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‘Freedom Penguin’ Takes Flight, Distro Count & More…

By Larry Cafiero on August 28, 2015 |

Distros, Hardware, Media, News and Operating Systems

‘Freedom Penguin’ Takes Flight, Distro Count & More…

FOSS Week in Review

Before we get rolling on the last FOSS Force item before the weekend, I’d like to welcome Hunter Banks to the FOSS Force team. Hunter is part of the FOSS-forward Banks family of Los Angeles — dad Phillip is a computer consultant and a long-time Southern California Linux Expo volunteer (along with brother Phillip Jr.), and sister Keila has been in both the FOSS and mainstream media on girls-in-tech issues — and he’s writing a Linux/FOSS gaming column.

Flying-penguinsWelcome to the team, Hunter!

Now, want to see something scary?

Continue reading‘Freedom Penguin’ Takes Flight, Distro Count & More…

How Microsoft’s ‘Mad Men’ Are Working Overtime

By Christine Hall on August 13, 2015 |

Humor, Media and Operating Systems

Mad MenI haven’t seen this much hype since…well, since the last time Redmond came out with a new version of Windows.

Anyone who’s a member of the rapidly decreasing demographic that watches commercial television has by now seen Redmond’s prime time ads pushing Windows 10. If not, don’t bother to Google for the YouTubes. The campaign is kind of a bore with ads that aren’t quite as bad as what we saw with Vista (remember, “Wow!”?). The ads are of the feelgood genre, and they attempt to get viewers to suspend belief enough to believe that every facet of life will be instantly transformed into something magically perfect with Windows 10.

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

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingHow Microsoft’s ‘Mad Men’ Are Working Overtime
FSF, Canonical Breakthrough; OSCON & More…FSF logo

FSF, Canonical Breakthrough; OSCON & More…

By Larry Cafiero on July 17, 2015 |

Community, Copyright, Distros, Hardware, Media, News and Operating Systems

Editor’s note: FOSS Force will be offering live video streaming of all OSCON keynote addresses beginning Wednesday, July 22, 2015 at noon EDT.

FOSS Week in Review

I was ready to pack my bags for OSCON on Friday with a pretty quiet week, and a quick roundup which would allow me to hit the road and head north to Portland. No such luck. We have OSCON coverage coming next week — more on this later — but some of the more scintillating stories of the week include the following:

FSF, Canonical Makes Progress on Licensing: The $140,000-plus in donations is still missing, but that’s not the biggest news coming from Canonical this week. After two years of wrangling between the Free Software Foundation and Canonical — with a little help from the Software Freedom Conservancy — the FSF announced that they have made some progress on updated licensing terms for, as the FSF calls it, “Ubuntu GNU/Linux.”

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero, a.k.a. Larry the Free Software Guy, is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate. He is involved in several FOSS projects and serves as the publicity chair for the Southern California Linux Expo. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Continue readingFSF, Canonical Breakthrough; OSCON & More…

‘Sunday Times’ Files DMCA Takedown Against ‘The Intercept’

By Christine Hall on June 15, 2015 |

Copyright, Internet, Media, News and Politics

Sunday Times
Yesterday’s ‘Sunday Times’ front page.
The Rupert Murdoch controlled Sunday Times of London finds itself embroiled in controversy today, over both a front page article that appeared in the paper yesterday and a related DMCA Notice it issued against the U.S. based political website The Intercept.

The Sunday Times article, with the headline “British Spies Betrayed to Russian and Chinese,” carries the byline of Tom Harper, Richard Kerbaj and Tim Shipman and expands on a news story spreading across the UK on the pulling of some intelligence operators from Russia and China by the UK government over fears that they might have been compromised by information leaked by Edward Snowden.

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

FOSSForce.com
Continue reading‘Sunday Times’ Files DMCA Takedown Against ‘The Intercept’
CFP Jam & LinuxFest Northwest Goes HollywoodTexas Linux Fest logo

CFP Jam & LinuxFest Northwest Goes Hollywood

By Larry Cafiero on June 12, 2015 |

Community, Desktops, Media and News

FOSS Week in Review

As we get ready for a wild weekend of Linux, barbecue and guns at SouthEast LinuxFest — and FOSS Force’s Christine Hall will be on the scene reporting from Charlotte — we should first go to our eye in the sky to see what the traffic is like during FOSS rush hour for presentation proposals.

Texas Linux Fest logo
The stars at night are big and bright (clap clap clap clap) . . . Texas Linux Fest is in August.
CFP Jam: Yep, looking down from the FOSS Force traffic chopper, they’re bumper to bumper on the Call for Papers highway today in what can best be described as a rare CFP rush hour in the FOSS realm. In order of closing, down in the Lone Star State, Texas Linux Fest‘s CFP has a deadline looming on June 28, with the festivities at the San Marcos Convention Center is beautiful downtown San Marcos, Texas on Aug. 21-22. Then Ohio LinuxFest has a deadline of July 17, since OLF is held on Oct. 2-3 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center (begging the question, is there a Lesser Columbus Convention Center?) in downtown Columbus, Ohio. To add to the mix, the Southern California Linux Expo — that’s SCALE 14x in 2016 — is a month early in January this time around and, as such, the CFP was moved back and opened yesterday. Deadline for the SCALE 14x CFP is Oct. 30 for the Jan. 21-24, 2016, event at the Pasadena Convention Center.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero, a.k.a. Larry the Free Software Guy, is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate. He is involved in several FOSS projects and serves as the publicity chair for the Southern California Linux Expo. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Continue readingCFP Jam & LinuxFest Northwest Goes Hollywood
Linux Mint in June, Matt Hartley’s Goodbye & More…Linux Mint Logo

Linux Mint in June, Matt Hartley’s Goodbye & More…

By Larry Cafiero on May 8, 2015 |

Browsers, Distros, Media, News and Operating Systems

FOSS Week in Review

Well, as they say, TGIF: Thank God it’s FOSS. As folks get settled in this weekend in beautiful downtown Orem, Utah, at OpenWest — the expo formerly known at one time as the Utah Open Source Conference — here’s a look at some of the things that transpired during the course of the week.

Linux Mint LogoHello, Rafaela: According to a Softpedia article, Linux Mint announced this week that it will release its next version of Linux Mint 17 — 17.2, which was given the release name Rafaela. Not much else was released in the way of information, other than the release candidate would be available next month, as well as lead developer Clement Lefebvre saying that Linux Mint 18 will be available sometime next year.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero, a.k.a. Larry the Free Software Guy, is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate. He is involved in several FOSS projects and serves as the publicity chair for the Southern California Linux Expo. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Continue readingLinux Mint in June, Matt Hartley’s Goodbye & More…
Animals Set FOSS ApartOctocat GitHub

Animals Set FOSS Apart

By Larry Cafiero on April 8, 2015 |

Media, Potpourri and Software

We’re going to take the scenic route in getting to the point today. If you don’t want to wait, you can go down to the bottom where it says, “The moral of the story…” But the point of today’s exercise is that we in the decentralized FOSS realm are a creative bunch, and in that creativity is our strength.

PostgreSQL logo
I’ll take FOSS logos for $500, Alex: The PostgreSQL elephant’s name is this…
Here’s why.

The Starbucks in San Jose near James Lick High School seems to always be abuzz — kids from the school come in for coffee and other Starbucks treats, all the while being served by a quick and helpful staff, one of whom couldn’t stop talking in loud tones about his new opportunity in a nearby, more prestigious Starbucks.

The after-school high school crowd seems to be supplanted, eventually, by moms picking up their elementary school-aged children and bringing them to Starbucks. While I’m sitting in a way-too-comfortable chair, two girls walk up to me.

They stare. I look up, smile, and go back to work. I can still feel them staring at me.

One points and says, “elefante,” which is Spanish for “elephant.”

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero, a.k.a. Larry the Free Software Guy, is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate. He is involved in several FOSS projects and serves as the publicity chair for the Southern California Linux Expo. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Continue readingAnimals Set FOSS Apart

Net Neutrality Clears Hurdle & Other Things

By Larry Cafiero on February 27, 2015 |

Community, Internet, Media and Politics

FOSS Week in Review

Net Neutrality symbolWell, much of the focus for the week was on the Federal Communications Commission vote on increased net neutrality protections, and according to rational news sources reporting on the issue (e.g., just about everyone but Fox News and their wannabes), this is a good thing.

Enough has been written about it, but I did want to point out a post by Mozilla’s Mitchell Baker, where she says, “We just accomplished something very important together. Today, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted for strong net neutrality protections. This happened because millions of people — including many hundreds of thousands
in Mozilla’s community — joined together as citizens of the Web to demand those strong protections.”

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero, a.k.a. Larry the Free Software Guy, is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate. He is involved in several FOSS projects and serves as the publicity chair for the Southern California Linux Expo. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Continue readingNet Neutrality Clears Hurdle & Other Things
‘Linux Advocates’ Throws in the Towel

‘Linux Advocates’ Throws in the Towel

By FOSS Force on January 10, 2015 |

Internet, Media and News

The website Linux Advocates is no more. The site, which focused on a variety of Linux issues, went offline on January 7th with little fanfare and no advance notice. The site had been being published for two years, having gone live in early 2013.

Before taking the site down, a notice was posted by site owner Dietrich Schmitz, which can still be read on the site’s Facebook page.

Continue reading‘Linux Advocates’ Throws in the Towel
Pono Is Here, High Def Open Source Codec (Sort of) & AllPono music player

Pono Is Here, High Def Open Source Codec (Sort of) & All

By Christine Hall on January 8, 2015 |

Hardware, Media and Mobile

Neil Young’s long promised high def music device, Pono, is out and I am jammed. Not that I’m ever going to be able to buy one, mind you. But if I were entrenched middle class, the type of person who can shell out 500 bucks for a new Coach purse, I’d have one of these babies in a Texas heartbeat, which should be quicker than a regular heartbeat given the Lone Star State’s rate of high blook pressure and all. The latest news is that they’ll be available in your not-so-friendly neighborhood electronics store on Monday for $399. The Pono Music Store already went online a few days back.

Pono music playerTo be sure, the naysayers are everywhere, saying this pony can’t fly. They may be right.

There’s been a lot of concern over the price of the player itself, which I don’t think is valid. Although it’s way out of my price range, four hundred bucks isn’t all that much, especially if you compare it to the twelve hundred dollar price tag on the latest Walkman unveiled by Sony at this year’s CES. If it delivers as promised, it’s worth every penny.

Evidently, it does deliver, according to Gizmodo which has tested one.

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

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingPono Is Here, High Def Open Source Codec (Sort of) & All
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