For open source and Linux, 2009 has been another year of big and surprising milestones, from the White House adopting open source technology to Microsoft submitting code for the Linux kernel."

Linus Torvalds has merged the kernel code for the GeForce-compatible nouveau open source graphics driver as a staging driver into the Linux main development tree – from which kernel version 2.6.33 will emerge in around two and a half months.

I have read a rather sad story today. Apparently the Best Buy Geeks squad refused to service the machine of someone who had purchased an $80 extended warranty for its netbook just because he had installed Ubuntu Linux.

Welcome to definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2009. First up - What is open source hardware?

Michael Geist writes, "The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is generating growing concern as many people learn about the secret copyright treaty for the first time. I've create a visual timeline to trace its emergence that includes links to the leaked documents, official government statements, and NGO letters and work in the area."

A former student of mine noticed that my laptop looked different. Well, maybe not the laptop itself, but the user interface. She immediately inquired how I “did that” while she pointed at the screen of my Thinkpad.

Almost everyone uses Linux, thanks to its growing popularity in consumer electronics in everything from TVs to DVR (digital video recorders) to DVD recorders to you name it. Some companies, however, think that they can use Linux and open-source software for their products without releasing the source code or, in some cases, paying the creators. Wrong.