The Open Source Development Network [OSDN] brings many of the Open Source community's favorite gathering places together and makes it easier to move between them. SourceForge, freshmeat, Linux.com, Themes.org, Slashdot, and our other Web sites will stay as independent as ever, but now you'll be able to access all of them -- and other useful Open Source sites -- from a central entry point: OSDN.com

What you see here is OSDN.com version 0.1. It's beta right now, but we've released it early, and as you tell us what additional features it should have, we'll release updates often.

We're trying to supply as much Open Source information as we can to the widest possible audience. We already help people develop Open Source software with tools like SourceForge, help them distribute their work through freshmeat and other Web sites, and to discuss Open Source development on Slashdot and many of our other sites.

But hard-core Open Source software developers and users are not our only audience. We are also working to spread the word about Open Source to people who are just starting to learn what this whole movement is about. Much of the material in the Open Source Development Network, and some of what you see here on OSDN.com, is here to help people who haven't yet been exposed to Open Source technology and culture understand how Open Source can help them develop better software faster -- and usually at less expense -- than proprietary software development methods.

And please don't forget our advertisers, business partners or the kind people at our parent company, VA Linux; they're the ones who pay our salaries and buy the bandwidth for 80 million pageviews a month. Without their support, we wouldn't be able to supply OSDN services free, and give away free OSDN memberships.