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Developer support is critical to the success or otherwise of the smartphone platforms and Microsoft and Nokia are both adapting some measures of openness to encourage programmers to their operating systems. As software rather than devices become the basis for competition, Microsoft can no longer have a free run at client OSes, and in turn will increase its dependence on services as Java dominates on the handset. In the cellphone world, Microsoft is trapped uncomfortably between two mighty pressures on its traditional business model - the handset makers' determination to control the software environment of their devices on the one; and the implacable rise of open source on the other.

A major fear of some of the movers and shakers in the Open Source movement is that someone (Microsoft, perhaps, but actually anyone with a patented ax to grind) will come gunning for Linux, Apache, Tomcat et al through the courts with a fistful of patents.

Linux Gazette is a reader-supported monthly ezine dedicated to two simple ideas: making Linux a little more fun, and sharing ideas and discoveries.

After many years' worth of success stories, however, CVS has begun to show problems, mostly related to security and to the lack of such important features as atomic commits. Recently, many CVS-replacement candidates have begun to appear on the scene. Some of them still are immature for critical deployments, while others propose radically new approaches, making them inadequate for a smooth migration. Among this plethora of new players, Subversion is receiving the attention of many open-source developers due to its robustness, similarity to CVS and innovative architecture. Having recently marked its 1.0 version release, Subversion is being used in many open-source projects, including SpamAssassin, the Linux 1394 FireWire support project and the SILO Sparc Boot loader.

You've probably heard about a particularly nasty Trojan horse attack recently which exploited several vulnerabilities in Microsoft Internet Explorer and Internet Information Services. While viruses and Trojans have been around for years, this particular attack was new because it used several vulnerabilities at once, and it didn't require the user download or install any programs or visit any malicious Web sites. It's time to say goodbye to Internet Explorer and its security flaws forever. Here's how to do it.

Making Java open source could lead to the creation of several incompatible and competing sub-standards, as happened with Linux, according to Java creator James Gosling.

Solutions to lure more investment capital into Viet Nam's information technology, applications and development of open source software will be the main topics of the Viet Nam Information Technology Forum 2004 and the Viet Nam Computerworld Expo 2004 (VITF & VCW '04) scheduled to open in HCM City on Monday.

In another sign competition is heating up in the software industry, Microsoft Corp. has slashed prices by more than half for Paris City Hall as the French capital considers switching to low-cost open-source programs.

Hackers have long insisted that steering clear of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser is one of the easiest ways to protect computers from many of the security threats that lurk on the Internet. That suggestion is often greeted with apathy or angry accusations that the geek in question was indulging in Microsoft-bashing -- admittedly a not-uncommon activity in hacker circles.

Internet Explorer isn't the only browser companies are being urged to drop due to ongoing security problems. Hewlett-Packard (HP) is now also recommending users erase America Online's (AOL) Netscape browser from their hard drives due to a hair-raising list of "potential" vulnerabilities allowing denials of service, information leaks, unauthorized access and remote malicious code execution.

MPlayer has set itself apart as a versatile movie player under Linux and other platforms. Whether you love or hate it, once you try it, you'll have to agree that it is very different, with its versatile keyboard control and alternative methods for handling video playback.

Red Hat and Sun have showed us that GNOME can be both nice to look at and fun to use. However, GNOME is horribly bland in its natural state, and fixing it so that it's more palatable seems like such a daunting task. But what if you could do your own Bluecurve-like customizations and turn a boring and annoying default GNOME installation into a thing of beauty and productivity in about 20 minutes?

Con Kolivas released on updated version of his staircase CPU scheduler. Con explains, "Version 7.7 was nice and stable but probably underperformed about 4 minor versions before it. The stability was necessary, though, because a whole swag of little annoying starvation issues made it into 7.4. This version adds a few more planned features, and has improved the performance substantially, and improved the fairness of the non-interactive and computational scheduler settings."

BEA Systems on Wednesday cast its vote in favor of Sun Microsystems making parts of its Java technology open source, ratcheting the debate up a notch. "We'd like to go on the record publicly in favor of open-sourcing J2SE, and we've been working behind the scenes on this," said Scott Dietzen, BEA's chief technology officer, during a speech at the JavaOne show in San Francisco Wednesday evening.