Category Archives: Open Source Software

Is Linux Mint the best distro to replace Windows XP?

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March 31, 2014, 11:37 AM Windows XP users are in a tough situation as that operating system draws close to its end of life. But there are many alternatives to Windows XP, and ZDNet thinks that Linux Mint might a very good one indeed.

I get it though. You know XP like the back of your hand and Windows 8.x has left you as cold as a penguin in the Antarctica ocean. You may also have considered switching to a Mac and gotten hives from just the thought, or contemplated a Chromebook but couldn't get past the idea of relying so much on the Internet and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). I suggest an alternative you may not have considered: Linux Mint.

Yes, I'm serious, and not just because I tend to use Linux desktops a lot and Mint in particular. I'm suggesting it for XP users for several specific reasons.

More at ZDNet

Image credit: ZDNet

There's also a gallery of Linux Mint and Windows XP images that show some similarities between the two desktop environments.

A basic primer on open source software Sci-Tech Today has a useful primer on the basics of open source software. It could be helpful if you ever need to explain to someone what open source means.

Open source software is software that is freely distributed. In other words, it is software that is free to acquire. Everyone can access it and modify the code if they wish. The opposite of open source is proprietary software that is closely held and controlled.

For example, Microsoft Office is proprietary software. Most open source software is community based, meaning many developers in different places work independently on the software. Open source may sound really "techie" oriented (and it is), but you may be surprised to find open source software all around you and how much it is affecting innovation.

More at Sci-Tech Today

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Is Linux Mint the best distro to replace Windows XP?

How The Rise Of The "R" Computer Language Is Bringing Open Source To Science

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Thanks to dwindling research budgets and the rising cost of science software, "open science" advocates may be succeeding at getting science to go open source. And it's thanks in part to a little-known language called R.

R is free, open source statistical analysis software. Privately owned tools like MATLAB, the mathematical computing software, and SAS, the statistical tool, have historically been necessary tools in labs, much the way Microsoft Office was in offices. But the ballooning cost of the software and dwindling research budgets have prompted scientists to turn to R instead.

Now a growing number of researchers have joined the R development community to create new libraries that branch away from statistical analysis and into parsing the growing quantity of scientific articles and data that find their way online. And it could change the way we do science in a major way.

Today, researchers use open source software to analyze data. And the R language is the de facto enabler for this trend, thanks to its early mainstay as a statistical analysis tool within scientific circles.

I first started using R back in 2005 when I was doing my PhD, and it was a very obscure language that very few people knew and that we used for statistics, says Dr. Ted Hart, a member of the core development team of the rOpenSci project, which develops R packages for scientists.

Most people I knew back then used SAS. It was just a giant, old, programming language, kind of like Fortran. Its analyzed line by line and whatnot, he says.

But when Hart started his post-doc in 2011, the lab where he did research only used R. It was taught by this evolutionary biologist, Dolph Schluter. Every grad student I knew used it, as opposed to when I was a grad student. And I think I was the only one [who didnt use R] in my department. So Ive seen that growth take off, says Hart.

Martin Fenner, the technical lead of the article-level metrics project at the scientific publisher PLoS, agrees. Theres just a lot of R, and everybody is just learning this as a student and is doing some sort of statistics, Fenner says.

Another benefit of R is that it costs no money and requires less administrative hurdles than would be needed to obtain licenses for large software packages, like SAS or MATLAB.

I work at a government agency, and I dont think I can get access to MATLAB. I would have to write a long text justifying the expense for MATLAB. And somebody says, Well you can just use this tool for free. Why are you arguing for MATLAB? says Hart.

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How The Rise Of The "R" Computer Language Is Bringing Open Source To Science

Ask Slashdot: How To Handle Unfixed Linux Accessibility Bugs?

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dotancohen (1015143) writes "It is commonly said that open source software is preferable because if you need something changed, you can change it yourself. Well, I am not an Xorg developer and I cannot maintain a separate Xorg fork. Xorg version 1.13.1 introduced a bug which breaks the "Sticky Keys" accessibility option. Thus, handicapped users who rely on the feature cannot use Xorg-based systems with the affected versions and are stuck on older software versions. Though all pre-bug Linux distros are soon scheduled for retirement, there seems to be no fix in sight. Should disabled users stick with outdated, vulnerable, and unsupported Linux distros or should we move to OS-X / Windows?

The prospect of changing my OS, applications, and practices due to such an ostensibly small issue is frightening. Note that we are not discussing 'I don't like change' but rather 'this unintentional change is incompatible with my physical disability.' Thus this is not a case of every change breaks someone's workflow."

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Ask Slashdot: How To Handle Unfixed Linux Accessibility Bugs?

It takes an open-source village to make commercial software

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Summary: Looking ahead, the Linux Foundation sees 80 percent of all commercial software development being based on open source.

Napa Valley, CA: At the Linux Foundation'sLinux Collaboration Summit, an invitation-only event for top Linux and open source developers, Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Foundation, said in the keynote: "Open source will be the new Pareto Principle." By that, he meant that 80 percent of technology valuewhether it's from smartphones, TVs, or ITwill be coming from open source software development with only 20 percent coming from proprietary programming.

As Zemlin pointed out, "Np one makes anything these days without open source software. Phones, TVs, even at Apple, you'll find the GPL and dozens of open source programs being used in every single iPhone and iPad."

He wasn't just picking on Apple, which has a long history of repurposing open source software. Mac OS X at its root grows from the fertile earth of BSD Unix. In The Linux Foundation's just releasedCollaborative Development Trends Report, Zemlin said, "We see many companies have already moved to open source software. This report shares the results of an invitation-only survey of nearly 700 software developers and business managers about their participation and investments in collaborative development practices."

The companies polled are the industry leaders driving this collaborative development revolution and include such top IT businesses as Cisco, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Intel, Google, NEC, Oracle, Qualcomm, and Samsung. The majority of respondents (69 percent) work at organizations with $500 million or more in annual revenue and more than 500 employees (76 percent).

In particular, this survey looked at open source collaborative projects. As Zemlin said in his keynote, "The rise of Linux and open source tools and components in the enterprise software industry over the past decade has been well documented. More recently, a new business model has emerged in which companies are joining together across industries to share development resources and build common open source code bases on which they can differentiate their own products and services. In the past, collaboration was done by standards committees; now it's being done by open source foundations."

The key findings from the report were:

Companies get involved in collaborative software development to advance business objectives and to be part of industry innovation. Ninety-one percent of business managers and executives surveyed ruled collaborative software development somewhat to very important to their business. And nearly 80 percent say collaborative development practices have been seen as more strategic to their organization over the past three years. Nearly half of business managers surveyed said they prioritize collaborative development because it allows them to innovate and/or help transform their industry.

Investments in collaborative software development are on the rise. Among business managers and executives, 44 percent said they would increase their investments in collaborative software development in the next six months; 42 percent said they would sustain their current investment, and no one reported they would decrease their investment.

Sixty-three percent of software developers surveyed said they spend more time now on collaborative software development, compared with five years ago. And 59 percent reported increased participation in collaborative software development in just the last year. Individual developers and businesses both benefit from the trend toward collaboration.Eighty-three percent of software developers said they benefited personally from collaborative development through exposure to new tools and development practices. More than 77 percent of business managers said collaborative development practices have benefited their organizations through a shorter product development cycle/faster time to market.

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It takes an open-source village to make commercial software

Pursuing adoption of free and open source software in governments

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Free and open source software creates a natural and even necessary fit with government. I joined a panel this past weekend at the Free Software Foundation conference LibrePlanet on this topic and have covered it previously in a journal article and talk. Our panel focused on barriers to its adoption and steps that free software advocates could take to reach out to government agencies.

LibrePlanet itself is a unique conference: a techfest with mission an entirely serious, feasible exploration of a world that could be different. Participants constantly ask: how can we replace the current computing environment of locked-down systems, opaque interfaces, intrusive advertising-dominated services, and expensive communications systems with those that are open and free? Ill report a bit on this unusual gathering after talking about government.

The LibrePlanet panel on government adoption was chaired by MIT professor and community activist Ezra Glenn; I participated along with software developer and OReilly author Karl Fogel and a lot of impressive audience members.

Audience attending the keynote.

Reasons for government agencies to adopt free and open source software have been aired repeatedly, including my article mentioned earlier. A few justifications include:

Obviously, though, government agencies havent gotten the memo. Im not just talking metaphorically; there have been plenty of memos urging the use of open source, ranging from the US Department of Defense to laws passed in a number of countries.

And a lot of progress has taken place. Munich, famously, has switched its desktops to GNU/Linux and OpenOffice.org but the process took 13 years. Elsewhere in Europe, Spain has been making strides, and the UK promises to switch. In Latin America, Brazil has made the most progress. Many countries that could benefit greatly from using free software and have even made commitments to do so are held back by a lack of IT staff with the expertise to do so.

Key barriers include:

Thoroughgoing change in the area of software requires managers to have a certain consciousness at a higher level: they need to assert control over their missions and adopt agile workflows. That will inevitably spawn a desire for more control over the software that carries out these missions. A posting by Matthew Burton of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau shows that radical redirections like this are possible.

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Pursuing adoption of free and open source software in governments