More from the fine folks at Microsoft pitching Web services, this time in a story by TechWeb: “You could be running a Web service on Linux today and
Windows 2000 Server tomorrow, and your customers
wouldn’t know the difference,” says David Turner,
Microsoft’s senior program manager for XML
technologies. “That’s the definition of success-vendor
independence.”

LinuxGram has a long followup story explaining the impact of Wind River buying BSDi. “Embedded Linux rivals like Lineo claim the BSDi purchase is a ‘desperate move’ on Wind River’s part. Lineo senior
VP, sales and marketing Rich Larsen says, ‘Wind River doesn’t know how to react to Linux and it’s scrambling for
an answer.’ Larsen claims Wind River has been losing new design wins to Linux.”

CNEt reports that ArtsDigita plans to start selling proprietary software. “While other open-source companies such as Red Hat, Caldera Systems and VA Linux Systems
work to shift revenue from products to services, ArsDigita is going the opposite direction.

Instead of just offering services around the open-source ArsDigita Community System (ACS)
software for setting up e-commerce Web sites, the company will begin selling proprietary software
modules, said Dave Menninger, senior vice president of marketing. In addition, the company’s
latest version of ACS has been rewritten using Sun Microsystems’ Java language instead of the
previous TCL language.”

ZDNet UK has a story about Linux creator Linus Torvalds’ feeling about OS X, to be part of Torvalds’ new autobiography. He says of Mach, the micorkernel on which Apple’s new OS is based: “Frankly, I think it’s a piece of crap. It
contains all the design mistakes you can make, and manages to even
make up a few of its own.” Here’s another take on the issue from The Register.

LinuxGram reports on the shutdown of SourceXchange. “Collab.Net’s SourceXchange, which was set up to match open source developers with companies willing to pay for
their work, has been shut down. It couldn’t find enough companies willing to pay for open source development.”

eet.com: “In yet another sign of how fragmented the DRAM market is becoming,
Infineon Technologies AG is expected to announce next week what it calls Reduced Latency DRAM
(RL-DRAM) aimed at networking gear, EE Times has learned.”

Recycled press release found at ZDNET: “This move marks a significant reduction in the amount of bandwidth
required to run audio and video through the Windows Media Player
application, and could give Microsoft an edge over rivals such as
RealNetworks and Apple’s QuickTime technology. It also comes at a
time when broadband technology is becoming accessible to more
users, and streaming media to mobile devices is a possibility. “

joabj writes: “From the Irish Times: “US President George Bush has stopped using email as a form of communication, citing privacy concerns.”

The Register: “AOL’s service was hit by a major “meltdown” last night leaving millions of Net users
unable to access email or the Web.

The monster Internet company blamed the incident on a major power failure which
hit Northern Virginia (where its operation is based) at around 7.30pm (GMT).”

Wired: “Napster use goes global, raising the stakes in the copyright protection fight going on in America. Regardless of the outcome, the record labels are probably going to be OK.”