Developers from the loosely-knit Mono project made available more bits and pieces of their technology, as they slowly plug away at creating an open source version of Microsoft Corp.’s .Net initiative. Meanwhile, plans for a complete release of the technology have been put on hold.
Project founder Miguel de Icaza, chief technology officer at Linux software maker Ximian Inc., predicted earlier this year that Mono version 1.0 would be completed by now. But he said in an interview last month that it won’t be ready until the middle of next year. “There’s a lot of stuff in .Net,” said de Icaza, who has led the effort to allow applications based on .Net to run on Linux and Unix servers. “I didn’t anticipate how big it was.” Mono developers are attempting to recreate the vast Web-based infrastructure that makes up Microsoft’s .Net initiative.
Microsoft plugs eight holes in its Java software
A serious security flaw in Microsoft Corp.’s virtual machine (VM) found on most Windows PCs could allow an attacker to take over a user’s system, Microsoft warned last month. A fixed version of the software is available.
Microsoft’s VM is used for running Java applications on Windows PCs and comes with most Windows and Internet Explorer versions. All builds up to and including build 5.0.3805 are affected by eight security flaws, Microsoft said in security bulletin MS02-069 (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS02-069.asp). Two vulnerabilities are serious. Exploiting a “critical” flaw in a security feature of the VM could allow an attacker to gain control over a user’s system, while another “important” flaw could be exploited to trick the VM into giving an attacker read access to files on a user’s PC and network drives, Microsoft said.
Novell rolls out UDDI server
Hoping to kick-start adoption of the emerging UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration) Web services specification, Novell Inc. has introduced a UDDI server based on its eDirectory software. The offering is designed to add security and identity management capabilities to UDDI.
The UDDI specification is aimed at providing a registry of available Web services and address issues such as how to manage identity for Web services applications. The Novell Nsure UDDI Server taps capabilities of the company’s eDirectory technology to add directory-based features such as access control and secure identity management to UDDI services, according to Novell.
