We received some great news this past month. Our own Dee-Ann LeBlanc, known to regular readers as the Gaming Industry editor of LinuxWorld Magazine, was selected a winner of the 2003 Excellence in Technology Journalism by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). Dee-Ann won for her LWM article from last December on the Linux kernel team and the dynamics of how they work together (see "Linux Kernel Development: Shared values make open source work," Vol. 1 issue 2, www.linuxworld.com/story/34250.htm?DE=1).

This award is actually quite an honor. This year PRSA gave three awards: one for a "General Media" publication, which went to a writer from TIME; a second for a "Business/Financial" publication, which was awarded to a writer for SmartMoney Magazine; and a third for a "Technical/Trade" publication, which was presented to Dee-Ann for her work with LWM. Dee-Ann's article was judged as the best example of technology journalism from over 130 submissions.

We were particularly pleased because one of the key criteria for the award, in addition to the requirement that the article be well written, was that it be on a topic that was judged to be important. The topic needed to appeal to an audience that consists of more than just the average technology head. In other words, PRSA made the judgement that Linux kernel development is a very important topic - and important not just to technology nerds and alpha-geeks.

Of course, here at LWM, we feel like we already knew that; in fact, it's the main reason we're here. Our goal is to relate the Linux story to readers with all levels of knowledge and experience. Thanks again to Dee-Ann for helping us get a little closer to achieving that goal!

Speaking of good news, we also get to welcome a new member of our editorial team this month: Bill Roth. Bill formerly worked for Sun Microsystems on J2EE and will be exploring the future of Java on Linux for us. Currently Bill works with E.piphany and also serves on the Editorial Board of Java Developer's Journal. Welcome aboard! Of course, the most important member of our team at LWM is still you, our readers. Thanks for continuing to support us - that's our greatest reward.