“The Democratic Party has often said that there is a great “digital divide” in America. According to Democrats, the digital divide is manifested in the high price of personal computers, the software that runs them and the outrageous cost of Internet service that allows only rich white males to use them. This separates all minorities and economically challenged persons of America from the miracle of technology.” –Kelly McNeill

From LinuxPlanet: “It seems like development on the Linux 2.4 kernel has taken forever. By Open Source standards, it has:
whereas we used to see new kernel releases come by at a fast and furious pace, the Linux kernel
development team now seems mired in this seemingly impossible task of actually releasing Linux 2.4.”

“Most states have laws governing what is to be done with property that has been abandoned. In one state the amount of time before something is considered abandoned ranges from a mere 2 years up to 15 years. After that maximum — depending on the type of property — the property can be put up for auction, absorbed by the holder of the property, or possibly revert to the state, again depending on the property in question. The laws vary between states, but the principle is there. Property that is not claimed after a reasonable amount of time ceases to belong to the owner. Think of how this might apply to intellectual property.” –Kelly McNeill

By Grant Gross

Managing Editor

Some weeping and gnashing of teeth in the Open Source world this week, as print-and-file server vendor Samba Corp. announced plans to fork its code base because of two warring camps in the company. Reactions were mixed at best, with some in the community concerned about the potential for other products to fork, including Linux. If you want to know what forking’s all about, check out a LinuxPlanet article on the subject.

Open Source from closed-source companies

Sun’s StarOffice continued to get press this week after the company Open Sourced a version of the product. InfoWorld reported that while the source code was released, the Web-based StarPortal version of the software was delayed. ZDNet reviewed the release and wasn’t particularly impressed, saying, “OpenOffice is to StarOffice what Mozilla is to Communicator.” Meanwhile, TechWeb reported that Sun’s CEO promised that his company will become the No. 1 Linux company, by a long shot.

Four spankin’ new Linux desktop applications will hit the stores this week. ZDNet News reported on Chilliware’s unorthodox business plan of using Linux as a “jumping-off point for selling non-Open Source applications. Starting this Monday, the company was shipping its version of Linux, plus a contact manager, a documentation wizard, a desktop publisher, and a server configuration product. But will Linux users embrace closed-source products just because they work in Linux? Stay tuned.

The digital divide extends to Norwegian Nynorsk

Most people in the Open Source community are no fans of Microsoft, but here’s one of the oddest reasons around to stop using our favorite anti-trusters: They don’t support both the Norwegian Nynorsk and BokmÃ¥l languages, only BokmÃ¥l. A group in Norway is urging a boycott in favor of KDE.

Speaking of the Boardwalk of software companies, Microsoft’s Bill Gates spoke at a “digital divide” conference this week, saying it makes no sense to wire up people in developing countries if they have no food to eat or they can’t read. Is the guy starting to make sense in his old age? On the outside of the conference, a group of protestors advanced Linux as a solution to putting computers in the hands of the tech world’s have-nots.

New at NewsForge

Columnist Jack Bryar tries to sort out the differences between Bush and Gore, at least as far as their attitudes about technology and Open Source.

Columnist Emmett Plant wonders what they’re smoking over at Caldera. He’s not sure the Linux distributor actually “gets” the Linux philosophy.

Corporate and government security professionals don’t seem to understand kids who like computers, we found out at the 23rd National Information Systems Security Conference in Baltimore last week.

KDE News has the scoop on the release of VeePee 1.0, a python-based script environment for KDE, and SIP/PyQt/PyKDE 2.1, the python bindings for Qt and KDE. Python 2.0 support is one of the new features of these releases.

The FTC has decided to have a two day forum discussing software license practices. Computerworld has further details.

Slashdot brings us another piece of news: Richard Stallman vs. Jorrit Tyberghein — a discussion dealing with a close-source wrapper for an open source project.

Slashdot brings news of an Linus interview with c’t magazine. For those of you who don’t read German, there is a translation available in English.

Slashdot readers discuss a Network World article advising network administrators about what to do if a user on the network puts Linux on his/her machine. The advice includes everything from, wipe it off, to look the other way.

There are days when we love San Jose Mercury-News columnist Dan Gillmor more than any other person who writes about IT, and this is one of them. His latest column draws interesting parallels between the behavior patterns of politicians and those of high-tech executives. Gillmor doesn’t paint a pretty picture, but he has captured some basic truths here that deserve plenty of thought for anyone engaged in either politics or high tech.