From a ZDNet column: “Dell detests them. Many Linux players distrust them. IBM takes almost as many potshots at them as it does at Oracle. Microsoft? Not this time. In fact, Microsoft is watching them like a hawk. Instead, the new Public Enemy No. 1 these days seems to be Sun Microsystems. And Sun executives seem to be reveling in their outlaw status.”

What looks like Microsoft Internet Explorer on the outside, but employs Mozilla’s Gecko rendering engine on the inside? It’s a new open-source browser called K-Meleon. From a story on ZDNet.

From a column at ZDNet: “The LinuxWorld event that seems to have stuck in most people’s minds (or craws, depending on which faction one is aligned with) is the announcement of the GNOME Foundation. Wireless vitriol aside, I think that all this buzz about GNOME vs. KDE is completely ignoring the real issue. I mean, really, who cares whether the underpinnings are CORBA-compliant? Before any developers out there begin squawking that they care quite a lot, thankyouverymuch, it bears pointing out that GNOME and KDE aren’t really for them. They’re for those hypothetical Linux Desktop Users Of The Future.”

From an essay at the New York Times: “There’s a war going on. It isn’t between ethnic groups, provinces, religions or nations. It is between nimble people who want to think for themselves and big dinosaurs of corporations that want to keep the upstarts penned up and docile.”

From a press release at PRnewswire: Linux service provider innominate AG announced on Thursday that it has recently received DM 16.2 million new capital from a number of new investors. The money is to be used for the expansion of the European branch network and the development of new Linux products. Furthermore, promotion of the brand name “innominate” which represents professional Linux services and products, is planned, stated innominate’s CEO Raphael Leiteritz. As a medium-term goal, the company is striving towards European market leadership in Linux service providing.

TechWeb reports, wireless platform vendor Broadbeam Corp. has reached an agreement with Palm Inc. to provide tools to develop secure bridges for accessing enterprise applications via the Palm VII device.

InfoWorld News reports, a cellular industry asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to suspend a requirement that cellular carriers install equiptment and software by September 2001 that would allow the government to easily eavesdrop on wireless data.

Claiming to offer the first complete, full-custom IC
design solution on Linux, Mentor Graphics Corp. has announced that its entire suite of IC Station products now supports Red Hat Linux version 6.0, from Planet IT.

Some of the nation’s largest corporations want to spend
$80 million on an advertising campaign to help ease consumers’ online-privacy fears, reports NewsFactor Network News.

CRN News reports, when it comes to the underground computer scene, there’s a lot more to be worried about than “script kiddies”–young people who follow cookbook instructions to attack a computer, security experts say.