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Posts published in “Community”

‘Night in the Woods’ Improving Games by Open Sourcing Code

“Night in the Woods,” the much anticipated crowdfunded game scheduled to be released next week — with a GNU/Linux version, BTW — built a development community by open sourcing code.

The Screening Room

Night in the Woods website screenshot

Game software developer Jon Manning has created a very well-done 60-second promo for his upcoming talk at the Games Developer Conference in San Francisco, Feb 27-March 3, 2017 – Making Night-in-the-Woods Better with Open Source.

Back Yard Linux

It’s not as lonely being a Linux user as it once was. These days you’re liable to find people throughout your neighborhood using Linux.

Linux, supported around the world

My how times have changed.

It wasn’t long ago that Linux users couldn’t get any respect. People on the street had absolutely never even heard of Linux, and if you needed the services of technical support, like from your ISP, you might as well forget it. Back in the day, the help desk’s favorite thing to say was “we don’t support Linux.”

What they meant, of course, was that they had no clue on how to do anything in Linux. They were skilled at guiding users through arcane parts of Windows to determine whether the problem was with the company’s servers or with the customer’s computer. If the truth be known, they didn’t really know anything about Windows either, but they had a script.

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

Charlie Reisinger’s ‘The Open Schoolhouse’

The Screening Room

Charlie Reisinger is the IT Director of the Penn Manor School District, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He recently finished writing a spellbinding book describing how his school district decided to adopt open source software and methods. When reading this book, I sent an email to Charlie saying: “This book reads as if it’s your doctoral thesis — it’s a multiyear capstone project.” Charlie responded, “It felt in some way like that while writing the book.” Charlie went on to tell me that the reason he wrote the book was to help other school districts make the plunge into open source. “Come on in – the water is warm!” is the reassuring tone throughout the book.

Here is my video review of this book. Note — at 27-minutes long, it’s much longer than my other video book reviews. I had no choice but to give the book its due. It’s a masterful piece of storytelling that offers hope to students and teachers everywhere.

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.

The Open Source Way of Reaching Across Languages

Open source enthusiasts have no shame in explaining that they’re involved in building a better world. One way of doing that is reaching across language barriers. When this Spanish screencast about FreeCAD caught my eye on YouTube, I knew I had to write about it for FOSS Force.

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.

GNU Officially Boots Libreboot

FSF and GNU decide to grant Libreboot lead developer Leah Rowe’s wishes. The project is no longer a part of GNU says RMS.

Breaking News

booting Libreboot

A saga that began about four months ago has ended — or so it seems, On Thursday, Richard Stallman, founder and head of the GNU Project, officially said Goodbye to GNU Libreboot in an email on the GNU mailing list.

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

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.

Dedicated FOSS Computer Lab at IIT Bombay

Shyama Iyer says that students can learn about open source software on their own, “but who has the time to learn by trial and error? If there is a tutor — which is what Spoken Tutorial is, a tutor for software — then they can learn in a finite period of time.”

Shyama Iyer iit bombay

The Video Screening Room

While colleges and universities in the United States try to figure out whether their campus needs a FOSS computer lab, no such hesitation occurs in smart higher education institutions overseas. In this short video, hear from Professor Shyama Iyer about the FOSS tools taught at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay).

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.