Open Source Is Good, but How Can It Do Good?
Glyn Moody - August 5, 2019
Open-source coders: we know you are good—now do good. The ethical use of computers has been at the heart of free software from the beginning. Here's what Richard Stallman told me when I interviewed him in 1999 for my book Rebel Code:
When Choosing Your Commercial Linux, Choose Wisely!
Vince Calandra - July 17, 2019
"Linux is Linux is Linux," is a direct quote I heard in a meeting I had recently with a major multi-national, critical-infrastructure company. Surprisingly and correctly, there was one intelligent and brave engineering executive who replied to this statement, made by one of his team members, with a resounding, "That's not true." Let's be clear, selecting a commercial Linux is not like selecting corn flakes. This is especially true when you are targeting embedded systems.
Online Censorship Is Coming--Here's How to Stop It
Glyn Moody - July 2, 2019
EU's upload filters are coming. Why and how the Open Source world must fight them. A year ago, I warned about some terrible copyright legislation being drawn up in the EU that would have major adverse effects on the Open Source world. Its most problematic provision would force many for-profit sites operating in the EU to use algorithmic filters to block the upload of unauthorized material by users. As a result of an unprecedented campaign of misinformation, smears and outright lies, supporters managed to convince/trick enough Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to vote in favour of the the new Copyright Directive, including the deeply flawed upload filters.
Facebook, Not Microsoft, Is the Main Threat to Open Source
Glyn Moody - June 4, 2019
In the future, Facebook won't be a social-media site.
The "From Mac to Linux" Issue
Bryan Lunduke - June 3, 2019
What you are reading right now is a Linux magazine—with a focus on Apple computers running macOS. (Or MacOS. Or however Apple is doing the capitalization nowadays.) I know, it's weird. It's extremely weird—like cats and dogs living together weird. But we're not here to bash on Apple. Neither are we here to sing praises to those down in Cupertino.
Hello Again, Linux
Richard Mavis - May 31, 2019
My first MacBook was the first computer I really loved, but I wasn't happy about the idea of buying a new one. I decided it's important to live your values and to support groups that value the things you do.
Ubuntu Advantage for Infrastructure: an Interview with Canonical
Petros Koutoupis - May 9, 2019
On April 29, 2019, Canonical made headlines by officially announcing the availability of Ubuntu Advantage for Infrastructure If you are unfamiliar with Canonical and the work that they do:
Open Source--It's in the Genes
Glyn Moody - May 6, 2019
What happens when you release 500,000 human genomes as open source? This. DNA is digital. The three billion chemical bases that make up the human genome encode data not in binary, but in a quaternary system, using four compounds—adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine—to represent four genetic "digits": A, C, G and T. Although this came as something of a surprise in 1953, when Watson and Crick proposed an A–T and C–G pairing as a "copying mechanism for genetic material" in their famous double helix paper, it's hard to see how hereditary information could have been transmitted efficiently from generation to generation in any other way. As anyone who has made photocopies of photocopies is aware, analog systems are bad at loss-free transmission, unlike digital encodings. Evolution of progressively more complex structures over millions of years would have been much harder, perhaps impossible, had our genetic material been stored in a purely analog form.
Open Source Is Eternal
Glyn Moody - April 16, 2019
Open source has won the present, but what about the future?
Open Source Is Winning, and Now It's Time for People to Win Too
Reuven M. Lerner - April 4, 2019
Teaching kids about open source? Don't forget to teach them ethics as well. Back when I started college, in the fall of 1988, I was introduced to a text editor called Emacs. Actually, it wasn't just called Emacs; it was called "GNU Emacs". The "GNU" part, I soon learned, referred to something called "free software", which was about far more than the fact that it was free of charge. The GNU folks talked about software with extreme intensity, as if the fate of the entire world rested on the success of their software replacing its commercial competition.
What Linux Journal's Resurrection Taught Me about the FOSS Community
Kyle Rankin - April 3, 2019
"Marley was dead, to begin with."—Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. As you surely know by now, Linux Journal started in 1994, which means it has been around for most of the Linux story. A lot has changed since then, and it's not surprising that Linux and the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community are very different today from what they were for Linux Journal's first issue 25 years ago. The changes within the community during this time had a direct impact on Linux Journal and contributed to its death, making Linux Journal's story a good lens through which to view the overall story of the FOSS community. Although I haven't been with Linux Journal since the beginning, I was there during the heyday, the stroke, the decline, the death and the resurrection. This article is about that story and what it says about how the FOSS community has changed.
Lessons in Vendor Lock-in: 3D Printers
Kyle Rankin - March 19, 2019
The open nature of the consumer 3D printing industry has made for a much more consumer-friendly world.
Spy Games: the NSA and GCHQ Offer Their Software to the Open Source Community
David Habusha - March 7, 2019
Spies worth their salt are generally expected to be good at keeping secrets. With dead drops, encryption, cyanide pills and the like, openly sharing useful information isn't supposed to be a part of the job description. So it caught more than a few of us off guard when a couple years ago, some of the top spy agencies began contributing code to GitHub, making it available to the masses by open-sourcing some of their software.
By Jupyter--Is This the Future of Open Science?
Glyn Moody - March 4, 2019
Taking the scientific paper to the next level.
Open Science, Open Source and R
Andy Wills - February 19, 2019
Free software will save psychology from the Replication Crisis. "Study reveals that a lot of psychology research really is just 'psycho-babble'".—The Independent.
If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source
Glyn Moody - February 4, 2019
If we pay for it, we should be able to use it.
Some Thoughts on Open Core
Kyle Rankin - January 18, 2019
Why open core software is bad for the FOSS movement. Nothing is inherently anti-business about Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). In fact, a number of different business models are built on top of FOSS. The best models are those that continue to further FOSS by internal code contributions and that advance the principles of Free Software in general. For instance, there's the support model, where a company develops free software but sells expert support for it.
Keeping Your Episodic Contributors to Open-Source Projects Happy
Ann Barcomb - January 11, 2019
Community managers have long been advised to nurture top contributors, but it is also important to consider infrequent and casual (episodic) contributors. There are more potential episodic contributors than habitual ones, and getting the most out of your episodic contributors can require reconsidering your strategies for retaining and incorporating contributors.
IBM Began Buying Red Hat 20 Years Ago
Glyn Moody - January 7, 2019
How Big Blue became an open-source company.
Five Trends Influencing Linux's Growth at the Endpoint
Jeff Kalberg - December 26, 2018
A recent IDC InfoBrief identified Linux as the only endpoint operating system growing globally. While Windows market share remains flat, at 39% in 2015 and 2017, Linux has grown from 30% in 2015 to 35% in 2017, worldwide. And the trend is accelerating.
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