It’s Thursday, it’s one week away from Thanksgiving, and it’s a new edition of LWN. What more could a NewsForge editor ask for?

“Linux can provide a wide variety of network services, all at a fraction of the cost of a commercial operating
system. If your library is considering alternatives (to commercial operating systems), Linux is definitely worth
investigating.” This article was written by a Linux-using librarian, to show other librarians the benefits of switching to Linux. Read the entire article at The Library Journal.

Advogato: “Recently, Christoph Pfister, founder of the Fink project, loudly and publicly resigned . There is a lively discussion of this on MacSlash and Slashdot . Advogato would like to use this event as an excuse to discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses of free software.”

ZDNET: “Halfway through Monday, however, things went awry. While attending a press conference on
why Compaq and Intel feel the desktop isn’t dead, I took copious notes with my miniature setup.
There was a certain amount of irony in the whole situation. Here were two computer companies
telling me why the desktop wasn’t dead, and there I was, in real time, eliminating the desktop as a
tool of my trade. Even funnier, it was with the iPaq, which is manufactured by Compaq!”

– by Robin “Roblimo” Miller –
I spout off on Linux.com and NewsForge about once a week. Why me instead
of you? Because it is traditional for a publication’s editors to write regular editorials so readers can get an idea of what they are
thinking, and use that knowledge to judge any bias they might expect to see in
the publication (in our case, firmly in favor of Linux and Open Source). But it
is also traditional for readers to have their say, too.
We have comment spaces attached to all original stories we write. These are the
equivalent of a newspaper or magazine’s “letters” section, except faster and
directly tied to a story instead of published separately. If we make mistakes
— and like everyone else in the world we make a few — our readers catch them
and call us on them immediately. This is a great advantage Internet
publications have over those that appear on paper. Unedited online reader comments are
not always as nice as ones that have been selected, newspaper-like, by editors,
but that’s the way it goes. The Internet is at its best, in our opinion, when
it’s a conversation instead of one-way information delivery.

Let’s take that two-way conversation to a higher level. If you have something to say, submit it as a commentary piece instead of as a comment. If your point is clear, and we haven’t read something similar elsewhere, we’ll run it, right up top, in the same space we run our own stories and pieces Eric S. Raymond and other high-profile Open Source people send us.

Naturally, we expect you to stick to topics that directly relate to Linux or Open Source. Beyond that, it’s up to you. Positive, negative, serious and humorous commentary are all welcome. We may not agree with your opinion, but that won’t stop us from running it. We are interested in originality and clear writing, not in making sure everything that appears on Linux.com and NewsForge.com toes some sort of party line, because even we, the editors, don’t always agree with each other.

So what would like to say about Linux or Open Source (or both) to thousands of readers? Whatever it is, please email it to editors@newsforge.com for consideration, and if your work is up to par (yes, spelling and grammar count) you’ll probably see it here within a week after you send it to us.

The Register: “In May, Compaq said it would GPL its NSC, or Non Stop Clusters code. This is the
code that SCO licensed and co-developed as UnixWare Non Stop Clusters.
Compaq announced two projects – The CI Project (for the infrastructure) and SSI,
and Bruce Walker’s seven man team in Los Angeles has been making progress.”

Kelly McNeill writes: “Unless you’ve been trapped under a rock for last few days, you have probably heard about the “Linux Wins” document from Brian Valentine of Microsoft. Portions of the memo were recently published in an article in The Register. In the allegedly authentic memo, Valentine is quoted as saying “Linux is the long-term threat against our core business. Never forget that!” Assume for a moment that the memo is in fact genuine. In it, Valentine stresses the need for Microsoft salespeople to get other operating systems out of their client server rooms. He then goes on to describe some of Microsoft’s triumphs over Linux, all without ever giving credence to the victories that Linux achieved over it.”

The Register reports that “Sony and Fujitsu have had to reschedule at least five new notebook computers – and it’s all Transmeta’s fault, the two companies said today.”

From the BBC: “Microsoft says games console the Xbox, which launches in the US on Thursday, is the most powerful on earth, but what exactly is inside the box?”

From ZDNet: “Microsoft has quietly fixed a problem with Windows XP that disables the power management functions of AMD’s line of mobile processors. The fix allows users of laptops based on Athlon 4 and Duron mobile chips to use PowerNow! technology, which extends battery life by reducing processor power when it isn’t needed by applications.”