LXer Weekly Roundup for 12-Feb-2012

LXer Feature: 13-Feb-2012 Its been quite the week, Canonical pulls the funding for Kubuntu, Jared Smith steps down as the Fedora project leader and then Robyn Bergeron is named as his successor, unsung heroes of Linux, Is Linux still cool? Is is fractured? and Why The Linux Desktop Matters More Than Ever, This Time? All these questions and more in this week's Roundup. Enjoy!

Piracy and the value of freedom: openSUSE community manager, Jos Poortvliet, wonders if putting a tax on the sharing of knowledge might limit social as well as economic growth..

Five open source hardware projects that could change the world: Open source hardware is increasingly making the news, as Ford partners with Bug Labs to “advance in-car connectivity innovation”, thousands of US Radio Shack stores start stocking Arduino, and Facebook releases the plans for energy-efficient data centre technology via Open Compute. But could it change the world? Andrew Back takes a look at five projects which just might.

Canonical pulls funding on Kubuntu after 7 years: Kubuntu 12.04 will be the last release before becoming community supported, and Jonathan Riddell tells the community how they can help

Kubuntu Is Dead, Time To Switch To Linux Mint KDE, openSUSE?: I heard some rumors at the FOSDEM that Canonical was pulling plugs on KDE, which also creates the Kubuntu spin of Ubuntu. What it meant, if the rumors were to be believed, that KDE won't have a great integration with Ubuntu.

Has Microsoft finally killed off Windows 8 Start button?: Microsoft is reportedly killing the Start button in Windows, a staple of Redmond's PC operating system since the landmark Windows 95. Purported screen shots of Windows 8 Consumer Preview are reported to show a Super Bar that extends across the full bottom of the screen minus the Start button orb.

This Week at LWN: Jared Smith steps down as Fedora project leader: One of the things I like most about the Fedora Project is the opportunity for people to move and grow in (and out) of different roles and responsibilities. The position of Fedora Project Leader, in particular, has never been a long-term leadership position, but one that regularly invites new people to assume the role and bring new ideas and new energy to the project.

Red Hat Appoints First Female Fedora Project Leader: It looks like current Fedora Project Leader Jared Smith will not be overseeing the Beefy Miracle Fedora 17 release. Smith announced leadership changes at the Fedora project today that will see a new leader in place.

Controlling Liquor Loss with Linux: The Replay Lounge in Lawrence, Kansas, ranked number 64 on Esquire's Best Bars in America 2011 list and landed spot number 31 on Complex Magazine's 2010 list of the 50 best college bars in America. Since opening back in 1993, this popular local bar has been best known for its pinball machines, ice cold PBR, mix of colorful characters, and some of the best live music you'll find anywhere. Few people know that inside this dark little bar, Linux servers and some open source-based scripts are keeping an eye on liquor and its link to the bottom line.

Social Networks and Privacy in the Eyes of Richard Stallman: The founder of the Free Software Foundation is concerned about the ways of the leading social networks, especially Facebook.

Unsung Heroes of Linux, Part One: Everyone knows and loves Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux. Mark Shuttleworth, the creator of Ubuntu Linux, is pretty famous. Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation and creator of the GPL, is equal parts famous and infamous. But surely there is more to Linux and Free/Open Source software than these three. And indeed there are thousands upon thousands of people toiling away fueling the mighty FOSS engine; here is a small sampling of these important contributors who make the FOSS world go 'round.

Is GNU/Linux just not cool anymore?: Software is becoming less and less important. Most people today just don't care about what software they use, what operating system they run, or who is behind the pretty screens they see. What they want, is something that works. Or, better, anything that works. This shift caused a series of changes which shook the whole industry. One of them amongst them: are GNU/Linux and free software in general just not cool anymore? Google Trends gives some interesting answers.

Is Desktop Linux Becoming Fractured as Open Source Matures?: Until quite recently, the Linux world had, for the most part, only two major desktop environments: GNOME 2 and KDE. Fast forward to the present, however, and there’s an immense litany of different choices, all vying to become the new face of your open source operating system. To me, this shift signals a new paradigm in the world of free software — a turn that could have major consequences throughout the channel. Here’s why.

Is Linux Mint Really Eating Ubuntu's Lunch?: Because of the way many Linux distributions make their way into the wild unfettered by commercial overlords, it's sometimes hard to draw a precise bead on who is using what flavor of Linux. In the world of commercial operating systems, by contrast, it's easy as pie to identify Microsoft Windows and Mac OS as the most widely used platforms.

Why The Linux Desktop Matters More Than Ever, This Time?: If we look back at failures of Linux on Desktops till today and analyze the technical part, it was due to hardware support and the software quality (GUI) that general computer users could use.