This week's "Linux Product Insider" features Trolltech's Qt 4.4, Matthew MacDonald's Your Brain: The Missing Manual, the Embedded Linux Track at LinuxWorld, AdRem's NetCrunch 5, MindTouch's Deki Wiki v8.05 and REAL Software's REALbasic 2008 Release 2

Linux Journal Products Editor, James Gray, spoke with Jim Lacey, Linux Professional Institute's President and CEO, about Linux certification today and its outlook for the future.

This week's "Linux Product Insider" features SkyWayUSA's Rural Hi-speed Internet, Apress' MINDSTORMS NXT book, Curl Nitro, Open-Source Java and Linux, SugarCRM 5.1 Beta and Plat'Home's OpenMicroServer.

This week we feature Paradox Interactive's Penumbra: Black Plague, SnapLogic 2.0 Data Integration Framework, ASUS Lamborghini VX3 Laptop, Octopz Online Collaboration Software, Neuros and Texas Instruments Open Internet Television Platform and Ixonos Mobile Television Reception Solution.

Here this week's Linux product news:

Integrated security systems going green; real-time Linux; CRMs; data automation; and security management tools top off our editors' new products roundup.

Welcome to the April 3rd edition of the "Linux Product Insider", our weekly round-up of new products and services in Linux and open source.

Adobe's AIR for Linux Alpha

Welcome to the March 27th edition of the "Linux Product Insider", our weekly round-up of new products and services in Linux and open source.

Here is what's been announced this week:

Hyperic's Hyperic HQ

Welcome to the March 20th edition of the "Linux Product Insider", our weekly round-up of new products and services in Linux and open source.

Here is what's fresh out of the ovens this week:

SpectSoft's RaveHD Basic

Welcome to the March 13th edition of the "Linux Product Insider", our weekly round-up of new products and services in Linux and open source.

Here is what is new and interesting this week.

AXIGEN's Mail Server 6.0

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the "Linux Product Insider", keeping you on the cutting edge of new products and services in Linux and Open Source.

Here is what is new and interesting this week.

Panopta's Monitoring & Outage Management Suite

I remember when I was a Jr. Geek and could focus on one programming task at a time. Today, besides having all too many Linux-related tasks, I have an assortment of other things to deal with. This last week, one of my distractions turned into a new programming project.

Linux Journal recently caught up with Mandriva CEO, François Bancilhon, to find out more about a recently announced partnership between Mandriva of France and Turbolinux of Japan.

The fork occupies an ambivalent place in the world of open source. On the one hand, it is widely perceived as the worst thing that can happen to a project, pitting hacker against hacker, and dissipating coding effort that could be more usefully applied in a united way. On the other, it is the ultimate test and guarantee of openness: if code cannot be forked, it is not truly open.

Like many, I was pretty shocked by the recent Microsoft-EU deal to settle the long-running investigation into interoperability issues. This was not so much because of the way Microsoft has used every kind of delaying tactic it could before eventually agreeing (for the nth time) to try harder in the future. My real dismay was provoked by the gap between appearance and reality – a chasm that I think bodes ill for the future of open source.

The dangers of software patents for free software have always been a hot issue. But with the news that Red Hat and Novell are being sued for alleged patent infringement by IP Innovation, the matter has moved from theory into practice. In fact, in the battle against software patents, it turns out that the open source world already has a rather powerful weapon in its armoury – even if it's one that few people know about.