Slashdot Mirror

siliconghetto writes "Sun decided that to post a response to .NET on it's Java home page. According to Madhu Siddalingaiah, "Microsoft is spinning [.Net] as innovative new platform but what they're really doing is giving developers an updated set of handcuffs." "

siliconghetto writes "Sun decided that to post a response to .NET on it's Java home page. According to Madhu Siddalingaiah, "Microsoft is spinning [.Net] as innovative new platform but what they're really doing is giving developers an updated set of handcuffs." "

Rayooz asks: "With all the hype around the J2EE specification, I'm wondering if it truly lives up to its promise of "server independence" in the real world. Has anyone had experience developing/deploying a J2EE application on one application server and then moving it to another server without any modification?"

jzuska writes: "Sun Announced it's UltraSPARC III today. The link is here. 29 million transistors and 900MHZ, 9.6 Gigabyte/second processing bandwidth woohoo!!!" And this is an announcement of "volume shipments," not *coughcough* EventualWare. So lessee ... for boxes that you might reasonable put on your desk right now, there are how many architecture choices? (And how many of them run Windows?)

On a semi-related note, Sulka writes: "Motorola just introduced a new G4, the MPC7410. While this is a processor meant for embedded systems, it's essentially the same CPU as the G4 in Macs. What's significant is the price -- the 500 MHz version carries a $195 price tag. This is much cheaper than the Intel and AMD high-end offerings. I wonder how much the G4e is going to cost." Sounds like a cool basis for (awfully) high-end set-top devices at that price, but imagine what that will cost 12 months from now! Yoiks.

JJ asks: "What has happened to Jini, Sun's networked mobile code technology that debuted with Mmuch fanfare nearly two years ago? The answer seems to be not much. What's the reason for the lack of adoption of Jini? Is it because nobody can understand the trademark and licensing requirements? Or is it because few people have realized Jini's true potential?"

With a planned move to San Francisco next summer, last week saw San Jose's last Linux World Expo, at least for now. The future as always is stubbornly uncertain, but it's impressive that the serendipitous combination of Free tools (from GNU) and a Free kernel (from Linus) has inspired enough interest and prosperity to excite a larger group of people each year. If you've not had the chance to attend one of these expositions, we hope this article will give you a flavor of what it's like. Note: Here are a few pictures from the floor (Day 1 & Day 2) contributed by Sensei^); do you have any cool shots to link to in comments?

First, the prelude: If you've worked on the pre-show aspects of anything from a high-school play to a LAN party, you know all those booths, displays, people and computers don't materialize by themselves. For several days before the show floor opened on Tuesday, forklift crews zipped cargos of wooden, fiberglass, plastic, aluminum and steel cases from moving trucks to exhibit spaces. These contained banners, snap-together modules, computers, lighted signs -- and Yes, more gratis logo-imprinted toys than you can wave a TuxTops LED light at.

Spiderwebs of CAT-5 and electric cord (run beneath the show floor) sprouted from the centerpoints of many booths, with strands for each computer to be connected to the Net during the show. Rolls of padding and carpet came next, then the slow assembly of display booths. These ranged from no-nonsense fabric partitions that housed companies like TuxTops and Sendmail (and legions of volunteers from PerlMonks, the Simple End User Linux project, Flightgear, and many others), to elaborate constructions with motorized signs, projected lasers and huge illuminated logos. Note: Slashdot (the site) was put together last week mostly from the comfy chairs of the PerlMonks booth.

The "C" (as in conference) part of LWCE got started on Monday, and for the days that followed, attendees got instruction -- on everything from Linux security to evangelizing Free software to their bosses-- in half-day doses. Meanwhile, the setup work continued into the wee hours, as exhibitors raced the clock to make sure that at least their signs, if not their networks, were up for the next day. And at the OSDN booth (home of the red-carpeted Slashdot stage and beanbags), prep work included stacking thousands of boxed distributions of Debian, and attempted to pawn a few copies off on every passer by.

Tuesday morning, at a shade before 10:00, visitors willing to miss Michael Dell's keynote began to stream into the halls, on a quest to find new distros, old friends, and swag. It's amazing what companies will give away in order to snag a little nook in your brain. Besides the usual trinkets (keychains, T-shirts, stickers) and the distributions that a Linux show would be empty without, booth visitors were handed everything from knives (Sendmail) to cute monkeys (Helixcode) to embarrassing pictures of themselves (BSDi), as well as too many toys with embedded LEDs to bother counting. Rather than a full swag accounting (which would only annoy those unable to attend), let me just say that you won't hurt for toys when the chance presents itself. (CT:I just wanted to note that VA gave away 2300 pounds of shrink-wrapped boxed Debian. Like 5000 copies. It was beautiful)

The things on display around the LWCE floor were more interesting than the toys, though. (And unlike a museum, most were available for hands-on demonstration, not hidden behind glass.) Indrema showed a prototype player (not in the sleek black box you see on their Web site, but still sporting that cool blue LED) hooked up to a HDTV display, playing a very fast game of Quake. (CT:Actually it was an HDTV demo, they promised the real deal will be less vaporous before I have children) In the Intel booth were server clusters populated with quad Itanium processors, demonstrating failover when one system was rudely but intentionally shut down. The amazing-like-emacs-is-amazing Flightgear project showed a really nice looking demo which is enough incentive by itself to invest in a better video card for my system so I can play with it.

Both Helixcode and Eazel made their first LWCE appearance this time around, exciting for those filling their anti-FUD cannon for the perpetual "Linux is tough to use" argument. The Eazel folks showing off Nautilus seemed to be all but cackling as they showed off the smoothness of the zooming information available for documents and the cool music-integration abilities it contains. It would have been cool if they'd had some sample CDs, but they promise a developers' release soon. (CT:They also promised .deb's, but I'll believe it when I see it. The UI was awesome, I just hope that someone hacks in something like the GUI command line in EFM)

Considering that Sun was showing off the GNOME desktop on Solaris (hinting at its inclusion in stock Solaris systems sometime very soon, too) and that the GNOME project itself was not only in one of the small booths against the wall but the subject of a big announcement -- about the advent of the GNOME Foundation -- it looks it's showing up everywhere. Happily, there seems to be no shortage of room for window managers right now: the KDE folks were also there not only in their own booth, but showing up in software demonstrations all over the floor, as SuSE, Caldera and others demonstrated the very slick KDE 2.0. (Can't we all just get along, anyhow?)

SuSE, by the way, was the only distributor I noticed showing off Linux on Apple hardware, and their current distro was sweet and fast on a G4. Beyond the curious lack of Apples, and the obvious ubiquity of x86 machines, there were machines based on everything from microcontrollers to StrongArm, MIPS, Alpha, Itanium ... even the IBM S/390s which have gotten attention for the ridiculous number of concurrent Linux systems they can support.

For all the cool hardware and cusp-of-reality, bleeding-edge distros, it's interesting that the announcement which seemed to generate the most buzz of the entire show was the long-awaited release of Debian's Potato. Considering the reputation that Debian has for intelligent upgrading, stability, and diligence in guarding the license of the software which makes it up, it's not as surprising as it might otherwise be that Debian's new release made people sit up a bit more than the newest offerings from the large commercial distros.

(CT: Also extremely impressive was the Pocket Linux booth, where they actually had iPaq's running Linux. The first dude that demoed the box to me was very nice, but what I really wanted to see was X11 running on it ... oddly enough, I encountered one of his cohorts in the bar later that night who showed it to me: X, xeyes, xterm, and twm running on an iPaq. When they get the wireless action going on these things I'm totally there ... I'll just need to hack minimalist interfaces onto pronto and my MP3 player software and use the thing as a portable X terminal on the local 802.11 wireless lan. Yum.)

Oh, and there were people on the floor as well -- close to 20,000, all told. I met some folks I've known previously only through IRC, and quite a few I might never have otherwise encountered.

It's interesting to see in the space of a few hours many of the smart people who you may experience vicariously through writings, speeches, code, art or IRC chatter -- and it also belies the idea that software celebrities of the Free software world are becoming celebrities of the traditional variety, since everyone from ESR to Jon "maddog" Hall (and Linus himself) are willing to talk to anyone who catches up with them long enough to say hello. The atmosphere (especially outside the mondo corporate-castle booths) is mellow and accomodating, and suprisingly so even within most of those castles. There were undoubtably personality conflicts at work, but it seems like most people have the good grace to deal nicely with each other for these few days at least.

At the close of each day, people shuffle out to drop laptops, T-shirts and bags of stuff at their hotels, then thousands of them show up to parties sponsored by companies from AMD to Red hat to VA, which are full-blown events in themselves. Mandrake's party, for instance, had go-go dancers in cages, which may be the most bacchanal thing I have ever witnessed. Ironically, though, many coders couldn't attend even events sponsored by their own companies, or thrown in the honor of their projects, because of strict carding policies. Wouldn't a chem-free party or two be a thoughtful way to include people?

(CT: This has been a consistent problem for several years. Although I know at "Someones" party (no names *grin*) they weren't carding, and I recieved many a happy note from fellow attendees proclaiming that they were able to get in. The parties themselves weren't bad: the OSDN/Potato release party was fun, with San & Zak spinning the tunes (next time we'll force CowboyNeal to scratch for us under threat of death). They had 2 buildings: one was a pool hall, where we tormented The Pope for nearly an hour, carefully distracting him, and then returning his balls to the table. He never noticed. We also met up with Nitrozac from After Y2k, and I snuck accross the street to the Eazel party for a bit, and got to meet Dave "You might remember me from cheat codes in some first person shooter" Taylor.) Attendeees mostly filed out for flights or drives home Thursday and Friday, but some are still in San Jose for the Intel Developers Conference, or otherwise enjoying the Northern California weather. It's a strange familiarity that many of them will feel when the next big conference rolls around, to see many of the same fellow attendees or workers -- of course, by the time the next big conference happens, perhaps we'll all be too excited by the release of 2.4 to notice.

beebware writes: "The BBC is running this story about the European Union opening an antitrust case against Microsoft. It seems legal action has already started (a warning has been issued) - place your bets now on the outcome...." You can also check out the ZDNN story. The warning comes from a complaint registered by Sun Microsystems.

AnonymousCow writes "At LinuxTag, an unbiased comparison of performance of FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Linux, and Solaris." I'll let Tim's comment on this story stand: "Unbiased is hard to claim - all tests can be seen as biased in their formulation - but this is thorough, with 45 slides and well-explained methodology -- BSD does very well ..."

prwood asks: "Our company is looking into high availability solutions for our Sparc-based servers running Solaris. Primarily this would be used on our Oracle Database servers, but presumably we'd like to expand this to frontend servers. We've looked at Veritas, as well as Sun and Oracle's HA solutions, but we're not wanting to lay out that much money this year. We also have some quick and dirty in-house scripts and such to perform certain tasks, but we're looking for something a bit more robust. So the question is: Are there any free or low cost solutions for getting HA on Solaris? I know there is some good stuff for Linux, but it seems to depend in part on patches to the Linux kernel, and switching to Linux isn't an option for us at this point. Note that we're not looking for load balancing, but rather failover solutions. Suggestions?"

Compaqed asks: "I have gotten approval from my company that I'll be allowed to install Red Hat on my work computer, and they gave me a laptop to sit beside it, for all the 'Windows Only Applications'. Now I know that there is StarOffice which will supplement for MS Office nicely. Is there a place that lists all programs that list Windows applications and their Open Source equivalents?" It would be nice if there was a fairly well-updated site that does this kind of thing. It would be an invaluable site for your average New Linux User.

CMettler writes: "Just saw on the Sun Web site that StarOffice 5.2 is released. They improved the MS Office Import filters, better Database support and there is a player for playing StarOffice presentations without an installed StarOffice."

CMettler writes: "Just saw on the Sun Web site that StarOffice 5.2 is released. They improved the MS Office Import filters, better Database support and there is a player for playing StarOffice presentations without an installed StarOffice."

DanPeng asks: "It looks like Autodesk has been pulling the same kind of proprietary file-format monopoly tactics with AutoCAD that Microsoft has been pulling with Office. The difference between Office and AutoCAD, however, is that an organization, the OpenDWG Alliance has been formed by competing companies to reverse-engineer the AutoCAD DWG format. With the amount of funding that it gets, it is actually quite functional and successful, with millions of users. Even when Autodesk revised the format for AutoCAD 2000, the OpenDWG Alliance fully reverse-engineered it within eight weeks. Now, why can't Corel, Lotus, Sun, etc. band together and reverse-engineer Microsoft's file formats properly?"

Good question.

I wonder if it has something to do with the mentality of the players involved. I don't think Sun, Corel or Lotus ever thought that they might be able to get together so that they could compete on the Office market, I think they all looked to carve out pieces of the market with their own suites, making such collaboration impossible. Despite popular misperception, Applix does not convert DOC, it converts RTF (which may be close enough for some people). Star Office is striving toward this holy grail, but they aren't quite there yet. So maybe it's not too late for folks to pool resources and finally get the job done. In fact, with the eyes of the court on Microsoft, now might be the perfect time.

On the other hand, we have DWG, which is a fairly rich format that deals with the description of 3D objects. Could decoding a file format that deals with text and its presentation really be that much more difficult to reverse engineer? I'd guess this depends more on the design behind said file format. If one of the main goals of the .DOC format is obfuscation, this could be difficult indeed, but I wouldn't say that it's impossible ... not for three big corporations, nor for thousands of loosely organized coders. It's one thing to have control of a file format, but it's another to be put into the position of having to change the format constantly in order to stay in the game. If Microsoft is placed in this situation, the onus would be on them to either concede the format until the next major release is made, or shorten the upgrade cycle on Office. How many businesses would stick with an office suite which forced users to upgrade every eight weeks just to remain compatible? If something like this were to happen, we might finally be able to put a dent in the everpresent Office monopoly.

So why hasn't .DOC been reverse engineered? I would think that if this can happen to the DWG format then it can happen to any proprietary format. Have we tried, or has Microsoft's reputation, both professionally and legally, kept people from really thinking about it?

Sun Microsystems today announced the members of their Executive Committee which will oversee the Java Community Process (JCP) program, the community-based process for developing Java technology specifications, reference implementations and associated compatibility test suites. These ECs will serve in full capacity in guiding the JCP program until the first general EC election. Of particular note is the inclusion of various Open Source leaders, including Caldera and The Apache Software Foundation.

semis asks: "It's interesting to see the number of free-beer (free for non-profit) software that is popping up. From StarOffice to the recently reported CAD software Cycas, the number of free-beer software packages is rapidly increasing. Sure -- this is good, until/if the OSs get market share, then happy hour finishes and the free-beer becomes expensive-beer. Is this trend a Good Thing (tm) or will it see our beloved OSs lose their open-source vision and simply become the new medium for commercial software?"

Kailden writes: "O'Reilly has an interview with Antony Fountain, co-author of Volume 6B: Motif Reference Manual, 2nd Edition, in which he claims that both QT for KDE and GTK+ for GNOME don't compare to Motif (and mentions that Java is the only thing that comes close). " The interview's old -- but the response from user comments adds more to it. Yeah, I know the article's a couple of weeks old -- but it's a good one.

Pauly asks: "My former profession of Technical Writer was made very painful by my customers' requirement to have their documents delivered in MS Office formats. PDF/FrameMaker was not acceptable, as they needed to be able to edit the documents as well. Let me tell you, it is painful watching a 3,000+ page Word97 manuscript, the fruit of weeks of hard labor, rendered into rubbish by my customer's Word95. I've missed deadlines, lost money, and will never forgive Microsoft for their abuse of me and my kind. My question: is it possible that XML-based standard file formats suitable for word processor, spreadsheets, etc. could be created that forever do away with proprietary binary formats and inadequate file conversion routines? This notion seems to be working for the graphics crowd in the form of SVG. The benefits are obvious, what are the drawbacks?"

schvin writes: "While this does require a free logon, please comment over at the Java Developer Connection to request that Sun port future JDK releases to FreeBSD. You can vote here. "

schvin writes: "While this does require a free logon, please comment over at the Java Developer Connection to request that Sun port future JDK releases to FreeBSD. You can vote here. "

A few people over the last couple of days have pointed out that Sun has made StarOffice 5.2 available for preview. It's a big download, clocking in at 100+ megs for Solaris. There's also Linux (x86 only) and Win32 versions available.

johnathan spectre wrote in to tell us about these really cool plasma shoelaces. plasticPaddy wrote in to tell us about SkyBird, a nifty remote-control ornithopter. Fire up the flux capacitor, because feebeling wrote in about this WWW guide, circa 1993. seizer told us about some crazy guy TCP/IP tunneling through E-mail: now that's dedication. Speaking of crazy people, Green Monkey scared me with his submission, a Web site devoted to Pokémon butts. From the self-referential bucket, the Webby Awards have nominated Slashdot in the 'Community' and 'Print and Zines' categories. Go Vote and we get some trophy or something. _damnit_ wrote in with a nice little piece on the Ides of March. In case you're in the greater Boston area, Rob 'CmdrTaco' Malda will be speaking at the Geek Pride Festival at the end of the month.

A reader writes "Sun will be releasing the source of their Forte for Java IDE (formerly Netbeans) under the Mozilla license. I believe this would be the first time Sun has released a major product under an approved open source license. "

A few bits and pieces on the BSD front in the recent past. Scott Bartram announced that JDK 1.1.8 is now available for NetBSD-current/i386. Over at LinuxWorld, Jonathan Bresler sent in this e-mail about BSD related activities. Sun are releasing source code for NFS under the SISSL (and boosting funding for a Linux only effort to implement v4, sigh). Anti Basic wants you to know that you can now pre-order FreeBSD 4.0 from the FreeBSD Mall. And finally, this month's edition of DaemonNews hit the stands a few days ago, including a particularly interesting article by Greg Lehey, outlining his work on software RAID, Vinum.

solar writes "SecurityPortal.com is running a comparsion between RedHat, Microsoft, and Sun Microsystems on the response time between software bugs being found and patch releases. Find out if open-source is the champion bug squasher we all believe it to be. " Interesting bit.

The Java Apache Project announced the release of Apache JServ 1.1, a JSDK 2.0 Servlet engine for Apache. Improved installation, performance and stability had been the main goals for this release. The project itself involves the design of a 100% pure Java servlet engine fully compliant with the JavaSoft Java Servlet APIs 2.0 specification.

Sun has announced that it will sell Redhat 6.1 Sparc version in it online store. This is due to the customers interest in RH 6.1 for Sparc. I wish I had one of those UltraSparc machines.. (Credit for the news goes to Linux Weekly news)

A reader wrote to let us know that Sun has announced Release Candidate 1 of the Java 2 Platform. It's the 2nd Edition, v 1.2.2 for Linux. It was co-developed with Inprise and supposedly includes all of the features in the Java2 SDK for Solaris and Windows. Note: You have to be a member of the Java Developer Connection to get the download.

David Carlin writes "SunHelp.org has a link in the Rumor Mill about Apache and Perl5 being included in Solaris 8. Click here for the official word from Sun. "

ChrisRijk writes "According to this MacWeek article Sun has started work on a port, though time-frame is currently unknown. After Sun made StarOffice freely downloadable for anyone (1.2M downloads so far) they got 6000 calls asking for a Mac port. They also mention that Sun has doubled the number of engineers working on StarOffice. Current StarOffice ports are Solaris (x86 and SPARC), Linux (x86 only), Windows and OS/2 in several languages. "

Gnome has gotten the lion's share of Linux desktop publicity lately. Meanwhile, KDE has been quietly working on KDE2.0, which will hopefully contain several interesting features including a WWW browser called Konqueror and the long-anticipated KOffice, a free office suite that may provide a viable GPL *nix alternative to StarOffice and Applixware. Rather than speculating, we've decided to ask the people who are actually doing the work what they're up to. Post your questions below. Tuesday we'll send 10 - 15 of the highest-moderated ones to selected KDE developers. Answers will appear Friday.

Several people submitted this, but Nate Williams was first. In his own words: "As head of the current FreeBSD/JDK porting development team it's been difficult to finish our JDK2 efforts due to lack of help from Sun. In order to try and make JDK2 on FreeBSD a reality, we are lobbying Sun using a RFE (Request For Enhancement) on the Java Developer network to demonstrate to them the number of people interested in seeing FreeBSD as a supported Java platform.". Read on if you're interested in seeing more complete Java support on FreeBSD.

Nate continues, "Please go to Sun Bug 4288745, and add your votes to ask Sun into allocating resources towards getting a native FreeBSD port of JDK2 (and JDK3, etc...) finished.

"Voting requires that you be registed on the Java Developer Connection, which is free.)

"This is good for open-source operating systems, and Java in general since FreeBSD is a great server platform used by many of the major internet portal sites (Yahoo, Hotmail), and would allow FreeBSD to compete as a Java server platform directly with less 'open' systems such as WinNT."

It's worth noting that any support Sun provide for a FreeBSD port should also be useful to both the NetBSD and OpenBSD Java teams as well, so we can all benefit from this work.

grayhame writes "It seems that Sony and Sun have decided to team up to co-develop digital consumer electronic appliances with access to the internet. " Sun seems to be moving towards consumer space. Sun and Specialized are doing a co-branding thing where Specialized uses Sun workstations to design their bikes, and in return, there will be Sun-purple co-branded bikes.

mulan writes "Following a successful email sent from a Solaris64 box, Sun announced today that the Solaris Operating Environment is running on engineering prototype systems based on Intel's Itanium processor. The press release is on line, while meatier details, white papers and documentation are available at the Solaris64 developer center. "

mulan writes "Following a successful email sent from a Solaris64 box, Sun announced today that the Solaris Operating Environment is running on engineering prototype systems based on Intel's Itanium processor. The press release is on line, while meatier details, white papers and documentation are available at the Solaris64 developer center. "

angio writes "As a followup to the IPv6 privacy concerns (discussed in this slashdot news item), the IANA has released a statement addressing these concerns. Their major point follows the objections slashdotters raised, that is, that IPv6 does not require divulging the hadware address. Good to read. "

mischief writes "There's a press release on java.sun.com about Sun acquiring NetBeans. " Word of this deal has been bouncing around for a while, so it appears that the rumour mill had this one right. With the acquisition of StarOffice, one has to wonder what Sun's in the mood for next.

mischief writes "There's a press release on java.sun.com about Sun acquiring NetBeans. " Word of this deal has been bouncing around for a while, so it appears that the rumour mill had this one right. With the acquisition of StarOffice, one has to wonder what Sun's in the mood for next.

Wiggly asks: "I would like to program distributed systems using the same code base on multiple platforms and multiple languages therefore I am asking around..." And he's asking Slashdot. You've only read the tip of the iceberg, however. There's much more to digest if you decide to click on thru.

"I will firstly say though that none of this is meant as flamebait, or to detract from what any of the projects/products mentioned here have achieved. I just have a wishlist and I am looking for answers and opinions, not a holy war. I am sure that people use many of the things mentioned here on a regular basis for heavy duty apps quite happily and with great results.

There are a whole bunch of distributed programming frameworks around. RPC, ILU, CORBA, DCE, Java RMI and DCOM to name but the most common. Many of these are available on multiple platforms and there are a whole slew of interoperability tools to get them to talk to each other with varying degrees of success. Right now I will focus on CORBA as it is getting much more press than any other recently, and because it is the system that I personally know more about than the others..

Commercially there are a few good ORBs but they are terribly expensive. Developer kits for 'a well known brand' with good CORBA compliance start around 1500 - 1900 UK Pounds, for developer kits. Redistribution costs are around 1700 UK Pounds per processor. These kinds of costs don't really let people play with systems before buying although I know that most comercial ORB vendors will give you trials if they think you are a good bet to buy. Additionally most of the commercial ORBS support as few platforms as they possibly can.

On the Open Source side of things there are many, many implementations of CORBA to choose from, with their own special focus. CORBA compliance, speed, interoperability or whatever else that project's maintainers view as the most important goal(s). There is some great code out there, and a load of people spending every waking hour making it better.

What I cannot find at the moment is a system that targets multiple platforms and multiple languages. Want to use Perl to talk to C++ back ends? Well MICO/COPE is coming along. Want to use the same code on Windows NT as well? Too bad, NT support is very flaky (I have spent too many hours trying to get it working). Want to use Java Applets to talk to C? You have problems. Pick your favourite front/back end language combination and platform then try to find a solution. Problematic at best, and probably not possible at the moment.

Are these very strange requirements/wishes or would other people be willing to sacrifice ratified standards compliance and possibly performance for orthogonality of language/platform availability? I would like to be able to write code for Linux/Unices/Windows in my languages of choice (for me this would be Perl, Java and C++) without having to use multiple implementations on the different platforms.

The way things are shaping up I am thinking hard about rolling my own, because right now I have a need that I cannot fulfill from outside sources. Yes, not Invented Here strikes again, but I can't find a solution. Am I alone in this? What do you think? Do you have any solutions?"

Wonko42 writes "In his address at Internet World '99, Linus Torvalds threw some harsh words at Microsoft and Sun, criticizing Microsoft's thoughts of opening portions of Windows source and making his feelings known about Sun's restrictive new community license. He also spoke some about the future of commercial software, and dodged lots of Transmeta questions. "

Darren.Moffat writes "Seems like round 2 of the ISP war is about to start in the UK, The full story is online. " Quick Summary: For our readers who've never had to deal with metered calling, there's a running charge for /all/ calls, not just long distance (stupid, I know). But it appears that the two biggest British ISPs are now working with the phone companies to lower those rates. This could be a big breakthrough in the amount of time that Brits spend online.

whostudios writes "There's quite an interesting story on CNN about Bandai and cellular service provider NTT Mobile Communications Network (NTT DoCoMo) teaming up to develop online video games for cell phones. From next month, the two companies will begin preparing around 20 of Bandai's gaming titles to run on NTT DoCoMo's new "i-mode" cellular handsets which the carrier is jointly developing with Sun Microsystems, representatives at the companies said today. "

Tekmage writes "Sun has just announced the release of it's SPARC IP core under their Community Source License. " The dialogue over whether or not the SCSL is a good license continues, but it's better nothing, IMHO. Interesting move on their part, especially given IBM's recent moves with the PowerPC designs.

Tekmage writes "Sun has just announced the release of it's SPARC IP core under their Community Source License. " The dialogue over whether or not the SCSL is a good license continues, but it's better nothing, IMHO. Interesting move on their part, especially given IBM's recent moves with the PowerPC designs.

Nobody writes "JavaSoft has a cool article on how they've used their JINI technology to allow a Palm Pilot to control a Lego Mindstorms brick. " The scary thing is that this is one of the more useful applications of Java I've seen...

duder writes "It appears that both sides in the Microsoft anti-trust suit are filing the closing arguments according to the Washington Post. " It doesn't look any surprises-CNNfn has an additional update as well. The DOJ and MS have filed sharply contrasting legal briefs-Microsoft claims there's competition, citing Sun and Red Hat, the government claims they have a monopoly. And give the US justice system, I'm sure we'll see the end to this case sometime shortly after Rob actually finishes reading Cryptonomicon.

Doofuswrote to us about Sun's release of their newest effort to knock the PC off the corporate desktop. The Sun Ray is essentially "a juiced-up monitor", and is a thin-client solution. Cost is 10$ per month for 5 years, or 30$ per month for a more powerful client. Not much technical details in the article, but we'll update with more links as these appear.Update: 09/08 01:15 by H :Thanks to Paul Tomblin for a huge PDF file with the tech specs.

Will in Seattle writes "A new InfoWorld story on a court annullment of the Sun injunction against Microsoft over Java. Arr, matey, the seas be choppy right now, first to port, than starboard, then port, then starboard. Abandon ship, all ye Java geeks!"

ion-flux writes "Sun Microsystems said several army bases in the U.S. are testing Jini to quickly create tactical operation centers which control, execute, and monitor battlefield maneuvers." No matter how smart you are, when you're under fire (literally) you can't deal competently with complex interoperability procedures. Of course, back in my Army days, we didn't even dream about things like Jini. Sure would have made our lives easier (and safer).

GFD writes "EETimes has a nice overview of Sun's new MAJC architecture. Combines multiple processors on one chip with VLIW and on chip multi threading. " I've been seeing some information about thsi floating around, but EETimes has done a nice job summarizing the chip itself.

Dan Reiland sent us linkage to an interesting little ditty on Sun's web page that mocks Microsoft for stealing their Vision. I'm actually amused by this on 2 levels: First, its amusing that Microsoft (Already legendary in this industry for their innovation and originality) has actually been caught "borrowing" something.) but more amusing is the fact that Sun thinks people actually care about (or for that matter read) vision statements.