Ubuntu within the United States is alive and well! The US Teams Project, launched the beginning of 2007 has been a HUGE success.

I have said it before and I will say it again. Linux seems to me to be the fastest growing operating system in the history of computing. It has diversified so much that it is running more devices than any single operating system. Even if you are a devout windows, mac, BSD or UNIX advocate I will bet that you will be using a Linux device and not even know it.

"In the Information Technology world, the Free Software Foundation is the organization that struggles against the drive to convert knowledge itself into a capitalist commodity known as Intellectual Property. The emergence of [GNU/Linux], the fastest growing computer operating system (OS), has done much to validate the FSF work.

Gernot Heiser, professor of operating systems at UNSW has stated that Windows and Linux will remain as the future of desktop and server operating systems.

"HAVANA, May 17 (IPS) - After years of deliberation, the University of Havana has finally decided to switch over to free software on its network of computers, virtually all of which are running the Windows operating system, produced by United States software giant Microsoft..."

I'D like to start by asking you a series of seemingly unrelated questions. Have you watched Shrek or Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone? Have you flown on Continental, Virgin America or Singapore Airlines? Do you drive a BMW, Fiat or Renault car? Are you serving in the United States Army? Have you ever bought anything online using Paypal? Have you ever stayed in a Sheraton hotel?

Linux is a powerful operating system, but chances are it's a very different operating system than any you've used before. The dizzying number of choices in distributions alone is enough to make your head spin, but it also means there's something out there that really suits your computing style.

OpenStreetMap (OSM) has completed the bulk import of comprehensive street and highway data for the United States, months ahead of the project's original estimates. The massive data set originated with the US Census Bureau's public domain map database, and importing it required a dedicated upload process running around the clock since August 2007. The imported data will still require human editing and error-correction, but the completed task is a major milestone for the OSM project.

Regardless of why, the very idea of being forbidden from using one OS over another seems completely insane, if not immoral. But that is exactly what this individual has been asked to do should he chooses to remain a part of the computing community.