Feb 07, 2012 10:23pm GMT
William E. Shott, Jr.'s The Linux Command Line is really two books in one. In the first two-thirds, Shott offers one of the better introductions to the Bash shell that I have seen. However, in the last third, the book describes shell scripting, and the tone and pace of the book change so much that you have to wonder why these two sections are between the same covers.This structure is deliberate... more »
Fundraising for Free Software and Free CultureJan 24, 2012 10:41pm GMT
I've spent December and January watching the fundraising campaigns of several free software and culture projects. I'm involved in fundraising for two mainstream charities, so the efforts of others is directly interesting to me. Also, increasingly, free software and culture projects are looking for ways to make their efforts pay, so what works and what doesn't is becoming an important community... more »
Where are they now?Jan 18, 2012 11:06pm GMT
Years ago, the short-lived Maximum Linux magazine ran a graphic showing Eric Raymond, Richard Stallman, and Linus Torvalds wearing the gang colors of open source. Naturally, Stallman protested in the next issue that he was an advocate of free software, not open source, but the point is that, back then, it was easy to point out the leaders of free and open source software (FOSS) in a way that wo... more »
GRUB 2 EditorJan 13, 2012 10:21pm GMT
Mostly, I prefer using a command line for system administration. However, I'm willing to rethink this preference in the case of the GRUB 2 Editor for KDE.Not too long ago, editing the GRUB boot manager was a straightforward task. You edited a text file directly, and, if in the long intervals between changes you forgot the structure of a boot entry, you could usually figure out what to do from e... more »
Internet access and human rightsJan 05, 2012 8:56pm GMT
This morning, Tim O'Reilly linked with apparent approval to Vinton G. Cerf's New York Times editorial, "Internet Access Is Not a Human Right". Technically, Cerf is correct, but I'm not sure that the distinctions he makes are ones that should be insisted upon too strongly.Internet technologies have been an enabler of the Arab Spring, and a few countries -- notably Estonia and France --... more »
Comparing DuckDuckGo with the Search GiantsDec 26, 2011 11:44pm GMT
Reviewing the latest Linux Mint release, I discovered the DuckDuckGo search engine. Linux Mint is using DuckDuckGo as its default search engine in a revenue sharing plan, and, given DuckDuckGo's friendliness to free software, as well its privacy tools, the choice is one that should appeal to many. But how does DuckDuckGo's search results compare to that of the search giants Google and Bing?I'm... more »
New Survey on Gender Indicates Increased AwarenessDec 20, 2011 10:54pm GMT
For several years, people have talked about updating the FLOSSPOLS survey about gender in the open source community. Now, Roberto Galoppini, Senior Director of Business Development at Geeknet, is actually doing it, posting the same questions used by FLOSSPOL as a new survey. The survey is still going on, but preliminary results suggest some changes for the better.The original FLOSSPOLS survey a... more »
