RockSolid Enterprises, a
provider of innovative Information Appliances including routers, Internet Access
Devices and Business / Residential Gateways, will demonstrate the first of its
RockSolid Box line of Internet Access Devices (IADs) in Atlanta during the week
of September 26 at the Networld+Interop / Linux Business Expo 2000 trade
shows. The press release is at All Linux Devices.

From a column at Byte.com: “The conversation ambled toward one of his first loves, KDE.
“It’s not a boxers vs. briefs argument. Although the
copyright/copyleft arguments made against KDE aren’t very fair,
what I get with Gnome is simplicity. If I actually get to move
code simply over onto other platforms, so much the better.
Gnome isn’t rocket science,” he said, “and it’s also not Windows
or the Mac UI, either. But the ethnic purity arguments are . KDE
is cool, Gnome is cool, but Gnome is an attitude where KDE is a
more evolved front-end.’ ”

This annoucement was on Linux Today: “FSLC, the Free Software and GNU/Linux Club at University State University, is
hosting their first USU Free Software and GNU/Linux Forum tomorrow,
September 19, 2000.”

All Linx Devices has a review about TiVo: “TV Your Way. Sounds good doesn’t it? That’s the slogan from Tivo. For years now
we have heard the promise of TV on demand. No longer will we have to watch a
certain show at a certain time. Of course, there have always been VCRs, but they
were mainly built to be set manually to record certain shows. Most people have no
idea how to program their own VCRs and use them effectively.”

A Wired.com story asks techies about the computer emergency response team warning that a Trojan horse has been unleashed and a huge denial of service attack could take down the entire Internet. “This is just another case of freakin’ FUD (fear, uncertainty,
doubt) that has attracted the media like flies to a piece of rotting
meat,” laughed Cliff Robertson, an open source programmer.

The announcement is posted at Linux Today.

Wired.com follows up on earlier reports that an Oklahoma State University student was arrested for downloading “illegal” music files. The faces possible state felony charges for copyright infringement after university officials acted on a complaint from RIAA.

From an annoucement at Linux Today: “The teaming up of the USENIX Association and the Atlanta Linux
Showcase is producing a new kind of Linux Conference. Next month’s 4th Annual
Linux Showcase & Conference (ALS 2000) technically saavy program has
already attracted platinum sponsorship from heavyweights in the Linux community
such as VA Linux, SuSE, Atipa, IBM, Compaq, and RedHat.”

From an opinion at ZDNet UK: “Despite its successes as a server operating
system, Linux has had a rough time on the
desktop, and quite rightly so. For all the potential
benefits of open source code, and Linux’s
reliability in comparison with some of Microsoft’s
operating systems, none of Linux’s various
distributions offers anywhere near the ease of use
required from a general-purpose operating system.”

LinuxPlanet has a column about conflicts in the Open Source community: “I watch the conflicts in the Linux world with a good measure of
amusement and detachment. Really, when it comes to whether the majority
of Linux users adopt KDE or GNOME it’s not worth a lot of mental energy:
users usually move in the direction of their self-interest, enlightened or not. I
don’t particularly care about toolkits, as most programmers will use the one
that best fits their needs. Since I dislike being defined by others, it matters
little to me what Microsoft is doing at any particular moment. And the nature
of many of the hot-buttons issues in the Linux community really does throw
me for a loop.”