James Nicolson wrote in to tell us that at last nights SVLUG meeting, a 3com rep announced they would be porting Linux to the Pilot, and gave Linus a free Pilot. This is definately a great announcement- with the PIII coming down the pipe, every serious Linux nerd will bite on this. Pilot's are inexpensive and cool, and with Linux on them, they'll be indispensable.

Allright guys, this could be complete fiction, but I'm going to share it because I think it's an interesting idea. Lunglet wrote in to say "Unconfirmed rumours from within Intel are that Andy Grove has been meeting with Netscape Communications officials discussing nothing other than a buy-out by Intel.". I have absolutely no reason to think this rumor has any truth to it, but it is still an interesting thought. 6mos ago I would have seen this as a great idea (Intel could gain some ground on the NC front with Netscape at its side. As it sits, Intel loses a lot if NCs catch on). Anyway, I await everyone's thoughts on this.

Well, I noticed today on ZDNet that Netscape has killed the Javagator plans for now.. They are looking for support from the likes of Sun or IBM. I don't know about you guys but I hope Sun gets busy supporting this project with some of their HotJava brain power. I think that the Javagator was a good idea. Of course the HotSpot technologies would have to be on platforms like linux and BSD to make this worth the effort. What do you think?

RMS has written me with responses from a few of the comments associated with the RMS Speaks Against "Open" article I ran last week. Hit the link below to read his comments.

I've been writing articles for Slashdot for an hour now, so forgive me for lumping these together guys- I need to do something else eventually. First, Kristian Köhntopp wrote in to tell us that Linux has claimed 2 of the top 10 books at many german book stores. Next, Alan wrote in to tell us about an InfoWorld letter praising Linux, written by the CEO of 4front. Finally This articleis from the UKs Computing Trade Magazine. Its good PR for Linux and Netscape, even if they did misspell Linus' name. Thanks to Mike Brodbelt for that one.

Colin Plumb sent in this link where you can read about Microsoft neglecting small business and Linux picking up the slack. Colin also commented about the sites Microsoft only Browser support- apparently it works under Netscape though. Maybe if everyone reads the article they will realize that Netscape & Linux are actually being used out there.

First off, James Carter writes "Netscape's new site for coordination and support of the sources of it's browser (mozilla.org) mentions linux as one of first three source targets along with 95/NT and Mac PPC. Another boost for linux's emergence as one of the top platforms. Further, an unsurprising acknowledgement that the linux community will provide a fair number of developers." James also sent This Link. And speaking of Linkage, our Second mozilla.org link today is the library of links related to Mozilla's source. The short list includes The Cathedraal and the Bazaar, Netscape's Press Release, and Slashdot. I'm tickled. Thanks to Joe Drew for letting me know.

Netscape has opened up Mozzila.org for dealing with the soon to be available source code to their browser. It's about time Mozilla (this link will only work under netscape) resurfaced- he's been missed for a long time. Thanks to Mike T for sending us This link where you can read about the site, and the dedicated Team that Netscape has on the job. Netscape is doing a great job so far and deserve congratulations. There will be growing pains for everyone in the next few months, but it'll be so worth it in another year!

Eric Anderson writes "Netscape Enterprise Developer has a good article of WWW databases in which it praises the free (free beer, not free speach) MySQL database system over Oracle, IBM, etc. Linux is also praised as a server platorm, though this is not the point of the article. Another example of the mainstream accepting linux." Recently I've been familiarizing myself with MySQL for a 'secret' project with me a roommate, as well as for the Slashdot Rewrite. I'm really amazed at how cool and fast this app is. Can't wait to see how it holds up to some serious pressure.

Andy Tai wrote in to tell us that the first major notable person to come out against the term "Open Source Software" is RMS. Read more here. He says that OSS may get businesses, but the concept is more clearly expressed through the term "Free". He's correct, but I'll take a little bit of ambiguity if it means more market share for Linux, Netscape, and other Open Source products.

Rob Huffstedtler sent me an editorial piece on Linux and its future in the gaming market. It features comments from Crack.com's Dave Taylor, so everyon must definately hit the link below and read it.

Jason Caron wrote in to tell us that RhapsodyOS.com has started The Netscape for Rhapsody Project which has volunteers, and members of the Netscape for Unix team joining together to port Netscape to Apple's OS. Apple's new server OS. Have they Thought Differently about that yet?

Dex- wrote in to tell us about the page that Jamie Zawinski of Netscape fame (type about:jwz into Navigator if you haven't already) has opened a poll booth to track what License people wish to develop under. JWZ requested on his page that you only vote if you know what you are voting for. Please don't vote on something unless you are a software developer, and really know what you're voting about. The booth can be found here.

An article at the Boston Globe presents an interesting solution to Netscape's recent losses in the browser war. The author suggests Netscape create and sell their own Linux distribution, the reason being that Microsoft will be able to leverage their control of the operating system for some time. Read on.

Amid reports of intense competition and money losses, Netscape is reportedly speaking with several other companies about buying part or all of the company. While no deal is right around the corner, the company is speaking with Sun, IBM, AOL and Oracle, amongst others.

Netscape will announce tomorrow that it has signed distribution deals with over 3000 companies, potentially boosting the number of Netscape copies by 36 million. Major distributors include Autodesk, Clarisys, and McGraw-Hill who will be bundling Netscape with their products.

Yoz writes " Need To Know Now is described as "the weekly high-tech sarcastic update for the UK" but it's of relevance to all slashdot readers as it mostly covers worldwide news, it's written by geeks for geeks and it's very funny. Plus, it's linked to slashdot.org a couple of times recently, so there's obviously good taste at work here. You can subscribe to the mailshot or read all the issues at the website." I frequent the website myself actually. They misquoted me in their current issue though- I never "demanded" that Motif get set free. Why would I need a free motif when GTK is so cool and the source to Netscape will be here soon?

Taneli Leppä dropped me a note to say that Netscape has released a FAQ for people interested in developing the source code of Navigator.

The articles just don't seem to stop today! Tom Christiansen (I've bought his books and he still has kicked/banned me from #perl for asking honest question *grin*) of Perl fame has written an article entitled White Hats and Black which examines Netscape, Apache and of course Perl and the future of the Net. Good reading from a good author. Thanks to Dean Collins for sending it in.

The New York Times has written a fairly flattering writeup on the netscape source code decision. Ramana Juvvadi sent us the following quote from this article. " Netscape's decision could alter software industry Rather than escalating a dead man's curve race against its archenemy, Microsoft Corp., Netscape Communications Corp. has made a course correction that may profoundly affect the commercial software industry."