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opensourcenews

152 karma · joined August 17, 2016

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opensourcenews··on SteamOS, Linux, and Steam Machines
Potentially unpopular opinion: There is no money to be made in consumer desktop operating systems in 2018, so there is little funding for innovation in the consumer desktop operating system space. Until a business model emerges which challenges this, the status quo will remain roughly the status quo.

The two major commercial producers of proprietary operating systems are basically giving away their operating system at this point. Free Linux distributions offer basically the same functionality for most users; the only things preventing migration from one OS to another are existing applications. For non-gamers, that's often moot, because the world exists in a web browser now. Yes, there are other applications causing OS lock-in too, but they're mostly on the business side, not the consumer side.

There is still plenty of money to be made from enterprise operating systems, but the innovation there is in a totally different direction than what consumers would find valuable.

Example: Linux containers are great! But who's spending the R&D money to make them a viable way to distribute games? There's plenty of work being done on containers and graphics chipsets for ML applications, but not for consumer use.

opensourcenews··on Storyboarder: free, cross-platform storyboard tool
Great. Sounds like freeware to me. Not free software.
opensourcenews··on Storyboarder: free, cross-platform storyboard tool
Under what license may I utilize this piece of software?
opensourcenews··on Storyboarder: free, cross-platform storyboard tool
Literally the purpose of the Open Source Initiative is to provide definition to what open source is and is not, and to prevent openwashing by companies and individuals presenting their non-open software as open source.

I'm not going to argue with someone who thinks open source is a feeling subject to their own personal interpretations in lieu of license.

opensourcenews··on Storyboarder: free, cross-platform storyboard tool
> Where did you get that gem from?

From the open source definition: https://opensource.org/osd

> As far as I know the only OS License that has been deemed enforceable is GNU General Public License.

The OSI recognizes a number of different licenses, as do the attorneys of the numerous individuals and companies making use of them.

> It's free software

It's not, unless I have a legal right to redistribute a modified copy.

"Open source" and "free software" both have requirements to meet their respective definitions. And additonally, "source is viewable" is not the same thing as a license.

opensourcenews··on Storyboarder: free, cross-platform storyboard tool
But again, to be clear, it's not free software according to the commonly accepted definition of free software.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

opensourcenews··on Storyboarder: free, cross-platform storyboard tool
Because open source has a very specific definition which the licensing on this application does not conform to. The ability to produce derived works is a key attribute of open source.

And I understand that these are your thoughts, but what I'm looking for is a clear and legally enforceable license, which seems to still be missing.

opensourcenews··on Storyboarder: free, cross-platform storyboard tool
Note: This licensing is really unclear and problematic.

https://twitter.com/charlesforman/status/909863346127671296

https://wonderunit.com/thoughts-on-free-and-open-source/

opensourcenews··on QuickBASIC Lives on with QB64
I got my start with programming in QBasic. Now I work at a Prominent North American Enterprise Linux Vendor. FWIW I don't write much code that gets merged into anything important, but I wouldn't be working in the tech industry at all if it weren't for the curiosity QBasic sparked in me twenty years ago.
opensourcenews··on Elevated Use of Absolutist Words Is a Marker of Anxiety, Depression [pdf]
I would have written the headline as "In an Absolute State: Elevated Use of Absolutist Words Could Be a Marker Specific to Anxiety, Depression, and Suicidal Ideation" but maybe that's only because I'm in a good mood.
opensourcenews··on Driving a "Green car" vs cycling
> City planners assumed everyone would have one, engineers overbuilt roads for them to the detriment of walking or biking, and businesses and residential areas are often far apart from each other.

Close. More like "rich white people had cars, rich white people control local zoning and planning decisions, ergo cities and suburbs were planned to accommodate those rich white people's cars, and then we all had to get one just to survive because density and infrastructure support dollars dropped to a point where other modes became unviable."

opensourcenews··on Light Traffic
And the pedestrians go where?
opensourcenews··on Are “landscrapers” the new skyscrapers?
I tend to agree with the comments about height, but re: skyways - they're just kind of weird. They're not public spaces, so they can be exclusionary. And the vibe is just kind of weird. Downtown Atlanta below the skyways is already eerily quiet for a major city, but within them... I don't know, I have a constant feeling that I'm trespassing even though I'm not. Does anyone else get this feeling?
opensourcenews··on Wal-Mart is telling some vendors they can’t run applications on AWS
Wal-mart, with a large IT cost center, benefits from a diverse and competitive cloud infrastructure ecosystem. More at 11.
opensourcenews··on Inside the Largest US Voter Data Leak
I still don't understand the concern.

Want the name, age, gender, home address, mailing address, party of registration, and voter history from every registered voter in North Carolina? Here is the "leak" on Amazon S3. http://dl.ncsbe.gov/index.html?prefix=data/

Except, by leak, I mean, link I got from my state board of elections' homepage.