Ever wonder how Red Hat got started? Company chairman Bob Young explains in part one of a two part interview with LinuxWorld’s Joe Barr: “Red Hat got started, well, legally, we got started in March of ’93, when I quit my day job and went to work in my wife’s sewing closet trying to make a living. And I was doing a bunch of things at that time, but one of them was selling free software.”

“The Linux desktop battle heated up Wednesday when the developers of the K Desktop Environment (KDE) announced wide industry support for the newly formed KDE league. Developers of the competing Gnome open-source operating environment beat KDE to the punch in August when the Gnome Foundation released a laundry list of vendors backing the group.” Full report available at IDG News.

Spaceflight Now reports that the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York has approved the sale of failed global wirless provider Iridium. The name of the purchasing company is Iridium Satellite LLC, and the company plans to offer commercial satellite communications to targeted industries. Boeing will pick up maintenance duties for the network of satellites circling Earth.

The winners of the WebTechniques 2000 Web Tools Awards have been announced. Debian was the readers’ choice winner for the Infrastructure category, and the GIMP picked up an honorable mention in the Design category.

ZDNet News reports: “VeriSign’s subsidiary, Network Solutions Inc., has joined with several other companies accredited by ICANN to register domain names in .com, .org and .net in submitting a joint application for three new TLDs, .web, .info and .site. (California Representative Lois) Capps and (Massachusetts Representative Edward) Markey, both members of the House Commerce Committee, expressed concern that by approving this proposal, it would be in effect extending VeriSign’s market share. They added that Image Online Design, which is located in Capps’ district, has been running a .web TLD on an alternate root for several years.”

According to Debian Planet, just a few security issues and bug fixes are left to clean up before version 2.2r2 is released to the masses. Estimated time of arrival for this next version — which will include CD images — is any time within the next ten days.

In a press release at BusinessWire, TeamLinux Corporation announced Yit K. Lee as its new Chief Operating Officer. Lee joins the Dayton, Ohio-based enterprise service provider with over fifteen years of experience with technology-related companies.

In a press release at Internet Wire, CyberTeams announced the latest beta version of its WebSite Director product line. A server-based content updating system, WebSite Director runs on a variety of platforms including Linux.

The Register’s interview with Linus Torvalds is so big, it needs two parts. In this part, he talks about his decision-making process in getting 2.4 ready to go.

The Register interviews Linux godfather Linus Torvalds, asking him, among other things about Richard M. Stallman’s insistance that free software is not Open Source. Linus responds: “That’s OK. I don’t like the politics, and RMS is way too political about it — too black
and white. I’m more pragmatic. I don’t want to get involved in those discussions. I
don’t like the other side either, Eric Raymond also gets way overboard. There’s a lot
of, basically, discussion about issues that shouldn’t be issues at all.

At the same time I understand RMS and have to respect what he’s trying to do. But
the same time I dislike it (laughs). It’s something very honorable but at the same time
disasteful.”