I just heard some great news today: the Kubuntu distribution has financial sponsorship from version 12.10! Blue Systems, a sponsor of a number of other KDE-based projects, has stepped forward and will be employing Jonathan Riddell from May, when he steps down from his position at Canonical.

Kubuntu will continue to be a community-driven project (as it has always been) and Riddell will continue to be employed full time to work on Kubuntu. With this momentum, Kubuntu will continue to be one of the world's leading distributions, and the distribution who can boast to being used for the biggest rollout of desktop Linux in the world.

Kubuntu also boasts the first tablet-focused distribution, with the Kubuntu Active flavour hopefully being release later this year.

With this new sponsorship, and independence from Canonical, the Kubuntu team hopes to give Kubuntu new wings, and take it to new heights with KDE and Linux.

Linux and Open Source software is growing and gaining more and more recognition these days. Most folk who work in the technical sector have at least heard of open source software, even if they haven't used it. But with more and more visibility, open source projects get more and more FUD from detractors. One of the most commonly heard sayings with regard to OSS is, "well, you get what you paid for!" followed by, "If you want to use something that's free, how can you expect it to be anywhere near as good as one of the paid products?"

Quite honestly, that's the biggest bunch of baloney. In some cases, the software is not yet ready to be used, but because of the open source mantra of "release early, release often," most projects put releases out as soon as possible for others to look and and hopefully turn to helping the project. When dealing with mature applications, it is almost never the case. I've always maintained that open source code is better than proprietary code, though I've never been able to prove it. Now, at long last, a study has confirmed what I have always said: there are less bugs in open source applications than in closed source proprietary applications.

It seems that Adobe is getting less and less cozy with Linux, despite having built 64 bit support for Flash initially only on Linux. Adobe recently announced that they are no longer releasing Flash Player for Linux other than bundled with Google Chrome. Support for the current version of Flash Player, version 11.2, will continue for 5 years in the form of security updates.

This is yet another slap in the face for Linux users, with Adobe previously withdrawing the Linux version of Adobe AIR, which many open source developers latched onto when it was first unveiled.

In the first lesson we introduced Python, the CPython interactive interpreter, and wrote a very simple program. This lesson we'll look at choosing a good editor, rewriting our previous program into a script and Python's basic types.

It seems that almost as soon as registration for pre-ordering the Spark was announced, the initial production capacity was reached and registration was closed. The Spark sure is a hot tablet (if you'll excuse the pun)!

Aaron Seigo, a lead developer of the KDE project and the leader of the Spark project, announced registration for pre-orders on his blog on Thursday 16 February, and had to announce that the initial production capacity had been reached and that registration was closed only a few days later, on Monday the 20th.

Initially, Seigo and his company, MakePlayLive, had planned to service their American orders from Europe where they are based, but due to the phenomenal demand from the Americas they are working on setting up logistics in the US. As for the rest of the world, once Europe and the Americas have been serviced, the rest of us will be dealt with.

If, like me, you were unable to catch the pre-order registration, do not worry. You can still register on the MakePlayLive site, and you will be notified when the next batch of Sparks is being produced.

Instead of me writing an article, I thought it might be time to ask those who read this blog about their church's open source usage. So, in no particular order, here are some questions:

• Does your church use open source software?
• Does it use OSS on Windows, or a full OSS stack (e.g. Linux/*BSD)?
• What open source applications does your church use?
• Does your pastor know he's using OSS?
• If you use OSS other than the usual suspects (Firefox, Thunderbird, etc), then what do you use it for?

At a guess, I'll say that most churches are probably in the "we use Firefox on Windows" category.

This is the last part in the series, I promise! If you haven't done so already, I recommend you read parts one, two, three, four and five first.

In the previous 5 parts I have set out a rough guideline for how to introduce open source software into your church. Unfortunately, most of the time you won't be able to go all the way to a total open source setup, so be prepared for that. It will most likely take a few years to make headway beyond getting your pastor to use Firefox or Chrome.

The easiest way to introduce new software and IT systems would be if you are the IT director, or in some other position of influence in your church. Sadly, the fact of the matter is that if you don't have some sort of clout in your church, no one is going to listen to you. In most churches, getting into a position of influence takes a few years, so you'll need to have perseverence and a willingness to play a large role in helping out in your church.

If you are successful in converting your church to OSS, please let everyone know about it, especially us here at Christians in Open Source Software. Make sure you blog about it. We would love to hear about how your church is using open source software.

Ubuntu 11.10 Beta 2 is hot off the presses. We are reaching the stage in the development cycle of Ubuntu were things are pretty much in order. So, it is a good time to take a look at what the next release of many Linux users distro of choice is going to look like.

Lately, it seems all the talk with Ubuntu has been the desktop, more specifically Unity. It seems everyone is looking to redefine the desktop. GNOME 3/GNOME-Shell, Windows 8, and of course Ubuntu's in house shell for GNOME, Unity.  Unity was introduced on the desktop in Ubuntu 11.04, it had been used in previous netbook editions of Ubuntu also. Unity's introduction to the desktop was met with scepticism to say the least. The general opinion seemed to be that people either loved Unity or hated it, not a lot of middle ground.

This is the fifth post in a series on introducing open source software into your church. If you haven't already, read parts one, two, three and four first.

The previous 4 parts of this series dealt with migrating to various pieces of open source software which runs on both Linux and Windows. In this part I'd like to deal with the final big thing: a full-on migration to Linux.