Free software trends and events
The Future of Free Software
Free software seems to have held its own in 2020 – which is more than many organizations can say. Noticeably, the list of top 10 page hits on DistroWatch [12] remained almost unchanged, which suggests this last year was not a time for innovation.
A possibly more ominous note was struck in December by Hans Petter Jansson in a blog post, "On the Graying of Gnome" [13], in which he tracks the origins of commits to Gnome over the years.
Jansson concludes that Gnome "has hundreds of experienced and first-time contributors every year. It is well-organized and arguably well-funded compared to its peers." However, he also concludes that the project's commits peaked around 2010. Currently, fewer and fewer veterans do most of the work and are not being replaced by newcomers. He adds that, while corporate sponsorship is probably required, the number of sponsors is thinning.
Of course, in a year like 2020, just survival is an accomplishment.
Infos
- Ubuntu employees: https://ubuntu.com/blog/canonical-managed-services-ubuntu-support-covid-19
- Free Flash replacement: https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority-projects
- Flash no longer supported in Firefox: https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2020/11/17/ending-firefox-support-for-flash/
- End-to-end encryption statement: https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/17/21294355/zoom-security-end-to-end-encryptoin-beta-release-july-2020-new-feature
- FSF Respects Your Freedom: https://ryf.fsf.org/
- Librem 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5
- CentOS: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/12/centos-shifts-from-red-hat-unbranded-to-red-hat-beta/
- CentOS alternatives: https://linux.slashdot.org/?issue=20201221
- Richard Stallman: https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/17/20870050/richard-stallman-resigns-mit-free-software-foundation-epstein
- Geoffrey Knauth: https://www.fsf.org/news/geoffrey-knauth-elected-free-software-foundation-president-odile-benassy-joins-the-board
- "Open Letter to Apache OpenOffice" by Mike Saunders: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2020/10/12/open-letter-to-apache-openoffice/
- Top 10 page hits on DistroWatch: https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity
- "On the Graying of Gnome" by Hans Petter Jansson: https://hpjansson.org/blag/2020/12/16/on-the-graying-of-gnome/
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