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The words "sharing" and "collaboration" don't exist in the lexicon of your typical for-profit corporation. Josselin Mouette was at the Gnome Asia Summit to show how free software can favourably tip the balance sheets. Josselin, the Gnome maintainer in Debian, also talks about CUT, the new addition to the Debian family of repositories.

Frederic Muller, president of Software Freedom International, was flaunting two things at the Gnome Asia Summit in Bangalore -- his passion for free software, and his newly acquired beard. We try to capture both in this interview. Frederic has lots of hands-on experience of promoting free software in education and offers wonderful advice for others who want to do the same.

Vincent Untz is the uber-geek release manager for Gnome. We catch him at the Gnome Asia Summit in Bangalore for a quick chat on all things Gnome 3 (and some things not).

The smart mobile user shouldn’t overlook Linux. The question is, which distro should you pick? You’ll get a different answer depending who you ask. You’ll probably be pointed in the direction of Arch for performance, Debian for stability and Ubuntu if you want easy access to the biggest collection of apps. If that’s not enough choice to make your head spin, Slackware has its fans too – particularly among people who use older laptops.

Mayank looks forward to a time when he can dirty his hands by getting under the hood of any device in his living room.

Break out the Speedos, grab the suntan lotion from the cupboard and crack open a chilled lager: the new summer collection from the top three desktop distro vendors is here. But if you’re thinking of giving a slice of your hard disk to one of these prominent free operating systems, don’t bother.

One of the most popular free-as-in-freedom Linux distribution, Fedora Linux, released its latest version, Fedora 8, earlier in November. In addition to being a fantastic release, Fedora's user and development community and a clear headed approach makes Fedora 8 much more than a Linux distribution.

o3 magazine, the enterprise Open Source magazine, today announced a beta of its news portal, o3news. The portal is designed to track all Open Source enterprise-related news. The service guarantees 24/7 coverage across timezones thanks to a globally distributed staff. o3news.com monitors over 25 news sources to keep you updated with enterprise news as it happens. You can read the news online at o3news.com or subscribe to its RSS feed (http://o3news.com/o3news.rss).

Donations play a crucial role in supporting Free and Open Source Software projects. At times readers will write in to share their positive experience with a utility or program or a distribution that I have written about. Now don't confuse them with your average technical-bent-of-mind Linux user. These are accountants, home-office businessman, and even carpenters and plumbers, who've saved a lot of money thanks to open source software. And they have one question in mind -- how do I help the person behind the program?

Unless you're an old Linux user, you've only probably used the KDE, GNOME or Xfce desktop environments. But since the time when these desktops were in their infancy, the Enlightenment desktop environment has been impressing users. Bringing this mature, visually appealing environment to new Linux users is what the Elive distribution is all about. Its developer Samuel "Thanatermesis" F. Baggen, explains his reasons for spinning Elive and how the distro has evolved over the years.

Gentoo is a source-based Linux distribution that helps users put together a streamlined custom system. But Linux users spoiled by the see-before-you-try Live CDs would often shy from Gentoo. Then along came Kororaa. Kororaa is a pre-configured binary Live CD for Gentoo Linux that also features an installer. Kororaa's package selection not only makes it an all-round Linux desktop, but has also ruffled feathers of Linux kernel developers.

Anyone who has tried downloading a popular software or Linux distribution on or just after release day, knows of the pain of the phrase ″connection timed out″. Getting the software can be quite a struggle, despite all the mirrors and BitTorrent Samaritans. Anthony Bryan's Metalink is an open standard that makes downloading easier, faster, and more reliable by helping users extract the last drop of juice out of their connection.

Red Hat developers have begun merging the Fedora Core and Extras repositories. The new merged Fedora repository is one of the major changes for the upcoming Fedora 7 release, and marks the first time a major distribution supported by a company has allowed members of the community to modify *core* packages inside a distribution.

There's no dearth of Linux distributions. This isn't the first time I've said this. Neither will it be the last. But why the chaos? Why are there more failed distributions than successful ones? Ask the distro guy, Ladislav Bodnar, maintainer of DistroWatch.com. Excuse me if the above sounds like those 15-second commercials during super bowl. As a Linux journalist, DistroWatch is an important tool of my trade. For over half a decade the website has been keeping track of every distribution related activity. And like the many distros it lists, DistroWatch is a one-man show. From its humble beginnings, Bodnar has turned DistroWatch into the most comprehensive, and respected, directory of Linux distributions, it is today.