ToleranUX, Torvalds Walk-back, and Mageia's Badluck
Yesterday ArsTechnica.com quoted Linus Torvalds saying a focus on diversity is distracting and apparently it didn't set well with some folks. Today Torvalds emailed ArsTechnica.com in an effort to explain what he meant more precisely. Elsewhere, a mock distribution seems to be poking fun at feminists and diversity crowd. In other news, Mageia 5 Beta 2 is out after a bit of bad luck that may delay the final.
My favorite story of the day was the release of Mageia 5 Beta 2. Unfortunately, it was a good news/bad news thing. Good news, Beta 2 is here; bad news, Final has been delayed until March 10. Today's post said "various difficulties with EFI boot, grub 2 and a few other things" have caused the delay. The errata has been updated as of today although it still refers to Beta 1 in places. The announcement specifically asked for folks with UEFI machines to "test Beta 2 and report your experiences." Beta 2 shipped with KDE 4.14.3, GNOME 3.14.2, Linux 3.18.2, and systemd 217. Beta 3 is now scheduled for February 3 and the Release Candidate for February 24.
Yesterday Linus Torvalds made news by saying he didn't have time to be distracted by worrying about diversity quotas. He only cares about the technology and that works out well for Linux users. However, he must have got a lot of negative feedback on that statement because today he wrote ArsTechnica.com to try and explain. Torvalds told ArsTechnica.com, "What I wanted to say [at the keynote]—and clearly must have done very badly—is that one of the great things about open source is exactly the fact that different people are so different. It's not a religion. It's not an 'us vs them' thing." For him, it's about technology, not ideology.
Torvalds statements didn't come soon enough for some pranksters on Github today. Under the guise and nom de plume "Feminist Software Foundation," someone opened a Github account and page for ToleranUX. ToleranUX is said to be "world's first tolerant UNIX-like kernel." The commandline prompt reads "smash patriarch" and SystemV is the init. ArsTechnica.com isn't amused and goes into quite a bit more detail. For example ToleranUX on coding:
Absolutely no coding experience is necessary: all code are equal in the eyes of the Feminist Software Foundation. There is no objective way to determine whether one person's code is better than another's. In light of this fact, all submitted code will be equally accepted. However, marginalized groups, such as wom*n and trans* will be given priority in order to make up for past discrimination. Simply submit a pull request for any submission, whether code, artwork, or even irrelevant bits — nothing is irrelevant in the grand struggle for a Truly Tolerant UNIX-ike Kernel!
In other news:
* Interview with systemd creator Lennart Poettering
* AntiX MX-14.3 review
* Review: Linux Mint 17.1 "Rebecca" Xfce
* Fedora 21 review: Linux’s sprawliest distro finds a new focus
* Moving steam's .local folder deletes all user files on Linux