Mara's weblog

KDE 3.4.3 release is comming shortly (official data: Oct 12). Not many new features, just bugfixes and new translations.

Also, Oct 12 is also a release date for KDE 2.5 beta 2. Final version is moved to a later date. First release candidate will come at the end of November.

It all means that also 4.0 schedule is changing (hard to say how much).

There's an interesting story about one astronomer using another's logs. Both discovered the same object, but the one who just got the logs from the web was first to announce it.

I'm wondering why there wasn't a mail asking for permission to use the logs. Also, I don't know if the log author was credited correctly. If I find something on a web, however, I assume it was intentionaly placed to public.

It's hard to believe for someone who knows both apps that KOffice and OpenOffice use the same code. It looks, however, that it's possible. Interesting, especially when I think about the incompatibilities the two had for years.

Skype, popular voice communicator has one big problem -- closed prtocol and implementation. It meas that you can't be sure that it's really as secure as the developers claim. There's a new problem now. Skype was bought by eBay which releases all user's detailed data easily.

Don't use or use fake data, it seems.

There's an interview with RMS. There are many things discussed. RMS explains certain ideas from GPL3 (many things are still undecided) and talks about compatibility issues (GPL3 patch into GPL2 code). What's more? A number of questions about GPL popularity, licensing terms, software patents and so called Trusted Computing. Interesting read, but don't expect new things.

There were interesting software releases in the last two weeks. For me Firefox 1.5 beta is something worth trying. Especially the automatic update feature -- missing for so long. So far, beta works OK for me.

There's a story about new GPL version, dirst draft by December. The article says it will be agains DRM and software patents. I'm wondering how it will be done. Nw GPL mey be controversial, but probably an interesting read.

Jon Johansen has reverse-engineered NSC (used in Windows Media Player) and shows the code. Interesting thing that it's very simple and doesn't use encryption (no key).

Foreign Policy has a short article about public domain. It's not about public domain as it is known in the software world, rather about possibilites to share ideas. In fact, there's not much info in it for a technical person. It's a text for someone who doesn't know anything about the internals.