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As Firefox lovers await version 2.0 of the open source browser, Mozilla is already moving ahead with plans to develop the next version -- and it wants your help. Mozilla issued Release Candidate 3 of Firefox 2.0 on Monday. It is expected to be the final version of the browser before its official lau...

Microsoft is extending an olive branch of sorts to rival Mozilla. Sam Ramji, director of Microsoft's Open Source Software Lab, has offered to help Mozilla make sure its Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client run smoothly on Windows Vista. Ramji posted the invitation to the Mozilla development...

In a move to make mobile Linux applications easier to build, Trolltech on Tuesday launched a reprogrammable phone based on the Linux operating system. The Qtopia Greenphone lets developers and handset manufacturers create, modify and test Linux-based mobile phone applications on a working GSM/GPRS d...

After a five-month beta program that saw more than 700,000 downloads, VMware said it would offer VMware Server, its virtualization software, for free. Virtualization is a technique for deploying technologies that allows multiple virtual operating systems to run on a single physical machine while mai...

The European Commission will hold a public hearing on Wednesday to discuss the future of patent policy for the European Union. How patents are awarded continues to be a critical issue of debate in Europe. The European Patent Office has warned that innovation is at risk if national governments contin...

Novell is evangelizing its Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, but the company is not looking for an all-out war with software giant Microsoft. Rather, it is looking to find its niche on the business user's desktop. Novell has already gained Linux desktop momentum with transaction and fixed-function a...

Florian Mueller is at it once again. The founder of the NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign that led to the European Union's landslide vote against a proposal for a software patent directive is ready for the next battle. The same forces that supported the software patent directive he successfully defeate...

Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung Electronics, and Vodafone announced on Thursday plans to establish the world's first global, open Linux-based software platform for mobile devices. The companies are developing a Linux-based platform that it hopes will lower develop...

Google on Wednesday released a Firefox extension to keep browser settings in sync across multiple computers. Google Browser Sync is a free plug-in for the popular open source browser that continuously synchronizes bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, tabs and saved passwords across different PCs....

Mozilla late last week released 12 patches for its popular open source browser. Five of the patches issued in Firefox 1.5.0.4 were labeled "critical." Mozilla has issued four security updates to the 1.5 edition of the browser since it was made available last November. The last round of security fixe...

In his opening keynote speech at the 11th annual JavaOne developer conference, Sun Microsystems President and CEO Jonathan Schwartz outlined new Java solutions and open source plans in front of thousands of international attendees. "It's not a question of whether, but a question of how," Schwartz to...

Sun Microsystems on Thursday announced that the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 5 specification has been approved by the Java Community Process Java EE/SE Executive Committee. Java EE is a platform for Java and Web services deployment. It has 30 licensees and includes innovations provided by more ...

The International Standards Organization on Wednesday approved the OpenDocument Format as an international standard. The approval could be a boon for companies that compete with Microsoft's proprietary Office software -- like Sun with its StarOffice. The ODF emerged from the open source OpenOffice.o

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's open source security audit program has identified the biggest X Window System security vulnerability in the last six years. The X Window System is used in Unix and Linux operating systems. It also ships as an optional GUI with Apple's Macintosh computers. C...

Richard Stallman is a free software pioneer. As president of the Free Software Foundation and founder of the GNU Project, he is also an evangelist of a free society in which people have inaliable rights to run, study, copy and distribute software. As such, Stallman is often grieved when he reads new...

Linspire on Monday announced plans to offer a no-cost version of the firm's operating system called Freespire. Kevin Carmony, Linspire's President and CEO, unveiled the Freespire project in his keynote address at the 4th Annual Desktop Linux Summit in San Diego. In his remarks, Carmony explained how...

VMware and a group of hardware, software and service providers on Monday announced the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Alliance to build joint virtual desktop products together. IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, NEC, and Sun are among the more than 20 companies that make up the new alliance. Virtualizat...

Solid Information Technology on Monday announced an open source strategy to create a solidDB Storage Engine for MySQL. The high-end database company is adapting its proven online transaction processing (OLTP) storage engine to work with MySQL Server. Businesses can adopt open source relational datab...

Mozilla on Thursday made it easier for Mac users to browse the Web with Firefox. The open source software developer released a new version of its browser with more Mac support and several security fixes. Firefox 1.5.0.2 adds native support for Apple's Mac OS X running on Intel's processors, accordin...

Intel and Red Hat on Tuesday announced a global program designed to help customers plan for, accelerate and optimize their deployments of Linux solutions. The firms said the program will initially focus on developing and disseminating tools for platform virtualization and grid computing. "The Red ...