http://sun.systemnews.com Free and Open Source Software http://sun.systemnews.com/articles/128/1/FOSS/20681 OpenOffice 3.0 Release Candidate 3 (build OOO300_m8) is available through the OpenOffice.org website. The software is not recommended for production deployment at its current stage. It is recommended for new users to chose one of the previously released more stable versions such as OpenOffice 2.0. The new OpenOffice 3.0 Release Candidate contains many updated features and Native support for Mac OS X. http://sun.systemnews.com/articles/128/1/FOSS/20664 OpenOffice.org version 3 has a fan in Simon Phipps, whose blog SunMink reports on a quartet of new features. He first remarks on the Add-On Manager and platform-neutral UNO API that makes dealing with the new slew of add-ons in v.3 much simpler. Then Phipps turns to the four features themselves: Presenter Console PDF Importer Presentation Minimiser Template Packs http://sun.systemnews.com/articles/127/4/FOSS/20653 OpenOffice 3.0 Release Candidate 2 (build OOO300_m7) is available through the OpenOffice.org website. The software is not recommended for production deployment at its current stage. It is recommended for new users to chose one of the previously released more stable versions such as OpenOffice 2.0. The new OpenOffice 3.0 Release Candidate contains many updated features and Native support for Mac OS X. http://sun.systemnews.com/articles/127/2/FOSS/20572 The MySQL database and GlassFish application server are the choice of the Belgian company Stésud, a leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) software vendor. With this deployment, Stésud becomes one of the most recent companies to adopt these Sun products as a lower-cost, higher-performance alternative to traditional database and application server software. http://sun.systemnews.com/articles/127/2/FOSS/20563 OpenOffice 3.0 Release Candidate 1 (build OOO300_m5) is available for developer critique through the OpenOffice.org website. The software is not recommended for production deployment at its current stage. It is recommended for new users to chose one of the previously released more stable versions such as OpenOffice 2.0. The new OpenOffice 3.0 Release Candidate 1 (build OOO300_m5) will contain some updated features http://sun.systemnews.com/articles/127/1/FOSS/20511 TWiki version 4.2, from TWIKI.NET, includes a new WYSIWYG editor that is easy to use and can significantly reduce the learning curve for first time users. It also offers support for a SQL like query language to aide the end-user in building wiki applications. This software release coincides with the open source project migration to a new Sun Fire T5220 server, a Sun Fire X4450 server and a Sun StorageTek 5320 NAS Gateway System contributed by Sun Microsystems. "The development community and TWiki users everywhere are benefiting from Sun's support and participation of the project. The improved performance we are delivering is very helpful to the open source developers and TWiki users around the world who are working on this Web 2.0 project," said Peter Thoeny, Community Leader, Founder and CTO of TWIKI.NET. http://sun.systemnews.com/articles/126/2/FOSS/20331 StarOffice software is supported under Sun Software Service Plans, which include two levels of support that cover extended business hours or around-the-clock service for mission-critical deployments. With this support, you'll always have access to the latest software functionality with upgrades and patches included for covered software.Sun aims to increase the support available to customers using OpenOffice, an open sourced word processing program. The new software subscription part numbers for OpenOffice.org and change of support and services associated with them provide a revenue opportunity to Sun and Sun Resellers while the list pricing for customers remains the same. The price is now per user per year while the previous support part numbers were listed per user per month. http://sun.systemnews.com/articles/126/2/FOSS/20352 The OpenOffice Presenter Console extension supports presenters by showing information that is not visible to the audience. A typical environment would be a laptop showing the Presenter Console and a connected beamer showing the actual presentation to the audience. Initially the Presenter Console extension shows a live preview of the current slide, a preview of the next slide and tool bar with navigational buttons and the current and elapsed time http://sun.systemnews.com/articles/125/4/FOSS/20343 SourceForge, Inc. announced the winners of its second annual SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards. "The awards recognize open source projects which not only have the most supportive community following, but also those which the SourceForge.net community's members believe are built with the highest quality, productivity and ingenuity. " 44 projects were nominated in 12 categories. 25 projects were nominated two more more times. Read on to see the winners. http://sun.systemnews.com/articles/125/4/FOSS/20203 Amiram Hayardeny leave no doubt about it: He's a fan of open source solutions, as his blog makes clear. He blogs here to dispel some of the common myths and misconceptions surrounding open source: The Open-Source Cult Myth The Open-Source Free Myth There's No Free Lunch Myth The Open-Source Poor Quality Myth This blog was inspired by this comment from European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes: "No citizen or company should be forced or encouraged to choose a closed technology over an open one, through a government having made that choice first."