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On Tuesday, Apple acquired FoundationDB, an enterprise software company with a major open source component. On Wednesday, that open source component was no more.

Red Hat, the world’s largest commercial distributor of the Linux operating system, reported revenue and profit that beat estimates, as the company benefited from higher demand for open-source software and its cloud-based products.

Yes, you can open up your Dropbox account in a web browser and manage your files and folders. But that isn't nearly as efficient as having the ability to interact with Dropbox from within a file manager. Up until now, with ChromeOS, that wasn't possible. But thanks to developer Yoichiro Tanaka, Dropbox integration is here.

Activities are virtual desktops. They share a common panel and menu, but each has its own layout and selection of items on the desktop. In addition, each has its own virtual workspaces and wallpaper.

Ubuntu security isn't difficult: Hardening your Ubuntu installation is usually a straight forward process. Yet sometimes in our haste, we forget to address important security measures early on. In this article I'll share my essential Ubuntu security hardening techniques.

A Reuters report earlier this week clearly stated that Microsoft planned to tackle software piracy, especially in China, with a “free upgrade to Windows 10.” But that is incorrect: Instead, Microsoft will continue to treat stolen Windows versions as it always has, and it is not giving amnesty to pirates.

If you're a movie buff, like myself, then you've probably heard of a little open-source project called Popcorn Time. Effectively, this app serves as a well crafted interface that allows the user to watch a vast selection of pirated films. Once the film is viewed, it disappears without a trace of it having been on the user's machine.

We've all experienced it -- that one app that seems to cause never-ending problems. It'll run for a while and then, out of nowhere, it starts freezing or force crashing. This becomes an even bigger problem when the app in question happens to be in the "must-use" category. What do you do? Do you continue suffering through the data loss and crashes? No, you don't. This is business, and you can't deal with apps that don't behave as needed

The GNOME desktop may have declined in popularity, but GNOME technology remains more popular than ever. In fact, if you tally the number of users today on leading desktops, well over a third run applications designed for GNOME. Not even KDE, GNOME's long-time rival, exceeds this popularity.

Near the end of its announcement, the Redmond-based company casually revealed that it is testing Windows 10 with “power users” of Xiaomi’s flagship Mi 4 Android smartphone. The initiative, which Xiaomi stressed is not a partnership but merely assistance with the trial, is an interesting one because it again shows Microsoft’s new ‘platform agnostic’ approach.

Speaking to Reuters from the WinHEC conference in China, Microsoft's operating system chief Terry Myerson said, "We are upgrading all qualified PCs, genuine and non-genuine, to Windows 10." This means that everyone running Windows 7 or 8.1, irrespective of whether you pirated the operating system or not, will be allowed to upgrade to a legitimate version of Windows 10.

Like most people, I find myself using the same VoIP options everyone else is using. Thankfully, these days there are far more options available than what we might think. Today, I'll look at these options and also explore up-and-coming alternatives as well.

A couple of years after its official release, Valve’s Steam for Linux initiative is making steady progress. It recently notched up a significant milestone when the number of Linux-compatible games on Steam breached the 1,000 mark.

Android Lollipop was released to general availability in October 2014. At this point, less than 2% of Android devices are running the latest iteration of the most widely used platform on the planet. I currently have six different Android devices, none of which are running Lollipop. I check each of them everyday for an update, and not one of them has shown signs of a fresh, candy-flavored Android.

Make ASCII art, talk to your computer and play text adventures. Your Linux command line isn’t just for work: it can be weirdly entertaining, if you know the right commands.

When one considers open source, it's fairly easy to imagine a world of designers, developers, and distributors getting along fabulously while sharing ideas and ideals like most people share memes on Facebook.

It's not just the desktop environment that makes KDE Plasma popular. It's the applications as well.

Anytime I'm forced to use Windows or OS X I instantly find myself missing the specific features I enjoy on the Linux desktop. More specifically, it's the post-installation enhancements that make using someone else's computer near painful.

Sometimes, a backup of a smartphone or tablet just isn't enough, especially if you have a number of (the same) devices that have to be quickly deployed (or redeployed). For that, you need a bit more power than Titanium Backup or Google Drive. If you want to do full-blown backup of devices, you must turn to the Android Software Developer Kit (SDK). With this powerhouse tool, you can easily create a complete backup of a device with a single command.

Use these Chromebook tricks to squeeze more productivity out of Chromebook and make it more efficient.