News

LibreOffice Developer Glimpse Proves Balance

Florian Effenberger recently posted statistics of the number of developers contributing to the LibreOffice project. Several months ago, Cedric Bosdonnat offered data on the number of contribution and contributors from the various sources.

OSCON Will Stream Keynotes and More Online

 Can't make it to OSCON this year?  You can still catch keynotes, interviews and news via live streaming video.   Check back right here during the conference July 25-29, 2011 to enjoy some great content virtually. Keynotes are Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 9am Pacific.

Mageia 2 Release Details Revealed

After an extensive discussion with the community on the Mageia developmental mailing list, Anne Nicolas revealed the results concerning Mageia release and support cycles as well as the release schedule for Mageia 2. The consensus was to use basically the same cycle used in Mageia 1.

Bitcoin - I Hardly Knew Ya

I first heard of Bitcoin when the Free Software Foundation announced they would start accepting it for donations. Before long another story about Bitcoin appeared in my news feeds. Then another. And another.

The Open Source Office Software Sector Heats Up

The world of LibreOffice and OpenOffice(.org) has been heating up recently with several exciting and, at times, bewildering developments. The Document Foundation remains very active as is LibreOffice development, but Oracle has given up on OpenOffice and slapped LibreOffice in the face by giving it to Apache. Perhaps the most important announcement was the release of LibreOffice 3.4.0.

Torvalds Honored by Gaggle of Lawyers

Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux and hero to many Open Source users, might not be the first person one might think would be honored by an organization of lawyers, but that's exactly what's happening. The International Technology Law Association will award Torvalds its ITechLaw Achievement Award at their upcoming 40th anniversary celebration.

Particularly Exciting Week in Linux

Linux is usually exciting, but this past week brought several nice developments. Slackware announced another developmental milestone for their next version. Bodhi Linux reached 1.0. Foresight announced their first release in two years. Zenwalk developers released version 7.0. And SimplyMepis gets a release candidate. Slackware 13.37

LibreOffice Rolls Out the Updates, Latest 3.3.2

Unlike OpenOffice.org of yore, LibreOffice developers have been pumping out the updates at a rapid pace. Since the inaugural release two months ago, LibreOffice has seen two minor version updates as well as associated developmental releases. The latest, LibreOffice 3.3.2, was released just a couple of days ago.

Mingle with openSUSE-ites on connect

The ever-inventive openSUSE gang have come up with another cool service to enhance user experience and promote good will. This time it is a little less technical and a little more social. Connect with other openSUSE users, developers, and groups. You can make friends, find out the latest news, and get involved.

DEX: Bridging Gaps Between Debian and Derivatives

Matt Zimmerman, Ubuntu CTO, has found a way to bridge the ever-widening crevasse between Debian and its derivatives. The Debian Front Desktop was formed last summer in order to bring together these camps, but Zimmerman wants to go a step or two further.

FreeBSD and PC-BSD Release New Versions

The FreeBSD project announced the release of versions 8.2 and 7.4 on February 24. Both bring lots of new features and bug fixes. FreeBSD can be run on a large variety of architectures and is still considered one of the most stable and hardened systems available.

Does The Document Foundation Support OOXML?

Soon after the release of LibreOffice 3.3, the Steering Committee posted their position on OOXML support in LibreOffice. Some of those that have tested the LibreOffice office suite knows that they can open and save in Microsoft Office formats. So, The Document Foundation supports OOXML then? Well, no, not really.

The New Features in LibreOffice 3.3

Despite earlier reports that very few if any new features would likely be seen in The Document Foundation's first LibreOffice release, the influx of new developers allowed much more work to be done. In fact, it was even released ahead of schedule. So, what kind of new goodies might one find?

Popular Free *BSDs in Full Development

Three well-known BSD clones are in their latest developmental cycles and have recently released test versions. FreeBSD is closing in on version 7.4 with a RC2, GhostBSD just released their 2.0 Beta 2, and PC-BSD 8.2 has seen its second release candidate as well.