Windows 10, The Matrix, and Linux Heros
Wow, it sure was a busy Thursday in the news feeds today. Windows 10 is getting a lot of headlines, some right in Open Source World. The Free Software Foundation issued a public statement urging folks to reject Windows 10 and LinuxBSDos.com advised dual-boot upgraders. The CEO of Mozilla even posted an open letter to Microsoft CEO concerning Windows 10. Elsewhere, Christine Hall blogged about the advancement of artificial intelligence, a LibreOffice update was announced, and Swapnil Bhartiya shared his pick of top five heros of Linux.
Windows 10 seems to be the big topic today as the "free" upgrade became available recently for those Windows 7 through Windows 8.1 users that thought to "reserve a copy." For those considering the upgrade, The Register posted the top three complaints from early adopters and Mozilla CEO said he's concerned with those and future updates wiping out user set default browser. He's "deeply disappointed" in Microsoft. The Free Software Foundation issued a statement urging all human-life to avoid Microsoft like the plague and, rather, "join us in the world of free software." For those still determined to upgrade, LinuxBSDos.com answered if Linux can survive the upgrade. (Spoiler alert: "well, it depends.")
My favorite story of the day was Swapnil Bhartiya's 5 heroes of the Linux world. He began, "Linux and open source is driven by passionate people who write best-of-breed software and then release the code to the public so anyone can use it." His list began with Klaus Knopper, the founder of Knoppix and Adriana Linux, which includes accessibility apps for the blind. Jim Zemlin, founder and Executive Director of the Linux Foundation and Linus Torvalds (of course) made the list. One that might surprise some is Lennart Pottering, who posted today on his Audio Terrorist blog of upcoming systemd.conf.
It seems I'm not the only one getting a bit uncomfortable at the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence. Christine Hall today said, "Welcome to the Matrix" wondering if humans will become the virus to dispatch as in the movie. "The dystopian future predicted by countless science fiction novels is now upon us. I can't see any way this can work out well for humankind." She rightly assumes this technology will not be used for good and opines AI under government direction. Folks are petitioning world leaders and International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence attendees to forgo the technology in warfare. Again, she rightly pegs the utter futility of the letter. She concluded AI will be used against the world population by their oppressive governments. In related news, Toolbox.com's Locutus yesterday said that the "four (or three if you only saw the movie) laws of robotics" will protect us and followed up today by saying tech is already ruling us anyway.
In other news:
* Open-source versus commercial software: better in different ways
* The Document Foundation Announces LibreOffice 4.4.5, with over 80 bug fixes.
* Evolving KDE – survey results
* 10 Job Interview Questions for Linux System Administrators