Reuters is predicting that AT&T will sell off its stakes in other cable companies and Time Warner Entertainment in order to slash $16 billion in debt.

ZDNet’s David Coursey comments on Silicon Valley’s latest trend of seeking out experienced leaders: “During the Internet gold rush, venture capital seemed to accept the 1960’s mantra that nobody older than 30 could be “relevant” to the new economy. Now that the gold rush has ended — or at least headed to the islands for a rest — the target age for Silicon Valley execs has raced past 40. And 50 year old CEOs are starting to look very attractive.”

Microsoft wants to give ISPCon attendees a peek at how it plans to win over Internet and application providers to Windows 2000. Part of the plan involves offering hosts free copies of Windows 2000 Advanced Server, a special resource kit, and steep discounts on training and support. The full story is at InfoWorld.com.

Upside Today profiles Red Hat and its finally concluded search for a CFO, who the company plans to introduce at tomorrow morning’s investor meeting.

How do you tell others that you’ve discovered Linux? Linux Journal’s Gaelyne Gasson shares her thoughts on “how to share your enthusiasm without causing riots or total disinterest.”

Can’t make it to Comdex this year? ZDNet offers its Webcast schedule of events for the annual Las Vegas technology conference. Bill Gates kicks things off on Sunday night, followed by HP CEO Carly Fiorina and Dell chairman Michael Dell on Monday.

InfoWorld reports that Eazel and Linuxcare have announced a partnership to provide support services. Linuxcare will provide e-mail support to users of Eazel’s upcoming Network User Environment. The company will also maintain an online knowledge base at Eazel’s Web site.

Progeny Linux Systems has announced the first public beta of Progeny Debian. The distribution features a new installation program, and new tools for administration, configuration, and package management. The beta is being released as an upgrade to Debian 2.2; the next beta release will be significantly larger in scale.

LinuxNews interviews Miles O’Neal, creator and maintainer of the frequently asked questions list for the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). “It’s at a difficult point in its lifecycle; people expect it to keep growing really fast, and all the bugs to get fixed, and the performance to increase by an order of magnitude, all at the same time. It has become extremely popular all of a sudden, and there are a lot of demands for features and improvements. Far more than there are new volunteers, as far as I can tell.”

With Linux gaining momentum in applications from wristwatches to supercomputers, its backers are redoubling efforts to expand the reach of the operating system and development environment while avoiding a re-enactment of the “Unix wars” on the Linux front. From the full story at EETimes.com.