Off the Beat: Bruce Byfield's Blog

Until we no longer need lists

Apr 30, 2013 GMT

Joshua Gay at the Free Software Foundation has asked me if I would be interested in writing about the fact that ThinkPenguin's Penguin Wireless N USB Adapter for GNU / Linux  has earned the FSF's Respects Your Freedom certification. I'm happy to provide the signal boost, but sad to reflect that such announcements are still necessary in 2013.For those who have never heard of it, the Respect Your Freedom program is a list of hardware that does not use so-called Digital Rights Management or proprietary firmware -- in other words, of hardware that is free-licensed in every sense of the word. It doesn't restrict how the hardware can be used, and doesn't spy unasked on how it is used. As...

Leaving out Linux

Apr 24, 2013 GMT

I've often criticized Canonical and Ubuntu. In fact, I've criticized them often enough that some people are convinced that I have a grudge against them. But there's one point on which I'll defend them: their decision to minimize the use of the word "Linux" on their website and in other public communications.This policy is not new, but it is periodically rediscovered by various members of the free and open source software (FOSS) community. It rarely fails to provoke outrage. Is Ubuntu pretending it isn't dependent on Debian and several dozen other upstream projects? The rediscovers ask. Is Canonical trying to claim credit for all the work of others that goes into Ubuntu?These...

I've signed to write an advanced book on LibreOffice

Apr 12, 2013 GMT

I signed the contract this week, so now I can make the announcement: I'm writing a book. Tenatively titled Styles and Templates in LibreOffice, it will be published by Friends of OpenDocument (http://www.friendsofopendocument.com/newsite/) using a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, probably towards the end of 2013.This is a project I've wanted to do for almost a decade. Back when I started writing about free software, one of my main subjects was OpenOffice.org. Over the years, I must have written at least sixty or seventy articles on the subject. I've lost the exact count, but most of them were written for the Linux Journal site, and, more recently, the WorldLabel.com blog.I...

The Dangers of a Post-License Era

Apr 10, 2013 GMT

You don't see many discussions about free software licenses any more. Once a burning issue, licenses and their implications hardly seem to be mentioned these days. Increasingly, we seem to be moving into a post-license era, and the implications for free and open source software are potentially troubling.  The reasons for this apparent shift of interest aren't hard to find. To start with, most of the important license issues have already been resolved.  It's hard to imagine any licensing issue today that would be as significant to the community at large as the release of the OpenOffice.org code in 2000, or of the discussion of the third version of the GPL in 2005-07.Yes, the...

My last comment on "Linux" vs "GNU/Linux"

Mar 27, 2013 GMT

On Linux Advocates, Katherine Noyes recently raised the old question of whether the operating system should be called Linux or GNU/Linux. It's a topic I don't think much about these days, although I've had some unusual perspectives on it over the years.You probably know the argument: given that the operating system was originally the result of cooperation between Linux kernel developers and the members of The GNU Project, both should be given credit in the name. True, countless other projects are involved, but the reference is to the core operating system, and to mention one without the other is to write the excluded founding organization out of history. Or so free software supporters...

It's time for the next step with anti-harassment policies

Mar 22, 2013 GMT

For several weeks, I've resisted writing this blog entry. I don't want people accusing  me of mansplaining  -- of lecturing women about what they already know better than I do -- as an easy way of discrediting me. Nor do I care to hear my resignation from The Ada Initiative in November 2011 dredged up to as evidence of my personal animosity. But, being the mouthy type that I am, I'm going to plunge in anyway, simply because nobody else has.Writing as a pro-feminist, I would like to make the case, as respectfully as possible, that getting conferences to establish anti-harassment policies is not enough. The time has come for a discussion about how those policies need to be carried...

openSUSE shows how to promote a release

Mar 14, 2013 GMT

Over the years, I've written and talked several times about how free software projects should approach journalists. At times, I've been able to single out publicists who do an especially professional job, including Jennifer Cloer of The Linux Foundation and Sally Khudairi of The Apache Foundation. However, mostly, I've spoken in the abstract. I never had a detailed example to offer -- until last week, when Jos Poortvliet, openSUSE's community manager, contacted me about the new 12.3 release.What makes the efforts of Poortvliet' and the rest of the openSUSE marketing team stand out? To start with, he contacted me with a link to DVD images six days before the release. By contrast, if the...