Montreal Gazette: “The founder of Mitel Corp. and Corel Corp.
announced yesterday that he had bought a
majority interest in ZIM Technologies
International Inc. of Ottawa. The terms of
the deal weren’t disclosed.”

Mark Hatch writes ”

Integrated Computer Solutions, Inc.
(ICS), the leading supplier of Motif products and support, and
LinuxPPC, the publisher of the most popular Linux distribution for
PowerPC computers, today announced that the standard distribution
of LinuxPPC 2000 Q4 includes Open Motif. The port of this toolkit
to LinuxPPC was the result of a joint development effort by
LinuxPPC and ICS.

With this announcement, LinuxPPC becomes the first major Linux
publisher to include Open Motif with it standard distribution.
Although other Linux distributions make Open Motif available on
their “commercial” or “enterprise” distributions, the decision to
make every copy of LinuxPPC “Enterprise Ready” is a first in the
industry.

“Customers with large, Enterprise class applications require a
high quality version of Motif to reduce the cost of moving to
Linux,” said Jeff Carr, president of LinuxPPC. “ICS? expertise as
the leading supplier of Motif and Motif related development
products, was crucial to meeting our deadlines.”

“Enterprises with computationally complex applications recognize
the value of open source combined with the advanced vector and
multiprocessing capability of the PowerPC,” said Mark Hatch, Chief
Operating Officer for ICS. “We were eager to work with LinuxPPC
because their industry leadership ensures the widest availability
of Open Motif to PowerPC users.”

More on Motif

The Motif toolkit is used by corporate developers to create
custom, mission critical applications that are not available “off-
the-shelf.” When a Boeing airplane flies, a financial transaction
is performed on Wall Street, a subway train runs in Boston or San
Francisco, a network communication problem is diagnosed and
bypassed by US West, a family is entertained by the latest
animated movie from Walt Disney or Dreamworks, a US defense system
built by Lockheed is tested in a drill or real combat, or a
spacecraft is launched into space by NASA, the custom software
that made it all possible probably employed the Motif toolkit to
build the user interface.

Availability

Open Motif is included with the currently shipping LinuxPPC 2000
Q4 distribution. Open Motif for LinuxPPC is also available for
free via download at the MotifZone, ICS’ Motif Community site
(http://www.motifzone.net).
This release includes the latest bug
fixes to Open Motif provided by other vendors and the open source
community.

About ICS

Founded in 1987, ICS was chartered to create software development
tools for developers working with the then emerging X Window
System(tm). The company’s first product offerings included X training
and a version of Motif for Sun Microsystems. Prior to widespread
adoption of Motif by the UNIX workstation vendors, ICS was the
leading independent shipper of the Motif toolkit. In 1998, The
Open Group chose ICS to provide technical support for its Motif
source code licenses.

Today, ICS’ Builder Xcessory PRO (BX PRO) is the current market
leader in Motif graphical user interface development tools. In its
fifth major release and representing over 100 person years of
effort, BX PRO defines a level of sophistication, functionality
and ease of use that is unmatched in the industry. In November of
1999, the combination of BX PRO from ICS and Code Fusion from Red
Hat software was awarded the Editor?s Choice award by The Linux
Journal, for the Best New Application for Software Development.
Commenting on the importance of this alliance, The Linux Journal
described the software as “…the first Visual C/C++ equivalent for
Linux.”

ICS sponsors the Motif community site, the MotifZone
(http://www.motifzone.net).
The MotifZone provides a common
meeting area for Motif developers to gather additional knowledge
and request input on technical problems from other engineers. The
MotifZone also hosts the Public CVS source code repository for
Open Motif as well as the defect database.

About LinuxPPC Inc.

LinuxPPC Inc., headquartered in Waukesha, Wisconsin, develops and
distributes the most popular Linux distribution for PowerPC
computers. Formally incorporated in 1997, the company has been
making Linux for the PowerPC for more than three years. The
company sponsors development of Linux on PowerPC through hardware
donations and developer sponsorships.

The company is a member of Linux International and the Motorola
Computer Group Partner Program. For further information on
LinuxPPC, visit the LinuxPPC website at http://www.linuxppc.com.

Contacts:

Jason Haas

Mark Hatch

LinuxPPC Inc.
Integrated Computer Solutions, Inc.

jhaas@linuxppc.com
mhatch@ics.com

262-436-2000
617-621-0060 x108

http://www.linuxppc.com
http://www.ics.com

###UNIX and Motif are registered trademarks of The Open Group in the US and other
countries.
The Open Group and the X Window System are trademarks of The Open Group.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
PowerPC is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation.
All other names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

“

DoomServ reports: “There is a new beta (of Doom). This one will be the required one to access the server after the 10th
so grab it from the download section.

“The freedom to speak and write and petition for redress of
grievances is virtually useless unless we, the people, have
timely access to adequate information on which to base sound
decisions about the process of our own governance. Without
such access, we cannot participate responsibly or effectively in
guiding the well being of our families, communities, state or
nation.” Second in a series from Microtimes Magazine.

From Microtimes Magazine: “Despite the advances in chip technology, users don’t type
any faster. Your Internet connection, if you’re using a dial-up
connection, is as glacial as ever. There is evidence that, for
most users, a few hundred megahertz is all they need, and
corporate buyers are beginning to balk at some of the new,
high-powered desktop systems.”

The Register confesses: “About a week ago, we wrote about plans by Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, the
German investment bank, to release its Openadaptor software to the open source
community.

It seems that we, along with a lot of other publications, got the wrong end of the
stick. In the first report we said it was based on Linux, Apache and a bunch of other
stuff that wasn’t quite right.

My only excuse is that my editor made me do it, and a pretty poor excuse it is too.”

Are keyboards truly the weak link in your computer set up? LinuxPlanet explores: “Computer makers, and makers of computer upgrades, go to a lot of trouble to produce very high quality monitors, some really nifty trackballs (which
would be even better if they’d bother to produce Linux-specific drivers; for instance, my Kensington Expert Mouse would be a lot cooler if its
programmable buttons were programmable under Linux), and all sorts of other wonderful stuff. But the area that’s largely left behind is the one most
in need of attention, because it is the one thing with which we all must deal: The keyboard.”

Wired.com reports: “Microsoft’s next generation “XP” software prevents piracy by locking down the number of installations and requiring registration. But the software may irk users who frequently need to rebuild their PCs.”

Wired.com: “ZDNet U.K. and Australia shuts down its free e-mail service without notice, and that’s only the half of it. Users find themselves unable to retrieve messages or information they’d previously saved to their folders.” ZDNet UK users were dumped, apparently because of a payment dispute between ZD and its email service provider.

A CBSNews.com interview: “Dean Kamen is used to coming
up with brainstorms that change the
world – like his latest invention: a
wheelchair that goes up and down
stairs. He is also on a mission to teach
America’s children that scientists and
engineers are the superstars of the
future.”