Many hands make light work, as they say. More importantly, though – many hands come with many minds. An FOSS project consists of a lot more than just the source code that powers your application. Most successful projects consist of at least the following: Website Documentation User Support Application(s)

The “RideOn” project for augmented reality ski goggles has won its Indiegogo funding. It runs Android on a 1.2GHz ARM CPU, and offers hands-free control. The need for high-tech, Android-based snow goggles like RideOn and Recon’s Snow2 is hard to fathom for skiers like us, who expend every last Joule of mental energy on staying […]

On January 23 this year, the Santa Clara High Tech Law Journal had their annual symposium on open source in the legal field at Santa Clara University. Prominent practitioners in the open source community spoke on topics ranging from licensing and compliance to healthcare and entertainment law. For anyone newly learning about open source licensing, this is a great look at some of the issues today. This is my account of the symposium. read more

We just accomplished something very important together. Today, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted for strong net neutrality protections. This happened because millions of people — including many hundreds of thousands in Mozilla’s community — joined together as citizens of … Continue reading

LXLE is a great example of how a respin can add value to an underlying base distribution with great visual elements, better navigation and a complete set of packages.

GCompris, an educational software suite providing fun activities for kids aged 2 to 10, has been upgraded to version 15.02 and is now available for download.

This week we are joined by Simon Phipps and Patrick Masson to talk about the Open Source Initiative (OSI). The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a global non-profit that supports and promotes the open source movement. Among other things, the OSI maintains the Open Source Definition, and a list of licenses that comply with that definition.

In recent years, there has been a trend in which data centers have been opting for commodity hardware and software over proprietary solutions. Why shouldn't they? It offers extremely low costs and the flexibility to build an ecosystem the way it is preferred. The only limitation is the extent of the administrator's imagination.

Aaeon launched a transportation-focused “NanoCOM-BT” COM Express Type 10 Mini module based on Atom E3800 SoCs, with optional industrial temperature support. The Linux-friendly NanoCOM-BT supports a variety of automation, medical, ticketing, kiosk, surveillance, and communications applications, but is primarily being promoted for use in public transportation devices. The 84 x 55mm COM Express Type 10 […]

Those who’re new to Linux want the best distro out there for new users, which means simple things like ease of use, productivity, speed, and security. But which distros are the best for new users? Actually, there is probably no “best,” but there are many distros that are designed keeping the needs of the inexperienced Linux user in mind.

Tails, The Amnesic Incognito Live System, version 1.3, is out. This release fixes numerous security issues and all users must upgrade as soon as possible.

Juniper Networks and Canonical, the lead commercial sponsor of Ubuntu Linux, are partnering for a new Network Function Virtualization cloud platform, based on OpenStack and the Contrail Software Defined Networking (SDN) controller.

In today's open source roundup: Valve's impact on Linux gaming. Plus: Why a tech journalist dumped Apple, Microsoft and Google for open source. And four music players for Linux.

Two months after first announcing Machine, Swarm and Compose, Docker rolls out the three orchestration tools. -

Internet activists scored a landmark victory on Thursday as the top US telecommunications regulator approved a plan to govern broadband internet like a public utility. FCC says ‘we listened and we learned’, and passes strict broadband rules that represent ‘a red-letter day for internet freedom’

As we've reported earlier, Canonical is preparing to announce the immediate availability for download and testing of the first Beta release for its Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, Kubuntu, as well as Ubuntu MATE, which became an official release this week.

Net Neutrality is a problem, not a solution, and it won’t take long before we’re told that even more extensive and intrusive government control of Internet service is necessary to address all the “unintended consequences” it produces.

Meizu has finally confirmed that it plans to use an MX4 device to present the Ubuntu system at Mobile World Congress 2015 in Barcelona, and it will also be the platform that will launch internationally with Ubuntu.

SparkFun Electronics was founded in 2003 as a source for engineers, inventors, prototypers and DIY enthusiasts to find the gear and tools they need to make their electronics projects possible. More than a decade later, SparkFun is still a leader in the world of open source hardware. In this interview, I sat down with founder and CEO Nathan Seidle to talk a bit about what drives SparkFun’s open source hardware model. read more

eOsFree Linux RC 1 is available. eOsFree Linux is a re-spin of the elementary OS distribution with a customized desktop.

Reversian is a simple text processor tool useful for generating some unicode-based text transformations.

Graphics card powerhouse Nvidia hasn't been having very much fun lately. First, the company took an Internet wide beating from gamers after selling a 4 GB graphics card (the GTX 970) that wasn't really a 4 GB graphics card, resulting in the $300+ purchase choking on high-end resolutions (or when using, say, Oculus Rift)...

Perhaps a bigger deal was Nvidia's December decision to roll out mobile graphics card drivers that prevented paying customers from overclocking the cards they own. The ability for consumers to do as they see fit with their own hardware, Nvidia claimed at the time, was a bug in the company's driver software that needed to be removed for the safety of the consumer,,,

I guess I had better announce this or the flurry of emails about it will never stop! Chivalry: Medieval Warfare is now fully out for Linux, and so you may draw your swords. It's also 66% off right now!

Today I created a scope for Ubuntu phone called Softpedia Linux Twitter and the process is incredibly simple, not to mention the fact that the publishing procedures are easy to follow and amazingly fast.

For decades after Linux's early '90s debut, even the hardest of hardcore boosters for the open source operating system had to admit that it couldn't really compete in one important area of software: gaming. "Back in around 2010 you only had two choices for gaming on Linux," Che Dean, editor of Linux gaming news site Rootgamer recalls. "Play the few open source titles, Super Tux Kart and so on, or use WINE to play your Windows titles."

The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS. We have expanded our hardware enablement offering since 14.04, and with 14.04.2, this point release contains an updated kernel and X stack for new installations to support new hardware.

Never mind the bugs... love the skin Ubuntu's in Review Elementary Linux has released the second beta of the imminent Freya release of its OS.…

Ozon OS Alpha is available. Ozon OS Ozon OS "Hydrogen" alpha is based on Fedora 20 and it uses GNOME Shell and Gnome apps by default, customized with various extensions. The newly released alpha is aimed at developers and ships with only part of the Atom Shell: Atom Dock, Launcher and Panel, so it's not really interesting for regular desktop users. However, the beta (and obviously, the final release) should include a lot more exiting stuff.

Blockly is the engine running underneath many of the online tutorials used today to introduce people of all ages to programming. In this article we interviewed Neil Fraser, from the Blockly developers team, and learned about the team’s perspective and vision. read more

Is it weird to say that DNS is my favorite protocol? Because DNS is my favorite protocol. There's something about the simplicity of UDP packets combined with the power of a service that the entire Internet relies on that grabs my interest. Through the years, I've been impressed with just how few resources you need to run a modest DNS infrastructure for an internal network.