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
- European Authorities, Already Bribed and Infiltrated by Microsoft, Won't Help You Find BigBlueButton, Jami, Ring, and Jitsi
- Because they're paid by Microsoft and are Microsoft 'addicts' themselves
- Moving From Content Management Systems (CMSs) to Static Site Generators (SSGs) Saves You Time, Makes You a Lot More Productive
- try to reduce the cost (financial and computational) of running your site
- Leak: European Patent Office (EPO) is Now Attacking Amicale Clubs
- corruption has become the norm and scientists are robbed of any dignity
- Oracle Fraud (or Defrauding Shareholders)
- "the obvious [lie] is that watts are (wasted) electricity [and] and FLOPS are computing capacity"
- Explaining (in Length and Depth) the Damage Matthew Garrett Did to Linux and to GNU/Linux Users
- no matter how many threats we receive
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- The Register MS Still Takes Money to Hype Up "AI" in Articles by Microsoft Resellers With the Term "AI" 30+ Times in Them
- Notice how many times they mention "AI"
- The Apache Logo News is VERY Old, Racists and 'Anti-Woke' Bigots Look for Something to Incite Other Bigots With
- Nothing to see here, move along
- Linux Mint 9/11: "4th One Today..." (in Reddit)
- Remember that not everyone having an issue reports it to social control media like Reddit
- Nepal Will Fall Without a Single Shot Fired, Thanks to Social Control Media
- Or very few shots (by the authorities)
- European Corruption in the European Patent Office (EPO) Targets Culture
- "In reality, the project includes a new “legal instrument” shifting administrative burden and liability on EPO staff while creating new uncertainty and externalising Amicale activities."
- UEFI Secure Boot Failing, as Expected for Nearly 15 Years Already (Techrights Said This Since 2012)
- in the media
- Debian 9/11
- people report this issue
- Gemini and Web Links 13/09/2025: MElon's Slop Grift and "Autonomous Trains"
- Links for the day
- Pursuing Peace Through Violence
- You cannot "see" a person's mind, until the mouth opens
- Can We Please Stop Celebrating Shooters?
- "An important point to hammer on is that CoCs were never intended for uniform or symmetric application"
- Geminispace is Growing Faster in 2025 Than It Did in 2024
- What matters is that corporations haven't ruined it and LLM slop is extremely rare
- Links 13/09/2025: China Punishes for 'Negative' Posts, US Police Unable to Find Shooter
- Links for the day
- Who's the Mystery Financier of SLAPP Against Techrights and Is That a Millionaire/Billionaire?
- Whose idea was it to fund meritless lawsuits against my wife and I?
- Slopwatch: Slow Slop Day
- This distracts from or may take traffic away from the original articles, actually written by actual people
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 12, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, September 12, 2025
- CoC Gone Wrong: Celebrating Murder OK, Complaining About the Celebration Gets You Banned
- Hopefully the NixOS Foundation will have a word with (maybe replace) the moderator/s
- Gemini Links 12/09/2025: Familiarity and Secondary Dominants
- Links for the day
- Links 12/09/2025: "Bad Reviews" as Extortion Weapon, "Free Speech At Risk in America’s Schools" According to ACLU
- Links for the day
- Only One Speaker Does Not Do Sharecropping for MElon (in X.com)
- The man who puts principles before PR/optics
- The Mind of the 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI'
- in a nutshell
- A Day After "UEFI 9/11": UEFI Secure Boot Bypass
- In the news today (right now), as published in the past few hours
- Links 12/09/2025: Slop Code as Liability, Microsoft Outlook Down for Many
- Links for the day
- It's Still Not to Late to Turn Off "Secure Boot"
- If people reboot their PC or server today, and it relies on "Secure Boot" on Sept. 12 or later, then depending on the firmware there may be trouble ahead
- Links 12/09/2025: Shira Perlmutter is Back, “Software Per Se” Patent Rejections in In re McFadden
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: Linux Plagiarism, Slopfarms Still Infesting Google News, Many Images Are Fake
- Google is promoting plagiarism
- "This Morning Might Turn Out to be an Interesting One for System Admins Who Haven't Updated Their Devices' Secure Boot Certificate" (If They Reboot)
- Who asked for this anyway?
- Gemini Links 12/09/2025: Metric System, Dumping Windows, and Software Architecture is Dead
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 11, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, September 11, 2025
- Microsoft Admits the Workers Have Lost Trust (Endless Layoffs, 12-13 Rounds of Layoffs This Year), So Now It's Trotting out Its Peter Bright-Like Media Prop Jordan Novet
- What they don't want people to pay attention to right now
- Links 11/09/2025: Windows TCO and Russian Drones Invading Poland (EU/NATO)
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 11/09/2025: xkcd, misfin, and Alhena 5.3.2
- Links for the day
- Repetition of Last Summer (Microsoft Breaking Dual-Boot Systems)
- UEFI 9/11 is about to kick in
- UEFI 'Secure Boot' Boiling Frogs (Cannot Turn Off 'Secure Boot')
- "MSI laptop is locked on Secure Boot and doesn't allow me to turn it off"
- UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part IV: The 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' and His 'Hideout' Holiday (Retreat From Reality)
- Let's keep an eye on what matters
- UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part III: Mr. 'Secure Boot' (Shim) and His Fake 'Holiday' (Sending My Wife and I Threatening E-mails on 9/11)
- despite being on holiday, according to him, he finds time to instruct lawyers to contact my wife
- UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part II: "The SecureBoot Thing Got Out of Hand."
- The next few weeks might be... interesting
- UEFI 9/11 Aftermath - Part I: "I Believe This Affects Thousands of Devices... Because Multiple Devices I Checked, Whether Client or Server [...] Affected."
- Most people aren't even aware that this is happening or about to happen
- The UEFI 9/11 - Part X - An Outline of the Series About Microsoft Sabotaging GNU/Linux (With Ramifications to Unfold Online in Coming Weeks as People Reboot)
- Today is UEFI 9/11 (9/11/2025)
- Ron Wyden: Microsoft Should be Held Accountable for Security Breaches (He Has Said This for Years Already, It Never Happens)
- Negative media coverage isn't a fine and it does nothing to compensate Microsoft's billions of victims
- Culture of silence: Ubisoft harassment convictions, Mozilla, Sylvestre Ledru & Debian make no comment
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Disable 'Secure Boot' (If It Lets You)
- it doesn't put you in control
- Links 11/09/2025: "Hey Hi" Ponzi Schemes at Oracle (Unpaid Contracts) and Cindy Cohn is Leaving the EFF
- Links for the day
- Longtime Red Hat Staff: Maybe Just Disable 'Secure Boot'
- A refreshing take from Adam Williamson
- Gemini Links 11/09/2025: Playdate Console, Dichotomy between the Real and the Digital
- Links for the day
- A Dozen Observations About "UEFI 9/11" Deflections
- What we are expected to see, tentatively
- The Microsoft AstroTurfing and Microsoft-Led Blame-Shifting Tactics Are Ahead of Us
- Of course it has nothing to do with security, it's about control, i.e. them controlling everything
- Celebrating Assassination is Bad Because It Legitimises Assassination of the People You Like, Too
- Condoning or even celebrating political assassinations is bad optics (and taste)
- The World's Richest Ponzi Scheme (Faking Value Using Net Waste)
- The higher they go the harder they fall
- We Could Dual-Boot Back in the 1990s, Why Has This Become So Difficult?
- And prone to breakage
- Being Conditioned to Accept Unreliable Computer Systems That Fail With Black Screen of Death (BSoD)
- Welcome to 2025
- Slopwatch: Google News is Still Promoting Many Fake Articles About "Linux", in Effect Rewarding Misinformation and Plagiarism
- things continue to deteriorate
- New Series: The Coup Against GNU/Linux Has Begun
- today, this year in particular, we shall also focus on Secure Boot, which is sold based on a lie and tortures many computer user
- New Paper on "BYOVD, but in firmware. Signed UEFI shells, vulnerable modules offer new paths for Secure Boot bypasses."
- One might say digital "security theatre"
- Links 11/09/2025: Oracle Layoffs, Drunk Pilots in Japan Airlines, US-Korea Tensions Grow
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 10, 2025
- IRC logs for Wednesday, September 10, 2025