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.

Current balloting for Debian Lenny's future has led to strife in the organization. Secretary of the free project, Manoj Srivastava, has resigned his position. A possible consequence is that the next version will undergo further delay in its release.

The foundation behind the free Linux OS has appointed kernel developer and IBM collaborator Theodore Ts'o as its Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

Linux Magazine contributor Neil J. Gunther (October, 2007 "Stretch!" article among others) has recently been honored with the prestigious A. A. Michelson Award at the Computer Measurement Group (CMG) Conference in Las Vegas.

Mark Shuttleworth is appealing to community members to send him screenshots of their standard 1024x768 desktops. His aim is to collect ideas that will improve the desktop experience.

Slackware is widely regarded as the oldest active Linux distributions. Right on time for Christmas, the distro, which once served as a basis for (open) SUSE, is available in a new version.

Red Hat president and CEO Jim Whitehurst sees opportunities for open source firms that might be putting undue burden on their dwindling IT departments because of the current economic downturn. Whitehurst offered his views in a press conference in Munich. His conclusion: "When people look at alternatives, often Open Source wins."

The feud between Minix inventor and operating system czar Andrew W. Tanenbaum and Linux Torvalds is legendary in the OS world. Before Linux there was Minix. Torvalds used to be a Minix user who set up his first Linux version in 1991 on Professor Tanenbaum’s operating system. Mr. Tanenbaum has now agreed to write a guest editorial for Linux Magazine. His opinion has not changed over the years: Linux (and Windows) are “unreliable.”