Weekly news wrap-up: Ripping up UCITA, gearing up for LinuxWorld

The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, that group of appointed political types who recommend laws to state legislatures, have recommended a series of changes to the controversial UCITA model legislation, including a couple designed to make the law more fair to Open Source software.
But critics of UCITA weren’t exactly celebrating this week. A lawyer working with Red Hat says the changes don’t go far enough, that UCITA still isn’t going to be an Open Source programmer’s favorite law. Red Hat continues to call for states to reject the legislation.

LinuxWorld on the way

And what that means is a bunch of press releases from companies talking how they are embracing Linux. But Robin “Roblimo” Miller looks beyond the press releases and talks to Sun Microsystems insiders, who say that we shouldn’t expect a Sun Linux distribution. Instead, look for Sun to put a rebranded Red Hat Linux on some of its server products.

Robin also delivered an interesting story about the reasons behind RealNetworks’ move to Open Source. It’s mainly about setting a standard for the delivery of wireless multimedia and not letting Microsoft define that standard.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is still planning to be at LinuxWorld, but Linux and Main says to not expect any big surprises.

Desktop debate, Part 1,002,897?

There were a couple of Linux desktop-related articles making the rounds this week. Ximian’s Miguel de Icaza says he remains optimistic about the growth of Linux on home computers. Another column argues that Linux companies’ focus on the server lately is a losing proposition.

Odds ‘n’ ends