Travelr9 asks: "I am engaged in a project where upper management is deciding whether to use Linux or Palm OS on a new device. Leaving aside the technical merits of each [in the context of this decision, either could work well] a key question is the size of the developer communities (for both OS and applications) of Linux vs. Palm. I have searched for info on this topic, and have come up blank aside from vague assertions. Is anyone capturing real numbers and stats? This also brings up an interesting conceptual question -- how do you measure the size, quality, impact, etc., of a developer community? Number of bodies isn't enough. Number of apps? Number of lines of code? Frequency of major releases in core application or platform categories? Can you measure a concept like 'quality of developer community' usefully?"

truthsearch asks: "I've been a professional Visual Basic developer for 6 years, working on two and three tier systems and also web applications. Two years ago I tried Linux and went from being a fan of Windows to an aspiring developer of Linux (or at least Unix) applications. My company has just announced their complete acceptance of moving everyone to .NET and so I want to leave ASAP. I'm even willing to take a pay cut to leave Microsoft software development. So if I were to not contribute to OSS or take time off to get my masters (in CS of course), what's the best way to transition from professional Microsoft platform development to Linux? Are many companies hiring Microsoft developers with little Linux experience to assist in corporate migration? With online postings requiring 3-5 years Linux/C++/Java experience how's a Windows developer supposed to transition? Is my only solution to stick it out here while I contribute to OSS for the experience?"

toblak asks: "Everybody seems to say the Mandrake is a good distro for newbies and Gentoo, Debian, SUSE, etc, are for the Power Users. Other than different updating schemes, when you get 'under the hood' of the distribution isn't it basically the same? If I compile some source code on a Debian system don't I get the same functionality as I would if I compiled the same code on a Mandrake system? I've been using Mandrake for about a year and while I don't consider myself a newbie, I'm not a Power User either. Have I been 'missing out' on something by staying with Mandrake?"

Prabhu Ramachandran asks: "I am a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley and as part of a course project I am trying to gather comments on the following question: Will the Open Source and Free Software communities develop software that will find widespread adoption amongst the mainstream, or is such software, by its nature, suitable only for sophisticated users? As part of my literature survey I found an academic perspective that seemed to indicate that open source projects do not reach the mainstream because the developers tend to listen only to their smartest customers. There also seems to be a lack of detailed documentation and an easy-to-use interface which normally attract the not-so-sophisticated users. I would like to hear the thoughts of Open Source developers and others on this issue. If you would like to view my references or the comments posted on a website hosted for this purpose, please visit my website." There have already been some interesting comments posted on his website. What is your take on this issue?

Unne asks: "I just received notice from the foreign student department of my school (City College of New York) advising me to not leave the country anytime soon, or, if traveling is absolutely necessary, to return before the end of the year. It appears that a new system is being deployed called SEVIS, the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System, which requires 43 separate pieces about me if I am to be verified thru this system. I did a Slashdot-search for SEVIS but came up with nothing. I'd love to hear some opinions from people who are familiar with the program or perhaps took part in its development. What are those 43 items of information. What type of computer systems do they use? Is the information exchange between INS and the schools really handled via the web, and how does that affect privacy and personal integrity?"

realratso asks: "So it's that time of year again... the holidays. Time to choose the 'company gift' for everyone in our small programming company. We've done all the stuff with the company logo- sweatshirts, t-shirts, travel bags, glasses, mugs, etc. It all seems so boring. Is there any gift which you have received at your workplace that was super-cool, not gender specific, and relatively inexpensive? Something that was really usable and worthwhile that you appreciated, but might not buy for yourself? Maybe a new techno-gadget? (and no, 'just money' is not a valid answer)"

Political Geek asks: "Many times we have seen clueless U.S. Senators and Congressmen supporting technology related bills that hurt consumers and developers when they are passed (for example, the 1998 DMCA, and Senator Hollings SSSCA/CBDTPA) However, there may be some hope for a few of our elected leaders. I have been asked by a staff member of a US Congressman to submit a list of issues that are the most important to individuals active in the tech sector. Therefore, instead of screwing-up this opportunity by replying to this request on my own, I am passing this request on to the Slashdot community: What issues/problems are most important to you and what is necessary to resolve them?" I'm going to keep posting questions like this in the hopes that, when a reader can bend the ear of their representative, that these issues can be heard.

acacord asks: "I am the Network Admin for a medium-sized law firm (hold the flames, please). We are one of the few Macintosh-based firms left. All of our workstations (near 150) will have been migrated to Mac OS X 10.2.2 by the end of the year. We have a couple users who think that they know more than the IT department and therefore insist that they maintain WinXP boxes on their desks. How should I configure a segment of my network for them, and them only, to make sure that the remainder of my networks are not susceptible to any of their natural security 'features' . Any and all ideas are welcome."

Kagato asks: "I'm trying to make my company's Unix boxes more mission critical in the area of job scheduling. Scheduling jobs in Unix has been around since the dawn of time. On most systems you have 'cron' and 'at' to provide most of your scheduling needs. But outside the basic world of 'do this at such time' there are a slew of commercial products that handle dependencies, failure routes, monitoring, dependent notification, etc. Commercial products of this type have been around for years. Is there anything like this available in the GNU and Open Source worlds? I've been looking at Freshmeat, SourceForge and Google. I've found the pickings for advanced scheduling are pretty slim."

SnowDeath asks: "My home caught on fire last Wednesday while my girlfriend and I were off watching the new Harry Potter movie and now we are pretty much left with crap. Most of our stuff didn't get damaged by fire, but rather severly smoke damaged. Does anyone have any suggestions for getting that horid smoke damage out of out clothes, furniture, and computer parts (our mobos were destroyed by smoke)?" Those who would like to donate a buck or two to SnowDeath's "Oh crap, my house caught fire and now I have nothing!" relief fund can go here.

bigstupid asks: "Is there anyway to better utilize storage space on your network? I have a home network with about nine permanently attached PCs. A few of these are older PII300 with smaller hard drives (3-10GB). What I want to do is consolidate as much of the network storage as possible. That is: Instead of 2.4GB here, 4.6GB there, 5GB hither, 5BG tither, and 6 GB yon, I would like this storage space to appear to any computer I designate a 'client' to see and use this storage space as one large (in the case above 23GB) volume. I know I can do this within a machine with logical volumes or RAID, but is there a piece of software - client or server side - that will do this on Linux or Windows?"

foo_48120 asks: "My small development shop, myself and four employees, is taking on a fairly large job that will run a substantial part of the clients business. To protect themselves they want the source code to the project. Frankly I don't blame them. We bid aggressively to get them to underwrite our own efforts to build this code, which we plan to resell again and again. That is the basis for our company. I have no problem with them holding the source but need to make it clear that we own the code and that they have a license to use it in their business. They may at their discretion hire others to modify the code, but would still be required to pay their maintenance contract and be prohibited from reselling it or using it to run an additional business. How do you provide open source without escrow, yet protect what we are documenting up front as out intellectual property rights in the ownership of this code?"

termdex asks: "I've been looking to move from systems administration to network administration for the last couple years but for some set of reasons networking seems to be an impregnable area of work. My experience has been like the often clichèd 'chicken and egg' scenario. Most employers aren't interested in candiates that lack serious network admin experience (ie: 80/20 network/other), but it would seem difficult to get that level of experience if you're currently a sysadmin. What advice can Slashdot readers offer as what works best in making lateral career moves? What experiences can you relate that shows difficulty or success?"

Our bank, BankDirect, is mailing customers a 'Notice of your Financial Privacy Rights', containing the following text: 'We may disclose information about you to our affiliates. Here are the kinds of information and the source of that information: Information about your transactions and experience with us, such as: Name, address, account balances, account activity, types of accounts, transaction history, and payment history. Federal law allows us to disclose the information listed above with our affiliates. You do not have the right to opt out of the disclosure of this information...We may disclose information about you to our affiliates: 1) to provide you with information about additional products and services; and 2) to better serve you, to help us save you time and money, and to help you understand your specific needs.' Am I the only one who is bothered that my bank is ready to share my transaction history, including my salary (direct deposit) and payments to merchants (online bill pay)? More importantly, are there any banks that don't share (or sell) their customers' private information? I couldn't help but notice that BankDirect's web site has a different privacy policy, which reassuringly states 'We restrict access to nonpublic personal information about you to those employees who need to know that information to provide products or services to you.' Hmmm..."

3-State Bit asks: "Ah, the doctrine of First Sale. (Sources two, three, and especially, four). The last bastion of fair use. Or is it? In a highly insightful comment, user Kjella explained to me that I had been naive to think that First Sale would continue to exist in the world of DRM. (Of which I had pondered the ramifications here.) So Slashdot, where does the First Sale doctrine stand? Are libraries throughout the nation in jeopardy? Will they no longer carry digital media? Can a corporation, without any form of legal safeguard, really control whom I can sell my stuff to? It's enough to make you shudder."

Ryan Black asks: "I live in a suburban area where cellular signal strength is not what it should be. I am a Verizon customer, and while they have been courteous in addressing the issue, they have not been able to fix the situation. Is it possible to create a sort of cellular repeater to attach to the roof of my house? The signal outside is acceptable, it just cannot penetrate the walls of the building."

CottonCandyEater asks: "Every second geek dreams of owning a little plane or a yacht/sailing boat, but only few have the money to buy one. The web is full of links on how to build your plane or boat yourself. However, the right way to do it would be to simulate it with aero/hydrodynamic fluid simulation software first, in order to get performance estimates and to optimize the shape. Is there any such software available for free? maybe out of the academic world? I don't mind if it has a front-end or not, as long as it is free."

Matt asks: "Is there anyone who sells small LCD screens? I need a small LCD screen (smaller than 10 inches) to connect to a laptop. I use my laptop to aid in navigating my boat, but I want to be able to put my laptop out of harms way and simply refer to a LCD screen, the only problem being the small space I have available to mount it in. I have contacted many manufacturers and the smallest I have been able to find is 13 inches. I would be grateful for any suggestions."

DeBaas asks: "We are all in favour of getting Open Standards in place so that we can happily use Open/Star/K Office or whatever without the nagging problem: The Microsoft Office users cannot read our files correctly. Much of the focus is on providing filters to be able to make and read Microsoft Office files. However, should it not be the other way around, as well? Would it be feasible to make an open source project providing a plugin to MS office so that it can read and write in our preferred open format. Sort of a 'save as open document standard'. Is there a legal problem?, a technical problem? (is it already possible?) I would love it if I could send documents in OpenOffice knowing the other site can actually use and see it the way I meant to, even with MicroSoft Office."

sigmatt asks: "I've often wondered where Slashdot readers stand on environmental issues. This might be considered a little off topic for this site, but so many programmers that I know, including myself, are outdoorsy people in their other life, and I'm interested in the opinion of the wider geek community. The local issue in my part of the world at the moment is logging of old growth forests, primarily used for wood chips. The wood chips are not very valuable (as low as AU$7 a ton - that's US$3.50!), but it is the easy option - and I suspect it leads to the highest profits and quickest company growth. Unfortunately, our wonderful forests - with so many potential future uses (fine furniture, tourism, and, of course, my own hiking trips) are being wasted away at an alarming rate. Recently the tactics of those opposing the practice of woodchipping our old growth forests have turned to attacking the tourism industry in order to try to make a government who won't listen change its mind. For example this site ripping off another site, and the posting of a controversial bill board in Sydney airport. What do you think about these approaches?"