Bug in Microsoft Outlook 2003 May Have Erased E-Mail Text in Enron Suits

"The e-mail bug delivers messages with only the subject lines and sender information intact, but does not capture the body text of the e-mail. Lawyers working on the Enron litigation said it would be easy for document reviewers to overlook such e-mail, thinking it may have been blank in the first place."

As repoerted by "Applied Discovery", one of the five market leaders in electronic discovery processing business. According to the company, which used Microsoft Outlook 2003 to process e-mail messages into searchable format for lawyers, anyone who uses an unpatched version of Microsoft Outlook 2003 to open Microsoft Outlook 2000 ".PST" files, might find that the e-mail opens blank.

HP announces "tier 1" support for Debian Linux

"HP is throwing its support behind the Debian Linux distribution, the first major hardware maker to align itself with the non-commercial community-based Linux offering. " (via)

Gates Won't Fund AIDS Researchers Unless They Pool Data

Frustrated that over two decades of research have failed to produce an AIDS vaccine, Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates is tying his foundation's latest, biggest AIDS-vaccine grants to a "radical concept": Those who get the money must first agree to share the results of their work in short order.

(via), also on Linmagazine (Hebrew)

Apple, Dell and Google Join Khronos Group

"Apple, Dell and Google have joined the Khronos Group, an organisation that develops and oversees the OpenGL graphics standard. Khronos Group is an organization that includes over 100 companies that are working together to define open standards for dynamic media on devices ranging from cell phones to computers."

Via: SDA Asia Magazine

Interview: Greg Stein and Chris DiBona on "Google Code"

"Technically, we could start trying to create a larger community but given the difficulty, we aren’t holding out a whole lot of hope. We’re certainly going to concentrate on a lot of things we can do with our technology and then over time we’ll see what we can do about trying to pull some people together."

(via), also in Hebrew

Japanese Cos. Plan Web TV Joint Standard

Sony, Matsushita and three other Japanese electronics makers plan to develop a joint standard for new Internet televisions that will make it easier for people to see video available on the Web.

"The new televisions will use Linux operating systems instead of Microsoft Windows, it added. That feature is aimed at cutting the time needed to boot up and reducing the risk of virus infection."

It's Our Net

Financial supporters for "It's Our Net" include: Amazon, eBay, Google, IAC, Microsoft, Yahoo! Many more consumers, grassroots groups and businesses are working together to preserve the Internet and Net Neutrality.

Q&A with Groklaw's Pamela Jones

Groklaw's Pamela Jones is known for her blog which documents the "SCO vs. Linux" legal wars. See Matthew Aslett's (Business Review Online) Q&A session with her (by e-mail).

Wind River Contributes Over 300,000 Lines of Code to the Eclipse Foundation

Wind River announced the contribution of 300,000 lines of software to four Eclipse projects. The code to be contributed comes from Wind River's Eclipse-based device software development suite: "Wind River Workbench". More information in the press release.

Google's Censorbot

An interesting piece on East Bay Express on how large online publishers, such as Salon and others, need to work around Google's "Censorbot" .

"As Google becomes more crucial to the revenues of online news sites, its practice of withholding ads from edgy stories threatens Web journalism. "


via

Richard Seibt to head the "Linux Business Campus Nuremberg"

Linux Business Campus Nuremberg, headed by the former European presdient of Novell (and before that CEO of SUSE), offers software companies specializing in Linux/open source in the Metropolitan Region of Nuremberg an extensive range of advisory and other services. More info in the Press Release.

FOSS, MDG and the UN

Many of the United Nations agencies promote the use of Open Source and Free Software (FOSS). Some only begun recently (IOSN), while other's have been involved for a while (UNESCO).

In light of the UN's "Millennium Development Goals" (MDGs), a set of eight goals signed in September 2000 and which all member states have agreed to try to achieve by the year 2015, can rapid and sustainable economic and social development be achieced through the use of FOSS ICT solutions to bridge the digital divide?

The Millennium Goals
Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

To help raise awareness to the potential in Free and Open Source Software, various UN organizations and nonprofits have established the FOSS: Policy and Development Implications (FOSS-PDI) initiative where they can discuss development implications of FOSS.

Some of the activities involving UN agencies are:

• The International Open Source Network, IOSN was created by the United Nations Development program (UNDP).
  
• UNESCO's Free & Open Source Software Portal.
• UNESCO is also involved in many projects, in cooperation with libraries, universities, and programmers:
• IDAMS (Internationally Developed Data Analysis and Management Software), a software package used for data mining, numerical information processing, and statistical analysis.
• Open eNRICH, a tool that assists with the creation and sharing of locally relevant content and knowledge between communities.
• CDS/ISIS (Computerized Documentation Service/Integrated Set of Information Systems), an information storage and retrieval system used by libraries around the world.
• Greenstone, a suite of software for building and distributing digital library collections.
• The Virtual Laboratory Toolkit, a suite of communication tools that allow people separated physically to coordinate on scientific projects.
• The One Laptop per Child association is a non-profit organization set up to oversee the $100 laptop project. The United Nation's involvement with the project has been defined clearly at World Economic Forum in Davos Davos, where the head of the UNDP, signed a memorandum of understanding with the OLPC to assist national governments deploy the laptops to targeted public schools.

Via: David Boswell

More information:
Core MDG Documents
Millennium Campaign
Millennium Project
World Bank
Millennium Challenge Corporation
Food and Agricultural Organization
UNICEF

Microsoft: "Open Source [is a] very powerful force in the industry"

David Kaefer, director of Business Development, Intellectual Property and Licensing at Microsoft, is quoted saying (at "Business of Innovation" - a Valley Speakers Series event held at Microsoft's Silicon Valley offices) that Open Source is a "very powerful force in the industry."

Microsoft partnered lately with the likes of JBoss, SugarCRM and XenSource, not without cryticism of course.

via

O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON 2006)

The O'Reilly Open Source Convention, happening July 24-28, is the annual convention organized by the publisher O'Reilly Media. It is held each summer in the USA, to serve as a meeting place for adopters, coders, expert users, sys admins, entrepreneurs, and business people.

This OSCON will explore: Project best practices, Microsoft Windows-based open source projects, Enterprise Java techniques, Linux kernel skills for sys admins, Multimedia, AI (classification, clustering, and data mining), Collaboration, Device hacking, Design, Entrepreneurial topics and Fun stuff ("for its own sake").

Site: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/os2006

IDC: The Long-Term Impact of Open Source Solutions on Government IT Spending

IDC's "Government Insights" report predicts that governments are entering a period of significant "value shift" for software and that they will soon change the way they "develop and buy enterprise solutions," aiming to retain the software value within the government community itself.

"Government agencies are now developing their own open code repositories and are also working with systems integrators to develop new government-specific open source solutions," said Shawn P. McCarthy, program manager of U.S. IT Opportunity: Government and Education at Government Insights. "It may be a fledgling effort at the moment, but it is one that has huge long-term potential to change the way the government purchases and installs software solutions."

The Free Standards Group Unites Linux Printing Initiatives

The Free Standards Group (FSG), a nonprofit organization dedicated to developing and promoting open source software standards, today announced Linuxprinting.org, the de facto standard repository for printer drivers on Linux, is merging with the FSG's OpenPrinting workgroup and will be integrated and supported in the Linux Standard Base (LSB).