sonictooth asks: "I have dreams of writing a toy operating system, as I know some people have already done in college. Unfortunately, I don't have that opportunity. I was wondering what books (as there are so many) and methods people [have used], either in college or on their own. Amazon is littered with books from varying authors, Tanenbaum in particular, and there are both positive and negative reviews of his books. Does anyone recommend a simple book to walk you through the early stages, and then explain the more complex theories later on."

Okay, here are Hans Reiser's answers to your questions about ReiserFS, starting and managing (and publicizing) a free software project, earning a living writing free software, and the good and bad points of being considered somewhat of a curmudgeon. As a free bonus, Hans adds a little insight into the politics of Linux kernel development, as in what gets accepted and what doesn't. Good stuff!

Missing Bookmarks asks: "I accidentally deleted my bookmarks. I lost my 'Lore' folder, where I was collecting links to the classic folklore of the computer science subculture - things like Ken Thompson's Reflections on Trusting Trust, The Tanenbaum-Torvalds Debate, Dijkstra's Go To Statement Considered Harmful, and The Alice and Bob after-dinner speech. I don't need anything from The Jargon File (like The Story of Mel), because that stuff is obviously easy to find. I've listed all the things I could remember; please help me find the ones I've forgotten."

WalterGR asks: "There are plenty of resources available for writing operating systems, e.g. Tanenbaum's Modern Operating Systems, the Dinosaur Book, and countless web sites. For those of us who aren't interested in low-level issues, and prefer focusing on human-computer interaction, what resources are available for designing windowing systems (a la X Window)? Issues like the object hierarchy, event management, modularity, redefining behavior at runtime (e.g. for skins) etc. Any suggestions?"

Linus Torvalds (and David Diamond) wrote this book; chromatic wrote the review below. It may be hard to say much new about Linus and the results of his 1991 inspiration to loose his kernel on the world, but this book is historically informative, with copyrighted Torvalds humor to boot (I snorted in parts) and fun facts about growing up in Finland. And for a multimedia extravaganza, you can even listen to some conversation between Linus and co-author David Diamond.

Reader John Regehr contributed this review of O'Reilly's Understanding the Linux Kernel, which goes into greater depth than most people have ever seen of the kernel source itself. (I wonder what it costs to look at the Windows source.)

Minix is now Free Software! Andrew Tanenbaum posted to the comp.os.minix newsgroup yesterday announcing: "Better late than never. I finally got permission from Prentice Hall to change the MINIX license to the BSD license. The lawyers sort of sat on this for two years." You can read the full posting on deja, as well.

There are over 500 Debian maintainers today, up from 100 only a few years ago. Wichert Akkerman has been Project Leader for this brilliant, sometimes unruly (but always interesting) gang since February. Monday you posted questions for Wichert. Today you get answers. (Lots more below)

I'm the first to admit that I'm the last person who should write a book review. In fact, this is the first one I've posted on Slashdot. Frankly I don't read books any more- just web pages. I just don't have time- plus that whole paper thing doesn't appeal to me any more. But when "Open Sources:Voices from the Open Source Revolution" got here, I had no option but to read it. Immediately. Edited by Chris DiBona, Sam Ockman and Mark Stone, it's a collection of essays from Open Source glitterati with an impressive roster of names including ESR, RMS, Linus, Larry Wall, Bob Young, Tim O'Reilly, Bruce Perens and more. It's a wonderful read, hit the link below to read the rest.

Andrew writes "Amoeba is an operating system designed by Andrew Tanenbaum (author of "Modern Operating Systems", among others) to treat a network of machines as one giant server. It is now free (open-source). Interesting idea; the OS has some limitations. It would be interesting to hack around on the source. The Hurd developers want Hurd systems to be able to do this. " I actually own Modern Operating Systems. Big heavy book. Lot's of good stuff. I'm kinda tempated to snag the code and take a gander. Probably have more pressing issues this weekend though.