RSS Parrot

Copyleft licenses are not “restrictive”

https://drewdevault.com/2024/04/19/2024-04-19-Copyleft-is-not-restrictive.html

Published: April 19, 2024 00:00

One may observe an axis, or a “spectrum”, along which free and open source software licenses can be organized, where one end is “permissive” and the other end is “copyleft”. It is important to acknowledge, however, that though copyleft can be found at the…

FDO's conduct enforcement actions regarding Vaxry

https://drewdevault.com/2024/04/09/2024-04-09-FDO-conduct-enforcement.html

Published: April 9, 2024 00:00

freedesktop(.org), aka FDO, recently banned Hyprland maintainer Vaxry from the FDO community, and in response Vaxry has taken his case to the court of public opinion, publishing their email exchanges and writing about it on his blog. It saddens me to bear…

Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

https://drewdevault.com/2023/12/26/2023-12-26-Prusa-is-floundering.html

Published: December 26, 2023 00:00

Prusa is a 3D printer manufacturer which has a long history of being admired by the 3D printing community for high quality, open source printers. They have been struggling as of late, and came under criticism for making the firmware of their Mk4 printer…

Richard Stallman's political discourse on sex

https://drewdevault.com/2023/11/25/2023-11-26-RMS-on-sex.html

Published: November 25, 2023 00:00

Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation, has been subject to numerous allegations of misconduct. He stepped down in 2019, and following his re-instatement in 2021, a famous open letter was published in which numerous organizations and…

Can I be on your podcast?

https://drewdevault.com/2023/11/09/Can-I-be-on-your-podcast.html

Published: November 9, 2023 00:00

I am working on rousing the Hare community to get the word out about our work. I have drafted the Hare evangelism guidelines to this effect, which summarizes how we want to see our community bringing Hare to more people. We’d like to spread the word in a…

On "real name" policies

https://drewdevault.com/2023/10/31/On-real-names.html

Published: October 31, 2023 00:00

Some free software projects reject anonymous or pseudonymous contributions, requiring you to author patches using your “real name”. Such projects have a so-called “real name” policy; Linux is one well-known example.1 The root motivations behind such…

Going off-script

https://drewdevault.com/2023/10/13/Going-off-script.html

Published: October 13, 2023 00:00

There is a phenomenon in society which I find quite bizarre. Upon our entry to this mortal coil, we are endowed with self-awareness, agency, and free will. Each of the 8 billion members of this human race represents a unique person, a unique worldview, and…

The forbidden topics

https://drewdevault.com/2023/09/29/The-forbidden-topics.html

Published: September 29, 2023 00:00

There are forbidden topics in the hacker community. One is sternly reprimanded for bringing them up, by their peers, their leaders, and the community at large. In private, one can expect threats and intimidation; in public, outcry and censorship. The…

Hyprland is a toxic community

https://drewdevault.com/2023/09/17/Hyprland-toxicity.html

Published: September 17, 2023 00:00

Hyprland is an open source Wayland compositor based on wlroots, a project I started back in 2017 to make it easier to build good Wayland compositors. It’s a project which is loved by its users for its emphasis on customization and “eye candy” – beautiful…

AI crap

https://drewdevault.com/2023/08/29/2023-08-29-AI-crap.html

Published: August 29, 2023 00:00

There is a machine learning bubble, but the technology is here to stay. Once the bubble pops, the world will be changed by machine learning. But it will probably be crappier, not better. Contrary to the AI doomer’s expectations, the world isn’t going to go…