Free, Libre, and Open Source Software Leftovers
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APNIC ☛ PSA: Traceroute — safe and effective to use
Don’t have a USD 5,000–10,000 per month OpEx budget for an observability tool? No full-time development team to build and maintain the tooling needed to visually map your entire network based on routing? Or maybe your packets seem to be trapped in an alternate reality, not reaching their destination on time? In that case, traceroute is probably your best starting point!
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Libre Arts ☛ librearts Weekly recap — 9 February 2025
Week highlights: new release of Bonsai and GCodeWorkShop, PDF import/export improvements in Inkscape, GNOME is getting HDR support.
Tavmjong Bah improved PDF importing. Inkscape now supports character and word spacing values in PDF text import and has more capable code for reading emojis in PDF text.
In the latest weekly video, Martin Owens covered the ongoing work on exporting text to PDF as well.
Martin also stated that the team is planning to hire two developers to do bugfixing and another person to do bug triage.
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Events
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FSF ☛ FSF talked about education, copyright management, and free machine learning at FOSDEM 2025
Four FSF staff members had a great time sharing their knowledge and learning at FOSDEM 2025 in Brussels.
Every year, one of the biggest free software events, FOSDEM, is organized by the free software community to promote widespread use of free software. The first weekend of February was filled with vibrant talks, presentations, and panels covering almost all imaginable topics related to free software. Outside of the official schedule, attendees participated in a ton of side meetings, planned and unplanned. During this special time in Brussels, one cannot avoid bumping into a free software activist.
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FSF ☛ FSF Events: Free Software Directory meeting on IRC: Friday, February 14, starting at 12:00 EST (17:00 UTC)
Join the FSF and friends on Friday, February 14 from 12:00 to 15:00 EST (17:00 to 20:00 UTC) to help improve the Free Software Directory.
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Web Browsers/Web Servers
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Mozilla
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Tor ☛ New Alpha Release: Tor Browser 14.5a3 | The Tor Project
Tor Browser 14.5a3 is now available from the Tor Browser download page and also from our distribution directory.
This version includes important security updates to Firefox.
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SaaS/Back End/Databases
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The Register UK ☛ Microsoft bolsters PostgreSQL with NoSQL-like extensions
It was predictably unimpressed by Microsoft's effort to muscle in on its market.
A spokesperson at MongoDB said: "The rise of MongoDB imitators proves our document model is the industry standard. But bolting an API onto a relational database isn't innovation – it's just kicking the complexity can down the road. These 'modern alternatives' come with a built-in sequel: the inevitable second migration when performance, scale, and flexibility hit a wall. Developers building modern, AI-powered applications don't have time for do-overs. MongoDB is purpose-built to get it right the first time."
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Licensing / Legal
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FOSDEM ☛ FOSDEM 2025 - Managing copyrights in free software projects - discussion panel
Panelists will elaborate on the following questions: 1) How to ensure swift enforcement of the GPL? 2) How to protect free software against third party claims, including employers' copyright or patent claims? 3) How to enable swift relicensing or adding additional permissions, while protecting software against appropriation? 4) How to remove any challenges a contributor might encounter with the process?
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Andrew Lilley Brinker ☛ Open Source Software and Corporate Influence — Andrew Lilley Brinker
Open source software projects are frequently enmeshed with the interests of corporations. We should update mental models of who works on open source accordingly, and build or modify power structures to be more resilient to corporate capture.
The goal of this article is to make clear that the large scale engagement of corporations in open source has happened and is continuing to happen, that it is fueled by natural incentives, and that it must be treated seriously because it is having and will continue to have negative consequences even if every individual involved is participating in good faith.
Additionally, I want to remove from this topic the ethical angle which so often comes to dominate discussions of open source. It’s not that ethics aren’t important (ethics are extremely important) but that ethical entreaties to corporations or open source participants are ineffective when the underlying incentives and the mechanisms of hard and soft power do not change.
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