ZDNet evaluates Linux’ growing credibility among business in light of IBM’s recently announced contract for the sale of 15000 Linux-installed computers to a Japanese firm.

NASA discusses water economy and usage in space aboard the International Space Station (ISS) emphasising the importance of minimising waste.

CRN contemplates the future and examines the past in the software industry, looking specifically at databases as the future of open source.

Microsoft’s troubles with security apparently continue. Just a week after the company reported an intrusion into its networks, a Dutch computer cracker named using the name Dimitri said that “Microsoft failed to install a patch for a known bug in its Internet Information Server software and has not sufficiently secured its Web servers.”
The story’s at Info World.

MacWeek has a column about connecting OS X to Unix: “The standard Unix connection tools are all here: telnet, rsh, rlogin, ftp, nfs, lp and so on. Aside from FTP
clients, they currently run only from the command line, although a Carbon version of MacTelnet is due
soon. The latter shows great promise, in part because it’s scriptable, something the command-line
remote-access tools are not.”

From Technocrat: “GNU.org elaborates on its link page [www.gnu.org/links/links]:
FreeDevelopers.net FreeDevelopers is a democratic entity for the
development of free software. The free company, probably the first of its
kind in the world, will be owned and run by developers worldwide on a
democratic basis in a sacred trust for the benefit and protection of the
world’s citizens.”

Maximum Linux has this tidbit: “Tel Aviv-based startup Epitera is preparing to launch its first product at Comdex Fall 2000: an
as-yet-unnamed desktop Linux environment for PC/Linux-novices.

Targeting the technically disinclined crowd, the company says that the system comes with pre-installed
applications and a software manager that automatically downloads and installs new applications required
by the user.”

From SFGate.com: “Genius, grit and greed drove the first raucous
decades of high tech high life. Now, a cyberlaw
expert hopes to start up something new in Silicon
Valley, a dot.conscience.

With a staff of law school students at the University
of California, Berkeley, the clinic will examine
dot-com cons, electronic eavesdropping, copyright
battles and other ethical dilemmas.”

ZDNet reports on the reaction of the Linux community at the federal Linux conference to the security breakin at Microsoft last week.

Slashdot readers discuss the news that 3Dwm, the three-dimensional window
manager, has just
released a new, extensive release of 3Dwm, version 0.2.2.