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HughPickens.com writes: Tucows began as a software downloads site nearly 25 years ago and has since evolved beyond that early core business and into domain names, mobile phone service and symmetrical gigabit fiber Internet in select towns and cities in the US. Now Tucows has announced that as a gesture of goodwill, Tucows has banned deceptive ads, hidden download buttons, pop-ups, flypaper, toolbars and other such Internet nastiness from the the nearly 40,000 software titles it hosts for users on it's download sites.

"On the Tucows downloads site today, you'll find no flashing ads. No toolbars. No pop-ups," says CEO Elliot Noss. "You might see a few plugs for other Tucows services, but nothing too egregious and certainly not anything that's pretending to be a download button." With Tucows' success in domain names, mobile phone service (Ting) and fiber Internet (Ting Internet), Tucows' revenue from downloads has become less relevant when looking at the balance sheet. "We don't lightly walk away from opportunities or revenue," says Noss. "In the end, though, we'd rather have the Tucows name associated with good; with a belief in the power of the Internet to affect positive change. An ad-heavy site that packages browser toolbars along with every download isn't something we want people to think of when they hear 'Tucows,'."

Jason Koebler writes: Tucows Inc., an internet company that's been around since the early 90s — it's generally known for being in the shareware business and for registering and selling premium domain names — announced that it's becoming an internet service provider. Tucows will offer fiber internet to customers in Charlottesville, Virginia — which is served by Comcast and CenturyLink — in early 2015 and eventually wants to expand to other markets all over the country. "Everyone who has built a well-run gigabit network has had demand exceeding their expectations," Elliot Noss, Tucows' CEO said. "We think there's space in the market for businesses like us and smaller."

Mousit asks: "I am curious on how fellow Slashdot readers have dealt with negligent and unresponsive registrars. For a few years or so now, I've been using Jump Domain as my registrar for the domains I own and maintain. This was originally by choice, but for the last year or two it has been by force. I lost a domain to them early last year when I attempted to renew it and the automated process failed, putting it into a 'pending' status in wait for 'manual intervention' as the message told me. This intervention never happened, support tickets about it were never answered, and on top of it my money was never refunded. The domain simply lapsed, expired, and nothing was done about it. Have others experienced similar problems with Jump Domain or any other registrar, and what did they do to recover their domains? Is it even possible? Short of getting a lawyer, the options seem rather slim when a registrar decides to simply ignore you and eat your domains (and your money)." "Attempts to transfer my domains to other registrars failed for nebulous reasons which were always attributed to Jump Domain's fault and never satisfactorily explained, at least for the .com domains. Since I can't get JD to answer their support tickets, I have never been able to obtain the EPP codes needed for transfering .org domains. I am effectively trapped in Jump Domain's service, and I am losing domains one by one. The story is currently in repetition, with two more domains now stuck in "pending" status. Support tickets are again unanswered, and this time I even have a couple telephone numbers. One simply rings endlessly, while the other answers with a machine for Jump Domain Hosting support. My messages there have gone unanswered. One domain has already lapsed into expiration as of Saturday, the other will go this Thursday.

It's worth noting that Jump Domain used to be a reseller for TUCOWS, but they appear to have been dropped. They are now reselling for the sometimes infamous eNom instead. Considering even TUCOWS couldn't get a response out of JD during the previous lost domain episode, I'm not surprised they had to change. I have contacted eNom but was summarily told I need to deal with Jump Domain, and was given no further help from them."

DanDan writes: "It seems that Linux Weekly News may be on the rocks. Tucows has cut support and they have lost their Senior Editor. It would be sad to see them go." Anybody who has bright ideas or cash burning a hole in your pocket should check out their discussion list.

howardjp writes "Today, Feb. 7, Tucows announced they would bring back the BSD section. Apparently a number of users sent mail encouraging the Tucows/BSD group and with the help of both Wasabi Systems and BSDi, it will be back."

BSD Today ran a comment on Tucows shutting down the Tucows BSD Section after flames from the BSD community about the misinformation they had on the site. Tucows says that they cannot meet the demands of all the "factions" within the BSD camp. It's a cop-out in my opinion; BSD Today and Daemon News seem to do it fine. All any of us asked for was for the inflammatory pro-linux/anti-BSD flavor of it to be toned down, and the misinformation cleared up. DaemonNews also carries some appropriate comments.

BSD Today ran a comment on Tucows shutting down the Tucows BSD Section after flames from the BSD community about the misinformation they had on the site. Tucows says that they cannot meet the demands of all the "factions" within the BSD camp. It's a cop-out in my opinion; BSD Today and Daemon News seem to do it fine. All any of us asked for was for the inflammatory pro-linux/anti-BSD flavor of it to be toned down, and the misinformation cleared up. DaemonNews also carries some appropriate comments.

BSD Today carries an editorial rant on the misinformation that Tucows has on their BSD Section. The author wants to clear up the many misconceptions that Tucows seems to have about BSD now that they are distributing software for it. It talks specifically about licensing issues and availability.

BSD Today carries an editorial rant on the misinformation that Tucows has on their BSD Section. The author wants to clear up the many misconceptions that Tucows seems to have about BSD now that they are distributing software for it. It talks specifically about licensing issues and availability.

Thanks to Mike Bouma who put together a paper with the help from a number of the Phoenix project members which gives more information regarding what's going on with QNX and why it matters.

Explaining the Symbiosis between QNX RtP and Linux

The Linux community and its open source approach has huge potential and helps us greatly to realize our goal to make the QNX Realtime Platform a superior general purpose desktop and developer operating system. QNX RtP is fully compliant with the latest POSIX standards. This, together with a X11 compatibility layer for the Photon MicroGUI, means most Linux/Unix applications only need simple recompiles and modifications to be ported to this new platform. So whatever Linux/Unix gains the OS will gain as well! Currently QNXStart.com already has a nice software library and Tucows is busy building one. The freely available award winning Voyager browser is excellent and plug-ins like Flash 4 and RealPlayer 7 are already available. Also Amiga`s Digital Environment is being developed to support the QNX RtP and will not only provide us with a common binary identical application layer for Linux but most other operating systems as well. The Tao Group (Amiga`s OS partner) already provided QSSL with a wonderfully small and efficient Java VM implementation for its predecessor QNX4. In addition QSSL and IBM are working together on a real-time technology for Java applications under the QNX Realtime Platform.

Giving source code away freely for everyone to use does not make sense for everybody. Especially commercial companies would not be motivated to spend years on OS development and make the fruits of their work freely available for rival companies. With QSSL being the owner of this OS and offering all the relevant source code to developers, developers can invest their resources while still being protected from competitors. So QSSL offers prime advantages of both the open-source and commercial worlds! !

One month ago the pre-release developer version of the QNX Realtime Platform was freely released for public download freely for non-commercial use. Since its launch more than 400,000 downloads at http://get.qnx.com followed, while bringing even Tucow's servers to their knees. Additionally, QSSL has set up a developer's support network with weekly articles by QNX experts giving their insights on programming under the QNX Realtime Platform. There are very ambitious projects for this new OS and many exciting new developments will be announced when the time is right.

But what makes QNX RtP so special, you may ask?

QNX RtP is an excellent realtime operating system, which means that all programs are smoothly given CPU time (according to the priority they are given in the Scheduler). This gives developers or users the option to set high priorities for certain tasks, so that for instance a multimedia player will be quaranteed to respond and function optimally in any given situation. The stability and realtime abilities of QSSL`s OSs resulted in them being used heavily in fault intolerant and response critical systems, for instance nuclear reactors, medical equipment, space craft, traffic control systems , etc.

Within the embedded market, a small memory footprint and optimal efficiency are very important issues. QNX RtP is based on the modern and optimised QNX Neutrino microkernel. OS modules such as file systems, TCP/IP and even drivers run as normal memory protected user processes, allowing them to be plugged in and removed at any time without a reboot. This allows QNX RtP to be scaled down or up very easily for use in compact Internet Appliances as well as in full blown multi-processor servers (3Com`s Audrey IA has just been released and uses the QNX RtP at its core.). It also eliminates the need for special kernel APIs and debuggers, greatly simplifying driver development and debugging.

Although I could continue for hours telling you endlessly about other benefits I will end this by highlighting one other great feature which impressed most developers involved instantly, when we started our relationship with QSSL a couple of years ago. It truly offers superior flexible and transparent networking abilities. As an example of its flexibility; you could have a game running on one computer in a network, while it is being controlled by a joystick on another computer within the network, and its graphical output being displayed on a monitor of another machine again! One demonstration was of Doom running on two connected machines to begin with; it was running on one machine, then the window it was running in was dragged onto the display of the second machine, then it was partially dragged back, so the game was running synchronic and seamlessly with half a window on each screen!

Something wonderful is coming. Do you want to join the exciting battle to change computing and topple the choking monopolies within the industry? :)

Sincerely, Mike Bouma.

AmigaRing http://www.stormloader.com/amiga
Phoenix Developer Consortium http://www.phinixi.com

A reader writes "The QNX development platform is now available. It's available in three versions: the Windows-based self-extracting installer, the ISO image and the QNX4 install archive" You can also get it from QNX's site itself.

A reader writes "The QNX development platform is now available. It's available in three versions: the Windows-based self-extracting installer, the ISO image and the QNX4 install archive" You can also get it from QNX's site itself.

A reader writes "The QNX development platform is now available. It's available in three versions: the Windows-based self-extracting installer, the ISO image and the QNX4 install archive" You can also get it from QNX's site itself.

David Hume writes: "Following up on a Tucows article asserting Linux Reviews Are Bought Rather Than Earned, ZDNET asserts writers fire off glowing reviews for free software and asks Are Linux Reviews Fixed? Is this a real problem? Are reviewers induced to write good reviews by the implied promise of future free software? If so, what do we do about it? Who do we trust? Do we trust Slashdot? :)" I don't think my family even trusts me. Course the only software I've bought in the last 6 months was Diablo2 (Which I beat thank you ;).

Several Anonymous Cowards have written in with the news that bsd.tucows.com has gone live. Currently they only cover FreeBSD on i386, but they say that i386 Net and OpenBSD support is in the works, with other architectures to be tackled if there's demand (requests to ajohnson@tucows.com).

Several Anonymous Cowards have written in with the news that bsd.tucows.com has gone live. Currently they only cover FreeBSD on i386, but they say that i386 Net and OpenBSD support is in the works, with other architectures to be tackled if there's demand (requests to ajohnson@tucows.com).

As Linux trade shows appear on the schedule, there's only one sure bet. The community will be attending in full force, and the amount of corporate money being thrown into these shindigs will consistently climb. While companies vie to present their finest hardware, software and hype to the public, organizations that provide Linux community spirit make an effort to collect charitable contributions to keep the spirit of Open Source and Free Software alive.

In a community that champions the freedom of software and super-low-cost solutions, money is scarce. Without a big PR and marketing budget to back them up, travel arrangements and sleeping accommodations are paid for by the same people who donate countless hours making Linux a better environment to work and play in. The guy that makes $7 an hour at his tech support job and codes Linux device drivers at night is most likely paying his own way.

The LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in New York City was the largest Linux trade show to date. With a massive show floor and big-name exhibitors, you could almost hear the money change hands. On the other side of the cash fence, the .org pavilion was filled with bleary-eyed developers fighting with machines, trying to get their latest nifty gadget to compile. Some of the exhibitors in the .org pavilion had a bowl out to accept donations from the public, who they've invited in to their community. The fact that the .org pavilion gave these people a chance to shine is a big step in the right direction on behalf of the sponsors. The "if you build it, they will come" mentality is graciously accepted on behalf of the community, and they show up in droves to get great exposure for their work.

Donation cash seems to flow in the direction of the news of the day. While the DVD Copy Control Association barrels toward resolution on the distribution of the DeCSS code, conference folk emptied their pockets to help out the defendants in the case. At the Andover party at the China Club, Tucows Linux began accepting donations on behalf of the defendants to toss into the "DeCSS Legal Defense Fund." They collected $891 at that party, and Tucows matched them, bringing the total for the defense fund to $1,782. While they told everyone at the party that Tucows would double the cash, they had yet to clear it with Tucows President Elliot Noss. When they sheepishly approached Elliot after the party, Elliot was ecstatic and agreed to match the amount immediately. "This isn't about pirating movies but about engineering processes," he said, "Anything that stifles the people's ability to create is bad for consumers." Tucows cash aside, Linux kernel maintainer Alan Cox donated $10,000, exactly the amount of an award given to him by Slashdot earlier in the evening.

The Free Software Foundation is a well-known supporter of the Linux community. If it weren't for tools written for the GNU project or software distributed under the GPL license, Linux as we know it today would simply not exist. While the amount of money that was donated to the FSF last year is still in the hands of the auditors to be tallied and totalled, the FSF didn't add a lot to their coffers this last time out. The exact amount was not available at the time of this writing, but Leslie Proctor from the FSF assures me that it "wasn't enough to discuss."

On the other hand, Software in the Public Interest, Inc. received a decent amount at the show. SPI is a "blanket" non-profit organization devoted to helping out Open Source software projects, like Debian, GNOME and Berlin. Software in the Public Interest pulled down about $800 for the week, maybe a little bit more. I got the chance to talk to Darren Benham, treasurer for SPI, and I asked him how the donation at this show compared to other show they've attended. "I don't think there is a comparison. We only tracked donations at the last three Linux World Expos, and and they've been all over the map. The first one, we may have gotten two or 300 dollars total. At the last San Jose LinuxWorld Expo, we got closer to three thousand. The only way we collect money is by having something to offer. We had T-shirts at the LinuxWorld Expo in San Jose, we had some CD's at this one, and that's the only way we get any money at all from the expos." While being able to make money from donations is a great thing to continue the work, exposure is key. "We don't actually go to the expos to try and make money. We're there to get Debian out into the eyes of the public."

gr00vy writes "Loki Entertainment Software are just weeks away from shipping their latest port, Railroad Tycoon II: Gold Edition for Linux. Lee Anderson has another pre-release review on the final build, which is on show at the recently redesigned ext2.org. Click here for more. "I can attest to the quality of this game. Playing the beta greatly slowed my ability to get things down around the office.

gr00vy writes "Loki Entertainment Software are just weeks away from shipping their latest port, Railroad Tycoon II: Gold Edition for Linux. Lee Anderson has another pre-release review on the final build, which is on show at the recently redesigned ext2.org. Click here for more. "I can attest to the quality of this game. Playing the beta greatly slowed my ability to get things down around the office.

Agnomen writes "RealNetworks has released a beta version of RealProducer Plus G2 content creation tool for Linux. According to their press release "The final release of RealProducer Plus G2 for Compaq Tru64 UNIX operating system is immediately available as is the beta release of RealProducer G2 for the Linux platform." Ok, so it's not oss, but it is good to see. "