Reader amoon writes: "With the rise of XML-based RPC (e.g. SOAP, XML-RPC, APEX), the distributed computing world is starting to really unsettle from the CORBA-RMI-DCOM oligopoly of the 1980s and 1990s. Yet, XML-based RPC is not a panacea (though it is quite cool), especially for those of us involved in the legacy and client-server worlds. Now, what is fascinating: the publishing world is revving up the engines on not only the XML-based RPC stuff, but also the RMI and CORBA stuff -- while rarely applied to the tech industry, the old adage, "what was old is new again," seems to fit well here. This review describes this über-cool trend from the RMI perspective, with a focus on Java RMI (O'Reilly) by William Grosso." Read on for the rest of the review.

Mike Bouma writes: "A special release of the intent Application Development Kit for Windows and Linux is included on the cover CD of the current issue of digital magazine. Intent is the core technology used in the AmigaDE and is also the standard programming and the platform independent content environment chosen by the Open Contents Platform Association (OCPA) for digital consumer devices. Consumer Electronic Giants including Hitachi, Sony, Kyocera, PSION, Nokia, NEC, Motorola, Grundig, JVC, Fujitsu, Sharp, Epson, Intel, Pioneer, Metrowerks, Sega, Bandai and Capcom are supporting the platform. A full new release of the AmigaDE Software Development Kit will become available for general developers later this year. Software developed for intent works with the AmigaDE platform as well. Recently a partnership between Amiga and Nokia was revealed and finally here are some links to recent interviews with AmigaDE software developers."

josepha48 points to a CNET article on a new worm written in C# and partly aimed at the .Net framework, excerpting: "On Friday, antivirus companies received a copy of a worm called Sharpei, which is partially written in Microsoft's newest computer language, C#, and designed to infect computers loaded with the .Net framework."

thebabelfish writes: "Volume 0, Issue 1 of The Perl Review has been published! Grab the PDF here. For those who don't know what TPR is yet, hurry up and find out now."

Some Guy writes: "Javaworld has another article (the second in a series of three) on Aspect-Oriented Programming. Grady Booch wrote last year that AOP is one of three signs of a disruptive software technology in the horizon: a technology that could take us to the next level beyond object-oriented programming."

evil_one writes: "Debian Planet is reporting that the official announcement has gone out regarding Debconf 2002. It's going to be held July 6-8th , making it rather convenient for anyone who wants to attend the Ottawa Linux symposium this year."

gerddie writes "Currently the European Commission sponsors a study of Free/Libre/Open Source Software. Part of it is a survey amongst developers of libre software, as well as an automated analysis of source code. Read also the press release"

dr_labrat writes: "Most penetration testing companies use "proprietary" methodologies to audit their customer's networks. The Open Source Security Testing Methodology Manual (pronounced: Osstum) now gives reputable companies the opportunity to use a peer reviewed standard, and be compared to a wider community! It's just made it to version 2 and is gathering popularity."

sl956 writes: "We all know that anybody using the words 'tamper resistant' to describe a software-based solution is incompetent at best. But some of the big players in the DRM field are believing in software-only protection schemes (see Cloakware, Hitachi, IBM or Intel). A mostly unnoticed paper presented to CRYPTO'01 (Santa Barbara, CA, August 19-23, 2001, LNCS vol.2139) *proved* the impossibility of efficiently obfuscating programs. It is the mathematical proof of the impossibility of a software-only DRM system on an untrusted client such as a PC. There are also a lot of interesting theoretical side-effects. You can read the html abstract here, or the postcript full paper here." The paper is from last year, but that doesn't make its conclusion less interesting. (Of course, even hardware isn't always all that secure, either.)

martial writes: "Available on the IBM developperWorks web site, is the 3rd part of the "OpenSSH key management" series (Part 1, Part 2) discussed in /. some time ago"

Nathan Kennedy writes: "Mihajlo A. Jovanovic did his Master's project at the University of Cincinnati on modelling P2P networks with Gnutella as a case study. You view his project along with source code, stunningly pretty pictures, an applet and a paper on scalability."

alapalaya queries: "If you had to implement a message dispatcher with soft real time requirements, which has to manage a lot of messages, and in general subject to a lot of problematic requirements (including object persistence); all implemented using a Java Message Service; what implementation would you use? In fewer words: in your opinion what is the best Java Message Service Implementation? Among the various JMS implementations I am currently using SonicMQ; but it doesn't seem to scale up in a proper way (to around several hundreds of clients generating from 10 to 200 messages/sec each). What do you know about other vendors/implementations?"

Dina's Dream points out two interesting articles currently running on LinuxPower, and linked from Gnotices (GNOME news site) as well. "The first article is a really good summary of the current state of affairs of video under Linux and the direction we should take. Questions are bounced back between a few very knowledgeable people, including GStreamer developers, SGI people and Alan Cox. The second article is a set of lessons learned by Chris Pirazzi while working at SGI. Chris was involved in a lot of Video API programming at Silicon Graphics, and raises a few very good points based on his experience. All people even remotely working on video drivers or software should read these points and take them to heart."

Anonymous Coward writes "It looks like after a few weeks of rumors, an exploit for PHP/Apache under Linux surfaced. Luckily, PHP.net has the patch ready to go. While the export only claims to work for PHP up to 4.0.5, php.net also releases a patch for 4.1.1, the (until yesterday), latest version of php. This patch makes a small edition to the part of the source code (rfc1867.c) that is used by the exploit."

texatut asks: "With the computer industry in a slump, many college CS students nearing graduation are looking at pretty meek prospects. While 'formally' educated, few actually have concrete experience dealing with development of software. Many would like to have something concrete to put down on their resume or application to graduate school. However, starting their own project is a hard and time-consuming task. Obviously, the Open Source community is a perfect place for us to get our hands dirty. My question is, are there any resources that can help people with varying levels of experience connect with development teams in a way that would benefit both the project and the students?"

A reader writes "ZDNet News is running an editorial about the choice of programming languages for developers today. The author suggests that developers have been left with little choice because all of the current programming languages are essentially the same."

richcoder writes: "GameDev.net has posted an informed article discussing the benefits and drawbacks to using either Direct3D or OpenGL in a game. I've already made the decision to go with OpenGL for my next project, but it looks like Direct3D is gaining ground. Especially in the area of making it simpler to code support for new video card features."

moofman and TheAJofOZ write in that Java 1.3.1 Update 1 is available for Mac OS X. The new release offers text, mouse, and printing improvements, as well as better overall stability and compatibility. Mac OS X 10.1.3 is a prerequisite. Get it via Software Update, or download it from Apple. For more information, check out the developer release notes.

wjv writes: "Open source Bioinformatics hackers from around the world are meeting in the first ever Biohackathon to hack, eat, hack, sleep, hack... The South African Business Day has the scoop, or see our weblog. The event is co-sponsored by my employer and O'Reilly. I'm typing this from the hackathon, and you wouldn't believe the buzz... or the scenic venue!"

BlueEar writes: "There is an interesting, short story posted on the Gentoo Linux site. It talks about kernel patches created by Linux distributors that while publically available never get submitted. It even gives an example of one 'no brainer' patch that has been sitting over a year, without being incorporated into the 2.4.x distribution. The article ends with an appeal to Linux community to keep those patches flowing to Marcelo."