Michael Hall at LinuxPlanet writes: “Last week LinuxPlanet editor Kevin Reichard wrote a hotly debated note on the underlying issues behind
the dearth of commercial applications for Linux. At the root of his argument is an understanding shared
by a lot of Linux observers: the confusion between free software and free beer, and how little many
commercial vendors feel they can trust our community to do the right thing given the opportunity to
just take something.”

ZDCOUK reports that fans of rock band Rage Against The Machine began reporting
that they were banned from Napster early Thursday morning. As
was the case with people trading Metallica and Dr. Dre songs,
Napster members were blocked from logging on and sent instead
to a Web page saying they had been identified as probable
copyright infringers.

Newsforge reader Rikard Anglerud writes: “We here at rawmeat.org have reviewed all the cd players we could find for linux. With all the players that exist we hope that this will make it easier for you to find one that you like (and one that’s better than the players shipped with kde or gnome).”

From ZDCOUK: “After admitting that it “missed the boat” in adopting recordable CD
technology for its hardware, Apple is reportedly looking at options
for incorporating CD-ReWritable drives into the next crop of
Macs.”

Hoping to catch the Net’s latest technology trend, Sun
Microsystems is quietly creating a team of engineers with
hopes of merging Java and the file-swapping technology that
brought Napster to the music-loving masses, reports ZDCOUK.

“The aim of this document is to help you have a working webcam in just a few hours. This … involves re-compiling your kernel. This isn’t nearly as hard as it sounds. If you’re kind of uncomfortable with the idea yet, read either the Kernel Compiling NHF or the Kernel-HOWTO. In my case I was forced to use the 2.2.17 backport, due to the fact that 2.4.0-test9 broke a lot of USB serial stuff (I need *working* USB for my Handspring Visor to sync via USB in Linux.) and at the time of this writing namesys hadn’t released a patch for ReiserFS for 2.4.0-test10.” Check it out at Linuxnewbie.org. –Sensei

MSNBC: “While most Americans were relaxing and
eating leftover turkey on the Sunday after
Thanksgiving, Chuck Mefford was spending
hours trying to fix his Palm V handheld
computer.”

The embattled Internet music-swapping service
Napster announced Thursday it has hired the chief policy adviser to Sen. Orrin
Hatch, R-Utah, as its vice president for corporate and policy development. From Florida Today.

MSNBC reports that Bill Gates summoned
some of the world’s top technology minds to
Microsoft headquarters Thursday, as the
company hosted a conference on the touchy
issue of online privacy. The two-day summit,
with wide-open conversations that have at times
been heated, is designed to help e-commerce
companies iron out their differences with
consumers over privacy issues.

LinuxPR: “Fox on Linux is the latest in commercial Linux applications, providing
businesses with a sophisticated, graphical, proven software package to deal
with their core financial accounting needs.”