Okay, here they are: Brian Paul's answers to your questions. Even if you've never heard of Brian or Mesa, his comments give insight into how an "essential but unsung" Open Source project runs, and why Brian has devoted endless time to Mesa. (More below.)

This week, we questioned Curtis Chung, Director of Technology for the National Federation of the Blind, the group that is suing AOL over access for blind users. Today Curtis explains the reason for the AOL lawsuit, tells us how to make Web pages more accessible for blind users, and generally talks about life as a blind programmer. Excellent reading! (more below)

It's a great read, but there's not much to celebrate in "The Celebration Chronicles." Andrew Ross takes us deep into the strange world of Disney's hi-tech, meticulously planned model community of the future, still under construction in murky swampland south of Walt Disney World.

Like many of us, Justin Beech struggled with the age old quest for high bandwidth. He's submitted a quite interesting feature which discusses issues surrounding many of the options (Sat, Cable, DSL, Modems) and where he ended up. It is a little different than typical Slashdot fare, but I think you'll like it if you've thought about DSL, but wanted more data to get started. You'll just wish it had a happy ending.

Querist wrote in with some review experiences of the Palm VII. I can't really confirm or deny if this is real, but it looks legit so I'm running it. Some interesting comments about the next generation of PDAs. Hit the link to read it.

Our favorite company has been having difficulties remembering what they innovated (ever) lately. So much so, that on the one hand they claim Linux is a competitor (built by a single individual...) and on the other don't see Linux as a threat because no company owns it. (This last statement was not made by Microsoft itself, but probably reflects what they believe. However, even if Linux were to dominate the PC market, they would still be a dominant force: webTV and Dreamcast are two very effective means of dominating the market of those who would like to access the internet (and want to play games) while not having the money to buy a complete PC. WinCE targets both the above and many PDAs, while Embedded NT will attack markets such as hospital equipment (adding new meaning to the phrase "Oh my God!") and network routers. True, Linux ports may be attempted to some of these platforms, but if they cannot run the games, who will use them?) Now we need only wait until Monday for the fun and games to begin. However students at the Auburn University have already started to have their fun. Read on below.

This is the first of a series of articles investigating the interplay between Open Source Software and commercial vendors. The common thread will be to find out how authors have earned a living from writing and servicing GPL/Open Source Software.

The series kicks off with Michael Tiemann, one of the founders of Cygnus Solutions, and author of the C++ component of GCC. Cygnus is one of the pioneers in commercial support for open-source software. It sells support and customization services for the gnu programming tools (gcc, gdb, ld, etc). Initially, the Free Software Foundation applauded this, but more recently, RMS feels that by also selling proprietary software Cygnus has betrayed the principle of free software.

In this interview, Michael discusses what it takes to set up a business based on open source software, what Cygnus hopes to add to GCC, and why they took the decision to sell closed source software.