A discussion on the Haiku mailing list about the recently announced icon contest has set off a somewhat controversial debate about communication in the project. The Haiku leadership seems to be of the idea that it is not yet a good time to the start PR machine, while the member of the community who initiated the discussion argues that, if done right, communication can be beneficial for the project at any point in time, and that it may actually help find the developers that the project so badly needs. Quite coincidentally, this article related to the topic of marketing open source projects.

Trolltech will ship an "open" Linux-based phone in September. The "Greenphone" features a user-modifiable Linux OS, and is meant to jumpstart a third-party native application ecosystem for Linux-based mobile phones.

Here are few articles posted today about Mac OS X: " OS X Mobile and Automotive Editions: Is It Possible?", Leopard Core Animation", "64-bit Leopard knocks off Vista", "First boot with Leopard" and "Multi-Threaded OpenGL On The Way".

Windows INI files and its registry have both advantages and limitations, particularly from a developer's viewpoint. In this DevSource article, Peter Aitken explains what they are, and explains how .NET's isolated storage works: it provides a location on your drive that only a specific application can find and use. He explains when isolated storage is a developer's best friend, and when you shouldn't bother.

Xandros, originally a revamped Corel Linux OS, provides a very stable, rock solid Linux distribution for the typical Linux newbie. Read the review at OSWeekly. TheJemReport also features an interview with some of the Xandros developer managers.

ReactOS has just released version 0.3.0 RC2 of their open source Microsoft Windows-compatible operating system. They are also now 94% finished with the code audit.

Funambol CEO Fabrizio Capobianco is scheduled to announce a draft version of a modified GPL today that would add a provision requiring service providers to distribute changes to code, even if they don't "distribute" the code beyond their own servers. Capobianco calls this the Honest Public License (HPL), and the additional provision could add an entirely new wrinkle to free software.

Debian is a steadfastly noncommercial version of Linux. But Hewlett-Packard will give it a big corporate hug Monday with the announcement of a plan to provide support for the open-source operating system.

A start-up called Movidis believes a 16-core chip originally designed for networking gear will be a ticket to success in the Linux server market. The Revolution x16 models from Movidis each use a single 500MHz or 600MHz Cavium Networks Octeon CN3860 chip.

"DirectX 10 is likely to see a number of point revisions during its lifespan and the first of these, imaginatively titled DirectX 10.1, will be the first of these. It may surprise some of you reading this, but the features which will be added by DirectX 10.1 have already been decided upon and information made available about them, so in this article we'll be taking a look through what we can expect to see in DirectX 10.1 compliant hardware."

Here are just a couple of screenshots from Leopard and explanation of some of the new features.

This chapter explains the ins and outs of non-standard FreeBSD installations. If you are installing FreeBSD on a system with another operating system previously installed, or if you aren't using a CD or DVD to install FreeBSD, you'll want to read this chapter before performing the installation.

If you're old enough to remember the 1970s, the current popular fascination with fractals probably flashes you back to those halcyon days of big hair and wild imagery. Whatever your age, you'll enjoy Peter Aitken's explanation of how fractals work. You can even plug in his Visual Studio demo program and make some fractals of your own.

The driver source code released for the Intel 965 Graphics chipset recently isn't as open as first thought. Keith Packard posted a reply on the linux-kernel mailing list detailing what parts were not available.