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Ubuntu debuts Breezy Badger, while Mandriva offers three versions with support for wireless networking, other features.

After nearly 25 years as a proprietary software company, Xara is throwing itself headfirst into the open source community with two announcements that could have a significant impact on the vector graphics software landscape.

When IBM bought JBoss's application server rival Gluecode earlier this year, JBoss's chief executive, Marc Fleury, was characteristically unphased. he took time out to ensure there was no hasty response to IBM's predatory move.

Now he's back with plans to take JBoss further away from its original incarnation as an "open source application server company" and deeper into Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) as a provider of business process tools and infrastructure.

The performance-based test is the first to focus on enterprise Linux server security, the software company said. (The Channel Insider)

Much has been made of predictions about the "year of the Linux desktop," but what is the Linux desktop, why should we use it, and why should you care? Jono Bacon takes a look at development of the Linux desktop, from its roots to its apps to its future prospects. Jono is the author of Linux Desktop Hacks.

Kubuntu has released Kubuntu 5.10, including the newly released KDE 3.4.3. Significant additions in this release include Adept package manager and Guidance configuration tools.

In a recent article about VoIP softphones, I touched on the problem of proprietary, patent-encumbered codecs. To recap, the point was that a triumph of open protocols, like Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Inter-Asterisk EXchange (IAX), is hollow if the marketplace standardizes on closed, proprietary codecs for delivering the voice data itself. But how do you find the good free codecs? Here are some options.

CD/DVD ISO images are not ready yet. In order to install, users need to download the floppy or the CD image from the install directory and proceed with a network install. Following that, it's possible to install more than 12,000 application packages online, the French-based company said.

Securtex International has used embedded Linux to build a rugged DVR (digital video recorder) targeting vehicle surveillance and operator management applications. The MDVR-4120 is optionally available with GPS, WiFi, and cellular networking, and besides surveilling passengers, can be used to "condition" drivers into safer habits,

This week, advisories were released for mason, cpio, dia, masqmail, shorewall, tcpdump, openvpn, up-imapproxy, ethereal, weex, py2play, graphviz, xloadimage, xli, xine-lib, hylafax, Ruby, SVG, hexlix player, uw-imap, openssl, thunderbird, binutils, and libuser. The distributors include Debian, Gentoo, and Red Hat.

Linspire Inc. appears to be making an effort to become the "Education Linux" distribution of choice. The desktop Linux software maker Thursday launched a new, low-cost licensing program for schools that wish to install a Linux desktop as an alternative to the more costly Microsoft Windows

The Edubuntu team is proud to announce the first Edubuntu release Edubuntu 5.10.

We will try to get a GPRS internet connection using Linux-based phones as modems and route the connection to Mac OS X via Bluetooth. This guide is for Mac OS X, the US Cingular GPRS service only (other providers might work out of the box with the phone, others might not at all -- you never know with GPRS) and any of the Linux-based Motorola smartphones like the A760, A780, E680/i etc (they are all identical regarding their 'modem' functionality).

The latest version of the open source business intelligence (BI) software project OpenI (version 1.1) has been made available for download. Being open source in nature, OpenI allows end users to analyse their data without the need to write their own code or buy proprietary software.

Have you ever had one of those days where you make a mistake, and every attempt to fix your mistake just leads to worse problems? Eventually you've managed to turn a minor glitch into a major disaster.

The whole sky-is-falling motif isn't confined to just cable news outlets, it seems. In the world of technology journalism, arm waving and teeth gnashing are becoming de rigueur as well.

Take this week's example: As Roundup was off to the virtual presses last Friday, Oracle was announcing that it had purchased a small Finnish software company known as Innobase Oy. Based on the hysteria that followed, you would have thought that the world was about to end or that Madonna was becoming a housewife.

Y ou can tell open-source software is no longer a geeky movement of Windows renegades when so many of its users actually wear ties. A flock of them, mostly public-sector employees, have descended on Portland this week to discuss how using unlicensed, open-source software can save their departments money and help them operate more efficiently.

Eric Schonfeld writes: "Forget about Linux on the desktop. The next stage of open-source adoption will occur in enterprise software." This is the propaganda JBoss management wants to get across. One of their Public Relation Firm's employees wrote me and wanted to make sure that we pointed out that JBoss is not Linux. Well Dr. Fleury, you right. JBoss will never measure up to Linux and I'm glad you have realized that. - Tom Adelstein

Well-respected analysts, though, are cautioning that the move to Vista should be slow and deliberate - if you move at all. See this week's Windows Networking newsletters for more on what the Gartner Group and the Burton Group have to say about Vista (you'll be able to read those newsletters online later this week, if you don't already subscribe to it).

Project had intended to observe occasion with 2.0 release, but that's been pushed back slightly.