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Gratis and libre can both be interpreted as free. However, there is a difference. Gratis is free as in beer and libre is free as in freedom, to quote the common explanation. Usually a piece of open source software fits both words, but should it?

Apparently, Microsoft thinks it has defeated Linux. At least, they deleted it from their list of competitors. I won't repeat all the places that Linux holds large amounts of market share, but , with regard to the desktop, I will say this: not winning is not the same as losing. Sure Windows runs way more personal computers than Linux, but it's been that way for twenty years. Linux hasn't lost the desktop because it never had it.

According to this article from ZDNet, Microsoft introduced the term "Open Surface" to describe their goals for the cloud. It's very likely that the term will soon be used in other contexts also. Basically the term means that the source code is closed, but through open standards, different clouds implementations can work together and share data. So it looks open but it isn't.

With all the phones, tablets, netbooks, and other devices running around, the desktop is starting to decline. Many people do some or all of their work on a mobile device. Everyone has their own system, and its not up to me or anyone else to tell you that it's right or wrong. However, those little phone screens and buttons just don't work for me. I have a laptop and I love it for the freedom and mobility it gives me, but after struggling with that touchpad and fumbling with those tiny Home/End/Delete buttons, I want to come back home to my ultimate productivity place. Here is the recipe:

In my last post, I reported that a Gnome2 fork, Mate, was available. I use Arch Linux so I followed the instructions here to add the custom repository. There is also source code available and packages are being built for Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora and Gentoo.