Bruce Byfield

(Comment on this article at the bottom of this page.) Six weeks ago, Richard Stallman condemned network applications as proprietary software. He is right, of course — not only is the source code for most network apps unavailable, but except in a few cases like Clipperz, using them means that you cede control of your […]

Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu’s dictator-for-life, has been discussing usability in public and on his blog for the last six months. His call for a GNU/Linux desktop that surpasses Apple’s for usability sounds promising, and you might hope, like me, that Ubuntu 8.10 – a.k.a. Intrepid Ibex — is the first effort towards fulfilling this ambition. But, […]

Personal abuse, quotes taken out of context, misrepresentations, outright lies — if you have any visibility in the free and open source software (FOSS) community, the chances are that you regularly face all these kinds of attacks. You can try to answer them, but the people responsible seem to have endless energy for debate. In […]

These days, anyone who believes that they need a command line to work in GNU/Linux is in for a surprise. Not that the BASH shell isn’t a powerful and surprisingly easy to use command line, but, after years of playing catch-up, GNU/Linux is now a match for the latest version of Windows on the desktop. […]

You can categorize most GNU/Linux distributions as either community or commercial. Community-based distributions like Debian, Fedora, or CentOS are maintained largely by volunteers and donations of services or money, while commercial distributions like Suse, Red Hat, or Xandros are backed by a company and compete directly against proprietary operating systems such as Windows and OS […]

I love free and open source software (FOSS). The cause — essentially, an extension of free speech — is one that I can get behind as a writer, and community members are not only brilliant but both passionate and practical at the same time. It’s an exciting field, and the one in which I’ve chosen […]

A commenter on one of my articles recently asked: “Why is it that true believers feel the need to replace every last proprietary app?” He continued: “VMware, Skype, and Google Earth are best-of-breed and free-as-in-beer.” Over the last year or two, such sentiments — often rudely expressed — have become increasingly common in the free […]

By now, you’d think that anyone who owns a computer knows about free and open source software (FOSS). However, once you move beyond techie circles, you’ll find that, for many people, the concept is unknown. Even worse, when people have heard of it, they have alarming — and rather discouraging — misconceptions of what it […]

A few weeks ago, when I wrote that, “forced to choose, the average FOSS-based business is going to choose business interests over FOSS [free and open source software] every time,” many people, including Mathew Aslett and Matt Assay, politely accused me of being too cynical. Unhappily, you only have to look at the relations between […]

By definition, free and open source software (FOSS) is opposed to proprietary companies. But, as Jim Zemlin and Stephen J. Vaughan-Nichols have pointed out recently, the FOSS community does not regard all proprietary companies with equal disdain. Specifically, while fear and loathing of Microsoft often reaches towering, even paranoid heights, Apple is hardly ever condemned, […]