NewsFactor Network writes, “The United States and Microsoft filed a joint status report on their proposed antitrust settlement Thursday as ordered by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. More than 30,000 public comments were reported, a quarter of which approved of the deal and half of which opposed it. Microsoft and the U.S. Department of Justice signaled that there may be changes to the proposed settlement, which is supported by nine of the 18 states that originally sued Microsoft. The other nine states and the District of Columbia are lobbying for tougher penalties against the software giant. The story is at osOpinion.com.

Posted at LinuxSecurity.com: “Nicolas Boullis found some security problems in the wmtv package (a
dockable video4linux TV player for windowmaker) which is distributed
in Debian GNU/Linux 2.2. With the current version of wmtv, the
configuration file is written back as the superuser, and without any
further checks. A mailicious user might use that to damage important
files.”

Posted on LWN.net: “i just wanted to report in that we are currently into release freeze for rocklinux 1.5.13 devel release,
a release of the upcoming stable branch. we expect a release candidate soon,
and unless any large problems arise, we`ll be able to make a release befor FOSDEM.
“

LinuxPlanet reviews the KDE3 project starting like this: “It had been several weeks since last I compiled the KDE3 source, and at that time it was unpromising in a number of ways. Chief among them was that none of my configuration files, achieved through months of tuning here and there, little or none of it documented, survived the switch. So I’d build KDE3, poke around in it a little, be cranky over the fact that typeface handling — spacing, anti-aliasing — was broken, discover some other things I didn’t like, and return to KDE-2.2.1.

This time was different.
“

Posted on LinuxSecurity.com: New telnet, telnet-server packages are available for Red Hat Linux 5.2,
6.2, 7.0 and 7.1.
These packages fix a problem where buffer overflows can provide root
access to local users.

It is recommended that all users update to the fixed packages.

New packages are available for Red Hat Linux 7.0 and 7.1.
These fix issues when upgrading from the errata telnet packages released
for previous releases. No code changes are involved.

Derek Neighbors writes, “Responding to Roblimo’s call for ‘under promoted’ software:
I would like to introduce GNU Enterprise (http://www.gnuenterprise). I think often is ‘overlooked’ because it appears so ambitious, but there are companies using GNU Enterprise for production critical applications today. We match almost all functionality of Oracle SQL*Forms (before they moved to java) and are getting more and more features daily.

We have one of the strongest visual IDE’s for a framework that I have seen that lets you bind forms to over 15 databases, in a matter of minutes. The forms are completely cross platform (win32, motif, gtk, curses and soon html and mac) w/o any changes.

Here is our standard blurb. I think we will gain popularity as we start to release applications that are made from the framework, but as of today the framework itself is highly useful for writing applications.

Overview
GNU Enterprise (GNUe) is a suite of tools and applications for solving the needs of the enterprise. From human resources, accounting, customer relationship management and project management to supply chain or e-commerce, GNUe can handle the needs of any business, large or small. If you are looking for a full-function ERP, GNUe is the package for you.

Beyond applications, GNUe is a development framework that enables enterprise information technology professionals to customize applications for their businesses. The GNUe platform boasts an open architecture and easy maintenance. It gives users a modular system and freedom from being stuck with a single-source vendor. Plus, users get consistency and the ability to tap into a network of best practices from other enterprises, saving valuable development time.

GNUe is a Free Software project with a corps of volunteer developers around the world working on GNUe projects. This provides the added benefits of easy internationalization of applications. The project is working to provide a worldwide GNUe community, allowing everyone who is involved in the project access to other talented business information technology professionals.

From Internet.com: “Looking to dispel what it claims are false notions about it’s philosophy on Linux, Sun Microsystems Inc., (NASDAQ:SUNW ) led by President and COO Ed Zander, held a conference call early Thursday morning before its analyst conference in San Francisco to discuss its future plans for the open-source operating system.

Zander did not delve into specifics much because, he admitted, Sun didn’t have all that much specific to talk about in terms of new technologies and partnerships, but he did say that much of his company’s line will be offered with Linux in coming months and years.”

BSDToday.com runs the press release: Wasabi Systems, the leading provider of the NetBSD operating system for embedded computing, yesterday announced that it secured $2.0 million in its Series A round of financing, with additional funds anticipated from a combination of corporate and venture capital investors over the next sixty days. The financing is being led by Newlight Associates, a New York-based venture fund, which has committed $1.5 million to the round.

PostgreSQL-User writes, “PostgreSQL 7.2 was released just yesterday and surely many people would like to tinker with this successful open source database. OSNews features a review of the brand new book, “Practical PostgreSQL” published by O’Reilly.”

Newsbytes.com reports that Princeton University professor Edward Felten will wend his legal challenge of a “controversial U.S. copyright law that he says was invoked to prevent him from publishing research that exposed holes in recording industry-backed anti-piracy technology.”