The past, the present, the future of Linux development is all about the independent hobbyist who dedicates hours and hours of their time to simply experimenting with Linux code out of interest, creative desire or a sense of wanting to achieve a personal goal. Without the Linux hobbyists there would be no open source and frankly no Linux.

While many professional outfits now work on developing Linux code, and therefore make a significant contribution to the Linux community, it is the abiding spirit of the hobbyist that underpins the whole open source ethos.

So what are the vital qualities that the hobbyist offers and why do they remain a crucial part of the Linux community?

Kernel 2.6 maintainer Andrew Morton's wish has come true now that he has found not just one, but two new embedded maintainers, Paul Gortmaker and David Woodhouse.

The Free Network Project provides a safe environment for free speech, even for users who fear censorship.

Three simple photos are causing a stir right now: they show kernel inventor Linus Torvalds talking to the ZFS inventor Jeff Bonwick and thus fire rumors about the filesystem being added to the Linux kernel.

Red Hat's David Airlie reports in his blog that a simple hack allowed him to develop an X server without root privileges in the course of just one afternoon.

The current Ubuntu version is less than a month old, but Mark Shuttleworth has already published plans for the future version in his blog.

Long-standing Debian developer and former Project Leader Anthony Towns has said that he is withdrawing from current projects. The reasons seem to be a disagreement on distribution of tasks within the free Linux distribution.

Andrew Morton, the Linux Kernel 2.6 maintainer announced last week at the Embedded Linux Conference in Mountain View that he is looking for an architecture-independent embedded specialist.