Hello, and thanks for reading LinuxWorld Magazine! Welcome to our one-year anniversary issue! It seems like only yesterday that we were launching this magazine; so much has happened since then.

We've carried some great articles, including detailed pieces on Carrier Grade Linux and Open Source Visualization technologies. We've also carried some great case studies and product reviews.

Another topic we've covered is the collection of LAMP technologies - Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl/Python. The LAMP application development stack is one of the "killer apps" for Linux and open source in general. One of the best of the LAMP articles was the piece we ran in our July issue that was written by two of the original developers of PHP.

The Book Rookery, our monthly interviews with the authors of new books coming out on Linux and open source, has become popular with readers and authors alike. You wouldn't believe the number of new books we review each month before we choose the one or two we're going to profile.

We've also done some great interviews with many of the leaders of the Linux and open source community. We've spoken with Eric Raymond, Richard Stallman, Bruce Perens, Tim O'Reilly, Stuart Cohen from OSDL, Mark Barrenechea of Computer Associates, and a bunch of others. All these people are contributing to the shape of the Linux and open source communities, and they all shared their thoughts and ideas with our readers.

Another highlight was our winning the Public Relations Society of America's 2003 Excellence in Technology Journalism award. There was a lot of competition for this prestigious award - more than 130 articles were submitted for consideration from all the major technology magazines, not just those focused on Linux. Fortunately for us, Dee-Ann LeBlanc's LinuxWorld Magazine article on the values that hold the Linux kernel team together was judged to be the best article of the year.

Special thanks for all this go out to our outstanding editorial team. James Turner, Dee-Ann LeBlanc, Steven Berkowitz, MC Brown, Mark Hinkle, Steve Suehring, Ibrahim Haddad, Maria Winslow, Bill Claybrook, Dave Taylor, and Bill Roth have all made big contributions to LinuxWorld Magazine and I want to thank them here. The work they do each month to help track down the top stories in the industry benefits us all. Steven Berkowitz has had to cut back his involvement - he's recently entered the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, one of the most prestigious journalism schools around.

Jennifer Van Winckel, our managing editor, is in many ways the brains behind this operation. Her efforts in coordinating with our authors and turning the ideas and energy of the editorial team into a real magazine on a tight schedule have been invaluable.

We get reader feedback pretty frequently. Sometimes you love us and sometimes you hate us but either way, we want to hear it. Feel free to send your thoughts to me directly when the mood strikes - you may end up seeing your words (good or bad) in print.

But enough about us. Of course, the real stars of the show are you - our readers. You buy the magazine and allow us to keep doing this work. You support us with your dollars and with the time you spend reading LinuxWorld Magazine. In the end, you're what's made the last year a success. Thanks again!