LinuxPlanet checks out Open Source efforts in the Great White North. “There are a number of signs out there that people within Canadian Government are sitting up and taking notice, but most of them are faint. Perhaps the biggest one is the government event Open Source Solutions Showcase, which was held in Quebec in May 2002.”

CoryEdwards writes: Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC), the world leader in Internet security, today announced Symantec AntiVirus 2.5 for Lotus Notes/Domino for Linux is the first antivirus solution available for Lotus Domino for Linux. Symantec AntiVirus 2.5 for Lotus Notes/Domino for Linux now provides comprehensive, automatic virus protection to a full-range of Lotus Notes/Domino platforms, including Solaris, AIX, OS/400, OS/390, and now Linux.
“Lotus software customers are increasingly extending the capabilities of their servers to take advantage of emerging e-business and Web technologies,” said Ken Bisconti, vice president of messaging, Lotus Software, IBM Software Group. “Incorporating an antivirus solution for Lotus Domino for Linux provides enterprises with additional security and confidence from malicious threats.”

“Symantec continues to build its world-class virus protection, providing enterprises with multi-tier, multi-platform solutions,” said Gail Hamilton, executive vice president, Symantec Corporation. “Symantec AntiVirus 2.5 for Lotus Notes/Domino for Linux offers flexible and reliable security and is a powerful complement to the Linux platform.”

Symantec AntiVirus 2.5 for Lotus Notes/Domino for Linux features real-time alerting and logging capabilities, as well as a reporting component. Administrators are able to export data to Microsoft Excel, Crystal Reports, and other third-party reporting tools to monitor virus activity on the server. LiveUpdate software, together with Symantec?s NAVEX technology, allows administrators to download the latest virus definitions and deploy them throughout the Lotus Domino environment from one location without having to reinstall software, dramatically reducing cost of ownership.

Symantec AntiVirus 2.5 for Lotus Notes/Domino for Linux offers virus scanning efficiency, which allows for minimal performance impact. Administrators can use Symantec AntiVirus 2.5 for Lotus Notes/Domino for Linux to scan the body of messages — not just the attachment — for malicious code. The solution also offers improved protection by providing scan and repair capabilities for compressed file formats, including Arc Manager, BinHex, GZIP, RTF, TAR, and TNEF. Administrators have the option to set scan configurations from remote computers, choosing real-time, on-demand, or scheduled scanning, and can also specify to repair or delete any infected files that are found. For added protection, Symantec AntiVirus 2.5 for Lotus Notes/Domino is backed by Symantec Security Response ? the world?s leading Internet security research and support organization which proactively researches new threats and provides fast updates to protect against new attacks.

Symantec Enterprise Security

Symantec AntiVirus 2.5 for Lotus Notes/Domino is part of Symantec Enterprise Security, which provides the technology, global response, and services necessary to manage information security. Symantec?s comprehensive solutions offer best-of-breed products such as firewall security, virus protection, intrusion detection, vulnerability management, and virtual private networking (VPN). Symantec Security Response provides customers such with comprehensive, global, 24×7 Internet security expertise to guard against today?s blended Internet threats. Symantec Enterprise Security customers also are supported by one of the largest professional security organizations in the world, offering security consulting, security education, and managed security services. For more information, please visit Symantec?s enterprise web site at www.enterprisesecurity.symantec.com.

Availability

Symantec AntiVirus 2.5 for Lotus Notes/Domino is available through Symantec?s worldwide network of value-added resellers, distributors and systems integrators. Organizations seeking a reseller or distributor should contact Symantec at http://www.symantecpartner.com/var/var_locate.html

About Symantec

Symantec, the world leader in Internet security technology, provides a broad range of content and network security software and appliance solutions to individuals, enterprises and service providers. The company is a leading provider of client, gateway and server security solutions for virus protection, firewall and virtual private network, vulnerability management, intrusion detection, Internet content and e-mail filtering, remote management technologies and security services to enterprises and service providers around the world. Symantec?s Norton brand of consumer security products is a leader in worldwide retail sales and industry awards. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has worldwide operations in 38 countries. For more information, please visit www.symantec.com.

The World Bank’s InfoDEV program, The Cyberspace Policy Institute of
The
George Washington University, and the United Nations Development
Program
are proud to present a conference on “Open Source: A Case for
e-Government” to be held in Washington, DC, USA, Oct. 17 and 18, 2002.
The goals of the conference include: 1) the presentation of best
practices, 2) raising awareness, and 3) the sharing of experiences
among
policy makers, donors, users/consumers, universities, and industry
specialists in Open Source, e-Government and related fields.

Please see the conference site, www.eGovOS.org, for more information.

Tony Stanco
Senior Policy Analyst
Open Source and e-Gov
Cyberspace Policy Institute
George Washington University

Headway Software announced today the release of Headway reView 3.2.5, the world’s first software intelligence tool for architects and team leads. Combining source code visualization and analysis Headway reView allows a development team to mine their code-base for optimally presented meaningful data, ensuring an unmatched understanding of the information locked inside. From the high-level architecture and design, to the lowest level of detail in the source code, the information is made available to optimize the code-base’s design, and consequently, the value of it to the organization.
Headway reView delivers practical, useful visualisations of a code-base/design that are guaranteed to be totally up-to-date and accurate. Analysis and research tools allow developers to thoroughly engage with their source code and design, so that their evolution is constantly understood and controlled.

Chris Chedgey, Headway Software co-founder and Chief Technical Officer, identified the need for Headway reView while working as Chief Architect at SPAR Aerospace. While developing Canada Arm 2 for the International Space Station, Chedgey became frustrated that the tools his team needed simply didn’t exist. “Software is one of the most important assets for many organizations today.,” said Chedgey.

” However, it is an asset that is very complex and undergoes constant change. Maximizing the value of software is a battle against complexity, where the challenge is to incorporate new requirements and modifications in a productive and maintainable way. The biggest barrier to success is the difficulty of quickly gaining a thorough understanding of how the code-base is structured, where all the interdependencies lie, and how the code-base can be improved.”

Being code-centric, Headway review has access to all the information about a code-base and provides a set of analysis tools to expose the inner workings. There is no separation of code-base and design. The code IS the design. The results of code-base analyses are presented in the model so that the developer can not only find problems, but also understand the context in which they occur.

Headway reView gives views of the code-base in the past, present and future so that comparisons can be made to better understand why and how changes have or are being made.

Product features:

* Intuitive Design Visualizations
* Source, OO and Design Metrics
* Re-engineering Support
* Snapshot Comparisons for tracking change

* Fast, scalable reverse engineering

Headway reView is priced at US$3000 per license. For sales information call 1-877-HEADWAY (US only) or email sales@headwaysoftware.com.

Gnu.org: “Welcome to another issue of the Brave GNU World. We may always have suspected it, but this issue presents some proof: Free Software is good for your health!”

Concerned Reader write: “Distributions have done a lot to make installing Linux easier. But as Dennis E. Powell reports in his column for this week on Linux and Main, installation of a mainstream distribution on mainstream hardware can still end in failure. Every time that happens, he says, Linux gets a black eye.”

Anonymous Reader writes: “Edison Research just released a pro-record industry report stating ‘10.1% of 12-17s are actively downloading/not purchasing music.’ Richard Menta over at MP3 Newswire noted that this also means 90% of file traders in this age group ARE buying music, a positive result that supports the virtues of trading. Menta then goes through the study’s findings one-by-one, questioning Edison Research’s conclusions. This includes their recommendation to the industry to fight the ‘downloading problem.’

http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2002/teentrade. html“

The Loebner 2002 Organizing Committee writes: “Hello Fellow “Bot” Masters: Many of you have heard of the International Loebner
Competition , the first open domain Turing test for
human-like program entities. Many of you have also
hesitated to enter the contest due to the strict rules
requiring special programming and knowledge content.
This year the event is being hosted by the Institute of
Mimetic Sciences, based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. IMS
wants this 2002 event to include as many contestants as
possible. To make this happen we are moving to develop
a communications program that would allow web-based
Bots to participate from their native locations. Also
we have formulated new contest procedures which will
allow knowledge content to include program entities that
declare they are a robot/computer.
The only thing that will be required from you creative
people is to fit your Bots’ output into a standard HTML
page (which we will work with you to interface) so our
send/capture routine can work with your site. Also Bots
will need to communicate primarily in English.

If you enter, you have a chance to win $2,000 USD for
first place plus other prizes and perks just for reaching
the finals.

ARE YOU INTERESTED?????

Please respond as soon as possible and let us know if you
would like to participate. Also it would be helpful if you
can indicate whether your present Bot interface is JAVA,
HTML, ASP oriented, runs strictly from your server, or
is downloaded to the client.

We are looking forward to having you enter the contest.
For more information please visit:

www.Loebner-Atlanta.org
email: Contest@Mimetics.org

Regards,

The Loebner 2002 Organizing Committee”

Anonymous Reader writes: “According to TangentOrg’s Software News, mod_layout 4.0, the version for Apache 2.0 has finally been released. ModLayout allows for an easy interface for non-programers to adjust pages dynamically and to allow sites to place copyright and disclaimers on all pages without adjusting the content directly (making it perfect for hosting sites).”

–By Grant Gross –

Officials in the Technology Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce are looking for consumer groups to join the debate over digital rights management they’re refereeing, dominated until now by Big Hollywood and IT companies.
Commerce officials are working to set up a meeting with interested consumer groups after a combative digital rights management workshop last week in which Free Software and fair use advocates didn’t get much of a chance to counter comments by the Hollywood and IT panelists. Chris Israel, deputy assistant secretary for technology policy, says he hopes the consumer-only meeting will happen within a few weeks.

The agency’s willingness to expand the DRM debate is being welcomed by consumer groups that saw officials there as the enemy just days ago, although it remains to be seen whether the consumer groups can impact the direction of the DRM debate.

Last Wednesday’s public workshop got a little tense when Free Software and fair use advocates showed up expecting to be able to respond to comments by a half dozen record and movie industry representatives. When it became apparent that Commerce officials weren’t allowing for comments from the audience, the consumer advocates protested by shouting comments from the back of the room several times during the three-hour workshop.

Commerce officials say they had received little consumer feedback since the agency began planning this second DRM workshop in December. The agency went through the normal government channels, issuing a press release and running a notice of the meeting in the Federal Register July 3. But up until the past couple of weeks, the agency had heard from only three consumer groups, all of which were invited to attend the workshop. One consumer group, Consumers Union, couldn’t make it to the last workshop. NY for Fair Use people, however, say they tried to get on the panel during the past couple of weeks.

“Quite frankly, we hadn’t really been approached by a lot of consumer groups,” Israel says. “We were a little disappointed that things got out of hand a little bit on Wednesday, but we certainly understand the passion and convictions everybody brings to the table.”

The consumers have certainly come out of the woodwork in the last few days.
As of late Friday, the Technology Administration had received about 200 comments on DRM at its Web site, and those comments will be part of the official record of the workshop, Israel says.

Israel says the meeting planned with consumer groups won’t take the form of the public workshop, which took months to set up. Instead, Technology Administration officials will meet informally with the consumer groups to get a feel for their objections to proposed DRM schemes.

Agency officials also won’t hold last Wednesday’s loud protests against any consumer groups, Israel adds. Undersecretary for Technology Phillip Bond, who ran the meeting, chatted with a couple of the protesters after the meeting, Israel notes.

Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer Robin Gross praised the Technology Administration’s decision to meet with consumer groups.

“This is great news that the Commerce Department is interested in listening to the voice of the public in this debate,” says Gross, who sat quietly at the workshop.
“We are quite pleased that our elected officials will include the concerns of everyday citizens in determining an information policy for the digital age. While Hollywood’s concerns are important and should be taken into consideration, this is a good first step in recognizing the important legal principle that the goal of copyright law is to benefit the public at large.”

She adds: “I hope the panel will include several civil liberties groups, librarians, computer scientists, educators, academics, and ordinary ‘fair users.'”

NewsForge reader Walter Reed, who’s been corresponding with a Commerce Department PR person, says he’s been asked to nominate some consumer advocates for a meeting. “The nice thing was that this is one of the first government offices which even acknowledged an email, and the fact that they did so several times is in my opinion amazing,” Reed says. “My opinion of the government in general these days is quite low, so anything positive at all is quite refreshing.”

LXNY corresponding secretary Jay Sulzberger, who was also at the last workshop,
suggested a consumer meeting should include computer owners,
computer designers, programmers, and artists in place of the more generic word, “consumers.”

He advocated the Commerce Department have a large public workshop, similar to Wednesday’s, and he nominated about 20 people who should be invited, including several of the protesters at the meeting, plus Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee, recording artists David Bowie and Chuck D, EFF co-founder John Gilmore, Free Software Foundation lawyer Eben Moglen, the MPAA’s Jack Valenti, and PGP creator Phillip Zimmermann.

Israel says the Technology Administration’s purpose of the DRM workshops is get the concerned groups together to talk about ways to protect content copyrights on the Web. “We want to be an effective facilitator and a catalyst for progress,” he says.

When it’s suggested to Israel that some consumer advocates may ask his agency to take a step back and re-examine whether there is a need for some kind of DRM standard to protect Hollywood against “piracy,” he says the agency is willing to listen to those concerns.

“If there’s a technologically sound argument that can be put on the table that disproves the point that there needs to be a technological fix to the problem presented, we’ll certainly listen to that,” he adds. “[But] we continue to think it’s important to discuss a framework where there’s a consistent and reliable mechanism for protecting intellectual property.”