"Cathy Malmrose gives a glimpse into a project where seven year old girls build desktops with Ubuntu for their grandparents."

"Having provided an overview of the changes to the network subsystem, the graphics hardware and the storage hardware and filesystems in the previous three issues, this issue of the Kernel Log's "Coming in Linux 2.6.32" series looks at the drivers for other hardware components."

"[Heather}Buchanan is the creative designer for the Wellington conference which is being held from January 18 to 23. Apart from the conference website, every other graphic used in the conference has been created by her."

Cory Doctorow comments on Britain's Digital Economy Bill.

Bruce Byfield continues his series on documentation. In this article he writes about the knowledge needed and resources to consult to be a successful documentation writer.

"KDE is no longer software created by people, but people who create software. To be able to communicate this clearly in our messaging, it is necessary to reposition the KDE brand so that it reflects the reality. We therefore also need distinct brands for the products we produce." I detect some marketspeak here.

"The KOffice team is very happy to announce version 2.1.0 of KOffice, 6 months after the platform release 2.0.0. This release brings a number of new features as well as general improvements in the maturity of the individual applications." Note: this release is aimed at developers and testers - not end users.

"Dan Williams, Red Hat collaborator and NetworkManager developer, might be upset but doesn't let it get to him. In the GNOME blog, he advises "just say no" to WiFi drivers in the linux-staging tree and recommends changes."

Dave Phillips takes a look at OpenShot, a GTK-based, non-linear editor for video.

"The Debian GNU/Linux project is looking at a development freeze in March next year for its next release, Squeeze, the project leader Steve McIntyre says."

Bruce Byfield writes about documentation and the attitudes towards technical writers.

"It worked for software, so why not science? The open source science movement has been gaining momentum, and it's shaping the future of scientific research and discovery."

Carla Schroder discusses options for running your own "Cloud".

"The kernel development team have enhanced various aspects of Btrfs, one effect of which is to significantly improve the experimental file system's write performance. A number of changes to the block layer promise better data throughputs and reactivity. There are also several new drivers for storage hardware."

Phoronix takes a look at how Intel's Linux graphics driver stack performs in the latest release of Fedora.

"While I'm very positive about the openSUSE team I must say that I am a lot less sanguine about some in their community. Some fans (or really fanatics) came out in force ready to attack the reviewer (me), to question my skills and even my sanity, to attack Ladislav Bodnar for posting the review, to blame the hardware, anything at all but the distro code which is, according to some, "the best release ever"."

A look back at the origins of SourceForge.

Carla Schroder looks at what is good documentation and why it matters to users.

Carla Schroder shares her recent experience with a lack of decent documentation.

"These 25 notable quotes in tech history have become legendary sound bites."

The Phoronix Test Suite is going from strength to strength with many new features planned.

Phoronix has announced another release of its Test Suite.

Pamela Jones of Groklaw explains the problem SCO now faces with the GPL. In her words "...they are truly in a GPL pickle now."

Here's the scoop on the newest Fedora release.

"The Linux memory management code does its best to ensure that memory will always be available when some part of the system needs it. That effort notwithstanding, it is still possible for a system to reach a point where no memory is available."

This article specifically targets companies, and the issues they must deal with to successfully comply with a FOSS license. This is the last article in the series on FOSS license compliance.

This is also true of a Microsoft shop - bigger budget and more staff = more prestige (not).

"SC09 Looking at the semi-annual Top 500 list of supercomputers, you would never know the world was battling recession. Supercomputer centers keep chucking out old tech and rolling in new tech at the same feverish pace."

"Listen up open source developers, if you want your project to succeed you’re going to have to do more than write great code; you’re going to have to document it, teach new users how it works and provide real-world examples of what you can do with it."

Boo hoo -- better get out the crying towels.

"Today’s release of the list of the top 500 supercomputers shows that well over 90% are running Linux. Also, IBM’s Roadrunner has finally been dethroned; in a big way!"

A detailed review of the latest version of the openSUSE distribution.

"Having looked at the network subsystem changes in the previous issue, the Kernel Log will now discuss the most important advancements in the field of graphics hardware support. Some of these changes have probably been eagerly awaited by many users since AMD resumed closer cooperation with the open source developers."

"The MPAA has successfully shut down an entire town's municipal WiFi because a single user was found to be downloading a copyrighted movie."

"Mandriva Linux 2010 was recently released and brings lots of nice improvements to an already nice system."

Carla's on a roll here.

A Linux game for fantasy/science fiction fans.

"There seems to be quite a few concerns and complains about recent Ubuntu releases. Are there really that many regressions and instabilities with the latest releases of Ubuntu? Probably!" See: http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/29970/ for LXer reader comments to this story.

A poor man's WiFi brought to you by the Make Do, Use It Up, and Wear It Out School of Tech Inventiveness.

What a deal.

An interview with Professor Fernando J Corbato, the leader of the Multics project at MIT.

"I just read Terry Hancock’s artilce on Is free software major league or minor?. Great article, and I’m very glad to see articulate discussion about these core subjects. Not enough is said about these matters."

"Is free software really capable of serving end users or not? This issue has political consequences, which is part of what makes it important: either free software is “minor league” or it’s "major league"."

An article about Andrew McMillan, one of New Zealand's senior geeks who is responsible for managing the sponsors at the upcoming LCA conference in Wellington in January 2010.