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Now, you can get more than a warm, fuzzy feeling for contributing to the project. The Tux500.com website is now offering collector edition merchandise for our efforts. Being that this is the first effort if its kind and that the merchandise is only available for a limited time, these items could indeed become collectors items in the future.

If the Linux community is going to get the respect it deserves it is going to have to do something like this sooner or later to stand up and demand the attention of the marketplace. I believe people will be speaking about this project for years to come, either because of the strong solidarity and support it got from the community or the indifference and divisiveness it displayed.

Now it means that we are going to be called by Microsoft itself. As of Sunday night, a decision had not been made but calls had been placed. It is being seriously discussed and at the highest levels. Their message will be loud and clear to each and every one of us: Put Up Or Shut Up.

Make no mistake about it, this is a combat situation. It is a battle between a corporation who wants to completely dominate the way you not only use your computer, but judge how and when you access your media devices. Let me introduce exhibits a and b. We can go forward from there.

Most people understand that an event watched by this many people for a month's time WILL generate interest and curiosity. The location of the event is secondary...no it's not even that it's...third-ary..? Well, you get what I mean. Now...if we could just put our politics aside for long enough to get this done, I am sure we can proceed beating the crap out of each other once we have secured ourselves a firm place in the market.

It started out well, someone agreed with it, someone didn't, the first someone defended his position, the second someone did the same. And on it went. However I noticed a phenomenon that is not uncommon in Linux forums. By the end of the discussion and at that point in time, it ran just short of 4 pages. The conversation had went from the topic at hand to the subject of zebras and virgins. Now you tell me how that happened.

Tom Chastain, a legend in the Indianapolis Racing Realm and the owner of Chastain Motorsports has announced his team's entrance in this year's Indy 500. And if we've got anything to do with it...as long as I have one struggling breathe left inside of me, that monster of a race car will have Linux splashed all over it when the flag drops. It will be the first time in history that Linux as been an active participant of the now-famous cry. "Gentlemen, Start your engines"!

Wanted...stunning, stellar, stupendous Graphics for Tux500

Google is a wonderful tool, some prefer Scroogle and that's fine. I am beginning to get comfortable with it myself. However, sometimes a question is a bit too complex and is shaded with a bit more nuance than Google can handle. Fortunately, Linux has a plethora of L33Ts to answer any question a new Linux User might have. This week's question was pretty good. Note to L33TS...L33T Juice is on sale at 7-11 this week. Looks like you need it. Final Score New User 1 - L33TS Zipp0, Nada, zilch-a-roony, goose egg...

Did you know that donations to the Tux500 project were being tracked by distro? That's right, when you click the donation link, the first thing you see is a blank field that says "donation for:" That my brethren FanBoi's is where you put your distro of choice. That is where we find out which distro contributed the most. Now...WHO is going to have prime real estate on the engine cowl or spoiler of the car? Will it be VectorLinux? Maybe Mepis or Sabayon...how about Ubuntu. Lord you Ubuntu guys make enough noise. I suppose now we will get to see just how much backing this distro has...or how many noise pollution credits ya'll should purchase.

This is indeed a historic moment for Linux and the Linux Community. Bob Moore, A Linux Administrator, enthusiast and Advocate understands completely the need for Linux-At-Large to gain recognition in the market place. While the Boxset distros such as Xandros and RedHat are marketed by their respective corporate entities, the "One-Man" distros and the smaller projects are left to word of mouth fate. That works fine to a point, but has proven to fall short of getting the word of Linux "Out There".

There are many FOSS projects that never see the light of day. Not because they are bad or without merit...they suffocate from lack of exposure. It's not every day we can go spend a couple hours browsing Freshmeat or Sourceforge. Let's look at it this way. While all analogies eventually fail, I think I can hold this one together long enough to make the point.

Google's road to riches, their own personal Horatio Alger story, was paved with the code and efforts of the Linux/FOSS community. Google still refuses to acknowledge the need for a viable desktop search tool for the Linux Desktop. However, they have found the time and resources to add another one to the Mac. That's odd in itself. Wasn't Spotlight supposed to do that?

One Linux Advocate, finally tiring of his friends "helping" him, issues a challenge. "You think I'm missing out by not running Windows Vista?" "You say it's superior even though one nanobyte of Linux code has never touched your hard drive?" "OK, I'll try it...but one one or two conditions..."

Don't you EVER doubt your impact as an individual or as a community. Ever. Your individual efforts when combined into a group focus is responsible for one of the biggest attitudinal turn-arounds in the history of Big Music Labels.

"...we make sure we know WHO has a computer and internet access at home. This way, when we hand out assignments for homework, we know who to assign "alternative lessons". Asking a child to complete an assignment with a computer she neither has nor can her family afford is a humiliating experience."

LXer.com recently published a news story that revealed Microsoft's attempt to "train" its sales force and customer-base in "fending off the Linux Surge". Did you get that? Microsoft has decided that Linux is indeed a threat to their monopoly and that extreme measures are indeed in order. Here is the joke most of us aren't getting. We argue, scream at one another, and basically run the topic into the ground...

Millions can now be set free of proprietary software and coldly calculated lock-in schemes. You...you accomplished this. And for these accomplishments, for these sacrifices and countless hours of mind-numbing coding and sweat, you are finally going to...

Many will be given a soothing but worthless salve...a bottle of snake oil that heals wounds and at the same time, treats the burning, itching condition known as a guilty conscious.

Ballmer publicly states that Linux infringes on MS Intellectual Property, Novell jingles a little silver bell to one side and says "Over here...This one is safe, here's your Linux", and the three of them make mega-bucks off of the labor of thousands of open source developers.