The world of free software is full of amazing and even heroic stories (the gcc toolkit for its quality and flexibility, Linux and free desktops for their size and sheer ambition, Samba and Mono for their tenacity at keeping up with confusing quasi-standards) but one of my favorite recent stories is the opening of the iPhone.

I had the chance to interview Thomas Hansen, who recently announced the Gaia Programming Contest (€10,000 reward). Here are his enlightening answers!

Linux development is more like a social network built on trusted relationships and less like a democratic community of individuals dedicated to a single development process, according to Linux creator Linus Torvalds.

Totally Crazy: "Save Windows XP http://weblog.infoworld.com/save-xp/ ..."

"Last night I sat down (with some caffeine and print outs) and had my first proper attempt at installing GNU. [...] I've also decided that I will write an absolute beginners guide to installing GNU once I have achieved it myself..."

"I am posting a Critique of gNewSense from technical viewpoint. I am strictly in agreement with RMS on the concept of Free/OpenSource Software. I was happy when after a long time, finally, a 100% Libre distro named gNewSense was released. For this post I have kept Free Software issues aside and talk purely in terms of technical achievements..."

About 2 months ago, I convinced my girlfriend to try out Linux for a month after a really nasty bit of spyware infected her computer. This isn’t a bash on Microsoft, but it happened twice in about a month.

One of the recurring themes that keeps popping up in the Linux community is this pressing need to get Linux on the desktop. I have often pondered in the past that such a goal is indeed worthy--once we actually figure out just exactly what "desktop" means.