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The LAMP software stack is of a higher quality than most open source software, a study initiated by the US Department of Homeland Security has found. LAMP has 0.29 defects per thousand lines of code, compared to the baseline of 0.434 for 32 open source projects analysed.

Let’s start with a little bit of history. The concept of storing your very important and precious data online is nothing new. There are already several companies which, for a monthly or annual fee, rent you a certain number of MB in order for you to save those essential data that you don’t want to lose if your personal computer begins to malfunction.

Commercial software can be costly in more ways than one. As if hefty license fees weren't bad enough, product support is limited to whatever services the vendor agrees to sell you, at a price that's tough to negotiate. Of course, you could fix program bugs yourself if you had access to the source code—but the typical software maker doesn't provide this.

So how do you break the cycle of vendor dependency? One popular choice is to explore open-source alternatives.

Teotihuacan writes on the UbuntuForum: There is a file that contains all the installation logs :

/var/log/installer/cdebconf/questions.dat In this file, there is all the questions asked to the user abd all the user's answers. So, near the end of the file, we can find the user created during the installation... and its password (not hidden).

Moreover, this file can be read by all users (contrary to the syslog).

Linux and open source pros who have followed the developments of the eXtensible Open Router Platform (XORP) should get to know a bit of Sanskrit - the word Vyatta, in particular.

Linux users who live in Toronto now have a special place to gather, get online, and sip fancy coffee drinks. It's not Starbucks, it's the linuxcaffe.

SCO's losses continue to mount, but the company executives keep a stiff upper lip while hoping that its case against IBM will eventually profit the small Unix company.

AOL is opening up its code base, enabling developers to expand its online service, but is holding back on allowing for any convergence between AIM and rival messaging clients and services.

The internet service provider has launched the Open AIM initiative that provides access to AOL's proprietary protocols through a Software Development Kit (SDK). This allows developers to build plug-ins and customised communication clients running on the AOL network.

Is"The Attention Economy" just another way for advertisers to skewer eyeballs? And why build an economy around Attention, when Intention is where the money comes from?

Dan Bricklin, co-creator of VisiCalc, is at it again. Bricklin is working on wikiCalc, a Web-based spreadsheet application. It's not quite ready for prime time yet, but it does show promise.

In what is believed to be the first open source government contract in Australia of its kind, Novell has signed a deal with the NSW Department of Commerce to become an approved supplier of Open Source software and solutions under the Open Source (Linux) Enterprise Software and Services agreement 2316.

Not everyone learns or uses awk these days, so here's a quick review of what the language can do and some of its features.

Advanced Outlook Extensibility, Enhanced Security and Integration

Open source software capability key to 'technological self-determination'

Red Hat is pleased to announce the availability of Update 3 for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 family of products.

The update includes the following:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 4 for x86, AMD64/EM64T, Itanium, POWER, S/390 and zSeries
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES 4 for x86, AMD64/EM64T, Itanium
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS 4 for x86, AMD64/EM64T, Itanium
• Red Hat Desktop 4 for x86 and AMD64/EM64T

SGI has received SAP certification for its Linux servers of the Altix Series. Thus the first step of the company's new strategy, which its new CEO Dennis McKenna had announced recently, is beginning to emerge: SGI will aim to reach out to new markets from out of its traditional domain of high performance computing.

Benefits: A significant increase in computing power, with large workloads running at 80 to 90 percent capacity with virtually no downtime. The capacity to support new clients and participate in building a national computing grid. Lower power costs, contributing to return on investment within four years.

LinuxQuestions.org reported on Monday that of the 2500 users that voted in a site poll, 19.5 percent voted for Ubuntu as the Linux distribution of the year, narrowly beating Slackware, which received 19 percent of the votes.

This is the latest in a long line of awards that Ubuntu has racked up over the last six months, an impressive achievement considering that the distribution is less than two years old.

KOffice often gets overlooked in favor of rival office suite OpenOffice.org (OOo), which has a wider set of features, corporate backing, and cross-platform compatibility. However, the recent release of the KOffice 1.5 beta makes this a good time to take a closer look at the KDE suite's applications, features, and performance.

Some time ago I read an article about versioning your /home files with Concurrent Versions System (CVS). The article appealed to me because I like the idea of always being able to undo a mistake, compare my current work with a previous version, and keep a backup of my important files. But the thought that I would litter my home directory with a lot of CVS directories was enough to keep me from implementing it. Recently, however, I've thought about applying versioning to administration files.