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If you're running a Linux desktop in some dark sub-basement somewhere, preferrably with the Gnome desktop environment, checkout GnoTime 2.2. A particulary propeller-headed buddy is using this, and it looked pretty good--for something that is very obviously designed with a programmer's concept of attractive UI. Still, so many product management features, it can actually do some good if you feel like worming your way up the learning curve. I'm wondering why nobody has put an RSS publishing feature in so the whole thing could be pumped out to a Web server: Insta-ProjectBlog. TinyERP and Open for Business are two more worthwhile pings.

The Fink project, which began in December 2000, has two goals. It aims to port all this software to Mac OS X ("porting") and makes it available for install ("packaging"). As a full package management system, based on Debian's apt system, it installs and uninstalls packages, tracks dependencies, installs the packages that are needed, updates the packages, etc. Bottom line: installing Unix software on Mac OS X with Fink is a piece of cake (most of the time). There can be challenges, however, and I'll cover those in a minute.

Browsers always bring out the passion in readers, perhaps because they've become such a personal extension of our computing experience. Did you ever borrow someone else's computer to check out something online? It feels awkward, right, like going through their clothes drawers. Even if it has the same browser that you use, everyone configures their browser to their own taste, so it's different.

In a conversation that began as a request to include theSAS Transport Layer in the mainline Linux kernel, there was an interesting thread regarding specifications. Linux creator Linus Torvalds began the discussion saying, "a 'spec' is close to useless. I have _never_ seen a spec that was both big enough to be useful _and_ accurate. And I have seen _lots_ of total crap work that was based on specs. It's _the_ single worst way to write software, because it by definition means that the software was written to match theory, not reality."

ShrinkTo5 announced version 1.52 of its open source product. Designed as a cross-platform DVD copy engine, the software enables you to shrink and copy an entire DVD or the main movie only. You will also discover the ability to manually select the DVD content to copy, which lets you get more space for the main movie and achieve better quality.

Eolas and the University of California sued Microsoft in 1999, and many were stunned when a jury agreed with the claim in 2003 and awarded damages of $520.6 million plus interest. That verdict was upheld in January 2004 and a Chicago District Court imposed an injunction on Microsoft, banning it from distributing the infringing software. But the ban was stayed pending an appeal, and in March this year an Appeals Court granted Microsoft a reprieve.

If Dell is to continue to grow, making inroads into the enterprise market is essential. Chavis wants the world to know that her group is doing just that, with the help of an unlikely ally: Linux.
It may seem ironic that a free OS could become such an important profit driver for a company the size of Dell, but Chavis takes it in stride. Asked where Linux will take Dell next, her answer is simple: "All the way up the food chain."

Chip and boardmaker Via has partnered with an online retailer to create a car PC targeting in-car navigation and infotainment applications. The $300 "Voom PC" is supported by a media-oriented embedded Linux operating system, and is based on one of Via's newest, most powerful mini-ITX motherboards.

I sat down for a Q&A with Pat Gibney, IBM Director, Software Group Componentization to dig into IBM's Community Source development strategy. IBM has been touting the benefits of open source for years . Taking that to the next level, IBM developers are now applying a methodology borrowed from the open source community to create its own commercial software.

Team ASA is shipping an XScale-based Linux system designed to fit in a CD drive bay.

The European Union proposed stripping the Commerce Department and the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers of authority over domain name management and other regulatory tasks. David Gross, the State Department official in charge of America's international communications policy, reacted saying, "No intergovernmental body should control the Internet, whether it's the United Nations or any other" according to the International Herald Tribune. He said such a system would lead to unnecessary bureaucracy.

On Linux, the software can integrate well with MySQL, Oracle8i/9i and Postgres 7. When it comes to Sun Solaris, the automation software runs with MySQL and Oracle8i/9i, and on IBM AIX, the utility can work with MySQL, Oracle8i/9i and DB2 v8.

When you published your article, "Massachusetts Should Close Down OpenDocument", you made an error. You let someone from the Americans for Technology Leadership influence your fair and balanced reporting. Well, the story is unfair and unbalanced. Get Bill O'Reilly on the phone and have him talk to Tim.

So, here are our talking points.

(Note: For those readers who have never seen the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox, this is a parody of how he opens his show.)

Now that a laptop with pre-installed Mandrake Linux is available in France, will Dell follow up with Linux laptops in the US or other nations? In the words of Dell CEO Michael Dell, the many distributions of Linux are too "alienated" from each other to make that work.

Want to test-drive the Firefox 1.5 beta and bring most of your favorite extensions along for the ride? We'll show you how to make your brand new Firefox update less picky about installing extensions -- and explain why doing so isn't always a good idea.

Sun irrevocably covenants that, subject solely to the reciprocity requirement described below, it will not seek to enforce any of its enforceable U.S. or foreign patents against any implementation of the Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0 Specification, or of any subsequent version thereof ("OpenDocument Implementation") in which development Sun participates to the point of incurring an obligation, as defined by the rules of OASIS, to grant (or commit to grant) patent licenses or make equivalent non-assertion covenants. Notwithstanding the commitment above, Sun's covenant shall not apply and Sun makes no assurance, covenant or commitment not to assert or enforce any or all of its patent rights against any individual, corporation or other entity that asserts, threatens or seeks at any time to enforce its own or another party's U.S. or foreign patents or patent rights against any OpenDocument Implementation.

By my count, there are one million, two hundred and seventy thousand, and four hundred and seventeen Linux distributions. Nah, I'm kidding. There are only, by my quick count, one hundred and forty one Linux distributions. Currently shipping. For the Intel platform. In English.

Internet visionary Marc Andreessen has taken an interest in PHP (define), an open source programming language some consider a threat to languages, such as Java and Microsoft's Active Server Pages and .NET. The Netscape co-founder along with Informatica Founder Gaurav Dhillon joined the board of directors at Zend Technologies, the top provider of PHP software, services and technical support. The company's two co-creators are the authors of PHP 3, which is what all subsequent versions are based on.

See how Linux can be used to prototype a sophisticated Internet appliance.

An R&D affiliate of the world's largest telephone company has achieved a stable release of a new Linux filesystem said to improve reliability over conventional Linux filesystems, and offer performance advantages over Solaris's UFS filesystem. NILFS 1.0 (new implementation of a log-structured filesystem) is available now from NTT Labs (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone's Cyber Space Laboratories).