linux.com: Watching the evolution of open source tools for video editing and manipulation over the last 10 years has been less than a thrilling experience. But are things about to change for the better in the near future? Can even the people most disenchanted with the current state of affairs feel tempted to regain a spark of hope?

Matt Asay: It's about time that United States elite academic institutions finally got around to not only using open-source software, but also teaching it. In the April 2008 edition of Harvard Business Review, Harvard gives its MBA students a taste of the decision facing every company that leverages technology as part of its business: Should I embrace or fight open source?

linux.com: If you're looking for a GNOME desktop for the popular PCLinuxOS (PCLOS), then newly released PCLinuxOS Gnome might be for you.

thevarguy.com: The VAR Guy was guilty of hyping Windows-based Ultra-Portables from startups like OQO a year ago, but he has drastically changed his thinking about the Ultra-Portable computer market. He thinks current market dynamics greatly favor Linux over Windows in the Ultra-Portable industry. Here’s why.

jonreagan.wordpress: ThinkFree is a company, which for the longest time, has offered their free online office suite, much like Google docs or Zoho Office. On April 7, things changed…

Matt Hartley: For a number of years now, Google has been waging a battle to win over your desktop without ever settling for one OS platform. Opting to play it safe by not entering the platform wars, but what if they were to put this mindset aside, and find themselves in a position to take on Microsoft in a more direct way? I think they might be able to make it work, so long as they utilize the following commonsense strategy.

Also: gOS Goes with Awn!

junauza.com: Optical disc authoring software, most commonly known as CD/DVD burning application is computer software for authoring optical discs such as CD-ROMs and DVDs. Here are some of the finest free/open-source optical disk authoring software:

fosswire.com: ManiaDrive describes itself as “an arcade car game on acrobatic tracks, with a quick and nervous gameplay (tracks almost never exceed one minute)” and also as a clone of Trackmania. What I can tell you is that ManiaDrive is a lot of fun, and extremely addictive at that.

linux.com: You can install and run Ubuntu from within Windows without any risk of accidentally deleting your existing programs and files by using Wubi, an unofficial Ubuntu installer for Windows users.

phoronix.com: Back in December we looked at the initial Ubuntu 8.04 Alpha 2 performance by comparing it to Ubuntu 7.10. Now that we're nearing an end in this development cycle as Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) will be released later this month, we've ran a new set of benchmarks comparing the latest Ubuntu 8.04 packages to the previous Gutsy Gibbon release.

Also: Microsoft.com vs. Ubuntu.com

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earthweb.com: We live in a cross-platform world. People work in front of their Windows PCs all day long, then go home to their Mac. Or they code at their Linux terminal then unwind with games on their Windows box. Unfortunately, for as many cross-platform people as there are, it doesn't always seem like there's a lot of software built to follow them from machine to machine. One exception is Pidgin.

ostatic.com: Mike Gunderloy's post on FOSS Factory got me thinking about what Linux needs to gain mass market acceptance. After thinking about it, I've come up with a list of four things that the Linux community needs that aren't (as far as I know) yet in the works.

linux.com: In this age of multi-core processors and 3-D desktops, some people still get work done on old resource-strapped single-core machines, thanks to programs like the AbiWord word processor. The latest stable AbiWord 2.6.0 release was unveiled last month.

technocrat.net: While I was retching my heart out one of the commenters brought up the idea of "bounties" as a business model for open source development. That idea has been tried repeatedly, commercially. As far as I know there are still some companies that do that. For the most part it doesn't work and can't work for both practical and theoretical reasons.

gimp.org: GIMP 2.5.0 is the first release from the 2.5 development series. It gives developers and interested users a view into the current development towards GIMP 2.6.

ruminationsonthedigitalrealm.org: I have been using Thunderbird for quite a while now. It’s a great e-mail client and the fact that you can use it on multiple platforms made it a winner for me. I carry a USB-drive around with Portable Thunderbird on it. But… Thunderbird was starting to give me a few headaches.

This is a detailed description about how to set up a Mandriva 2008 Spring Free (Mandriva 2008.1) server that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters: Apache web server (SSL-capable), Postfix mail server with SMTP-AUTH and TLS, BIND DNS server, Proftpd FTP server, MySQL server, Dovecot POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc.

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itnews.com.au: Results of Australia’s first large-scale Open Source community census have been released to the public. The Australian Open Source Industry & Community Report gives voice to the business potentials, patterns and concerns of a previously mute sector of the IT industry.