Gervase Markham tells us about this: Do you run Mozilla? Is there something about Mozilla that bugs you? Do you
have an itch you want to scratch?
From Saturday October 27th to Sunday November 4th, mozilla.org will be running
a “Bug Week”. Experienced Mozilla hackers will be available to help anyone
who wants to get involved with the Mozilla code. Engineers from companies
using Mozilla or Mozilla technologies, interested onlookers, and those who
are involved with the project, but have never hacked on the code, are all
welcome to come along and get their feet wet.

You’ll be shown round our world-class web-based tools (Bugzilla, Bonsai, Tinderbox, LXR), and led through
all the steps between discovering a problem and having your patch checked
in to the Mozilla source tree. After checkin, those fixes and features will
be appreciated by an audience of millions in Mozilla derivative products.
Not Just For Hardcore Hackers
Mozilla’s user interface is written in web technlogies – defined in
XUL (XML-based User-interface Language), animated with JavaScript and
styled with Cascading Style Sheets. This means it can be understood, and
hacked on, by anyone who understands HTML/XML, JS and Style Sheets. mozilla.org
has recently developed
technology to allow fixes to be made to Mozilla’s UI without the need
to compile Mozilla – all you need is a self-installing nightly build. This
widens the field of potential contributors to everyone who’s ever made a
decent web page.

So, if you have thought about getting involved in a free software project,
but it all seemed to complicated or difficult, here’s your chance.

On the other hand, if you want to check the entire source tree out from CVS,
compile the embedding test harness, and go into deep hack mode on Mozilla’s
C++ core, we’ll help you do that too.

Bug Week will be happening on IRC:
irc://irc.mozilla.org:6667/#bugweek . Mozilla’s
nightly builds even include a chat client,
ChatZilla, to make it even easier to participate. Look for people whose
nicks begin with “BW_”. We hope to have people there most of the time, although
the help may be concentrated when the US West Coast or Europe is awake.

For more information, contact me
. If you plan to attend at some point, please let me know what you are expecting
to get out of the week, so I can be sure it’s provided. 🙂

EET.com reports: “The PC industry is circling its wagons in preparation to
fight proposed copy-protection legislation, arguing at a Monday (Oct. 22)
briefing that the protection plan backed by Hollywood would freeze
technology while failing to solve piracy concerns.”

CNet reports that Fujitsu will market a notebook PC using the latest low-power Crusoe processor from Transmeta in the United States.

From EET.com: “Java is expected to strengthen its position in car
information and entertainment systems Monday (Oct. 22) when Wind
River System Inc., a major operating-system maker, becomes an ally, thus
raising questions about which software platforms will control the
automotive dashboard.”

Slashdot readers discuss the announcement from Trolltech. “With its release of Qt/Mac, Trolltech has
added Apple Macintosh to the list of platforms supported by Qt, an emerging
industry standard in cross-platform software development. Application developers
using Qt can now target Mac OS X with the same ease, as they are currently
targeting Windows, Linux, Unix, and embedded Linux systems.”

Cristian R. Arroyo writes, “Being the first and most popular Latin Linux distribution, Conectiva Linux is a must-see for all spanish and portuguese speaking Linux users around the world (Conectiva Linux supports only 3 languages: English, Spanish and Portuguese). This review of Conectiva Linux 7.0 at Planeta Linux Argentina (in Spanish) goes trough the most importart features of this new version (including it’s own implementation of APT for .RPM Linux systems), so that we can get a rather complete picture of it’s unique personality. A somewhat funny translation is available using Google.”

Anonymous Reader writes, “In this white paper at LinuxDevices.com, Hewlett-Packard Labs researcher Wesley Chan provides an overview of the innovative R&D activities taking place within HP’s ‘Cooltown’ program. Chan defines the initiative’s philosophy and goals, describes several key open source software and hardware components that have been developed, and explains how developers and companies can join in creating the Cooltown vision of a world in which ‘humans are mobile, devices and services are federated and context-aware, and everything has a web presence.'”

Anonymous Reader writes, “Elias Levy, ex-moderator of BUGTRAQ, answers Microsoft’s Scott Culp article on Information Anarchy in an article at SecurityFocus.” From the article: “It appears Culp is more comfortable with an ‘information dictatorship’ or ‘information oligarchy’ model …”

The headline’s a bit misleading, but IDG.net reports on the release of Red Hat Linux 7.2 and the pricing for the Red Hat Embedded Linux Developer Suite, U.S. $2,500.

osOpinion says the Linux desktop is about ready for Grandma to use. “Add in the licensing cost difference between Linux and Windows XP, and Linux is on deck to become the average corporate user’s desktop.”