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Microsoft's offer to "open-source" Office 2003 for European governments, along with Sun's Solaris talk, boil down to pure marketing hype.

The United Nations-funded UNDP-APDIP International Open Source Network (IOSN) has published a free preview of its upcoming LiveCD that will allow computer users to experience the Linux desktop without requiring installation of the open source OS their PCs.

A common problem with word processors today is that they force users to deal with typesetting, a skill that is about as useful to a writer as metalworking is to a mechanic. This focus on typesetting means that writers have to spend too much time dealing with the way their documents look. To make matters worse, many documents are shared in a variety of different formats requiring additional time wasted in export, conversion, and quality control on the finished product. To help get around these obstacles, Linux users can turn to a document processor called LyX. LyX is optimized for writing and takes the chores of typesetting out of the writer's hands and places them in a competent professional: LaTeX.

Linuxlookup.com is reporting the Apache Software Foundation announced the release of SpamAssassin 3.0. SpamAssassin 3.0 is the first SpamAssassin release as an Apache Software Foundation project and under the Apache License. Delivering many new features including support for sender authentication using the Sender Policy Framework (SPF), checking for web links of known spam advertisers, a modular plugin architecture, improved SQL database support for storing user data in server installations, and improved email classification.

If you look at the traditional media (cable networks, newspapers, radio) coverage of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and subsequently in Afghanistan and Iraq, you'll notice they are gradually becoming more and more reliant on reporting from people who are not professional journalists. This new breed of citizen journalist, the person who blogs, takes photos on their mobile phone and uploads them to a mobLog (mobile weblog), records video, sends it to a video blog and participates in what is commonly becoming known as the "We Media", relies heavily on Open Source Software, often running on Linux servers.

As a follow up to last weeks Review of Yoper Linux, lakerdonald has Interviewed Yoper's lead developer to put forward some of the issues raised and to find out where Yoper is heading in future.

Linux users have a lot of choices in the Internet browser category these days, including Mozilla, Konqueror, Opera, and Epiphany, among others. Now there is also Mozilla Firefox, a leaner browser than its sibling, Mozilla 1.7. Firefox just had its preview release last week and already has been downloaded more than a million times. I reviewed the new version, and found Firefox's simple interface gets you the information you want without distracting you with options.

Novell South Africa yesterday announced it has appointed ex-Microsoft employee Garry Hodgson as its OEM Business Development manager. Hodgson during his time at Microsoft was a key architect of the company's Windows 95 OEM strategy which established the company as the dominant player in the software market in South Africa. Hodgson was also the driver of Microsoft's programme to offer all schools in South Africa with free software. Hodgson left Microsoft 18 months to establish the Digital Hope Foundation with the idea of providing communities and schools with low-cost access to computing technology.

The Free Standards Group (FSG), a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing and promoting open source software standards, and the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), a global consortium dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Linux in the enterprise, announced a collaboration to accelerate enterprise adoption of the Linux Standard Base (LSB) with new services to support software vendors developing applications for Linux.

Xandros has announced they are bundling Ericom's terminal emulation software in their Linux business desktop to support over 30 types of legacy systems.

A company in Bellevue, WA is promoting a database that should make it a lot cheaper and easier to develop small-footprint applications or devices.

IBM is throwing its voice to the open source community, but developers say it is no trick as Big Blue looks to bump up development of speech software and applications with a worthwhile contribution of code.

Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) has published a 96-page report on Open Source software and its potential benefits to business and government. This whitepaper provides an introduction to the report and its findings. At the conclusion, a link is provided for downloading the full report, entitled "Open Source: Open for Business."

In just under 100 hours, we have smashed through our one million download campaign--with 6 days still to go! This is the fastest adoption rate we have ever experienced, higher than every previous Firefox release. But it's not time to relax our efforts. How soon can we break through 2 million? We'll have more information on a new campaign on Monday.

The wireless development landscape differs from the wired world in a number of ways. For one thing, the dominance of handheld device manufacturers and proprietary OS makers has meant that open source projects for wireless connectivity have been slow to take off. But now this sector is showing some signs of life. This article explains both the delays and the brightening future.

Welcome to this year's 37th issue of DWN, the weekly newsletter for the Debian community. A recent issue of the German computer magazine c't features an article about GNU/Linux on notebooks including a test of 14 current notebook models. One machine, an ASUS M2400N, came pre-installed with Debian GNU/Linux by Xtops.DE.

An online publishing company is arguing that it owns the code behind the open-source Mambo content management system and says it is prepared to pursue the matter in court.

Sun Microsystems' executives have rarely been known for meekness, but the company's new chief operating officer took a tone of humility while arguing the company has mended its ways.

We keep "Newsforging" ahead at IT Manager's Journal. Our latest new feature is the ITMJ Product Guide, a joint project between technology superpowers InfoWorld and our parent network, Open Source Technology Group. The IT Product Guide is an excellent resource for IT managers and decision-makers at all levels for making short- and long-term choices about investments in any kind of product or service in the IT spectrum.

Mandrakesoft, the Parisian Linux company known for its stylized penguin, is persistent. A new release of its flagship Linux operating system and some interesting financial news suggest the company, which filed for bankruptcy only last year, is back on track.