Here's a question I get all the time: how big is the free economy? That's harder to answer than you might think, for both definition and measurement reasons. But here's a first pass at doing it anyway.

Linux overcame most of its former driver woes years ago except for one noticeable exception: Wi-Fi drivers. While many Wi-Fi cards and chipsets were Linux friendly, two major Wi-Fi chipset vendors, Atheros and Broadcom, kept their drivers proprietary. Now, things are changing. Atheros has released a true open-source driver for its latest 802.11n chipsets.

Intel's project to put a Linux and open source stack on mobile devices is getting overhauled to attract developer support, having failed to generate much interest.

If you're interested in OpenMoko's Neo FreeRunner phone, but don't want to buy a development unit straight from them, there's another choice. Canadian company Koolu has signed on to distribute the phone in the Americas, UK, and EU, with plans to enhance and support the software as well.

Inquisitor is a mature hardware diagnostics, stress testing, certification and monitoring platform, running on GNU/Linux. It's
suitable for both enterprise and home use, customizable, modular and
available in standalone version, server-controlled network boot production system and serverless Live CD format.

Concerned about the increasing popularity of Web applications, Marco Barulli of the Clipperz project has written one of the first detailed suggestions about how free and open source software (FOSS) should respond to the trend. Although neither Barulli nor Clipperz is well-known, his ideas are being listened to by such figures as Richard M.

Big Buck Bunny is the colorful product of the Peach open movie project: an animated short released online and on DVD. But in addition to the 'toon itself, Peach has produced an altogether different yield: improvements to the Blender 3-D modeling application.