ndogg asks: "Many have said that there is a lack of innovation in OSS software, and tend to talk about the big projects, like Mozilla and the Linux kernel. However, I would contend that innovation is quite abound in OSS, but that the problem is the spotlight is rarely shown upon those projects that are truly innovative. For example, I would contend that Data Display Debugger (DDD) and The Boost C++ Libraries are quite unique and innovative projects. What OSS projects do you feel are innovative, but underapreciated?"

sebFlyte asks: "Asking Slashdot readers what they think of Microsoft's methodology and ethos might seem like a silly thing to do, but a ZD-Net article raises some interesting points. The main one is that: 'Microsoft's behaviour is technically, morally and practically indefensible. It could publish its CIFS specification tomorrow if it so chose, an act that would correspond closely to the spirit and letter of the European decision. The company would then be free to compete through the simple process of making better products, something it claims to favour, while also encouraging precisely the sort of interoperability it says is missing.' The question I'm curious to canvas opinion on is why Microsoft is taking an attitude that is believed by so many to be damaging to their market position."

sahirh asks: "I work as a penetration tester and recently started writing a whitepaper on the benefits of free, open-source security tools over commercial tools. Through my own experiences, I've found that many free tools such as Nessus and Kismet are more reliable and have better features than expensive commercial alternatives like ISS Internet Scanner or Airopeek. I've also noticed that tools like Ettercap have no commercial alternative. Further, the flexibility offered by the open-source nature of such tools is a great benefit. I'd like to ask for Slashdot's experiences and opinions on why you don't need to spend thousands of dollars on an expensive tool to perform a professional security assessment." Update: 02/07 11:15pm EDT by C : Thanks to all who wrote in to let us know the proper URL to the Kismet site.

Sam Pullara asks: "I got an IM from my Mom today telling me that she couldn't find her Roomba. It somehow had escaped the kitchen and she couldn't find it anywhere, all the doors that it could reach were shut and she checked under everything. She eventually found that it had gotten into a room and closed the door behind it. Once all household items are networked I wonder if a rich environment like a house will make strange behavior like this commonplace? Will the interactions between all the individual devices create something more than the sum of their parts?"

DarkHand asks: "I've recently begun a project that would allow me to replace the analog gauges in my cars dash with a TFT LCD screen displaying a digital representation of the same. A number of animated analog-looking gauges would display the same information the physical gauges display, based on info from the ECU, as well as any other information the ECU has access to, such as intake air and coolant temperatures, throttle position, pop-ups for any warnings or error codes, etc. I'm looking to be able to add, remove, and customize the positions of the individual gauges, and possibly even make the background skinnable. Stability is crucial, so I'm leaning toward a Linux-based system. I have a few software friends who are willing to help on that end, but finding the proper hardware for such a project has proven difficult."

Anonymous Writer asks: "PayPal has become the standard for making donations to Open-Source projects, and in many cases the only way. Out of the 247 countries and territories represented by top-level domains on the Internet, credit cards are available in 128. However, PayPal only accepts credit cards from 45 of these countries, which excludes 83 from using their service. Nearly two-thirds of the countries on the Internet with valid credit card billing services are currently prevented from making donations using PayPal. Even credit cards issued from those 45 accepted countries with billing addresses not among them are excluded, which affects people working overseas and expatriots. If you want to support the Open-Source Software movement but don't live in a PayPal-accepted country, what are your alternatives?"

wikinerd asks: "I have recently opened my own community website. Everything was fine until spammers found it, which happened quite quickly. As usual they filled up my mailboxes, but SpamAssassin can take care of that when it is needed. Then, they discovered my blog and my wikis and employed their bots to fill them up with spam comments. I solved this problem by moderating all comments. Now, however, they employed another evil trick: Referrer spam. They caused my webserver statistics to grow up by orders of magnitude by making their stupid websites to show up on my referrer lists. Unfortunately now my webserver usage statistics are full of viagra, poker, casino, porn, spyware, and pharmacy sites. I am afraid that this is a problem I cannot solve with the knowledge and the tools I have at the moment. So, I came here to ask Slashdot readers: How can I fight referrer spam and what tools are available in a GNU/Linux environment to ensure clean and spam-free usage statistics?"

wkytechhead asks: "My father owns a greenhouse operation that covers a few dozen acres. He has a number of greenhouses some up to 1000' plus apart that he would like to network. Currently he is using a HomePNA based network via regular RJ12. He has decided that he would like to go at least partially wireless. Some consideration has been given to using the backbone with fiber convertors, but he would really like to do full wireless. I have checked into homemade and commercial 'Cantennas' but I am not sure if they are worth the money. How would my fellow geeks go about wirelessly networking a large outdoor area for as cheap as possible?"

Moos3d asks: "I recently found out about this Microsoft Fingerprint Reader at the library and ever since then I have been fascinated by using something like this for my own PC. How secure is this compared to using multiple 10+ character long passwords? Some people I've talked to seem to think it isn't safe at all and some people seem to think it is only safe for casual use. I only plan to use it for online forums and other applications that don't require great measures of security so it seems to be perfect for me, but how secure do you think it really is?"

Sir_Dill asks: "I was a little skeptical of the whole chicken-littlish sky is falling attitude about outsourcing to India, that is until it hit home. Over the last couple of days I have started to receive at least two calls a night from an unknown telemarketing company. First it was discovercard and tonight its a mortgage company called Parsec (whose webpage doesn't work in Firefox). Each time they ask for the person whose name is associated with my phone number in Google (an entirely different story altogether). When I inform them that they have the wrong number, they read the same script each time and each time I ask them to take me off their lists. Its getting old and I am feeling a little helpless in regards to this...and the worst part is...it is not an offer I can't refuse...it is one I can't understand. Has anyone else experienced this? How did you handle it and does the National Do Not Call list even apply?"

Aviancer asks: "French computer historian Éric Lévénez has compiled a family tree of programming languages that I found quite interesting. This prompted me to wonder if there was any controversy on the issue of language lineage and my searches found another page on the same topic. I thought I'd pull an 'ask the audience' to see if there were any corrections on either (both?) pages to be made." What other computing language origins are you aware of that may not be mentioned in either page?

innerweb asks: "I am looking for help and advice on using and parsing the OFX (Open Financial Exchange) file spec using C/C++ and/or Perl. I have read the standards, downloaded the DTD (ofx version 2), and tried to parse several files from different banks. They have all failed in my normal parsers (commercial and OSS), yet they load fine in Microsoft Money. It is not so complicated that I can not hand roll my own, and I have much of it working that way as a proof, but I would rather stick with something that is standards based, as this is a standard that in my opinion ought to work with standards based tools. Am I missing something here, or is this truly a file format that is broken as a feature?"

caffiend666 asks: "My grandfather was a TV repairman in the 50s to early 70s. Most of his repair equipment is still available, complete with hundreds of tubes, discrete components, switches, tube tester, dot bar generator, oscilloscope, and more. They are selling the farm, and we are trying to dispose of this equipment gracefully. Anybody know of a good way to donate them as a complete set for a write-off? The condition of the equipment varies from great to horrid. There are some pictures showing a little of what we have, on my website. Any advice or stories for selling 35+ year old electronic equipment? Does anyone know of a museum that would appreciate the equipment?"

abrinton asks: "I just went into escrow on a new house. Of course, first thoughts are to the sound system. I don't want to wire. Anything. I've got a wireless network, so computers are all sorted. But what do I do for sound? I need ideas for a centrally controlled sound system that can use 802.11g for transport. I'd like to have the same music everywhere, or better still, options to play different things in different rooms. I've got access to tons of old PIII laptops, wireless gear, old computers, sound cards, etc to make this work. Has anyone got any ideas or done anything like this?"

GreyPoopon asks: "My wife has been running a small business for a couple years now. She is currently paying for web hosting services for a domain, but has elected not to put up a web site (she doesn't need more business), instead using the service only for sending and receiving email. Recently, the hosting service has become less and less responsive, and attempts to switch monthly bills to a different credit card have been completely ignored, and she's now looking for a new provider. She's interested in both hosting service providers as well as email-only providers that will allow her to use her existing domain name with up to five mailboxes. What are the best choices, these days?"

Zweistein_42 asks: "I work at a large, navy-coloured IT corporation. A new, more secured password policy has just taken effect and will be strictly enforced: 8 characters alphanumeric, changed *every 90 days*, with standard checks for non-repetitiveness, dictionary, uniqueness, etc. Is there any research to support whether such requirements actually increase security?"

GooseKirk asks: "Just over a year ago, my apartment was completely covered in foil. For some reason, this resulted in global media attention, and ever since, people have been asking me, "what are you doing for revenge?" A few great ideas fell through for various reasons (Ron Jeremy was booked, apparently), and sadly, I currently lack access to an orbital weapons platform, so let me pose this riddle to the great Slashdot collective: if you were going to cook enough popcorn to effectively, and let's say hypothetically, bury a small single-story building, how would you cook it and how would you deliver it, quickly and quietly, say, under cover of darkness? At the least, I think it's an interesting puzzle, and other wacky ideas are certainly welcome... just remember, people, mum's the word, OK?"

LazloToth asks: "Short and sweet: with so many distributions of Linux to choose from, and so many of them good to excellent, which Linux delivers the best balance of stability, high-level support options, security, rapid updates, and ease of administration? If an admin wants to standardize on one Linux distribution and have the best of all worlds on everything from file-and-print servers to database boxes, what, in the experience of the Slashdot pros, is that Holy Grail of Linuxes - - the one that does it all while also making upper management feel warm and fuzzy?"

Leave Blank asks: "Are there any laptops out there anymore that -don't- have trackpads? I can't use them properly at all (for whatever reason - my current theory is that it's linked to my severe Raynaud's - some days I can activate a trackpad from a bit under a centimetre above it, other days it just doesn't work at all, so I always carry around an external trackball with my current laptop. Does anyone on Slashdot have recommendations I mightn't have managed to google?"

Captain Numerica asks: "I've been working as a programmer since I graduated from high school. I've been paying my own way through college, and now I'm about to graduate with a BS in Physics. I plan on continuing my studies to a PhD in Physics, but first I need to get on my feet financially, as a fellowship/TA position isn't yet sufficient for the debt I've accumulated in my more irresponsible years. I'm leaving my university with a great deal of programming experience -- a fact that I might want to advertise to potential employers. However, at the same time I don't want to become type-casted as just a programmer, as my real skills involve analytical and experimental physics. Has anyone working as a research engineer/scientist come out of college under similar circumstances?" For those of you with significant programming skills, but the wish to focus in areas more suitable to your education, how did you avoid falling into the Programmer IT Trap?