Last week you submitted questions for Dr. Herb Thompson, author of the latest Microsoft-sponsored Windows vs. Linux study. Here are his answers. Please feel free to ask follow-up questions. Dr. Thompson says he'll respond to as many as he can. He's registered a new Slashdot username, FFE4, specifically to participate in this discussion. All others claiming to be him are imposters. So read, post, ask, and enjoy.

Jim Holmes writes "Marc Holmes's Expert .NET Delivery Using NAnt and CruseControl.NET is an outstanding book for development teams wanting to build a reliable, automated delivery system. The book clearly lays out the case for having a standard delivery process, then dives into specific details of implementing such a process via NAnt and CruiseControl.NET. The book also covers several other tools, both open source/freeware and commercial, including NDoc, FxCop, NUnit, Red Gate's SQL Bundle, and Eric Smith's CodeSmith code generation tool. This book, like Steve Loughran's Java Development with Ant has crucial concepts and patterns which are useful to folks even outside its target .NET audience. This is because the author is so emphatic about the criticality of process and standards, something applicable to anyone developing and delivering software." Read on for the rest of Holmes' review.

captnitro asks: "A particular research project I'm developing right now needs to compare 'potential' (idle/none) and 'load' for various hardware capabilities, and quickly -- maybe up to a several times every minute. For disk space, for RAM, it's relatively easy -- find what's used and what's not and report the ratio. For CPU, I have plenty of time to test 'potential' when the app starts. But for testing CPU load, I need a standard 'ruler' that will be able to compare across varying platforms and processors (e.g., x86, PowerPC, embedded, single and multi-proc) -- so for example, idle percentage won't work. At the same time, I don't have the ability to time 'openssl speed' every 25 seconds without bringing the system to a halt. I'm willing to sacrifice precision of the measurement for generalization of the unit -- that is, the operations that this test is for would be primarily mathematical and not say, text sorts -- but I'd prefer a generic, quick test of the current processor load rather than an average of 25 different tests. Regardless of hardware, the OS distribution is mostly *nix-based -- NetBSD, Linux, and even Mac OS X. Wild ideas are perfectly acceptable -- any thoughts?"

donour (Donour Sizemore) writes "I recently bought a high-performance automobile that has a reputation for its tuning potential. Before making the purchase, I joined several online forums for enthusiasts in order to get a good reading on how happy people are with the particular model. I was amazed at the vibrant communities built around websites such as evolutionm.net and nasioc.com. A wealth of information is available, but the data is surrounded by noise. For every knowledgeable enthusiast, there are many more misinformed or incorrect speculators whose opinions usually spring from personal preference or a need to hear themselves talk. Enter David Vespremi's Car Hacks & Mods for Dummies." Read on for the rest of Sizemore's review.

carl67lp writes "With all the hype surrounding Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code, I decided to travel to the bookstore to purchase the novel. However, while looking at the "New in Paperback" section, I happened across Brown's Digital Fortress and read the back cover quickly. It was exactly what I was looking for: a thriller with science (mathematics and cryptography), technology (a 3-million processor supercomputer), and intrigue. I devoured the nearly-400-page book in less than two days. But I left feeling a bit disappointed when looking back on the overall picture." Read on for Anderson's reasoning.

This is an unusual Slashdot Interview, since instead of using email I asked all the questions in person last week either at LinuxAsia2004 or in casual meetings with local LUG members and other techies I met during the conference. Some of your questions were answered quite well by other Slashdot readers in the original post. (Slashdot has many readers both in and from India.) I also inserted a number of personal observations, which I usually don't do in these interviews, because it seemed to be the best way to answer some of the questions. And some questions were nearly unanswerable, as you'll see when you read the rest of this article.

Okay, here are Hans Reiser's answers to your questions about ReiserFS, starting and managing (and publicizing) a free software project, earning a living writing free software, and the good and bad points of being considered somewhat of a curmudgeon. As a free bonus, Hans adds a little insight into the politics of Linux kernel development, as in what gets accepted and what doesn't. Good stuff!

Here we go... direct questions and direct answers about BitTorrent, the latest big-time P2P file distribution system to hit the Internet. Bram Cohen made BitTorrent and maintains it, and perhaps, one day, just maybe, he'll even make a living from it...

rjnagle writes "When Marc Prensky asked a colleague who had just returned from a training course how it was, she replied, 'AFTRB.' (Another #$#$^&# Three Ring Binder) . In his book, Digital Game-Based Learning , Prensky, an instructional game designer and founder of games2train, argues that computer games are more effective learning tools because they sustain interest and attention in settings where people are normally bored." To follow that train of thought (or if you just liked Ender's Game), read on below for Nagle's lengthy review of the book.

It's time to crank up the Slashdot Interviews for 2003, starting with answers to your questions for Nagios developer Ethan Galstad. He went far beyond and above the call of duty here to give you what amounts to a veritable "Free Software Project Leader's FAQ" that anyone who has ever thought about starting his or her own project ought to read. Thanks, Ethan!

Stirland writes: "This article in today's NYTimes says that AOL's new plan focussed on creating content for broadband could have cable companies over a barrel. It tries to compare programming on cable to 'programming' on the Internet. It's an important article to read because it gives us an idea of what cable companies' potential plans are for the broadband Internet. Given that they're not regulated like DSL, and they're the fastest growing providers of broadband Internet access, this has profound implications for the next generation of the Internet. This article omits the fact that Excite@Home tried this 'programming' approach on broadband. It failed. Another reason this article is important: Contrast AOL's approach described here with Amazon.com and Microsoft's .Net strategy. These are two polar opposite visions of the way the Internet will develop. The media vision vs. computing vision. The interesting story here is that it isn't that one is 'open' and the other 'closed.' They're just open and closed in different places -- places, obviously, that suit the companies' strategies. Why should you care, and what's in it for you? These competing visions are currently duking it out at the FCC under open-access proceedings. So the future of the Internet is hanging in the balance."

The sleaze has gotten out of hand; it's time to roast a group of 20 or so companies whose profits are directly linked to creating fear in their customers, who have to keep discovering new sources of fear to improve their bottom line - or in the absence of new discoveries, keep inventing new sources of fear. Yes, it's time to take on the anti-virus software vendors.

Last week, you posted your questions to SomaFM's General Manger, Rusty, and today he delivers. In this interview: answers about CARP (which was wisely rejected by the Library of Congress, this week), the RIAA, the workings of an internet radio station, and of course, Big URL.

Michael Simmons contributed this review of what he claims is the best of the very few books out there for folks who want to learn Cocoa programming. The field is so small, in fact, that he can give a nutshell review along the way of the only other one he's encountered, O'Reilly's Learning Cocoa. Update: 12/13 15:45 GMT by T : Please note: Simmons is thanked in the acknowledgements of Hillegass' book. He explains: "I went to the Big Nerd Ranch, where the author teaches an amazing Cocoa course. While there, I received a pre-release copy of the book (it's the coursebook, actually.) I had found a bunch of errors and typos, and helped Aaron correct those errors and inconsistencies, so I'm guessing he is thanking me for my contributions to quality." Just to clear that up!

wezelboy asks: "I need independent verification of a data corruption problem with the Tyan Thunder LE mobo during DMA writes to an IDE drive. The problem manifests itself under heavy disk load in large files, does not change file size, and only corrupts 4 byte chunks. Thus, it is not easily spotted. We are running Red Hat 7.1, but this corruption may be reproducible on other operating systems." There's more detail of this problem in the article. Any of you Tyan Thunder motherboard owners care to help track this problem down?

Brett Glass writes: "This weekend, the EFF is staging a public concert in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park to promote its "Open Audio License" (OAL), a music license based loosely on the GPL. But is a license intended for software a good starting point for a license for music? And is the EFF's license a good choice for composers and performers? This critique discusses the intended and unintended effects of the EFF's license, and suggests alternatives that might be more beneficial (and more palatable) to musicians, composers, and performers." Some of Glass' critiques seem a little silly - they're intended goals of the license, not flaws.

Duncan Lawie rides again with this review of the audaciously titled (and written) new book from Paul McAuley, The Secret of Life. It's another entry on the bookshelf of Science Fiction works designed to provoke thought, not merely entertain.

Mengoxon asks: "Many software/hardware companies for enterprise solutions (BAAN, Oracle, PeopleSoft, ...) offer informative websites, but one thing that is always missing is the price. Whether they are afraid to let the competition know (they know anyway) or whether they don't want to shock potential purchaser 'Our suggested retail price is $800.000' or whether they first want to understand your company to do some price descrimination. I don't want to tell all my company details just to find that the price of something is way out of my league anyway and I don't want to be hassled by sales personnel while I am still in 'consideration stage'. Some companies want your general contact information BEFORE they pass out informational materials, like whitepapers! Is there any website out there where IT people can openly exchange and find out price information and evaluations of enterprise solutions before they get caught in the machinery of an enterprise solutions sales department? I know that the price of a solution is dependent on the size of the solution but if a sales person can work out the price from a few facts about the customer, then any sane IT person can probably compare an offer to another company and relate it to his own situation!"

Peer-to-Peer: Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies from O'Reilly, presents p2p as the next great thing on the Internet. Maybe. (Please - jump into this discussion). This book will tell you every technical detail you ever dreamed of knowing about peer-to-peer, but it fails to make the case that this complex, collaborative, subterranean technology will have much impact or appeal beyond the tech elite obsessively engaged in making and touting it. And, of course, keeping free -- some will say stolen -- music alive.(Read more).

Jon's Hellmouth series stands as one of the most important things that have ever appeared on Slashdot. When the dust settled following its original posting, we started talking about ways to get its message to those outside of the Slashdot community. Read on to see what we decided, what happened, and finally the first chapter of the Hellmouth book.