Linux.conf.au came to a close Friday after dozens of excellent talks, great social events, and the unexpected shaving of Bdale Garbee for the Tasmanian Devil.

For FOSS fans, there's no better place to be this week than Hobart, state capitol of the Australian state Tasmania. That's where Linux.conf.au 2009 is being held through Saturday, January 24.

Today the One Laptop per Child Project announced that they will be reducing their team by about 50 percent and the remaining 32 team members will have salary reductions.

The open source community doesn't have a fleet of attorneys and PR consultants. When it is time to make the case for free software, you might just have to be the advocate.

The look and feel of Mac OS X appeals to many free software supporters. Mac4Lin icon and sound themes, in addition to the new Avant Window Navigator Dock clone, emulate this look. Also, the development team behind pdfsam offers a model for remunerating programmers of free software.

New venue for Ontario Linux Fest 2008 puts the community into the conference.

Snow-covered white mountains, green meadows, yellow cheese, purple cows, the distant sound of yodeling marmots, and plenty of Linux people from all over the world – a perfect combination for a geek event.