BorrisYeltsin writes " Old news but Apple have released Darwin 1.3.1. You can get both PowerPC and i386 iso's (i386 gzipped iso) from their site. Installation notes are available for Intel also. Lets hope Darwin now supports my MVP motherboard :) " Dial-up users may prefer to order a CD from DaemonNews instead ;)

proclus writes: "The FreeBSD ports system has been ported to Mac OSX, GNU/Linux, LinuxPPC, and OpenBSD. Check out this descriptive paper and roll your own ports-based distribution." Besides an some informative description of the mechanics of the port system, the paper lays out the case for ports (free and readily available) as a good antidote for .Net and other subscription-based systems.

questionlp writes: "A new month, a new issue of Daemon News is now available on-line here. The July issue of the e-zine covers happenings at USENIX 2001, a very thorough overview of NetBSD 1.5.1, the horrors of script generated drivers, and the usual mix of BSD articles." It's a good read -- and if you primarily use some other OS, it's interesting to see how the others are doing once in a while. The various BSDs aren't really complaining at the moment;)

FreeBSD Services Ltd. has announced their intention to distribute FreeBSD on (bootable) DVD, including packages, ports distfiles, the CVS repository, and a technical documentation set. I managed to get one of the promotional DVD's here at USENIX and I can't wait to get home and check out what's on it. Ultimately it will be offered as a subscription based service and documentation will be kept up-to-date.

Anonymous Coward and many others wrote in to tell us that Jordan Hubbard is going to work for Apple. Here's his post to the FreeBSD-announce mail list.

Anon wrote: OpenBSD has started getting a new packet filter, pf, written largely by Daniel Hartmeier. The commits have been flying since then, but it looks like the new filter is going to be ipf-compatible as well as BSD licensed.

fvdl writes: "Last week, a port of NetBSD to the x86-64 (tm) architecture was committed to the NetBSD CVS repository. The x86-64 is AMD's upcoming 64bit line of CPUs. For now, it is only known to work on the Virtutech simulator, since no x86-64 hardware is available yet. In this environment, it runs multi-user. NetBSD/x86_64 is the 44th architecture that NetBSD runs on (12 different families of CPUs). The porting was done by Frank van der Linden of Wasabi Systems, with kind support from AMD, who provided the simulator and fast machines on which ro run it. The Wasabi press release is here. For more information on the x86-64, see of course AMD's website and x86-64.org"

mbadolato writes "The following email was sent out by Jordon Hubbbard regarding the upcoming schedule of releases of FreeBSD [...]" Click through for the email. 4.4 is expected in August, and 5.0 as soon as November for the brave.

Graeme Turnbull writes: "As I was logging out of hotmail (shutup..) this evening, and as the Passport service automatically forwards me to ca.msn.com (knowing I originate from Ca), I noticed the headline 'Microsoft Uses Open-Source Code Despite Denying Use of Such Software.' The story is care of The Wall Street Journal. Due to the somewhat anti-MS tone of the article, I found it strange that this was linked from a MSN site!" Update: 06/18 by J : Several of our readers have pointed out an interesting allegation this morning at The Register: MSNBC doctors anti-MS WSJ story. Update: 06/18 by N : And several people @wsj.com have written to me to say that MSNBC picked up an early version of the story for syndication; this early version also appeared in the majority of the print runs for the WSJ. More details about half way down.

unFKNreal writes "A fellow by the name of Georgi Guninski has discovered a local root compromise in OpenBSD 2.8 & 2.9. He says its due to a race in the kernel, similar to the linux kernel race a few months back." The patch is out as of a few hours ago. Even a BSD newbie like me got his firewall patched and rebooted with no problem, after taking a moment to reread the patching instructions and kernel rebuild FAQ. The bad news: the hole was posted to bugtraq Thursday morning, with exploit code, so the black hats had a jump on you (sadly, note the date Guninski says OpenBSD was informed). If your system has any users you don't fully trust, check it over carefully after you patch! Update 3h later by J : Apparently NetBSD is affected too, and a fix is in-tree.

Joe Wanker writes: "Robert Watson, of FreeBSD-core and TrustedBSD fame, compiled and publicized a FreeBSD status report. The idea is to take advantage of FreeBSD's more centralized "committer" development model, in order to produce an ongoing report that shows the public what's happening with FreeBSD in a singular location. Take a look!"

Attila Nagy writes: "The unofficial (made by the FSN project) OpenBSD 2.9 CDs can be downloaded from ftp.fsn.hu/pub/CDROM-Images/openbsd. The set consists of two images, the first holds the necessary stuff for the installation (only for the i386 architecture, on which the CD is bootable), the second contains the binary packages. Please note that they are NOT the official OpenBSD CD-ROMs. The official bits can be ordered from the OpenBSD orders page. If you can afford the money, please buy the official set to help the OpenBSD project."

Joe Wanker writes "Darren Reed has posted some clarification on the IPFilter license hoopla. Specifically, counter-smacks Theo for the pile of bad press, states that threats don't do anyone any good, says he expects further releases to continue to contain the same licnese, and mentions that he is working with various core teams of important projects to make things work for everyone."

Well, the mirrors have had overnight to update, so I suppose we can announce that OpenBSD 2.9 is available. The release notes and changelog contain details of what has changed and improved. For our newer readers, OpenBSD is a BSD flavor that concentrates on security - they aim to be the most secure server operating system.

sparcv9 writes: "Anders Magnusson had gotten NetBSD/vax to run on a 3-CPU VAX 8350. It's expected that it will soon support some of the faster Multi-CPU VAXen, like the 8800 and the 6000-series. The full writeup can be found here on the NetBSD website." On a per-cubic-inch basis, this may seem a little strange, but it's a good way to fend off the reaper.