bryam writes: “XBox Linux project brings to us more news. MPlayer at Xbox Linux and Live CD. You can see related coverage at Sourceforge.NET Linux Kernel Foundry.”

Chuck Connell writes: “I think your readers will be interested in this article I wrote for Developer.com. It argues that the quality of all software would be improved if the development companies let us see their source code.”
It’s at Softwaredev.earthweb.com.

Gordon Hubbard writes: Voting has started and you can now view the list
of nominated Open Source community members, and vote.
Also see the award
details, press
release, and the unique
gold and silver Tux award statue.”

Steve Mallett writes – “Today’s yummy OSDir.com application-goodness comes from the wonderful worlds of XML and Java.

Our appetizer is Apache::Cocoon >> All Platforms: Web Publishing

“…Flexible publishing (i.e. for browsers, mobiles, in format such as PDF or SVG etc.), integration of data-sources (Cocoon contains ready-to-use components for integrating databases, ldap directories, XML via http etc.) and an extensible Java framework…”

And for a full course, jPOS >> All Platforms: Financial/P.O.S. (Point of Sale)

“…jPOS saved my company hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you are in the financial/payments world, you will be amazed of the extremely high quality and supported work…”

Stop in for a coffee or tea and for desert let us know what you think of these and other apps.

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“The World Summit on Sustainable Development’s Waterdome installation has become a showcase for the possibilities of Linux technology. Constrained by a small budget, the media centre is running entirely on Linux in a thin-client environment.

The 100-odd desktop PCs connect to six Linux servers, running SuSE 8, which in turn authenticates off a single main server.”

The article itself is in German, but the quote from MP3 patent holder Thomson Multimedia is in English, and it says Thomson has been charging royalties on commercial MP3 players since 1995, but has never tried to collect royalties from developers of “freely distributed software decoders.”

Netscape 7.0 will be replacing Netscape 6.2.3 in the AOL-Netscape browser-suites line-up. Netscape 6.2.3 is based on Mozilla 0.9.4.1 code — rather outdated code by now. Since the release of Mozilla 0.9.4 there has been substantial polish improvement in the code-base. Many bugs have been squashed — although there are more bugs now than then. Some neat new features have been added . . . If there is a killer feature in the Mozilla 1.0 / Netscape 7.0 code that sets the Mozilla-based browsers apart from other browsers, it is the Tabbed Browsing feature.”

“Microsoft stood at a crossroads last month as it tried to
push its biggest customers on to a new licensing scheme
under which they pay a maintenance fee instead of buying
upgrades. There were signs of a global backlash that could
promote the use and development of rival products,
particularly open source.
The company looks to be riding high, with earnings up 7
percent for the year up to June and 46 million copies of
Windows XP sold since October – its fastest selling
software ever. But it cannot maintain revenues indefinitely
on new versions of old products, and for some time it has
been trying to move to selling software as a service.”

“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.”

“Workshops to discuss the use of open source software in government were staged
yesterday by an action team set up to explore how much benefit South Africa could extract
from the technology.

Open source software differs from proprietary applications in that it is free to use and
can be adapted by anyone to meet their needs. Its use has become a key policy
issue for many governments, including those of the UK, China, Thailand, Peru,
France, Argentina, Germany and Brazil. Developing nations are expected to follow
suit, with the lack of licence fees proving a major incentive for its use.”