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For some time now, I've been looking for a good, open source bulletin board package to run a discussion board on my Web site. After a lot of searching, I've settled on PunBB because it offers the features that I want, and is available under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

If you've ever been a part of a large development project, you've no doubt become accustomed to having access to source control and bug tracking tools and design document repositories. But what if you're part of smaller project where you're responsible for setting up your own infrastructure? Trac, an open source project sponsored by Edgewall Software Services, provides a complete project infrastructure that's easy to install and maintain.

In September, GNOME Foundation member David Neary put forward a proposal to reduce the number of GNOME Foundation Board members from 11 to seven. After discussion on the foundation list, Neary circulated a petition, and received enough signatures to hold a referendum. GNOME Foundation members were able to cast their votes on the referendum between October 24 and November 6.

As soon as I read the news on Slashdot that id Software's just released Quake 4 was already available as both a Linux client and game server, I ran out and dropped $50 for the game. The box contained 4 CDs, a game guide, and a license key. But that's not enough to let you play Quake 4 on Linux.

Bob Young is, arguably, one of the most influential figures in the development of Linux and open source. By co-founding Red Hat with Mark Ewing in 1993, Young helped turn Linux into a household name. After being involved with Red Hat for more than 12 years, Young recently stepped down from Red Hat's board of directors. We caught up with him to see what his plans are, and what his thoughts are on Red Hat and the future of open source.

The PostgreSQL Global Development Group (PGDG) is expected to formally announce the availability of PostgreSQL 8.1 today at the Open Source Database Conference in Frankfurt, Germany. The new release has more than 120 enhancements, according to a press release from the PostgreSQL Project, including new and improved features and performance improvements. There are also a number of changes in query syntax and PostgreSQL utility commands, which are detailed in the release notes.

Intuit Quicken and Microsoft Money are two popular Windows-based packages for personal financial management. GNU/Linux offers several similar applications -- most of them free software -- that can meet or exceed the capabilities of the proprietary programs. If you can adjust to a different interface, you might find you like one of them more than the better-known alternatives.

As China prepares to become a full member of the World Trade Organization, the Beijing government is trying to prove to the West that it is serious about reducing software piracy. And so ’s government agencies and businesses are turning to Linux as their desktop operating system of choice, a trend with potential to influence how the world uses the open-source software.

Sudo is a handy little tool that is of value to both system administrators and common folks like us. What does it do? It allows you to temporarily assume the permissions of another user, up to and including root. If you belong to the camp that says you should only have root privileges at the time they are needed, sudo makes your life a little easier by making it easier to shape-shift between the permissions for a mere mortal and those of the super user.

Simplifying software installation is a popular pastime for Linux developers. It has given us useful tools like Synaptic, YUM, checkinstall, and autopackage. A new kid on the block, Klik, approaches the problem differently, by avoiding the installation altogether.

I attended the first "east coast" Open Source Business Conference (OSBC) in Newton, Mass. last week, along with about 400 other people. Two similar conferences have been held in San Francisco. The first one there, in 2004, had about 400 attendees, but according to conference organizer Matt Asay the 2005 one had nearly 800, and he hopes to see similar growth in the east coast version, not that this event felt empty or strayed from its theme. Almost all of the people I met at OSBC were open source users, but they were also hardheaded businessmen and businesswomen. And lawyers. In fact, four law firms helped sponsor the event.

Welcome to this year's 44th issue of DistroWatch Weekly. Fans of the BSD family of projects can expect an exciting week as NetBSD 2.1, FreeBSD 6.0 and OpenBSD 3.8 are all expected to be announced and released with the next couple of days. On the Linux front, we have some interesting information regarding the Ubuntu Zero Conference, a link to guide describing the installation of Enlightenment 17 on SUSE 10.0 and news about a working graphical front-end for the Debian installer. Finally, the fans of Debian-based distributions will no doubt appreciate our review of The Debian System - Concepts And Techniques, a newly released book written by a well-known Debian developer. Happy reading! Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in ogg (8.75MB) or mp3 (9.47MB) format (courtesy of Shawn Milo). Join us at irc.freenode.net #distrowatch

Web comics are the next incarnation of traditional cartoons. And while the medium in which they are published has changed, the idea of comics making commentary still stays the same. Today, some Web comic creators use their comic to promote Linux advocacy.

The maker of the Intoxilyzer 5000 breathalyzer, CMI Inc., has informed prosecutors involved in several DUI cases in Sarasota County, Florida, that it will not assist prosecutors in complying with a judicial order to allow an expert hired by defense attorneys to review the source code for software used in the device.

After nearly two years, Levanta is making an effort to bring the MapFS kernel module to a wider audience. MapFS is part of the core software for Levanta's Intrepid M management appliance, a system for provisioning, deploying, and managing Linux servers.

Thumbnail viewers are utilities that let you quickly view or manipulate images. For instance, many let you display, rotate, and zoom images. Some also offer built-in slide show features -- though not at the level of presentation programs such as OpenOffice.org Impress. Here's an introduction to several common Linux thumbnail viewer programs.

This week, advisories were released for lynx, OpenSSL, gnump3d, netpbmfree, gallery, phpmyadmin, SELinux PAM Local, TikiWiki, mantis, Ethereal, XLI, libgda, ImageMagick, kernel, and wget. The distributors include Debian, Gentoo, and Red Hat.

At this week's Cryptographic Hash Workshop in Washington, DC, the giants of the cryptography field met to discuss the problem of our disintegrating hash algorithms. Today, the security of the algorithms that protect our online banking and digital signature systems is crumbling, and no one has a simple answer to the problem.

An international organization is preparing to publish its approval of the Linux Standard Base (LSB) as a worldwide standard, which could potentially lead to easier migration to and software development for Linux.

Google, having gotten where it is thanks in large part to open source software and development, is giving back to the community with a $350,000 grant to Oregon State and Portland State universities for their collaboration on the development, systems administration, and learning of open source software.