The H Week - Oracle, Microsoft, Debian, McAfee and Photocopiers

In the past week, Oracle charged for a previously free plug-in, Microsoft got its FAT patent back, Debian got a new leader, RHEL6 previewed, McAfee's update took Windows systems down and there was wider recognition that photocopiers with internal disks are a security risk.

Featured

The H presented its first "speed guide", a rapid introduction to NoSQL and a new issue of the Kernel Log looked into the innovations taking place in the next Linux kernel's file systems.

• Kernel Log: Coming in 2.6.34 (Part 2) - File Systems
• The H speed guide to NoSQL

Open Source

Oracle began to charge for the formerly free Office ODF plug-in and a German appeal court reversed a judgement that Microsoft's FAT patent was not enforceable in Germany. Red Hat released the first pre-release version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and Microsoft joined Mozilla and Opera in supporting the Web Open Font Format. The Debian project elected a new leader and an OMAP3 optimised Theora codec was previewed. Novell and IBM are cooperating to make SUSE Linux based appliances while Canonical and Mulesoft got together to make Tomcat better on Ubuntu.

• Oracle start charging for Sun's Office ODF plug-in
• German appeal court upholds Microsoft FAT patent
• First public pre-release version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6
• Microsoft backs Web Open Font Format
• Stefano Zacchiroli elected new Debian Project Leader
• High performance Theora codec for Firefox on OMAP3 previewed
• Novell and IBM team up on software appliances
• Canonical and MuleSoft partner to improve Tomcat packaging

Open Source Releases

• Songbird 1.7 Beta 1 adds Windows 7 support
• Wine update improves Direct3D and 64-bit support
• Alfresco Community 3.3 adds new content services
• Firefox 3.6.4 beta isolates crashing plug-ins
• Speed Dreams 3D motorsport simulator updated
• Version 3.3 of the Kajona CMS released
• Groovy++ goes fully open source
• WhiteHouse.gov open sources custom Drupal code
• Canonical open sources Launchpad and Ubuntu Single Sign On code
• Apache Jackrabbit 2.1 released

Security

McAfee issued a flawed update and took down many Windows systems in the process. There was wider recognition that photocopiers with built-in hard disks represent a security risk because they store copies of documents, often for an indefinite period. Microsoft planned to fix more IE 8 XSS problems while Symantec reported that PDF readers and IE are the biggest attack targets. Mozilla disabled older versions of the Java Deployment plug-in and Google closed more vulnerabilities in Chrome on Windows.

• McAfee signature update takes down Windows systems
• Stored images on photocopiers a security risk
• Microsoft to fix further vulnerabilities in IE 8 XSS filter
• Report: Symantec says PDF readers and IE are biggest targets
• Mozilla disables older versions of Java plug-in in Firefox
• Google closes vulnerabilities in Chrome 4 for Windows
• Testing sensor network security with worms

To see all last week's news see The H's last seven days of news and to keep up with The H, subscribe to the RSS feed, or follow honlinenews on Twitter. You can follow The H's own tweeting on Twitter as honline.

(djwm)