Check the Numbers
Welcome
The free software community loves it when FOSS projects find a place in the IT cosmos. When people who have never used Linux start talking about tools like LibreOffice and MariaDB, we get a warm feeling of accomplishment. However, many open source projects are maintained by for-profit entities, and once in a while, they fall off the open source wagon.
Dear Reader,
The free software community loves it when FOSS projects find a place in the IT cosmos. When people who have never used Linux start talking about tools like LibreOffice and MariaDB, we get a warm feeling of accomplishment. However, many open source projects are maintained by for-profit entities, and once in a while, they fall off the open source wagon.
There is still a large army of old-school business people who don't get open source. What? You're giving away your source code? What's the point of that? How do you "extract value" from it if everybody can use it? You would think we would be done with this question by now, but actually it as gotten worse in recent years, due to the recent epidemic of large companies using open source code without contributing.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
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
-
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.
-
Pine64 Halts Production of Linux Devices
With continued DRAM and eMMC shortages, Pine64 has decided to discontinue production of Linux devices.
-
The Bullet-Proof KDE Software Initiative Is Coming
KDE, Techpaladin, and Kubuntu Focus have announced a new initiative that will provide at least three years of support for KDE Plasma 6.6 LTS and related software.
-
Linux Mint Shares a Possible Kernel Cleanup Solution
For those on Linux Mint who like to keep multiple kernels around but don't want them to take up too much space, you might be getting a new automated tool.
-
CachyOS Gets an Update
CachyOS August 2026 release is now available with the latest version of KDE, some new features, and plenty of improvements.
