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One of the things I usually take care of as a Gentoo packages maintainer is sending patches to upstream developers. If a patch is applied upstream, we can remove it from future versions of a package so we have less work to do to maintain the package. Unfortunately, it seems that other distributions and packagers don't always do the same. This is true not only for Linux distributions such as Debian, Fedora Core, and SUSE, but also for maintainers of packages in places like FreeBSD's Ports, DarwinPorts or Fink. Here are some tips for developers on making things easier for yourself and everyone who has to touch your code.

Features Anyone keeping track of the security vendor/technology hype knows that IPS has quickly replaced IDS as the “next big thing”. Depending on who you are, you may chalk this up to yet another infosec fad, or you could be of the opinion that IPS is actually making good on the promises that IDS never lived up to. I think it can be both – depending on your situation.

The South African State Information Technology Agency (SITA) plans to develop an electronic health record system (EHR) for the national Department of Health. For the nationwide adoption of the project, the department considers an open source based development and calls for tenders. SITA has extended the deadline for responses to its request for information to August 12, 2005.

Windows on Linux software vendor Win4Lin this week announced plans to expand into South Africa through local distributor Workgroup.

Desktop Linux has open-source developers' attention.

The catalyst for much innovation is laziness. Ask any old person. Years of strenuous room crossing to change TV channels led to the invention of the infrared remote control. Years of strenuous lifting and pointing of these remotes led to the invention of the direction-less RF remote control. Finally, years of strenuous searching for all these remotes has led to the invention of remote control applications for Bluetooth-equipped cell phones. Short of cybernetic implants, this may be the easiest way to control applications without having to touch a keyboard or mouse.

A group of students at the IT University in Copenhagen, Denmark, has launched what it hopes may become "The Linux of Beers" - it has created an "open-source" beer by publishing its recipe and brand under a Creative Commons license. Calling itself Vores Øl Group (Vores Øl is Danish for "Our Beer"), the group says it has created Our Beer "as an experiment in applying modern open source ideas and methods on a traditional real-world product."

Sixth Debian Developers' Conference ends in Success; More than 300 people attended this year's Debian Conference, which took place from July 9th to 17th at the University of Helsinki, Finland. The conference has been supported by more than 20 sponsors and featured a lot of talks, workshops, demonstrations, coding marathons and round table discussions on various aspects of the Debian project.

MySQL AB, developer of the world's most popular open source database, has announced that it has just completed the best quarter (April-June) in the company's ten-year history. Due in large part to the success of its new "MySQL Network" commercial subscription offering, the privately-held company generated more than twice the revenue than the same period last year.

As we go to press on Friday, Lance Armstrong has finished up his last trial in the Tour de France and he enters the final leg on Saturday in first place and is well on his way to winning the event for his seventh time. Armstrong got there by working hard, by overcoming cancer, and by working hard. But he also got there through the application of information technology to the design of his racing bikes.

Held in London last Saturday, OpenTech 2005 was an informal, low-cost conference about open technologies and content. Attendees ranged from BSD hackers to digital rights activists, from mapping enthusiasts to staff from the BBC. The program covered the work of organisations like the BBC and Yahoo! alongside community groups as diverse as mySociety, Remix Reading, and the Space Hijackers. The range and quantity of material covered was impossibly large, so this report is merely a glimpse into a few key issues raised in discussions. But the question on everyone's minds throughout the day was: Will the future be open, and if so, what will it look like?

The second in the new series of People Behind KDE brings us Thiago Macieira. Thiago is a Brazilian who spends his time reading the kde-bugs-dist mailing list. Somehow he also finds time to look after the networking code in kdelibs and his dog Kayla. He also tells us why he has two clocks and includes a Unix story in Old English.

Problems don't just show up in the technology; Developers need to pay attention to where code comes from and to licensing issues

The rise of Linux and other Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is having a generally overlooked side-effect: the decentralisation of software development, the strengthening of local software industries and the lowering of barriers to entry for smaller developers and support providers.

The Electoral Enrolment Centre has moved to open source software to slash its operating costs. The centre, which compiles electoral rolls nationwide, has migrated to the GNU/Linux operating system and open source applications tailored by Wellington services firm Catalyst IT.

Smaller companies can create collaborative work environments for programmers with new version of CollabNet

The final day of the Ottawa Linux symposium was highlighted by this year's keynote address, delivered by Red Hat's lead Linux kernel developer, Dave Jones.

Welcome to this year's 30th issue of DistroWatch Weekly. It is "shoulder season" in the distribution land. Apart from several minor distribution releases, it was a slow week, with only the launch of the Utnubu initiative and a new beta release from Mandriva providing some excitement. Prompted by a satisfied user, we have taken a closer look at StartCom MultiMedia Edition, an interesting distribution based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Apart from these topics, we have all the usual columns, complemented by a quick tip for using digital cameras, mobile phones and music players under Linux. Happy reading!

There are lots of ways the command line can help you. Often, you don't need to do something so much as you need to know something. Let's take a quick look at several commands -- whereis, whatis, df, kernelversion, ifconfig, route, and last -- that can quickly answer questions about your system or configuration.

It's been another Ottawa Linux Symposium, and before it fades into a daze, let's see whether I can extract some themes and threads.