Today we host an interview with Chris McKillop, software engineer of QNX Software Systems. Chris is probably the most well known QNX engineer as he is always helping out the QNX community in forums, IRC etc. In this interview we talk about the embedded space, the competition but also about the QNX Momentics 6.2.x release (preview with screenshots), a free OS to download and try out on your PC (~260 MB ISO image, ~1 GB primary partition required for installation).

Wendy, spokesman and policy counsel for the Initiative for Software Choice (ISC), says he just wants to make sure government agencies don't unduly favor open-source or free programs over proprietary software. "We want a process that is not based on automatic preferences," Wendy said.

The Embedded Linux Consortium (ELC) entered a new phase of its standardization activity today, as it launched three key new initiatives aimed at developing specifications covering user interfaces, real-time performance, and power management for embedded Linux based systems and devices.

"Can Macintosh software run on an Intel machine at speeds that approach the same performance as on Apple hardware, or visa versa? Not yet, but that day may be closer if a Los Gatos start-up gets its product off the ground, and it could have implications for chip makers." Read the rest at siliconvalley.com.

Jasper writes: "I thought you might be interested to know we have just released the first release candidate for XFce 4.0. This is meant to become 4.0 unless important bugs are found." You can view the announcement, release notes and you can download it directly. Also, check out the screenshots.

The 2nd Syllable developers' IRC meeting recently concluded, and the logs can be found here. Our first one can be read here with a summary here. According to Shawn, "We are throwing around ideas of what we'd like to see in Syllable 1.0."

IBM released an updated USB Basic Device Support Package provides the basic OS/2 & eComStation support required for devices that meets the USB 1.0 OHCI, USB 1.1 UHCI, or USB 2.0 EHCI specs.

While a 2-year-old project to develop an open-source version of Microsoft Corp.'s .Net Framework is making progress, it's still a long way from prime time. "Yes, of course it's late," said Miguel de Icaza, Mono project leader, last week. "We were supposed to release the ECMA components, but the project has grown." Some Mono observers say they are watchful of Microsoft in this situation, wondering whether the software company is merely tolerating Mono now. "They will either outpace it with rapid-fire revisions to .Net or simply let Mono languish," said an anonymous observer. Read the article at eWeek.

The Debian packaging system is one of the most elegant methods of installing, upgrading, and removing software available. Learn the basics of creating Debian packages for distributing programs and source code. This article shows all the necessary components of a package and how to put them together to end up with a final product.

The L4Env, the L4 Environment, and DDE, the Device Driver Environment. L4Env is a programming environment for application development on top of the L4 microkernel family. DDE is an environment for Linux device drivers for using native Linux 2.4 drivers together with L4Env.

"Apple has filed for a patent that suggests the company is working on a new mobile device capable of supporting multiple users. Either that or it's cunningly trying to outflank Microsoft's lead on fast multi-user switching by retrospectively patenting the technique as its own. The application, number 0030107606, is entitled 'Multiple personas for a mobile device'. It describes how a computer system's settings can be immediately changed to reflect a new "persona" when the user chooses from a list of available personae using a graphical user interface displayed on the computer's screen." Read it at The Register. Elsewhere, Think Secret published the fourth installment of its "Inside Panther" series.

In this keynote, OSAF founder and chair Mitch Kapor asks if the same collaborative development methods that created success in the corporate arena can now make open source software central to the consumer desktop. ZDNews TechUpdate has an article on the subject too. Elsewhere, Linus Torvalds has published the last release of the current Linux development kernel, clearing the way to start work on the long-anticipated 2.6 kernel. And, this is an interview of the Ark Linux core team and a couple of contributors, while Gaël Duval tells why Mandrake Linux is better than Windows.

A recent article by Tony Smith from The Register titled "Mac OS X 10.3 Panther will not be a 64-bit OS" caused a good deal of confusion with many people, including me. It is also caused a heated argument here on OSNews. The basic point of the article is that Mac OS 10.2.7 and 10.3 are not "true" 64-bit OSes, but the article does not clearly explain what a "true" 64-bit OS is. This had led to a lot of claims that the article is false or misinformed, rather than just unclear, which is certainly is.

In this third installment of Russell's MySQL series, he introduces some methods and tools for bulk importing of data into MySQL. This isn't an overly difficult task, but processing large amounts of data can be intimidating for newcomers, and as a result it can be a barrier to getting started with MySQL.