Bruce Byfield

“I will do everything that is possible to keep MySQL alive,” says Michael (Monty) Widenius, the main developer of the well-known open source database. “I just hope it’s enough.” Widenius is talking against the background of Oracle Corporation’s acquisition of MySQL along with the other assets of Sun Microsystems. According to Widenius, if allowed to […]

Linux may no longer have the largest share of the netbook market, the way it did a couple of years ago. But you could still say that if the community isn’t dominating in sales, it’s taking the lead in interface choices. Recently, everybody seems focused on the netbook market. The communities that develop lightweight desktops […]

Even though this is the end of the decade only for those who can’t count, retrospectives seem more common than predictions in the last days of 2009. Or maybe, after a year of recession, all the pundits are nervous about the future. But, never being one to follow a trend or get nostalgic, I prefer […]

I have always been skeptical of cloud computing. In the rush towards the latest new thing, developers are downplaying problems about privacy and availability. Moreover, the centralization of cloud computing is no more convenient than open source applications that can be installed anywhere you want. Nor have I changed my mind now that I have […]

For the past three years, Jono Bacon has worked as community manager for Ubuntu, one of the largest and most diverse projects in open source software. Consequently, when he recently published his thoughts on building and managing communities, people listen. More unusually, as I found out in a recent interview, when people like me critique […]

Incremental releases for large projects are often grab bags of unrelated features. However, KDE SC 4.4 beta 1 (aka KDE 4.3.80) is a welcome exception to the rule. True, the release includes new applications and improvements to existing applications on the KDE desktop. But it also features improvements to general desktop functionality and the evolution […]

“This is not a democracy, it’s a meritocracy.” The statement comes from the Ubuntu Governance page, but you can find similar statements in the Fedora Release Notes, the Why Debian For Developers page, and just about anywhere else were free and open source software (FOSS) projects discuss their core values. Clearly, meritocracy is one of […]

Ubuntu is probably the most popular Linux distribution ever. According to the 2007 Desktop Linux Survey, over 30% of Linux users run Ubuntu, and, if anything, the numbers have increased since then. In June 2009, Ubuntu’s users were estimated as 13 million, and the distro was described as “growing faster than any other distribution.” When […]

“It’s all about building on-ramps,” says Paul W. Frields, the Fedora Project Leader. “As a community, we tend to be oriented towards getting people involved in the open source process, rather than towards getting everyone to switch from whatever they’re using now.” It’s an orientation that Frields sees as central to the GNU/Linux distribution’s rapid […]

The Free Software Foundation is having a video contest on the subject “Why is free software important to you?” It’s a timely topic, with Windows 7 just out and with the free software community’s bickering so bitter as of late that common goals sometimes seem in danger of being forgotten. I lack any talent for […]