Not only Firefox became in a relatively short amount of time the most popular web browser on Linux, but it also turned out to be the most powerful competitor to Internet Explorer on Windows, proving itself faster, more stable, more flexible and secure. Some would say Firefox is one of the most important proofs that open-source can and is actually better than closed, proprietary software.

The system is being challenged by the very same people who operate it

Windows may be king of data centers, but Linux has a foothold in nearly every courtyard and is sure to make further inroads in the year ahead.

IRC plays a major role in the Linux development and the community itself, and most distributions and software projects usually have one or more IRC channels (usually on Freenode or, in Debian's case, on OFTC) for discussing issues related to the project or just helping users.

I am a big fan of the previously mentioned Remember The Milk productivity webapp. It does one thing– manages your Todo list– and it does it very well. Remember The Milk offers a clean web interface, as well as integration inside Gmail, Google Calendar, and even has an iPhone app. The only thing that was missing for me, though, was a simple interface for the Linux desktop. Enter Tasque.

Today's closed source software vendors have a very neat, tidy arrangement that works well for them on both the Windows and OS X platforms. Create a software application that solves a need, release updates and patches as needed, then collect the revenue generated from the sale of the software.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu, recently wrote a post detailing Ubuntu and Canonical’s contributions to the upstream projects that make up their distributions. There he mentioned a challenge he recently issued to the Linux and free software community: build a Linux-based UI and computing experience on par with Apple’s within two years.