YOU ARE SO FIRED! writes "In an effort to conform to the LSB standards, Gentoo Linux will be adopting RPM as the standard form of package management in portage 2.1. More information can be found in the Gentoo weekly newsletter. I'd surely be fired if I would've proposed such an idea!"

(startx) writes "I don't know how long this has been the case, but with the latest NVidia driver update comes a new installation method, which unifies the installation process almong all Linux distributions. Just for kicks I re-read the licence, and it has a new section labeled "2.1.2 Linux Exception" Basically GNU/Linux users are now free to redistribute the driver file. Not only this, but the FAQ section of the README file says you can redistribute in whatever form necessary, stating distributions are welcome to include it as a package as well. Woohoo!"

RFC 3514 was just released, with a new bit definition for use in the headers of IP packets. Because there are important security implications, anyone coding internet services (on either the client or server end) should probably take a look.

cemysce writes "Orange has decided to yeild to developer and owner pressure and remove code signing requirements from their Orange SPV phone, based on the Microsoft Smartphone 2002 platform. This move was taken after a workaround to the code signing became widespread."

petabyte writes "Now that RedHat 9 is out, here's something for the rest of us. OpenSSH 3.6 has been released today. Is has several new features including a progress meter for sftp and bandwidth limiting for scp. I haven't installed it yet but I'm sure the packages will be hitting mirrors soon enough. There's even a new T-shirt."

G3ckoG33k writes "The Open Source Development's Lab has begun operational testing of the 2.5.x Kernel: "The staff at OSDL has been involved with development and testing of 2.5 since the beginning and we've noticed that it seems to be very stable for a development tree. So good, in fact, that we think it is ready to be tested in a production environment. We have planned and begun execution of a project to test the 2.5 kernel in our data center using our production environment. The project includes lots of testing and lots of escape hatches so we don't run recklessly off the edge. We began with some of the simpler, less critical servers and, as we build confidence, are moving to the more complex servers. Today we have several servers running 2.5 and within a month we'll have most of the data center migrated to 2.5." Can anyone say Dare Devils?"

TheMadPenguin writes "MadPenguin.org announces today its TykeLinux (current working title) project, a Linux distro geared toward child development and learning. The distribution will be based and built upon Ark Linux 1.0a7.1 and the KDE 3.1.x desktop environment. It will include several educational tools, as well as cross-platform compatible office applications. If you are an interested software developer, please read the full announcement and get on board :)"

GreyWolf3000 writes "As this notice in tinderbox shows, Mozilla turns five years old today. A great testament to the ability of open software models debunking the myth that while the community can hack a kernel or compiler together, we can't build a large scale project designed for everyday folks to use. The trunk is feature frozen for the upcoming alpha release for 1.4. Can't wait to see what's in store next!" Read on for another odometer reading -- Mozilla's 200,000th bug report, perhaps just as auspicious a landmark.

An anonymous reader writes "George Staikos responds to Michael Meeks' arguments of using GNOME over Qt. There is also a discussion of events at KDE.News. In Meeks' same set of slides, he states that Ximian OpenOffice is much faster to start than native OpenOffice."

bughunter writes "One of today's Yahoo Daily Picks is the personal exhibit of Susan Kare: the mimimalist creator of most of the original Macintosh icons then, later, the iconic elements for Windows 3.0, and she didn't stop there. More than just icons, her GUI elements have become part of the modern collective subconscious - trashcans, bombs, and Happy Macs are universally recognized by computer literate persons the world over. (I can personally attest that the Mac System 6 beachball is burned into my soul...) She deserves some recognition of her own."

Alan Knowles writes "Ever started looking for a PHP script to solve that problem in your company - Managing the passwords, keeping track of equipment, or making information available on the web. Normally after a few hours of hunting, you track down something that looks close to what you want, you download it, get it going, then start digging around the code. At this point, you cringe in fear of two problems, the spaghetti mess that you are about to deploy, the ongoing maintenance nightmare and the horrors of modifying it to fit your needs. Well this book isn't going to solve these issues, but at least if a few more of those budding open source developers read it, the world would be a better place." Read on for the rest of this review; Yes, the book is still available.

rescdsk writes "Raphael Hertzog recently announced Alioth, a SourceForge installation dedicated for Debian use. All developers automatically have accounts, though anyone may get an account. Quoting the front page, the purpose of Alioth is multiple: to provide facilities to free software projects supported by Debian developers, to make it easier for non-Debian developers to contribute to projects initiated by Debian, and to support projects whose goal is to promote Debian or one of its derivatives. Go peer with great wonder!"

mpeg4codec writes "I was surfing around to-day and noticed that the OpenZaurus team has released OpenZaurus 3.2 Final. It's rather funny, because the ``unstable'' version still reads OpenZaurus 3.1-rc3.1. Wonder why they released this version as 3.2. They say lots of bug fixes and some new features. Check it out at the OpenZaurus web site."

The Llama King writes "The Houston Chronicle has an interesting story about a debate in the Texas Legislature over whether programmers are really engineers. A quote: " 'It's one of the silliest issues we're having to deal with this session, but it's also one of the most important,' said Steven Kester, legislative director of the American Electronics Association, an organization of computer companies." Are you really an engineer? Or just a code-monkey?"

signlink writes "A new online workshop starts today, March 30th, and the first topic is posted. We are running a free perl workshop which will take place over the next ten weeks at http://linux.biondosmith.com . Although free, registration is required - you need to use a valid email address. This will be an interactive online workshop - we will learn to install, read and modify freeware cgi-scripts, and using the skills this teaches us we will write our own. Emphasis will be on the reusability of code, and the course will complete a class project - we will write a form-mail program that executes some user-validation features."

cdthompso1 writes "In a pragmatic article at ZDNet Australia entitled 'Porting to .NET: Style at the sake of speed?' author Tim Landgrave analyzes the pros and cons of rearchitecting a legacy C++ application to .NET using the lastest services-oriented approach. His conclusions may surprise some, particularly if you are contemplating or already in the middle of a .NET migration yourself."

Strike writes "The votes for the new Debian Project Leader are in and the tallying is over, results here. Martin Michlmayr comes out on top, winning 4-0 going head to head against the other three candidates (with the fourth win being over "no candidate"). Last year's DPL Bdale Garbee came in 2nd, with Branden Robinson and Moshe Zadka coming in 3rd and 4th. Michlmayr's platform can be seen here."

topmo writes "X-bit labs has posted an article called 'SSE Technology in New Intel Prescott Processors.' In this detailed technology coverage they talking about the SSE (SSE3?) technology implemented in future Intel Prescott processors, its exciting history, its peculiarities and advantages offered to the software developers. Also they compare the cons and pros of the new PNI (Prescott New Instructions) with AMD x86-64."

npongratz writes "Rubi Con 5, the premiere upper midwest security conference, is going on right now. Wanna get in on a piece of the action without leaving your computer? We are serving up streaming audio of the events, direct from Room B of the conference. Check out the exciting RC5 schedue and feel free to hammer away!"

elijahao writes "In case part one of the interview with Mike Davidson of ESPN was interesting, the second part has been posted today."