The developement seems to be lead quite professionally, there's clear roadmaps and requirements written for each new development increment. (Atm. they're finishing 0.3, and plans for 0.4 are almost frozen). Project was started after MOO3 was released, by some disappointed fans. (or that's what I have heard). Actually the decision about making free orion was done at MOO3 forums.
It may not be a surprize that I am quite excited about this game. After all I have many times told that my all time favourite game has been MOO1. Actually I am that excited about the game, that I decided to give them a hand, and see if I can do some coding for the project. I may write something about this struggle in the Developer's Help project.
As a warning for the linux user's who want to compile this game themself - the game requires some bleeding edge libraries, like newest boost and GiGi, which are not necessarily available for older distributions.. So prepare to do some fighting
EDIT:
I did forgot the link
http://www.freeorion.org/index.php/Main_Page
