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Open Source means that users have the freedom to see how software works, adapt it for the own needs, fix bugs and limitations and contribute back to the community.

OpenOffice.org security flaws identified, some patched

By on August 12, 2006 in OpenSource, Security, SourceSafe

Robert McMillan of InfoWorld: Top News reports OpenOffice.org security 'insufficient'. “With Microsoft Corp.'s Office suite now being targeted by hackers, researchers at the French Ministry of Defense say users of the OpenOffice.org software may be at even greater risk from computer viruses… “The general security of OpenOffice is insufficient,” the researchers wrote in a paper entitled “In-depth analysis of the viral threats with OpenOffice.org documents.” … “This suite is up to now still vulnerable to many potential malware attacks,” they wrote.”

Despite the negative tone of the beginning of this article, it's more good news for OO.o than bad. First, the one major flaw that was found has been patched – yeah, Open Source! – and you'll want to ensure you're running the latest OpenOffice.org. The second positive spin of the article is the tone: governments and companies are seriously evaluating OpenOffice.org as a replacement for their current office products. I wonder if this change in the tone has to do with the acceptance of the Office Document Format as a recognized international standard.

Monadnock LUG, Thursday, August 10th: SugarCRM

By on August 8, 2006 in LAMP, Linux, MySQL, OpenSource, PHP, Technology

From Guy Pardoe's announcement:

The next meeting of the Monadnock Linux User Group (MonadLUG) will be this Thursday, August 10th, 7:00pm, at the SAU 1 Superintendent's Office behind South Meadow School in Peterborough.

For directions and other information, visit
http://wiki.gnhlug.org/twiki2/bin/view/Www/MonadLUG

Mark Witham discusses SugarCRM: SugarCRM is a complete CRM and groupware system for businesses of all sizes. Functionality includes sales force automation, marketing campaigns, support cases, project mgmt, calendaring, documents and more. Built on PHP and MySQL.

Microsoft: Our customers are dumb

By on August 8, 2006 in Linux, Microsoft, OpenSource, Technology

OSNews points to a ZDNet article, Microsoft: ‘Open Source Is Too Complex’. “Although open-source software can be customized to meet a company’s specific needs, its inherent complexity could dent the profitability of independent software vendors, says Microsoft. “One of the beauties of the open-source model is that you get a lot of flexibility and componentization. The big downside is complexity,” Ryan Gavin, Microsoft’s director of platform strategy, said.”

An ISV has to know what they are getting into, and have sufficient support to deal with the challenges of many platforms. The same is true if you choose to support Windows XP, XP Home, XP Media Center, XP Tablet, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 on standalone, networked, workgroup, domain and Active Directory models. The claim that supporting Linux is more difficult because there’s more than one vendor (all of the majors adhering to the Linux Standards Base) is FUD. If you have to support home users with Windows 95 or do-it-yourselfers with a hand-built Linux kernel, the challenges are the same. Their claim to ISVs that Windows is easier to work with may be easy to claim, but I’d like to see Microsoft prove it. Truth Happens. Unbend the Truth.

Microsoft claims that computer technology is complex, and they are smarter about making those decisions than their customers. If they are not careful, they’ll prove that: the smart customers will leave.

Wind River Systems presenting at Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee Linux User Group, Thursday August 3rd

By on August 1, 2006 in Linux, OpenSource, Technology

From the DLSLUG announcement list:

The next regular monthly meeting of the DLSLUG will be held Thursday, August 3rd, 7-9PM at Dartmouth College, Carson Hall, Room L02. All are welcome, free of charge.

Agenda

7:00 Sign-in, networking

7:15 Introductory remarks

7:20 “Taking Open Source, Enterprise-Class applications off the desktop and into the Field” presented by Thomas Hall, Technical Account Manager, Wind River Systems

“There are many compelling reasons to adopt Open Source applications for the desktop; one asks… Why stop there? Well, turns out there are significant technical hurdles to overcome minimal resources – successfully scaling powerful Open Source applications like Apache and MySQL into a handheld device requires Linux development and testing
tools well beyond printf.”

“However, while the groundswell of interest in the Linux OS has resulted in highly stable, mature kernels, this interest has not yet translated into commercial-quality Public Domain development tools. While it is comforting to have a ubiquitous technology like GDB available, one wants to further draw on best-in-class tools and paradigms that have been developed in the commercial software development space.”

“Wind River Systems will present on this topic and demonstrate the Eclipse-based Workbench IDE and Platform for Consumer Device, Linux Edition. As time permits, several commercially available products will be demonstrated running Wind River Linux.”

8:30 Roundtable Exchange – where the attendees can make announcements or ask a linux question of the group.

The Ajaxifiation Of Yahoo

By on July 21, 2006 in OpenSource, Technology

Jeremy Zawodny blogs about “The Ajaxifiation Of Yahoo” and points to the YUI Library, a promising AJAX library, licensed under the BSD library, free in cost and licensing. I've been looking forward to testing out an AJAX library, and this looks like a well-documented one to try out.

Python Special Interest Group: July 27th, Cole Tuininga on Myghty

By on July 21, 2006 in OpenSource, Python

On the Python-Talk mailing list, Bill Sconce of the GNHLUG PySIG announces the July meeting:

“The next meeting of the New Hampshire PySIG will be one week from
tonight — the 27th of July, 7:00 PM at the usual fine place, the
Amoskeag Business Incubator.”

“Our topics will be everything that's fair game to Python, including
a report by Bill on the Northeast Linux Symposium, where Python RULED,
and a remarkable development sprint by Jeff Elkner's students.”

“Our featured speaker will be Cole Tuininga, a founding member of PySIG, who knows a lot about “other languages” as well as Python, and who will tell us about Myghty.”

SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 10 released

By on July 19, 2006 in Linux, OpenSource

Ars Technica reports SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 Released. “Utah software vendor Novell has officially released much-anticipated SUSE Linux Enterprise 10. By segphault@sbcglobal.net (Ryan Paul).”

SuSE is one distribution I have yet to get around to testing. I've got a number of machines running in the office and at client sites using RedHat and related Fedora or CentOS distributions. I've been enjoying Ubuntu on several laptops as a small and relatively efficient distribution (especially with the xfce-based desktop Xubuntu), but there's a lot of positive comments on SuSE and I'm going to give it a try.

Nashua Telegraph reports on Northeast Linux Symposium

By on July 13, 2006 in Linux, OpenSource, Technology

Dave Brooks of the Nashua Telegraph reports on the recent Northeast Linux Symposium held at Gould Academy in Maine. NLS is focused on bringing Free and Open Source software into the schools, something that is increasing in popularity around here. I thought Dave's reaction to FOSS and its zealots was promising: FOSS is no panacea, but an alternative worthy of consideration.

New front-end tool to manage SELinux

By on July 9, 2006 in Linux, OpenSource, Security

OSNews reports SELinux Policy Editor 2.0 Released. “In the past, SELinux has been critized for being too dificult to configure. To solve this, the SELinux policy editor was created: A GUI-oriented editor with a simplified policy description language (ala Apparmor). According to the announcement, this new version includes a much improved user interface and some improvements to the “Policy description language”.

Very cool. Security-Enhanced Linux is the next-generation security implementation beyond UNIX users and groups, individual file permissions and general security policies of firewalling unwanted traffic and requiring logins. However, I've found it difficult to grasp at first, and surely difficult to master. A friendly front-end GUI tool to manage SELinux is welcomed.

OpenOffice.org 1.1.x and 2.0.x vulnerabilities – get patching!

By on July 6, 2006 in OpenSource, Security

InfoWorld: Application development reports OpenOffice.org warns of three vulnerabilities. “OpenOffice.org is warning users of security vulnerabilities that can crash the OpenOffice.org productivity software and give malicious hackers access to full system resources.”

“The company is urging OpenOffice.org 2.0.x users to upgrade to version 2.0.3, released last week. A patch for OpenOffice.org 1.1.x will be available soon, the company said.”

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