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So maybe you were lucky enough to get an e-reader for the holidays. In fact, maybe you’re reading this article on one right now! Maybe you’re cozying up to your fire and you’re considering what e-book you want to download to get through these dark winter days.

But you’re an Ars reader, and you actually know (and care!) what DRM stands for. After all, we’ve been covering digital rights management for years, ever since it was a contentious issue in the music industry. You may recall that Amazon itself led the charge against Cupertino, challenging iTunes with cheaper downloads and a lack of DRM. But Amazon's lead in the fight against music DRM was a business decision rather than an ideological stance. You may remember our story from late October 2012, detailing how to strip DRM off of Amazon Kindle purchases as a means of backing up your titles and preventing Amazon from deleting your entire library on a whim.

And that leaves this question: where’s the DRM outrage over e-books? Or put another way, why doesn’t Amazon care about eliminating DRM for books, when it did for music?

Netrunner 'Dryland' third edition (version 12.12) has arrived. It is based on Kubuntu 12.10 and comes with the following features: GNU/Linux OS kernel 3.5, KDE 4.9.3, Mozilla Firefox 17 with KDE integration, Mozilla Thunderbird 17, VLC 2.0.4, LibreOffice 3.6.2, GIMP 2.8, Krita 2.5.3, Gwenview 4.9.3, Skype 4.1, Kdenlive 0.9.2, Telepathy Messenger, Samba Mounter (easy NAS setup), Webaccounts (social accounts integration), Runners-ID (free and libre cloud storage and music streaming), Muon Discover 1.4, VirtualBox 4.1.18, WINE 1.5.19, and much more.

Following rapidly in the footsteps of Linux Mint 14's Xfce release, the Mint developers have now released the KDE edition of the latest version of their distribution. Based on the same Ubuntu foundation as the other Linux Mint 14 releases (with Cinnamon and MATE desktops), the KDE edition uses the KDE Software Collection 4.9, specifically 4.9.2, to provide its desktop. All four versions are available from the project's download page as 32-bit and 64-bit variants.

2012 was another busy year for Linux kernel developers as the continuous pace of evolution accelerated further. In total, seven major Linux kernels were released during the year adding a long list of new features along the way.

It seems there's some dissenting views finally being pushed into the center of the table for discussion about the GNU project and Free Software Foundation. This comes as the maintainer of GNU Grep and Sed has announced his resignation from the projects...

Glynn Moody thinks that now open source foundations have apparently come of age now the time may now be right for the formation of an umbrella foundation to share best practices and speak with one voice

A web server is computer software that delivers web pages on request to clients using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It serves the files that form web pages to web users; the content is in the form of HTML documents, images, style sheets, and scripts.

Highlighting the top ten projects, both followed and contributed to, the GitHub service's look back on 2012 reveals some revealing front runners and a huge increase in activity on the site

With the release of GNU sed 4.2.2, Paolo Bonzini has given up position of maintainer of the software, and the same position on GNU grep, citing differences with GNU Project leader Richard Stallman and the FSF

Since its beginning in 1996, KDE has developed as an organization creating a wide range of software. From the start, KDE relied on Qt, the toolkit that helps to power KDE’s software. KDE and Qt have always worked together closely. This partnership has grown even closer since Qt development moved to the Qt Project. The quality of current and future KDE applications depends on innovation and improvements within Qt.

A few days ago, the Qt Project achieved a major milestone—the release of Qt 5.0. The release included significant contributions from KDE Community members. Congratulations to everyone who made a contribution!

Knoppix 7.0.5 is based on a rather current Linux kernel and can now install overlay images on USB flash drives. The overlays offer more than 4 GB of data storage and remain intact after a reboot

Offering command line control of EC2, SQS, SNS, SES and other services, the Python based application adds a new route for scripting control of Amazon's web services

After 12 years of development, the Enlightenment project has issued the first release of E17, the Linux-oriented Enlightenment 0.17 desktop interface

What do you plan on doing the MOST over the holidays? reading traveling activities with family and friends playing with gadgets gaming Happy Holidays from opensource.com!  We hope that you have a great break (if you get one!) and spend some time doing the things you like most. Many of us will spend it doing a mix of activites, like: 

The Italian city of Bolzano is getting a network of traffic monitoring stations using off the shelf hardware and FOSS.

The maintainer of the Free Software Foundation's GNU grep and GNU sed projects has resigned, after looking after them for three and eight years respectively

Remember that era where the original RAZR elevated Motorola's name in the mobile realm to god-like status? Evidently, folks in that inner circle are angling for that to happen once more. A breaking report from The Wall Street Journal has it on good authority that engineers at Moto are toiling on a so-called "X phone," which is obviously being built under the stewardship of Google. The goal? To produce a singular handset that can immediately rival the iPhone and Samsung's flagship Galaxy handsets.

The Unvanquished open-source game is preapring for a great year ahead and for kicking off the New Year they will soon be releasing Unvanquished Alpha 11...

After a successful campaign to raise money for Ken Starks, and after using so much great software for so long, fantasy author Thomas A. Knight has put his debut novel up for grabs for free to give something back to the community.

Team Google – technically, Team Motorola within Team Google – is apparently working a new smartphone that's designed to up the ante against hotshot smartphone competitor Apple. The problem? It's apparently taking a bit longer than expected for Google to produce results, which might allegedly cost the rumored "X Phone" some of its more eye-catching features. The Wall Street Journal has all the details on the new device, but we use that term loosely, because the smartphone is more cloaked in secrecy than confirmed with facts at this point. Some of the potential features being tossed around, however, do seem a bit innovative, like the phone's rumored bendable screen – one of the attributes that might get the axe as a result of "manufacturing" and "supply-chain management" issues, reports Amir Efrati.