Aaron Seigo Fears Demise of Freedesktop.org
KDE e.V. President, Aaron Seiger, is calling for help to rescue freedesktop.org. Seigo warns of the danger of the free open source software platform sliding into insignificance and he's appealing to community members for help.
In his blog, Seigo describes freedesktop.org as a patient suffering from two deadly diseases: administritus and anarchiosis. Its the administrators, he explains, who decide the visible content of the platform. This presents them with an almost impossible task, leading to poor results. According to Seigo, its asking way too much to expect administrators to keep up with the latest trends and skills of fast-moving software development.
Anarchiosis is a similar problem. Firstly, its difficult to host things on freedesktop.org. Right now and secondly, nobody knows who is implementing which specifications and who is using which platform software. Here too, administrators have the last word, while developers who only want to work on their projects and see them hosted find themselves at a disadvantage. Seigo sees freedesktop.org as inefficient and opaque and he's asking the community for help to cure the sick patient. With his project Gitorious, he hopes to improve coordination. He's also calling for community members who can make the Grand Canary Desktop Summit to bring along ideas for a better administration.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Digital Autonomy
• The Answer Was Already on the Shelf
• Changing the Chip Industry: How Public Investment Has Grown Open Silicon
• United Nations Open Source Portal Goes Live
• EU Open Source Strategy Plays Key Role in Tech Sovereignty Package
• France Says “Au Revoir” to Microsoft
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
KDE for People Initiative Calls for AI Ban in Plasma
A new community of KDE wants the project to adopt a strict no-AI policy for KDE Plasma.
-
KDE Sets Ambitious Goals for 2026 and Beyond
KDE Connect reveals the goals for the Linux desktop darling, with one of those goals long overdue.
-
It’s Time to Test Fedora 45 Beta
Fedora 45 beta has been released with updated Gnome, KDE Plasma, and kernel.
-
Ubuntu Stonking Stingray Gets Even Rustier
Ubuntu 26.10 has completed its migration to the Rust-based coreutils.
-
AI Fixes Linux Bottlenecks Using “Hideous” Code
A Linux developer used AI to fix bottlenecks that caused problems when building the kernel. The resulting AI-generated code needed a lot of work.
-
Advanced Video Coding Still Under Patent
Brazilian patent BRPI0109962B1 has expired, which means that DivX and Xvid are no longer problematic for Linux, but it doesn’t mean that video is all of a sudden fully unleashed.
-
2,000 Vulnerabilities per Linux Release
Thanks to AI bug hunters, the Linux kernel is seeing record numbers of vulnerabilities, and it's overwhelming developers.
-
Linux Exempt from California’s Age Verification Law
So long as Linux is distributed under the GPL, MIT, BSD, and Apache licenses, the OS is exempt from being required to verify the age of its users in California.
-
Roll Out the Cake: Linux Turns 35
35 years ago, a Finnish student began a humble project that would forever change the course of technology.
-
China Switching from Windows to Linux
China has ordered several government agencies to drop a Chinese-developed version of Windows 10 in favor of either KylinOS or UOS.
