Linux kernel is the most prominent examples of free and open source software. The Linux kernel has received contributions from thousands of programmers and companies around the world. This professional video from the Linux foundation provides a quick insight into Linux building procedure. This is a powerful and inspiring story of how Linux has become a volunteer-driven phenomenon.
Linus Torvalds, Linux’s creator, dislikes the GNOME desktop. There was a big flame war(s) between Linus Torvalds and the GNOME community. At one point he claimed that – “Gnome seems to be developed by interface Nazis and that its developers believe their users are idiots“. And guess what? Who made the switch to Gnome?
Many of these problems are not specific to Free Software in particular, but to volunteer software. Hobbyist proprietary programs often have poor designs for many of the same reasons. But the easiest way of getting volunteers to contribute to a program is to make it open source.
Wordpress 2.6 has been released and available for download almost a month ahead schedule.
Take the Free Software GPL / LGPL licensing quiz and test your knowledge of the GPL and LGPL.
A student at UC Davis has created some stunning visualizations of open source software contributions, including Eclipse, Python, Apache httpd and Postgres.