The open source community risks leaving Asian users and developers behind, thanks to cultural differences and western business's tendency to treat programmers there as code monkeys rather than software designers, a senior Novell staffer has warned.

I’ve spent recent days praising Ubuntu’s simplicity. My $1,400 investment in a screaming Dell machine running Ubuntu was money well spent. But I also realize Ubuntu won’t appeal to all users. In fact, I can think of at least four key reasons why many Mac and Windows users won’t want an Ubuntu PC. Here they are.

Looking at the w3school OS Statistics it shows that linux has been pretty much stable in its usage for the last couple of years. Does this mean that us Linux fanboyz are all talk and no action? If Linux has stabilised in its adoption then where are all the new users? Windows Vista has been increasing rapidly and is just about to surpass Linux

Many of us know that governments can threaten the human rights of software users through censorship and surveillance of the Internet. Many do not realize that the software they run on their home or work computers can be an even worse threat. Thinking of software as "just a tool", they suppose that it obeys them, when in fact it often obeys others instead.

On Oct. 17, New Zealand honors those who make positive contributions to Open Source by presenting the first New Zealand Open Source Awards.

The event, to be held in Wellington, is being spearheaded by Catalyst IT, New Zealand's largest open source provider, and the New Zealand Open Source Society.

Hans Reiser is waiting for me, standing on the other side of an imitation-wood table. The room is small, the concrete walls bare. A guard locks the steel door from the outside. There is no sound. Reiser is wearing the red jumpsuit of a prisoner in solitary confinement, though he has been allowed to meet with me in this chilly visiting room.

When we last left our story, Michael Tiemann of the OSI had decided to police the term “open source” and write some CRM companies out. There comes now another e-mail, this time from the folks at Centric CRM. They have gotten wind of the controversy and want to respond.

For many years, the term "open source" has been subject to abuse. Despite efforts by the OSI (Open Source Initiative) to trademark the phrase, the USPTO (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office) claimed the phrase was too generic to be trademarked, thereby weakening efforts to guard against its improper usage, according to Danese Cooper, secretary and treasurer of the OSI board.