– 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.”

Adults and techies are buying Nerf guns left and right, at almost the same rate as children are. The foam-firing guns appeal to adults as a form of office stress-relief, and numerous tech companies including Google and Red Hat have been known to buy the guns by the carload. Despite Hasbro making the guns weaker and safer for small children to play with, a culture of nerds on the Internet modify the guns to be as powerful as paintball guns to make “wars” more fun. -Steve

A LinuxUser conference in the UK is scheduled to happen during the 5th and 6th of December. “Designed for everyone involved in managing IT strategies in organisations, this event will give you access to reliable answers, real-life experiences, and expert analysis of the prospects for what IBM is calling the greatest game-changing technology since TCP/IP.“

Slashdot reports on an upcoming interview with Larry Wall. “It is an hour long in RealAudo format broken up into 10 minute segments. Mr. Wall will be discussing Perl, Free Software and the Open Source movement. It should be worth listening to.“

Looking for that special computer for your computing center? Terra Soft may have the solution with their 8-node PPC cluster box. Slashdot has the details.