At my last, best count, there were over 550 individual Linux distributions. From the most generic, flat installs of the most common distros to ultra-specialized, multimedia-oriented to the eye-popping, fancy ones--they're all there for the taking.

"Do you use Linux? Have you ever heard of OpenOffice.org? If you answered “yes” to first question and “no” to second, you are really rare individual! That is because OpenOffice.org (OOo) is one of the first software packages installed in Linux. Many Linux distributions include OOo into their standard installation.

Sun Microsystems is in talks with two more Linux projects to ensure its open source software and tools are delivered straight into the hands of developers.

It's a fact of life that Linux distributions go extinct and it happens more often than our Linux fan base would like to admit. At last count, there are approximately 50 individual distributions that are now extinct. What happens to the poor unfortunates who adopt and use these defunct distros?

The open source survives and thrives by the sheer number of distros available. Proprietary software is just a small pond compared to the enormous number of distros available for open source. Again, distros are qualitatively superior and robust give developers the powerful tools that inspire their creativity, which they crave. One of the most popular distros ever is the Debian distro.

Just over one year after the release of OpenOffice 3.0, OpenOffice.org (OOo) project developer Joost Andrae has announced that the free office suite has been downloaded more than one hundred million times since the launch of version 3.0. OpenOffice is an open source office suite from Sun Microsystems for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux systems.

Recently, the Free Software Foundation announced its latest additions to its listing of open-source purist distributions. This lead me to thinking about both these distributions and the best of the distributions that go the other way and contain a great deal of proprietary programs.

A best-of-breed philosophy is leading LeapFrog Enterprises increasingly toward open-source options.

Sun Microsystems is to open-source the last closed-source parts of Java, a move that should make it possible to fully integrate the software into Linux distributions.