Help Net Security carries word of a buffer overflow vulnerability in the Kodak Color Management System configuration tool (kcms_configure) included with Solaris 7. Left unchecked, this vulnerability could allow a cracker to gain root privileges.

– by Tina Gasperson –
(updated 4/11/01)

At LinuxWorld expo in February, IBM, KDE, and Trolltech were proudly displaying the potential of ViaVoice on the KDE desktop. A press release that went out just before the expo quoted IBM’s director of new business development, Patricia McHugh: “This combination of technologies will greatly accelerate the creation and adoption of speech-enabled
applications for the Linux desktop.” (see updated story.)Indeed, Matthias Ettrich, the founder of KDE and a software engineer at Trolltech chimed in, saying “When ViaVoice is
integrated with Qt, it will be possible to control Qt-based Linux desktop applications with speech input that is as
simple as — if not more simple than — keyboard input. Developers can build speech-capability into the
structure of their application from the beginning.”

ViaVoice is human language recognition software developed by IBM, who has made development tools available for different platforms including Linux. Trolltech’s flagship product is Qt, a GUI toolkit that the KDE Open Source desktop is built around. The demonstration during LWE earlier this year showed how ViaVoice could be used to control desktop applications like KWord, a KDE word-processing program, or KSpread, KDE’s spreadsheet application.

Now that it is April, NewsForge decided to get an update on the progress of the project. KDE developers, both of free software and commercial applications, are looking forward to the release of the project. But no one on the IBM-Trolltech-KDE team knows anything — or if they do, they’re not saying. Trolltech representative Aron Kozak said Monday that they are waiting on IBM to make up its mind about licensing issues with the Trolltech Qt port of ViaVoice.

And IBM isn’t forthcoming with a response to that. Publicist Pamela Bennett said that IBM has no updates on the project and has no comments about whether they are actually debating which license to release this as yet unnamed project with.

The original January 31 press release that resides on the Trolltech Web site is not an IBM-sanctioned announcement, said Bennett, and does not include the standard “About IBM” statement.

NewsForge editors read and respond to comments posted on our discussion page.

LinuxPlanet: “If any of you were wondering why no one from LinuxPlanet went to Spring COMDEX this year, let me sum up in a few short words: it
was a complete waste of time.

As the resident Midwesterner in the happy little LinuxPlanet family, it typically behooves me to travel to Chicago, St. Louis, or
Cincinnati whenever a big-deal event happens. For huge events, I can usually pry some money out of the bosses to send me to
Eastern seaboard cities. With COMDEX in Chicago this past week, it was a lock for me to go. I was all set: take the train so I could
hack out some chapters of a book I’m working on, crash with some friends, and just generally lurk about McCormick Place looking for
interviews and trying to find my doppelganger Brian Proffit.”

Nandotimes: “In what police said appeared to be a bizarre double suicide planned through the
Internet, a 19-year-old Austrian man and a 53-year-old German man were found shot dead in woods near the west Austrian town of
Innsbruck.
The two were found in the German man’s car by a hunter roaming in the woods.
“They had met and planned their deaths on the Internet, and the young man had acquired two shotguns shortly before they met up,”
said Peter Tasser, a spokesman for the Innsbruck police.”

MSNBC tells us: “According to McAfee, VSMAIN may freeze on a Windows NT
4 Service Pack 3 and 2000 system while running VirusScan
5.1x. To resolve the problem, try this: 1) Select Start, Settings,
Control Panel; 2) Choose the VirusScan icon; 3) Select the Stop
button – this prohibits VirusScan from running in the
background, and; 4) Click the button when it reads “Start” to
load vshield.”

KDE.org: “Ralf Nolden is an energetic KDE advocate and one of the main developers of KDevelop, the highly
praised integrated development platform based on KDE. While answering Tink’s questions, Ralf
confesses his strong desire to implement advanced coffee brewing in an upcoming KDE release. Find
this and more, in this week’s edition of The People Behind KDE.”

Red Hat to provide Morpho with GNUpro embedded development tool suite designed
for the m_RISC platform:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information:

Melissa London                                   Bryan Scanlon/Ben Conrad
Red Hat, Inc.                                        Schwartz Communications for Red Hat
(919) 547-0012                                      (781) 684-0770
melissa@redhat.com                            redhat@schwartz-pr.com


MORPHO TECHNOLOGIES CHOOSES RED HAT TO OFFER OPEN SOURCE
DEVELOPMENT TOOLS AND SUPPORT FOR RECONFIGURABLE DSP CHIP

Red Hat to Provide Morpho with GNUpro Embedded Development Tool Suite Designed
for the m_RISC Platform

EMBEDDED SYSTEMS CONFERENCE, SAN FRANCISCO--April 10, 2001--Red Hat, Inc.
(Nasdaq:RHAT), the leader in developing, deploying and managing open source solutions,
today announced that it will supply Morpho Technologies with a GNUPro tool suite
compatible with their m_RISC-based reconfigurable DSP (rDSP(tm)) chip. Additionally,
Red Hat will provide support services to all Morpho Technologies customers
developing embedded applications for the m_RISC-based rDSP(tm) platform.

"Red Hat?s GNUPro development suite will provide developers using our reconfigurable
DSP technology the industry-leading tools they require to create a broad-range of
applications specifically optimized for our hardware," said Shahriar Sadri, CEO of
Morpho Technologies, Inc. "Additionally our customers will gain the benefit of Red
Hat?s vast expertise in open source embedded development, and the availability of
support services from one of the most respected open source companies in the world."

Morpho Technologies? rDSP(tm) engine will enable consumers to access numerous multi-
media applications such as voice, video, image and baseband processing in a single,
handheld device. The availability of Red Hat?s GNUPro embedded tool set will give
developers the flexibility to design an enormous range of applications tailored expressly
to the m_RISC-based rDSP(tm) chip, ensuring superior application performance and
extremely low power consumption hardware characteristics. Morpho Technologies
expects to begin IP licensing of its technology and chip shipments in the 1st quarter of
2002.

"Our port of the GNUPro tool set to the m_RISC platform demonstrates our continued
commitment to delivering powerful cross-platform tools for the open source embedded
development community," said Michael Tiemann, CTO of Red Hat. "With Morpho
Technologies? reconfigurable DSP hardware and Red Hat?s GNUPro tool suite and
support services, the m_RISC platform will surely propagate a family of cutting edge
Post-PC computing appliances."

About Red Hat, Inc.
Red Hat is the leader in developing, deploying and managing solutions built on the
benefits of an open source platform. These solutions include an open source product
platform for devices to mainframes, a complete end-to-end set of Professional Services,
and the Red Hat Network as the Internet-based backbone for deployment and
management of the products and services. Red Hat?s open source platform includes the
award-winning Red Hat Linux operating system platform, the Interchange e-Commerce
platform, Stronghold Secure Web Server, Credit Card Verification software, High
Availability Server, GNU-based developer toolkit for embedded development and
embedded run-time Linux, eCOS and RedBoot solutions.

Red Hat backs up their open source offerings with end-to-end services that include: Red
Hat Professional Consulting focused on multi-platform infrastructure and engineering
services; Red Hat Engineering services for software development and porting of the
operating system and for embedded platforms and devices; Red Hat Enterprise support
services for installation services and Web and telephone support and Red Hat Learning
services for Linux certification (RHCE) and courses for Apache, Embedded systems,
Advanced Developer and e-Commerce. Red Hat Network provides Red Hat?s unique
managed services capability to deploy and manage open source products, services,
support and management information on-line in real-time to more cost effectively and
reliably maintain open source-based solutions.

Red Hat is headquartered in Research Triangle Park, N.C. and has offices worldwide.
Please visit Red Hat on the Web at www.redhat.com. For investor inquiries, contact
Gabriel Szulik at Red Hat, 919-547-0012.

# # #

LINUX is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. RED HAT is a registered trademark of Red
Hat, Inc. All other names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
Forward-looking statements in this press release are made pursuant to the safe harbor
provisions of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Investors are
cautioned that statements in this press release that are not strictly historical statements,
including, without limitation, management?s plans and objectives for future operations,
and management?s assessment of market factors, constitute forward-looking statements
which involve risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties include, without
limitation, Red Hat?s ability to effectively integrate the operations of Planning
Technologies; Red Hat?s ability to retain Planning Technologies? traditional customers;
Planning Technologies? inexperience in offering professional consulting services to
Linux customers; Red Hat?s lack of experience in managing a large, geographically
dispersed, professional services organization; reliance upon strategic relationships,
management of growth, the possibility of undetected software errors, the risks of
economic downturns generally, and in Red Hat?s industry specifically, the risks
associated with competition and competitive pricing pressures, the viability of the
Internet, and other risks detailed in Red Hat?s filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission, copies of which may be accessed through the SEC?s Web site at
http://www.sec.gov.

ZDNET.co.uk: “Beta 1 of Talisker, which is being given to 300 testers, touts several
improvements to its predecessor, Windows CE 3.0. Chief among
those are beefed-up security, a more easily customised user interface
and a technology called Media Sense, which lets gadget owners know
what types of network connections are available.”

“World of Hell also takes pride in the fact that it doesn’t just hit on NT boxes, confirming the
belief that the hacking underground considers hackers that can only break into Windows as
‘lame’.

“My nan could be hacking NT within 10 minutes of me teaching her – it is that easy,” said one
World of Hell member, Rubix. “Most NT defacers don’t have the patience to read and learn –
they want to be spoon-fed like babies. That is how poor NT security is.” More at VNUnet.

Anandtech: “Although it’s been out for a while, MSI’s 694D Pro is still a favorite of ours when it comes to Dual Socket-370 motherboards. Find out how it stacks up against today’s rigorous standards.”