If you’re really using Linux, you’re either making money now or you will. It’s that simple. Programming jobs, sysadmin slots, they’re out there. 88% of…
Posts tagged as “open source”
This week I had been pursuing a story on a virtualization development which was prematurely suggested/whispered/uncovered at LinuxFest Northwest. However, I understand from those who know more about the subject than I do — which is just about everyone — it was apparently not as groundbreaking as I thought. With my knowledge of virtualization ranking just slightly above my non-existent grasp of quantum physics, I had to put that one aside thanks to a ever-approaching deadline.
But never mind: Something better came along, and the virtual lemons now become lemonade.
We’ll take a walk down memory lane in a minute, but Jason Hibbets and his team of scribes at Opensource.com published a story today announcing a new page on the site to introduce everyone — from the curious to the not-yet-enlightened and beyond — to Linux/FOSS.
Editor’s note: Be sure to check our home page tomorrow morning for a special bonus column by Ken Starks.
Is it Tuesday already?
I don’t think most of you know just how much I enjoy talking to you every Tuesday. See…I don’t think of this as an article. This is my way of starting a conversation with my friends. There are times when I write a particular sentence, knowing that someone reading it is the only person other than me who knows what I am talking about. There’s a certain inner-warmth in being able to write like that. Whether it be to just one person or to everyone.
It’s nice to envision the faces of those I am talking to as I write. I think that drives my personal style of writing. I’ve been told that it could be worse.
Speaking of worse…
Two weeks ago I signed off with a promise to get back to you on a series of articles I am writing, outlining the process of getting an easy-to-use FOSS application written in the realm of text to speech. And yeah, I most certainly am going to pick that subject up again now…just not the way I’d planned.
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
After a 25 year gestation, Hurd has finally been born. It was a difficult birth and it’s now being kept in an incubator under the care of Debian.
For many years GNU’s always almost ready to be born operating system microkernel, Hurd, has been the butt of many jokes and Facebook memes, so it came as something of a surprise to read in Larry Cafiero’s Friday column that it’s now ready enough for Debian, which is offering a somewhat experimental and unstable release of Debian/GNU Hurd. An earlier attempt at a Hurd based distro, by Arch, seems to have died on the vine back in 2011, although a 2013 posting promises that development is still underway, with no news since.
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
FOSS Week in Review
Normally, I’d race back home after a weekend event like LinuxFest Northwest in order to get back to what is commonly, maybe tragically (okay, it’s not really that bad), known as “life as usual.” But my darling daughter wanted to visit her friends in Seattle and Portland on the way home, which added two days to the trip. Getting to spend some time in those cities was a joy — the Seattle Public Library downtown is a gem, and I got to go to Powell’s in Portland for the first time this decade.
But upon returning to the redwoods, I’m so far behind it isn’t funny.
Hence, in continuing to catch up this week, this end-of-the-week wrap-up is going to be brief. You’re welcome.
It was not exactly a clandestine handoff, as you would see in a spy movie. Emily Dunham told me she’d bring it with her to LinuxFest Northwest and, when we met in the hallway at Bellingham Technical College, I asked her, “did you bring it?”
After exchanging pleasantries and quickly catching up, she handed it to me: an OSWALD.
It’s the way of The Internet. What was once a raging firefight between two or more factions, is now a topic dead and forgotten somewhere on Slashdot or within other piles of forgotten Internetia. What was once a topic or cause over which to go to war, now only survives as fodder for The Oatmeal or other hip and funny sites. I’m talking about former the-tempests-in-a-teapot for such things as:
#systemd
#Mir
#it_is_GNU/Linux_you_luddite
Well, you get the idea…
It was one of you who first presented this cartoon to me a number of years ago. Along with the attachment was a simple question: “How does it feel to be famous?”
“I dunno,” I replied. “I’m still waiting for the limo that isn’t coming to pick me up which will not take me to the private Gulfstream that was not sent for me in order to go to a concert I will never see when Adam Levine does not invite me backstage to hang out with his personal groupies that I will never meet.”
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
Feast or famine: This is the typical modus operandi for FOSS shows, where Saturdays (or the “first days,” whatever they are) are a literal beehive of activity on the expo floor while talks are standing-room only. Sundays (or “second days”) — ah, those second days — the activity drops off a bit.
LinuxFest Northwest was no exception to this rule, but that said, it is not a bad thing that things quiet down on a Sunday.
First things first: a correction. Bill Wright aptly and politely pointed out that I wrote last week that this year’s event is the 15th. When I was choosing a career path all those years ago, I got into journalism because, well, I suck at mathematics. LFNW started in 2000 which, as Bill points out, makes this the 16th year of the show.
Meanwhile, back to Sunday…
You were warned: I wrote on Wednesday that it would be a good idea to get your badges at the Hampton Inn at game night…
FOSS Week in Review
Larry’s hanging out up near the 49th parallel, in Bellingham, Washington, for the LinuxFest Northwest conference. He’ll be filing reports over the weekend and possibly on Monday, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, I get to do the Week in Review — because the boss likes me best.
OSCON’s packing its bags
Speaking of conferences, OSCON’s making a big move. Although the annual conference presented by publisher O’Reilly Media started in my old stomping grounds of Monterey, California in 1999, the event has been held in Portland, Oregon every year since 2003, except for 2009 when it made a one-off stop in San Jose. This year OSCON will once again be held in Portland, on July 20-24, then that’s it, for at least a year.
Late last week, Rachel Roumeliotis reported in a blog on the OSCON website that after this year’s event, the conference will be packing up and making a move. In 2016, OSCON will unfold it’s tents in Austin, Texas, with the conference being held May 16=20.
Why Austin? Cited for reasons are the city’s many software communities, such as All Girl Hack Night and Google Development Group Austin, as well as Texas based tech firms such as Rackspace, Dell, SoftLayer, Continuum, and OpenStack. It doesn’t look like this move will be permanent, however. According to the post: “As with OSCON in Amsterdam…we want to explore these communities and offer those software engineers and architects the OSCON experience.”
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