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Sometimes calling something free might not make for the best publicity. Such was the case with FreeCraft. This open source project began with much promise — an engine that game developers or hobbyists could use to create real-time strategy (RTS) games for Linux, Windows, and other platforms. It also annoyed game developer and publisher Blizzard Entertainment (renowned for its RTS franchises Diablo, StarCraft, and WarCraft) for two reasons.

But when will we see real gains in information technology mindshare?

This series explores the sort of technologies we could use if we were to build a new platform today. In the first part I described a system with a multi-core multi-threaded CPU, FPGA and Cell processors. In this second part we start looking at the Operating System.

PHP 5, which was released earlier this week, is the first major release of PHP in years to focus on new features.

Another open source collaborative group was created recently, as part of an effort to share code and spread software development efforts among governmental and non-profit organizations. The Government Open Code Collaborative (GOCC) is designed to let agencies and entities in the public sector more easily share software code and homegrown applications. The project was created because many state and local CIO offices oversee similar projects - electronic voting and car registration, online tax payment systems and public document sharing.

Sun Microsystems said it is hatching a plan to release parts of its Java Enterprise System (JES) to the open source community. The network computer maker confirmed the strategy Thursday but provided very little in the way of details.

Our finest exports are software and IT-related. Yet we in India use very little of our own products and services. There are a number of fairly obvious reasons for it. We cannot mass-produce IT services. Hence the cost of development is the same whether it is for a foreign client or an Indian. In fact, the development costs may even be lower for foreign clients if we factor in some risks. Indian clients are new to IT and hence their requirements may be prone to greater change (and even confusion) especially at the late stages. Contract re-negotiation may be very difficult because Indian clients normally feel they are paying far too much as it is. That is why IT services are not affordable for many Indian organisations.

To the uninitiated, the basic idea behind the open-source Mono project--to bring .Net to Linux--is kind of hard to grasp. How can Microsoft's .Net development platform, which is all about making life easier for Windows programmers, be used to write applications for Linux, Microsoft's bete noire?

"The tide is finally beginning to turn: after years of increasing monopolization of the Web browser market, Mozilla-based browsers (browsers based on the Gecko rendering engine, that is) are now gaining modest but noticeable market share," the Mozilla.org Web site stated Thursday.

Silicon Graphics Inc. is building an Altix supercomputer for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) that will run a single Linux operating system image across 1,024 Intel Corp. Itanium 2 processors and 3TB of shared memory.

This month's recommendations article will examine Linux compatibility on small form factor machines from VIA, Shuttle, and Iwill, as well as sound cards from Creative and Hercules.

After three years and much controversy, Miguel de Icaza's Mono project has finally released its 1.0 version. NewsForge recently talked with Erik Dasque, the senior project leader for Mono, about the release of 1.0, the controversy and criticisms encountered along the way, and the plans for the future of Mono.

Another penguin vendor is turning bullish on the Indian market. Hyderabad-based ELX Linux Pvt. Ltd. has aggressive plans for selling its Linux desktop OS -- BizDesk 4.0 -- in the country, doubling its previous target of 50,000 copies to a new highpoint of 100,000.

On previous travels, I've discovered over and over just how bad a place a car is to operate a laptop. (Naturally, I'm talking about when safely parked.) In the driver's seat particularly, I've found no way to sit with a laptop that's even halfway comfortable, never mind OSHA-approved. To gain clearance from the steering wheel, I lean back, and slide the seat as far back as possible. It's not a back-friendly way to compute. The car-friendly laptop platform I ordered before this trip, though, makes a huge difference. Car computing is still a pain, no question, but it's considerably less of one with your laptop resting somewhere other than your actual lap.

The machine is aimed at education, but could be attractive to businesses as well. With new PCs offering more computing power than a single user needs for basic work such as exploring the Internet or creating documents, Hewlett-Packard Co. is now pushing a desktop machine that includes four monitors, keyboards and mice. The Mandrakelinux-equipped machine can be used by four users at one time.