incommunicado

This is a minor release of Vim. It consists of Vim 7.2 plus all patches, updated runtime files and some more, see below. It has been two years since the 7.2 release, thus it's not that "minor". But not "major" either. Something in between, don't know how to call that.

Well all strive to make our desktop as efficient as possible. Whether you're a coder who wants nothing more than to never remove your fingers from the keyboard, or if you're a writer who wants to use the mouse only when necessary, there are so many ways to make this happen. One of the easiest ways is to use keyboard shortcuts.

A program to help keep software and device makers on the right side of open-source licensing law has been unveiled by the Linux Foundation. The Open Compliance Program includes tools, training, consulting, and self-assessment to help you comply with the myriad of open-source licenses.

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HTML is basically a standard for structuring and presenting content in the internet and HTML5 is the newest incarnation of HTML. HTML5 is supposed to have features like video playback which currently depends upon third-party(and proprietary) browser plug-ins like Adobe Flash.

This is the first version based on KDE Platform 4. Some new features are: better documentation, support for the latest version of AqBanking, improved usability of the online banking features, KWallet integration to store online banking passwords, consistency checks...

In a country where the legal system is based on precedents, a judge's recent decision just may make the use of Linux a whole lot easier.

It’s an in-depth analysis from Florian Mueller, whose FOSSPatents remains fiercely opposed to all software patents. It’s something of a follow-up to a May piece in which he considered the idea of a Fair Troll.

Many have already opined about the Oracle v. Google lawsuit filed last week. As you might expect, I'm not that worried about what company sues what company for some heap of cash; those sort of for-profit wranglings just aren't what concerns me. Rather, I'm focused on what this event means for the future of software freedom.

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The MeeGo project was launched earlier this year when Intel and Nokia brought together their respective mobile Linux platforms in a combined effort to reduce fragmentation and offer device vendors a standardized platform. The MeeGo platform is endorsed by the Linux Foundation, which has taken on a stewardship role with the aim of facilitating collaboration around the software.

To me writing code is a means of Free Speech, and the Free Software movement is about preserving my rights of Free Speech in the face of the US patent system which is trying to cut down what I can say. Attacking the Oracle patent claims, and writing software to undermine their market position is the least I can do. If enough people think and do the same, I hope we can cause them trouble.

"Richard M. Stallman (Founder of GNU Project and Free Software Foundation) is coming down to SJCET Palai for a seminar in connection with Swathanthra 1.0 a one day free Software fest on Thursday, September 9, 2010..."

"Making source codes available would safeguard users from infringements on their freedoms and prevent monopolies..."

The site better known for its dedication to copyright fights against the Microsoft-funded SCO is turning its attention also to patent fights against the Microsoft-funded Novell/Mono

Back in 2009, I did some analysis of the number of developers per country. Apparently, some people at DebConf remember this and asked if I could update this data. So, here we are with the 2010 version, sorted by the ratio of *active* developers per million population for each country.

I keep running into LXDE derivatives. Not physically of course, but it could be an unintended side effect of being on the lookout for distros to try on the Mebius.

The most recent release of Puppy Linux, version 5.1 “Lucid Puppy” includes some significant changes such as binary compatibility with the Ubuntu 10.04 packages, easier package installation with Quickpet and Puppy Package Manager, a new Simple Network Setup utility and more. I dove into Puppy 5.1 over the weekend, took some screenshots, and made a video showing a few of Lucid Puppy's features.

In the past few years we've seen a lot of hardware-based innovation (or at the very least expansion). New products and markets have arisen built around hardware and its use. Smartphones, tablets, netbooks and gaming systems are all examples of markets that have expanded and some if not most of the products make use of free software.

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Another word of warning about Mono software which is excluded from the MCP and why Canonical should not mimic Windows and Mac OS X

"GNU Zile is a lightweight Emacs clone. Zile is short for Zile Is Lossy Emacs: Zile is a strict subset of Emacs. Zile has all of Emacs's basic editing features..." — See also: Zile 2.3.19 released —

Though linux still doesn't win consumer desktops sitting barely on 2% of the systems, it's surprisingly merging on the mobile devices, gadgets and various other small-form factor computers.