Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in “Business”

The Future of Desktop Ubuntu

With all the changes happening at Canonical, you might wonder what this means for the future of desktop Ubuntu, besides the return to the GNOME desktop.

Ubuntu logo

There hasn’t been this much news about a single Linux distro in like forever. Well, maybe when Caldera, operating under the name SCO, sued IBM for a cool billion, but other than that…nada. One thing’s for sure, the announcements that have been coming out of the Isle of Man for the last couple of weeks mean that Canonical has forever changed its course.

The Linux Foundation: Not a Friend of Desktop Linux, the GPL, or Openness

After stirring up a ruckus by using words like “restrictive” and “virus” to describe the GPL in a Linux.com article, the Linux Foundation responds by quietly removing the post from the website.

Linux Foundation Linux.com screenshot

The Linux Foundation has no respect for FOSS. Nor does it seem care about any users of Linux who aren’t connected with the enterprise. It’s been that way since the beginning. It now appears that the Foundation also has little respect for the GPL…you know, Linux’s license. Nor does it appear to be much of a believer in the notion of transparency.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

New Open Source License Compatibility Company Debuts with a Bang

Finding compatibility issues in open source software is tedious and complex. Roblimo explains why organizations that look for compliance issues are a valuable asset to the FOSS community.

</p?

Roblimo’s Hideaway

examining code compliance compatibility

When I heard about FOSSA, my first thought was, “Don’t Black Duck and Palamida already have the FOSS license compatibility thing pretty well sewed up? Do we really need another company doing it?”

This was, of course, the question I immediately asked FOSSA founder Kevin Wang. His answer, via email:

Robin "Roblimo" Miller

Robin “Roblimo” Miller is a freelance writer and former editor-in-chief at Open Source Technology Group, the company that owned SourceForge, freshmeat, Linux.com, NewsForge, ThinkGeek and Slashdot, and until recently served as a video editor at Slashdot. Now he’s mostly retired, but still works part-time as an editorial consultant for Grid Dynamics, and (obviously) writes for FOSS Force.

DuckDuckGo Ups Ante: Gives $300K to ‘Raise the Standard of Trust’

For the seventh year in a row, the search engine that promises not to stalk your online moves puts its money where its mouth is, this year by donating $300,000 to organizations that work towards online privacy.

DuckDuckGo logo

The search engine DuckDuckGo isn’t Google — in more ways than one. For starters, its whole premise is to not follow you around as you surf the web. It’s also not rich, so it doesn’t have gazillions of dollars to throw at whatever project strikes its fancy. However, the people who run the little search engine that can are very generous with what money they do have.

As they have for the last seven years, this year they’ve been busy handing out money again.

The Man Who Didn’t Invent Email Attacks Free Speech

The man whose much disputed claim to have invented email when he was a 14-year-old is taking legal actions, or threatening such, against anyone who publicly disagrees with his version of history.

email to remove Ayyadurai post from diaspora

Shiva Ayyadurai says he invented email and will sue the pants off anyone who says he didn’t. He’s already picked up a fat $750,000 settlement check from Gawker, which decided to settle because another lawsuit by Hulk Hogan had already put the site out of business. There is currently a suit pending against Techdirt, a site that mainly reports on threats to free speech. Now he’s going after social media, by sending a demand to a node of Diaspora to remove three posts by Roy Schestowitz, publisher of the popular FOSS site Tux Machines and the iconoclastic blog Techrights.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

Walmart’s Contributions to Open Source

You might first think about open source in the context of outstanding tools for lean startup companies, but open source also finds a welcome home in behemoth, established companies, such as Walmart. In this O’Reilly OSCON video interview with Walmart Lab’s Alex Grigoryan, learn how Walmart both benefits from and contributes back to open source. The key takeaway? Open source allows you to reuse software components in labor saving ways.

Phil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

Open Source 101 Coming to Raleigh, N.C.

All Things Open presents Open Source 101, a one day conference scheduled for February that might be a good way for tech students at N.C. State to network and talk with recruiters.

OpenSource 101

There’s a new open source conference coming to Silicon Valley East. Open Source 101 will be a single day event held Saturday February 4, 2017 on the campus of North Carolina State University in Raleigh. The event is being hosted by All Things Open, the organization behind the four-year-old All Things Open conference that’s held every October in downtown Raleigh.

Another Yahoo Security Breach Affects a Billion Accounts

After announcing in September that 500 million accounts had been compromised in a 2014 security breach, the company announces today that an additional billion accounts have been hacked in a separate incident.

Yahoo logo

Breaking News

If you’re a Yahoo user, you should strongly consider closing your account. If you decide to keep your account open, you might as well post your username and password to Facebook and send them out in a tweet, for all the good Yahoo’s security precautions will do for you.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

Saying Goodbye to Net Neutrality Under Trump

One of the things we can expect to see after Trump takes office in January is the demise of Net Neutrality, which some say will signal the end of a free Internet.

Net Neutrality

Op-ed

News organizations that like to have obituaries written and ready to go to bed well before a death actually occurs might want to go ahead and assign someone the task of writing an obit for Net Neutrality. Without a doubt, one thing that’s sure to happen when Trump begins his weekly commute to the Oval Office is an end to the legal principle that Internet service providers should treat all Internet traffic equally.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

Mickey Mouse Open Source, Close Call at WordPress, and More…

Also included: FBI hacks 8,000 with single warrant, new Cinnamon desktop release, “government-backed attackers” after journalists, and FOSS Force adds beef to newsfeed.

FOSS Week in Review

Mickey Mouse Disney

Okay, Thanksgiving is over. Let the sales begin. Which reminds me, I have to buy a new cheap Wi-Fi router — cheap being the operative word. Any suggestions?

Otherwise, it’s back to FOSS news…

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

Latest Articles