ceasol writes "The German company Nero, developers of the award-winning Nero Burning ROM suite for Windows, now release a free version for Linux called NeroLINUX a CD/DVD Burning Software, and include many features from the Windows version. This software is proprietary but free if you registered." The OEM versions of Nero that come with many CD burners aren't sufficient, though; NeroLINUX is free-as-in-beer only if you've registered "a full version of Nero software version 6 or higher," or a "retail version or downloaded version."

An anonymous reader writes "Virgin Radio, one of UK's top radio stations, has launched the first 3G radio service for free (as in beer). This is great news for those with a Symbian equipped phone and an unlimited data plan. Various articles suggest that mobile radio could be a major threat to satellite radio. Russell Beattie and friends have had an initial look and commented on the program."

neomage86 asks: "I'm looking for a simple Network Jukebox. I want to be able to stream media from a Windows (it has to be Windows for other school work) server to remote machines over a LAN (only 1-2 clients at a time). I want to be able to choose the song that's playing from the remote machine, video would be nice, but not necessary, and it should be free (as in beer, I'm a student). Any ideas?"

Saravana Kannan asks: "I have been coding in C for a while (10 yrs or so) and tend to use short code snippets. As a simple example, take 'if (!ptr)' instead of 'if (ptr==NULL)'. The reason someone might use the former code snippet is because they believe it would result in smaller machine code if the compiler does not do optimizations or is not smart enough to optimize the particular code snippet. IMHO the latter code snippet is clearer than the former, and I would use it in my code if I know for sure that the compiler will optimize it and produce machine code equivalent to the former code snippet. The previous example was easy. What about code that is more complex? Now that compilers have matured over years and have had many improvements, I ask the Slashdot crowd, what they believe the compiler can be trusted to optimize and what must be hand optimized?"

An anonymous reader writes "QEMU is a generic and open source processor emulator which achieves a good emulation speed by using dynamic translation. Its sporting a new module called the 'Accelerator' which can achieve near native speeds, and currently runs on Linux 2.4.x and 2.6.x kernels. This means you could theoretically run Windows (or another OS) on a Linux machine at near native speeds without buying a commercial emulator. The catch is that although QEMU is released under various open source licenses, the Accelerator uses a free (as in beer) license because the module is a 'closed source proprietary product.' Fabrice Bellard does mention that he would consider open sourcing the Accelerator under certain conditions."

An anonymous reader writes "Looks like those ex-Corel Linux folks over at Xandros have finally got around to making Version 3 of their free (as in beer) distro available for download. All updated stuff under the hood, including a sync with the latest Debian Sarge. Free downloads through Xandros Networks and a good selection of default applications makes this a very desirable alternative to Linspire. It's no-cost to download using BitTorrent, but if you want the instant gratification route of http download, you can pay for that."

gnuguru writes "Here's a great use for some of your old hardware, a BSD beer brewing kit! Components: one 486, FreeBSD, a temperature logger kit, a relay board, some odds and ends from the useful box, and some time. Summer's just around the corner, so get to work gang!" You'll have to use this recipe, naturally.

Newly released TextWrangler 2.0 is now free (as in beer). TextWrangler is a stripped-down version of the popular BBEdit text editor. TextWrangler has switched identities since 1.0, from being a text editor with an indeterminant purpose to a subset of BBEdit, a BBEdit Lite on steroids. It handles syntax coloring, scripting tools (perl, python, shell), and some Xcode integration. It does not include some of BBEdit's more advanced features like source control, CodeWarrior integration, glossaries, and creating text factories (though it can run existing saved factories). BBEdit remains $200, and TextWrangler still qualifies for BBEdit's $130 cross-upgrade price. Previous purchasers of TextWrangler qualify for a store credit (they will be notified via e-mail).

J. Misael G. points out a NewsForge article on recent moves by some database vendors to loudly release (some of) their products as open source, asking the vital question "How much open source beer are these newcomers bringing to the database bash, or are they simply coming in and asking where the cups are?" (Slashdot and NewsForge are both part of OSTG.)

jmichaelg writes "Older beer drinkers may remember the Olympia Beer ads that trilled "tis the waters..." The NY Times (reg required) has an article that describes how the geology surrounding a brewery affected the local water chemistry and determined the kind of beer a brewery could produce. Pilsners came from regions with naturally acidic waters while Guiness Stout comes from alkaline waters which percolated through pre-Permian limestone. Read the article and learn how German Brewmeisters hacked their way around the laws which banned chemically augmenting their product."

putko writes "Here's an update on the OpenBSD firmware activism. Basically, Intel says no. Plenty of contact info, in case you want to write someone an email or a phone call. As Theo writes, 'Without these firmware files included in OpenBSD, users must go do some click-through license at some web site to get at the files. Without those files, these devices are just bits of metal, plastic, and sand.'" While I applaud the notion behind Freer distribution (as in beer) it's also highly probable that Intel doesn't have much ground make them freer - we've seen this before on machines like the HP nw8000; basically, the wireless stuff is owned by someone else, licensed by Intel. That's not to say that the fight isn't worth fighting for freer distribution - it is. But if you want to make your voice heard, remember to be effective advocate.

Last week we called for questions for Roger Nygard, the director of Trekkies, and its recently released sequel. He replies today with answers to many of your questions in a riveting interview set to stun. Or some other appropriate trek joke. Read on for the glorious answers (which might include some offensive language in the form of lyrics from a Star Trek themed band)

Sivar writes "Ace's Hardware and news.com.com.com report Solaris that 10 has been released. Improvements include a performance-enhanced TCP-IP stack to shed the "Slowaris" moniker and their much-vaunted ZFS (Z File System). Solaris will initially be "free" (as in beer with an annual subscription fee for bug fixes and support), and will reportedly be released under an open-source license later." As well, KingSkippus writes "MSNBC reports, "After investing roughly $500 million and spending years of development time on its next-generation operating system, Sun Microsystems Inc. on Monday will announce an aggressive price for the software -- free. Sun also has promised make the underlying code of Solaris available under an open-source license, though the details have not been released." An article at Computerworld also has the story from Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's president and chief operating officer."

thatshortkid writes "A brewmaster in Germany has invented a cylinder that fuses yeast to the sides, allowing the yeast to do its fermentation job faster. A process that normally takes 10 days now takes a few hours. Also, yeast that normally has to be changed out after three brews can now last up to six months to a year."

Cylar writes "CNN is reporting that Anheuser-Bush has developed a sweet, caffeinated beer they are dubbing B(E). Intended to compete with the trendy sweet concotions popular on the club scenes (such as Smirnoff Ice), it will contain caffeine, guarana, and ginseng." Not sure how I feel about ginseng in my brew, so I'll have to study this with a few cases.

kwiens writes "We had such a positive response from Slashdot with our Free-As-In-Beer Mac disassembly instructions last time around, we decided to do it again: We've made six more FixIt Guides, perfect for those intrepid road-warriors who refuse to trust anyone else to work on their 'Book. Now there's nothing stopping you from trying that LNO2 overclock on your PowerBook-- or just a hard drive upgrade. The new Guides have professional photos, a new GUI design, and screw guides (no, not this). Guides are now available for all iBook G3, PowerBook G3, and PowerBook G4 models (including the oft-requested 12, 15, and 17 Aluminum 'Books)."

Matt Clare writes "Researchers at the University of Western Ontario (Canada) recently found that beer has the same positive qualities that wine has previously been found to have. The media release quotes professor John Trevithick, 'We were very surprised one drink of beer or stout contributed an equal amount of antioxidant benefit as wine, especially since red wine contains about 20 times the amount of polyphenols as beer.' For more info on how beer helps police harmful free radicals in blood, The London Free Press also has an article."

Antigua Nice asks: "I have recently been promoted to manager of a young IT department and would like to introduce a tradition and/or mascot for the upcoming season. Although we are busy 24/7/365 we are especially busy during the NFL season since we are a sports related company. The goal of this is to add some excitement to the new team, unite the members and keep department moral high. It might also be worth mentioning that I have recently added two more administrators to the team. If you currently have any department traditions or know of any, could you please take a moment to share them with me. They could be anything from going out for beer and wings after the first game to each member bleaching their hair. Any and all input is welcome."

Tassach writes "Sybase announced today that they are releasing a free (as in beer) version of their flagship database for Linux. The free version is limited to 1 CPU, 2GB of RAM, and 5GB of data, which is more than adequate for all but the most demanding applications. This release provides a very attractive alternative to Microsoft SQL Server, and gives developers and DBAs an extremely powerful argument to use against the adoption of Microsoft-based solutions. For those who are unfamiliar with the product, Microsoft's version of Transact-SQL is nearly identical to Sybases's. This high degree of similarity makes porting applications between the two platforms very easy. Sybase is supported by numerous open-source projects, including sqsh (SQL shell), FreeTDS, and SybPerl."

frambooz asks: "As the GNU public license (amongst others) describes, you can make software that is free (as in freedom), but you don't have to make it *free* (as in free beer). I'm wondering if industry officials are aware of this fact, however. Do you know of any software packages that are Open Source, but still require you to purchase them? Did you ever work on such a project as a programmer yourself? If so, how did the development differ from a free(dom)/free(beer) Open Source application?"