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
- Massive Cuts Inside Microsoft (the Media Does Not Talk About That)
- It is in many ways like IBM a decade ago
- IRC's Growing Popularity in 2026
- No company controls or profits from IRC, it is in the Commons
- Amazon's Debt Skyrockets by Almost 100 Billion Dollars in 9 Months
- On top of that there is additional (secret, kept stealth by accounting tricks) debt
- Many People "Left" Red Hat This Month, Including Yesterday
- We already saw this with SUSE
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- Gemini Links 31/10/2026: MangoWM, Qutebrowser and Codeberg, Plugh
- Links for the day
- In US Government Sites, GNU/Linux Measured at New All-Time High of 7% (or About 10% Across Desktops/Laptops Alone)
- There's no doubt GNU/Linux is growing
- Intel Has Just Lost in One Single Day Over 150 Billion Dollars in 'Value' (Market Cap), Intel is Also Over 50 Billion Dollars in Debt
- This really says a lot about Wall Street and the slop bubble, doesn't it?
- They Hate Him Because He's Effective
- Effective voices invite more aggressive censorship attempts
- Audience Growing in Spite of the Deluge of Webslop
- We probably benefit from the rejection of LLM slop
- The Munich FUD Tactics (Microsoft Modus Operandi): Microsoft-Connected Sites Claim Denmark Failed With Free Software, But That's Not What Actually Happened
- With Microsoft, it almost always boils down to politics
- Links 31/10/2026: John Romero Comeback After Being Shafted by Microsoft, Google Faces Criminal Probe Over Deforestation in Finland
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 31/10/2026: Rambling on Self-hosting and Ad Video Screens Don’t Make Money
- Links for the day
- Can't Trust Big Banks, Let's Try 'Bros' Instead?
- But let's blame "North Korea"
- "AI" as Surrogate for Debt and Distraction From Computing (Bots Described as "Agents" and/or Any Form of "Intelligence" is More Like a Religion)
- We're letting people without even college degrees game the "market" (Wall Street) by lying to it
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXV - Election Integrity at a Time of Back Doors and Very Severe Bugs in UEFI
- How dare British media comment on insurrection following a US election?
- "The Judge Accepted That Mrs Schestowitz Had Been the Subject of a Vicious Campaign of Online Harassment"
- That's consistent with how they men treat women
- Gemini Links 31/10/2026: Hallowe'en and "Thinking About People"
- Links for the day
- Links 31/10/2026: The Hinge on Apple's Constantly Breaking New Foldable iPhone Was "Built With Slop", Slop Causes Cash Squeeze GAFAM
- Links for the day
- Google Illegally Destroyed a Quarter Million Trees Without a Permit for a Hypothetical Project That Might be Cancelled, Debt Has Soared by 30 Billion Dollars in 3 Months ($10 Billions Borrowed Per Month)
- Google is bleeding from slop
- Slavery at Microsoft
- illegal if true
- Gemini Links 31/10/2026: "Where I Draw the Line With" Slop Plagiarism and "Nobody Cares That You're Leaving Proton" (Over Slop)
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 30, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, October 30, 2026
- Links 30/10/2026: "Over 41,000 DHS Employee Records Leaked Online" and Concerns Over Radicalism in France
- Links for the day
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXIV - It's an Inherently American Issue and American Elections Are at Risk From Restricted ('Secure') Boot and LLM Chatbots (Disinformation at Scale)
- We'll focus a lot on US elections in the coming days
- Birss Replaces Vos in UK's High Court, LLM Slop Plagiarism a Contentious Issue
- Only days ago we mentioned Sir Geoffrey Vos in relation to lobbying for LLM slop
- "Early Retirement" (Silent Layoffs) for Everybody Except the Executives
- Some will stick around even past 70
- Despite the Mass Layoffs Microsoft's Debt Soared by 5.1 Billion Dollars in Just 3 Months
- This is why Microsoft asks 60,000 workers to leave
- Gemini Links 30/10/2026: Solar MiniBBS, Kubernetes With FreeBSD, "Sysadmin Day"
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Layoffs Far Worse Than the Media Tells (Microsoft Spin Laundered as "Reporting")
- Some people are made to "retire" and sign an NDA to make it seem like a happy ending and mostly consensual retreat
- Links 30/10/2026: Google Crashes on Slop Disappointment and GAFAM's "Data Center Blitz Is Burning Through Cash and Scaring Wall St."
- Links for the day
- Fake 'Articles' in The Register MS Concerning "AI"
- We don't suppose The Register MS will be around for much longer after this bubble pops
- What Linus Torvalds Told Me Two Decades Ago
- It seems like he was eager to distinguish himself from the "elders" of FSF [...] For anything "revolutionary" to happen in the sciences one must accept the risk of living in poverty like Tesla (the person, not the right-wing fanatics) and Torvalds isn't too old to "cause a stir"
- GNU/Linux as a Free Software Platform is More GNU (and GPL) Than Linux
- GNU predates Linux by nearly a decades and it was born to tackle injustices
- Who Or What Are Security Professionals/Experts?
- Companies like GAFAM are willing to tolerate cheaters because those companies themselves are cheats
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXIII - What Garrett Did Puts Elections at Risk (Also in His Own Country, Where a Dictator Trusts Only Machines That 'Support' Him)
- UEFI 'security' is only as trustworthy as its ferocious boosters
- Gemini Links 30/10/2026: RIP Patrick Stewart and Amp Integration
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 29, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, October 29, 2026
- The Metric is Not the Mission
- "Passing Thoughts" by Andy
- More Than 5 Years Have Passed Since Official Release of Vista 11 and in the US It's Measured as Only 3 Times Bigger Than GNU/Linux on the Desktop/Laptop
- If mobile is culled from the statistics, then GNU/Linux is somewhere near 11%
- It's About Intention, Not Attrition, at Microsoft
- Microsoft does in fact aim to push many workers off the cliff
- The Next 50 Years of Emacs (and GNU)
- GNU's founder made the widely used editor, GNU Emacs
- Links 29/10/2026: Microsoft-Connected and Funded Openwashing at FOSDEM, Tragedy in Spain
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 29/10/2026: London, Worcestershire, and Robot Exclusion Protocol
- Links for the day
- The Register MS is Publishing Spam About "AI" for HP, Sponsored by HP, Even Composed by HP
- Or "HPE" as they choose to call themselves (with the hype of "enterprise")
- Links 29/10/2026: Anthropic Still Sued Over Copyright Infringement (Plagiarism Isn't "Training"), Elon Musk Openly Admits He Helps Putin Crush Ukraine
- Links for the day
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXI - Techrights Was Right, So Why Was It Punished by Lawfare While the Culprits Walk Away Scot-free?
- Techrights did a public service, cautioning about real risks to the public, but the people who caused the problems walk away scot-free
- Intercontinental Brigading - Part XXII - Still "Radio Silence" From "Restricted Boot" Perpetrators (After Techrights Proven Right Again)
- Maybe when they sober up they'll say something...
- 'Secure' Boot Is Not Secure, Here Are News Reports About the Latest Evidence
- We'll be linking to this page in the future as evidence of the catastrophe
- No, Microsoft Isn't Doing Well (It Has Struggled for a Long Time)
- Microsoft isn't growing, the shares are a Ponzi scheme of sorts
- What Makes Techrights a Community
- Communities can accomplish a lot. They cannot be "bought" and "sold", they're based on trust, mutual respect, and shared ideology.
- Linux Links 29/10/2026: Refractor Stargazing and Making Better Use of RAM in Linux
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 28, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, October 28, 2026