In a blow to Microsoft, Belgium's government departments will be instructed to use an open file format for internal communications. The OpenDocument Format is to be the standard format for exchanging documents within the government, according to a proposal that is expected to be approved by Belgium's Council of Ministers on Friday. The plan increases the pressure from governments worldwide on Microsoft to embrace open standards.

Red Hat announced compatibility certification with Open Vulnerability and Assessment Language definitions for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4 security advisories. Red Hat will now produce and support OVAL patch definitions to provide a structured and machine-readable version of advisories, allowing OVAL-compatible tools to accurately test for the presence of vulnerabilities.

After Arno Klenke already ported GCC 4.0 to the Syllable desktop operating system some time ago, the Syllable team has now integrated the port and updated it to version 4.1.1. Many other ports, like BinUtils, are also being updated to the latest versions. Work is now underway to update Syllable itself to compile it with GCC 4. Please note that if you compile programs with GCC 4.1.1, any users of your binary will need to have GCC 4.1.1 installed as well - or wait for Syllable 0.6.2.

It was announced back in February that Opera would be coming out for the Nintendo DS. Opera and Nintendo announced a release date of July 24th for Japan (with the US and Europe to follow soon after) and a price of around $30 at a special this last weekend. But just how good is this pint sized web browser on Nintendo's hot new handheld? Check out the first hands-on review for some juicy details.

eWeek reviews Opera 9, and is full of praise: "It's a good bet that if you want to see the features that other Web browsers will be adding in a year or two, you should download Opera 9, which was released on June 20. The free Opera 9 is available in Windows, Linux, Solaris, BSD and Mac OS X versions. In our tests, we found Opera 9 to be one of the best Web browsing tools we've used in a long time, which is why we are giving Opera 9 an eWEEK Labs Analyst's Choice award." They have a set of screenshots as well.

"The first development ISO images of Mandriva Linux 2007 have been released for download and testing. At the time of writing only Mandriva One live CD images for the i586 and x86_64 architectures are available, but expect the usual full (4-CD) installation sets to appear on Mandriva mirrors in a day or two. The new release ships with kernel 2.6.16.20 and includes glibc 2.4, X.Org 7.1, KDE 3.5.3, GNOME 2.15, OpenOffice.org 2.0.2, Firefox 1.5.0.4 and many other open source software packages." Screenshots.

Xandros has announced the immediate availability of Xandros Desktop 4. You can get the two different version from their online store. A set of screenshots is also available. "Xandros Desktop Home Edition and Xandros Desktop Home Edition - Premium provide a complete media experience on the secure, stable Xandros Linux operating system. The new products cover the digital home lifestyle spectrum with music management, wireless networking, photo management, Internet calling, DVD burning, iPod support, and more." Update: More screenshots.

Novell's board of directors on Thursday named Ron Hovsepian CEO and president to replace Jack Messman, and ousted the company's chief financial officer. In a conference call on Thursday, company executives said the changes were made to accelerate the growth at Novell, which has had disappointing financial results, particularly in its Linux business.

"Learn how IBM DB2 9 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows exploits multiple page sizes. With the introduction of the POWER5+ processor architecture, the IBM AIX 5L operating system added support for a new 64-kilobyte page with properties that are similar to the current default 4-kilobyte pages. In addition, AIX 5L Version 5.3 TL04 also introduced a new 16-gigabyte huge-page feature for this hardware architecture. DB2 9 automatically exploits the 64-kilobyte pages to deliver high performance for database applications on this platform. In addition, DB2 also supports the enablement of 16-gigabyte huge pages."

"The Cell processor has seemingly picked up a reputation for being incredibly difficult to program. However, this seems to be based entirely on expectation rather than experience. What’s the real story? Is it really that difficult? This article looks at the concepts involved in Cell programming."

Magnussoft has announced a delay of a month for Zeta 1.21, a bugfix release of the Zeta operating system. The extra month will be used to improve Firefox and Seamonkey, as well as working on the driver situation.

The executive who coordinated Microsoft's anti-Linux campaign has quit the company less than three months after moving to a position revamping MSN's marketing. Martin Taylor, a 13-year Microsoft veteran and advisor to chief executive Steve Ballmer, has left in an apparent rush and without official explanation. Such was the speed of Taylor's exit his name still features on one of Microsoft's latest press releases.

"The Fedora Project announces the first release of the Fedora Core 6 development cycle, available for the i386, x86_64, and ppc/ppc64 architectures, including Intel based Macintosh computers." This test release includes KDE 3.5.3, GNOME 2.15, a new printing system, and much more. Check the release schedule for, well, release schedule information; downloads are available in .torrent and 'ordinary' .iso. Update: Screenshots.

The BumpTop structures files and programs as 3D cards with weight that you can shuffle around and move about the desktop. You can throw a bunch of similar cards on a pile to represent stuff you'll get to later, or stack them neatly to represent stuff you've already seen.