GonzoJohn writes – “Linux Orbit takes a look at TransGaming Technologies’ WineX and puts it through it’s paces with eight different Windows games. In addition to reviewing: Diablo 2, Starcraft, LinksLS 1998 (Golf Simulation), Dungeon Keeper 2, Populous the Beginning, Black and White, Fallout 2 and
Might and Magic 6 under WineX 2.1, we also give you some helpful tips to make your WineX gaming experience as pleasant as possible. Read more.”

Anonymous Reader writes: “LinuxFreak.org is proud to announce the re-launch of our awarding of Open Source Projects for their contributions to the Linux software community. Awards will be announced on LinuxFreak.org every Sunday of each week. To make a suggestion on a piece of software you feel should qualify, you can suggest it here.”

“The percentage of Web surfers using the Netscape browser has reached record lows, even as new versions of the platform including the Mozilla open-source effort come to market.

As of this week, Netscape’s global usage share had dropped to 3.4 percent, down from 13 percent last year at this time …”

“Software licensing of the future must have interchangeability and accountability across multiple software platforms in order to maximize sustainable profit. Language deleted or added in the license must be sent in timely, readable format to participating licensees who review, approve and return the changes. Licensees must then give verifiable consent before licensors change the original terms and conditions of a license.”

SYDNEY, Australia, and READING, England — 28 August 2002 — Custom
Technology and Samsung SDS today announced their distribution partnership
to bring Samsung Contact to the Australian market.

“Custom Technology is pleased to be working with Samsung SDS to deliver
Samsung Contact to the Australian market”, said Gordon Hubbard, Managing
Director, Custom Technology. “CustomTech has played a pioneering role in
promoting business focused Linux products in the Australian market and
we see Samsung Contact as being the catalyst for many businesses to migrate
away from Microsoft Exchange onto low cost Linux and UNIX platforms”.

“We are excited to be working with a proven partner such as CustomTech,”
said Richi Jennings, Chief Architect of Samsung Contact. “Small and medium
enterprise customers definitely need the type of solutions focus and tailored
support that CustomTech provide. CustomTech’s long-term focus on low ownership
costs, robustness, and customer freedom fit very well with our way of thinking.
Samsung Contact provides all of these attributes, by design.”

“We look forward to supporting HP’s existing OpenMail® customers
to ensure a smooth transition to Samsung Contact”, said Hubbard. HP’s OpenMail®
technology was chosen for the core of Samsung Contact because of its reputation
as the most reliable and scalable email product available. The highly successful
email server was used by more than 60% of Fortune 1000 companies, currently
with some 5 million active users world-wide. Samsung has a robust plan
under way to extend the offering into a powerful, seamless unified communications
tool — based around a truly unified message store — enabling any message
to be sent and picked up via any device: phone, fax, desktop computer,
the web, or a range of wireless devices. Research and development are key
priorities for Samsung, with investment in Samsung Contact more than doubling
that previously provided by HP. This investment is headed up through a
newly established unified communications business unit, tasked with building
Samsung Contact into a world market leader.

Samsung Contact Server supports the Microsoft Outlook® desktop client
– including collaboration features, such as calendaring, scheduling, delegation
and offline synchronisation – and the native Samsung Contact Client which
provides Outlook-like features at lower cost and complexity. The new Samsung
Contact web clients also allow remote access from internet cafes and wireless
handhelds.

Samsung Contact Server runs on HP-UX, IBM AIX, Solaris and Linux. The
native Samsung Contact Client runs on Windows, Linux and the Samsung Contact
Server for web access.

Availability

Custom Technology is shipping Samsung Contact now. A FREE trial CD is
available that allows unlimited users for a 30 day trial period and also
includes a FREE ongoing 5 user server license.

###

About Custom Technology Australia

Custom Technology Australia Pty Ltd provides value added product distribution,
technical support, integration and development services for Open Systems
including Linux and UNIX. Our vision is to deliver Open Systems
that provide real competitive advantage to our business partners. Visit
Custom Technology at http://www.customtech.com.au

About Samsung Contact

Samsung Contact is an email server product, offering the lowest total
cost of ownership, extreme scalability and solid reliability to email desktop
clients. Amongst the clients supported is Microsoft Outlook, including
the “collaboration” features (such as shared calendars, delegation and
offline folders) which are otherwise only accessible when using a Microsoft
server. Customers can easily migrate to Samsung Contact from leading email
products such as Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Domino and OpenMail. The product
has been developed following Samsung’s win of perpetual licensing rights
over Hewlett-Packard’s highly successful OpenMail technology. Investment
and commitment to the roadmap will continue to build on the success of
OpenMail, and expectations are that Samsung Contact will become the market
leader in the field of seamless unified communications. Future development
will also encompass technologies such as J2EE and XML. For more information,
please visit their website at http://www.samsungcontact.com.

About Samsung SDS

Samsung SDS Korea, led by CEO Mr Hong Ki Kim, delivers packaged solutions,
professional services, global marketing and Internet-focused services and
solutions. The company is the leading systems integration, systems management
and e-business company in Korea, employing 6,500 people worldwide and generating
$1.3 billion (US) in revenues. It has been ranked 38th in Software 500,
a survey of software companies around the world by a globally recognised
software magazine. For more information, please visit their website at
http://www.sds.samsung.com.

 

Press Contact
Gordon Hubbard

Managing Director

gordon@customtech.com.au

Tel: 02 9659 9590

Fax: 02 9659 9510

###

OpenMail is a registered trademark of the Hewlett-Packard Company in
the USA, the UK and other countries.

Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other products,
brands or company names herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks
of their respective owners.”

LinuxPlanet reviews CrossOver Office 1.2.0 and how it works with software such as Quicken. “SmartTabs, though nifty little window navigators in Quicken, were present when I ran the application, but the text was absolutely invisible. If you like SmartTabs, get used to doing without for now. Don’t worry, there are other fast methods of switching from account to account.

What was more problematic, at least for me, was the awful rendering of the wizard-like dialogs used to set up things like, say, new accounts. The text and fields were a jumbled mess, and in many cases pushed off the right side of the dialog box to the point where you could not read the text.”

Anonymous Reader writes: “The relationship between KDE and Red Hat has never been cozy, but developments this summer have turned that chill into heat. Can there be a meeting of the minds, or has yet another irreconcilable schism developed? This analysis at Linux and Main describes the path that has led to the current dispute.”

VIA NET.WORKS USA (VIA USA), an Atlanta-based managed Web hosting company and the local U.S. operation of VIA NET.WORKS, Inc. (NASDAQ and EASE: VNWI), today announced it has selected Sphera’s HostingDirector^(TM) software to automate its shared hosting operations and to launch its new Virtual Dedicated Server solution to Linux customers.
The Virtual Dedicated Server solution will give Linux developers greater control over their hosting environments and will enable the reduction of overall Linux hosting costs. This solution will provide VIA customers with point-and-click access to more than 40 development, e-commerce and general Web applications, including MySQL^(TM), Miva® and Coldfusion®. Sphera’s point-and-click installation and easy-to-use wizards and control panel will enable a novice Web master to build a sophisticated e-commerce Web site with ease.

“Our Virtual Dedicated Server gives our customers dedicated server control at shared-server prices,” says Rich Grady, managing director of VIA USA. “In addition to saving them money on hosting costs, we are also helping our customers find new ways to make money by offering them free access to more than 40 time-saving and profit-building development tools. This all comes in addition to VIA USA’s outstanding tech support – which touts an average first-level response time of two minutes or less.”

With the Virtual Dedicated Server solution, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Web hosting providers and Internet Data Centers (IDCs) can purchase the dedicated space they need on an “as-needed” basis. Customers can manage all hosting and Web services accounts through an easy-to-use, full-featured control panel – virtually eliminating the need for customer service support.

“Sphera is the leading developer of Web hosting automation and management software,” adds Grady. “Through the implementation of our Virtual Dedicated Server solution with the Hosting Director software, we are empowering our customers to manage the breadth of services they utilize and are opening the door to expand revenue streams for them.”

“VIA USA is recognized as a provider of managed Web hosting services with a reputation for superior customer service,” says Tamar Naor, chief executive officer of Sphera. “HostingDirector will help VIA USA maintain this reputation while improving the hosting product’s efficiency by automating time-consuming Web hosting operations and offering revenue-generating, value-added services.”

About VIA NET.WORKS USA

VIA NET.WORKS USA (VIA USA), an Atlanta-based managed Web hosting company, is a local operation of VIA NET.WORKS Inc. (NASDAQ and EASE: VNWI). VIA USA provides business customers in more than 85 countries with superior managed hosting services, Internet infrastructure and exceptional customer service. For more information on VIA NET.WORKS USA, visit www.vianetworks.net, e-mail pr@vianetworks.net, or call 404.495.5660.

About VIA NET.WORKS, Inc.Br>
VIA NET.WORKS, Inc. (Nasdaq and EASE: VNWI) is a single-source provider of managed Internet services for businesses, with operations in North America and Europe.

VIA local operations offer a comprehensive portfolio of flexible and reliable managed Internet services encompassing areas such as connectivity, hosting, security, messaging, and professional services. VIA is a facilities-based Internet services company, managing its own backbone network. This unique combination – the agility of a local, customer-focused company and the reliability of an international high-speed network – allows VIA to be highly responsive to specific customer needs and to deliver quality solutions. VIA is headquartered at 12100 Sunset Hills Road, Reston, Virginia, USA, 20190. More information about VIA can be obtained by visiting www.vianetworks.com.

About Sphera

Sphera is the leading developer of Web hosting automation and management software for IDCs, ISPs and Web hosting providers for shared, dedicated and reseller hosting. HostingDirector^(TM), Sphera’s flagship product, enables customers to cut costs and increase revenue by automating Web hosting management and facilitating sales of value-added applications and services via Sphera’s open, secure and rich hosting platform. Sphera is headquartered in Boston, with offices in London and R&D facilities in Israel. For more information about Sphera and its products, contact us at 1-(866) SPHERA-1 or visit our Web site at www.Sphera.com.

MySQL, Miva and ColdFusion are either trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

“SCO Group Inc, or Caldera International Inc as it was known until Monday, has released its financial statement for the third quarter ended July 31 2002, and reported revenue down 18% on the same period last year.

The Lindon, Utah-based Unix and Linux operating system vendor reported a net loss of $4.5m on revenue of $15.4m for the third quarter, compared to a net loss of $18.8m on revenue of $18.9m in the same quarter last year. Revenue proved slightly better than the $14m to $15m previously estimated.”

– By Robin “Roblimo” Miller –
Dave Arland, a U.S. spokesman for Thomson Multimedia, says that MP3 licensing terms have not changed in seven years, and that as far as he knows there are no plans to change them in the future. According to Arland, the Slashdot poster who claimed Thomson’s license structure changed recently “was apparently misinformed.”
The controversy was created by the removal of this line in the old MP3 royalty licensing page (courtesy of Internet Wayback Machine) from the current version: “No license fee is expected for desktop software mp3 decoders/players that are distributed free-of-charge via the Internet for personal use of end-users.”

But the lack of these few words on the latest version of the MP3 licensing Web site does not represent a change in Thomson’s policy.

Arland says Ogg Vorbis is apparently using this small Web site wording change “to get publicity,” and that if Ogg Vorbis or anyone else wants to produce multimedia encoders and players and give them away, that’s fine with Thomson. But he said Thomson does not do that and never has; that its policy has always been to allow free use of the company’s MP3 patents in “freely distributable software” while charging royalties to all commercial software or hardware makers that use Thomson’s MP3 technology.

Because the GPL (General Public License) allows all software licensed under it to be sold, this may mean that “freely distributable” MP3 players cannot be licensed under the GPL. Arland says he is not familiar with the GPL; that Thomson laid down its licensing terms long ago, and that if Thomson’s terms are not compatible with the GPL today, then they never were.

Arland says Thomson not only allows but encourages the use of MP3 technology in free client-side players. He also says Thomson has no plans to start charging royalties to producers of freely-distributed MP3 player software, and that “it would not be in our best interests to do so.” But, he says several times — using slightly different words each time — the second you sell software or hardware that contains Thomson’s patented technology, the company wants money, and this is not negotiable, GPL or no GPL.

Thomson makes its money on MP3 from licensing both commercially-distributed MP3 players and encoding software. “We have hundreds and hundreds of companies that have taken out licenses with us,” Arland says.

And, as far as people who thought MP3 was free (in the GPL sense) or should be free, Arland says, “We developed the technology in partnership with Fraunhofer. We license the technology. It is not free. It has never been free. We’re not going to give it away. That’s the way it is.”