In this article, Matthew uses nmap and nessus against actual installs of various operating systems as part of his research. A variety of operating sytems were tested including Windows XP, Server 2003, Vista Ultimate, MacOS, FreeBSD, Solaris, Fedora Core, and Slackware. "As far as 'straight-out-of-box' conditions go, both Windows and OS X are ripe with remotely accessible vulnerabilities. Even before enabling the servers, Windows based machines contain numerous exploitable holes allowing attackers to not only access the system but also execute arbitrary code. Both OS X and Windows were susceptible to additional vulnerabilities after enabling the built-in services. Once patched, however, both companies support a product that is secure, at least from the outside. The UNIX and Linux variants present a much more robust exterior to the outside. Even when the pre-configured server binaries are enabled, each system generally maintained its integrity against remote attacks."

"The OpenOffice.org Community announce the release of OpenOffice.org 2.2, the latest version of the leading open-source office suite. With upgrades to its word processor, spreadsheet, presentations, and database software, the free software package provides a real alternative to Microsoft's recently-released Office 2007 product - and an easier upgrade path for existing Microsoft Office users. OpenOffice.org 2.2 also protects users from newly discovered vulnerabilities, where users' PCs could be open to attack if they opened documents from, or accessed web sites set up by, malicious individuals."

Dell is delaying the filing of its fourth-quarter financial report as the PC vendor continues an internal investigation into its own accounting and financial practices. In a March 29 statement, the Round Rock, Texas, company revealed that its own internal auditing committee had found a number of accounting errors, evidence of misconduct and deficiencies in the way the company's finances were controlled.

As momentum grows around its new Windows Home Server line, which is due for release towards the end of this year, Microsoft is looking to keep the love flowing with its hardware partners, software developers and end users alike. Joel Sider, Senior Program Manager for Windows Home Server, told APC that the company intends to release a software development kit for the platform early next month.

"There are both popular and unpopular ways of circumventing the Free Software Foundation's General Public License. A very unpopular method, we've come to find out, is via promises of patent protection for users of specific software. However, if you're looking to leverage Free Software without completely fulfilling the requirements of the license, a better method would be to exploit the software as a service loophole, which the latest draft of the GPL3 just legalized."

Software behemoth Microsoft could be one of the biggest losers from proposed license changes to the Linux operating system unveiled Wednesday. That’s a possible outcome of updates to the license pushed by the FSF. The FSF wants to make mutually exclusive pacts such as the Novell-Microsoft open-source agreement a violation of the next iteration of the GNU GPL, the license that governs Linux use. "It is unfortunate that the FSF is attempting to use the GPLv3 to prevent future collaboration among industry leaders to benefit customers," said Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft’s vice president of intellectual property and licensing.

Fedora 7 Test 3 has been released featuring both GNOME and KDE based live CDs, a prime spin which combines desktop, workstation and server functionality. The merge of Fedora Core and Fedora Extras repositories and infrastructure is in progress. The major components included in this release are GNOME 2.18, KDE 3.5.6 and a 2.6.21rc5 based Linux kernel.

OSNews reported recently about an article from Sun comparing the Solaris 10 security extensions to RHEL 5's SELinux implementation. James Morris, a SELinux developer, talks about that article. He also links to another article about the same topic.

Linus Torvalds, leader of the Linux kernel project and a major figure in the open-source programming movement, said Wednesday he's 'pretty pleased' with changes in a third draft of the GPLv3 released Wednesday. The Linux kernel and many higher-level software packages are governed by the current GPL 2, and Torvalds has expressed strong displeasure with earlier version 3 drafts. After a preliminary analysis of GPL 3, however, some of those concerns are gone or moderated, he said.

An .iso image of myOS has been released. "Minimalistic GNU/Linux system, stripped down of everything, but core necessary files to compile and run OpenGL/C code. It has simplified directory structure and cleaned up internal cross referencing. It can fit single floppy disc without development components. With Scithech SNAP/MGL drivers (based on Mesa) it was possible to run OpenGL without X. Stripped down and modified GNU gcc compiler, mixed with diet libc includes and selected shared files seem to be able to compile all relevant libraries and produce stable and relatively small code. Apart from Necromancer's file manager and OpenGL developing tools, this is pretty much your average Linux thanks to BusyBox."

The FSF has released the third draft of the revised third version of the GNU General Public License. Some of the changes in the new draft, such as the increased clarification and legal language, or the housekeeping changes that reflect new aspects of the license are likely to be accepted. However, the license also includes a new approach to the controversial issue of lock-down technologies as well as more explicit language about patents, including language designed to prevent a re-occurrence of agreements such as the one that Novell entered into with Microsoft - all of which is apt to kindle heated debate as the revision process enters its final stages after fifteen months of intensive work.

"The idea that Linux is primarily a community-based project based on the work of thousands of independent, idealist hackers died a quiet death at home on March 27th. The proximate cause of death was the Linux Foundation's naming of its new board of directors. This leading non-profit Linux organization's board included many Fortune 500 executives from around the world - but not one representative from a purely community-based Linux organization."

A review of the new Parallels Desktop for Mac. "Parallels Desktop for Mac has come along very nicely in only a short of amount of time. The software runs very smoothly and is priced reasonably at USD 79.99. Parallels has stated that in their next version, they will finally include 3D acceleration. Although the lack of 3D acceleration did not bother me, I did wish that they would have included more features for alternative operating systems like Linux."

"This article walks through the steps for using the Graphical Editing Framework. Rather than finishing each step in its entirety, we'll use a subset of your application's model and get that working first. For example, we might initially ignore connections or focus on just a subset of the types of graphical elements in your application. Next, learn what other technologies are available to add graphical editing to your applications. In the past, stand-alone GEF used to be the only option for graphical editing in Eclipse, but this has changed as Eclipse has evolved."