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FEATURE FREE SOFTWARE OF THE BEST THINGS ABOUT FREE SOFTWARE 2014 This year will be the best ever for Linux and Free Software. Why? Mike Saunders has 51 reasons… 38 www.linuxvoice.com FREE SOFTWARE FEATURE or so long, it looked like Linux While the almighty annihilation of little Linux machines in their pockets. was on the cusp of causing a Windows never happened, a much And the Raspberry Pi has been a Frevolution, of pulling the masses more subtle set of changes took storming success, introducing children away from Windows and introducing place. Linux is everywhere now – worldwide to open computing. them to a new world of computing. but not many people know it. GNU/ 2014 has a huge amount in store for Linux distributions were becoming Linux powers many of the biggest Linux users, and not just in terms of easier to use by the month, desktop websites in the world, serving up web software – people, communities and applications were being refined and applications to hundreds of millions of events will also shape the course of the polished, and PC vendors were starting users. Android dominates the mobile year. So read on for 51 awesome things to ship Linux with their machines. scene, with countless people carrying to look forward to… FEDORA 21 FIREFOX Fedora 21 bucks the VERIFIED BUILDS trend of previous Even if you’re running an releases by having a open source browser, longer development you can’t be 100% cycle than usual certain that the binary which will hopefully executable doesn’t 1provide more time for have an NSA backdoor new technologies like inserted, possibly via Wayland to settle down. a rogue compiler. Well, All being well, the distro this is changing: Mozilla will arrive in August. And is pushing ahead with Recent Fedora releases have been (in) the lack of a codename is Firefox verified builds, famous for their quirky codenames; it looks like Fedora 21 will be a lot more serious. significant: some would which means you’ll argue that names like be able to prove that “Beefy Miracle” stopped nothing dodgy has been KDBUS certain users from taking added to the source2 code Lennart Poettering is at it again. After causing a stir INKSCAPE 0.91 Fedora seriously. before it was compiled. among boot script and sound server developers Hang on a minute – with systemd and PulseAudio, the German coder is hasn’t Inkscape been now trying his hand at inter-process communication at 0.48.x for years FREEBSD 10 GIMP 2.10 (IPC) in the Linux kernel. Right now, applications now? Well, yes, but FreeBSD is more Talk about development and background processes can communicate with we’ve always thought this was unfair. conservative than Linux hell: GEGL, the Generic one another via D-Bus, which Poettering describes Inkscape is an excellent in that it doesn’t get Graphics Library for as “fantastic”. But if it’s so good, why do we need to vector editor already fancy new features so Gimp, has been in replace it? 5 used in production quickly, but it’s more development since 2000, For starters, D-Bus is fine for sending short environments, so stable in the long run. yet still isn’t an official messages between programs (eg a desktop volume we’re glad to see the next release will get FreeBSD 10 has just part of the program. applet telling the sound server to knock it down a close to the magic been released, with the GEGL will support notch), but it’s not so good for transporting data, as it 1.0 number. Version 3GCC compiler suite being images with higher bit adds latency and complication. Kdbus (Poettering’s 0.91 will include: replaced by Clang in the depths, along with non- project) is an in-kernel version of D-Bus, designed Cairo rendering for the base system, Raspberry destructive editing. Parts for shifting large (multi-gigabyte) quantities of data display engine and PNG 4 export; a new grayscale Pi support, and a new of it were implemented in with minimum overheads. It’s still very much in display mode; and bhyve hypervisor. See Gimp 2.6, and we should development, but providing it gets a (usually very rare) heaps of performance https://wiki.freebsd.org/ see the whole shebang thumbs-up from Linus Torvalds, we might see it in the improvements. It’ll use WhatsNew/FreeBSD10. rolled into Gimp 2.10. mainline kernel tree by the end of the year. 25% less RAM in some Poettering is developing Kdbus with long-time cases too, making it better for older hardware. kernel hacker Greg Kroah-Hartman and others; follow its progress here: https://github.com/gregkh/kdbus. AKADEMY Free software events are great. There’s place from 6–12 September in Brno, lots of hacking, lots of brainstorming, second city of the Czech Republic, and Brno has Akademy, and lots of beer. Akademy is the annual a beautiful place at that. New features good beer and horses – summit for KDE developers: it’s a free will be proposed and discussed, so what’s not to like? and non-commercial event organised head to http://akademy.kde.org if you by the community. This year it will take want to take part. www.linuxvoice.com 7 39 FEATURE FREE SOFTWARE EDWARD SNOWDEN DEBIAN 8.0 To some he’s a true American patriot, Microsoft, Apple, Google et al are really BANSHEE 3.0 FREEZE fighting to defend the US constitution doing their best to defend my data? Hopefully we’ll see It looks like we won’t see against attacks by a spy-crazy How much are these companies version 3.0 of this Debian 8.0 this year, government. To others he’s a thrice- sharing with governments? awesome music which isn’t surprising cursed traitor who revealed confidential Linux and Free Software is no player very soon: it’s given the distro’s long intelligence information to the rest of panacea, but at least the openness of being ported10 to GTK 3, gaps between releases. One of the biggest the world, harming American interests. its source code provides reassurance and will also support changes will be the In any case, there’s no doubt that that dodgy back-doors added by synchronisation with switch to a new boot-up 9Edward Snowden’s leaks have caused a intelligence agencies would be spotted Symbian devices. 37 bug system: the old init huge debate – not just in the US but quickly. The NSA revelations provide fixes have been made scripts will be replaced around the world. useful ammunition for Linux advocates: since the 2.6 release too. by systemd or Upstart (as used in Ubuntu). A Whether it makes us safer or not, the we can confidently say “Our software is debate is taking place sheer amount of spying on their very unlikely to be spying on us, about the possible boot citizens that governments are doing is because we can read the source code”. ENLIGHTENMENT systems, and Debian 8.0 shocking. Edward Snowden hasn’t There are more Snowden leaks due in E19 won’t be frozen (closed come out waving Linux flags and 2014, and they will drive more people to for new features) until The next release of the November, so there’s championing open source, but a lot of investigate Linux and Fre Software. world’s fanciest window lots of time to decide. people are starting to ask: can I really There’s even a Snowden tribute distro: manager will bring a new trust my software? Can I be sure that www.binaryemotions.com/snowden. compositor and better Wayland integration. Lead developer DIGIKAM 4.0 GNU HACKERS’ Rasterman hopes to Arguably the best open MEETING 2014 “close the feature source photo manager The GNU Hacker’s window sometime in in existence, Digikam is Meeting is an event to February”, so we’re likely going from strength to discuss technical, social to see the final release strength. The 4.0 release and organisational hit the internet some – due to be released in issues relating to Free time in the summer. May – brings oodles of Software and the GNU www.enlightenment.org new features thanks to Project. It will take place the Google Summer of on 15–17 September in 11 12Code. Working with tags Munich at the Technical EMBEDDED will be much easier via University, and while it’s a new hierarchical tags free to attend, you have LINUX manager and drag-and- to register, at www.gnu. Edward Snowden’s leaks are CONFERENCE drop capabilities in the org/ghm/2014. encouraging some people to Cars, washing machines, try Free Software. Tags Manager, while Anyone can give fridges, doorbells – you image: Laura Poitras / Praxis Films Pick Labels can be used presentations ranging name it, Linux is in it. The development scene to auto-tag images. from 30–60 minutes, so for embedded Linux Nepomuk support has if you’ve been working on devices is bustling, so if been re-implemented, a piece of software you’d SOFTWARE FREEDOM DAY you’ll be in San Jose after being broken for a like to see in GNU, let the We all try to spread the word about Linux and FOSS, from 29 April – 1 May, while. www.digikam.org community know. but sometimes it’s difficult, especially over the check this event out. http://tinyurl. 13 internet. So every September, Free Software com/4gvlozz supporters organise real-world events to promote the benefits and values of FOSS, and everyone is welcome to get involved.