ZDNet UK has a nice size interview with open source advocate Eric Raymond of the Open Source Initiative. “Linux and the open-source movement have come a long way since the foundation of the Open Source Initiative in the late 1990s, Raymond says. It now has the credibility it needs to succeed in the business world”
Robin Miller of NewsForge looks at Sun's upcoming release of StarOffice 6 and its open source sibling, OpenOffice. “I have OpenOffice build 641C (now known as version 1.0) and a pre-release copy of StarOffice 6.0 running side by side, and I have been looking at the differences between them. OpenOffice is free in both senses of the word, while StarOffice is not. I am generally happy with OpenOffice, but I can also see why some people — and many corporate users — would be willing to pay up to $100 for StarOffice.”
NewsForge has an interesting piece on the U.S. Census Bureau's usage of open source for many of its web-based data mining services. “If you're checking out demographic information at the U.S. Census Bureau's Web site, there's a chance the information is courtesy of several Open Source tools. Two senior technology architects with the Census Bureau's Internet division said the low cost of Open Source software, plus strong support from the developer and user communities make Open Source the right choice for several Web-based projects at Census.gov.”
With increasingly important communications taking place using e-mail, the ability to verify the authenticity, and also
protect the contents, of such correspondence has become something that everyone should know. However, the tools created
to provide PGP security are generally cryptic and difficult to work with.
Linux distributor and services company MandrakeSoft SA unveiled the final release of Mandrake Linux 8.2 today. The release, code named “bluebird,” promises to bring Linux on to the business desktop with its well-polished user interface and robust administration tools.
PCMag.com has an article from well known journalist John C. Dvorak that looks at why Linux may be in position to become a major desktop player. “Over the decades of desktop computing, we've witnessed one transition after another. We changed from 5.25-inch floppy disks to 3.5-inch floppy disks to no floppy disks. We moved from the CP/M machine to the IBM machine to the PC clone and from the dot matrix printer to laser and ink jet printers. We changed from the command line OS to the GUI.”
LinuxandMain.com has helpful details about a potentially dangerous vulnerability that was discovered today. “SuSE and Debian, among other distributions, have issued two security advisories relating to a potentially very sertious security exploit in the zlib compression libraries which are included as both a standalone package in base distributions and in a number of packages that are installed by most users of any Linux distribution distributions.”
KDE Dot News is reporting the launch of Docs.kde.org, an site that will house online documentation for both the current stable and development releases of KDE. “Daniel Naber has been busy adding to the KDE.org family. Docs.kde.org is a new KDE documentation site which features KDE user documentation for both the 2.2.2 and HEAD (updated daily) branches”
LinuxJournal is carrying an introduction to the KDevelop development environment. “The aim of this article is to enable you to create an application with the KDevelop Integrated Development Environment (IDE) on a Linux/UNIX system running KDE 2. We explain this process by creating a sample application that gives some insight into the development framework and how it works. This might require getting your development environment set up correctly, so that you can work efficiently when getting started with your very own application or extension for the KDE 2 Desktop.”
KDE Dot News has an interesting bit on Linux in educational environments, and specifically St. Mary's Catholic School's switch to Linux and KDE. “St. Mary's Catholic School in Rockledge, Florida has demonstrated the obvious: that KDE/GNU/Linux (KGL) is great for kids and schools. Working with volunteers from the Melbourne Linux Users Group (that's Melbourne, Florida), I.D.E.A.L. Technology and IXC Telecom, the school deployed the K12 Linux Terminal Server Project, a thin client enterprise solution.”