The Heart of Linux
The lead developer of Pinguy Linux, Antoni Norman, has said he’s considering shutting the project down due to a lack of funds. This raises the question: How much do you give to the distro you use?
I think of them as our own little personal supernovas. There’s a brilliant flash when a Linux distro tosses in the towel and calls it quits. But whenever a distro goes away, it leaves behind the people who’ve used and worked with it on a daily basis. While there’s no formation of a black hole, there is a hole at the center of users’ work schedules and that disruption can do serious damage to those relying on the distro’s stability. And while getting a new distro installed and running isn’t the nightmare it used to be, it’s still a pain.
Ken Starks is the founder of the Helios Project and Reglue, which for 20 years provided refurbished older computers running Linux to disadvantaged school kids, as well as providing digital help for senior citizens, in the Austin, Texas area. He was a columnist for FOSS Force from 2013-2016, and remains part of our family. Follow him on Twitter: @Reglue
“When building features for hundreds of millions of Firefox users worldwide, it’s important to get them right,” he wrote. “To help figure out which features should ship and how they should work, we created the new Test Pilot program.”
This isn’t the first time they’ve done this. Last year they handed out $125,000 to five projects — meaning that this year they’ve nearly doubled down on their bet. Last year’s donations included money going to the Electronic Frontier Foundations Privacy Badger — a browser add-on that stops advertisers and other trackers from following users — and Girl Develop It for its Open Source Mentorship program.
