Red Hat Inc. has announced that Compaq Computer Corporation will be offering its newly announced Accredited System Engineer (ASE) and Accredited Platform Integrator (API) level Linux certification programs in conjunction with Red Hat's acclaimed RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer) program. The programs will extend the scope of professional training opportunities available to Linux systems and software professionals and position them to take greater advantage of the expanding Linux marketplace.

Red Hat has signed a partnership with 3G Lab to build an operating system for cell phones and other devices that can tap into high-speed wireless networks. The companies will jointly develop an open-source operating system, but Linux won't be part of the deal. Instead, the companies will use Red Hat's eCos operating system, which is designed to work in smaller devices that don't have the computing horsepower Linux requires. The Red Hat-3G Lab product also will enable multimedia features.

This book is probably the first serious attempt at answering the most fundamental question affecting Unix/Linux users: Why do most people seem to prefer an expensive and largely disfunctional desktop, and even server, environment to one that works cheaply and effectively?

Michael Stutz, the author of the forthcoming book, THE LINUX COOKBOOK No Starch Press, has developed a copyleft-style license that brings the enormous benefits of Open Source software to books and other works. The author of the license says "The future is in openness and freedom, and in every individual's right to cut and paste and copy and modify any work they like, for any reason they like."

After seeing how well-received Linux partitioning was in its flagship eServer z900 mainframe, IBM is expanding the functionality beyond its enterprise-level customers to its midsize customer base. Starting next month, Linux partitioning modules will be available for all iSeries servers, from 1-way to 24-way servers.

IBM partnered with SuSE Linux and Turbo Linux to develop the offering. Now in public beta, the applications are expeto be generally available in August. Pricing for these modules has not yet been set.

The last remains of the Indrema Linux console project are being shut down, as Indrema partner CollabNet plans to close the idn.indrema.com and gamexchange.indrema.com Web sites shortly. Both appear to be mostly ghost sites. Even the latest announcement from project hosting service CollabNet, which told subscribers to send questions to the list, generated no response.

Two major investors in Caldera International, which sells the Linux and Unix operating systems, will be able to sell previously restricted stock, the company said in a regulatory filing. As a result of a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Tarantella will be able to sell 16 million Caldera shares through a dealer or broker, while MTI Technology will be able to sell 5.3 million shares. Tarentella got its shares through the sale of its Unix software to Caldera. MTI was an early investor.

theKompany.com, has announced the availability of BlackAdder 1.0 beta3, a Windows/Linux UI development environment for Python and Ruby based on Qt. BlackAdder combines a visual design environment with debugging, syntax highlighting, ODBC interfaces and extensive HTML documentation into a comprehensive platform for developing Python and Ruby applications. This their very first step towards integration. The debugger support will be missing for a while yet.

David Cantrell has announced that the Slackware port to the SPARC architecture is to be discontinued. "It's officially off now. I enjoyed working on the port and wish I could continue it, but it's a fulltime job and I simply don't have the time anymore. For now the port has been moved to the /unsupported directory on the FTP site (ftp.slackware.com). It will probably be removed eventually, but not for a couple months probably," says he.

Speaker, a plugin for Konqueror, providing text-to-speech-synthesis using the Festival Speech Synthesis System engine developed at Edinburgh University has been released. It has made Konqueror useable by people with visual impairments and by people who are otherwise unable to view a screen. Speaker is Currently text has to be selected with the mouse and the Speak menu entry selected, but hopefully the interface will be improved so visually impaired users can surf the Web with Konqueror.