Free Software News Roundup: Careers, Liberations, and Lots More
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-02-20 16:32:26 UTC
- Modified: 2014-02-20 16:32:26 UTC
Summary: Recent news stories about Free/Open Source software (FOSS)
-
For most students, an internship presents a major opportunity to learn and grow in a real-world environment. Interns who join an open source company or project also seem to learn a lot about themselves along the way. Recently, I asked some former Red Hat interns—both newly hired and long-time Red Hat associates—what lessons they learned by working in an open source culture and what advice they have for our next group of interns.
-
Wikipedia defines “open-source” software as computer software with its source code made available and licensed with a license in which the copyright holder provides the rights to study, change and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose. Translated into English this just means it’s free to anyone who wants to download it. Linux, Mozilla Firefox, and Google’s Android are open source operating systems and are available and easy to download even for computer illiterates like myself.
-
The University of California, Berkeley, has been authorised by Alcatel-Lucent to open sauce all Plan 9 software under the GNU General Public License, Version 2.
-
The takeaway from this presentation should be that , not necessarily because of the usual claims of superior quality (Many eyes make fewer bugs etc.) but because FLOSS emphasizes Freedom and flexibility. I agree with FLOSS being the right way to do IT but I still believe the FLOSS that users will use from solid distros like Debian will be featureful and of high quality as well as being Free. The Debian developers filter out most of the crud included in the depressing statistics of median number of developers and such. It’s a part of their social contract: “We will give back to the free software community
-
For the last decade we’ve watched an epic contest unfold between open source and proprietary technology, and 2014 is the year that this dynamic will radically transform. The lines between open source and proprietary are becoming irrevocably blurred as proprietary firms pour resources into open source development and open source companies dial in their revenue models. Above all else, the open source community is producing the technologies businesses need to be competitive in the data-rich 21st century.
-
VCs are realizing the next billion-dollar software company won't make money from software, but from what open source enables it to deliver
-
These were some of the questions asked by Amandeep, a New Delhi based owner of a small scale clothing company, when I pitched to him a few open source solutions that could make his day-to-day operations more efficient. For someone without any IT background (but a sharp business sense), these were brilliant and relevant questions. The answers to these questions won't just help Amandeep, but if shared broadly may help reduce the apprehension of a significant number of small scale business owners, especially in India. My interactions have shown that a lot of these businesses are looking to grow, enhance their productivity, and most importantly, save costs.
-
Marcus Hanwell is a physicist by training, but his background in science led him down a different path than most reseachers. Today he is a contributer to a number of open source projects aimed at helping the scientific community better analyze and visualize their data. If you've got a question about finding the right open source tool for a scientific application, Marcus can point you in the right direction.
-
Red Hat is perhaps the most recognized player in the entire open source field. As addition to promoting its operating systems, the company has been involved in storage for quite some time. Red Hat Storage is an open platform that is available for on-premise, public clouds such as Amazon, and hybrid cloud deployment. Pricing is by annual subscription based on the number of storage nodes.
-
He went on to tell me how he had looked up “Linux” on the Internet and became interested in the “free” part of software. It took him a bit to get his head around the fact that people from around the globe are contributing to FOSS for not much more than the spirit of kinship and giving. From that moment, in Eddie Baker’s eyes software became more than things you click on to make other things happen.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- How We Process Screenshots of Slop to Suitably Tag Them as Slop
- everything is a single command
-
- Links 11/08/2025: Meritless Twitter Suspensions and Disney Scraps Deepfake Dwayne Johnson
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 11/08/2025: Upgrading Debian Bookworm and Better Quality PDFs From Gemini Pages
- Links for the day
- Currys PCWorld Lied a Decade Ago, 10 Years Later It Still Effectively Voids Your Warranty for Installing GNU/Linux Despite It Being Increasingly Mainstream
- Microsoft gatekeepers
- Team GNOME Has Libeled Me for Nearly 20 Years
- we are not dealing with sane people
- Experience With Airlines in 'Web Sites' and in 'Apps'
- In a lot of ways, Stallman Was Right about what JavaScript would turn out to be
- Open Does Not Mean Free
- wiser to ask if some program is freedom-respecting
- The Register MS Takes Money From Companies Banned by the Biden and Trump Administrations (National Security Risk)
- today's sponsor
- Sabotaging GNU/Linux PCs (and Users) is Not a 'Joke'
- maybe cruelty is the very objective
- Links 11/08/2025: Data Breaches, Politics, and Climate
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 10, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, August 10, 2025
- Gemini Links 11/08/2025: Tea Caffeine Hot and Super ZZ Zero
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Brian Fagioli, and Other Serial Sloppers
- Maybe Microsoft wants to dub this "Web5"
- Gemini Links 10/08/2025: Residents Management Company, Automation, and Politics
- Links for the day
- Links 10/08/2025: AOL Ending Dial-up
- Links for the day
- Seductive Mirage or Allure of Complex, Proprietary Coffee Machines (or Similar White Elephants)
- Software is a lot like those things
- Links 10/08/2025: Webrings, “AI Sunglasses” and “AI Eyeglasses”, US Administration Intensifies Attacks on Science and Research
- Links for the day
- Sometimes Newer is Worse
- We generally need to reject this dumb notion that "old" means bad
- The Code Used to Make Techrights Fits on a Seventh of a Floppy Disk (or 100KB When Compressed)
- For the sake of comparison I've just downloaded the latest version of WordPress. The ZIP file is 27.2MB in size, or ~27,200KB.
- What They Tell Young Programmers
- Coding in 2025
- Simpler is Better When Simple is Enough
- Over-complicating things to "sell" new versions is so 1990s
- Links 10/08/2025: From Social Control Media to Prison, New Examples of Windows TCO
- Links for the day
- Sloppy Reporting About Slop, or How The Register MS Lowers Its Standards
- Maybe the management isn't even aware of this
- IBM's Strategy: Cull 'Expensive' Workers, Replace Them With Cheaper Ones
- So far we saw not even one rebuttal or challenge to the claim of Red Hat layoffs scheduled for tomorrow
- If You Attack Somebody Too Much You Legitimise and Strengthen That Somebody
- at the end those attacks add up to a "martyr" status
- The Man Who Helped Microsoft Kill Linux is Trying to Delay Our Lawsuits Against Him
- By conservative estimates, and based on court documents submitted by them, they're prepared to spend over a million dollars on lawyers, fighting against me and my wife
- Gemini Links 10/08/2025: Gen Con 2025 and Framework Laptop
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 09, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, August 09, 2025
- The Register MS (Microsoft) or The Register AI (Slop)?
- What a slopfest!
- Is Red Hat About to Give the Boot to GNOME People Who Helped Microsoft 'Secure' (Monopolised) Boot?
- It was always a dumb idea to play along with Microsoft's hardware mischief
- Sales of Windows on PCs (Windows Licences) Go Down
- Microsoft has a big problem in its hands
- The Hype That Microsoft and The Register MS (Among Others) Promote Helps Stage DDoS Attacks on Free Software Sites
- Microsoft is, to put it bluntly, pure evil
- The Goal of Coopetition Assumes You're Friends
- it will never work with Microsoft
- Links 09/08/2025: Putin Allegedly to Visit Alaska (Which He Deems Part of Russia), Mike Tyson Sued for Copyright Infringement
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: Linux Journal, LinuxSecurity, and Google News With Its Slopfarms of Choice
- SEO spam, made with LLMs
- Follow the Money: The Register MS Gets Paid to Promote "Hey Hi" Ponzi Scheme/Hype, Some Fake 'Articles' Might Be Composed by LLMs Already
- paid to promote slop
- Gemini Links 09/08/2025: Rethinking Aliases and Posting on Gopher vs. the Web
- Links for the day
- Links 09/08/2025: Apollo 13 Astronaut Jim Lovell Dies, Slop Future Bleak
- Links for the day
- After Shutting Down Studios, Divisions, Applications (e.g. Skype) Microsoft is Also Shutting Down 'Apps'
- Cuts all around as layoffs persist this month, Microsoft tries to get many people to resign, and debt skyrockets
- Most of Geminispace Can Probably Fit on a CD-ROM or a DVD (the Textual Part)
- If one excludes very large capsules and ones that contain non-textual contenty
- Eventually UEFI 'Secure Boot' Will be Dropped (Users Will Demand Its Removal and Boycott Its Pushers)
- we expect OEMs will just listen to users
- The Register MS: We Know Slop is a Bubble and Mindless Hype, But We Get Paid to Participate
- Call out the culprits
- Hate Mail From Anonymous Cowards
- if this persists, we'll need to escalate
- There Are Probably Over a Million Pages in Geminispace
- there are two many limitations which merit a mention when it comes to assessing magnitude
- Informal Open Letter to the Lawyer of the Microsofters (on Who's Funding the SLAPPs Against Techrights)
- Whenever I ask about the funding they try to change the subject and act all aggressive
- Microsoft Lunduke is Just Provoking People for Provocation's Sake
- Be forewarned and remember where this guy came from: Microsoft
- Besieged by Plagiarists Who Play With LLMs and Image Fusions
- We really need to exercise or use our collective voice to oppose Serial Sloppers
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 08, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, August 08, 2025
- Gemini Links 09/08/2025: Water Painting and Political Violence
- Links for the day