Free, Libre, and Open Source Software Leftovers

posted by Roy Schestowitz on May 03, 2024

• Nzyme.org ☛ nzyme - Nzyme v2.0.0-alpha.13 has been released

  Today, we are releasing the next alpha release of the nzyme v2.0.0 series: alpha.13. In this release, we fixed a lot bugs and added new functionality for the 802.11/WiFi subsystem.

• Rob Knight ☛ My Perfect CMS

  Matt, then Dave, then Kev, then another Dave, all wrote about what their ideal CMS would be. I don't have as lofty ideals as they do although there's some interesting ideas in there but I do have some things I would like in my perfect CMS and might possibly be doing with a custom-built one in the future.

  There are some things that are non-negotiable for me with a CMS so don't require much explanation: [...]

• SaaS/Back End/Databases

  • Robert Haas ☛ Robert Haas: Hacking on PostgreSQL is Really Hard

    And that obviously has the effect of limiting the number of people who can get things committed to PostgreSQL. To become a committer, you have to convince people that you're one of the people who can be trusted to give the final sign-off to other people's patches. That requires both technical and diplomatic skill, but the technical skill alone takes thousands of hours to develop. And then, if you want to keep being able to commit significant patches, whether your own or someone else's, you have to continue spending at least hundreds and probably over a thousand hours on it, every year, in order to maintain the necessary skill level. Not everyone is able or willing to do that, which means that the pool of active committers doesn't grow a whole lot: people are added, but people also move on. And that in turn means that the number of promising new contributors who can get enough committer attention to become committers themselves is also quite limited. Existing committers tend to focus their attention on the most promising patches from the most promising developers; other people, to some greater or lesser extent, get frozen out. Even committers can get frozen out, to a degree: if you commit something that turns out to have major problems, you're going to get a fair amount of blowback from other committers who want to spend their time either on their own patches or on the patches of non-committers, not cleaning up after you, and that blowback is likely to make you more reluctant to commit major patches in the future. That's as it should be, but it still has the effect of further restricting the rate at which stuff gets done.

• Education

  • Leon Mika ☛ Favourite Comp. Sci. Textbooks

    John Siracusa talked about his two favourite textbooks on Rec Diffs #233: Modern Operation Systems, and Computer Networks, both by Andrew S. Tanenbaum. I had those textbooks at uni as well. I still do, actually. They’re fantastic. If I were to recommend something on either subject, it would be those two.

  • RIPE ☛ Reflecting on the Past Decade of RIPE Meetings

    The RIPE community was founded on principles such as openness, inclusion, collaboration, and transparency, which are intended to guide every participant’s interactions. For over three decades, the key to the RIPE community’s sustained success and relevance has been finding the right balance between valuing the deep knowledge and experience of long standing participants while actively welcoming new contributors with fresh perspectives.

  • System76 ☛ LinuxFest Northwest Wrap-up

    “I was particularly grateful for the chance to share our efforts and guiding principles in designing COSMIC DE. Presenting our work allowed us to engage with fellow enthusiasts and receive valuable feedback. Our insightful conversations reaffirmed the importance of collaborative efforts in driving innovation in technology. It was a memorable introduction to the Linux community, leaving me inspired and eager to dive deeper into the next project,”