There are literally thousands of technology open source projects available to you. Many of these projects offer forums, mailing lists, documentation, and free downloads of their software. Larger projects offer formal support options and consulting service (if you want customized enhancements). Nearly every kind of software category you can think of has multiple open source
offerings for you to choose from. A goal of Linux Toys II is to help you connect to the projects you like, whether they are projects described in this book or ones that you find while you are exploring on your own. In the original Linux Toys, we pieced together much of software for the projects ourselves and offered our own forums. In Linux Toys II, I’ve encouraged a much closer connection to the open source initiatives I drew from in this book by:
Sticking closely to existing open source projects, instead of piecing together software from several different open source initiatives
Pointing you to existing forums, mailing lists, FAQs, and other resources from these open source initiatives to learn more about them Encouraging you to contribute to the open source software communities you like directly, by helping maintain code, write documentation, or give cash donations Volunteers maintain most open source projects. Small contributions by many people can go a long way. If you make enhancements to the code or fix bugs, feed it back to the project so that others can gain from your work. In each chapter I describe how to connect to the open sourceinitiatives that are included and described in this book so you can contact the projects directly if you want to find out more about them. If the Linux Toys II projects in this book have sparked your interest, there are lots of ways that you can pursue other open source projects. There are gathering places on the Internet whereyou can find links to information and downloads for literally thousands of open source initiatives.
Among the most popular places to start are SourceForge.net and Freshmeat.net. SourceForge.net and Freshmeat.net are both part of the Open Source Technology Group (www.ostg.com), which is a wholly owned subsidiary of VA Software (www.vasoftware.com). Other OSTG technology sites include Slashdot.org (where you get the latest open source news), NewsForge.com (another open source news site), and Linux.com (a resource for enterprise Linux official products).
