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)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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VCs are realizing the next billion-dollar software company won't make money from software, but from what open source enables it to deliver
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
- "The War on Children" Explained by The Cyber Show
- Consumer protection and the war on children
- In statCounter, a Lot of "Unknown" Turns Out to be GNU/Linux
- GNU/Linux has more than doubled
- Silent Layoffs (PIPs) Have Allegedly Accelerated Since IBM's Stock Cratered
- "IBM is Managing Decline, Not Building Growth"
- Being Pro-Slop is Death Knell to One's Credibility
- It's not hard to see Ubuntu users resisting and antagonising this
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- Many CEOs Are Just Glorified Scammers With Suits and Ties
- Economies cannot function when few people abuse them for self-enrichment
- After statCounter Figures Out Many "Unknowns" Were in Fact GNU/Linux the "Market Share" Estimate in China More Than Doubles
- Japan is the same for similar reasons
- peppe8o - a Site About Raspberry Pi, Arduino and Electronics - Has Turned Into a Slopfarm
- We won't be linking to it anymore
- Feeding 'the Children'
- Maybe some time soon we'll do a fund-raiser to help feed the birds
- Japan: GNU/Linux Crosses the 5% Threshold, Two Years Ago It Was Only 1%
- Now it's at over 5%
- We Need More Transparency
- Our heads of state are very much aware of and concerned about SLAPPs and censorship
- EPO Cocainegate and Current EPO/EU Series to Carry on for Months to Come
- Another week has begun
- When IBM "Managers Have to Mark 15% of Their Teams as Low Performers" a PIP Means Likely Layoffs (Disguised as a Performance Issue)
- "IBM is a Law firm with an I/T department."
- Links 27/07/2026: Chatbots Lead to Suicides, Social Control Media Intentionally Designed for Addiction
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 26, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, July 26, 2026
- Daniel Pocock in Mainstream Media Again
- AFR wrote an article today. It is about Pocock and another contender.
- Millions of Daily Requests
- 4.5+ million requests in 4 days
- 3,500 Active Gemini Capsules Soon
- How much longer before 3,500+ active? A month?
- Gemini Links 26/07/2026: European Eclipse, Writing About Writing, and Comments on Formatting Gopher Posts
- Links for the day
- Stigma of Being Laid Off by Microsoft
- One might call this the "curse" of having worked for Microsoft
- Non-Techs Using Slop Run Fedora and It's Turning Out to be a Total Disaster
- RIP, Fedora?
- Gemini Links 26/07/2026: Beach Day, CAs, and Plaintext
- Links for the day
- Sweden Needs GNU/Linux and Free Software, Not GAFAM
- home of IKEA and ABBA
- Maintenance Today
- Preparing for more mass-publication activities
- Links 26/07/2026: "Zelenskyy Says Russia Wants To Bring North Korean Troops Into Ukraine", Muslim Van Ramming Attack on Berlin Pride
- Links for the day
- Centrica fraud exposed: worse than Palestine Action 'terrorists' with cardboard placards
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 26/07/2026: "Nate Silver Discovers the Educated Poor" and "India’s “Cockroach” Protest Movement Faces State Repression"
- Links for the day
- The Slop Bubble is Killing the Planet, Not Just the Economy
- The chatbot/LLM speculation bubble not only causes a health crisis, a mental health epidemic, and climate change; it's also crashing the economy on several levels
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 25, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, July 25, 2026
- IBM Hammers a CoI Into a CoCed Fedora, RIP Fedora?
- Also in the "Fedora is dead" dept. today
- Gemini Links 25/07/2026: Zoo, MUD, Literature, EMF Camp, and e-ID
- Links for the day
- European Patent Office (EPO) Series: The Solution of No Choice: A Shortlist of One
- deployment of the "shortlist of one" by Campinos
- Wife of Dan Williams Has Explained Mental Factors Leading to His Death
- "We need to be open and honest about mental health," his wife pleads
- Several New Series Coming Soon
- we'll publish 8 series in tandem, in parallel
- Insolvency as the New Norm in the United States' Economy
- this is vastly worse than then 2008 subprime mortgage crisis
- IBM's CEO Might 'Retire' or 'Step Down' by Christmas
- PIP the CEO
- Misleading Articles About YouTube and Google Financial Performance
- The future of Google is self-serving monopolisation and destruction of the Web
- Microsoft Cannot Survive the Fall of Windows
- It has amassed way too much debt
- Links 25/07/2026: Hong Kong Squashing Criticism/Dissent, Mirror Caught Breaking Into Voicemail
- Links for the day
- PIPs Are Shrinking IBM and "IBM is Managing Decline, Not Building Growth"
- IBM is going down the drain
- IBM is Killing the Fedora Community, Replacing It With LLM Slop From IBM Staff
- Krishna buys companies only to gut them. They've all learned this from experience.
- Give Me Your "Dumbest" (Devices)
- Why can't people accept that a "modern "smart" "phone" isn't necessary to check the time (overkill) and playing social control media "on the go" is far from necessary?
- Earlier This Year Dan Williams Prepared for Scenario Where Linus Torvalds Dies
- He had only just started a job at NVIDIA
- Links 25/07/2026: Data Breaches Abundant and Attribution Imperiled in the Age of Slop Hype
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 25/07/2026: Poetry and Plaintext Pages
- Links for the day
- What is Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
- In many cases, the acronym became a misnomer
- IBM PIPs Continue Until Morale Improves, Silent or Quiet Firings at IBM Explained
- IBM is a dying company
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 24, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, July 24, 2026