“For typical desktop use… Linux has not
made much of a dent. It’s not as easy to use or easy to install as
other systems, nor does it have as many applications available
for average users. Fortunately, things are starting to change in
this respect. This series of articles will talk about what is
changing on the Linux desktop, starting with Helix GNOME.” More at Source Magazine.

“The goal of the relationship is to provide out-of-the-box, a unified
development, prototyping and debugging platform for Enhydra Internet
applications. Under terms of the agreement, Lutris Enhydra 3.5 will
include Borland JBuilderTM 4 Foundation for Windows, Linux and
Solaris development wizards for wired and wireless Internet
applications, build rules to facilitate fast prototyping from within the
JBuilder development platform, and tools that automate the deployment
of Lutris Enhydra applications.” The press release is at Linux PR.

Userlocal.com is reporting that the Slackware Linux port to SPARC is now available for download (ISO image and individual packages available). -Anonymous Reader

From ZDNet: “Extensible Markup Language accomplished the
seemingly impossible this year: It brought bitter
software enemies together, to speak the same tongue.”

“Over the past six months, Marcus Ranum, a
well-respected player in the security field and CTO of
Network Flight Recorder Inc., has become a focal point
in one of the most heated debates in the security
community. In July 2000, Ranum called for a reassessment
of the ethics of security practice, and in so doing,
challenged one of the community’s most sacred of cows:
the way in which security vulnerabilities are disclosed to
the public. In November, Mr. Ranum agreed to share his
views on that issue with Sm@rt Partner.”

“There are a couple of scripts from bsScripts that
have holes in them because the author did not filter out ; from the form
input. The scripts that this affects is bsguest (a guestbook script) and
bslist (a mailing list script). The hole allows anyone to execute
commands on the server. The author has been informed and the holes
are now patched in the latest release.” More at HelpNet Security.

From ZDNet: “Who was the most influential chip maker of 2000?

Intel Corp.? Nope. And it’s not Advanced Micro Devices,
either, even though Athlon was wildly successful this year.
I think it’s Transmeta Corp.”

New Scientist takes on this week’s WorldNet Daily “report,” which stated that Saddam Hussein is snatching up PlayStation 2 consoles for his war effort: “”If I was going to do this right now, I’d buy Sega Dreamcasts.
They already have a high speed link you could use and they run
Linux which allows you to run multiple processors.”

“IBackup, a division of Pro Softnet Corp., has released a
Java-based online backup scheduler called Smart-IB Plus with compression and incremental backup features for the Linux/Unix platforms in addition to the
Windows version.
Now users of IBackup can schedule unattended backups at pre-specified times at regular intervals from their PC desktops or Linux and other Unix variants
including Solaris machines onto their IBackup account spaces.” More information can be found in the press release at Business Wire.

News.com reports that the first desktop-ready operating system ready to run on Intel’s new chip will be a Linux distribution.