Proponents of the free and open-source software development model are using the recently announced delays in the shipping of Microsoft's Windows Vista and Office 2007 products as an example of how the company's software engineering process simply does not work well. They are also pointing to how it stands in direct contrast with the way software gets developed in the free and open-source community, and using the delays to explain why theirs is the better choice.

Microsoft has urged UK PC vendors not to give customers the opportunity to buy a PC without a pre-installed operating system. Supplying base systems, or 'naked PCs', is a missed opportunity, according to Michala Alexander, Microsoft's head of anti-piracy. Writing in Microsoft's Partner Update magazine, which is distributed to computer dealers, Alexander estimated that 5 percent of computers sold in the UK in 2006 would not include an operating system.

"Jan Schaumann has been an important contributor to the NetBSD project for several years. He spent a lot of time working on the NetBSD package system, known as pkgsrc, and he currently uses NetBSD as his desktop system. We will try to learn from his experience during this interview."

"In GNU/Linux, file access is restricted. Users don't necessarily have the same rights when it comes to deleting, executing or even reading files. In fact, every file contain data such as its owner, its permissions and other information which defines exactly what can be done with it, and by whom."

The Mono team has just released the latest version of the Mono integrated development environment, MonoDevelop 0.10. This new relase introduces the Gtk# designer (screenshot), refactoring operations, printing support, and more.

"Visual XForms Designer is a set of graphical tools and interfaces for expediting the creation and editing of documents with XForms-based content. This stamdards-based, easy-to-use Eclipse plug-in makes the process of creating documents with XForms content easier, faster, and simpler."

A bill has been introduced in Minnesota that would require all Executive branch agencies to "use open standards in situations where the other requirements of a project do not make it technically impossible to do this." The text of the bill is focused specifically on "open data formats." While the amendment does not refer to open source software, the definition of "open standards" that it contains would be conducive to open source implementations of open standards.

The latest newsletter Michael Phipps talk about the Haiku's Challenges: "Since I last wrote about the reasons that Haiku is relevant, I thought that it would be balanced to write about the challenges that Haiku faces."

DevSource's John Mueller has an excellent "first look" at what it will take for Web developers to make their apps work with IE7. He says, "Unless you're using pretty much pure HTML on static pages, your application is going to break in some way."

"Eiffel Software today announced that the latest version of its cross-platform IDE EiffelStudio is now available under dual licensing, enabling users to choose between a license for commercial development and a license for open source development. Eiffel Software's dual licensing model is based on the principle of fair exchange. Users who write commercial proprietary software must purchase the corresponding licenses and may freely choose how to distribute their software. Users who donate their source code to the open source community can use the open source version and must distribute their software under the same license." The sourcecode is available via SVN and is licensed under the GNU General Public License.

PalmSource is exhibiting at the LinuxWorld conference going on this week in Boston. PalmInfocenter is live on the scene to bring you this exclusive new preview of the Access Linux Platform. Read on for more about the Access Linux Platform and check out some new screenshots of the current ALP prototype being shown at LinuxWorld.

Someone who claims to have an NDA with Apple, has revealed the new features MacOS 10.5, Leopard, will have. He claims all these details are already available on other websites, hence he can list them without having to worry. The most interesting bit: Leopard will ask during install if you want to install Vista or Linux on a seperate partition so you can run them simultaneously (a heavy Mac is required). Please note that the authenticity of these words is debatable at best. My take: There have been numerous rumours that Apple is going to add virtualization support to Leopard, so that might be true. And I expect Microsoft to support this. Why? Because of this, and because a Windows install equals money to MS. Whether on a Mac or not.

ISECOM is an open, collaborative, security research community established in January 2001. Recently, Pete Herzog, founder of ISECOM and creator of the OSSTMM, talked about the upcoming revision 3.0 of the Open Source Security Testing Methodology Manual. He discusses why we need a testing methodology, why use open source, the value of certifications, and plans for a new vulnerability scanner developed with a different approach than Nessus.

"The delay of Windows Vista means that computers sold this holiday season will predominantly be running Windows XP. Microsoft hopes that Vista won't be far from the minds of new computer buyers, however, as they are pushing a new 'stickering' campaign aimed at informing customers that most of these machines are capable of handling Vista. The basics of the announcement were covered last week by Matt on M-Dollar, so I won't repeat them here. Instead, I'd like to address a couple of concerns with the program, and highlight some little known facts about the new OS." Update: A new CTP release of Vista is on its way.