Slashdot is reporting on a German firm which will buy back OEM licences from you. This can be a great benefit, since one of the parts of the OEM Windows licence agreement stipulates that you cannot resell the licence.

John Gowin writes, “As long as I have been using Linux, I haven’t been able to find many HTML editors. In fact most of the hardcore Linux users that I know open up vi or emacs and start writing their code. For myself, memorizing HTML tags and writing them totally by hand is a little bit too intense. On the other hand, I’ve used some ‘WYSIWYG’ editors that have lots of bells and whistles and work great, but they also like to code their way, which isn’t always the way I want. That was the quandary I found myself in, until I stumbled upon Bluefish.
Bluefish is a remarkable HTML editor for GNU/Linux that allows pages to be created quickly and easily, and always gives the user access to the code directly. It requires GTK 1.2.x and the lmlib library. The latest release of Bluefish is version 0.6 and includes some great features.”
Read the article

Linuxworld invites you to design the LSB logo. “The winner will be announced on LinuxWorld.com and will become eligible for an award given at the August LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in San Francisco. Best of all, this logo will appear on every Linux product box that conforms to the LSB standard.“

Mayank writes “Eric Raymond, author of the popular Fetchmail utility, is one of the most dedicated Open Source advocates. In this book he looks at the development model of Linux, which overturned many of his pre-determined notions of how large and important software development projects should be handled. He compares the “cathedral” model of development followed by most of the commercial world with the “bazaar” model as followed by Linux developers. Also find some good insights into the future of software development in this book. Yes, this is probably the 1000th review of ESR’s “movement manifesto” (which came out in 1999), and yes, the review was obviously written in Word or another Microsoft-type word processor, but the book itself is still good, and if you are just learning about Open Source you should read it. Review at FreeOS.com.

ZDNet reports that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed new legal briefings in the US, claiming that DeCSS code, which allows the playing of DVDs under Linux, does, in fact, have legal uses. The MPAA filed suit against 2600 magazine, among others, for posting the DeCSS code. They won in court on the grounds that it was a violation of copyright law.

Linux World suggests that Linux may not be ready to dominate the desktop until USB manufacturers ship Linux drivers with their hardware.

MSNBC pointedly asks who will be the new US government’s point-man on high-tech matters. While Al Gore was at least somewhat tech-aware, George W. Bush’s cabinet appointments appear to be lacking in that respect.

Wired.com reports that MP3.com, “hoping to capitalize on the goodwill of open-source developers by making available its costly Beam-It
application-programming interface,” is running into some resistance.

Upside.com follows up on an earlier story:
“Speaking in an interview (published today) with online
news site VNUnet, Gartner Group analyst George Weiss said that unless smaller
companies such as Red Hat (RHAT) and VA Linux (LNUX) get their act together,
IBM could be in a position to exert a ‘stranglehold’ on the community.
Weiss’ comments came after a midweek briefing with IBM execs. It’s no secret that
IBM has become increasingly bullish on open source software within the past 24
months. In December, IBM chief Gerstner publicly announced his company’s
willingness to invest $1 billion in marketing, support and development efforts related
to the GNU/Linux operating system.” (VA Linux owns NewsForge.)

From Readersdigest.co.uk: “In the middle of the night, a scruffy 21-year-old
sat in a darkened room at his mother’s house in
Helsinki, Finland, tapping out a message on his
computer keyboard. ‘Hello everybody out
there,’ he typed, sipping tea and nibbling the
dry pasta he habitually ate. ‘I’m doing a (free)
operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big
and professional)…I’d like any feedback on
things people like/dislike…’
The young man’s name was Linus Torvalds.
And what he sent out to the world on that
August night in 1991 has transformed the whole
landscape of computer use.”