ninejaguar asks: "Slashdot did an article on an Open Source product called Prevayler, which could theoretically resolve all the problems associated with OO's rough courtship with Relational databases. Slashdot covered Prevayler when it was still 1.x. Despite fear, doubt, and memory concerns, it has reached 2.0 alpha. Is anyone currently using this non-database solution in production? If so, has it sped development because of the lack of OO-to-RDBMS complexity? Was there a significant learning curve to speak of? The LGPL'd product could be incorporated into proprietary commercial software, and few might know about it. Is anyone considering using it in a transactional environment where speed is the paramount need? And, are there any objections to using Prevayler that haven't been answered at the Prevayler wiki? Would those who use MySQL find Prevayler to be a better solution because it's tiny (less than 100kb), 3000 times faster and is inherently ACID compliant?" Update: 09/24 19:25 GMT by C :Quite a few broken links, now fixed.

Mr.Oreo writes "According to Flipcode, Finnish videogame development company Cat Mother Ltd. has now closed its offices, but in their last meeting the company board decided to publish all company source code as open source. A large part of the game assets are also available. Published material includes a fully playable prototype of a 3rd person action/adventure game, and a commercial quality in-house 3D-engine (C++/DirectX9). The source code is published under the BSD license, and the content is published under the GPL license. Just downloaded the engine and snooped through it - it looks pretty complete, and definitely worth having a look at if you're a 3D code monkey."

Arun writes "John Walker (of AutoDesk and Fourmilab fame), primary author of SpeakFreely, has decided to EOL the program (a pioneering network telephony effort), come January 15th, 2004. He cites difficulty in maintaining a decade-old code base, lack of appropriate developer support and a fundamental change in the peer-to-peer nature of the Internet upon which SF is dependent as motivating factors behind his decision. While the last release of the program will continue to be available from SourceForge, the main web site, mailing list, and web forum will be shut down on the aforementioned date." He's got some good points too, like how once IPv6 is more common, most users probably won't go back to one address per machine. I know I enjoy the added security of a NATed firewall, and without a really good reason, I won't be quick to give it up.

prostoalex writes "Following the lead of America Online's previous attempts and MSN's actions, Yahoo is planning an update that may cut out third-party providers like Trillian or Gaim. If you're a current Trillian user with a valid Yahoo ID, you probably noticed the new welcome message: 'Yahoo! is upgrading to its newest version of Yahoo! Messenger on September 24, 2003. The upgrade is part of an ongoing process to continually enhance the overall quality of the Yahoo! Messenger service for our millions of users'." Update: 09/18 01:17 GMT by S : Trillian has just released a patch that updates the IM software "...to the newest Yahoo! and MSN protocols, to remove the recent upgrade messages."

An anonymous reader writes "According to The Inquirer, Microsoft has used their Xbox Live Vole System to patch any Xboxes that access it....without asking their permission before installing the software. However, in this occurrence, the bug appears to be the 'dashboard bug' that allows Linux to be easily installed on an Xbox. Further, according to The Xbox Linux Project, users who do not have an Xbox Live account may find themselves being patched without permission as well. If a gamer tries to access any part of a game that uses Xbox Live, the console can 'phone home' and install the patches anyway. While patching bugs can be a nice touch to poor software, I don't know if I feel comfortable with ANYONE installing software on my hardware without asking permission first."

SiliconEntity writes "A new project from Dartmouth College demonstrates significant advances in combining Linux with TCPA. The software turns a Linux PC into a 'virtual secure coprocessor', which is able to check that none of its software is compromised and even (in a future version) prove its integrity to a remote system. Full GPL source code is available for the 2.4 kernel. This work is separate from the earlier IBM research which also combined Linux with TCPA, with the new project apparently more complete and with a road map towards a very functional Linux based trusted computing system. This could be an important technology for Linux to challenge Microsoft as it pushes forward with NGSCB (aka Palladium)."

IgD asks: "My colleagues and I are developing an open source medical records system. A senior supervisor approached us and let us know a third party is offering a decent amount of money in the form of a grant for any legitimate medical research project. We were all but promised the money if we could come up with a proposal. Has anyone in the Slashdot community received a grant for open source software development? Are there any good examples of such a grant available? How could one measure the results of open source development for publication?"

lucas.clemente writes "OpenOSX has just announced a cheap alternative to Microsoft's Virtual PC for Mac OS X, OpenOSX WinTel. What's more, the OpenOSX version will be compatible with Apple's new G5 architecture, whereas Virtual PC users will have to wait until the next major upgrade for G5 compatibility." It's a frontend to bochs, which we've discussed before as a possible Virtual PC replacement, and the biggest obstacle seemed to be getting it up and running. Perhaps this product will fill that hole. Prices start at $25 for download, but it is covered under the GPL.

Simon P. Chappell writes "Now, I enjoy a good technical book more than the next geek, but it's been quite a while since one left me quite so excited with the possibilities that it presented. Code Generation in Action is beyond interesting, it is a masterful tome on its subject matter, written by one who is obviously an experienced practicioner in his craft." If "code generation" isn't a familiar term to you, this enthusiastic overview on devx.com is a concise introduction to what code generation is about, though it makes no pretense of ambivalence about its importance as a programming tool. Read on for the rest of Chappell's review.

An anonymous reader writes: "FootNotes is reporting about what might be the coolest thing since textmode Quake: a curses-based GTK-2.0 port called Cursed GTK. This not only makes it possible to give Gnome the look and feel of Contiki, but also brings many real opportunities, such as remote logins where X forwarding is not possible, or remote logins over very slow modem lines. Screenshots here, here, here and here! Patches for bugs are welcomed by the authors."

martinde writes "The Prismiq Media Player is a networked set top box that can play MP3s, streaming media, browse the web, and do other cool stuff. It runs Debian on the dedicated hardware client, but in the past it has required a Windows server on the backend. It looks like now there is beta support for Linux in the backend. Anyone tried this device, with or without Linux?" This is a device that I've been playing with/testing - our sister (Yes, Virginia, they are owned by OSDN) site Thinkgeek sells them. Pretty cool device - reminds me of a XBox Media Player in terms of function, but with less soldering, and a keyboard. I'll be trying the Linux backend server - that would solve one of my major complaints, which is that the media server currently is Windows-only.

-tji writes "A new company, www.pchdtv.com, has just released the first digital TV receiver card for Linux. Along with the Linux drivers, they have also modified xine to support HD playback and add XvMC support for MPEG2 hardware acceleration with some video cards. This has great potential for integration into PVR apps, like freevo and mythtv. There is also another project to reverse engineer drivers for the Teralogic TL880 based DTV cards. The one active developer has done a great job, but could use some help."

libertynews writes "KPLUG President Kevin Pedigo has just announced his latest project -- RPMPAN, an archive of CPAN Perl modules in RPM format, generated nightly."

joejg writes "As FootNotes is reporting, the developers at Gaim have responded to the ban Microsoft is placing upon users of third-party clients accessing the MSN protocol. It appears that starting October 15th I will not be able to talk to my MSN friend in South Korea." Gaim's site is more optimistic, saying they may still be able to connect, only without a license to do so.

Alcimedes writes "Maybe I'm jaded as to the quality of games coming out these days, but I haven't found that much lately that really catches my eye. So it was with great joy that I returned to the SC2 project page to find out that my favorite game of all time, Star Control 2, has been ported to Mac OS X." Jay Brewer writes "Small Fry Studios will be releasing a Mac OS X version of our new shareware game, Hillbilly Whack! Save Winnie May! this fall. We've launched a small preview site with teaser trailers and screenshots of the classic-style-on-steroid game." Ambrosia has ported Escape Velocity and EV:Override (using the EV Nova engine) to Mac OS X, free to existing EV Nova customers. And Cliff Johnson's amazing The Fool's Errand has a sequel coming on Halloween Day, The Fool and his Money. You can go over now and catch the preview material, and download free copies of The Fool's Errand and 3 in Three (which work mostly fine in Classic mode on Mac OS X).

aqsalter writes "Benjamin Reed of Fink fame is calling for help porting KDE to Mac using Qt/Mac. Interested parties should swarm the KDE-Darwin mailing list. KWrite for Mac here we come!"

DrCarbonite (Jeff Martin) writes "I've used OpenBSD in the past, and benefitted from its extensive online documentation. Sometimes an off-line reference is useful (i.e. required), and Absolute OpenBSD fills this void." Read on for the rest of Martin's review, as well as a more critical one from Marius Aamodt Eriksen.

Anonymous Coward writes "Someone forwarded me this site working to create an open source search engine called Nutch. In the age of weighted rankings on search engines for profits, there's an obvious need for an unbiased search engine. After all, isn't a search engine supposed to be for finding relevant data, not as an indirect and sometimes slimy method of advertising? Nutch is clearly in their intial stages, but it would certainly get my vote." You can find the project on SF.net, and also read the Business 2.0 article on it.

TeachingMachines writes "Leslie Polzer has written a nice summary of the current state of GUI Toolkits for the X Windows System (article title of the same name). Those of you who are planning to spend hours and hours scouring the Internet for a mature cross-platform GUI toolkit may save some time and trouble by reading this summary. Leslie's review covers the pros and cons of using GTK+, Trolltech QT, FLTK, wxWindows, and the FOX Toolkit."

MilenCent writes "The O'Reilly Network posted an interview with super-deluxe Nethack variant SLASH'EM's Warren Cheung and J. Ali Harlowe last month talking about the impending beta release of v0.0.7E2. (Don't you just love incredibly provisional version numbers? In development for years and not even a 0.1 yet!) There's another recent O'Reilly article on the game too."