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DuckDuckGo Gives $225,000 to Open Source Projects

DuckDuckGo, “the search engine that doesn’t track you,” involves its users in the selection process as it hands out nine $25,000 awards to mostly FOSS projects.

It appears as if people have been using DuckDuckGo’s privacy centered search enough to make the company successful. Certainly not we-control-the-world successful like Google, but successful enough to give it some cash-on-hand breathing room. Also successful enough for the company to give back to the community by handing out $225,000 to some free and open source projects.

DuckDuckGo logoThis 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.

The Sun Shines Through the Rain at the Linux Workshop

The Heart of Linux

Sometimes it’s downright easy to tell the difference between synchronicity and mere coincidence.

I grew up in the Illinois heartland. The place where soybeans, corn and hog futures were discussed in-depth while the Bay of Pigs raged on without notice. I grew up in a place where detasseling corn and getting the hay crop in was second only to treating our livestock for thrush. We were up at 4:30 a.m. and in bed by 9 p.m. Rarely was there an exception. Maybe when my mom was going into town on Saturday for supplies.

Ice covered barn
An ice covered barn, not unlike the one that was crushed in this story.
During the winter of 1967. Northeastern Illinois experienced one of the most destructive ice storms in that region’s history. Barns and out buildings collapsed under the tremendous weight of ice and snow. Many family dwellings suffered the same fate. Livestock had to be turned out into the cold for fear they would be crushed to death by the collapsing structure. We worked furiously against the subzero cold and wind to get weather breaks built. We used hay bales and timber, any resource at hand, in order for the livestock to have some shelter from the freezing winds. Some cattle froze to death while still standing, their backs turned to the frigid, driving wind.

Ken Starks

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

Tuesday Is ‘International Day Against DRM’

On Tuesday, May 3, people in communities around the world will gather to take a stand against digital rights management.

Tuesday May 3 is International Day Against DRM, which for ten years has been an annual even to protest and build awareness about digital rights management. The event is sponsored by the organization Defective by Design, the anti-DRM initiative of the Free Software Foundation.

International Day Against DRM

RMS Gets Award, OwnCloud Founder Resigns & More…

FOSS Week in Review

Also: Ubuntu gets ready for Yakkety Yak (don’t talk back), Tails has a new release with an updated TOR browser and Android apps are coming to a Chromebook near you.

Here in the Tar Heel State, MerleFest, featuring performances by John Prine and John Oates sans Daryl Hall, dominates the news. That’s mainly because there are no college hoops being played now that this year’s NCAA March Madness thing has been entered into the record books.

There’s not much talk about this year’s NCAA tourney around here anymore, as “we’re number two” just doesn’t have the proper ring to it. So we talk about other things instead, with how fast the grass is growing topping most people’s list and MerleFest a close second.

Me? I talk about FOSS, and there’s plenty to talk about this week…

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

DuckDuckGo Wants Answers to Linux Questions

The search engine that works to protect your privacy is looking for some Linux “Instant Answers” for programmers. Would they like some answers to everyday Linux questions as well?

DuckDuckGo, the search engine centered around privacy, is asking for the community’s help in improving its results for Linux related searches. On Wednesday, “Bill” with the Philidelphia based search engine company posted to the Linux subreddit asking for help from the community.

DuckDuckGo logo“DuckDuckGo’s focus is to become the best search engine for programmers,” Bill wrote, “and we’d love your help improving our open-source Linux Instant Answers. There’s currently a couple of cheat sheets here and here. We want to get some great feedback from the Reddit community for the developer, crashrane.”

Charlie Reisinger: Using FOSS to Empower Students

The Video Screening Room

When Pennsylvania’s Penn Manor High School launched the state’s largest free software learning program, they did it a little differently than most schools. As click-baity ads on FaceBook like to proclaim: You won’t believe what happened next.

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.

My Linux Desktop — Hither and Yawn

The Heart of Linux

Reflections of a once upon a time everyday Windows user.

It’s hard to remember the span of time when I sat in front of my Windows computer on a daily basis. I sat comfortable in the understanding that using my computer came with some non-negotiable requirements, like the constant vigilance against malware threats and my system bogging down from the antivirus software helping me belay those threats. Who doesn’t remember the ever-popular monthly defragging, and for me at least, a complete wipe and reinstallation of Windows every six to eight months.

Windows computer explodingThese things I accepted as a necessary part of using a computer every day.

A few Windows folks will surely chime in, saying that they have used Windows since Captain Kangaroo was a corporal. They’ll say that they never had to reinstall their system due to it becoming unstable, sometimes rebooting for no reason at all and then booting into a black screen. A black screen that would eventually correct itself if you got up to fix a sandwich and take the dog out. A black screen that gave you no frickin’ idea of what it was, why it happened or how to fix it.

Ken Starks

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

Getting FOSS Text-to-Speech App Ready for Prime Time

The Heart of Linux

The lead developer of a new text-to-speech app based on MaryTTS talks about what’s been done and what remains to do.

It’s been a while now since we talked about creating a front end GUI to the open source text-to-speech program, MaryTTS. I have a personal stake in this, as I lost my larynx, and thus my voice, due to throat cancer.

FOSS text-to-speech front end
The front end of the new user interface for MaryTTS, a text-to-speech solution.

The state of text-to-speech software in the Linuxsphere is horrible. Don’t get me wrong, the software is out there and much of it is fairly good. Where we fall down is that it requires using the command line to get much of it to work. Often TTS software in Linux comes in parts and pieces that have to be assembled in order to get it to work, and the terminal is where most of that work needs to be done.

Ken Starks

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

Mixing Linux and ZFS, LinuxFest NorthWest and More…

FOSS Week in Review

With Bellingham, Washington getting geared up for next weekend’s show, can OSCON’s performance in Austin be far behind?

The Week in Review on a Saturday? Don’t worry, I’ve got a note from the phone company.

On Thursday afternoon, our phone company experienced a widespread outage of its fiber system, meaning FOSS Force had no telephone or Internet for about 24 hours. On Friday morning, I actually packed up a laptop and drove to the village of Pilot Mountain to use the secure We-Fi at my favorite coffee house, The Living Room, to edit and publish Phil Shapiro’s Friday column, and to finish editing and publishing another article which had originally been scheduled to go up on Thursday. Things are slowly getting back to normal, but I’m still behinder than I want to be.

But enough of the woes of FOSS Force. Let’s get on to some real 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

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