The open source desktop world got a boost this week with the release of GNOME 2.30 -- the latest incarnation of one of the leading open source desktop GUIs that's a part of nearly every major Linux distribution. With GNOME 2.30, the open source effort is adding new features that aim to make it easier to connect to online services, such as social networking giant Facebook.

Global Development Group has released version 8.4, continuing the rapid development of the world's most advanced open source database. This release contains an abundance of enhancements to make administering, querying, and programming of PostgreSQL databases easier than ever before.

The PostgreSQL Global Development Group announces the release of PostgreSQL 9.3, the latest version of the world's leading open source relational database system. This release expands PostgreSQL's reliability, availability, and ability to integrate with other databases. Users are already finding that they can build applications using version 9.3 which would not have been possible before.

Is Linux pushing the envelope a bit too far, too fast? That's the question posed by Charlie Babcock's interesting article on the pace and scope of Linux development. Dan Frye argues that Linux represents a "first-of-a-kind developer community." Most people don't recognize this, thinking that all open-source projects are similar to Linux... Not at all.

Fellow OStatic blogger Joe Brockmeier took an insightful look yesterday at why open source is growing at an amazing pace.

Over the past few years, scheduled releases of open source projects have become the norm. Projects tend to release new versions according to a regular schedule as opposed to releasing when the developers consider all the work proposed, has been completed.

"Achieving synchronization on the scale that Shuttleworth desires would require some open-source software projects to radically change their current development models and adopt a new approach that isn't going to be viable for many projects."

Open source healthcare is forging forward quickly on the Internet. But, fast developments often produce many failures. But, many medicinal open source projects that have gained success development. This success shows that open source alone is not the solitary factor in development.

The open-source development model can can be powerful and incredibly beneficial for any software development project. Yet, even most open-source projects do not follow this style of development. Today, I want to talk a bit about why this is the case, and what can be done to set your project on the right path to enjoy the advantages of the open-source development process.