Opera Software released today Opera's version 7.53 (download here) with added security fix for all supported platforms (Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and MS-Windows). Changelog for each platform can be viewed here. In addition Opera is offering a tool which allows users to make Opera look like IE or other browsers before you delve into Opera's more advanced features: Opera one-click setups.

The success of Microsoft's Windows operating system is inextricably tied to its strong developer division. Since its founding, Microsoft has supplied programmers with the tools to build applications for Windows, the company's crown jewels. Read the rest of the editorial here.

If you work on large-scale development projects, then you're familiar with the advantages of writing modular code. Well-structured, modular code is easier to write, debug, understand, and reuse. The problem for Java developers is that the functional programming paradigm has long been implemented only via specialized languages such as Haskell, Scheme, Erlang, and Lisp. This article, shows you how to use functional programming constructs such as closures and higher order functions to write well-structured, modular code in the Java language.

The first unstable major version of GTK+ are out and about: Pango 1.5.1, GTK+ 2.5.0 and GLib 2.5.0. Among the new features are some visual ehancements on the way windows draw/resize.

Bob Ratliff of IPKonfig reviews SuSE 9.1 PRO (with screenshots).

This is not a typical review of a desktop environment such as KDE or GNOME. These are my observations when I updated from KDE 3.2.3 to KDE 3.3 Beta1.

Almost exactly one year after the idea of porting Portage to MacOS X came up - and the joint Metapkg initiative between Fink, Darwinports and Gentoo took off - a 20-head-strong developer team around Pieter van den Abeele (strategic lead) and Daniel Ostrow (operational) is now ready to release an extraordinary beast into the wild: Gentoo MacOS.

Mono, which released version 1.0 last month, is significant in several ways: it offers the potential to unite the open source communities for Windows, Linux, and other platforms; it fulfills the niche for a powerful migration tool; it builds upon existing open source technologies such as Mozilla and Apache; and -- most importantly -- it illustrates the resolve of the open source community to rise to MS' challenge.

The Firebird Project announces the release of Firebird V1.5.1. this relese represents a committment by the project to develop and deliver ongoing improvements to this popular open source database engine.

Microsoft will pay upstart Linux seller Lindows $20 million to settle a long-running trademark dispute, according to a regulatory document filed Monday.

The changes in the way Windows polices itself - particularly the newly strengthened firewall - could cause troubles for applications that are used to working with Windows' old ways. Security experts say it's tough to know how many companies may have to change their products to be compatible. However, to bring good overall security to Windows, these sacrifices needed to be made.

Here's yet another review of Slackware 10 - at the Kolkata Linux Users' Group. Ours is here.

Building Subversion on Mac OS X is not hard. Building the Java bindings for Subversion is challenging until you know what to do. Hopefully you find this information helpful.

Autopackage 0.6 was released, the multi-distro packaging system.