It’s hard to believe that Debian has 17 years under its belt, but the project celebrated its 17th birthday on August 16. Though Debian may not be quite as well hyped as other distros, it’s still one of the most important FOSS projects around.
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Anybody up to writing good directory software?
Tue, 2007-02-20 11:17 — David JonathanSince the very beginning, directories (of any kind) have had a very central role in the internet. (I have recently grown fond of Free Web Directory. Even Slashdot can be considered a directory: a collection of great news and invaluable user-generated comments. As far as software is concerned, doing a quick search on Google about software directories will return the free (as in freedom) software directories like Savannah, SourceForge, Freshmeat and so on, followed by shareware and freeware sites such as FileBuzz, PCWin Download Center and All Freeware (great if you're looking for shareware and freeware, but definitely less comprehensive than their free-as-in-freedom counterparts).
Is better education the key to finding better software?
Sat, 2007-03-03 03:25 — Edward RusselI read David Jonathon's article Anybody Up To Writing Good Directory Software? the other day, which got me thinking about software directories in general. As David mentioned, many of the software directories one finds when doing a quick google search are free as in beer, not as in freedom. But what interests me is the software directories that already exist, providing a combination of both free as in beer software, and open source software. Sites such as Freeware Downloads and Shareware Download don't advertise themselves as providing free as in liberty software, but each of them have a good selection of open source software available... if you know where to look.
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benasselstine
1 year 37 weeks 5 days 1 hour ago
Debian a FOSS Project?
Debian is literally a FOSS project. It's even "upstream" for Ubuntu. But is it right to call it a FOSS project?
When I think of a FOSS project, I think of projects that produce a single or small set of programs; for example: OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Inkscape and so on. I just have a greater appreciation for these FOSS projects because:
1. it's more of a creative expression
2. they're making a program that enhances my computing lifestyle.
Obviously the program needs to be integrated into an Operating System at some point, and upstream might not have Debian in mind. Integrating the program into an Operating System is a very different task than writing the original program.
Debian will always be one of the most important projects on the net, and has a huge number of very talented developers. Many DDs are also upstream developers.
But I think Debian is more accurately called a FOSS (re-)distribution project, and the other projects like OpenOffice.org and Firefox are defacto FOSS projects.
Both activities are very very important, but we should be more specific when naming these different kinds of projects.