ConfigMan is liquidating assets and unless sold, will dissolve. We never recovered from the indefinite postponement of our venture capital closing last June. Of special interest is the offer for sale of our unpublished, incomplete configuration management toolkit. Please see ConfigMan’s web site for full details. –John Minnihan

“We’ve just released our open source developer’s agreement. The OSDA allows companies or employees to negotiate into their employment contracts the certainty of owning IP they develop under clear guidelines. This will help all the people out there who develop open source software but are afraid to release it, or more likely, are afraid their boss will react and ask for it to be taken down or ask for a cut of the (non-existent) action. Get it on the main web site, or on SourceForge.” –Andrew van der Stock

Today — Monday, November 27 — is the day Microsoft’s brief is due at the U.S. Court of Appeals, but this is just the start of the process, which will drag on through February and into March, at least. Reuters story at infoworld.com.

Are you looking to creating a dynamic web presence? Or a database driven website? In this article we will cover some basics on PHP and MYSQL programming. PHP is a server side scripting language similar to MS ASP, but different in syntax. With it you can create a website that dynamically generates itself on request. MYSQL is SQL server software that supports the full SQL standard. It will provide your web application with all that is needed to generate web pages from databases. So lets get coding. Complete Story-Anonymous Reader

– By Grant Gross–

Even though the Open Source news world was suffering from a Comdex and a U.S. turkey day hangover this week, news still happened in fits and spurts, especially in places that didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving this week. Europeans were busy debating software patents, with the Open Source community heavily involved in arguing against an expansion of the law.

On Tuesday, most European Union countries voted to postpone an expansion of patents to software, with the EuroLinux group declaring it “a clear victory for democracy.”

KDE vs. Gnome vs. Windows

The KDE League, KDE’s answer to the competing Gnome Foundation, continued to warrant coverage this week. One member of the KDE team wrote a letter to the community, explaining the reasons for the marketing alliance. The big reason: Promoting KDE and Linux to the 95 percent of computer users who don’t use either one. Meanwhile, a ZD Net column noted that a prolonged war between the two user interfaces would do more harm to the Open Source community than good.

What would a week be in the Open Source world without someone finding a new way to bash Windows — or at least a new way of saying it? (For the record, I like to read a good Windows skewering as much as anyone; it’s far more entertaining than endless election news.) This week’s Rip on Windows Award goes to LinuxWorld.com, which revisited Windows security flaws in a piece titled, “Is Windows now playing catchup to Linux?” NewsForge’s own Jeff Field jumped into the KDE vs. Gnome vs. Windows fray in his comparison of Windows Whistler to Gnome, KDE and Mandrake Update.

Odd stories not all related to elections

While we’re on the subject of election news, Eric S. Raymond, the Open Source evangelist and geek speak lexicographer, released a special “chad” edition of his Jargon File, with an expanded explanation for all you Florida election fans out there.

Winning the Odd Story of the Week Award, The Register reports on a Linux devotee, Intrinsa software developer Bill Softky, winning Microsoft’s most coveted patent award.

Supercomputers and BSDs

We often get a how-to story that chances the eyes of many readers. This week, osfaq.com’s “How to set up a Linux supercomputer” was popular, with its explanation of software and hardware configurations.

And for all you non-Linux users out there, the NetBSD team announced the release of version 1.4.3 and promised 1.5 shortly. If you’re new to BSD, check out Network World Fusion’s “Discovering the BSDs.”

New in NewsForge

Business columnist Jack Bryar says an “irrational pessimism” plagued Open Source vendors at Comdex this year, after last year’s “irrational exuberance.”

News editor Dan Berkes explains the wireless technology, Bluetooth, and why it’s important to Open Sourcers.

We examine a Internet voting project hosted by FreeDevelopers.net and a debate over why the project’s code isn’t released yet.

NewsForge editors read and respond to comments posted on our discussion page.

use Perl; has a complete list of new modules introduced into CPAN between the 14th of November and the 25th of November.

Linux.com compares operating systems to popcorn, with Windows being a bad bag of it. “The difference between Linux and Windows is difficult to convey to the average
computer user. They both sort of do the same things. I mean, they’re both popcorn. But
making the choice between Linux and Windows is the choice between getting what
you want instead of what the movie theatre managers think you need.”

As reported by Slashdot, NetBSD 1.4.3 has been released. Changes include new drivers, updated code to close security holes, and minor bugfixes. It is available from any NetBSD mirror.

The Free Software Foundation’s list of GNU.org mirrors was updated yesterday. The page also contains instructions for setting up your own GNU.org mirror if you are so inclined.

BSDToday says, “This release fixes problems found in the earlier 1.4.x family of releases, improves stability and includes support for new hardware. NetBSD 1.4.3 is a patch release of the 1.4 release branch. The 1.5 release branch will have its major release, NetBSD 1.5, shortly.”