The open source arena never fails to surprise when it comes to offbeat implementations of community-produced technologies. Put together enough eyeballs and collaboration, and unusual inventions will ensue. We've covered several examples of this phenomenon on OStatic, including open source efforts completely outside the software arena.

Although you'll occasionally come across someone who uses Opera, the world of browser users consists largely of people using Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. However, for niche applications, fast performance, and for other reasons, many free spirits use some of the unusual open source browsers out there. Here, you'll find four of them, and what they're good at.

There are a vast number of fantastic open source projects out there, though for every one that is widely adopted, there are many that remain cloaked in relative obscurity. How can the open source development model best be leveraged to take advantage of community feedback, ideas, and testing, and ultimately gather code contributions?

The world of open source is structured to invite unusual, often downright quirky contributions from people with unusual skills, and that inevitably leads to offbeat inventions. On the Linux front, especially because of easily executed embedded Linux concepts, both hardware and software inventions of the quirky type appear regularly.

If 2008 had a buzzword, it was probably community. More and more companies are looking to tap into communities for contributions to open source projects. But following the open-source trend just because everyone is doing it isn't good enough.

If you're a fan of offbeat applications of open source principles, you'll definitely want to take a gander at the "EDAG open source Light Car" from German design firm EDAG. Shown here and below, it's slated to debut at the Geneva Motor Show in March, and is based on a core chassis which can accommodate many modular types of exterior designs.

Window Snyder has the somewhat offbeat title of "chief security something-or-other" at Mozilla, where she is responsible for overseeing efforts to boost the security of the company's open-source offerings, including the Firefox browser.

This week theme has been "who's going to pay for open source?" It's shown up in a number of blogs, like Matt Asay's.

Open source is looking more attractive to software development managers who need to make their budgets stretch farther, as the enterprise can benefit from FOSS community's contributions. Here's how to participate in open-source projects and measure developers' success.