% of all income generated for us from any activity related to this OS (selling of CD and possibly memorabilia) will be donated to Haiku. Donations will not be accepted, please donate to Haiku." The name is not final yet, so feel free to add your own proposals.
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Apple Delays Leopard Until October 2007

  Submitted by anonymous macOS 70 Comments
Apple conceded that it will be unable to release its next generation operating system in June as previously planned and now says it anticipates launching the software in October. In a statement released after the close of the stock market, Apple said its highly anticipated iPhone has already passed several of its required certification tests and is on schedule to ship in late June as planned. "We can't wait until customers get their hands (and fingers) on it and experience what a revolutionary and magical product it is," Apple said. "However, iPhone contains the most sophisticated software ever shipped on a mobile device, and finishing it on time has not come without a price - we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our WWDC in early June as planned." Update: New Leopard screenshots.
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The Road to KDE 4: Strigi and File Information Extraction

  Submitted by dylansmrjones KDE 12 Comments
"After a short delay due to a heavy dosage of 'Real Life', I return to bring you more on the technologies behind KDE 4. This week I am featuring Strigi, an information extraction subsystem that is being fully deployed for KDE 4.0. KDE has previously had the ability to extract information about files of various types, and has used them in a variety of functional contexts, such as the Properties Dialog. Strigi promises many improvements over the existing versions."
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