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If you use Linux on your desktop, and you also happen to have a BlackBerry handheld device, you're probably aware that Research in Motion, the company that develops the BlackBerry platform, offers nothing in the way of support for its devices on Linux -- but the intrepid geeks in the free software world do. Thanks to to the efforts of the Barry and OpenSync projects, I just finished syncing my BlackBerry 8800 with my Evolution contacts on my Ubuntu 7.10 desktop.

What is the relationship between the GNU Project and the GNOME desktop suite? GNOME itself claims to be a part of the GNU Project. But its relationship with the organisation is not the same as that of other software projects which are part of GNU. GNU Project and Free Software Foundation founder Richard M. Stallman says, though GNOME is part of the GNU Project, it does not "follow GNU policies the way a normal GNU package does. That's Miguel's doing."

The news that the operations chief from a major US airline, Jim Whitehurst from Delta, is taking over at Red Hat from Matthew Szulik is a further sign of the growing legitimization of open source and Linux in the eyes of corporate, mainstream America. It underscores how the “suits to sandals” ratio in the open source and Linux movement sliding further towards the suits. Whitehurst’s blue-chip background at the $16-billion-a-year Delta and the fact he’s an executive lured from outside of the IT industry rather than one who simply swapped one tech industry management job for another underscores the belief in open source as a business.

There are literally dozens of window managers that you can use with your favorite desktop environment to get a beautiful and appealing desktop. If you want to fine-tune your window manager, here are two programs that can help you control everything from application window size to pinning an application to all workspaces to fixing a position for your application windows to resizing desktops. One, wmctrl, works with any window managers that adheres to the Extended Window Manager Hints (EWMH), while Devil's Pie is a window-matching utility, which means it can configure application windows based on defined rules.

By hiding out DNS server version number you can improve server security. fpdns is a program that remotely determines DNS server versions. It does this by sending a series of borderline DNS queries which are compared against a table of responses and server versions. (just like nmap command's remote OS detection facility). A nameserver basically responds to a query. Interoperability is an obvious requirement here. The standard protocol behavior of different DNS implementations is expected to be the same.

This tutorial demonstrates using Really Simple Syndication (RSS) channels to store contact information and meeting information—much as a personal address book and calendar does. It uses RSS elements and attributes such as items and guides to create a neural-network-like mesh of related data.

Just in time for the holidays, NVIDIA has released a new Linux display driver, which is a stable version of their previous 169.04 beta last month. In addition, the new NVIDIA 169.07 Linux driver has a few changes, while most of the release highlights were already found in the 169.04 release. We are preparing additional Linux tests with this new driver, but for right now we have the details on this proprietary display driver.

Being the geek that I am, I like to challenge myself with new ideas. A few weeks ago, I decided that my latest challenge should be to create a Christmas slideshow. I could put up a few strings of flashy lights, maybe even hang a wreath, but why should I be like my neighbors? I have the power of Linux and Free Software at my fingertips; I should show it to them, right?

The Dutch government has recently attracted Microsoft's anger by launching an actionplan to adopt open standards, and concretely OpenDocument Format by April 2008 in the national government. Open Standards will become mandatory and Free Software will be preferred. As the Minister of State, Frank Heemskerk, argued, this plan is not to exclude any company, but to stimulate information exchange, vendor independence and choice for various software products that implement open standards. he Ministry of Economical Affairs has published an English version of the plan on its site today.

The year 2007 has been the most active year for legal developments in the history of free and open source (“FOSS”). In fact, you would have been hard pressed in past years to enumerate even five important legal developments. However 2007 permits the creation of a traditional “top ten” list. My list of the top ten FOSS legal developments in 2007 follows:

If one takes a look at Linux Distribution’s forums, it becomes very evident that there is a large swell of people switching to Linux due to frustration with Vista or XP. All these people are trying to install Linux on their existing hardware and hoping that it goes well for them. And that is a good thing. Thankfully, Linux hardware support has improved tremendously with the latest kernels. So, in most cases, the experience for these people is going to be a rewarding one. Nevertheless, for a good number of them, this switch is going to be frustrating. You see, that is not the best way to switch to Linux.

Dear Glyn Moody: I found how you trotted out an age old and long since dealt with issue, namely the licensing of Qt1, as a way to discuss what you consider to be "the growing tensions between the KDE and GNOME camps" to be tasteless and ironic. If you want to help mend fences (we need all the hands we can get), the last thing to do is drag long-since dealt with issues that have been irrelevant for years back to the surface.

People often talk about getting average home users to use Linux, but that may not be the best group of people for Linux to market itself to. Part 2 covers large and small businesses as well as creative professionals.

Hydrogen is an advanced drum machine for GNU/Linux, although there also appears to be a Windows installer available (it could be dated -I haven't tested it-). 'Its main goal is to bring professional yet simple and intuitive pattern-based drum programming', reads their website, and by god, intuitive it is!

Overall, the industry did several things right and wrong this year. But here’s what Network World readers, columnists, bloggers and testers say are the absolute smartest and dumbest moves of 2007 -- and why they matter.

Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced financial results for its third fiscal quarter ended November 30, 2007. Red Hat's current fiscal year will end February 29, 2008. Total revenue for the quarter was $135.4 million, an increase of 28% from the year ago quarter and 6% from the prior quarter. Subscription revenue was $115.7 million, up 30% year-over-year and 6% sequentially.

A common question you hear from proprietary vendors when dismissing open source alternatives is “how many customers actually want access to the code anyway?” It is a question I put to an open source software vendor myself earlier this week while playing devil’s advocate. The response - that the right to modify the source code is more important than actually doing it - is well known, but it is worth repeating in the light of recent events surrounding the Mindquarry open source collaboration project.

I'm writing this review on Google Docs in Firefox while running gOS 1.0.1, the Ubuntu-based distribution that steers users toward Web-based applications whenever possible -- mostly those under the auspices of Google -- and which powers the Everex Linux PC being sold for $199 by the truckful at Wal-Mart.

It's that time of the month again where we get to share with you all of the details on the latest ATI/AMD Linux driver release. This month, the ATI Catalyst 7.12 Linux driver (formally, what is known as fglrx 8.44) brings a host of new changes, mostly in the form of bug fixes. In total, there are just under a dozen noteworthy bug fixes in this release -- including addressing 3D acceleration issues on AGP graphics cards and the well-known OpenGL memory leak that was introduced with the new driver code-base. In addition, the FireGL graphics cards are now supported on this new driver code-base.

After reporting strong quarterly earnings, Red Hat discloses it is replacing CEO Matthew Szulik. In a move that caught even Red Hat senior staffers by surprise, the Linux company announced on Dec. 20 that long-time president and CEO Matthew Szulik is resigning. He will be replaced by James M. Whitehurst, a former Delta chief operating officer, as of the first of next year.