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Posts published by “FOSS Force”

Arch Wins First of Two Round Poll

The FOSS Force Poll

The voting is over in the first round of our annual GNU/Linux distro poll, which sought an answer to the simple question, “What Linux distro do you currently use most?” The result was a complete surprise, at least to us. By a decisive margin, you voted for Arch Linux. The poll was certainly one for the record books. By the time it was closed to voting, a total of 5,784 of you had cast votes, more than double from any previous FOSS Force poll. The poll was online for approximately one week.

FOSS Force’s Hot Nine for 2015

We’re going to pretend like we’re AM disc jockeys from the golden days of top 40 radio and countdown the top nine stories that appeared on FOSS Force last year. Along the way, we’ll offer a bit of commentary, and maybe remind you a time or two that things were much different way back in 2015.

It’s Time for ‘What’s Your Distro’ Round One

FOSS Force Best Distro 2015

The FOSS Force Poll

It’s time for our annual “What’s Your Distro” poll, to determine who gets the FOSS Force Best Distro Award for 2015. This year we’re pulling out all the stops. We want this one to be a metaphoric old fashioned slug fest that will be played until only one distro is standing.

What Hardware Platforms Do You Use? All of Them.

The FOSS Force Poll

The results of our hardware platform poll have been tallied and just as we suspected, FOSS Force readers in large part use every platform available. The poll, which asked what different hardware platforms you use, offered a slate of answers too long to list here. Let’s just say it covered the gamut, from smartphones to desktops, and included separate places to tic for different operating systems.

December’s Top Ten

These are the ten most read articles on FOSS Force for the month of December, 2015.

1. Is That Linux? No, It’s PC-BSD by Larry Cafiero. Published December 3, 2015. An encounter at a local coffee house causes a fellow customer to ask, “Is that Linux on your machine?” Nope, it wasn’t, but you know what it was. The title gives it away.

2. Linux Foundation’s Deal With the Devil by Christine Hall. Published December 14, 2015. The Linux Foundation made a deal to help Microsoft offer Linux certifications? Say it ain’t so, Joe.

3. Ubuntu Bugs That Won’t Go Away by Ken Starks. Published December 15, 2015. It’s one think when a bug needs fixing in an operating system. When the bug remains unfixed since 2012, that a whole ‘nother story.

Debian Founder and Docker Employee Ian Murdock Dead at 42

Last updated 12/30/15 at 8:06 p.m. EST

FOSS Force has learned that the founder of Debian and current Docker employee Ian Murdock is dead at age 42.

The news of Murdock’s death was first made public in a blog post on the Docker website, where he worked. When the page became unreachable at approximately 4:20 p.m. EST, there was a glimmer of hope that perhaps the report had been an error, as the post made no mention of a cause of death, nor did it reference disturbing tweets on Murdock’s Twitter account on Monday. However, the page was back online by a little after 5:00 p.m.

Ian Murdock
Picture of Ian Murdock, taken from Docker page announcing his death.
Monday’s tweets indicated that Murdock, a San Francisco resident, was or had been in some kind of scuffle involving the police. During the series of tweets, he indicated that he might be a suicide risk. One rather cryptic, and ominous-with-hindsight, tweet: “@jacksormwriter wants me dead.” A search on Twitter shows no account with that handle. There has been speculation that the tweets were a hoax and not made by Murdock but by someone who had hacked his account.

What Computer Platforms Do You Use?

The FOSS Force Poll

Star Trek Communicator computer
Photo by David Spalding
When Star Trek first hit the air back in the “swinging sixties,” that’d be the 1960s for those too young to remember, many of the technically minded took one look and said, “Impossible.” Or if not impossible, it’d be at least the 23rd century, the era in which the show was set, for the technology to arrive. They weren’t talking just the space travel science, stuff like warp drive, inertial dampers and the like, but were talking the small stuff too, like the communicators and tricorders. Today we have something akin to both, built into a single device called a smartphone. In hindsight, we should’ve seen it coming, but as some folks say, hindsight has perfect vision.

The Dog Ate Our Poll Results

Or desparately seeking Schrödinger’s cat’s data

Right about now is the time we told you we’d be giving you the results of the poll we started last week detailing the methods our readers use to receive and send emails. Well, it ain’t going to happen. Nor are we going to tell you next Wednesday about the results of the poll we put up late Sunday night on how you feel about Microsoft as an open source company. Why? The best we can come up with is “the dog ate our homework.” Actually, none of us has a dog, so that’s out. We’ll just say the poll data ran away from home.

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