It's no secret that those of us who have learned to appreciate Linux and in effect all things that are related to FOSS have gained some wisdom that can be applied to our daily lives. I'm not an inspirational writer but I would like to share to non-believers some of the wonderful life lessons that I've discovered from using Linux.

While wandering the Ubuntu site (www.ubuntu.com) to take a look at the new Hardy Heron / 8.04 LTS version, I went all philosophical and tried to think of any lessons that the Puppy Community could learn from that of Ubuntu. Now please note this is not a dig at the Puppy Community, we are one of the best out there, I'm just taking a step back and pondering to myself.

I’ve been in Free Software for a few years now and learned a ton from it. Sure, I learned how to use new types of software, became efficient on them, and honed my programming skills, but stopping there would be missing the point. Free software has so much more to offer than just computing and technical benefits.

It's old news by now. CompUSA is out of bid'ness. While there are a number of reasons for this, one of them should be obvious. They stubbornly held onto their loyalty to Microsoft.

I submit though, that the job isn't over, but incomplete. The ISO seriously needs to look at fixing how Microsoft attempted to hijack the process to suit their own gain, and ignore the real purpose of International Standards.

The core of US Patent 7,571,169 which Microsoft was granted on August 4th refers to – "A word-processing document stored in a single XML file that may be manipulated by applications that understand XML".

Linspire infighting and arguments over secrecy; lessons to be learned.

The ISO has modified its procedures after the controversial adoption of Microsoft's OOXML document format as an open standard in expedited proceedings

In the latest Ubuntu weekly newsletter the Ubuntu folks announced the release of the Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop Course. The modular course should take two days to complete all 10 of the lessons offered, but it is possible to cover topics and lessons independently of each other, learning whatever is of interest.