Pia Waugh is a leading advocate for FLOSS in her home country, Australia, and all over the world. In addition to running a consultancy in partnership with her husband, she is the vice president of Linux Australia, the president of Software Freedom International (sponsor of the annual Software Freedom Day events), and on the board of directors of the OLPC Australia program.

On various women's mailing lists, a subscriber has raised the idea of a distribution developed "for and by women." So far, the idea has met with a cool reception. It might even be a troll. However, if such a distro ever gets underway, it would be very much in the spirit of the community, and might give more women the background and confidence to reduce the gender gap in free software.

A husband-wife team is in the driver's seat for the 11th Australian national Linux conference which kicks off in Wellington, New Zealand, on January 18 next year.

Tectonic attracts thousands of visitors each month and while we don't always know who you are we do, thanks to Google Analytics, have a pretty good idea about your tech preferences. So here for the bean counters are some numbers on Tectonic for the past month.

Clearly, people in the Linux community would like for more women to be involved in Linux, but most people don't know why so few women are involved or how to change that. This HOWTO is an effort to summarize the explanations, recommendations, and opinions of the women who already are interested and active in Linux.

Leave a 10 year old alone for an hour by himself on the family PC and I will say with almost 100% certainty that their will be spyware and viruses on that computer!

I have to wonder- where on Earth did Ms. Fairchild get the idea that alienating her customers is a good business practice? So what if she finds sexist, demeaning humor funny? It doesn't belong in Linux Journal.

I dropped my subscription to Linux Journal a couple of years ago because I got tired of their stubborn refusal to admit women into their gearhead club.

The idea is floating around again: Let's make a special Linux distribution for women! We're smarter than that, aren't we? I say, let's spare ourselves and the world yet another pointless and less-than-useful version of Linux.