Tonight on irc.slashnet.org in #Forum Hemos & I will be hanging out answering users' questions. This is your chance to ask about the moderation system, story selection, or the technology upon which Slashdot is built. (No Biz questions please ;) It's been a long time since we last did this, and we're hoping we can answer questions and get some feedback on some new ideas too. We'll see ya there.

Hans Reiser leads a successful Free Software project that has attracted plenty of attention, many users, and even that Holy Grail of so many who have started their own Free or Open Source projects: Big-time funding from DARPA, SuSE, and others. How did he do it? What's his advice for other project leaders? Ask him! And ask him any other question you have in mind. Please stick to one question per post, and avoid questions that can be answered with a few minutes' worth of research. We'll publish Mr. Reiser's answers as soon as he gets them back to us.

You asked nmap creator Fyodor many excellent questions, and his answers (below) are just as excellent. You'll want to set aside significant time to read and digest this interview, because Fyodor didn't just toss off a few words, but put some real time and energy into his answers.

It's a clever P2P 'information broadcasting' concept, as the simple diagram on the BitTorrent home page shows. It's gotten a fair amount of notice, especially here on Slashdot. And reader Ignorant Aardvark wrote to us about BitTorrent sites disappearing, possibly because of RIAA/MPAA intervention, so this technology is now generating some controversy as well. The person behind BitTorrent is Bram Cohen, and he's agreed to answer 10 of the highest-moderated questions about BitTorrent you post here. So ask away (after reading the project FAQ and other info about BitTorrent and Bram, of course). We'll run Bram's answers as soon as he emails them back to us.

Fyodor is the driving force behind Insecure.org and the top-rated Nmap network exploration and security auditing tool. He's also involved in The Honeynet Project (and is a coauthor of the project's book, Honeynet: Revealing the Security Tools, Tactics, and Motives of the Blackhat Community). One question per post, please. We'll run Fyodor's answers to 10 of the highest-moderated questions as soon as he gets them back to us.

Warren Ellis, creator of Transmet and countless other excellent comics has answered your questions. Click below fearless reader and face the man responsible for countless graphic novels. And check out Artbomb.net or his blog. And pick up Orbiter, a 100-page sf graphic novel, came out in hardback two weeks ago from DC Vertigo, and hopefully available at a comic shop near you! Enough with the plugs, lets get to the juice:

Naturally, when answering your questions, he boosted his company. (Wouldn't you?) But I assure you, he wrote these answers himself instead of having them laundered by a PR team. Whether or not you agree with Michael and the way he runs Lindows (and used to run MP3.com) you've got to give him credit for speaking more openly than most other modern American CEOs.

Lindows CEO Michael Robertson is vilified by many Linux advocates. At the same time, he is probably drawing more attention to desktop Linux than anyone else in the world. Is he evil? Or is he just a typical American businessman trying to make it big (for the second time; before Lindows, he founded -- and later sold -- MP3.com)? One thing is for sure: Unlike many CEOs, he'll give a plain-talk answer to a straight question. We'll send 10 of the highest-moderated questions submitted here by Slashdot readers to Robertson tomorrow, and run his answers, unedited, as soon as he gets them back to us.

Warren Ellis has agreed to be our next victim for a Slashdot Interview. Probably best known as the creator of the awesome comic Transmetropolitan. If there is a required reading list for Slashdot, Transmet has to be at the top. His recently released Mek series was the first comic I've ever read to actually mention the EFF. His Global Frequency book makes for great reading as well- #7 is out next week. Warren's work contains great dialog, observations on humanity, and is quite frankly just great SciFi. Besides comics, you can read his blog at Die Puny Humans and his weekly graphic novel evangelism column BRAINPOWERED. Standard Slashdot Interview Rules apply: Post questions here. We'll select from the highly moderated ones, and Warren will answer in a few days.

Some legal issues, some technical issues, a little personal insight... This is what Professor Felten gives us here. Some excellent questions rose to the top in this interview, and the answers are similarly thoughtful. Major thanks go out to Professor Felten, also to the many Slashdot people who submitted great questions!

John T. Draper is most famous as "Captain Crunch," the legendary phone phreak who taught others how to make illicit use of Ma Bell's facilities to call almost anywhere, almost any time, for free. But (as a glance at his personal page will show you), that is just about the least of Draper's accomplishments. Not only that, he's still going strong. This is your chance to talk directly to a man without whom the modern-day personal computer -- and modern hacking and many other things we take for granted -- might not exist at all, and certainly would not exist in their current forms. One question per post please, and try to avoid asking questions that could be answered with a little online research. We'll send 10 or 12 of the highest-moderated questions to Draper tomorrow, and run his answers as soon as he has time to reply.

Princeton Computer Science Professor Edward W. Felten has been mentioned and quoted frequently on Slashdot, usually about DMCA matters and, more recently, about new state laws that may make it illegal to use "unapproved" networking devices, VPNs or firewalls with your home or office Internet connection. Please avoid questions that can be answered by reading the pages linked to here or with a bit of Google research. We'll post Prof. Felten's answers to 10 of the highest-moderated questions as soon as he has time to answer them.

Henri Poole writes "In the interview 'Trust Unlimited', Robert McMillan at LinuxPlanet asks Poole about the roots, current developments, and future of Affero's trust and commerce system. Poole talks about his work at the Well, Mandrakesoft's e-services initiative, and current work with LinuxQuestions, and covers topics of transportable reputations, gaming, profits, blogs, forums, independent media and the importance of independent perspectives and decentralized trust metrics in a democratic society."

Paul Kocher, president of Cryptography Research, Inc. and one of the architects of SSL 3.0, said, "The questions were great -- definitely one of the most fun interviews I've ever done." His answers score high on the 'informative' scale, too. Thanks to everyone who submitted such fine questions, and thanks to Paul for putting some real time and effort into his answers.

We got some excellent questions for Scott Trappe, the code quality expert who runs Reasoning. In return, he gave us some excellent thoughts on how to improve code quality, along with some insight about how he reached his now-famous "Linux TCP/IP stack is better than most proprietary TCP/IP stacks" conclusion.

This Slashdot discusssion, about a story Nick wrote, is already going (and heated). I did a NewsForge interview with a SuSE rep who quotes an IDC study that says Linux desktop use will double by 2004. Sounds nice, but how reliable are all these statistics? Nick's been studying Linux use in depth lately, so let's ask him directly what all of these numbers mean, if anything, and how IDC, Evans Data, and other analysts get and massage them. We'll post Nick's answers to 10 of the highest-moderated questions as soon as he gets them back to us.

Paul Kocher is unquestionably one of the highest-profile computer and network security experts around. He's president of Cryptography Research, Inc. and one of the architects of SSL 3.0. The floor is now open. Please try not to ask questions that can be answered with a few minutes' worth of online research. We'll post Paul's answers to 10 of the highest-moderated questions soon after he gets them back to us. Update: 03/13 18:18 GMT by M : Let's try this one more time, this time with feeling.

Several Slashdot staff people are major Larry Niven fans, so we feel he needs no introduction. You asked. He answered. Enough said. Read and enjoy.

Scott Trappe is CEO of Reasoning, a company that has gained a certain amount of noteriety (and a Slashdot mention) by running its Ilumna automated inspection service on several versions of TCP/IP -- and concluding that the Linux version has fewer bugs than most proprietary ones. Why is this? Let's ask Scott, and also ask him any other question you can think of about software quality and how to achieve it since, after all, that's his business. We'll send him 10 of the highest-moderated questions and post his answers when we get them back.

Barry mentions his "sender pays" spamfighting plan more than once in his answers to your questions, and discuessed it at length in an InternetWeek.com article published on Feb. 20. Is Barry's plan workable? Do you have a better idea? Or should we all just get used to spam as part of the online experience, and learn to live with it and block it as best we can?