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The former president of the One Laptop Per Child project stepped down from his position earlier this week as the non-profit continues restructuring and faces competition from the private sector. Walter Bender directed the MIT Media Lab for six years before joining Nicholas Negroponte's OLPC project in 2006. Negroponte, who cofounded the Media Lab in 1985, has overseen the "$100 laptop" project since its inception; however, three executives -- including Bender -- have left the organization since December 2007.

You know it's a good week on the Linux blogs when there are topics that draw more than a thousand comments on Slashdot. Indeed, such was the case last week. To start with the most obvious, Red Hat's announcement that it would not develop a desktop version of Linux for the consumer market in the near future made quite a stir on the Linux blogs, with conversations on Slashdot, Foogazi and LXer, to name just a few. "Red Hat is concentrating too much on the short term," charged deragon on Slashdot, where more than 400 comments followed that news.

In what surely came as a blow to many Linux aficionados, Red Hat announced Wednesday that it will not develop a desktop implementation of the operating system for the consumer market anytime soon. "We have no plans to create a traditional desktop product for the consumer market in the foreseeable future," the company wrote in a post on its blog, citing market pressures as its reason. "The desktop market suffers from having one dominant vendor, and some people still perceive that today's Linux desktops simply don't provide a practical alternative."

Sun Microsystems, one of the largest server makers, announced that it would increase the number of products certified for use with Ubuntu Linux, one of the fastest growing open source operating systems. The upcoming expansion -- which is expected to be detailed in the coming days -- is the latest development in the two-year relationship between Sun and Canonical, which reaches back to the 6.06 LTS release in 2006 which was certified for some Sun systems. By 2007, the Java stack was included with the Ubuntu 7.04 release, said Barton George, Sun Microsystems' open source community manager.

The free Linux operating system handles big tasks like running supercomputers and ATMs. Now Linux has a chance to finally crack Microsoft's hold on computing's most visible domain -- mainstream PCs -- because of the rise of innovative, inexpensive machines. Of course, prognosticators perennially say Linux is on the verge. It gets high marks for security and stability and is widely used behind the scenes in corporate servers, making it a natural candidate to steal desktop thunder from Microsoft's dominant Windows. Yet Linux PCs still represent less than 2 percent of the market.

It's not often that we here at LinuxInsider get to write exposes, shocking or otherwise. This, however, is one of those rare occasions. Back around Valentine's Day, faithful readers may remember, we celebrated the boundless love Linux geeks feel for their favorite operating system, including all the many aspects about it that they love. Apparently the Linux crowd are a more sentimental bunch than we realized, because here we are -- just a month or so later -- and the emotions are gushing forth once again.

The Ubuntu developer community moved its long-awaited upgrade, Hardy Heron, into beta release on Friday. Ubuntu is a Linux-based operating system designed for general consumers. The development of the OS, first released in 2004, has been sponsored by Isle of Man-based Canonical and the company's owner, South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttlesworth. Much like Red Hat and other Linux support companies, Canonical -- along with hundreds of other companies around the world -- derives its revenues from the commercial support for those who deploy the operating system.

Ah, Spring. It's the time of rebirth, renewal and hope, and it's almost here! Too bad, then, that so many hopes were dashed last week when Wal-Mart announced it was pulling the Linux-driven Everex Green gPC from its retail store shelves. That PC's original inclusion at Wal-Mart created enormous excitement throughout the Linux world -- it was taken by many as concrete evidence that Linux had finally arrived -- so this latest news came as something of a crushing disappointment to many.

So you need a computer. You've looked at the newest Dell XPS, maybe a spiffy HP Pavilion. You've surfed over to Apple's Web store to drool over the powerful, stylish machines of Steve Jobs. But there's a problem: You're broke. You just don't have -- or shouldn't be spending -- the $600 to more than $2,000 you'd have to pay for one of those new digital hotrods. There's still hope if you have the do-it-yourself daring to combine the free, open source operating system Ubuntu Linux with an inexpensive used personal computer.

Valentine's Day may be over, but that doesn't mean the love has to stop there. Indeed, judging by the emotion that gushed forth through the Linux blogosphere on and around the holiday, Linux geeks have a serious pent-up supply of love to share. Interestingly, a remarkable amount of that affection was expressed through -- or even for -- Linux itself! Alivad.com's David Williams, for example, wrote a very touching article titled "Linux, the Language of Love" in which he described all the many ways Linux can help people show their love for one another.