– By Grant Gross –

Peter Revill has a couple of good explanations when asked why he and his friends are working on an Open Source Web browser, written in Visual Basic and available first for Windows machines, called No Limits.

Revill’s group, “The Four Horsemen,” want their browser to have “no limits” in its ability to render Web pages, and that’s why the browser links two rendering engines, Open Source Mozilla and closed-source Internet Explorer.

“The ultimate goal is to have the fastest and most compatible browser out there,” says Revill, a.k.a nervlord. “Basically it takes two great browsers and combines them in harmony. This is the ultimate goal of the browser: When you visit a page, No Limits looks at the html code as it is downloaded, and works out which browser will render it in the quickest or most
compatible way, promising the best speed and the best looking/functioning pages
possible!”

But Revill, a student in Perth, Australia, has another, a “corny” reason for launching the project, which is written in Visual Basic. “[The reason for No Limits] is mostly that I want to develop something fun, something that will introduce people who might not hear about Open Source to how much fun an Open Source project can be,” he says. “I want to introduce people who might use VB to Open Source … VB is used to court young developers, it’s one of the first languages a lot of programmers learn. If the second thing
they learn about is Open Source, then I’m happy.”

Even though the No Limits browser uses the closed-source IE rendering engine, the No Limits code itself is released under the GNU General Public License, Revill says. Right now, the project is focused on creating a browser for Windows, but Revill also wants to create a Linux version that uses the Mozilla and Konqueror browsers. That part of the project may be some time off, until Revill becomes more familiar with KDevelop.

Right now, interested developers can download the source code for the project. “At the moment all we have is the source code ready
for downloading and compiling,” Revill says. “I am in need of a server to hold the binary
version as the main site is hosted on a university connection my very generous university
has loaned me, and I don’t want to place a burden on their network activity by putting on a big file, so I’m looking for space for the binary version.

“2.0 is actually the current release,” he adds, “but all that is is a browser where
you can choose to switch engines, so in terms of getting where we want to
get (where No Limits works out what code will render under which browser
faster) we are a long way off!”

In addition to looking for a host, Revill can also use some extra, enthusiastic hands. “It’s a lot harder finding VB coders than I thought,” he says. “I think it’s because a lot of people have a perception that because it;s a browser that it must be hard; that’s far from the truth, its easy and fun! I personally consider myself a pretty medium VB coder, not good. not bad
either, but a lot of my friends who are contributing to it now aren’t all that
good, its their enthusiasm and willingness to help that makes it work.”

For more information on the No Limits browser, check out the FAQ.

Slashdotters discuss an article at 3DActionPlanet.com about Galbraith
Games’ OpenQuartz. From the review: “The Open Quartz project is under the GPL license, that is, everything
being made for it is completely free for anyone to use as long as the
people who use it distribute the resulting product freely. Galbraith Games’ ambition is to create free content for
the Quake engine so that aspiring developers can put together their own games. The project is only in the early
stages right now (hence the lack of solid content in the demo), but it has potential for really taking off.”

From LinuxPlanet: ”
If Linux-Mandrake likes to ride the cutting edge of point releases by jamming everything new it
can find in the installation package set, then Red Hat’s releases must lie toward the other end of
this spectrum. For Red Hat’s releases tend to be more subtle in their forward movements — slowly
advancing toward technological Nirvana.”

Reuters has a short item saying IBM Chairman Louis Gerstner has confirmed that IBM President and Chief
Operating Officer Sam Palmisano is the leading candidate to replace him when he
retires.

CNET: “After telling analysts that
sales for the quarter would
be roughly half of already
lowered expectations, Palm
CEO Carl Yankowski said
Thursday that the company
is looking at various
options that would involve
“more or less dramatically
changing our business
model.”

PRNewswire: “Lexar Media, Inc. today unveiled its
new USB Memory Stick(TM) Reader at DPIX in Chicago. Priced at $59.99, the
reader will be available in June from camera dealers, consumer electronics
retailers and distributors, in addition to the Lexar Media Web site at
http://www.digitalfilm.com.”

joabj writes: “There was a story in yesterday’s U.S.A. Today on the growing controversy over the Tauzin & Dingell Bill, which is claimed to speed broadband rollout. This bill would free up regional bell operating systems (RBOCs) to get into the long-distance market without opening their local lines for competiting carriers first, a stipulation now in place as per the 1996 Telecommunications Reform act. Huh? So what does long distance have to do with broadband? Follow this one if you can: The RBOCs behind the bill claim that the once their local lines are open to competiting DSL providers, the infrastructure investment needed to upgrade for DSL won’t be cost-effective. Maybe, but I still don’t see what that has to do with long distance. Just sounds to me like “waaah, the cable companies have a monopoly on their conduits. We want one too!””

The Register: “The World Wide Web’s days are numbered, Forrester Research claims. The Internet
may have taken off, mostly around the Web, but the next step of its evolution will
see expansion beyond the browser, the company reckons.

The Web’s replacement is an executable Net with throwaway code downloaded as
and when you want to use it as well as millions of every day devices connected to
the Internet (the old more-Barbies-than-PCs linked to Net idea). So long and thanks for all the clicks.”

LinuxSecurity: “Despite this preponderance of information, advice and technology solutions, only a fraction of corporate and consumer
‘Netizens actually use some type of e-mail security. Problems with protocol and product interoperability, scalability and
usability have left many users wondering if protecting their e-mail is really worth the headache. That’s the bad news.”

InformationWeek: “The worm doesn’t offer a really compelling reason to click the
attachment. The subject line reads “!!!” and the body of the E-mail
reads “: – ) MuCuX…” and carries the attachment echelon.vbs. Most
Internet users may be unaware that the National Security Agency
runs project Echelon, which purportedly aims to eavesdrop on
phone calls, fax transmissions, and E-mails containing certain key
words, and people whose computers are infected with this virus
won’t see the slew of text hidden within the executable.”