Things of interest that the Inside Open Source team have come across on their travels:

• Songbird: Very cool Mozilla-based media player. Mozilla already handles my browsing, calendaring and email, so I don’t see why they can’t handle my media too.

• GPS + Google Maps = fun: Got a GPS unit? Want to see exactly where you are using Google Maps? Here’s 42 lines of Python code to let you do just that (and half those lines are comments!).

• Beryl shows off: Yet more insane cartoon-inspired eye candy, this time via Beryl and AIGLX, running on Ubuntu (video link).

• PalmSource becomes Access Linux: Simple renaming exercise but the future of Linux on Palm-style devices is far from clear.

• Weird bug: ... although one that affects many developers, I think (WARNING: Adult humor and sexism ahead). Best quote from article: “A little-endian problem, perhaps?”

• Peek at Firefox 3: Firefox 2.0 is just around the corner but planning is already taking place for Firefox 3.0; see what the devs are dreaming up.

• Source code management: Nice round-up and explanation of current source code management solutions, courtesy of IBM DeveloperWorks.

• Portland 1.0: For the first time ever, Linux/Unix has a common set of desktop interfaces and tools, which should make support for applications across GNOME and KDE a lot easier.

• Fedora Core 6 slips: Too many critical bugs; looks like Debian Etch will slip too, for similar reasons.

• European Union boosts OS use: New Open Source Observatory and Repository will “encourage European administrations to use each other’s software and develop common projects.”

• Han Reiser arrested: Brains behind ReiserFS charged with wife’s murder; linux-watch.com speculates that poor pay for OS developers could be a factor. In an entirely coincidental move, Novell has announced that it’s moving its SUSE products to ext3, and away from ReiserFS.

• Nexenta: New operating system combines OpenSolaris, GNU utilities and Ubuntu. Quote from article: “It might sound like an odd combination, but after more than a year of development, it actually works well, and is shaping up to be a very interesting operating system.”

• Gael Duval talks: Ex-Mandriva man gives some details about forthcoming Ulteo project after some details leaked out.

• Friday fun: I bet this conversation has actually taken place at least once (puts me slightly in mind of the Dilbert Unix guru cartoon).