Both Fedora and openSUSE will be replacing Oracle's MySQL with its open-source fork--MariaDB.

There's a new major version of open-source LibreOffice office suite on its way, but developers, not end-users, will be the ones who will notice the real changes.

MariaDB, the MySQL fork, continues to pick up steam as openSUSE is also considering using it as the Linux distribution's default database management system.

Fedora Linux's developers are considering replacing MySQL with MariaDB. That, in turn, might lead to Red Hat abandoning MySQL for MariaDB.

As Windows 8 and RT devices stumble out of the starting gate, Google's Linux-based, Chrome OS-powered Chromebooks are gaining in popularity.

Does open-source software still seem "new" to you? Think again, its roots go back decades.

True, Ubuntu on the phone has many obstacles in its way, but it also has many things going for it as well.

The Free Software Foundation Europe is claiming that recent changes to the Google's Android Software Development Kit licensing terms has made the SDK into proprietary software. But if you look closely, that doesn't appear to be the case.

There's a lot of confusion out there about what's what with Ubuntu Linux on phones. Here's some answers for you.

Instead of going after both the tablet and smartphone market, Canonical is bravely starting 2013 by trying to become a major player in the smartphone market with an upcoming version of Ubuntu Linux.

Canonical appears to be getting ready to release a fully touch-enabled Ubuntu Linux operating system. Will Ubuntu tablets and smartphones be far behind?

The number of people who are reading printed books is declining. But reading isn’t. According to the Pew Research Center, we're buying Kindles and Nooks and reading more e-books at a rapidly growing rate.

If you still think MySQL is too entrenched to be moved from its spot as the number one, open-source DBMS, you might to look at what Wikipedia is doing.

The release of Samba 4 will no doubt cut into Windows server business somewhat, but its interoperability capabilities will ease administrative and vendor support costs and preserve Windows servers and clients in the long run as open source transforms enterprise computing

Richard M. Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, has proclaimed that Ubuntu Linux includes spyware. Ubuntu supporters disagree with this take.

Do you want a serious—I mean serious—developer laptop? Then Dell and Ubuntu have the system for you in the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition.

Want to run an Ubuntu Linux game or check on your Ubuntu server remotely from your Android or Apple smartphone or tablet? Splashtop's Streamer for Linux software is for you

Sandboxing is a layer of security that Chrome places between attackers and their computer, aiming to isolate an attacker who has successfully exploited a vulnerability. When contained in a sandbox jail, an attacker will typically look for porous or fragile bits in the walls to throw rocks at. That is, he’ll try to gain additional privileges by taking advantage of other vulnerabilities. Our job is to make the virtual walls of the sandbox as strong and impenetrable as possible.

One juicy target for attackers is the operating system’s kernel: a large and complex code base. The latest stable version of Chrome introduces a new layer of sandboxing of Chrome renderers for the 64-bit versions of Chrome OS and Linux, based on a new kernel feature called seccomp-bpf. With seccomp-bpf we’ll install a small filter in the kernel that will quickly reject many of the rocks thrown by an attacker. A simple example: if we know that Chrome renderers don’t need a system call such as vmsplice, or a facility such as “inotify”, we can just deny them completely. We use a broker process model to keep the list of allowed system calls small.

Installing this filter in the kernel improves the security of our users. But it is just the beginning: using this new facility, we’ll continue to make the sandbox safer.

This new sandbox layer is automatically baked into the latest version of Chrome OS. On Linux, you can check by going to chrome://sandbox and look for “Seccomp-BPF sandbox Yes”. If this is not available, ask your Linux distribution to include and enable seccomp-bpf in its kernel, as Ubuntu has done since version 12.04.

As always, you can report bugs and issues here, by clicking on “New issue”.

Ever wonder why the phone carriers spent so much time on their own software apps and stores? So did Verizon, and, after due consideration, they're dropping out of the Android and BlackBerry app business.

If you buy a Windows 8-powered HP consumer PC, or from any other PC vendor, you'll get no help from them if you decide you'd rather have Windows 7. And Linux? Forget about it!