What’s Coming Up in GNOME 2.4
The release freeze of Gnome 2.4 is imminent, so an intrepid Gnome user takes a look at what's in 2.4 and how it differs from 2.3.
David Adams Archive
Windows XP SP2 Delayed Until Late 2004
Microsoft's Product Lifecycle Web site has the second XP service pack scheduled for 2004, a year later than previously expected. Analysts speculate that the long delay may be to integrate more functionality into the OS, such as the "PC Satisfaction package," an enhanced firewall and virus detection package.
China Says No to MS, to Use Local Software
In an attempt to end the monopoly of global software giant Microsoft, major Chinese ministries on Friday started upgrading its domestic software, by using the latest edition of WPS office software made in China.
OpenOffice.org 1.1 RC3 for Mac OS X
FYI, I came across this message today:
All,
OpenOffice.org 1.1 RC3 is ready for download. It incorporates some bugfixes and significantly advances the development of the Mac OS X port. OpenOffice.org 1.1 RC3 is the first version to support building out of the box on Mac OS X.
OpenOffice.org 1.1 RC3 is functionally equivalent to the final version, which is coming soon. What we want you to do is download this and try to find the bugs. That is important. We need people to run this under all sorts of circumstances.
Download from here
Outlook Express is Back
Microsoft has backed down on plans to abandon development on its email client, because 'the situation has changed'
SCO – New Tactics
SCO has announced a controversial new plan to fight intellectual property misappropriation. It's going beyond the distributors, beyond the end users, to the next generation. In other SCO news, the company is planning on attacking the GPL directly.
Happy 10th Birthday, Debian
Tomorrow (or today, depending on where you live) is the 10th birthday of the popular GNU/Linux distribution Debian. Debconf has set up a page that talks about the anniversary and what to do about it.
nVidia Drivers for FreeBSD
It came to my attention today that there has been a new release of nVidia detonator drivers for FreeBSD. Apparently released on 1st July, the first I heard of them was when I randomly checked the nVidia website today. The new drivers support 4.8 onwards, including -RELEASE -STABLE and -CURRENT branches. The drivers support the most recent hardware including the FX based cards.
When Technology Fails You
Most of the people in the United States and Canada should know about the crippling power outage that hit eastern North America yesterday, leaving New York, Toronto, Detroit, and other cities dark all afternoon and into the evening. When the outage hit, it was sometimes low-tech (or no-tech) devices that were the most useful, as trains stopped and mobile phone networks didn't work or became overloaded. Pay phones (now rare), pagers, and flashlights were the useful tech tools, and thousands were forced to walk home.
MS Slashes Prices for Thai “Peoples PC”
In order to participate in Thailand's "Peoples PC" project (in which the goverment hopes to provide 1 million low-cost PCs for the population), Microsoft has cut their price for Windows and Office together to as low as $36 -- 10% of what they sometimes charge for Office alone!
They also are dropping their controversial product activation requirements for this project.
Previously, the Peoples PC project was based exclusively on Linux.
My take: Watch for falling margins at MS as big customers realize, in the wake of Munich and Thailand, that threats of migration to Linux can win BIG price breaks from MS...
Linux vs Windows: Choice vs. Usability
A Recent DevX editorial makes the (often made) claim that Linux's lack of a single standard UI will hamper its adoption on the desktop and makes developing applications for Linux more difficult. Hard-core Linux users love having the choice of many operating environments, and they are hardly likely to resolve the KDE vs Gnome argument anytime soon. Is there any hope of more standardization? Should we even want it?
SCO vs IBM: Battle Continues
SCO has terminated IBM's Dynix licence. Dynix was a product developed by Sequent, which was acquired by IBM in 1999. Technology developed by Sequent for its Unix OS (Dynix) called Numa was subsequently rolled into Linux. According to this article at Vnunet.com, it looks like a lot of this goes back to SCO's bitterness about project Monterrey, a joint venture between SCO, Intel, and IBM. IBM withdrew from the project, which was SCO's last chance at the big time.
XP Lite & 2000 Lite in Beta
LitePC, the creators of a commercial utility that makes standard windows components optional, allowing for the creation of a stripped down (and even embedded) version of Windows98, is working on a version for Windows 2000 and XP. See more information on the Beta test.
GNU Questions: RMS on SCO, Distributions, DRM
Richard Stallman, the founder of the GNU Project and Free Software Foundation, took time to discuss many current issues with Open for Business' Timothy R. Butler. Stallman provides straightforward answers on SCO, GNU/Linux distribution choices, Digital Rights Management, dual license schemes, and more. Read the in-depth interview at OfB.biz.
More Windows Trouble Ahead?
Blaster winds down, but security experts predict more Windows trouble ahead. Some believe that a new attack is imminent.
Happy Anniversary!
Today is the second anniversary of OSNews' renaissance. Though OSNews started in Autumn of 1997, there was a long period in which it was in deep-freeze, with only occasional updates. August 2001 bought daily updates, a new back-end, and a lot of new readers, thanks to our new Editor-in-Chief (Eugenia). Since that time we've had:
- 4,247 news postings
- 133,118 comments
- 244 Feature Articles
- 82 Editorials
- 94 Interviews
- 1001 Flamewars
End of Outlook Express a Good Thing?
It might be the world's most widely distributed e-mail client, but Microsoft has confirmed that it has no intention of further developing Outlook Express. Microsoft is moving its consumer-oriented email focus to MSN and Hotmail, while encouraging business users to use (and pay for) the full Outlook.
Resisting Open-Sourcery
Analyst Rob Enderle has written what is sure to be a controversial article explining his conversion from an open source proponent to a disillusioned opponent. His reasons don't focus on technical merits, but on side issues such as the fanatical intolerance for dissent and ignorance in Linux forums (making it hard to get help sometimes) and the fact that when your boss expects everything to be free it makes it harder to exceed expectations. Food for thought, but he might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Microsoft Criticises Third Party Code for Windows Crashes
Scott Charney, chief security strategist at Microsoft, told developers at the TechEd 2003 conference in Brisbane, that information collected by Dr Watson, the company's reporting tool, revealed that "half of all crashes in Windows are caused not by Microsoft code, but third-party code" . . . Charney also reinforced Microsoft's message to developers and network administrators that they needed to build secure applications and networks "from the ground up"
Linux Usability Report
German firm Relevantive has performed a formal usability test of Linux as a desktop OS (SuSE/KDE), with a control group using Windows XP. They found that user, who presumably had some familiarity with Windows, took slightly longer (almost equal) to perform an identical task in Linux and estimated that it would take a week for them to achieve familiarity with the new system. The study also identified several problems with Linux as a desktop system, mostly around the UI.