SOA: Whittling myriad complex issues into a triptych, David Linthicum points out core problems currently haunting SOA vendors. For one, “many are so bound to their messaging, collateral, and sales pitches that they don’t seem to find the time to listen to the customer before proposing a solution,” he explains in Where the SOA technology vendors are falling down. Another is that, “most vendors are attempting to sell ‘magical technology’ that when bolted onto the existing infrastructure will indeed create an SOA.” But, Linthicum asserts, many best practices need to be considered, and SOA is never just technology-driven. Related: BEA adds Eclipse to ESB, in SOA move. The news beat: Sun Microsystems says it is discontinuing its developer tool suites and, instead, suggesting that users migrate to the NetBeans IDE, a new version of which, NetBeans 6.0, is being released today. As more and more developers are being paid by their employers to wok on open source projects, the question has arisen as to how they — and, in turn, the open source community — can protect their freedom and rights from employer demands and resist corporate influence. And the Commodore 64 celebrates its 25th anniversary, with nostalgic glimpses back in time by Steve Wozniak, former Commodore chairman Jack Tramiel, and IBM’s Bill Lowe. Notes from the field: Cringe sings, and snarls just a little, expressing a common feeling: I’m so bo-o-ored with the RIAA (but what can I do?). “We’re all thieves here, right?” he asks, in reference to yet another file swapping case underway. At issue this time is whether ripping tunes from a CD to MP3s constitutes stolen goods. The RIAA, of course, says yes; some bloggers disagree, citing the RIAA’s own language about unauthorized copies meaning only MP3s residing in your Kazaa shared folder. “It’s really a moot argument. The fact is, if the recording industry could ban ripping MP3s outright — or charge you money for it — they’d do it in a heartbeat,” Cringe explains. Technology Industry