MCassatt asks: "It's a truism in many fields that breakthroughs come from the edge: the scandalous Impressionists become pretty pictures for posters and umbrellas; the world of science fiction becomes the world of science. The wonderful, the fantastic, and the mad of today are tomorrow's mainstream. Are there examples of this in computer science? Not extreme programming, but extreme programs?"

mindlace23 asks: "Assuming you had some mechanism by which an open source project generated revenue, how would you fairly distribute those earnings amongst the contributors to the software? Rules that most clearly avoid bias would be preferable; Some sort of automated heuristic would be ideal if it's not gameable."

SysKoll asks: "I belong to an LUG (Linux Users Group) and I am trying to increase the visibility of Linux and Open Source for the general public. I googled for several hours and I noticed that almost nobody seems to offer Linux and OSS promotional posters anymore. (I already have the 'Good evening Mr Gates, I'll be your server tonight' giant Tux poster). So do you have a recommendation for OSS and Linux posters, preferably suitable for the general public?"

Above asks: "In this article we see apache 2.0.45 has been released. Well, I plan on rebuilding my webserver soon, which means installing the "latest" version. However, I'm still on the 1.x train, which is still going strong. As someone who hasn't used 2.x, and hasn't followed the development is it ready for the masses or should I stick with 1.x and be happy? Are mod_perl and ssl (my two requirements) stable? What about all the other things (php et all)? I don't do anything fancy with my web sites, but having them "just work" and not having to upgrade every other day are both strong concerns. What are your experiences?"

bcrowell asks: "Here's a moral conundrum for you. The much-hated DMCA can be a tool to enforce copyleft licenses, and in my case, it may be the only effective tool. I'm the author of some free physics textbooks (all free as in beer, some free as in speech) that are available under the GFDL and OPL copyleft licenses. I've learned that there's a guy on eBay who is selling my books on CD and violating the license. (Selling is allowed, since they're free-as-in-speech, but he's violating the license in various ways, such as not informing his buyers about the license, and selling them under a different title and using the tables of contents in his ads without showing the license or listing me as the author.) It's not just me. He's doing the same thing with other copylefted books, such as this one." The submitter is worried about the ethics behind using the recent misuses we've seen so far. Those interested in this question might also be interested in Prof. Felten's answers from his recent Slashdot interview.

Dave2 Wickham asks: "I am interested in using one of my PCs as a remote control. The most likely candidate for this would be my laptop - which runs Windows XP (flame on, but I don't want to make any major changes in my last year of school). It has a standard IR port built in - nothing fancy. If there is, for some reason, no option for this, then is there any way for me to use my Live! Drive with LIRC on my Linux machine?" For those interested, Ask Slashdot handled the converse of this issue, in an article on controlling PCs with IR remotes.

RedBear writes "I work for a small non-profit (under 10 people) as the "tech" person (I deal mostly with simple computer problems and website work). The organization is focused on marine safety training and injury prevention. We have a lot of products for sale, mostly small things like bandanas, signal mirrors, first aid kits, etc. We also have a lot of training equipment that we loan out, mostly big things like PFDs (personal flotation devices), immersion suits and even huge inflatable survival rafts. Also, both for sale and loan, we have a ton of books, videos, brochures and displays (for conferences and such). Some of the training equipment for loan is only to be loaned to instructors certified by our organization. We're in the process of looking for a good inventory control system. It takes two people many hours every week keeping track of what equipment comes in and goes out, and when a bunch of orders come in at once they literally can't keep up. We do have a computerized database system but it was designed for the organization from scratch and uses FileMaker Pro. There's nothing wrong with that, but it really doesn't work well. It's confusing, and doesn't integrate with any other system, like our mailing list database or any sort of invoicing system." Ask Slashdot last touched on this subject with this article which inventory control with handhelds. While I'm sure such functionality would be appreciated, what other Open Source technologies would be necessary if you were going to implement across-the-board inventory control, and how well do they all integrate with each other and with the proprietary inventory control solutions?

hoibbes asks: "I was wondering if anyone knew of a C++ program for my Pocket PC. Now, I know that I will probably get quite a few replies saying Embedded Visual C++, and while they would be right, that is not what I am looking for. I am looking for a program that will let me write C++ code on my Pocket PC. So that while I am away on a trip I can still work on my code. I have been searching for a while now and have come up with nothing. I come to ask the help of Slashdot in a final attempt to find what I need."

Rick the Red asks: "I'm using Windows ME, Office 2000, and a Pocket PC, but I'm trying to break free (pun intended). To begin my migration, I've decided to replace Office 2000 with OpenOffice.org on Windows, then move to Linux (dual-boot; I've still got the games issue) once that conversion is complete. My concern is the Pocket PC. I'd love to go cold-turkey and replace my Jornada with a Sharp Zaurus, but that's not in the budget right now. OpenOffice.org provides XMerge, which covers Word and Excel, but what about Outlook? What email reader/contact list/calendar apps (for Windows) do you recommend to replace Outlook -and- sync with Pocket Outlook? Any success stories to share?"

deanj asks: "I'd like to start a new software business, as I'm sure many Slashdot readers would. I'd like to be able to run the company out of my home, at least until I can afford to move into an office in commercial area. A major roadblock to starting a home business are zoning restrictions, set by both home-owners associations and by the town you live in. So, I'd like to Ask Slashdot: What were your experiences with getting your company zoned properly and started? What did you have to do? What other tips do you have for someone starting their own home-based software business?"

b!arg asks: "I am a sysadmin for a construction company. Currently the company spends god knows how much money on disposable cameras. They use these cameras to document accidents and the such out in the field. Typically these disposable cameras have 27 pictures available to them but only a few are ever taken before they are developed because of time. We can't hold onto a camera to take different shots of different accidents until its full. I am looking into the feasibility of moving to all digital cameras. Does anyone have experience with using these in such a potentially damaging setting? Obviously no digicam will withstand getting run over by a dumptruck, but what have you found to be a durable digital camera for people out in the field. Ease of use is also fairly important. And since we understand that these will almost definitely break once in awhile, I can't buy $1000 cameras. Two MegaPixels is sufficient quality, preferably using CF and, if I can dream, waterproof since the Northwest U.S. tends to be a tad rainy (does that break my budget?). Or am I trying to be too 'techie' when this solution just won't work because of the conditions in which they'll be used?"

An anonymous reader asks: "I work in IT at a research university. A few of my co-workers and I are in the process of planning a piece of software that we would like to release to the public under the GPL license, but we're running into issues with our "intellectual property" office which thinks we have a potentially marketable product. We would rather give the product away for free and see our university get some credit for the product. How have others dealt with this problem? It's a shame that money is more important to a research school than sharing research with others."

parasew asks: "I am searching for Web-based Project Management Software, which should be (mod-)perl based, so I can enhance it or put it into an existing environment using MovableType, which is in a sort of alpha-state. I found a site about Call Center, Bug Tracking and Project Management Tools for Linux and also this short listing, but sadly they are just a bunch of projects which only come close to the kind of tool I am searching for. Gantt and Chronos, seem to be a very nice Web-Calendar packages written in Perl. I was just wondering why no one is using iCalendar (does anyone know of Perl-based Software using iCalendar), as most of the Agenda Software uses iCalendar, and even Mozilla Calendar is capable of subscribing to remote-Calendars. This looks very interesting to me. In general, I wanted to ask you Monks for the best way to do this. Should I create a new app from scratch or reusing existing stuff?"

caitsith01 asks: "Like many of you I recently downloaded and watched the full-length Matrix Reloaded trailer . The glorious special effects contained therein caused me to reflect on how, up until very recently, it would have been impossible to effectively realize many great science fiction novels on film. In many instances, the sheer grandeur of what is described and the inherent difficulty in representing complex future technologies realistically would be nearly impossible to overcome without using computer-aided special effects. A case in point are the novels of William Gibson: apart from the lamentable Johnny Mnemonic and the little known New Rose Hotel (both based on Gibson short stories rather than novels) there have been no major films based on his work. With today's computer generated effects Gibson's descriptions of cyberspace and future technologies in Neuromancer and Count Zero could finally be presented in visual form. What other sci-fi novels would you like to see turned into movies with the benefit of modern special effects? Before the flaming about how plot and characters are more important than eye candy starts, perhaps you should take some time to reflect on how far we've come."

crowston asks: "There have been a number of discussions on Slashdot and elsewhere about how good projects work (e.g., Talk To a Successful Free Software Project Leader), but less about how to tell if things are going well in the first place. While this may seem obvious, most traditional definitions of software project success seem inapplicable (e.g., profit) or nearly impossible to measure for most projects (e.g., market share, user satisfaction, organizational impact). In an organizational setting, developers can get feedback from their customers, the marketplace, managers, etc.; if you're Apache, you can look at Netcraft's survey of server usage; but what can the rest do? Is it enough that you're happy with the code? I suspect that the release-early-and-often philosophy plays an important role here. I'm asking not to pick winners and losers (i.e., NOT a ranking of projects), but to understand what developers look at to know when things are going well and when they're not."

Ldyandrea asks: "I'm a stained glass artist, and also a bit of a computer nut....but I'd like to build an actual stained glass computer case, and don't know enough about hardware design to build something like this from scratch. I have seen the acrylic cases, and this would be one of the best things to base a design upon, but wondering if there is simply (rather than a case with cutouts) a "skeleton" that has the metal framework and whatnot that I can build around? I realize that cooling is a big issue for this idea, and would want to have a few different fans involved. Can anyone point me in the right direction of either a supplier of such a framework, or some general good ideas I should keep in mind when constructing this case?" This is such an interesting idea, I had to post it. When you think about it, it shouldn't be too hard to do, even if you can't get such a case "skeleton". How hard would it really be to take an ordinary case to a metal worker to get it cut to specs? I just hope Ldyandrea sends us back some pictures of the finished product whenever it is finished.

SemiBarbaricPrincess asks: "I'm currently in the middle of starting a 'Women In Computer Science' group at my college, and I'm wondering what other groups are out there, and what they do to help boost the number of women in CS." Slashdot last touched on this subject in this article from January. For the women readers in our audience: what do you think would be helpful in attracting more women to the world of computing?

Glonoinha asks: "I just finished balancing the checkbook after doing a stack of bills, the out-pile being higher than the in-pile, and I was wondering...do I completely underestimate the cost of living a regular lifestyle or am I getting taken for a ride? I am not interested in comparing paychecks, there are already plenty of studies out there to prove we are underpaid (well, most of us) - I am more interested in the overall picture. Where are you spending it? Post as an AC if you feel the need, but I am interested in a breakdown of monthly pre-tax income, taxes taken out, money put towards retirement, child support or alimony, mortgage or rent, car payment, medical insurance, car insurance, electricity, gas, water, entertainment, savings, liquor, food, vehicle maintenance, computer toys, and any other column you care to break out."

Jon asks: "My father is legally blind, to the point of not being able to see more then just a vague shadow, if even that. His one hope has always been to use a computer. I've decided to build him a PC that would allow him to send and receive email as well as read the weather to him, yet not require any voice recognition. Input would be done by showing him where certain function keys are and possible putting special marks he can learn on the rest of the keys. Has any of the slashdot readers tackeled a project like this before? I've seen several projects, yet none that seem like a good solution, or are not complete. Any insight you have would be greatly appreciated."

PolyDwarf writes "I'm in the process of figuring out how I'm going to build a homegrown TiVo machine (i.e. a computer sitting next to or in my home electronics stack). My question for is "What's worked best for you?" Most solutions I've researched are great if you have regular cable. However, satellite systems and digital cable boxes seem to present a special challenge, in that the software on the PC needs to know about an IR connector that is then hooked up to the front of the digital cable/satellite box. Who has done a solution like what I'm researching? What cases/processors/memory/TV Card/IR transceiver/OS/software/etc worked out for you? Did the end result justify the pain and hassle?"