Free, Libre, and Open Source Software and Licensing
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[Repeat] Linuxiac ☛ Kdenlive 24.12.2 Brings Bug Fixes and UI Improvements
The Kdenlive team has just rolled out v24.12.2, the second maintenance release in its 24.12 series, including multiple bug fixes, usability improvements, and enhanced compatibility for speech-to-text features.
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Krita ☛ Krita Monthly Update - Edition 23 | Krita
Krita can now be compiled (MR!2306) and run (Mastodon post) with Qt6 on Linux, a major milestone on the long road of porting from the outdated Qt5 framework. However, it's still a long way to go to get things working correctly, and it will be some time before any pre-alpha builds are available for the far-off Krita 6.0.
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Nathan Upchurch ☛ Scribus 1.7.0: From Strength to Strength
To be fair, most casual users of the FLOSS desktop-publishing mainstay aren’t sniffing around the bug tracker, and for the past few years it sure didn’t seem as though much had changed judging by the clunky, dated interface and pixelated icons you’d be met with upon launch. This is likely what has driven many a would-be user to pen an expletive-ridden Reddit thread instead of diving in and gaining enough experience with the program to know what die-hard Scribus fans have known for years: that Scribus is a blisteringly competent piece of software.
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[Repeat] Linuxiac ☛ Calibre 7.26 Update Brings Enhanced Web Search, Metadata Fixes
The new release introduces the ability to specify web search links for custom columns. In more practical terms, when you click on item names in the Book details panel, you can now determine exactly where those links lead.
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Paweł Grzybek ☛ Highlight yanked text in Neovim
Before Neovim, I used to use Helix, which follows the same editing model as Kakoune. Having experience with both, I must admit that I prefer Helix’s selection → action editing model. It is a lot more precise and less error-prone to see the selection before taking action upon it. Although this workflow is possible in Vim, it can be inefficient.
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Productivity Software/LibreOffice
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Document Foundation ☛ LibreOffice 25.2: The first week, in statistics
One week ago, we announced LibreOffice 25.2, our brand new major release. It’s packed with new features, and has many improvements to compatibility and performance too. So, what has happened in the week since then?
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Licensing / Legal
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Dieter Plaetinck ☛ Open Source undefined, part 1: the alternative origin story
However, the further I looked, the more I found evidence of the opposite of all of the above. I’ve spent a few weeks now digging and some of my long standing beliefs are shattered. I can’t believe some of the things I found out. Clearly I was too emotionally invested, but after a few weeks of thinking, I think I can put things in perspective. So this will become not one, but multiple posts.
The goal for the series is look at the tensions in the community/industry (in particular those directed towards the OSD), and figure out how to resolve, or at least reduce them.
Without further ado, let’s get into the beginnings of Open Source.
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[Old] Usenet Archive at Google ☛ What would people think of binary-only software on Linux?
Binary only software distributions do not advance the art. Secreted source code does not benefit the Linux community at large. Were it not for the openness of the source code, Linux would be a mere a toy, if indeed it existed at all. Software hoarding can not be considered a "contribution". The GPL and the open source code have made Linux the success that it is. Cygnus and other commercial interests are quite comfortable with this open paradigm, and in fact prosper. One need only pull the source code to GCC and read the list of many commercial contributors to realize this.
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Andrew Lilley Brinker ☛ Postscript on "Open Source Software and Corporate Influence"
As happens when you write something on the [Internet], people will reply and share their own analyses and disagreements. I was very lucky in this case to get feedback and critique from some very knowledgeable folks in the open source space, and I wanted to take a minute to address some specific items that I think expand the aperture to include important topics and perspectives not covered in the original article.
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Drew DeVault ☛ A holistic perspective on intellectual property, part 1 [Ed: Promoting the propaganda term "intellectual property" while defaming the person who opposes it]
I’d like to write about intellectual property in depth, in this first of a series of blog posts on the subject.
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