Matthew Broersma

The president of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) was asked to leave his job, less than a month after taking on the post, for allegedly racist posts.

Red Hat is warning enterprise Linux users to update their installations of XFree86 to fix a number of serious security bugs, some of which could allow attackers to take over a system. Affected operating systems include Enterprise Linux AS 3, Enterprise Linux ES 3 and Enterprise Linux WS 3, Red Hat said in an advisory.

With the number of non-Internet Explorer (IE) browsers expanding rapidly, a new spyware attack has surfaced that uses Java to infect IE even when the browser isn't being used at the time.

As part of a plan to increase the use of strong authentication in the enterprise, RSA Security Inc. has released five specifications for various One-Time Password (OTP) methods, and plans to turn them into open standards. OTP is considered a strong way of protecting corporate resources, but so far hasn't seen wide adoption because of a lack of open standards.

Companies should think twice before jumping on the Firefox bandwagon, says Gartner Inc.

Microsoft Corp.

U.K. local authorities are far less likely to use open-source software than those of some other European countries, according to findings from a Dutch study. The study has so far found that 32 per cent of local authorities in Britain use open-source software, compared with 71 per cent in France, 68 per cent in Germany and 55 per cent in the Netherlands.

A controversial draft directive on software patents could be headed for a vote this year after all, with the news it could be approved by experts from the Environment or Agriculture and Fisheries Councils.