Gordon Hubbard writes: AUUG, the Australian UNIX and
Open Systems User Group, today announced the inaugural Australian Open
Source Awards.

“It is a well kept secret that Australia plays a far larger role in
the international open source community than the average observer would
expect. These awards will encourage and recognize the excellence and dedication
of those Australians contributing to the open source arena”, said Michael
Paddon, chair of the nominations committee.

Awards will be given in four categories: technology, application, community,
and special achievement. The first three awards are decided by the popular
vote of the AUUG membership, and the special achievement category is judged
by committee. Membership of AUUG is open to any individual or corporation
with an interest in open computing technologies.

The Awards Ceremony will be take place during the AUUG 2002 Annual Conference
Dinner, on September 5, 2002, in Melbourne. Both AUUG members and non-members
can attend the conference with discounts for AUUG members, members of affiliated
organizations and students. Tickets for the dinner and awards ceremony
may also be purchased separately. Please visit http://www.auug.org.au/conf/auug2002/
for further details.

“While the winners of these awards will each receive a unique and coveted
linuxjewellery.com statue, the real reward will be recognition for the
quietly superb job that they have been doing so well, and for so long.
AUUG is pleased to be able to play a role in highlighting the fantastic
contributions of all nominees, and to convey a heartfelt thanks for enriching
our community”, said Mr Paddon.

The Australian Open Source Awards are sponsored by Silicon Breeze (www.siliconbreeze.com),
who design and provide the solid gold “tux” award statues which embody
the open source spirit.

###

About AUUG Incorporated
AUUG Inc. is the Australian UNIX and Open Systems User Group, a professional
association for end users, corporations, developers and vendors that promotes
UNIX® and related systems, including Linux and BSD.  Dating from
1975, AUUG is a national body with chapters that organize local activities
in most capital cities.

Visit http://www.auug.org.au/
or contact AUUG at: AUUG Inc., PO Box 366, Kensington, NSW 2033, Australia.
Free Call 1800 625 655, Fax 02 8824 9522, International: Tel +61 2 8824
9511, Fax +61 2 8824 9522, E-mail: auug@auug.org.au.
ACN A00 166 36N, ABN 15 645 981 718.

Press Contact
Gordon Hubbard

Treasurer and Press Secretary, AUUG Inc.

<Gordon.Hubbard@auug.org.au>

Tel: 02 9659 9590

###

All products, brands or company names herein may be trademarks or registered
trademarks of their respective owners.

“The operating loss for the 3rd quarter (April-June) of the current fiscal year has been reduced to a fourth of that in the same period last year—0.79 M€ in comparison with 3.12 M€.” More at MandrakeSoft.com.

San Francisco, CA – July 22, 2002 – The Open Group today announced that it is launching an effort to define requirements for the next generation of the UNIX® certification program. The UNIX Certification program defines the criteria for products to be registered as UNIX systems, hence be awarded the right to use the UNIX trademark. These criteria have not been revised since 1997.The criteria include the definition of “Product Standards”, which provide the conformance requirements drawn from the Single UNIX specification and other referenced specifications, and also define the testing requirements.

The updated program is expected to be launched during 2003, and builds on the foundations of Version 3 of the Single UNIX Specification, the core of which was developed by the Austin Group and is jointly both an Open Group Technical Standard and IEEE Std 1003.1-2001. To participate in the development effort, contact Andrew Josey at a.josey@opengroup.org.

“The development of updated certification criteria is part of our members’ continuing mission to maintain the value of the UNIX trademark, which The Open Group holds in trust for the industry,” noted Allen Brown, President and CEO of The Open Group. “The result will be an updated vendor- and technology-neutral definition of the requirements for a UNIX system, administered through a fair, independent and thorough certification and backed up by well proven testing.”

About the UNIX System
More information on the UNIX System, the UNIX Certification Program, and the online html version of the Single UNIX Specification, can be obtained from the official web site at http://www.UNIX-systems.org.

About The Open Group
The Open Group, a vendor-neutral and technology-neutral consortium, has a vision of Boundaryless Information Flow achieved through global interoperability in a secure, reliable and timely manner. The Open Group’s mission is to drive the creation of Boundaryless Information Flow by working with customers to capture, understand and address current and emerging requirements, establish policies, and share best practices; working with suppliers, consortia and standards bodies to develop consensus and facilitate interoperability, to evolve and integrate specifications and open source technologies; offering a comprehensive set of services to enhance the operational efficiency of consortia; and developing and operating the industry’s premier certification service and encouraging procurement of certified products. More information on our organization can be found at www.opengroup.org

Note to editors: UNIX is a registered trademark The Open Group in the US and other countries.

Alex Guy writes: “MoBro, the mobile brother, has released its beta 1 version of MoBro.com, a wireless service site that allows a user to build a wireless “web site” that can be viewed by multiple mobile devices including chtml, xml and imode.

MoBro is a startup wireless service provider. Please visit our site at www.mobro.com and try our services and let us know what you think.
Send your comments to contact@mobro.com”

LinuxSecurity Contributors writes: “LinuxSecurity reports in Linux Security Week
the most interesting articles of the week including “Linux Security Modules: General Security Support for the Linux Kernel,” “Securing the Mail: Lock Spam and Viruses Out of Sendmail,” and “Intrusion Detection: Knowing when Someone is Knocking on your Door.” Find out more in this week’s report.”

FreeFall Soft writes: “FreeFall Soft (http://www.freefallsoft.com) is pleased to announce RivalBB- a full-featured bulletin board script developed for Windows servers. As its name implies, RivalBB, is designed to compete with leading bulletin board software, which can sell for up to $200. However, RivalBB will be freely available under the GPL (General Public License). RivalBB is currently in the development stage and is expected for beta release by the end of October.

The most exciting feature of RivalBB will be its caching technology, which optimizes processor usage and therefore will provide extensive scalability. Developed with ASP 3.0, RivalBB will be compatible with all Windows servers. Calls to a database are kept to a minimum, which drastically increases performance. UBB (http://www.infopop.com) is one of the only popular bulletin board scripts that currently provides a similar feature. RivalBB will also include all of the popular features of its competitors, such as simplified HTML, “post icons”, “emoticons”, ranks, attachments, and more.

RivalBB will be released under the General Public License. This means that the software will be made available to the public at little or no cost. RivalBB’s source code can be freely modified and distributed by anyone who wishes to do so. Anyone who wishes to donate their time to the development of RivalBB may contact FreeFall Soft through rivalbb@freefallsoft.com. For general inquiries about RivalBB, contact mailbag@freefallsoft.com.

Bulletin board software has become a popular alternative to usenet groups. Providing access through a web based environment, bulletin board software is more intuitive and therefore more accessible to a wider range of the online community. RivalBB hopes to improve upon earlier incarnations of bulletin board software such as UBB and vBulletin (http://www.vbulletin.com).

FreeFall Soft is a small group of developers specializing in both client side and web-based applications. FreeFall Soft has created a wide range of applications from game utilities to content management scripts. FreeFall Soft also provides custom applications for small businesses at a reasonable cost.”

An anonymous coward writes: “$1 million in stolen inventory and large debts were left by a computer reseller last week. Stolen computer parts frequently drift back into the consumer market. Whatisnew.com wrote a quick reminder of standard consumer cautions and how you might protect yourself from buying stolen product. Read more“

Alan James Salmoni writes: “Mandrake 9.0 beta is now available from the usual mirrors (iso directory). Features KDE 3.x, Gnome 2.x and a host of other wonders!” The official announcement from MandrakeSoft is here.

Silvio Umberto Zanzi writes “PortaZero interviewed Federico Musto from Red Hat Italy and asked him some questions about the new 7.3 distribution, Linux security, critical deployment and the fear of kernel forking.
The interview is available here: http://www.portazero.info/modules.php?name=Section s&sop=viewarticle&artid=38.

There is an Italian version as well, available here.”

CNet news:
“If you’re like most people, when your computer crashes you groan, issue a string of expletives, and then wait idly by until your trusty information
technology person rescues you from blue screen hell.

On Friday, it’s time for you to show your appreciation for those geeks in shining armor.”