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Following the release of four alpha and nine beta versions, the OpenSUSE Linux project on April 13 unveiled the first release candidate of version its 10.1 distribution. OpenSUSE v10.1 RC1 is made up of five CD iso images for i386 and x86-64 architectures.

The Pacific Telehealth and Technology Hui released today an upgraded, open-source version of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ VistA health care information system software. Its new features include a streamlined installation process and updated patient registration, scheduling, pharmacy and laboratory modules.

This week, Debian, Gentoo, Mandriva, Red Hat, SUSE, and Ubuntu released updates to address security problems with the following packages: ClamAV, Xpdf, OpenVPN, libphp-adodb, Moodle, MPlayer, sash, Cacti, CMFPlone, Xscreensaver, and several others. Neither FreeBSD nor Fedora released security updates.

Paradox: as software increasingly becomes available for free, developers keep trying to foist more of it on us--along with lots of extras (call it, oh, say, spam) we don't need. In the days when we paid real dollars for software, all we got in the box was what we paid for. Now that the stuff is increasingly backed by advertising and by co-marketing deals (but not by technical support), we hapless users have to spend our time fending off vendors' constant offers to become our new best friends.

This guy should try FOSS. We don't do that to our users. - dpcarris

I enjoy x-windows as much as the next person, but I've found that text-based applications are the best way to work with information that is essentially text-based. Most direct communication, including E-Mail, Instant Messaging(IM) and Internet Relay Chat(IRC), fall into this category. I will touch upon these three communication methods in this article, and provide the text-based solution that I use.

But first, I will introduce screen.

From the introduction on the site:

"Screen is a full-screen window manager that multiplexes a physical terminal between several processes, typically interactive shells ... Programs continue to run when their window is currently not visible and even when the whole screen session is detached from the users terminal."

The Internet has no geography. It is like electricity. It will seek the path of least resistance. Efforts to control it are self-defeating. And that is why sales tax enforcement of online purchases is a really bad idea...

Firefox 1.0.8 is the last release in the Firefox 1.0.x product line. Mozilla Corporation recommends that all users upgrade to the Firefox 1.5.0.x product line. The Release Roadmap contains more information on product life cycles.

An all-out campaign against DRM (digital rights mismanagement) is to be launched by the Free Software Foundation later this year, says executive director Peter Brown. "We haven't got the campaign organised yet, but we're going to be employing a professional campaigner," he told ZDNet UK.

Sun Microsystems may have already found its first customer, in a Korean IPTV system, for its DReaM (DRM Everywhere Available) open source DRM, a system that is not meant to be completed for at least another 12 months.

Last week's LinuxWorld Conference in Boston was the locus of several important announcements. Again, virtualization was front and center.

Part one: using CSS to make your XML documents look pretty

Euronext.liffe is switching its technology to the Linux operating system and the Intel-based processor citing the need to keep up with the growth of algorithmic trading. The move signals "a fairly substantial shift in the electronic exchange's IT strategy," says Jim Johanek, SVP U.S. Technology Strategy for Euronext.liffe. The futures exchange—which is the derivatives arm of Euronext Group—initiated the process in 2004 right around the time when algorithmic trading in the futures industry began to take off, says Johanek.

Bruce Lowry responds to a CNet article about the slow progress Novell seems to be making in its Windows to Linux migration.

I started experimenting with Linux for fun, first with Slackware, but in the last few years more with Debian and its derivative distributions. Lately I've been using Linux increasingly in my job. As I've gotten more experienced with Linux, I've started teaching Linux courses to colleagues. Connectivity and fast package and file management are important components in my administration toolbox.

One document on how GPLv3 tackles DRM, and one on how it tackles patent dangers. These topics have drawn the most public interest, so it seemed worthwhile to isolate the relevant information combining the draft, and the public comments of RMS and Eben Moglen.

Peter Brown, the executive director of the Free Software Foundation, hopes to 'get the message of free software outside the hacker world'

FreeHand Systems used embedded Linux to build an electronic music reader designed to replace paper-based sheet music in practice, lesson, and performance settings. The MusicPad Pro Plus supports annotations, turns pages with screen-taps or an optional footpedal, and can store "thousands" of music charts,

If you are one of those people that needs wireless networks to work painlessly...If you need to have some or great control over your network, being one hotspot or several, and if above all you are one of those who needs to have in house control..then... you will embrace this new project.

What happens when anyone can produce as easily as he or she consumes?

Zfone is PGP creator Phil Zimmermann's latest brainchild, a small desktop application that encrypts VoIP softphone conversations using strong encryption and peer-to-peer communication. Zimmermann released the first public beta last month. While I'm intrigued by the concept, getting the application to work is another story.

Unfortunately, this is not a FOSS package, even though it uses one or two itself. - dcparris