Making Money With Free Software
A competition to design the new 5 euro commemorative coin, set by the Dutch Ministry of Finance, has been won by Stani Michiels, the Belgian artist and free software developer. His winning design, developed entirely with free software, has now been realized and is a legal coin in Holland.
The theme of the competition was "Holland and Architecture" and a selected group of architectural offices and artists were invited to take part. Michiels says in his blog, "All the developing and processing was done on GNU/Linux machines which were running Ubuntu PCs," with some final touches being done on his Eee PC.
The free software used included Inkscape, Gimp and Michiels' brainchild Phatch, with most of the work done with Python. Besides his art, Michiels also provides his own Python IDE called SPE.
One side of the coin is covered with the names of important Dutch architects. The order and size of which was arranged according to the number of hits they received on the Internet. "Of course this order changes over time and as such this is another time stamp on the coin besides the number 2008." explains Michiels.
Together the names form a portrait of the Dutch Queen Beatrix. To achieve this effect, Michiels developed his own special font.
The back of the coin is decorated with the spines of books by famous Dutch architects and an array of birds to represent the capitols of the different Dutch provinces. The coin was released at all Dutch post offices on October 30, 2008. Solid gold and silver editions are also available for collectors worldwide.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
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
-
Wayland 1.24 Released with Fixes and New Features
Wayland continues to move forward, while X11 slowly vanishes into the shadows, and the latest release includes plenty of improvements.
-
Bugs Found in sudo
Two critical flaws allow users to gain access to root privileges.
-
Fedora Continues 32-Bit Support
In a move that should come as a relief to some portions of the Linux community, Fedora will continue supporting 32-bit architecture.
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
LibreOffice Tested as Possible Office 365 Alternative
Another major organization has decided to test the possibility of migrating from Microsoft's Office 365 to LibreOffice.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.