snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Bill Snyder examines what appears to be an open source job market boom, as evidenced by a recent O'Reilly Report. According to the study, 5 to 15 percent of all IT openings call for open source software skills, and with overall IT job cuts expected for 2009, 'the recession may be pushing budget-strapped IT execs to examine low-cost alternatives to commercial software,' Snyder writes. But are enterprises truly shifting to open source, or are they simply seeking to augment the work of staff already steeped in proprietary software? The study's methodology leaves too much room for interpretation, Savio Rodrigues retorts. 'That's why the 5% to 15% really doesn't sit well with me,' Rodrigues writes. 'I suspect that larger companies are looking for developers with a mix of experience with proprietary and open source products, tools and frameworks,' as opposed to those who would work with open source for 90 percent of the work day."

An anonymous reader writes "According to a report on heise, Intel is switching from using Ubuntu to the Fedora Project for the second version of the Intel supported Mobile & Internet Linux Project Moblin, citing a desire to use RPM package management." So far, of the various subnotebooks I've been glancing at over shoulders at OSCON, though, most of the ones with an easily identified operating system seem to be running Ubuntu.

A 9-year-old New Zealand girl, Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii, has been made a ward of the court so that she can be given her a name that won't "... make a fool of the child and set her up with a social disability and handicap." This was not the first crazy name Family Court Judge Rob Murfitt has encountered. Among some of the most memorable: twins named Benson and Hedges, Violence, and Number 16 Bus Shelter. Some other New Zealand Names that were denied by The Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages include Fish and Chips, Yeah Detroit, Stallion, and Sex Fruit. On a more personal note, there are still some hard feelings at our office as Mr. Malda did not name his child "Zanzibar Buck Buck Mcfate" as agreed to at lunch.