Thousands of customers are stuck in so-called DSL hell, where infrastructure limitations and service-provider problems torture even the most determined users. But the nightmare may be over soon. Starting early next year, major DSL providers — including Covad Communications, NorthPoint Communications and Rhythms NetConnections — plan to begin simpler installations of their high-speed data services, courtesy of a government mandate requiring local phone companies to share their lines with DSL providers. The story is at ZDNet.

From a MandrakeSoft announcement: “MandrakeSoft is happy to announce the first Beta (Beta 1) of the upcoming 7.2 release: Ulysses. Please keep in mind that Ulysses is an experimental Operating System, it’s not for daily use! The goal of beta testing is to help debug it and Ulysses is sure to contain things that are broken.”

Baymountain, a provider of Linux-based ASP services announced that Barry Bryant has joined the company as chief operating officer. Bryant brings more than 14 years of experience in finance, sales and sales management. Most recently Bryant was senior vice president at SunTrust Bank. The press release is at LinuxPR.

Two weeks earlier than expected, RSA Security has released into the public domain an important computer security patent. Represented by the equation “c = m(e) mod n,” the RSA algorithm is the primary building block for SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) security on the Web, along with most e-mail encryption, digital certificates, and VPN (virtual private network) software. It resides in Microsoft and Netscape Communications Web browsers and servers, Lotus Development’s Notes and Novell’s NetWare. The
story is at InfoWorld. More at CRN.

From a story/column at LinuxPlanet: “The score so far: Trolltech has done everything Stallman had demanded of it, but its position in the eyes of the Stallman faction seems little changed. Meanwhile, the leaders of Gnome say they are ready to call a halt to any real or perceived hostilities and let users make their choices based on the quality of the code.” ZDNet reports on Richard Stallman’s initial reaction, and in this story Trolltech explains its decision to add an option of GPL licensing to Qt. Eng and Ettrich write.

MandrakeSoft, publisher of the Linux-Mandrake operating system, has received the Linux Magazine Editor’s choice Award and announced July record sales in the United States. The press release is at LinuxPR.

A security hole was discovered in the package netscape-communicator 4.74 and earlier in TurboLinux versions: 6.0.5 and earlier. The advisory is at LWN.net.

Yahoo! Inc. has signed a deal with the Recording Industry Association of America to set up terms for music Webcasts on Yahoo!, reports ZDNet.

ZDNet’s how-to section offers advice to customers about their music download rights.

In the last 10 days of August, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) began sending cease-and-desist orders to people who post or link to the De-Content Scrambling System (DeCSS) program from their Web sites. The update of an earlier story is at IDG.net.