On August 3 Nexenta hosted a conference call to announce a new open source project called "Illumos." Illumos is an open source alternative to a critical part of the OpenSolaris distribution free from the binds of Oracle.

The old "Ubuntu doesn't contribute back" argument cropped up again when Dave Neary released a report of the talk he gave at GUADEC on the contributions made to the GNOME desktop environment. He found that Red Hat and Novell contributed the most, and that Ubuntu and Mandriva (primarily a KDE distribution) were among the lowest.

There was a time when Linux was notorious for having what was called "fugly" fonts. Things improved a bit over the years, but thanks to expiring patents things are about to get even better.

OpenOffice.org 3.2.1 was released on June 4 and a new master workspace was branched off for the upcoming 3.3 on June 5. The code in this branch will be stabilized and later become the product release that will find its way onto your desktops.

On July 22 a $35 (or 1500 INR) hand-held Linux computing device was unveiled by Shri Kapil Sibal, the Union Minister for Human Resource Development of India. The goal of the project is to lower the price to around $20 in time and eventually reaching the amazing price of $10.

When Oracle began the acquisition of Sun, few doubted that MySQL was the main asset of interest. With MySQL still breathing six months later, users hoped Sun's other projects would survive as well. But despite Oracle's early claims and intermittent assurances that OpenSolaris would remain open source software, very little else has been said.

Spotify is a streaming music service that previously was only available to Windows and Mac users. Spotify offered a way for music lovers to enjoy their favorite tunes on their computers and gadgets legally. But Linux users were left out in the cold... until July 12.

Mandriva S.A. issued a press release to announce the restructuring of its core business organization. While specifics were still not given, the main message did come through: Mandriva will survive, in some fashion, for a while anyway.

openSUSE 11.0 was originally slated for "end of life" on June 15. But due to the requests from users, the SUSE Security and Maintenance Team has decided to extend the maintenance period until 11.3 is released to the public - avoiding the 26 day gap in security coverage.

After a long and anxious month of delays, Mandriva finally released their 2010.1 Spring update with lots of goodies for all. In related news, PCLinuxos, a derivative of Mandriva, released what they've dubbed their Quarterly ISO updates in several flavors. Mandriva 2010.1 Spring

Compiz is a compositing window manager that enables users to enjoy clever desktop effects and transparency. Compiz is included in many distributions' default installs and in many others' repositories. At one time its future was in question with new major desktop environments planning to incorporate their own effects.

Two popular Linux distributions recently released new developmental versions on the road to their finals. One is early in its cycle and the other is about to cross the finish line.

Previously OpenOffice.org used Sun's Java Media Framework to play back audio and video in documents. It seemed to work well for a while, but as time went on Java became more outdated. So, developers have decided to implement the widely used GStreamer framework.

Many Linux projects use Debian Linux as their code base for developing their distributions. Perhaps as many as 120 distributions are based on Debian and some include SimplyMepis, sidux, KNOPPIX, Elive, and Parsix. Perhaps the most widely known and used is Ubuntu. Ubuntu receives negative comments because many feel its developers don't contribute back upstream.

It was over six weeks ago that rumors, later confirmed as true, circulated stating that Mandriva's financial situation was so dire that it was considering buy-out offers to try to avoid having to close its doors. This news struck many Mandriva users and developers hard and all held their breath waiting for further news and the release of Mandriva Spring 2010.1.

First came Android, the mobile OS. Then came the first Android phone, the G1. Then came the Nexus One, the first true gPhone — Google top to bottom. And it just kept going from there.

In the early hours of June 18 the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Tor Project released a beta of a Firefox extension dubbed “HTTPS Everywhere” with the intention of providing encryption of user data when visiting certain sites. According to the official announcement, “HTTPS Everywhere” will provide SSL encryption to sites like Google Search, Wikipedia, Twitter and Identi.ca, and Facebook.

As geeks, it's almost obligatory to want the latest and greatest technology on the market, no matter what it may be. There may well be an exception to that rule, however, if the latest out of UC San Diego catches on: digital drawers.

The latest wares of three popular browsing applications were released this week reflecting a changing Internet. Open formats are taking center stage at Mozilla, Opera, and Flock as lock-in (or freeze-out), security concerns, and performance issues fuel the drive toward the VP8 video format.

Though most of us would admit we get a bit jumpy when our internet connection goes on the fritz, it's unlikely that many could call it an emergency. The potential for a massive cyber-emergency is on the mind of at least one Senator, however, who wants to give the President the power to "protect" us against an internet crisis.