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Adobe Systems is learning the challenges and complexities of taking its software open source. Just a year and a half after Adobe released its Flex Software Development Kit (SDK) under the Mozilla Public License (MPL) to encourage developer buy in, it's the company - not the community - that continues to shoulder the burden of building and fixing Flex.

LinuxPlanet Classics: Today we'll learn how to pinpoint connectivity problems and how to map your network and all running services. This is handy not only for keeping tabs on everyday activities, but also to catch users running illicit hosts and services.

"Being a GNU/Linux user is a peculiar thing in that you stand a great chance of being pulled into such hard to define brackets such as "Linux community", "Free Software community" or "Open Source community". Words such as "community", "sharing" and "cooperation" are tossed around so much that it really shouldn't be so surprising that some have went so far as to compare the FOSS (Free Open Source Software) phenomenon with some sort of a communist or socialist ideology."

If I ask "How much do you know about Google?" You may not take even a second to respond. But if I may ask "How much does Google know about you"? You may instantly reply "Wait... what!? Do they!?" The book "Googling Security: How Much Does Google Know About You" by Greg Conti (Computer Science Professor at West Point) is the first book to reveal how Google's vast information stockpiles could be used against you or your business - and what you can do to protect yourself.

Managed service providers are opening their arms to Zenoss, Untangle, Groundwork Open Source and a range of other administration tools. Here's why, reports MSPmentor.

Last year when publishing our AMD Year in Review article there were numerous new features to account for, including but not limited to the new OpenGL driver, support for Compiz, and the AMD Catalyst Control Center Linux Edition. This year has been another interesting year for AMD's Linux efforts on both the open and closed fronts. We are focusing on their Catalyst driver efforts in this article, which has picked up support for CrossFire, is now capable of being overclocked with OverDrive, and AMD is now delivering same-day Linux product support. In this article we will recap some of the highlights from the Catalyst driver releases this year as well as set out on a benchmarking extravaganza.

Properly speaking, Nadav Rotem's Open Text Summarizer (OTS) is not a summarizer at all. True summaries generally involve rewording contents at a higher level of generality while preserving the meaning, not just producing a condensed version of the original the way that OTS does. However, within its limits, OTS is an efficient tool for automatically producing abstracts of non-fiction, that, in the last 15 months, has received favorable mention from at least four academic publications, including one in which it outperformed similar utilities, including commercial ones such as Copernic and Subject Search Summarizer.

Presentation software isn't complicated compared to a word processor or spreadsheet. It doesn't need to be. Maybe that's why OpenOffice.org's Impress offers a variety of views of your work.

Scott Ritchie, an Ubuntu MOTU, has proposed that WINE be moved into Ubuntu's Main repository thereby making it shipping with Ubuntu by default in some form. This proposal is coming after he and several Ubuntu developers had discussed this idea last week at the Ubuntu Developer Summit. What he is proposing is that by default on new installations of Ubuntu, when clicking on an Windows executable file to come up with some prompt informing them of the possible actions, and then to setup WINE by default.

Based on Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, Linux 2.6.27, Gnome 2.24 and Xorg 7.4, Linux Mint 6 "Felicia" comes with a brand new "Software Manager", FTP support in mintUpload, proxy support and history of updates in mintUpdate, mint4win (a Linux Mint installer for Microsoft Windows), tabbed browsing in Nautilus and a lot of other improvements.

The release of OpenOffice.org 3.0 delivers a lot of improvements: more user-friendliness, full tables support in Impress, a better cropping tool in Draw, vastly improved Notes in Writer, Calc gets more muscle, and more, as Eric Geier reports.

Although Google's Chrome browser and its Chromium open source twin were launched as open source projects, no one outside Google has had the ability to modify the source code repository, without it going through a Google employee. That changed on Friday when Pawe? Hajdan Jr. joined the committers of Chromium, the first non-Google person to be granted the privilege.

There is currently a very bad security problem in Internet Explorer that is actively being exploited by the bad guys and that threatens to make the Internet even more infested with compromised machines that the bad guys can then use for their nefarious purposes. With that in mind, I thought that this may be a good opportunity to help our friends and family members that are Internet Explorer users try out some of the alternatives.

All good things must come to an end. It is with great sadness that the editors and I have decided, at least for the time being, to cease my monthly columns for Linux Magazine, due to my extremely busy schedule and other commitments. I have enjoyed and been enriched by my relationship and friendship with Adam Goodman, who as Publisher gave me a wide berth to write about whatever I wanted and to “Loom Large” at trade shows and intimidate vendors — as long as I handed in my articles on time and didn’t give the editors who had the pleasure of reading through my ramblings too much grief and work at cleaning it up.

Like Firefox, the open source media player Songbird is a pretty neat alternative to a big-name competitor on its own, but the ability to extend it through add-ons is what really makes it boss. We considered the release candidate of the potential "iTunes killer"—Songbird a sloppy mess, then backed up a bit when it's 1.0 release was official. Now we're geeked to show you a few add-ons that make Songbird a great place to organize your MP3s, iTunes purchases, iPods, and whatever else you listen to.

Those with doctorates in artificial intelligence are never the best stewards of houseplants. Programmer Bryan Horling says he's killed whole swaths of greenery inside and outside his rural western Massachusetts home. But at least one plant will survive, thanks to a computer-controlled plant watering system -- a simple network of plastic tubing and an aquarium pump to keep the Wandering Jew plant in his living room alive.

Users of all current versions of Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser might be vulnerable to having their computers hijacked because of a serious security hole in the software that had yet to be fixed Monday. The flaw lets criminals commandeer victims' machines merely by tricking them into visiting Web sites tainted with malicious programming code. As many as 10,000 sites have been compromised since last week to exploit the browser flaw, according to antivirus software maker Trend Micro Inc.

openSUSE 11.1, the next major version of the company's community-driven Linux distribution, is scheduled for release on December 18. The new version will include updated software and some important new features that enhance the quality of the distribution. OpenSUSE 11.1 installation media is available in several different formats. There are installable Live CD images for both GNOME and KDE. Each one provides a complete stack with the major components of its respective desktop environment. There is also a conventional DVD installer image that includes packages for both desktop environments and a significant number of other popular programs.

You don't need to debug Java applications on just your local desktop. Learn how to spread around your debugging using different connection types that make up remote debugging. This article explains the features and examples that show how to set up remote application debugging.

The nonprofit LinuxFund.org is providing financial support for Gnash, the Flash alternative, to accelerate development of the Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP).