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StarNet, F-Secure expand security for Windows-to-Unix data traffic

Author: JT Smith

From PR Newswire: StarNet Communications Corp., a
leading publisher of Windows-to-Linux/Unix connectivity software, announced
that users of its X-Win32 PC X server will be provided a fully integrated data
security solution in cooperation with F-Secure Corporation, a leading
developer of centrally managed enterprise security solutions.

Of Communists, cars and cakes: The GPL

Author: JT Smith

A column at osOpinion tries to explain the GPL by comparing it to recipes.
“Next time you cook a meal, pass a bookshop or eat at a restaurant, think it over. What sort of
recipe would you prefer? One that requires you to give it to anyone you cook the meal for, or
one that you can keep secret to yourself?

That’s almost certainly the same way you feel about software licenses. But no matter what
Microsoft or Richard Stallman says, it is your choice what you use and neither can take that
away from you.”

Category:

  • Migration

Caldera OpenLinux Workstation released

Author: JT Smith

The press release is at BusinessWire: Caldera International Inc. (Nasdaq: CALD), the global leader “Unifying UNIX with Linux for Business,” Tuesday
announced its release of Caldera OpenLinux Workstation, release 3.1.
The release of this product occurs simultaneously with Caldera’s OpenLinux Server and Open UNIX 8 products.
The successor to the award-winning OpenLinux eDesktop 2.4, the Workstation is a complete, self-hosted Linux-based operating
system for developers who wish to create commercial, Open Source, or corporate applications for an open standard environment,
including the proposed Linux Standard Base (LSB), using Java, C and C++.

Linux in Education Report #47 released

Author: JT Smith

It’s at Seul.org. “Ewing Caldwell wrote (in response to the request in the last Linux in education report for software to help with
AFS exchange student tracking) that this ‘sounds like a job for Sympa – a very powerful mailing list manager with a backing
MySQL database and a www (needs Apache)management interface. All that’s needed after installing all that (sympa, additional
perl modules, MySQL and Apache) is to design and make the required tracking data base …’ We hadn’t thought of that, but the
idea certainly makes sense.”

Category:

  • Linux

MP3 owners demand fees from Open Source coders

Author: JT Smith

The Register reports that the Fraunhofer Institute and Thomson Multimedia own key technologies incorporated into MP3, and that apparently allows the two companies to “demand royalties from anyone using their intellectual property. This
despite the fact that MP3 is, nominally at least, an open standard. The fees apply to
anyone who produces a commercial MP3 player and all MP3 encoders, be they
commercial or freeware.

Hence the message Dutch developer 8Hz Productions (“two students in Amsterdam
programming for the sake of learning”) recently received from Fraunhofer regarding
its open source 8Hz-MP3 software. Says the organisation: ‘We have received an
email from Fraunhofer (as have more developers) to negotiate the licensing for the
MP3 encoder. As we are poor students, paying the license is not really a viable
option.’ ”

Category:

  • Open Source

FreeBSD guru signs up on Apple team

Author: JT Smith

eWeek reports on Apple’s hiring of Jordan Hubbard, one of the founders of the FreeBSD Project. Here’s Hubbard’s announcement.

Category:

  • Unix

Conference report: Free Software and multimedia

Author: JT Smith

Linux Journal has a lengthy report on a Free Software and multimedia conference in France recently, including updates on serveral projects.

Caldera explains licensing, introduces distro

Author: JT Smith

A reader writes in, “This story at Enterprise Linux discusses Caldera’s response to the outcry to the seat licensing provision in its newest Linux distro.”

Category:

  • Linux

Microsoft’s .Net to support Linux?

Author: JT Smith

An anonymous reader tells us about this story at eWeek. Beta testers and developers believe Microsoft will ship a Linux/Unix version of .Net.

KDE ships third beta of KOffice Suite

Author: JT Smith

June 25, 2001 (The INTERNET)– The KDE Project today announced the release of KOffice 1.1beta3.
KOffice is an integrated office suite for KDE which utilizes open standards for component communication and
component embedding. The primary goals of this release, which follows one month after the release of KOffice
1.1beta2, are to provide a preview of KOffice 1.1 and to involve users and developers who wish to
request/implement missing features or identify problems. Code development is currently focused on stabilizing
KOffice 1.1, scheduled for final release late next quarter. Though this release is a beta, it constitutes the most stable and feature-complete release of KOffice to date.
The KOffice team encourages all users of earlier KOffice releases to upgrade to KOffice 1.1beta3. In
particular, this release is substantially more stable and feature-complete than KOffice 1.0, which was released
together with KDE 2.0 in October 2000. Changes to individual KOffice components since the last beta release
are enumerated below. In addition, a list of changes since the KOffice 1.0 release, and a FAQ about KOffice,
are available at the KOffice website.

The most significant improvements since the last beta release occurred in KWord, particularly in the
implementation of new features in respect of inline pictures, tables, frames, line spacing, auto-correction and
page breaks, as well as a host of usability improvements, such as automatic switching between modes,
improved menus and more pop-up menus. For a further list of improvements to KOffice since the last release,
please refer to the incremental changelog below.

This release includes the following components:

  • KWord (a frame-based, full-featured word processor)
  • KPresenter (a presentation application)
  • KSpread (a spreadsheet application)
  • KIllustrator (a vector-drawing application)
  • Krayon (a bitmap image editor f/k/a KImageShop)
  • Kivio (a flowchart application)
  • KChart (a chart drawing application)
  • KFormula (a formula editor)
  • Kugar (a tool for generating business quality reports); and
    filters (for importing/exporting documents).

KOffice and all its components are available for free under Open Source licenses from the KDE server and its
mirrors. As a result of the dedicated efforts of hundreds of translators, KOffice 1.1beta3 is available in 27
languages.

Incremental Changelog
The following are the major improvements, enhancements and fixes since the KOffice-1.1beta2 release last
month:

All suite applications:

  • added many page formats;
  • extended general DCOP facilities (for scripting suite applications);
  • switched to KGhostview for print previews (requires kdelibs-2.2.x);
  • added a warning if a file is saved in a non-native file format;
  • improved language and grammar (no more typos);
  • fixed auto-addition of file extensions; and
  • fixed crash on loading remote documents.

KWord:

  • added a new preview mode (multiple pages per row);
  • improved drawing of inline elements (variables, images, frames) when selected;
  • added ability to toggle objects between inline and non-inline;
  • improved read-only mode (when KWord is embedded in Konqueror text can now be
    selected and copied);
  • implemented Insert Frame and Insert Page Break (also as part of styles);
  • implemented “1.5” and “double” line-spacing (also as part of styles);
  • added an Apply button to the stylist;
  • implement arbitrary zoom values;
  • added auto-correction, typographical quotes;
  • added a “View Formatting Characters” feature for displaying the format codes
    in the document;
  • implemented insertion of (configurable) predefined expressions;
  • implemented auto-switching between text editing and frame editing;
  • added ability to set all frame types as “copy”;
  • added the Flesch reading ease score as well as the enhanced layout to the
    statistics dialog;
  • added support for importing WMF clip-art;
  • increased spell-checking options (requires kdelibs >= 2.2-alpha2);
  • implemented auto-adjusting frame size;
  • added undo-redo availability to many actions;
  • added new bullets-numbering dialog (visible in the stylist and the paragraph editor);
  • enhanced context-menus (RMB popup);
  • added changing the case (capitals) of a text selection;
  • improved usability with better mouse selection and some new key bindings;
  • achieved major speedups for large documents (improvements in paragraph
  • formatting, loading and painting fixes);
  • added a submenu for custom variables;
  • fixed recalculation of “page number” variable in header and footer;
  • fixed painting and run-around-frame (e.g., in multi-columns mode);
  • fixed the creation and removal of pages;
  • fixed crash when embedding into Konqueror;
  • fixed Table Of Contents creation and updates;
  • fixed placement and drawing of tables; and
  • fixed many other things, this list is far from complete.

KPresenter:

  • decreased size of saved documents;
  • added mouse wheel navigation between pages during presentations;
  • added the ability to move objects with the arrow keys;
  • improved many UI elements (enabling/disabling of actions);
  • improved the appearance (same page drawing as in KWord); and
  • added a new configuration dialog.

KSpread:

  • added CSV Import-Filter dialog; and
  • fixed drawing when embedded (no active cell).

For more details, including available binary packages and instructions, see

http://www.koffice.org/announcements/announce-1.1-beta3.phtml.