Catch me at Ohio LinuxFest (OLF)
Ohio LinuxFest (or OLF these days) is returning to Columbus, Ohio on September 8th and 9th. Happy to announce that I’m going to be doing the Friday keynote, “Open Source Can’t Win.”...
:w gnu_bram_moolenaar.md
Just learned this morning that Bram Moolenaar, creator and maintainer of Vim, passed away recently at 62. I’ve been a user of Vim since my 20s, so even though I’ve never met Bram his work has been an important part of my life. I’ve already written about how I...
Tab Overflow: Markdown for timelines, AI for 78s, the superpower of being glue, and maddog on Red Hat
Still working on the next installment of the Clone Wars, but in the meantime… some interesting things I’ve stumbled on the past few days. AI Audio Challenge: Audio Restoration of 78rpm Records — The Internet Archive is looking for “a program that can take all or many of the...
Red Hat and the Clone Wars VI: Obfuscating Kernel Code for Fun and Profit
In our last episode we talked about the origins of Oracle Linux. This time around, we’ll look at one of Red Hat’s responses to the threat posed by Oracle Linux. Specifically, Red Hat’s decision to “obfuscate” the kernel source delivered in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6, and how...
AlmaLinux makes its choice: The friendly fork
The AlmaLinux project, after taking some time to think it over, has decided to pursue RHEL compatibility but is no longer aiming to be 1:1 “bug-for-bug” compatible with RHEL. Be sure to read their announcement from Chair of the Board, benny Vasquez. Board minutes are also available....
Red Hat and the Clone Wars V: Oracle Linux Origins
Since Oracle has weighed in about Red Hat’s source changes, it’s time to take a look at the history of Oracle Linux. That takes us back to 2006, the world of enterprise computing, and into new markets. Specifically, Java and middleware....
Red Hat and the Clone Wars IV: Knives Out
Today SUSE announced its intent to do a “hard fork” of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and yesterday Oracle came out with a press release aimed squarely at Red Hat and IBM, and trying to claim the high road in keeping Linux “open and free.” It’s fair to say...
Red Hat and the Clone Wars III: The dawn of CentOS
Until the announcement that CentOS Linux 8 would be EOL at the end of 2021, CentOS users enjoyed a relatively drama-free period of stability that might suggest RHEL has always had a viable, dependable clone with predictable releases. That is, as you’re probably already guessing, very far from the...
Red Hat and the Clone Wars II: A history of the early 2000s Linux landscape
After Saturday’s post I wanted to take a step back and talk about some history that many have either forgotten or weren’t familiar with in the first place. Some may remember it quite well, but haven’t quite gotten the lessons right the first time around. Let’s talk about Red...
Red Hat and the Clone Wars
It’s been an exciting week for people who care about Linux distributions, FOSS licensing, FOSS distribution, FOSS business models, and the future of open source in general. Red Hat’s announcement that CentOS Stream will be the sole repo for public RHEL-related source code releases has generated a lot of...