Here's some interesting news with a dash of local flavour.

The hardworking guys over at getdeb have just ported the Open XML Translator plug-in for OpenOffice.org to Ubuntu Linux (arguably one of South Africa's greatest contributions to open source). This allows you to read and save files in the Open XML format from within OpenOffice.org.

There are versions available for the 32 bit and 64 bit editions of the 'Gutsy Gibbon' and 'Feisty Fawn' Ubuntu distributions.

Download it here, then read more on how to get it up and running here.