Archive

We bring to you an interview with Alvaro J. Iradier, founder and lead developer of AMSN (Alvaro's Messenger), a full-featured MSN compatible client, written in tcl/tk.

Like many others, I was a long-time lurker on the atheos mailing list. I was happy to see it get forked, because it seemed to mean that some real progress would get made. In many ways that seems to have happened, and in others... Not so much. Note: This is the 3rd entry to our Alternative OS Contest which runs through 14th July!

This paper describes the design of the kaneton microkernel. This system was designed to be ported on many architectures without being intrusive. Moreover, the main goal of this system was to be understandable by everyone interested in operating systems internals. To do so, the kaneton design and implementation are very elegant and easy to understand. Finally, the kaneton microkernel includes modern distributed concepts leading to a powerful, secure, flexible and reliable microkernel based OS. Note: This is the first entry to our Alternative OS Contest which runs through 14th July!

Recent news tells us Apple is still struggling to gain market share in the personal computer market. That's too bad. While I have some beefy grieves with Apple (being that I am an IT "expert" and all that), their systems nonetheless beat the proverbial tars out of the typical Windows PC crowd.

In this, the 60th anniversary year of the computer, it may be interesting to look back at a couple of key events in the evolution of this very important market. This is a market now amounting to extraordinary numbers of machines. In 2010, the last year for which we have numbers, there were no less than 10 million machines shipped! This growth and penetration is unparalled in the history of industrial products in the last 100 years, and is an amazing success. However, to get to this stage, the industry had to make its way through some issues and decision points. There are generally agreed to have been key turning points. What would have happened if they had gone differently?

I started out as a Mac user in about 1985 in a world which will be totally unfamiliar to almost all readers of OSNews. You wrote out your stuff by longhand, and a secretary typed it on a word processor. If you were lucky and able to manage it, you could dictate it. But you did not dictate into a dictating machine, because these were big heavy and expensive. You dictated it directly to someone who could 'take shorthand'. If you had a PC, it ran DOS. You looked for your files, and moved them around, started applications, one at a time, from the command line, and the command line was not pretty, it was green on black.

After the Why I like microkernels article, I thought it'd be useful to have a view from the "other side" of this endless war. While some of the reasons given by microkernel fans are true, the big picture is somewhat different and it's what I think it keeps traditional-style kernels in the top. Note: please take note that the author is not a native English speaker, so forgive any grammar or spelling mistakes.

Sony's PS3, scheduled to be released near the end of this year, has been slated to have a hard drive that will support and will even include preinstalled Linux. This could be a breakthrough event not just for Linux but also for other alternative operating systems as well. The PS3 will almost certainly sell millions and millions of units, providing a unique opportunity for people to try something that would be more difficult on their regular computer.

After many years of slow and steady growth, open source software (OSS) has begun to make an impact on corporate culture. Online forums abound with discussions about how open source projects are changing the way businesses use software. Venture capital companies now look for open source projects to invest in and larger IT companies like IBM and Sun Microsystems are turning to open source to gain a competitive edge. OSS is a fast-growing influence and yet the topic of how business affects OSS companies has been rarely studied.

ActiveWin reviews Office 2007 beta 1, and concludes: "It's an innovative interface yes, but will the benefits outweigh the changes? That's for users to decide. Yes this early code does have glitches and performance issues left to be ironed out; right now the focus is on reliability and stability. The BETA 2 release should provide us with an early glimpse of what's in store in the final product. My personal say is getting used to interface should not be a problem for many since the familiar tools are organized in ways that makes it convenient for the user, and new tools make the interface more intelligent and more aware of what the user is doing, presenting the right tools for the task at hand."

Today we're happy to feature an interview by Grant Hayes of MacSlash with Paul Leroux, a technology analyst with QNX Software Systems, who is participating in Embedded World 2006. In the interview, Paul discusses the changes QSS has experienced in the last couple years, new and established competition, and moving forward in the marketplace with new technology.

FOSDEM 2006 is approaching. The event will take place on the 25th and 26th of February in Brussels, Belgium. The FOSDEM is a free and non-commercial event for the community and organised by the community. FOSDEM 's goal is to provide free and open source developers and communities a place to go over the latest developments in the free and open source arena and to promote the development and the benefits of free and open source solutions. Read more for some interviews with key speakers at FOSDEM.

"Assuming that 'because it's a Mac, it's safe' is no longer wise" is probably one of this book's most important themes. It has been my experience that too many Mac users "know" that OS X is secure and therefore they have nothing to worry about. This book shows just how wrong that attitude is.

A demonstration of the next release of Novell's Linux for desktops drew cheers and applause Wednesday, although the final version of the software is not expected for some months. Nat Friedman, the company's vice president of Linux desktop engineering, showed Novell Linux Desktop 10 playing videos and MP3 music files, and exchanging music and photos with an iPod and a digital camera, in a keynote presentation at the Solutions Linux conference and trade show on the outskirts of Paris.