In a recent blog, Sun developer Malte Timmermann took a position on the security concerns of the Ecole Superieure d'Informatique, Electronique, Automatique (ESIEA) in Paris-Laval, France. The subject was the vulnerability of OpenOffice, involving document macros, for example.

The cloud-based service Ubuntu One goes into the public beta phase. Using Ubuntu One, computers can be synchronized via online memory. So far, Canonical is withholding details.

Some users might know KPhotoAlbum under the earlier name of KimDaBa. Now, after a time-intensive migration, the album-software is available in version 4 for KDE 4.

The week of May 11 through 17 2009 is openSUSE Community Week, whose goal it is to focus on specific topics among openSUSE users worldwide.

A widget has been included in KDE 4.3 as the first implementation of the „Social Desktop“ which allows the user to view other KDE users in his or her city or region.

It's not the first time Microsoft has tried to wrestle away market share from free software using shady tactics. Suddenly, Microsoft seems to have discovered that education is strategic for their enterprise and they are pouring resources into cornering the market... at least in areas where Linux has the lead.

Sebastian Trüg has announced that the Xesam vs. Nepomuk issue is settled and that they will merge into a single desktop ontology.

A fairly long list of projects will take part in this year's Google Summer of Code, the fifth since 2005. Students will be working in grand style to improve products from these popular open source projects.