Open Source advocates are often embarrassed at the suggestion that their

favorite type of software may be a socialistic phenomenon. Though they protest, many secretly fear it may be true. The sharing aspect

of Open Source, its emphasis on community and its availability free of

charge certainly sound like some form of Socialism. And Open Source

doesn't lend itself easily to commercial exploitation. Is it anti-capitalist,

then?

Linux has finally made it onto the business map in the area of database benchmarks, helping

take the wind out of Microsoft's continued contention that open-source operating systems don't

make good business sense.

Nokia and Loki Software have announced an agreement to make Linux games from

Loki available on the Nokia Media Terminal. Linux-based games from Loki

will be pre-installed on the Media Terminal. Anticipated roll out of

the Media Terminal will be early Fall in Europe. Both the companies have

made a firm commitment to support the open source community by developing

open tools and standards making such a collaboration a natural fit.

Do we buy Linux distributions because of what the distributors have done to

Linux, or do we buy them to get a fairly standard Linux with particular

installation tools and documentation? Dennis E. Powell argues for the latter,

and explains why he believes that the less distributions do to Linux itself, the

better it will be for users, for Linux, and for the distributions themselves.

Eazel is shutting down. Some people are probably wondering what's up with

packages maintained by former Eazel employees. Darin Adler gives the status for a few

of them and reports that with the exception of some of the libraries built around

facilitating Eazel's services, several former Eazel employees will continue to work on the

software, with an eye to integrating the packages with GNOME 2.0.

"What Microsoft needs is a way to continue expanding its business in the server operating

system market while reducing its costs. And that is precisely the solution I have to offer.

Microsoft needs to bring out a Linux distribution of its own. It’s the ideal way to slash

expenses and boost profitability. Windows NT is an expensive dud. Microsoft should

jump onto the open-source bandwagon with both feet. The stockholders will be dancing

in the streets,"says J D Hildebrand.

Linux operates in two modes--the Kernel mode (kernel space) and the User mode (user space). The kernel works in the highest level (also called supervisor mode) where it has all the authority, while the applications work in the lowest level where direct access to hardware and memory are prohibited. Keeping in line with the traditional Unix philosophy, Linux transfers the execution from user space to the kernel space through system calls and the hardware interrupts. The Kernel code executing the system call works in the context of the process, which invokes the system call.

Evolution 0.10, the Outlook-like mail client and PIM for GNOME, is out with a lengthy feature list and changelog. check it out.

Information should be Free... but what if it's used to take away the freedom of others? The GPL places technical restrictions on the use of the software it protects. Bjorn Gohla believes it should also place political restrictions on it.

Unfortunately there is no one standard procedure for logging on to an ISP. Although each ISP uses a slightly different variation, the following procedure steps through various possibilities to help you discover what your ISP wants. Note that your ISP may have been "creative" and found some other way to confuse the users. This technique should still help you figure out what your ISP really wants.