WrinkledShirt writes: "There's a whole lot of posturing going on in the world on Internet programming right now, and with all of Microsoft's slick marketing for .NET there's never been a better time to remind the industry which platform got it right first. Enter XML and Java, Developing Web Applications (2nd Ed.) , a book that promises to show just how much of a heavy-hitter Java still is in the enterprise world. Because of the variety of technologies available for Java, Addison Wesley took the approach of bringing in a bunch of experts in the field to cover the different ways that Java and XML can work together. Considering the effort that went into coordinating this collaborative work, it couldn't possibly miss, right?" Read on to see how true that is, in Wrinkled's estimation.

Anonymous with good reason, a reader would like to bring this important question to your collective attention: "Our (technically savvy) lawyer has advised my company that 'incidental resources' do not a work derive. For example: If I have a student's version of a development environment whose license does not allow me to distribute code compiled with it for commercial use, I am legally allowed to use the environment to create my ANSI C++ code, which, when I compile it with GCC, I am free to use to whatever commercial end I like. This seems fairly intuitive. (After all, you could have written the same thing in a text editor, and the debugging, etc, that you need the IDE for doesn't actually 'show up' in the final code). Here's the kicker: My company wants to translate this to an abuse of the GPL and has been advised 'full speed ahead!'"

A few weeks ago, you asked Kent M. Pitman about Lisp, Scheme, standards, and other things -- He's answered your questions below, at length. At such length, in fact, that only the first eleven of his answers are shown below -- expect more shortly! Thanks, Kent.

Last week you asked Bradley Kuhn, VP of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) questions about working with RMS, his views on software freedom, and much more. He's answered at length below, on everything from becoming a saint to the "web app loophole," perl, and the next iteration of the GPL.

Doug Miller (no relation) is an amazingly affable and unflappable man. This interview came about because I asked Doug face-to-face if he'd do it when we met after a panel discussion he was part of in Washington DC a few weeks ago. He said "sure" without even a second's hesitation, let alone checking with PR people. His answers to the 10 selected questions we sent him are 100% straight-up. You may not like everything he says (devout Free Software people probably won't like any of it), but Doug Miller deserves your respect (and courtesy) for telling it like it is -- at least from Microsoft's point of view -- without a hint of weaseling.

From somehere just off the beaten path of SciFi, programming and encryption reviews, Kevin Whilden of Your Planet Earth submitted this review of Natural Capitalism, a book aimed at reconciling nature lovers with free market enthusiasts. The book's basic ideas may be old hat to many libertarians and other free-marketeers, but are phrased in way that seems aimed at a fairly conventional lay audience. How do you feel about the connections he draws between open source software and the eco-economy? What is the best economic atmosphere for a healthy environment, and is it also the best one for free software? How realistic is the Rocky Mountain Institute's analysis?

Matthew Devost submitted a book review of Peter M. Black's Informatica 1.0. The book is an interesting one, and is sort of a collection of some of the coolest people, projects and resources around.

Last week, Microsoft and antritrust. This week, thoughts on KDE's future from some of the people who work directly on it, specifically Kurt Granroth and Richard Moore. Instead of posting their e-mail addresses here and swamping them with messages, please see http://developer.kde.org, which will tell you not only how you can contact these gentlemen, but much more about KDE development.

Engineers, programmers and futurists believe that programmable robots that provide sexual companionship are likely to be commonplace in the 21st century, at more or less the same time as computers become able to process information as quickly as the human brain. The implications of tactile sexbots, likely to contain vibrators, sound systems and other equipment, are as significant as they are unexamined. If you thought the fight over the CDA was bad, wait till Rev. Falwell and his many pious friends in Congress discover Sexbots. For better or worse, computing might be breaking down another big wall.

Doc Technical, one of our highly trained book reviewers, has submitted for us Marjorie Flack, Kurt Wiese's book The Story about Ping. A rare technical manual, this is one of the few computer books in the field in which the illustrator is as important as the author. To truly understand the glories of Ping, click below to read more. Yes, we know it's on Amazon. They stole it from us. Or Doc provided it to them.

Remember Hal in Stanley Kubrick's "2001"? He was a wuss compared to the deep thinking digital machines Ray Kurzweil suggests are heading our way over the next century. Forget the debate over human versus artificial intelligence. "The Age of Spiritual Machines" suggests that we and our computers are about to become one, evolving together in a whole new bio-digital species. By 2020, computers will be as smart as we are. By 2099, there will no longer be any clear distinction between humans and computers. Is this techno-hype or prescient futurism?

David Weekly wrote in with a somewhat lengthier more detailed hands on review of the recently released Diamond Rio. Check it out if you're interested in a bit more practical information on the little device.