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There are different reasons people use Unix-like operating systems, including configurable, availability free of charge, powerful command line interface an many more. Some people are motivated by the moral issue: they reject non-free software. Specifically for such users Free Software Foundation developed Guidelines for Free System Distributions and created the list of absolutely free ("as in freedom") distributions. In this article we are going to look at the most recent entry on the list - Parabola GNU/Linux.

InfoWorld's Rick Grehan takes an in-depth look at Opa, MLstate's attempt to provide a single language for Web app development, and one of 10 cutting-edge programming languages that could shake up the future of IT. "With Opa, you write your Web application as though it were a single-tier program, and the compiler handles the knotty details of partitioning your program and deploying the resulting components to their proper domains. The compiler also builds the communication infrastructure among application components, and that infrastructure is invisibly managed by the runtime. The security weaknesses inherent in today's Web applications are virtually eliminated."

In its analysis of last year's smartphone market in the U.S., NPD found that market share for Apple's iOS went up following the release of the iPhone 4S, to 43 percent of all smartphone sales in October and November from 26 percent in the third quarter. Android, meanwhile, retained its lead, but lost market share towards the end of the year, dropping in October and November to 47 percent from 60 percent in the previous quarter. These are some dramatic shifts in market share but what do they really mean to you and me?

With so many threats to a free and open Internet, sooner or later, people will need to arm themselves for the fight, writes Deep End's Paul Venezia. 'If the baboons succeed in constraining speech and information flow on the broader Internet, the new Internet will emerge quickly. For an analogy, consider the iPhone and the efforts of a few smart hackers who have allowed anyone to jailbreak an iPhone with only a small downloaded app and a few minutes,' Venezia writes. 'All that scenario would require would be a way to wrap up existing technologies into a nice, easily-installed package available through any number of methods. Picture the harrowing future of rampant Internet take-downs and censorship, and then picture a single installer that runs under Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux that installs tor, tools to leverage alternative DNS servers, anonymizing proxies, and even private VPN services. A few clicks of the mouse, and suddenly that machine would be able to access sites "banned" through general means.'

InfoWorld's Serdar Yegulalp takes an in-depth look at six Chromium-based spinoffs that bring privacy, security, social networking, and other interesting twists to Google's Chrome browser. 'When is it worth ditching Chrome for a Chromium-based remix? Some of the spinoffs are little better than novelties. Some have good ideas implemented in an iffy way. But a few point toward some genuinely new directions for both Chrome and other browsers.'

VirtualBSD 9.0 is a desktop-ready FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE built around the XFCE Desktop Environment for good aesthetics and usability, and is distributed as a VMware appliance (that can also be made to work with VirtualBox) so even non techies can be up and running in minutes. The most common applications, plugins and multimedia codecs are ready since the first boot.

Along with Storage Spaces coming in Windows 8, ReFS forms the foundation of storage on Windows for the next decade or more. Key features of the two when used together include: metadata integrity with checksums; integrity streams providing optional user data integrity; allocate on write transactional model for robust disk updates; large volume, file and directory sizes; storage pooling and virtualization making file system creation and management easy; data striping for performance and redundancy for fault tolerance; disk scrubbing for protection against latent disk errors; resiliency to corruptions with "salvage" for maximum volume availability in all cases; and shared storage pools across machines for additional failure tolerance and load balancing.

"Sunday marks the tenth anniversary of Bill Gates's trustworthy computing memo, which made securing applications from the ground up a key priority at Microsoft for the first time. The directive followed a period during which Redmond took a sustained shelling over the instability and insecurity of its software, especially in Internet Explorer and Outlook, highlighted by the damage caused by high-profile malware outbreaks such as the rampaging Love Bug, Melissa and Nimda nasties."

The latest blog entry from Steven Sinofsky about Windows 8 describes the Storage Spaces functionality . From the blog entry it seems Windows 8 is getting something ZFS-like. The Storage Spaces can be created in the command line via Powershell, or in the Control Panel for the ones that prefer a more mouse-friendly interface.

Two years hence, Oracle's stewardship of Java continues to raise user and vendor ire, this time due to modularization, licensing, and security concerns. 'Plans for version 8 of Java Platform Standard Edition, which is due next year, call for inclusion of Project Jigsaw to add modular capabilities to Java. But some organizations are concerned with how Oracle's plans might conflict with the OSGi module system already geared to Java. In the licensing arena, Canonical, the maker of Ubuntu Linux, says Oracle is no longer letting Linux distributors redistribute Oracle's own commercial Java, causing difficulties for the company. Meanwhile, security vendor F-Secure views Java as security hindrance.'

Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister sees a glaring omission among the proposed plans for the new Application Developers Alliance for mobile app developers: any clear focus on easing cross-platform mobile development. 'Currently, the leading mobile operating systems are all vertically integrated "walled gardens," and developing versions of the same app for multiple platforms is both challenging and costly,' McAllister writes. 'That's where an organization like the Application Developers Alliance could help. By organizing app developers from all across the mobile OS market, it could act as a unified voice to put pressure on Apple, Google, and others to lower barriers to entry for their platforms. ... But as long as it's being underwritten by leading proponents of the status quo, it seems unlikely that the Application Developers Alliance would rock the boat by taking a stand against walled-garden-style mobile platforms.'

InfoWorld's Galen Gruman provides an in-depth comparison of the four major smartphone platforms in business environments. Vetted for business connectivity, application support, Web browsing, and security and management are the Apple iPhone 4S (iOS 5), Samsung Focus S (Windows Phone 7.5), Samsung Galaxy Nexus (Android 4), Motorola Photon 4G (Android 2.3), and RIM BlackBerry Bold 9900 (BlackBerry OS 7). And while the iPhone 4S leads the way based on the test bench's criteria, organizations can re-weight criteria to find which smartphone best meets their distinct needs.

Red/System, the new programming language that is used in the Syllable project, has reached its next milestone: an ARM code generator backend for its compiler. It supports Android (screenshot) and generic ARM Linux (screenshot on Debian). Earlier, the backend for generating Mac OS X executables was already completed (for x86 CPUs so far).

There are two main kernel architectures for large operating systems; monolithic and micro. While these architectures are well thought out, well implemented (usually), and well understood, they have their faults. Mainly, the loading of modules and executables, management of memory, and interfacing between the kernel and software cause these architectures to be vastly complex. With this complexity comes a loss of speed and increased difficulty for the developer. There are other kernel architectures, such as the exokernel, that are vastly different from traditional architectures, but they still have performance issues caused by userland processes.