Interviews
My Linux Story: How an influential security developer got started in open source
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Tuesday 5th of January 2021 11:29:31 AM Filed under


Open source is a way to express creativity in software while solving a problem. With the right license, it allows almost anyone to use the software, typically for free. That is also important, as not everyone has the luxury to pay for software or related services. The Dutch are known to be humble, outspoken, and in love with things being "gratis." This word is the same in Latin and means "for thanks" or "for nothing." While the F in FOSS does not refer to this type of free, I believe it is a powerful driver to bring the software into more people's hands. That is valuable in itself, as it can open the gates to more feedback, ideas, or even code improvements.
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Insights on the reproducibility and future of free software with Chris Lamb
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Monday 21st of December 2020 06:51:02 PM Filed under

The Reproducible Builds project seeks to integrate a set of development practices into software which emphasize build reproducibility, or the ability to ensure that a given build process will lead to verifiably integrous binaries which correspond to their source code. Reproducibility is especially important in software that is used for sensitive applications or even by users living in repressive regimes under mortal danger – repressive governments, for example, may choose to introduce vulnerabilities into software used by dissidents to connect to the Internet by targeting pre-compiled binaries and build processes rather than source code. The project is working towards making many widely used pieces of free software reproducible, from its aims towards making (at the very least the packages of) several widely used distributions of GNU/Linux reproducible to achieving reproducibility for individual pieces of critical software like Tor and Tails.
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Interview with A. Cord-Landwehr about REUSE adoption in the KDE community
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Tuesday 15th of December 2020 11:12:19 AM Filed under

In 2017, the FSFE launched its REUSE campaign and it not only has received many important updates since then but also an overwhelming international attention. Since the release of version 3.0 last year, we have been focusing on supporting Free Software projects in adopting the underlying best practices. And 2020 marks another successful year of this initiative.
On one hand this is thanks to the FSFE's role as a consortium member of the Next Generation Internet Zero (NGI0). In this position, the FSFE's legal team assists all participating software projects with any Free Software copyright and licensing issues that they may run into. And we are encouraging and assisting the projects in becoming REUSE compliant. More than 150 projects that we are reviewing in the scope of our NGI0 involvement are in process of adopting the REUSE specifications and many of them are already REUSE compliant.
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Ben Cotton: How Do You Fedora?
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Monday 14th of December 2020 09:33:32 AM Filed under

If you follow the Fedora’ Community Blog, there’s a good chance you already know who Ben is.
Ben’s Linux journey started around late 2002. Frustrated with some issues on using Windows XP, and starting a new application administrator role at his university where some services were being run on FreeBSD. A friend introduced him to Red Hat Linux, when Ben decided it made sense to get more practice with Unix-like operating systems. He switched to Fedora full-time in 2006, after he landed a job as a Linux system administrator.
Since then, his career has included system administration, people management, support engineering, development, and marketing. Several years ago, he even earned a Master’s degree in IT Project Management. The variety of experience has helped Ben learn how to work with different groups of people. “A lot of what I’ve learned has come from making mistakes. When you mess up communication, you hopefully do a better job the next time.”
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An Interview with LearnLinux.TV’s Jay LaCroix
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Thursday 10th of December 2020 07:02:24 PM Filed under

For me, Linux is an amazing thing. I’m obsessed, it’s like my hobby and it just happens to pay. What are the odds that something you love to do can generate a paycheck? There’s nothing as great as that.
In addition to the YouTube channel, I write books, so my newest book is going to be coming out at the end of the year. The book is Mastering Ubuntu Server — Third Edition. It’s just an update to the 2nd Edition, but it became a lot more than just an update. Surprisingly the amount of work I’ve had to do on it is about the same as writing a brand new book from scratch, because it’s taken at least six months now to finish. The 2nd one has been a very big success, and this one I think is going to be even better. The important thing to note is this book is written entirely on System76 hardware and entirely on LibreOffice.
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Interview with Tansy Branscombe
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Monday 2nd of November 2020 06:01:13 PM Filed under

I found out about Krita after doing some research online about the different free art tools available online. There were lots of options, but the name Krita came up quite often and seemed to get good reviews, so I thought it was worth trying!
I love that Krita really feels like it was built with art & artists in mind. One of my favourite features is having the reference images pinned around my work without having them cluttering up my layers. I also love that the programme seems quite streamlined so it starts up pretty quickly and never gets too slow even though my laptop doesnt have a dedicated graphics card.
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Torvalds says no need to name successor as that will take care of itself
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Wednesday 28th of October 2020 08:35:33 AM Filed under

Linux creator Linus Torvalds says it won't be necessary for him to name a successor to take over from him as head of the Linux kernel project because "it will be fairly clear who it is".
"Not because this is some democracy and people would vote on it and there's a clear winner, but because these things really happen on their own: a 'successor' isn't somebody who gets anointed as such, they end up just doing the work and making themselves one that way," Torvalds told iTWire during an interview this week.
As usual, he offered views on a wide range of topics, among them the way he has coped with life during the pandemic and also about his life in a country which is split along partisan lines.
He was interviewed by email. His answers are, as usual, given in full.
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'This was bigger than GNOME and bigger than just this case.' GNOME Foundation exec director talks patent trolls and much, much more
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Saturday 24th of October 2020 08:31:09 PM Filed under


Patent assertion entities: do not pick a fight with open source. It won't end well for you. This is the message from GNOME Foundation executive director Neil McGovern, who will speak on the subject at the Open Source Summit Europe next week.
McGovern talked to The Register ahead of the event on patents, Microsoft, and more.
The open-source outfit develops the default desktop environment on major Linux distributions including Ubuntu and Red Hat. In late August 2019, Rothschild Patent Imaging filed a lawsuit against the GNOME foundation claiming that GNOME Shotwell, a photo manager, infringed one of its patents.
“We didn't receive a letter before the court documents were filed or any sort of warning, it was just filed and then within a week there was a settlement request for $75,000,” McGovern told us.
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Fosshost Interview: Open Source Hosting Provider for FOSS Projects
Submitted by Marius Nestor on Sunday 18th of October 2020 08:10:37 PM Filed under
Introduced here at 9to5Linux about four months ago, Fosshost is a not-for-profit hosting provider for FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) projects. They offer hosting services like virtualized infrastructure, mirrors, storage, collaboration, and domain name to open-source projects who meet their eligibility criteria.
Among the big names that Fosshost offers its services, there’s Debian GNU/Linux, GNOME, Xfce, The Tor Project, IPFire, Xubuntu, Armbian, Linux Lite, Manjaro Linux, Deepin Linux, FreeCAD, F-Droid, Qubes OS, Serpent OS, Ubuntu Unity, and many more.
I wanted to learn a bit more about this awesome initiative and their future endeavors, so I spoke with Thomas, the Founder of Fosshost.
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Emilia Torino shares what goes into keeping Ubuntu secure
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Wednesday 7th of October 2020 02:54:12 PM Filed under

I’m from Argentina, and I did my undergrad in software engineering here. I worked for Intel in Argentina for six years – first as an intern and then as a fully-fledged software engineer. Then I received a Fulbright scholarship to do my master’s degree at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States. After finishing my Masters, I went back to Intel and then McAfee for a few more years, and then joined Canonical in 2019 as a Security Generalist.
I was looking for a new challenge. Even though I had more than ten years of industry experience and had been involved in security activities, the prospect of working for the team that makes Ubuntu secure was more than exciting! What’s more, I hadn’t previously been that deeply involved in open source projects. I knew that joining Canonical would offer different learning and career opportunities.
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