Corel Corporation announced that the first beta version of its WordPerfect Office2000 for Linux has been issued to beta testing sites.

Andover.Net has augmented its Linux business plan through the acquisition of QuestionExchange, the company said. Andover.Net operates several Web sites that are designed for the technical community and for Linux resources in particular.

The debate over whether a virus could infect and seriously affect Linux has gathered momentum with leading advocates of the open source operating system conceding that clever malicious code could damage the system.

Linuxcare will provide technical support for the use of Linux by partners in the Compaq Solution Alliance, a group of companies that provide software for Compaq computers based on either Intel chips or Compaq's own Alpha chips.

If you think printers are fun, try wandering by your tech support people's cubicles (assuming you are not one yourself), and waiting for a printer call to come through. You shouldn't have to wait too long. Next, note the look on their faces when they're told it's a printer problem.

Responding to the Wednesday's news about the changes in the Solaris source code licensing, an editorial by Kevin Reichard in the Jan 27th Linux Planet mailinglist questions whether Sun Microsystems' move to open the source to Solaris is truly "open source". Kevin concludes the move is a FUD tactic, a way of meeting a "checklist criteria", and adds that Linux users need not worry if this is the best Sun can do. Close, but no cigar.

Slashdot put up the original Ask Larry Augustin post on Jan. 10, and here they are posting Larry's answers on the 27th. The first few weeks after an IPO are hectic for any CEO who is involved in one, and we understand this, but the wait has been as frustrating for the Slashdot staff as for anyone else, and there was nothing we could do about it. Anyway, finally, here are Larry Augustin's answers to your questions.

Hoping to bridge the gap between C++ and Internet development, Borland/Inprise is adding support for XML and HTML 4 to its development tool with the pending release of Borland C++ Builder 5. The company also restated its commitment to porting C++ Builder to Linux via its project Kylix, which Swindell said is targeted at making sure applications developed today will work easily with Linux in the future.

TUCOWS.com Inc. announced the industry's first monthly metric that identifies the most popular downloaded Linux software on the company's ftp.linux.tucows.com site. According to TUCOWS' December figures, Corel attained the highest percentage of downloads at 37 per cent, with Red Hat holding firm in second position at 20 per cent and Debian trailing in third place with 11 per cent.

The sendmail 8.10 release, now out in beta, makes it clear that even after two decades, sendmail is still plenty young enough to be learning new tricks. One of these is sendmail 8.10's integration with LDAP, the lightweight directory access protocol.