The OpenLuna Foundation was founded to return mankind to the moon through private enterprise. With Obama administration deciding to scrap NASA's moon mission once and for all, the role of private enterprise in future space endeavorers of humankind has grown ever larger.

With the Obama Administration gutting NASA's return to the Moon program, we need to look to private industry to lead the way in returning humans to space. Open source could be the ticket to get us there better, faster and cheaper

This week I offer a change of pace in my blog by presenting some foundational people and ideas that the open source movement is based on. I include plenty of links to enhance your understanding as well as provide some scavenger hunt questions in hopes that you will explore the beginnings of open source.

Why is it so hard to get governments (especially local government) to use open source software? Here are some ideas discussed during my keynote today in Oslo at GoOpen 2009 for practical steps various people, from citizens to policy wonks to representatives, can do to help get open source in actual use and delivering on its promise (and I know it's not easy)...

Since Mark Shuttleworth said that moving the Metacity window buttons to the left "opens up the space on the right nicely", lots of button ideas came out. The most controverted one is probably Esfera, an idea which Mark forwarded to the Ayatana mailing list. A recent idea by Izo makes a lot more sense than all the previous ideas. Have a look (it's called "The Workflow Button")...

There are more than a few of us who would be overjoyed to see Open Source take over the world. For the geeks at NASA, though, the world is not enough. Open Source is nothing new for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Linux Journal looked at Linux use in NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratories way back in May 2000.

Often I get ideas when working on a PC, ideas for things that would be nice to have on my system. Most of the time I sooner or later discover someone else had the same idea and build the thing I was thinking of only better.

A group of Australian Linux enthusiasts are using freely available software and hardware designs to engineer a space craft that could one day land on the moon and reap millions of dollars in prize money from Google. The Lunar Numbat project was started by a team of Australians and New Zealanders who have partnered with the Google Lunar X-Prize team White Label Space.

I’m a sucker for a cool space wallpaper, and judging by the images I find online, so are many of you. Creating a cool space scene can be done in a few minutes once you’ve got the basic method down, and Gimp provides several ways to go about adding random elements to keep things interesting.