OStatic

Skype for Linux going (almost) open source. The UI will be open, but not the core.

Open source identity: Ruby on Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson. In this Q&A, he discusses the history of Rails and where it's headed.

5 open source billing systems to watch. AgileBill and others take care of payment processing, invoicing, and more.

Web Open Font Format gets backing from Mozilla. It's an effort to bring advanced typography to the web in a much better way.

Setting up a MySQL cluster for your Linux desktop. It's not so complicated.

Will new Skype owners deal differently with open source? There is growing speculation, especially given its deal with Digium, that the new owners of Skype may take a different attitude.

10 interesting Google Chrome OS mock-up designs. Transparent windows and dialog boxes and more make these mock-ups look unlike any other OS.

Red Hat seeks respect for JBoss and ecosystem. The company has made a slew of announcements at Red Hat Summit.

Parallels Desktop 4 for Windows and Linux released. It lets you run any combination of Windows and Linux OSs concurrently, and is reportedly much faster than previous versions.

Sharp to introduce new mobile Internet tool. It's a netbook-like device that doubles as an e-book and runs Linux.

Asterisk, the handy VoIP solution for making phone calls that I mentioned recently, just got a whole lot more attractive. Today Digium, the company behind the open source telephony software, announced the availability of Skype for Asterisk. With the new download, Asterisk users can call landlines, cellular devices, and other Skype users, right from any Asterisk-based phone.

Given that companies can simply download Skype for Business right from Skype's Web site, Digium's offering might seem like little more than an ease-of-use solution to help users avoid juggling multiple apps to make phone calls. However, it's actually much more than that.

A new beta version of Skype for Linux has been released and includes a slew of new features that Linux users have been waiting for a long time. There are also a few tweaks and UI changes that will make using Skype on Linux a better overall experience for anyone who uses this popular client to make calls via their computer.

Here's a list of all the new features and some of the improvements you'll find in Skype version 2.1.0.47 for Linux:

BURLINGAME, Calif. - Can the power of open source be harnessed into the form factor of a cellular phone? That's the question Taiwan-based OpenMoko hopes to answer positively, when it starts to roll out its OpenMoko platform and phones later this year.

Open-source IP PBXs were supposed to target the incumbent telephony world's lunch. But right now the Asterisk community finds itself in a food fight over the free, small-installation market, between upstart Fonality and the house of Asterisk itself, Digium.