Canonical, the main sponsor behind the popular Ubuntu distribution, ha become a member of the Linux Foundation, "the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux." Read on for the full press release.

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The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) have given the green light to publish the Microsoft-backed Office Open XML (OOXML) specification after organization leaders rejected appeals from four countries to protest the vote that approved OOXML as a standard.

Now all we can hope is that Bob Sutor's (IBM's vice president of open source and standards) predictions come to fruition. InfoWorld [via Slashdot]

Via has announced the "lowest profile nano-ITX board ever", the Epia N700.

The Epia N700 includes Via's 1.5GHz C7 or 500MHz Eden ULV processors, gigabit Ethernet, two SATA ports, four USB ports, four COM ports, plus Compact Flash and Mini PCI expansion, the company says.

LinuxDevices.com

Ars Technica explains this a lot better than I can, so have a read over there.

A federal appeals court held Wednesday that copying free software without complying with its license is copyright infringement. The ruling, which will make such licenses much easier to enforce, is a key victory for the free software community.

Ars Technica

In an interview with Ars Technica, Bob Sutor, IBM's vice president of open source and standards, reveals that he believes that Microsoft's OOXML format will die off, regardless of the outcome of the ISO appeals process.

He is convinced that the industry will regard OOXML as a dead end, and that will force Microsoft to accept ODF. We have already seen some evidence of this in Microsoft's recent decision to support ODF in Office—a change of heart that was precipitated by pressure from ODF adopters. Sutor suspects that this trend will continue and that Microsoft will eventually fully embrace ODF.

Ars Technica

Intranet Journal has a round up of what they consider to be the four best alternative desktop distributions to Ubuntu.  On the list:

1. OpenSuSE (DistroWatch.com)
2. PCLinuxOS (DistroWatch.com)
3. Freespire (DistroWatch.com)
4. Linux Mint (DistroWatch.com)

Considering the success of Ubuntu Linux as a distribution of the open source operating system, it has become clear that locating good alternatives to this release is becoming increasingly difficult. With that said, I've decided to round up the best candidates that might serve as a viable alternative so you might be able to partake in the Linux experience without having to relying exclusively on one distribution.

Personally I think that Freespire might be the most controversial and the most risky of the four, especially when you consider Xandros's recent announcement that Freespire will be merged into the same code base as Xandros Desktop.  This leaves some uncertainty over the furure of Freespire, a distro that has never really been that popular among Linux enthusiasts. Intranet Journal

This may or may not be real, but if it is real, it's pretty damn funny. Supposedly a Windows machine used for projections during the Olympics Opening Ceremony crashed during the show, resulting in the hilarious picture above. Perhaps it would have been worth it to use a more stable OS (*cough*, Linux)? WARNING: This may very well turn out to be a fake, or then not. [gallery]

• Powerapple forum (Chinese)
• Rivercool (Alternate angles)
• [via Gizmodo]

It seems that Apple may have thrown us another reason why to avoid the iPhone 3G. Apparently Apple may have included a kill switch in every iPhone that can remotely disable any application.  That's right, AFTER you paid for it. According to iPhone hacker Jonathan Zdziarski he has found a blacklisting system embedded in the iPhone 2.x firmware by Apple.

This suggests that the iPhone calls home once in a while to find out what applications it should turn off. At the moment, no apps have been blacklisted, but by all appearances, this has been added to disable applications that the user has already downloaded and paid for, if Apple so chooses to shut them down. I discovered this doing a forensic examination of an iPhone 3G. It appears to be tucked away in a configuration file deep inside CoreLocation.

Not only does this make it possible for Apple to remotely disable any application it doesn't like, it also opens up the issue of privacy.  Is Apple spying on it's customers? Engadget [via Slashdot] UPDATE: Steve Jobs has confirmed [Wired] the kill switch:

"Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull" he told the Wall Street Journal.

I wonder if he would include such a "lever" on normal PC or Mac applications?

getdeb.net, a provider of quality packages for Ubuntu, have announced "the start of a gaming repository for Ubuntu."

The repository (codenamed "Playbuntu") will provide all games available on getdeb.net in an easy to use repository format - enabling you to receive updates for your favourite game via the Update Manager tool. Additonally, if a game has several packages, installing them is quite easy as it'll be automatically handled.

geddeb.net [via Software Journal]

Red Hat has announced that Munich Airport (IATA: MUC, ICAO: EDDM) has migrated a large portion of it's UNIX servers and desktops to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

After experiencing consistent performance issues, Munich Airport, according to the company, conducted detailed cost-analysis research on alternative technology solutions that could boost performance for its IT systems. Results revealed that Red Hat Enterprise Linux, already in small use in the Airport's IT systems, could provide both the savings and performance benefits desired. In 2005, Munich Airport migrated a portion of its servers to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and in March 2006, it also migrated most of its desktop workstations to Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop. Since September 2006, Munich Airport has equipped more than 30 servers and 40 desktops to run using Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Hat-based systems are also used by Airport's external mail gateways providing anti-virus and anti-spam functionality.

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