Bruce Byfield

Ask advocates what their goal is for Linux, and many will say, half-seriously and half-joking, “World domination.” However, there is another goal that few seem interested in today — the creation of a completely free operating system. This second goal dates all the way back to the first descriptions of free software. In 1985 in […]

In 2008, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) created its list of high-priority projects that “are important for increasing the adoption and use of free software and free software operating systems.” However, the list has been neglected in recent years, to the extent that the page for projects that no longer need to be on the […]

Asked to recommend a Linux desktop, users respond in a number of ways. Many recommend their own preferences. Others suggest the desktop environment that they believe is closest in appearance and function to Windows or OS X. A while ago, though, I realized that the seven major Linux desktops can be ranked on a spectrum […]

Usually, I write about the news, not make it. Today, though, I am making a small exception. Today, I am releasing my new book, “Designing with LibreOffice,” under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, with a free download and a for-sale trade paperback. Why bother, when LibreOffice already has some of the best documentation in free […]

Publicly, Canonical Software’s announcement that Ubuntu 16.04 will include the ZFS filesystem sounds like a potential violation of the second version of the GNU General Public License (GPLv2). The fact that ZFS’s license, the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), is a free license but incompatible with the GPL makes the case unusual, but the […]

Before the KDE 4.1 release in 2008, Aaron Seigo announced the end of desktop icons. He was being provocative, because what he was really announcing was the end of being restricted to a single icon set. Instead, KDE Plasma began supporting multiple desktops, and with them several ways to swap sets of icons in and […]

As an alternative operating system, Linux has always found ways to co-exist with Windows. However, I realized recently that I had gone four years without any installation of Windows in the house. I had to wonder: is Windows support even necessary in 2016? I’m not thinking of Samba, whose support for Windows is a matter […]

I’m always surprised when users wish that Microsoft Office or PhotoShop would be ported to Linux. Probably, some just want to be able to use standard industry software on their favorite operating system. But so far as I am concerned, applications like LibreOffice Writer or Krita are not just substitutions — even without my ideals, […]

The good news is that open source has become the leader on the desktop. The bad news is that a single desktop is not the leader, and that leadership on the desktop may no longer matter. Obviously, the first statement needs qualifications. It clearly does not refer to the number of users, since officially Linux […]

“The first 100% open source, enterprise-grade cloud Office Suite” is how Collabora Productivity describes the goal of its recently announced collaboration with Kolab Systems. In fact, the goal has a longer history than the description implies, although its promise of free-licensed groupware has the potential to fill one of the few remaining gaps in open […]