Eric Davis sent us a link to some pictures at Apple showing the floors where iMac's are being built. No matter what you think about that iMac, it sure does look cool to see gigantic stacks of non intel computers getting ready for sale.

Matt Sherer sent us a link to A Wired Article where you can read their take on the whole Open Source Apple OS thing that has been fluttering around for some time now. Mainly its based on the modest proposal piece that Don Yacktman sent us on Saturday.

Don Yacktman writes "I've just made a proposal to Apple that they free up the source code to the Mach kernel and DriverKit which sit underneath Mac OS X. The proposal has been sent to several executives and managers at Apple. I don't know how they will respond, but I think that any other people interested in this topic should definitely take the time to let Apple know what they think about it! The full proposal can be seen here" And with Steve at the helm, I'm sure this proposal will go a long ways.

James Ratliff wrote in to tell us that the iMac's are now available. He sent a link to CDW where you can read the exact specs and cost. Considering that MKLinux DR3 announcement below, and the stunning speed of those G3s, all I can say is I want one bad. It would be interesting to compare Netwinders and iMac's as thin linux clients. Or I guess you could leave MacOS on it...

XosE wrote in to send us a link to the MkLinux Status File in which they announce that DR3 of MkLinux is up. CDs shall ship RSN. Existing users only need to download "new stuff" (25 megs worth). Sounds like a lot unless you realize the whole thing doesn't even fit on a single CD.

Tsk writes "A BeOS advocates has set up a page to send apple a petition for them to publicly release the specs of their Powerful G3 computers and of HFS+ their new file system. " With Steve at the helm over at apple, all I can say is Not Likely. But it would be cool.

Phyx send us this link which confirms some of the MS-Apple problems. While they aren't quite to suing each other again, it seems that the relationship has its share of problems particularly with multimedia issues.

work-deprived writes "Apparently, Steve Jobs has announced that Rhapsody will be available in the fall as a server under the name of Mac OS X Server. It will only be shipped for G3 processors, but promises better memory management, more reliable protected mode, and better performance [sic]. It will also include 100% native PowerPC code. I wonder if that will be a factor in its war with Wintel. Full story ". It makes me wonder if it will cost more, and if Apple is playing the "NT angle", letting servers get the "best", while consumers are stuck with what's left...

Apple, the company that couldn't, or more to the point, didn't, has posted a profit for the 3rd straight quarter. This is a good thing. With the Macworld Expo coming up, a slew of info on the profits and what's going on over there is available.

Al Guerra wrote in to tell us that he has announced a preliminary version of Apokalypse, a Linux distribution for PowerPC-based Macintoshes. You can see it here or read the press release.

Clayton Wheeler writes "According to This MacWeek article, Apple is declaring Rhapsody 1.0 a dead end. Because of the Mac community's lack of interest in porting everything to Yellow Box, Apple is instead emphasizing MacOS X and the Carbon APIs. Yellow Box is relegated to being a long-term idea and "part of [Apple's] larger Java strategy." Development of Yellow Box for Windows will continue, but no Intel ports of MacOS or Carbon are planned. "

Jim Hall writes " InfoWorld Magazine reports in their 06/01/1998 edition that UMAX computer has ceased production of its Macintosh clones. UMAX was the last remaining licensee of the MacOS after Apple stopped allowing clones. This is too bad. I think clones were the way for Macs to become accessible to others. Competition among Mac vendors might have made the Mac cheaper to upgrade and to own. Oh well. "

A bit old, but the Taiwanese computer maker Umax has officially declared that it will be quitting the Macintosh clone market, after losing somewhere in the range of 1.1$TW billion (~40$US million). This announcement of the losses came 22/5, and the depature from the market has already come. It's too bad that in some ways Apple waited so long to do clones that it didn't make any real difference.

Greg Bodnar writes "Looks like a new Open Source project for Mac Hardware is floating around at InfiniteOS" It's pretty darn skeletal right now but I suspect that it'll grow quite a bit over the next few months.

Topher writes "You may have seen this before, it's certainly not new, but there's a site that tells how to make an aquarium out of an old Mac, including exactly where to drill and bolt and glue, and everything." check it out here. I wish I had an extra 20-30 hours a week so I could try to do this sort of stuff more often.

Chris Howard writes "This site says they have a POSIX layer on top of the MacOS. I'll download it tonight and give it a try. Sounds interesting. "

Graeme McLaughlin sent us a link to an interesting where Gil Amelio Speaks about Apple, and how Jobs is taking all the credit for Amelio's work. Sounds reasonable, but I'm still skeptical.

Paul Vallée writes "this linkhas a series of five full-screen shots authorized by Apple of Rhapsody DR2. They are fantastic, and blew me away. The screen-shots are also discussed. Cheers, Paul " Interesting meshing of the MacOS and NeXT stuff. They look pretty sharp...

Apple announced today at its Worldwide Developer Conference that MacOS and Rhapsody will merge. In 1999, Apple will release MacOS X, or MacOS 10. MacOS X will be able to preemptivley multitask and supports protected memory. In the interim, MacOS 8.5 (aka "Allegro") will ship.

Brian Kimball writes " link The rumor is that the mac look-and-feel is being ported to Linux. Supposedly this will be announced at the upcoming Apple developers conference. Steve Job says it's bogus; I'll wait and see. " Without the Macintosh's standard everything the Mac GUI would blow on Linux. But the article does claim that Apple does have some sort of Linux related announcement coming...