February 2016
Is SFLC Shooting Open Source in the Foot?
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Monday 29th of February 2016 10:46:11 PM Filed under

The academic article by SFLC about ZFS is troubling and may unintentionally shoot free software licensing in the foot.
When I was at Sun (as part of the team that released the Java Programming Language by starting the OpenJDK project) I often heard community concerns about the CDDL license. At the time the big complaint was about the "Choice of Venue" clause.
I got involved because Sun had developed many essential Java libraries and distributed them under CDDL. The community requested a more permissive license and I was able to convince internal project leaders (and Sun's lawyers) to make a licensing change for a handful of these projects. And there was much rejoicing.
Based on my experience in helping Java to become open source I came to appreciate the legal hacks on copyright which make open source possible. It's the free software license which uses copyright to enable sharing (vs. the default of disabling sharing).
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GNOME Tweak Tool Review - More Powerful than You Can Imagine
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Monday 29th of February 2016 10:42:01 PM Filed under

GNOME Tweak Tool is a powerful application for the GNOME-powered Linux distributions, and it's too often overlooked.
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GNOME Maps Review - A GNOME App That Could Do Much More
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Monday 29th of February 2016 10:40:13 PM Filed under
GNOME Maps is a rather new application in the GNOME stack that doesn't do a lot but is really promising. Here is a quick look at the latest stable edition.
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Open Source Evolution: From Making Better Code to Making Better Business
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Monday 29th of February 2016 10:35:39 PM Filed under
Today, open-source software is thriving in the Cloud, with a whole new generation of projects – such as Docker, Heroku, Open Stack and others. Cumulatively, GNU is still the leading license, but MIT, Apache and other licenses are among the top licenses used in open-source projects.
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An open-source alternative to Android Wear OS for smartwatches emerges
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Monday 29th of February 2016 10:33:22 PM Filed under

Can the Android Wear and Tizen operating systems on smartwatches be challenged? French computer science student Florent Revest believes so.
Revest has developed AsteroidOS, a flavor of Linux for smartwatches, still in early beta. It has been tested on LG's smartwatches and a port is under way to Asus' Zenwatch 1.
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BrewDog’s open-source revolution is at the vanguard of postcapitalism
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Monday 29th of February 2016 10:30:05 PM Filed under
Today, you can download the Linux version of Unix for free, confident in the knowledge that thousands of dedicated professionals are working day and night to improve it, again for free. Almost all the world’s fastest supercomputers run it.
The idea that the basic tools of modern life should be free, shareable and collaboratively improved, with nobody allowed to make them private property, was born in the free-software movement, spread via the Creative Commons movement and is gaining traction in the world of physical products. It doesn’t destroy capitalism, but it does challenge its dynamics.
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Firefox OS will Power New Line-up of Panasonic Ultra HD TVs
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Monday 29th of February 2016 10:24:55 PM Filed under
Panasonic announced today that Firefox OS will power the new Panasonic DX-series UHD TVs.
Panasonic TVs powered by Firefox OS are already available globally. These TVs have intuitive and customizable home screens which give you “quick access” to Live TV, Apps and personal connected devices. You can access your favorite channels, apps, videos, websites and content quickly – and you can also pin any app or content to your TV home screen.
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Elementary boss watches the Linux distro make great strides
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Monday 29th of February 2016 10:15:47 PM Filed under
elementary OS is a consumer-focused, open source, Linux-based operating system with a heavy emphasis on UX design. I am the founder of elementary (the company behind elementary OS). A great deal of my time is spent organizing our team, which is mostly made up of volunteers, but I also spend time coding for both web and desktop, triaging bug reports, providing visual and UX design, and of course interacting with our users.
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Does Linux need a data loss prevention solution?
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Monday 29th of February 2016 10:11:34 PM Filed under
CoSoSys, a firm that offers data loss prevention (DLP) and mobile device management (MDM) solutions, today announced a private beta release of Endpoint Protector DLP for Linux.
Yes, Linux is secure by design, but that doesn't mean there won't be software bugs (Linus Torvalds has said as much, noting that bugs are part of the software development process). And, yes, there have been some critical security threats that surfaced in the last few years such as GHOST, ShellShock, Heartbleed, and the Glibc vulnerability
But CoSoSys is not about that security. It’s not about the security of the operating system itself. It’s about the data residing on these machines and protecting the data irrespective of the operating system.
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Solus 1.1 Is Going to Be Awesome, Developers Promise
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Monday 29th of February 2016 09:50:47 PM Filed under
The Solus developers are preparing for the first point release for their Linux operating system, and saying they are excited about it is an understatement.
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| Red Hat Hires a Blind Software Engineer to Improve Accessibility on Linux Desktop
Accessibility on a Linux desktop is not one of the strongest points to highlight. However, GNOME, one of the best desktop environments, has managed to do better comparatively (I think).
In a blog post by Christian Fredrik Schaller (Director for Desktop/Graphics, Red Hat), he mentions that they are making serious efforts to improve accessibility.
Starting with Red Hat hiring Lukas Tyrychtr, who is a blind software engineer to lead the effort in improving Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Fedora Workstation in terms of accessibility.
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