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Mail and security appliance vendor Barracuda Networks announced plans today to defend the open-source ClamAV antivirus program from dubious patent threats made by Trend Micro, a prominent security software company. Trend Micro claims that its US Patent 5,623,600 broadly covers the concept of server-based antivirus software on FTP and SMTP gateways.

Litrix Linux is a distribution developed in Brazil and based on Gentoo Linux. As with Gentoo, users are left to do some of their own configuration, but with good hardware detection and the Litrix Central configuration tool, building your own personalized Linux system is a little easier than you might expect.

Crispin Cowan, the Linux security expert behind StackGard, the Immunix Linux distro and AppArmor, has joined the Windows security team. Howard adds that Crispin will join the team that worked on User Account Control. Given the criticism that UAC has received hopefully Crispin can inject a little more pragmatism into the effort.

This morning Christina Fullam states that it was decided just before Christmas to cancel the 2007.1 release and roll all the effort into Gentoo 2008.0 since there was little possibility of getting a well-tested 2007.1 release out before 2008.

The newest version of the popular RPM package manager is now out with improved performance and functionality. But there's a bit of a catch with RPM version 5.0. Linux vendor Red Hat officially considers RPM 5.0 a project fork.

In a recent article, renowned virtual reality guru Jaron Lanier criticizes the community-driven software development process of the open-source movement, asserting that the model isn't conducive to radical innovation. Lanier believes that the scientific community should shun the open approach and not follow in the footsteps of Linux.

Self-hosting GNU/Linux distributions are one of our major interests here since we will be exploring that field as thoroughly as possible. They provide the entire building system for creating a GNU/Linux based platform on most architectures, tailored to suit particular needs. Among them we have various implementations of the same idea like Gentoo, T2, CLFS. The reason for it has little to do with "optimize your binaries for your cpu" scenario, which for various reasons may not always be the best way to go. Thing is, that within the GNU/Linux distribution world, such projects allow end users to tap into a much bigger control power over their platform.

Three cheers for the developers and management of the K Desktop Environment. They have taken a principled stand on the divisive issue of OOXML, the Microsoft Office Open XML document format. And for this the KDE folk deserve a round of applause.

Microsoft's newfound interest in this space is largely a response to growing demand for inexpensive subnotebook hardware that uses flash-based storage. Manufacturers of such devices are increasingly adopting Linux instead of Windows because Linux is free and easier to adapt for use on systems with limited computing power and storage capacity. Microsoft likely views the rising popularity of Linux-based budget mobile hardware in the developing world as a significant competitive threat.

Linux is an excellent platform for network administration. If you want to monitor your network traffic, you can find many tools -- some accessible from a Web interface, others using a graphical interface -- but nothing beats the speed of the command line. Command-line tools are also useful in shell scripts, where they can help you perform complex tasks. Here's a handful of my favorites for monitoring network traffic.

BASH, short for Bourne Again Shell, is derived from the Bourne Shell. But the developers didn't stop there, they also took the best from the Korn Shell, then added in the best from the C shell. This mixture of the best of the best led to an awesome piece of software. As a finishing touch BASH completion was added in, to make even the laziest (or most forgetful, in my case -- Ed.) among us proficient at CLI.

There's a feeling of inexhaustible energy radiating through the world of open-source VoIP. And the more we learn, the more we discover. We recently had the opportunity to speak with Marc Fribush, president and COO of newly fledged service provider Aretta Communications, and got the lowdown on NetPBX, this organization's vision of phone service for small companies.

Martin Roesch is one of the most successful entrepreneurs ever to build a company based on open source software. Roesch is the author of Snort, which he claims is the "most-widely deployed" intrusion detection software in the world, and the founder of Sourcefire, a network security services provider that uses Snort as the centerpiece of its operations. Last week, the Tech Council of Maryland named Roesch its Commercial IT Executive of the Year.

PDF documents are at present the most popular form of distributing documents throughout the Internet and a presentation tool at the same time. They owe their popularity not only to well defined standard embracing text, pictures and hyperlinks, but foremost to the fact that once created they can be read under nearly every operating system and its underlying platform. Of course, to open a PDF document one has to have an appropriate application.

It wasn't very long ago that open-source developers struggled to make the market believe that open source was secure, ready for prime-time adoption, etc. Now the debate has shifted to demonstrating just how widespread adoption is and and pointing to case studies of how to get the most from open source.

Welcome to part 2 of our Linux Media Player Roundup. Today we'll be covering a few more Linux Media Players and showing you each of them, and what makes them special.

The Linux world has been all atwitter since Acacia Technologies Group filed a lawsuit against Red Hat and Novell alleging that their versions of Linux infringe on three patents. Just how big is the risk to Linux from patent lawsuits? One indication may come from a look at current US patent publications related to or mentioning Linux. Computer programs, though often protected by copyright or trade secrets, cannot be directly patented unless they are used for something tangible, such as signal processing or hardware control. For example, an operating system could be patented as a business method or a method to control computer hardware. Even though Linux is open source, freeware, companies could hold patents that could be infringed by people using Linux in certain applications.

AMD announced today that it has released new Linux drivers for its line of video cards. The new Linux Catalyst 7.10 drivers release includes several updates and new features.

If you lose a Windows password, or you buy a system that has an OS on it, but you don't know the password, what are you to do? The best thing to do would be to throw in a Linux CD, format the drive, and install the Distro. But, what if you want to boot to the system and see what's on there, and get data off?

Companies selecting a VoIP solution must choose from a dizzying array of options, including whether a hosted, hybrid-hosted or premise-based telephony system will work better for them, and whether the benefits of open source outweigh the potential risks. Digium CTO and Asterisk creator Mark Spencer called the proprietary hybrid-hosted model "very evil" during the Internet Telephony Expo West 2007 in Los Angeles, leading to a conversation-starting blog posting by SearchNetworking.com site editor Amy Kucharik.