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FOSS Force

Skype Finally Recognizes the Linux Market

By Christine Hall on July 13, 2016 |

Browsers, News and Web Apps

Skype Finally Recognizes the Linux MarketSkype logo

Skype has announced an alpha version of a new client for Linux. Given Skype’s ownership by Microsoft, will Linux users care?

Breaking News

So Skype on GNU/Linux is finally getting something of an upgrade. This will be welcome news for some. Others will mumble “not on my machine” and go about their business. I can imagine nothing in the FOSS sphere as controversial as running a Microsoft owned product on Linux.

Skype logoThe announcement came about an hour ago via a post on the Skype site after an “exciting news for Linux users” teaser was posted on July 8. An “Alpha version of a new Skype for Linux client” has been released which uses WebRTC, and the Skype folks are eager to find testers for feedback. Downloads are available as both deb packages and RPMs. It’s stressed that this alpha version “is not a fully functioning Skype client as of yet” but it’s promised that a fully functioning version will be available pronto.

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Having a Gas at Texas Linux Fest 2016Libre Office Texas Linux Fest 2016

Having a Gas at Texas Linux Fest 2016

By Ken Starks on July 12, 2016 |

Business, Community and News

Deep in the heart of Texas, the Heart of Linux delves into the heart of the Texas Linux Fest. A good time was had by all.

The Heart of Linux

Texas Linux Fest 2016 is in the books, safely tucked away in the annals of free open source history, The wonderful folks who make TLF happen were again gracious enough to give Reglue a booth in the expo hall, and for those who are watching from home, space in any TLF expo hall ain’t cheap. Just like last year, Reglue Vice President Carolyn Huxley was gracious enough to work our booth and answer questions like, “What’s a Reglue?” My personal thanks for her help.

Slow start at Texas Linux Fest 2016

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Is 32-bit Nearing End-of-Life at Some Linux Distros?32-bit computer

Is 32-bit Nearing End-of-Life at Some Linux Distros?

By Christine Hall on July 11, 2016 |

Distros and Hardware

At least three Linux distros have already quit releasing 32-bit versions, and Ubuntu seems to be standing in line to do the same. Is the end at hand for 32-bit mainstream distros?

News Analysis

We have three computers that see regular duty here at FOSS Force. Two are 64-bit laptops, one which is primarily reserved for out-of-the-office trips and the other used exclusively to test distros and software for reviews. The heavy lifting is done by our old 32-bit HP desktop.

In a month or so, when the Xfce edition of Linux Mint 18, otherwise known as “Sarah,” is released, we’ll be backing up our data and doing a clean install on the desktop. This will probably be the last operating system upgrade this computer will ever see. Sarah will be supported until 2021, and by then, this old computer will most likely have already given up the ghost. Even if it’s still running, however, it’s doubtful there will be a 32-bit version of Mint to run on it, as Canonical will probably have ceased development of the 32-bit version of its distro by then.

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VMware Makes Open Source Move, SCALE Gets Ready & More…SCALE 15X logo

VMware Makes Open Source Move, SCALE Gets Ready & More…

By Christine Hall on July 8, 2016 |

Business, Community, Desktops, Distros and News

Also included: New releases for Skolelinux and Network Security Toolkit, KDE releases Plasma 5.7 and our writer eats crow.

FOSS Week in Review

A few weeks back I told you I was writing a distro review “for another website.” I did, and it’s done. And since I promised that I’d link you to it when it went up, I’ll reluctantly tell you that it’s a review of Fedora 24 on Distrowatch. Why am I reluctant? Because I made a big gaping error in the review, that’s why (yup, I’m fallible, just like everyone else). Until tonight or tomorrow when I’ll have time to post a mi culpa to the comments on Distrowatch, I’ll leave it to you to figure out where I erred, which I figure many of you will do quite handily, astute bunch that you are.

SCALE 15X logoThe review on Distrowatch was part of a one time trade that had Distrowatch’s Jesse Smith writing a review of Tiny Core Linux for FOSS Force. We got the better end of that stick, because so far no errors have revealed themselves in Smith’s review. I was hoping to write another review for Distrowatch in the future, but if that’s to be possible I’ll probably have to eat more than a single slice of humble pie.

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A Discussion on Contributing to Open Source

By Phil Shapiro on July 8, 2016 |

Community and Video

Are you wondering how to get involved in an open source project? Maybe this episode from the Mondern Web podcast will give you some ideas.

The Video Viewing Room

Learn tips for participating in an open source community from Ben Lesh and Zack Chapple in this engaging short video interview by Tracy Lee.

The key take-away? Don’t be shy if you have something to offer. My friendly additional tip — find yourself a buddy or mentor. They can help show you the ropes. Before you know it — you’ll be someone else’s buddy/mentor. That’s the way that the world goes round.

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LQ Turns 16 so We Talk With Founder Jeremy GarciaJeremy Garcia LinuxQuestions.org

LQ Turns 16 so We Talk With Founder Jeremy Garcia

By Robin "Roblimo" Miller on July 7, 2016 |

Interview, and Video

Happy 16th Birthday, LinuxQuestions.org — a helpful site with over 600,000 members. Founder Jeremy Garcia is, not surprisingly, Member Number One.

The FOSS Force Video Interview

LinuxQuestions.org (LQ) recently turned 16, which means we can sing the Chuck Berry song “Sweet Little Sixteen” to it. Even better, this means the site is old enough to drive in most states. Hot stuff! And today’s interviewee, Jeremy Garcia, is the founder and still head LQ-er. In this video, he’ll tell you how he once expected to get *maybe* 100 members, and talks about how he would (or wouldn’t) do things differently if he was starting LQ today.

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LibreOffice and Nextcloud: It’s Almost Deja vu All Over Againfork owncloud for nextcloud

LibreOffice and Nextcloud: It’s Almost Deja vu All Over Again

By Christine Hall on July 6, 2016 |

Business, Copyright, Software and Web Apps

It’s easy to be tempted to draw a parallel between the recent fork of ownCloud by Nextcloud and The Document Foundation’s fork of OpenOffice six years ago. Slight differences are there, but they’re probably meaningless.

There are more than enough similarities between the recent forking of ownCloud to Nextcloud and the creation of LibreOffice out of OpenOffice six years ago to draw comparisons, but there are also many differences. As Yogi Berra might say, they are the same but different.

fork owncloud for nextcloudOpenOffice, if you’ll remember, was forked by a group of developers who had been frustrated for years by roadblocks to what they saw as necessary development by Sun Microsystems, which had created the open source project out of Star Office, a proprietary suite it purchased in the late 1990s. When the situation worsened after Oracle took ownership, the developers created The Document Foundation, forked OpenOffice and released it as LibreOffice under the GPL. Improvements became evident right away, with much of the early work centering on cleaning up the bloated code base.

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