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Linus Torvalds makes a minor, off-hand comment that is buried deep in a lengthy interview. The tech press and Linux community act like it's nude celebrity pics and go gaga. Bruce Byfield peels away the nonsense and finds a tiny nugget of actual news. Sorry, no nude pics.

So I am writing this rant on the eve of the release of KDE 4.2, and in the face of interviews from Linus Torvalds stating that he abandoned KDE after the 4.0 release, and partially in response to Steven Vaugh-Nichols negatively equating 4.2 to Windows 7. My bottom line: I've been using KDE since around the time version 2 came out, and while KDE 4.2 is not perfection, it is better than the 3.5 series, and as of right now 4.2 is easily my favorite Linux desktop... and this rant will address some complaints I've seen and to dissect which complaints are warranted and which are not.
[Nicely stated] - Abe

Debian Linux founder and former OpenSolaris chief Ian Murdock is taking over the role of chief strategist for cloud computing at Sun Microsystems.

Google has taken the eternal Beta that is Gmail offline and you know? Nobody has raised a single word of complaint, and for a damn good reason.

Slackware and some Linux distributions based on Slackware don't include GDM and don't have a graphical tool to set language and locale on the fly. However, if you're willing to edit one or two configuration files and install a few packages you can make Slackware speak your language, working in whatever language you are most comfortable with.

Ordinarily, I don't spend much discretionary income on computers. I get enough of 'em at work. But the other day, I actually considered buying a netbook. In the process of doing some shopping, I learned why Windows is outselling Linux.

It seems these are heady days for open source as more products develop and mature. It's getting to the point for many of these products that the fact they are open source is really secondary. It has less to do with the license and more to do with the quality of the product or service itself (or at least it should).

Uncertainty over hardware support is a perennial Linux bugaboo--even when vendors claim to love the penguin, it isn't always true. Rob Reilly risks his own money and peace of mind testing various external storage devices on his Asus Kubuntu laptop, including an antique Zip drive, and reports his findings.

Transaction signatures (TSIG) is a mechanism used to secure DNS messages and to provide secure server-to-server communication. This includes zone transfer, notify, and recursive query messages. TSIG uses shared secrets and a one-way hash function to authenticate DNS messages, particularly responses and updates.

The Lincity-NG project takes after the classic SimCity, and with good effect. The new version enhances graphics and simulation logic.

InaTux has just stated "... for reasons to be announced, we are currently in the process of complying to any GNU "linking guidelines". All references to "Linux" in terms of a F/OSS operating system as a whole, are now going to be called "GNU/Linux" as this is more appropriate."

The Conservative Party has published a new report on government open-source IT procurement, claiming that the recommendations would save tax payers' money. The report is the result of studies by Dr Mark Thompson, of Cambridge University's Judge Business School, who was asked to pursue the topic by shadow chancellor George Osborne in a speech last year.

KDE 4.2 builds on the technology introduced with KDE 4.0 in January 2008. After the release of KDE 4.1, which was aimed at casual users, the KDE Community is now confident we have a compelling offering for the majority of end users. Screen Shots

A recent Linux Community test compared the AMD Phenom X4 with a Turion X2 and Intel P9400. Meanwhile AMD has sent us its new Phenom II processor, prompting a new test. These are the latest benchmark results.

The Jetty project has now formally proposed to join the Eclipse project. Greg Wilkins has previously discussed the potential move to place the open source Java HTTP server and servlet container under the umbrella of the Eclipse project, and now the formal proposal has been made. The proposal notes that the Eclipse IDE already uses Jetty to serve help pages and that Jetty is a mature project and technology.

It’s been a while in the coming but KDE 4.2 is here. The latest release of the popular desktop environment packs a truck-full of improvements over earlier releases and developers are saying that KDE 4.2 is the best choice for all users, not just KDE enthusiasts. Previous releases of KDE 4x have sparked controversy in the open source community over its suitability as a general purpose desktop.

The Sony PlayStation 3 is a DLNA compatible device, DLNA is a framework where home electronics can share digital media and content seamlessly. This tutorial is a followup to the previous howto on Ubuntu. Given that I like most others use CentOS as their server distribution of choice, I find it fitting to run my DLNA server on it as well. Although several other open source media servers exist, I chose to use Fuppes due to its ease of use as well as built in support for transcoding.

Mozilla has donated $100,000 to help fund a collaborative initiative with the Wikimedia Foundation to improve open standards-based technology for video on the web.

The uptake of cloud computing was rendering many traditional systems-administrator functions obsolete, tech author and Google sysadmin Tom Limoncelli told attendees at Linux.conf.au (LCA) in Hobart this week.

The dying light of the George W. Bush presidency was marked by, among other things, a legislative move to derail recent gains in the federal government's opening of science. In particular, the innocuous sounding “Fair Copyright in Research Works Act” introduced into the House by John Conyers, Jr., on 9 September 2008 was poised to shut down the National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy, as well as forestall the spread of this open-access spirit to other areas of federally sponsored research and scholarship. Hearings were held, but the bill did not make it through the House. End of story? Not quite.

[Not directly FOSS related, but definitely very interesting, since open access publishing has the same philosophy and ethos as FOSS. Thanks to Dr.ir. Jens Staal for the tip. -- Sander]