A US-based firm which launched in Europe in 2006, SpikeSource can boast both an advisory board and a board of directors which include several free software and computing luminaries. Under the slogan of 'Business-Ready Open Source', the company distributes, integrates, manages and supports free software stacks. It also provides an automated testing and configuration management platform as part of its subscription-based maintenance services. Daniel James asks Dominic Sartorio of SpikeSource how the company works with open source software, and what its plans for the future are.

Daniel James interviews two of the developers working on DSSI, a free software standard for virtual, synthesised instruments

On the Novell website, there is a page dedicated to the company's Distinguished Engineers. One of these is Michael Meeks, a Cambridge graduate who began his Linux career at GNOME desktop start-up Ximian, and now works as part of Novell's OpenOffice.org team. Daniel James met him just prior to the announcement of the Novell/Microsoft agreement, and opened the interview with his favourite opening question to any free software hacker...

Jaromil, also known as Denis Rojo, is a free software developer, artist, author and the maintainer of the dyne:bolic bootable Linux multimedia distribution. He’s also responsible for three Linux applications - the MuSE streaming audio server, the FreeJ video jockey tool and HasciiCam, which can serve video streams composed of ASCII characters. All of his software is released under the GNU General Public Licence - his principles as a software developer spring from his personal convictions as a Rastafarian.

In early 1998, Linux users began to be aware that their operating system of choice was making a serious impact in the field of movie production. Daryll Strauss had written an article for Linux Journal, in which he described how Digital Domain had rendered scenes for the box-office busting Titanic on a farm of Linux boxes.

Bdale Garbee is Chief Technologist for Open Source & Linux at Hewlett-Packard, and a former Debian Project Leader .

(This interview dates from October 25, 2006)

The rise of truly mobile computing is a good thing, most would agree. Instead of lugging around heavy racks of gear and a bundle of cables, we might be able to do everything we need to with a laptop and wireless networking. But when you're dependent on a single piece of kit, there's a downside.