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Nokia has announced its patented technology may be freely used in the Linux kernel, making the Finnish mobile phone giant the newest computing company to begin offering intellectual property protections to open source programmers.

Developers of the open source Linux operating system are about to lose a crucial software tool that lets them keep track of version changes. The loss could delay Linux development and even make the operating system more vulnerable to security breaches.

Red Hat will release the Netscape directory technology it acquired last November as open source next week, according to a report. The move gives Red Hat and other Linux distributors an open-source challenger to proprietary systems such as Microsoft's Active Directory, Sun Java Enterprise and particularly Novell's eDirectory.

In the same theme of mixed commercial and free software - LAMP and Java developers and administrators may find a welcome convenience in leanring about blueglue from Open Logic.

Enterprise Linux users at the New York conference say their switch to the open-source operating system brought big cost savings and reliable security. But what are the risks?

In 2003, John Hansknecht, the director of technology at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy, had a tough decision to make. The school had about a hundred older computers running Microsoft Office 97 and Windows NT, and some kind of upgrade was clearly required. It would have been an easy decision to simply upgrade to Microsoft Office 2000, but that would have required replacing all the computers with more powerful systems -- a large expenditure which could be better spent on other technology needs. Hansknecht had a better idea: OpenOffice.org.

A company official tells LinuxWorld Summit attendees that using open source in the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet brought quality components and strong overall architecture.

Fast, cheap and reliable, Linux is here in the enterprise; where are you?

In this entertaining yet edifying essay, Viosoft Founder/CEO Hieu Tran sets out on a quest to debug a bug-report filed against his company's source-level debugger. The case leads Tran and his trusty Pomeranian toward a surprising, Sherlock Holmes-like epiphany illuminating the semantic assumptions made by compilers, debuggers, and, especially, users.

Fighting spam in a corporate environment has become a significant annoyance. Software remedies such as SpamAssassin work decently, but require a lot of training before they become effective -- then they need to be re-trained as new spam hits the net. Even then there are false positives with some anti-spam solutions, which can be worse than the problem it's meant to fix. In addition to spam, there are email-borne viruses, Trojan horses, and other dangers to cope with. These problems require more software, which has to be monitored and configured. Wouldn't it be better to have a hardware device that you can just plug into your network and take care of it all for you? I've just spent a week with one such device: Solinus' MailFoundry 1100 email filtering device.

Company says revenue from its NetWare product line declined at a slightly faster pace than expected.

After close on two year's research Bridges.org this week released the findings of its study on the use of free/open source and proprietary software in public computer centres in Africa. It found that where free software was well-implemented there were many advantages but FOSS still faces many challenges to widespread adoption. It also found that many of the preceived advantages of free software - such as cost - were not realised in Africa.

Apple recently released Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, the latest update to the flagship operating system. Featuring developer-oriented features such as Core Data under the hood, the Unix-based Tiger and the introduction of powerful yet increasingly cost-effective Mac hardware is enticing many a curious Linux enthusiast to prowl over to the nearest Apple Store and get their paws on a Mac. And while the Mac OS opens up a world of elegant interface design and commercial software unseen on the Linux desktop, lacking out of the box is the plethora of open source software to which we are so accustomed. Luckily, a growing community of open source developers and advocates has been working since the birth of the platform to bring free software to Mac OS X.

Richard Stallman, one of the main forces behind the GNU/Linux operating system and the free software movement, is in Taiwan fighting on a new front — to get the island's PC makers to release source code for their drivers.

Leading Linux vendor Red Hat says it is keen to maintain its 100% year-on-year growth in the Asia-Pacific region and is promising greater partner support to achieve this.

Open Source Development Labs, the self-proclaimed"center of gravity" for Linux, laid off almost a sixth of its staff. Analysts say they think financial troubles could be behind the cuts.

Nokia unveils a pocket-sized Web browser for wireless broadband networks, which is the Finnish firm's first Linux-based device and its first product without a built-in mobile phone.

This is to announce the second release candidate for Trustix Secure Linux 3.0. Amongst the many enhancements to the new Trustix Installer "Viper" is PXE support. Instructions on how to install over the network using PXE is found in the file /pxeboot/README.txt on the installation CD.

Around R50 million a year to be pumped into growing the number and quality of technical skills in South Africa through learnerships, increased research and new technologies.

Welcome to this year's 21st issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the Debian community. A lot of activity has still been recorded on the debian-release list in order to fix the remaining release-critical bugs and to get the translations into shape. Matt Whipp quoted several people to counter the claim that Free Software is running short of developers.