OpenOffice.org has hit back at claims that the alternative office applications suite is riddled with security holes. Researchers at the French Ministry of Defense say that OpenOffice is subject to security weaknesses that make it at least as susceptible to computer viruses as the commercial, more widely used, Microsoft Office.

Sun Microsystems plans to open-source its implementation of the Java ME specification and is shooting to have that done by the end of this year, Sun executives said Aug. 14. This is the first time Sun has said publicly that Java ME (Java Platform, Micro Edition) is part of its plan for open-sourcing Java.

Dell plans to announce a voluntary recall of 4.1 million lithium-ion batteries used within its laptops because the batteries could overheat, prompting a risk of fire. The batteries, manufactured by Sony, were found in 25 Dell laptops and eight Dell 'mobile workstation'-class notebook PCs. Dellbatteryprogram.com provides instructions on how to determine whether a notebook battery was affected by the recall, and if so, how to ship it back.

Path Finder is a Finder file browser alternative for Mac OS X, which combines the best of Apple's Finder with powerful, integrated utilities and some innovative ways of accessing and manipulating your files. The new version, 4.5, features undo support, superuser mode, labels editor, multiple shelves, file listing reload button and more.

Version 0.63 of Visopsys was released today. It's a maintenance release with bugfixes and loads of small tweaks throughout the system, but also a few new little features, including the ability to format and resize Linux swap partitions, more reliable OS loading, better CPU detection, and a simple text editor. Detailed change log and downloads.

A discussion on the Haiku mailing list about the recently announced icon contest has set off a somewhat controversial debate about communication in the project. The Haiku leadership seems to be of the idea that it is not yet a good time to the start PR machine, while the member of the community who initiated the discussion argues that, if done right, communication can be beneficial for the project at any point in time, and that it may actually help find the developers that the project so badly needs. Quite coincidentally, this article related to the topic of marketing open source projects.

The long development process of Slackware Linux 11.0 is about to conclude - that's according to Patrick Volkerding who has declared the "current" tree as RC1: "There are still a few changes yet to happen, but let's call this Slackware 11.0 release candidate 1." Other recent changes include upgrade to stable kernel 2.4.33; upgrade to udev 097, and rebuild of glibc 2.3.6 for both 2.4.33 and 2.6.16.27 kernels. Update: Screenshots.

Here are few articles posted today about Mac OS X: " OS X Mobile and Automotive Editions: Is It Possible?", Leopard Core Animation", "64-bit Leopard knocks off Vista", "First boot with Leopard" and "Multi-Threaded OpenGL On The Way".

OneStat today reported that Microsoft's Windows dominates the operating system market with a global usage share of 96.97 percent. The Mac appears to be at around 2.47% and Linux at 0.36%. Please note that OneStat bases its numbers on a large number of internet site hits and extraction from user agents.

Xandros, originally a revamped Corel Linux OS, provides a very stable, rock solid Linux distribution for the typical Linux newbie. Read the review at OSWeekly. TheJemReport also features an interview with some of the Xandros developer managers.

Every skilled trade has its secrets -- those little tricks, techniques, and tools that make light of even the most complex task. Programmers, system administrators, and other UNIX computer professionals have their own kind of specialized tools. Learn how to leverage the many shortcuts that the UNIX shell provides. With a little practice, you'll work smarter, not harder.

Funambol CEO Fabrizio Capobianco is scheduled to announce a draft version of a modified GPL today that would add a provision requiring service providers to distribute changes to code, even if they don't "distribute" the code beyond their own servers. Capobianco calls this the Honest Public License (HPL), and the additional provision could add an entirely new wrinkle to free software.

Microsoft's XNA Game Studio Express targetting the XBOX 360 will democratize game development by delivering the necessary tools to hobbyists, students, indie developers and studios alike to help them bring their creative game ideas to life while nurturing game development talent, collaboration and sharing that will benefit the entire industry.

A start-up called Movidis believes a 16-core chip originally designed for networking gear will be a ticket to success in the Linux server market. The Revolution x16 models from Movidis each use a single 500MHz or 600MHz Cavium Networks Octeon CN3860 chip.