The two top executives at Bertelsmann AG’s BMG Entertainment division have resigned, apparently in disagreement with CEO Thomas Middelhoff’s plans at restructuring online distribution. Read the bulletin from ZDNet. Update: the Chicago Tribune is reporting that the two executives were “ousted” from BMG and will be replaced by Rudi Gassner, a company veteran who quit in January after a long-lasting feud with the two departing executives.

From a Wall Street Journal report on ZDNet: Federal antitrust enforcers made progress toward an agreement with merger partners America Online Inc. and Time Warner Inc. that would force the companies to open high-speed cable lines to one or more Internet competitors in each city served by Time Warner, people close to the talks say.

PC World asked the question: where do the American presidential candidates stand on technology issues? “While we expected some of the candidates to agree on a few of the issues, we were surprised by the degree to which all six candidates — Al Gore, George W. Bush, the Green Party’s Ralph Nader, the Libertarians’ Harry Browne, Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan, and Natural Law/Independent candidate John Hagelin — expressed the same opinions.”

Later this month, ICANN is expected to approve a series of new top-level domains to supplement the well-known .com, .net, and .org suffixes. The organization recently changed its bylaws in a manner that will prevent its five newest members from voting on the proposal. ICANN claims the rules were changed for the sake of consistency with the groups’ annual California meeting; critics contend that the change was made to gag two of the new board members who were elected by Internet users. The full story is at Interactive Week.

According to a followup report from the IDG News Service at Network World Fusion, a cracker has once again gained access to Microsoft’s corporate networks. The individual claiming to have infiltrated Microsoft’s servers claims that the company did not install a patch for a known exploit in its Internet Information Server software package. A Microsoft spokesman has confirmed the break-in.

Official Linux support for color inkjet printers has finally arrived. In a press release at Linux PR, Lexmark claims to offer the first-ever Linux driver developed by a manufacturer for color inkjet printers. The drivers will support Lexmark’s Z52 and Z32 Color Jetprinter models.

From a press release at Linux PR: eZ systems released two new open source Web portal and Web shopping solutions. eZ trade provdes secure shopping and site administration tools for small to medium size online shopes. eZ pubish is aimed at online portals and news sites, featuring secure administration and membership registration services.

Charles Babcock at Interactive Week reports on the state of Linux clustering, and the tools that are making such computing arrays easier than ever to assemble. Products discussed include offerings from SGI, TurboLinux, and VA Linux. (Full disclosure: VA Linux owns NewsForge.)

ZDNet eWEEK reports that Motorola and IBM are set to announce further support for the Bluetooth. Motorola plans to combine Bluetooth with its modem products, and IBM is ready to start licensing its Blue Drekar software driver for development of the wireless protocol on Linux.

From a CNET story: VA Linux Systems warned Monday that its fiscal fist-quarter results will not meet expectations because of slower than expected sales growth from new customers in the dot-com sector. (Disclosure: VA Linux owns NewsForge.)