The big story in security circles this week has been the plight of three MIT students all-but-imprisoned by officials of Boston's transport system with the help of a Federal judge who — by all appearances — has somehow missed reading the First Amendment in his twenty-two years on the bench.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit handed Open Source developers — and a model train enthusiast — a hard-fought victory yesterday, as it laid down the law — quite literally — regarding copyright infringement claims that result from the violation of an Open Source license.

It's no secret that Linux users face difficulties in the commercial world. Whether it's being painted as masses of hackers — as eBay once did, — being forced to listen to FUD-filled "warnings" about Open Source, or the lesser but far more common case of the service provider that just "doesn't get" Linux, we've all experienced the headache that comes with dealing with the Windows-only elements of the world. For some users, such problems force them back to Windowsland — but for some, it just makes them mad.

The general assembly of KDE e.V. — the non-profit foundation that handles the KDE project's legal and financial matters — met last week in the midst of this year's KDE Akademy — currently underway through Friday in Sint-Katelijne-Waver, Belgium — and out of their meeting comes a triad of freshly ratified proposals designed to protect the best interests of the project and its members.

Xandros — the new owners of Linspire — have been busy the last few weeks, and it seems most of their time has been spent with a scythe. Last week, it was Ubuntu meeting the block, now this week, it's Linspire — the company they just paid untold millions for.

The Linux Foundation — those foster-ers of growth who, among other important things, keep Linus Torvalds a-coding — have just released an app that will reportedly ignite a passion among programmers for Linux development. What is this tool with Cupid-like powers, you ask? A shiny little program called the Linux Application Checker, which just hit its third beta.

Have you been looking for a way to merge your PBX, email, IM, and calendar/contacts onto one unified server? If so, Ubuntu has the announcement you've been waiting for, as they revealed a so-fresh-it-still-has-the-shrinkwrap partnership with Unison Technologies during the LinuxWorld Expo on Tuesday.

After last month's super-secret acquisition of Linspire by Xandros, there was much speculation about what might become of Freespire, Linspire's Open Source side. The curtain has now been pulled back, as Xandros announced yesterday just what users can expect from the next version of Freespire.

The Black Hat Briefings — the "premier North American technical information security conference" — is up and running in glittering Los Vegas, but it's running without its crown jewel, after Apple put the kibosh on what was set to be a first-of-its-kind panel discussion.

The tech-news sphere has been abuzz for the last few days with stories and speculation about Open Source projects swimming in cash that they can't use. While it's all based on a real story, it seems the details have been changed to protect the fanciful.

The browser wars are still alive and well, and for the Number One Contender — the illustrious Firefox browser from Mozilla — it's been a pretty good month.

For over a year — February 2001 through March 2002 — a self-described British "computer nerd" quietly accessed U.S. military and NASA computers from his home in London, on what he termed a "moral crusade" to expose U.S. government cover-ups of UFO activity. Now, having twice lost the fight against extradition, he is teetering on the brink of becoming a U.S. prisoner, and possibly disappearing into the depths of Guantanamo Bay.

The annual Open Source Viewers Choice — better known as the SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards — have been underway since early June, and the results are finally in. Plenty of big names top the list, but for some, one has to wonder if it's more dubious than a distinction.

In January, the much-anticipated KDE 4 burst onto the scene to a fanfare of excited reviews — and a few disappointments. Now comes the next generation of KDE 4, and from what we hear, it's definitely something to see.

Everyone — or at least those with a penchant for the bizarre — will remember the strange and storied standoff that unfolded over the last several weeks between the San Francisco city government and allegedly "rogue" network administrator Terry Childs. We didn't really believe it could get much more absurd than it already had, but we were wrong, it has. Oh has it ever.

Getting proprietary vendors to provide Linux drivers for their products has not traditionally been an easy process — indeed, that may be the understatement of the year. Convincing them to release Open Source drivers has proven even more difficult. (Read: Near impossible.) It's a day to celebrate, though, at least for Atheros users, as the company has just released a completely free wireless driver for its WLAN chipsets.

Six months ago, security expert Dan Kaminsky stumbled upon a flaw so serious and widespread that it could bring the entire internet crashing down — at least for those on the wrong side of the bug.

Predicting the release date of a new stable version of Debian — which eschews a set release schedule in order to bring about a release when it is ready for release — is a task composed of a lot of perception, at least a little participation, and a bit of psychic prediction. It seems the crystal ball has once again been uncovered, as the Debian Release Team has announced a full freeze on the lenny testing branch as a precursor to a full release in September.

Eddie Davidson, the 35-year-old man sent to prison in April for mass spamming, escaped from a minimum-security federal prison in Colorado on the 20th by forcing his visiting wife into their car and speeding off before authorities could respond. U.S. Marshals, assisted by the FBI, Colorado authorities, and — for unexplained reasons — the IRS, have been searching for him for the past five days, a search that has tragically ended with the discovery of his suicide, along with the murder of his wife and child.

Whether you call them "ultra-portables," "netbooks," or "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Computinis," it can't be denied that the low-cost, lightweight, Linux laptop has taken the technology world by storm. Conspicuously absent, however — perhaps excepting the somewhat ill-fated gPC — is a lightweight desktop for those who live online — until now, that is.