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KOffice, an element of the KDE interface software widely used with Linux, now supports the OpenDocument format and uses it by default. The change comes with version 1.5, released Tuesday, project organizers said.

ODF, a standard gaining prominence as a rival to Microsoft's proprietary file formats, is the format used by the dominant open-source application suite, OpenOffice.org.

ODF is used in KWord, KSpread and KPresenter, but work remains. "Great care has been taken to ensure interoperability with other office software that supports OpenDocument, most notably OpenOffice.org. We acknowledge, however, that the ODF support and interoperability … Read more

Jeffrey Jaffe, Novell's new chief technology officer, has become the latest Linux executive to try his hand at blogging.

Jaffe launched his blog Monday with a 2,700-word posting that derides Microsoft products as "bloatware," discusses the difficulties he faced years ago trying to drum up software company support for IBM's OS/2 operating system, and offers opinions on why things will be different for Linux and open-source software.

It's tough being a high-ranking Linux blogger, though. Martin Fink, head of HP's Linux operations, threw in the towel for his blog, and Red Hat'… Read more

The next version of Ubuntu Linux, "Dapper Drake" has been pushed back six weeks to June 1 to permit better quality, Linux Standard Base certification and improved international language support.

Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth announced the new schedule on Monday on an Ubuntu mailing list.

Shuttleworth proposed the delay last week.

In explaining the delay, he said Monday, "The extra time will help ensure that Dapper is a robust and reliable platform for organizations with long-term and large-scale free software deployments. This is the first release of Ubuntu that will be supported for 5 years on the … Read more

Mike Evans, vice president of corporate development for top Linux seller Red Hat, traveled to California's capitol to educate legislators in the state Senate about open-source software, but he ended up getting something of an education himself.

"It was interesting to see the debate of open-source software among non-techies. It's somewhat refreshing to realize not everybody in the world understands this stuff," Evans said in an interview after he spoke to the Senate Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendments Committee. For example, several seemed to believe that if an administrator uses open-source software that anyone can peer … Read more

In an indication of the gradual maturing of the OpenOffice.org software suite, a company that sells printer labels has released document templates that let people use the open-source software for printing such labels.

Worldlabel.com's label templates can be downloaded for free. "A few universities recently asked for Openoffice.org label templates, so we expedited the release," said managing director Russell Ossendryver.

The labels are included in the OpenOffice.org version distributed by 8daysaweek, and the company is trying to make them a standard part of the Microsoft Office rival. "We would like them to … Read more

In case there was any doubt Novell supported the OpenDocument format (ODF), the Waltham, Mass.-based software company put the issue to rest with an official endorsement Tuesday.

"Novell has delivered OpenDocument support in its Suse Linux distribution since March 2005. Novell will deliver complete OpenDocument support in the next edition of its enterprise desktop in 2006," the company said in a news release.

It would have been more surprising if the company didn't support ODF. It's an offshoot of the XML-based format used by OpenOffice.org, the open-source Microsoft Office rival that ships with every … Read more

Red Hat is letting Novell's Mono software only into its noncommercial product line, the Linux seller said Tuesday.

Chris Blizzard, manager of Red Hat's desktop group, announced Monday that Mono is being added to the Fedora Linux project, a freely available version that Red Hat uses to mature new technologies quickly but that the company doesn't support. However, Red Hat has no plans at this time to include the Novell software in Red Hat Enterprise Linux, company spokeswoman Gillian Farquhar said, meaning that there are no plans right now to make it a standard part of the … Read more

Red Hat programmers apparently have accepted the Mono software infrastructure into the company's Fedora Linux project, a notable move given Mono's roots at two Red Hat rivals. Mono, sponsored by Linux seller Novell, is an open-source implementation of Microsoft's .Net software foundation.

Chris Blizzard, manager of Red Hat's desktop group, announced the change late Monday night on his blog. Red Hat didn't immediately comment on its Mono plans on Tuesday.

Some greeted the news with skepticism. "I'll believe it when I see it," said one person posting to the Fedora-test mailing list. … Read more

Ron Hovsepian, named Novell president and chief operating officer on Tuesday, likely will replace Jack Messman as chief executive as well, according to a regulatory filing Thursday.

The server software company disclosed that its board amended the agreement that defines Hovsepian's severance benefits. The change describes what happens "the event that Mr. Hovsepian does not succeed Jack L. Messman as the chief executive officer of Novell."

Novell announced a major restructuring Wednesday, cutting 600 jobs and likely shedding at least 400 more by divesting itself of its Celerant … Read more