ActiveWin got their hands on a beta version of the third service pack for Windows 2000. They report that the update will be released very soon. Here is the bug fix list for the SP3.

A former Gateway executive recently testified (NY Times login required) that Microsoft punishes PC clone manufacturers like Gateway for developing rival products. This was i.e. done by reducing discounts Gateway received for the Windows operating system. Gateway at a time was developing a new Amiga computer, but all of the sudden this ambitious project was cancelled, reliable sources (read the comments section of this article I recently wrote for OSNews) have stated Microsoft to be the reason behind this sudden move. My opinion: A good example of how Microsoft stifled technological progress within the computer industry these last 10 years. Hopefully people will start to understand why it has taken the Amiga community this long to get a new Amiga computer onto the market and why PC manufacturers left Amiga technology in the cold when the classic still was clearly superior technology compared to Microsoft's offerings.

"James Gosling, a Sun fellow, is the lead engineer and architect of the Java programming language and platform. Gosling has been involved in distributed computing since his arrival at Sun Microsystems Inc. in 1984. One of his major recent projects has been the Real Time Specification for Java, which became final in November. Before joining Sun, in Palo Alto, Calif., he built a multiprocessor version of Unix, the original Andrew window system and tool kit, and several compilers and mail systems. He earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Calgary and his doctorate at Carnegie Mellon University. He was interviewed by eWeek Technology Editor Peter Coffee." Read the interview at eWeek.

"Microsoft has reshuffled its roadmaps once again, and begun briefing partners and customers to expect an interim upgrade to Windows XP, dubbed XP "SE", in the first quarter of next year. This buys more time for the Longhorn team to complete the complex task of implementing a native database file store, which Jon Honeyball first revealed to the world at The Register here, last August. In January we exclusively confirmed that the native, SQL Server-derived database would go in Longhorn, with the Blackcomb release - originally earmarked for the transition - pushed out to 2004." Read the exclusive report at TheRegister.

"To what extent did alleged pressures from Microsoft Corp. deter PC makers from bundling Linux on desktops and servers? According to Michael Tiemann, chief technology officer at Red Hat Inc., the pressure had a lot to do with the lack of Linux penetration among OEMs." Read the rest of the report at ExtremeTech. Red Hat's claims are similar to Be's.

"In this whitepaper on Linux Scheduler Latency, Clark Williams of Red Hat Inc. compares the performance of two popular ways to improve kernel Linux preemption latency -- the preemption patch pioneered by MontaVista and the low-latency patch pioneered by Ingo Molnar -- and discovers that the best approach might be a combination of both." Read the long article with some benchmarking information at LinuxDevices.

"Sun is railing at Microsoft, but maybe it should be hiring coders rather than lawyers. Sun boss Scott McNealy is an entertaining act, with a nice line in puns. For example, Microsoft's .net becomes ".not", Intel's Itanium is the "Itanic", and IBM's Regatta server is "Regretta". As comedians, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are not in the same league." Yet another editorial on the web about Sun's lawsuit against Microsoft, this time on CW360. We wrote about this too.

Wil Wheaton is not like most of the rest of the actors. He admits that he is a true geek, running Linux, enjoying programming, playing lots of computer games. Many of you will remember Wil portraying "Wesley Crusher" in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" TV series some years ago. Wil will reprise his role as Wesley in the "Star Trek X: Nemesis" movie, the tenth installment of the Star Trek movies, which is set to be released two days after the second "Lord of the Rings" movie, at the end of this year. In the interview following, Wil talks about his favorite computer games, the computers used on TNG, the future of computing in AI, his favorite Linux distros, PHP and more.

"Microsoft .NET Framework Service Pack 1 provides the latest updates to the .NET Framework. Service Pack 1 is highly recommended for all users of the .NET Framework, including customers of Visual Studio .NET." Download the Service Pack at Microsoft.com. On related news "the Microsoft Visual J# .NET Redistributable Package includes everything you need to run your Visual J# .NET applications on a machine that already has the .NET Framework installed. The Visual J# .NET Redistributable Package is not intended to run applications written with other Java-language development tools. Applications and services built with Visual J# .NET will run only on the .NET Framework; they will not run on any Java virtual machine."

Where did he come from, and what are his plans for 2.4? Marcelo Tosatti opens up to Robert McMillan about the joy, the fear, the challenges, and the rewards of being the Linux kernel maintainer. He also talks about his favorite hack. Stepping into Alan Cox's shoes is no mean feat, even for the most accomplished of hackers, but that is just what a little-known, 18-year-old Brazilian hacker named Marcelo Tosatti did this fall when Linus Torvalds handed over maintenance of the Linux 2.4 kernel tree to Tosatti instead of Cox. According to all parties involved, Cox wanted more time to pursue other projects, and after having maintained the 2.0 and 2.2 trees, it was time for someone else to do the job. Since taking over the job, Tosatti has managed three kernel releases, starting with 2.4.16; has answered, according to one account, close to 700 press queries; and has given the tersest Slashdot interview in history. IBM developerWorks caught up with Tosatti to ask him about his first four months on the job.

IBM and SAP announced general availability of mySAP.com on Linux for IBM eServer zSeries. This is just another example of the many ISVs that have migrated their applications to the Linux for IBM zSeries family. Here is the complete list of ISVs who have ported to the zSeries servers and the FAQ for mySAP on Linux for IBM eServer zSeries.

Most tech savvy geeks can work their way through a FreeBSD install, even if they have no prior UNIX experience. However installing an OS and configuring an OS are two totally different things. This article is targeted towards anyone who might be wondering about FreeBSD, but doesn't know what to do with it after they install it. This isn't then end-all be-all of FreeBSD howto's. Just some of the simple stuff. Update: Some of the readers of OSNews have emailed me concerning corrections that need to be made in this article. Dig in (third page) for more.

From the press release: "MandrakeSoft is proud to introduce Mandrake Linux 8.2 as the most feature-rich, multi-purpose Linux operating system ever made available to the public. New server features include the ability to use an encrypted filesystem for protecting sensitive data; "kernel-secure" adds important security features to the default Linux kernel; and an "Enterprise" kernel delivers SMP and Hi-memory support (above 1024 MB) for high-end servers. Mandrake Linux 8.2 also introduces a quick and efficient way to set up printers and scanners; a new file sharing feature for easily sharing files and directories in a networked environment; and improved "hot-plug" support that lets users install new devices quickly and painlessly without having to reboot the system. A new remote desktop utility, RFBdrake, is extremely useful for controlling machines remotely within a LAN or securely through the Internet."

"When Steve Jobs introduced Apple's new iMac in January 2002, the spotlight was focused entirely on the physical architecture of the first mainstream computer that fully defied the term 'box'. The new iMac is a white dome with a flat screen that floats on the end of a chrome arm. It looks like a cross between a Luxo lamp and a makeup mirror. Jobs called it 'the best thing we've ever done'". Read the rest of the MacOSX review at LinuxJournal.