International Data Group reports that Compaq has “unveiled a series of new programs designed to attract developers to the Linux operating system and create more applications for everything from servers to handheld devices”, and took a few shots at rival IBM in the process.

ZDNet reports on DigiMine, a system launched Monday to track wireless Internet users, purportedly to better target marketing to wireless users.

– by Tina Gasperson –
In an effort to end the heated discussions and hurt feelings in the GNOME developers community, Havoc Pennington has posted what he calls the GNOME Enhancement Procedure, a document designed to “describe the procedure for reviewing changes that impact the entire GNOME Project, and give recommendations for how to review changes within modules.”He’s also created a brand new mailing list, gnome-enhancement-announce@gnome.org, designed to handle announcement of the types of API enhancements that would be subject to the review mentioned above.

On Saturday, one of the GNOME 2.0 release coordinators let loose with some bad words and ill will on the developers list, stating in fairly certain terms his intention to take his ball and go home. Evidently, the spat surfaced when coders got tired of a decision-making process for architectural changes that consists of “whoever manages to commit to gnome-libs last,” to quote one frustrated programmer.

There were also rumors of increasing corporate disrespect from commercial GNOME companies for the volunteer community, and a general disdain for the perceived attitudes of the employees of these companies. So far there has been no public response from Ximian.

Interactive Week follows up on the controversy over a Gartner Group study saying Linux has a smaller percentage of server shipments than previous studies have reported.

Kelly McNeill writes, “Like it or not, it took a lot of guts for Stewart Alsop to write the article he did and ‘rethink the Mac as a factor in computing.’ Still, Mac fans everywhere — loyal to the cause — are quick to point out that his renewed fondness is something he never should have lost. I ask those of you relishing the thought of watching this man eat a dinner of crow to consider whether he was correct to bail out when he did.” More of the opinion piece at osOpinion.

eWeek reviews the REd Hat Tux 2.0 Web server and says it has “explosive performance” that should allow IT managers to build faster and more scalable server farms.

Commentary by the Meta Group on CNet: “Recent comments by Microsoft executives about Linux and the
open-source movement being a ‘cancer’ — as well as the latest
statistics on new licenses for Linux vs. Microsoft
Windows — should be interpreted with a healthy degree of
skepticism.”

Kelly McNeill writes, “The Linux development model based on selling only the service and support rather than the normal method of selling a product has seduced many tech workers. To those who subscribe to this method, selling software as a ‘product’ borders on immoral. To them, software is a means for sharing information and ideas rather than tools that make our computers easier to use. Ownership of Microsoft Office or Mac OS 9 is only a means to deprive someone of information. Making money takes a backseat to making the world a better place through Linux.” The column is at osOpinion.

From a column at ZDNet: “(The current debate is) not a debate about
whether Microsoft will adopt the principles of the open source movement and share the source
code of its OS, Windows.

Ain’t happening. Ain’t gonna happen.”

From BusinessWire: Sleepycat Software, Inc. today announced that Ask Jeeves, Inc., has
selected Sleepycat’s Berkeley DB embedded database for question answering data management. With the assistance of Berkeley DB,
Ask Jeeves answers tens of millions of questions every day on Ask Jeeves Web Properties and Business Solutions sites that license Ask
Jeeves search and customer intelligence gathering technology.