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This week, advisories were released for python, XFree86, kdeedu, courier, zsync, gtkdiskfree, util-linux, mantis, Webmin, Qt, PHP, firefox, mozilla, cups, HelixPlayer, RealPlayer, wget, ghostscript, slocate, net-snmp, openssh, and binutils. The distributors include Debian, Gentoo, and Red Hat.

Speaking Thursday at MIT's ongoing Emerging Technologies Conference, Negroponte confirmed that five countries -- Brazil, China, Egypt, South Africa, and Thailand -- are already putting plans in place to distribute as many as 15 million of the devices. The effort has taken the form of a nonprofit group launched by the Media Lab that is known as One Laptop per Child, which Negroponte first detailed at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, in January.

Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 is now available for download. Amongst other changes, this minor release includes fixes for a return receipt regression introduced in version 1.0.2 (bug 289091) and the Linux command line URL parsing security flaw.

It's extremely difficult to turn in a better financial performance than Red Hat (Nasdaq: RHAT) did in its fiscal second quarter earnings report, which it released after the close of trading on Wednesday.

Gervase Markham has written a weblog post explaining the thinking behind the plan to automatically resolve some old unconfirmed bugs.

Free software is software that may be modified and redistributed freely by anyone, with no significant restrictions on how the code may be changed, the uses to which it may be put, or the parties with whom it may be shared. From this simple definition flow many unexpected consequences.

Mozilla Firefox developer Mike Connor has announced that two new code reviewers have been appointed to approve patches for Firefox and the XUL toolkit.

Gartner vice president Donald Feinberg debunks the term "business intelligence." For him business activity model (BAM) is what it is all about. BAM will enable real-time access to critical data including supplementary information to improve efficiency of the business.

The OpenSUSE team has announced through its mail list that SUSE Linux 10.1 Alpha1, codename "Auckland," is ready for download and testing by those wanting to live on the bleeding edge of Linux.

Persona Software plans to ship in mid-November the second edition of its "fixed-mobile convergence" (FMC) suite, which lets dual-mode phone users roam between cellular and WiFi networks. Personal OnePhone 2.0 adds support for Linux, Symbian, and Windows Mobile 5.0 phones, along with security and regulatory compliance features.

Debian GNU/Linux is a powerful and popular community-developed Linux distribution--and the basis for several other useful and usable distributions. With the recent release of Debian Sarge, it's better than ever. Edd Dumbill, Debian developer and GNU/Linux advocate, walks through a typical installation.

Red Hat, IBM and Trusted Computer Solutions plan to put out a version of Linux the CIA can love late next year. This is something Microsoft has been promising for a decade, but as of the summer, had still failed to deliver.

The free and open source software movements do a great job of providing software and guidance for programmers, and reach charities and educational markets fairly well. Aside from highly technical projects, there has been comparatively little attention given to Very Serious Business--and for good reason. Jono Bacon explores the motivations and values of the "enterprise" software market and considers how to evangelize it effectively.

Oracle, who have moved their whole business on to a Linux platform, is recommending that organisations in the Middle East do the same. In the Middle East, businesses are growing at a very fast rate, and they need to be ready for growth. Oracle believes that Linux is an ideal operating system in this kind of environment, since it "can be stripped down into components and packages and boots up quickly and you don't have the hidden taxation of Microsoft licensing fees." The company has also praised the level of security inherent in the Linux platform, claiming that it is much easier to build a secure infrastructure with Linux

I must confess that I am biased. Horribly, irreversibly biased. I love the Free/Open Source software world because it provides the ultimate in pro-customer values.

Sun Microsystems debuted its UltraSparc IV+ servers last week, but IBM will counter that launch by announcing Unix servers with the new Power5+ processor next week, sources familiar with the plans said. Big Blue will tout the latest generation of its Unix servers on Oct. 4, refreshing its pSeries line with the new processor and a new product family name. The Power5+ is expected to arrive at a clock speed of 1.9GHz, the same as the top speed of its predecessor, the Power5.

Although the financial services industry has adopted Linux more slowly than first expected, Linux is now starting to hold more sway, even if often from behind the scenes, according to participants in this week's High Performance on Wall Street conference in New York City.

Microsoft's MSN sent out an enhancement in the form of a plugin for users of the Firefox browser from Mozilla. The default search engine for Firefox is Google but this gives users another search choice for their Mozilla browser.

The number of security holes that occur isn't as telling as how they're handled.

Recently, there was quite a flap about a Symantec study, which showed that—horrors!—Firefox had more security holes than Internet Explorer.

But, what did Symantec's Internet Threat Report really show?

I asked Elias Levy, aka Aleph One, former moderator of Bugtrac and today, a Symantec architect. He told me that Symantec reported on the number of flaws that had been confirmed by the vendor.

LENOVO Group Ltd, the world's third largest personal computer maker, is planning to offer the Linux operating system in consumer PCs it plans to sell in Singapore next year.