From O’Reilly: “Open source breeds computer literacy. Linux programming and administration, gaming and homework — kids can do this stuff, no sweat.”

Craz(P)enguin writes “It seems that many in the tech world do not see the Sun lawsuit against Microsoft with a good eye. Analysts and journalists in the industry including people from Gartner Group, ZD News and this latest editorial at OSNews, claim that Sun aims unrealistically too high this time.”

Alan Cox has announced the release of Linux kernel 2.2.21-rc2. Read more for the changelog.2.2.21rc2
o Fix Xeon crash on boot (Dave Jones)
o Update keyspan maintainer (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o Fix visor oops add palm m125 support (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o Update whiteheat driver to fix SMP locking (Greg Kroah-Hartmann)
o Fix head.S asm for cpu type (Mikael Pettersson)

Anonymous Reader writes, “News.com reports AOL has relesed a beta version of its 7.0 client using Netscape’s Gecko.” (A story first reported at NewsForge.)

BSD Today reports that Wind River has released BSD/OS 4.3 and details Wind River’s roadmap for future releases: “Future releases of the operating system will target server appliances, security and traffic management appliances, network attached storage (NAS) devices, and telecom application processing blades as part of Wind River’s strategy to provide end-to-end development platforms across the entire spectrum of original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and embedded market segments.”

Anonymous Reader writes “http://www.linuxandmain.com/news/raymond.html

What began as comments made by Linux luminary
Eric S. Raymond about KOffice’s KPresenter
program has blossomed into a lengthy exchange
that addresses fundamental issues that participants
say must be resolved if Linux is to become
a mainstream desktop operating system.

Spanning multiple KDE mailing lists, the
discussion has at its center Raymond’s wife,
Catherine Olanich Raymond, a lawyer in a
Philadelphia firm, who emerged a strong voice
for users seeking to adopt Linux and KDE.
She was joined in her advocacy by Rob Landley,
a developer well known in Linux circles and
beyond.

As seems often to be the case, file formats
are seen as an obstacle to more widespread
desktop Linux use. But a problem less obvious
and perhaps more insidious – – whether the
development community can become as closed
as its source code is open, thereby accidentally
ignoring the user — quickly figured in the
exchange. And an outside observer following
the discussion could perhaps be forgiven
for coming away with the impression that
developers resent end users.”

A press release at Linux PR reports that SuSE Linux inc. has “announced that the latest version of its advanced enterprise operating system, the 64-bit SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 7 for IBM eServer zSeries, will be available by the beginning of May.”

– By Grant Gross –
DotGNU, a Free Software Web services project that’s a response to Microsoft’s .NET, is hosting a 36-hour marathon IRC meet-a-thon this weekend aimed at interested developers and experienced contributors to hash over some issues.

DotGNU could be known as the Free Software .NET-like Project That Isn’t Mono, but developers there say the less publicized project is making good progress, with a heavy-traffic email list as part of the evidence.

The IRC meeting runs from 10 a.m. GMT Saturday to 10 p.m. GMT Sunday and is organized into sessions starting every four hours, with the first 12 hours being “the tourist session of the meeting” to introduce new people to the project, according to Gopal.V, one of the event organizers. Among the topics will be .NET, general Web services and “their implications on freedom.” The meeting will be at irc.openprojects.net#dotgnu.

Organizers say the long hours of the meet-a-thon should insure that developers and interested people from across the globe will have a convenient time to chat. But the DotGNU team is unsure of how many people to expect for this kind of event. Gopal.V says the project has 20 to 30 core developers who are working on a variety of proposed Web services projects.

“Also more people (non developers) are expected. I think this will bring more developers, users and testers. (we need all of ’em),” Gopal.V writes in an email. “The GNU project has always been a community project — DotGNU is still unborn as a community, and its all going to change now.”

Adds Barry Fitzgerald, another DotGNU developer: “Basically, it’s open floor for a 36 hour developer meet/hack-a-thon. Anyone is invited — whether you have an idea, need clarification on something that’s being done, or just want to chat about future
possibilities. The goal is to get as much done as possible. The more
documentation and code we get out of it, the better — of course.”

After the first 12 hours, the talk will turn to specific sessions for developers and those interested, including information about the current status of the project. Gopal.V says the group will talk about some features being worked on, including:

• A C# compiler/runtime that runs purely off GNU programs like Linux and Hurd
• A groupware suit that supports XMLRPC and SOAP
• A set of authorization/authentication platforms.

The group will also talk about some new ideas like Web services over Jabber, a distributed execution environment, a P2P virtual remote server and XML standards.

“lowell writes ‘The shareholders and directors of NaN Holding BV, owners of Blender, have decided to terminate all activities of NaN Technologies BV and apply for its bankruptcy at the Amsterdam court. It means that effective today, all technology development and website activities around Blender will be frozen. ‘ Nice app. Too bad really.” Read the Slashdot article and discussion here.

Xdrive Technologies, Inc., (http://www.xdrive.com) a leading provider of Internet Information and Content Management solutions and services, today announced its online storage and file sharing service support for Unix and Linux platforms.

Xdrive’s service enables Unix and Linux users to access, store and share files though their Xdrive accounts via a web browser-based application. “Our technology extended to support the Unix and Linux platform reinforces our leadership and commitment to provide a broad scope of information management services to every audience,” said Karl Klessig. “The Unix and Linux addendum accompanied by our support for Macintosh and the Compaq iPaq, opens our capabilities to enable usage by almost every user who has Web access on their systems.”

The service enables Unix and Linux users to store files, collaborate, back up and share files though their Xdrive accounts. Members can access, store and share their files through an established Xdrive account via any Web browser that is Java enabled, including, Mozilla, Internet Explorer and Netscape Communicator, among others.

The announcement falls on the heels of Xdrive recent acquisition of the businesses of FreeDrive, Inc. expanding Xdrive’s reach into key vertical markets, augmenting its business categories. The acquisition brings together FreeDrive’s consumer and commercial web-based storage applications with Xdrive’s software and services that provide secure access, storage, backup, sharing, synchronization and transactional management of information distributed via the Internet.

About Xdrive Technologies:

Xdrive Technologies, Inc., a privately held company headquartered in Marina del Rey, Calif., the Internet Information Management Company, provides software products and services for access, storage, sharing, and transactional management of information distributed via the Internet. Strategic investors include SOFTBANK CORP., VERITAS Software, VeriSign, Inc., StorageNetworks, Inc., EMC Corporation, Network Appliance, Aether Systems, Mitsubishi Corporation, NEC Corporation, CNET Networks, Inc. and AOL/Time Warner. Financial investors include Goldman Sachs Group, Wit SoundView Ventures, Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown, Centre Partners, eCompanies-Evercore Venture Management (E2VM), Pacific Capital Group, David Bohnett’s Baroda Ventures, Davis Companies, Amos Hostetter’s Pilot House Associates and J. & W. Seligman & Co. Inc.