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I had been showing her around the system on my laptop, noting the impressive number of educational games and applications that are included. Obviously, she wasn’t impressed. She went on to argue that less is more, that all those applications were choking the machine and blocking it from it’s real potential.

This would allow Microsoft to offer its operating system at no cost to OEMs — eliminating the Windows tax. Purchasers of new machines would receive a free year’s subscription to Windows, complete with Windows Cloud Storage and MS Office sub-Basic. Eleven months into use, nag screens appear at boot: “Your Windows subscription will expire in 30 days. Click here to renew.”

Perhaps Microsoft isn’t making as much noise as usual because it’s afraid that if people look too closely, they’ll find that its latest and greatest is like an operating system put together at a Goodwill, with parts borrowed from Android, ChromeOS, GNU/Linux and iOS.

As a greenhorn Linux newbie eight springs ago, I happened upon an article on LXer about this guy in Texas who had an idea on how to promote Linux. Oh, it was a crazy idea all right, but thinking about it at the time, it was one that might…just…work. For the Indianapolis 500 in 2007, the idea — this crazy plan — was to put Linux on the side and nose of a car, and while penguins couldn’t fly, they still could go just over 220 and turn left.

Anomalies. That’s what we are. We, as in those 50 years of age or more who not only know how to use a computer, but who make them do our bidding.

They’ll shut down their software repositories, JIRA and Confluence servers, shared developer infrastructure and mailing lists at the end of May. The foresightlinux.org domain will remain as an informal “alumni association” for an indefinite amount of time, along with the project IRC channels for as long as they are in use.

The majority of us in today’s work force rely on it to earn our livings. Whether we use it directly while sitting in front of a computer or by tallying a daily quota for auditors to further calculate, in one way or another, software is the key to getting our jobs done.

Starting with the simple premise — lost on some FOSS elitists (and you know who you are) — that most Windows XP users are actually people of average intelligence or better, and not digital Neanderthals who need to be shown where the on-button is, the path from Windows XP to Linux is somewhat simple.

“That’s like someone saying their donation can only go to feed the school kids General Mills products for lunches instead of organic, locally grown, real food because its what the well-off donor grew up on and serves to their employees,” he wrote. “Especially now that Apple and Google are such a big part of education, even if it is not FOSS, Microsoft isn’t what kids will be using in the future at work.”

Free tech is about much more than free software. It’s more than just being able to see and modify code and deeper than the rivalry between proprietary and FOSS or Windows versus Linux. It’s not just about computers. Free tech is also about freedom and rights, and keeping our lifestyle from being destroyed by the misuse of technology.

Oh, great. I finally get to sit down with the Jupiter Broadcasting crew at LinuxFest Northwest and I finally get to meet in person someone whose FOSS work I hold in the highest regard — that would be Matt Hartley’s work at Jupiter — and he has just announced that he is leaving Jupiter Broadcasting, moving on to “new exciting projects.”

Website publishers using the popular free and open source WordPress content management system (CMS) woke up this morning to find that their sites had been upgraded to version 4.2.2. Users who’s sites somehow missed being automatically upgraded are urged to update immediately, as this update addresses several important security issues.

Now, let’s go back to 2006: It would have been nice to have these articles when I started out in Linux and FOSS nine years ago, introduced by the IT guy from the Green Party of California when I asked where I’d get Adobe products for my statewide campaign for office that year. During the campaign, I kept thinking about how great this paradigm is — people working together to make software free (as in freedom and, in many cases, beer) for public use — and switched gears to work to advocate for FOSS.

Folks, I’m not talking about a stern communication. I’m talkin’ finger-poking-into-my-chest-slathering-frothing-yelling-losing-all-composure pissed off. He more than adequately suggested: How Dare Me! If I don’t write or understand software programming or the brilliance required to do so, then I don’t get a pass on judging what needs to be done, how it should be done, when it should be done, and finally, to what quality I might accept as “usable.”

After a 25 year gestation, Hurd has finally been born. It was a difficult birth and it’s now being kept in an incubator under the care of Debian.

If there were an award for best sticker/graphic at LFNW, it would have to go to the Free Software Foundation, which had “RUN GCC” stickers and T-shirts available at the event. They’re also available online as well, so grab ’em and take the shoelaces out of your pair of Adidas while you code.

What this means, of course, is absolutely nothing. The folks at Ubuntu have made it clear that this is mostly a server/cloud release, so it’s not surprising that it offers desktop users little reason to upgrade. Besides, except for those few users who insist on living on the bleeding edge, most desktop users should be using 14.04, Trusty Tahr, anyway, because it’ll be supported until 2019, and our vervet friend will only see support through January.

The idea behind OSWALD was simple: Every computer science student got one, for around $80, and it became their portable device for their studies — they could bring it to class, connect it to a monitor and a keyboard and, with SD card firmly in place, do their assignments, take it back to the dorm and continue with homework. In short, this hand-held device was powerful — powered by a Texas Instrument OMAP3550 ARM processor — and incorporated some of the latest technology available at the time.

“The owners want me to ask you if you are anywhere near transitioning your computer donations to the Microsoft Surface Pro or Windows. Their kids attend a private school and Microsoft donates 140 units a year for their students. He wants to know when your organization can confirm that you will begin getting Reglue recipients switched over to these devices.”

With Sunday being more low-key, I got to catch up with LibreOffice’s Robinson Tryon, who said that the show was a hit for the project. Without the cacophony of multiple conversations going on at the same time, like on Saturday, we got to talk about advances LibreOffice is making in Android, which is going faster than expected.