Divisive Community, the Ubuntu Desktop, and is Idealism Dead?
Today in Linux news, Desktop Team manager at Canonical says the desktop isn't being neglected at Ubuntu. Matt Hartley looks at how friction helps and hurts the Linux community. Steven Ovadia talks to Eric Hameleers about his "Linux setup" and Dietrich T. Schmitz shares his thoughts on Fedora 21 so far. And finally today, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6 was released.
As Ubuntu's 10 year anniversary approaches, OMG!Ubuntu! celebrates with a user survey "asking everything from which release of Ubuntu was your first to whether you are still as excited for new releases as you once were." Speaking of Ubuntu, Will Cooke, the new Desktop Team manager at Canonical, today blogged at Michael Hall's about Unity 8 desktop plans. He said that although everyone seems focused on Ubuntu's smartphone goals, the desktop isn't being neglected because it and the phone "use the same code. The plan is to have the single converged operating system ready for use on the desktop by 16.04." He shares a bit on how they hope to achieve that goal along with a release schedule, screenshots, and links to current snapshot. The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for last week was published today as well.
Matt Hartley says there's always been friction in the Linux community but in days past, it seemed to push the best code forward. He thinks today's friction is "proven to be more divisive than productive." Hartley says it began with Stallman versus Torvalds on binary blobs and continues unto this day. Hartley runs down a couple more examples before throwing his arms into the air saying, "The one thing we as a community can do is to push forth the positive."
Linux Advocate Dietrich T. Schmitz took the new Fedora 21 Alpha for a bit of a test drive recently and wrote, "It's a good sign when I find myself smiling, which is what happened after installing Fedora 21 Alpha Workstation. This is Alpha? It's more production-ready than other general releases I have seen." He then runs down why he's smiling, which is mainly GNOME 3.14, then concludes, "I am giving a thumbs up to the Fedora and GNOME Teams for their hard work. Fedora Workstation really shines." In related news, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.6 was released today.
In other news:
* The Linux Setup - Eric Hameleers, Slackware Linux
* Hackers Shake Confidence in 1980s Free Software Idealism
* Debian Project chooses LeaseWeb to provide global snapshot archive