Kelly McNeill writes “The concept of copyright is an artificial right created by the U.S. Constitution that does not exist in nature, although the legal concept exists in many laws and principles that predate the Constitution. Under U.S. copyright theory, to make something expressive is an act of craftsmanship and that craftmanship is rewarded with exclusive rights to the property that results. However, under the same theory, source code arguably should not be protected by copyright. There is a fallacy in the software business because what the creator creates and what the distributor distributes are two different things.”

The Register reports that AMD, Intel, Transmeta, and VIA are expected to go into a launch frenzy on the 15th of October at the Autumn Microprocessor Forum.

From BSD Today: “The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce that release 1.5.2 of the NetBSD operating system is now available. NetBSD 1.5.2 is a patch release mostly intended to address recently discovered security vulnerabilities as well as platform-specific problems.”

CNet reports that Trolltech, a Norwegian software company, has released version 1.4 of its Open Source Qt
Palmtop Environment, a software for handheld computers.

CNet reports that among the 51 employees who lost their jobs in the latest round of layoffs at Caldera International
is programmer Juergen G. Kienhoefer, who helped write the Linux Kernel Personality software, which lets Linux
programs run unmodified on Caldera’s higher-end Open Unix software.

IBM widened its lead in a drastically shrinking server market during the second quarter,
gaining against once-feared Sun Microsystems and the possible duo of Hewlett-Packard
and Compaq Computer. Story at ZDNet News.

The 51 employees who lost their jobs in the latest round of layoffs at Caldera International
include a programmer who helped lead a key part of the company’s strategy of making its
Linux and Unix operating systems work in the same way. Full story at CNET News.com.

Announced at Trolltech: “Trolltech is releasing version 1.4 of Qt Palmtop, a complete mobile
computing platform for advanced embedded Linux devices. This release provides numerous improvements to the
existing Qt Palmtop, including bug fixes, enhanced functionality, and a new user interface.

Qt Palmtop provides device manufacturers and hobbyists a stunning set of productivity applications, games,
multimedia software, and a Personal Information Management (PIM) suite for cutting-edge mobile computing
devices. Qt Palmtop is built with Trolltech’s Qt/Embedded, the embedded Linux port of the popular
cross-platform application framework, Qt.”

ZDNet (via Yahoo): “Worms and viruses often target specific vulnerabilities in common software. But what if the terms were
reversed? Rather than attacking the vulnerability of software for malicious purposes, what if the worm or virus
actually attempted to secure the software by applying a patch? Like it or not, it is already happening.”

IDG (via CNN) reports: “Still reeling from the shock of multiple attacks on the World Trade
Center in New York and the Pentagon outside of Washington, U.S.
companies are responding quickly to assure that their people are safe, that
IT facilities remain online and that disaster preparedness and recovery plans
are in place.”