The world of open-source development could be divided if the European Commission succeeds in passing a law extending consumer protection rules to software, according to experts.

The world of open source development could be divided if the European Commission (EC) succeeds in passing a law extending consumer protection rules to software, according to experts.

One thing that many people involved in the free and open source software community have a great deal of difficulty with is separating the personal from the professional.

A great deal is being made of the fact that Linux creator Linus Torvalds has switched from using the KDE desktop to using GNOME, something he did many months ago, and something he mentioned in passing during an interview last month.

With proprietary solutions you often get the collective knowledge of the current and past users of that software or service.

If you think you can easily whittle down the best open source software to a manageable number, you'll soon discover that you can't do it without a great deal of hair pulling, nail biting, and gnashing of teeth. To bring you this year's 40 top open source products -- our 2009 Bossie winners -- we pulled a couple of fast ones.

Open source games have historically struggled to achieve the user following of proprietary gaming software, but over the past few years open source games have taken a turn for the better in terms of usability, playability, and generally the ability to grasp public interest. Here is an in-depth list of some of the most outstanding open source games currently released and in active development.

The use of open source environments for enterprise software projects is growing at an unprecedented rate, with notable peaks of interest among financial services and public sector organizations. Indeed, the adoption of open source software is growing at a great clip, with worldwide revenue from standalone open source software having reached $1.8 billion in 2006, according to recent calculations from IDC. That figure is expected to reach $5.8 billion by 2011, representing a compound annual growth rate of 26 percent. As a result, IDC is calling open source "the most significant, all-encompassing, and long-term trend that the software industry has seen since the early 1980s."

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.