Free Software/Open Source-Related Links for September-October 2013
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2013-10-24 07:37:09 UTC
- Modified: 2013-10-24 09:30:34 UTC
Free Software/Open Source
-
Have you been looking for a job, or perhaps some work on the side? If so, and you have Linux or other open source skills, the news is good. Demand for Linux and open source workers continues to rise. We've covered this trend as reported by careers sites such as Dice.com, and by The Linux Foundation, but one of the most detailed breakdowns appears at LinuxCareer.com, through its IT Skills Watch report. In addition to reporting on demand for Linux skills, it breaks down how the demand looks for workers with skills in other areas ranging from PHP to Apache Tomcat.
-
Indian enterprises are increasingly moving to open-source software, recognising the cost benefits and flexibility it offers over proprietary software. A falling rupee, which increases licensing costs, is likely to hasten the shift from softwares made by companies like SAP, IBM and Oracle.
The government has already embraced open-source in a big way — the Aadhaar project is a case in point. Now, companies like Hungama Digital Entertainment, Uttam Energy, Bilcare, payment processor Euronet, insurer Star Union Dai-chi and IT outsourcer iGate — have also started using open-source software. And the list is growing.
-
To prevent disruptions and scale up its service while keeping costs down, Twitter has had to drastically change its core infrastructure, taking up open source tools while doing so.
-
Unesco, the educational, scientific and cultural organisation of the United Nations, is promoting the development and use of open source solutions for water resource management. At the end of June, in Paris the UN officially launched a network of experts 'Hydro Open-source software Platform of Experts' (HOPE), to "contributes to the dissemination of innovative practices".
-
Oldenbourg Verlag just published a special issue on open source that I edited. Titled “the unstoppable rise of open source” it provides a five-article overview of open source past, present, and future.
-
In all my writing work, I use only Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to get the job done. I've been questioned about this a number of times, and the best answer I can give people is: It's complicated. There are lots of reasons I use FOSS over all other options, and I think I'm ready to put them all out there for y'all to see.
-
I am happy to inform my readers that finally SOS Open Source will soon be released in open source!
-
I vividly remember my first experience using the Internet in 2000. The amount of information I was hit with by typing my first search term, university, was far beyond my wildest imaginations. This plethora of knowledge filled my mind with wonder, excitement, and enlightenment. I suddenly had the power to read, analyze, and learn about anything and anyone. The knowledge created by some of the greatest minds in the history of mankind was at my disposal, free of cost and just one single click away. I felt empowered.
-
Marten Mickos is one of the most respected leaders in open source. Here's why.
-
You can’t run a business—even a small one—without technology. You need computers, smartphones, file storage, a website, and a whole host of other tech assets. So how do you afford it all with a budget that’s tighter than a hipster’s jeans?
-
Just days after a brand new cloud operating system was released, IBM is out with a new operating system of its own. FusedOS is IBM's new research project that's now an open-source general purpose OS.
-
Open source is all about collaboration. When you write some code and put it out there for others to read, use, and build upon, you're giving a gift to the world. With the instant global communication the Internet provides us today, countless developers around the world can (maybe even anonymously) collaborate, giving and taking code, sharing knowledge with each other, and advancing our collective corpus of work.
-
There was a slight compensation when the German city of Munich reportedly were planning to distribute free CDs of Ubuntu 12.04 to its residents. That’s a step forward but certainly not good enough. Why I say it’s not good enough is because they can do more – a lot more than what they are currently doing.
Since these organizations will more than likely have their own support team and not rely on purchasing support contracts, the only reasonable source of revenue via clients buying support contracts for Open Source software gets blocked.
-
DokuWiki is a simple but versatile wiki. Find out how to install, configure, and begin using DokuWiki.
-
Where is Free & Open Source Software headed to? On the one hand, there is a trend that seems to veer it towards a more professional field, with new analysis and tracking tools that aim at improving not just the quality of code but its legal compliance as well. More and more large companies adopt FOSS either as users or as developers, or both, and that’s a good thing too. But does this announce the upcoming end of copyleft licences and that more structured approaches will ultimately kill the wild and spontaneous bunch that FOSS “once” was? No it won’t. First, the FOSS adoption among enterprise field does not depend on one license only. There’s also a lot of enterprise software released under GPL, by the way. But perhaps we have to accept and embrace Free and Open Source Software for what it is: an undefinable field that is at the same time a state of the art, a set of business models around software and services, a demand for our digital freedoms and a set of best practices on digital innovation alongside an extremely effective way to license software. And yet I’m not even sure I’ve covered it all. Today FOSS is growing not just in the enterprise: it’s at the core of the Makers’ movement and the 3D Printing revolution; it has inspired the Open Hardware movement, the Open Knowledge and countless other initiatives. Very few of these have reached a maturity stage and even inside the realms of FOSS development, things continue to be the same: at the beginning, a developer has an itch to sratch, and code to share with the world….
-
Most students at Carnegie Mellon have used, or at least heard of, open-source software. Examples of such software include the browser Firefox and the mobile operating system Android. Open-source software, in most basic terms, makes its code publicly available for modification and distribution by users. Proponents believe that creating an open community of programmers who modify software for their own uses provides the best possible experience for users, allowing them to customize according to their own needs.
-
Open source products have very uneven penetration into the world of business technology. If you look at content management systems or languages, open source rules. But if you look at the market for ERP software or for storage systems, open source hasn’t made much of a dent.
-
Events
-
The dates of October 23-24 have been circled on my calendar for a while. Why? Because All Things Open is coming to Raleigh, NC. It’s the first open source-focused conference of it’s kind to come to the capital of North Carolina. I’m also excited because having the conference come to Raleigh fulfills one of the five pillars in my definition of an open source city.
-
It was really great to be able to attend LinuxCon in New Orleans in September. I’d like to thank again HP’s OSPO team and in particular Eileen Evans, VP leading it, to sponsor my travel there. HP is also a Platinum sponsor of both the Linux Foundation, CloudOpen & LinuxCon events.
-
When IT-oLogy opens the doors to the All Things Open conference in Raleigh on October 23, the focus will be on open source in the enterprise. That’s only fitting, given the fact that Raleigh is Red Hat’s playground–and Red Hat practically wrote the book on enterprise level open source.
-
FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
-
Version 4.0 of GNU Make, the widely-used software that's relied upon extensively by developers and those building their software from sources, is now available. GNU Make 4.0 does bring with it a handful of new features and capabilities.
-
People trickled and and were greeted by the friendly face of FSF operations assistant, Chrissie Himes.
-
Hey all. Things are busy here in MediaGoblin-land, but we’re making great progress. Since our last update several things have happened, including Natalie Foust’s branch being merged! So administrative tools have officially hit git master. That’s great news!
-
Programming
-
Use OpenCL with very little code -- and test it from the Python console.
-
It's results like this that convince Jessica that when open source communities invest in diversity outreach, everyone benefits. Since implementing a beginner series, intermediate workshops, and open source sprints, the Boston Python user group has over quintupled in size, from 700 members to 4000+. They are now the largest Python user group in the world. That type of growth is something all open source communities should aspire to.
-
The shell is the most basic of environments for working with your Linux system. Whatever you may think of working in a text environment, I guarantee that once you have fully experienced the power of simple text, you will be forever convinced. Text is compact. Text is fast. System administration over a network is best experienced at the shell level. Those forced to resort to graphical tools over a slow Internet connection are also quickly converted.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Microsoft Uses LLM Slop to Defraud (or Rob) Shareholders
- Microsoft is basically defrauding its shareholders by LLM slop
- The "Davos Effect": Tarnishing the Reputation of Places Not by Overtourism But by Oligarch Infestation
- The last Venice needs is an affiliation with Venetian oligarchs
-
- Links 01/07/2025: "Independence Day in Taiwan", Bounties on Software Patents
- Links for the day
- What Happens When Your Law Firm is Preoccupied With Harassing and Trying to Extort a Humble Couple in Manchester, Even on Behalf of Violent Microsoft Staff From Another Continent
- It's good to see that law firms which operate in bad faith are perishing
- Lawyer X, Law Firm X and Elon Musk's X: scandals linked by Old Xaverian
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Gemini Links 01/07/2025: Distraction-Free Writing and Hytale Mismanagement
- Links for the day
- Links 01/07/2025: "Beauty of Blogging" and "Etiquette of Collapse"
- Links for the day
- The Web is a Dead End
- We need to adopt alternatives
- When Words Lose Their Intended Meaning
- examples of words that, at least in the technical spheres, don't mean what they sound like
- People Who Disagree With You on Technical Matters May or May Not Agree With You on Political Things (But Usually They Do)
- What bothers me a great deal is seeing left-leaning people accusing other left-leaning people of being "nazis"
- "Too Much Choice" and "Too Many Programming Languages"
- What IBM and its apologists aim for was attempted in the 1930s and it failed
- Microsoft Lost 400,000,000 Windows Users, According to Microsoft
- more people adopt smaller computers and many people replace Windows with GNU/Linux, as they don't really need a new computer
- Half a Year Gone, What's to Come Next
- In the second half of 2025 we expect to be done with the Microsoft SLAPPs
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 30, 2025
- IRC logs for Monday, June 30, 2025
- People at the Very Top of Microsoft Know How Bad Things Really Are
- There's no product that can replace the former profitability of Windows licensing and stuff that went on top of Windows
- Gemini Links 01/07/2025: Mid Year and a Tour of Old Languages
- Links for the day
- EPO Presentation Bemoans Misuse of Slop in Decision-Making on Patents and in Classification (Which is Likely Illegal Too)
- We habitually mention failed use cases of LLMs on the Web
- Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Confirmed, "XBox Hardware Is Dead"
- It's possible that over 20% of the staff will be laid off
- Links 30/06/2025: Kyrgyzstan vs Media Freedom, Dalai Lama Succession
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 30/06/2025: Backend Programs in Gemini and Dynamic Content Without The Scripting
- Links for the day
- Links 30/06/2025: Zuckerberg’s Tax-Evading Scheme Harms Kids, US Copyright Office Lacks Leadership
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Isn't Laying Off Tens of Thousands to 'Invest' in Slop ('Hey Hi'), It's Laying Off Tens of Thousands Because It's Running Out of Money (and Willing Lenders)
- the layoffs are a sign of the business failing, not "hey hi" (whatever that is) replacing staff
- Intel Lays Off 20% of Its Workforce, Microsoft is Doing the Same This Year
- Like a yoyo, whatever goes up will come back down
- Microsoft XBox Layoffs: Almost 2,000 Layoffs Became "Over 2,000"? (Over 20% of the Staff)
- over 20% of staff will be let go, not counting staff that leaves voluntarily
- GNU/Linux Rises to New Highs in Angola, Africa in General is Abandoning Windows
- Western media barely covers Microsoft layoffs in Africa, but in recent years Microsoft culled the workforce and even shut down entire operations
- Summer Plans in Techrights and Elsewhere
- massive layoffs at Microsoft
- Destination Geminispace (in the Age of LLM Slop and Slop Images That Infest the Web and Social Control Media)
- Geminispace isn't vast, but at least it is - on average - a lot "cleaner"
- GNU/Linux Growing in Sierra Leone This Year
- Based on what statCounter is seeing, this year there are more and more people there who adopt GNU/Linux
- Serial Sloppers Gonna Slop
- More sites out there ought to call out the cheaters
- Quartz (qz.com) is Spam and a Slopfarm
- It used to be OK. Then they fired the staff.
- Links 30/06/2025: US Economic Woes, Extreme Heat
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 29, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, June 29, 2025
- Gemini Links 30/06/2025: "The AI Hype" and New AuraGem Ask
- Links for the day
- Our Desktops Are Not Your Experiments, X is Not an Experiment
- Breaking what already worked
- Microsoft's Big Lies Regarding This Week's Mass Layoffs Have Already Begun (and They're Already Being Spread by Slopfarms)
- Microsoft is the "market leader" in slop
- Explaining the Full Story of SLAPPs From Microsoft Staff
- For every action there is a reaction, for every attack there will be proportionate consequences
- The Openwashing Shills Initiative (OSI) - Part III: IRS and Status of OSI
- "They lied to the US IRS and there’s a paper trail"
- IBM Red Hat's Dogmatic Fanaticism Under a Thin Veil of "Modernism"
- IBM now has the audacity to paint people who don't agree as "nazis"
- Microsoft's Share in Guatemala Fell From 97% to 14%
- Eventually Microsoft will get stuck in a loop of layoffs, layoffs, and more layoffs
- They Made Technology Scary and Taught Us That It's Innocent, Friendly, Even "Social"
- Rejection of all this "apps" and "gadgets" and "Smart" (whatever that means!) status quo isn't a rejection of society
- The Media is Under Attacks Partly Because There's Little Other (Remaining) Press to Speak in Its Defence
- The biggest danger here is that when there's very little press or no "opposition media" left it becomes even easier to crush critics because there aren't many people left to speak about the matter
- If Your Web Site is Run by Bots, Eventually Nobody Will 'Read' It Except Bots (People Don't Want to Read Slop)
- Eventually people learn from mistakes
- Links 29/06/2025: Microsoft Releases False/Fake Benchmarks, "Google Wants You to Watch Ads or Take Surveys to Read Articles"
- Links for the day
- Links 29/06/2025: Data Breaches and Online Censorship
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 29/06/2025: "The Price Of Eggs" and Gemini 3D Tic Tac Toe
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 28, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, June 28, 2025