This past weekend (April 9th and 10th), I had the great pleasure to attend COSSFEST 2010 in Calgary. COSSFEST is the Calgary Open Source Systems Festival, a gathering of people whose passion is free and open source software, coming together to share information, exchange ideas, and otherwise talk about all things FOSS. Oh, and drink beer. And eat, too. Yeah, right . . .

What's the most exciting technology of the next few years for the enterprise? Forget folding displays and virtual worlds: Think open source ERP, say some pioneering information technology leaders.

What's the most exciting technology of the next few years for the enterprise? Forget folding displays and virtual worlds: Think open source ERP, say some pioneering information technology leaders.

The writer of six books on free and open source software (FOSS) for Addison-Wesley, as well as SysAdmin Corner and the extraordinarily popular Linux Journal column "Cooking with Linux," Gagné took an uncharacteristically quiet moment at the recent Calgary Open Source Systems Festival (COSSFest) to talk to me.

It appears that later this month Intel will be announcing a new technology that will be open-source. While what exactly is being launched is not known, from the information provided it is an open-source Intel technology that may deal with optimizing your software to take advantage of multiple computing cores.

No one is better qualified to talk about the state of the KDE desktop than Aaron Seigo. A former member of the board of KDE e.V, the German non-profit that oversees the project, Seigo is a lead developer on the desktop. Last weekend, I interviewed him at the Calgary Open Source Systems Festival, COSSFest, in front of an audience, on where KDE is today and where it is heading.

SourceForge.net (part of SourceForge, Inc., NASDAQ: LNUX), the world’s largest web site for open source development and distribution, today launched an online marketplace for technology professionals to buy and sell service and support for open source software.

Open source fans wiki (osfans.com), where you can find great information about open source products and technology maintained by open source community.

There's no question that the open source community is a passionate one -- and one with significant influence on technology directions and options. We're way past the days when people asked if Linux or Apache was safe to depend on in business. Open source is now a mainstream part of the technology fabric.