Ubuntu has introduced a new Patent Policy to help developers and rights holders deal with software patent issues. With the Private Support, Canonical hopes to improve its revenue.

Controversy over fixed release cycles for Debian is nothing new. Now Ubuntu's Mark Shuttleworth has entered into the fray.

Gabriel Burt, desktop developer at Novell, has reported progress with his PDF Mod tool. The new GNOME program allows for switching pages and other useful trickery with PDF documents.

KDE has announced version 4.3.0 of its Linux desktop. "Caizen" fixes bugs and provides some new enhancements.

Lucidor, a desktop program that reads e-books, is available in version 0.6. The open source software can also read and archive Web feeds.

The Debian project is planning a whole series of enhancements for Debian 5.0 "Squeeze." A few results of the currently running Google Summer of Code are beginning to creep into it.

An appeal on Lance Davis, the temporarily absent main administrator and co-founder of CentOS, has obviously worked -- the highest hurdles in the further course of the project seem to be taken.

The Debian release team decided on July 29 to adopt a two-year development freeze cycle for its 6.0 "Squeeze" release. A day's worth of discussion to follow led the team to revise its plans again.