Open-source News

For the past several years the X.Org Foundation has been part of Software in the Public Interest (SPI) but are now considering other possible arrangements moving forward...

On top of all the GPU driver feature changes to merge last week, yesterday marked the first batch of "fixes" sent in to Linux 5.17 for the Direct Rendering Manager drivers. Notable from this batch of fixes is getting GPU recovery enabled for Yellow Carp / Rembrandt APUs...

Hwo to install NextCloud on Rocky Linux 8  H2S Media

There are many game design programs and many different possible approaches to game design, but for me, the one that stands out is Bitsy. Created by Adam Le Doux in 2017 and released under an MIT license, Bitsy is, in the words of its creator: "A little editor for little games or worlds. The goal is to make it easy to make games where you can walk around, talk to people, and be somewhere."

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The usage of Go is growing rapidly. It is now the preferred language for writing cloud-native software, container software, command-line tools, databases, and more. Go has had built-in support for testing for quite some time now. It makes writing tests and running them using the Go tool relatively easy.

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The RTC subsystem changes have been submitted for the in-development Linux 5.17 kernel ahead of its merge window winding down this weekend...

To date the Intel Linux graphics driver has supported Intel's DG2 "Alchemist" G10 and G11 sub-platforms/variants as the main designs to this point. However, at the end of last year we began seeing "G12" references surface in their compute stack and now the Intel open-source Linux kernel driver is formally preparing the DG2-G12 variant support...

In addition to the Fedora / Red Hat Anaconda installer working on a web-based implementation, openSUSE/SUSE is also exploring a web-based installation front-end built atop their existing YaST. They are developing this new web front-end as the "D-Installer" project...

How to Add Application Shortcuts to the Ubuntu Desktop  MUO - MakeUseOf

Red Hat with the Fedora community have been working for years now to make Cockpit very capable for a web-based interface for administering Linux servers. In addition to this year working on shifting their Anaconda installer to a web-based interface that makes use of Cockpit, from this web management portal they are wanting to make it easier to setup file sharing with NFS and Samba...

For those worried about Microsoft's Pluton TPM chip: Lenovo won't even switch it on by default in latest ThinkPads  The Register

When it comes to OpenGL extension support, the Zink generic OpenGL-on-Vulkan implementation now has as robust coverage as core Mesa offers and what is implemented by the LLVMpipe software driver, RadeonSI Gallium3D, and the Intel i965 drivers...

A handful of new AMD Radeon open-source GPU sofware releases were made today for developers...

AMD Preps for Zen 4: Different Types of Cores Now Supported in Linux  Tom's Hardware

The open source community is working on many simultaneous challenges, not the least of which is addressing vulnerabilities in the core of our projects, securing the software supply chain, and protecting it from threat actors. At the same time, community health is equally as important as the security and vitality of software code. 

We need to retain talented people to work on complex problems. While we work urgently on implementing security best practices such as increasing SBOM adoption to avoid another Log4J scenario, we can’t put the health of our communities on the open source back burner, either. 

Our communities are ultimately made up of people who contribute, have wants and needs, and have feelings and aspirations. So while having actionable data and metrics on the technical aspects of open source projects is key to understanding how they evolve and mature, the human experience within project communities also requires close examination. 

How participants in open source projects interact with each other and whether they feel included make up a large component of a community’s overall long-term health. It can determine whether or not they can continue productively and positively, attract new participants, create representative technologies, and spawn new projects and communities.

Motivations for a DEI study at the Linux Foundation 

DEI was always something that we wanted to include in the early days of the Linux Foundation Research agenda. The topic fell into the category of “ecosystem” research, where uncovering insights about the community at large was as critical as digging into the state of open source in a given technology horizontal or industry vertical.

As community health and DEI are core values of the Linux Foundation, conducting new research in this area was a complementary and necessary activity to support related inclusion and belonging initiatives already underway.

Research, in general, is essential to dispel myths and misperceptions about open source, regardless of the subject matter. DEI insight, generated through new research, is a vital tool to evaluate success criteria beyond looking solely at the growth of open source in terms of the supply and demand of code. With data, we can determine gaps, trends, and opportunities broadly.

This is why in the spring of 2021, we were thrilled to work with GitHub, the CHAOSS project, and Jessica Groopman from Kaleido Insights on a dedicated study on DEI in open source expanding on GitHub’s Open Source Survey in 2017. Together, we formed a dedicated working group to design and deliver the study, manifesting the notion that research really is a team sport. 

The importance of understanding DEI in open source

We have so many team members working on DEI initiatives, so this topic was a natural area of interest across the organization and within our project communities. Fortunately, we also had a dozen organizations provide sponsorship for this research, which enabled the translation of the survey into ten different languages. The goal of translation was to make the survey as accessible as possible for non-native English speakers.

The research was structured to determine how well we were doing as a community in terms of diversity, but importantly, how underrepresented groups feel within open source – do they feel welcome or unwelcome? Over time, we’ll want to see how this dynamic will change for the better.  

People of varying backgrounds and nationalities participate in open source, so how we measure their sentiment when they show up to work is important. There was no shortage of questions needing answers. For example, how do people view the efficacy of codes of conduct, or do people believe that they are given fair and equal opportunities? And for underrepresented groups, in particular, do they face barriers that others do not? How do we treat each other? 

We designed this research to uncover gaps in belonging within open source so that we can begin not just to think about how we can “do better,” but to inspire the implementation of inclusion strategies. Why? Because study after study shows that diverse teams are smarter and financially outperform their less diverse peers.

Barriers and challenges to achieving DEI in open source

From the data, we know that barriers in open source communities exist depending on the demographics or different segmentations of participants. Whether specific to race, gender, sexual orientation, language, geographic region, or religion – which we didn’t specifically study in this report – there are clear obstacles we need to remove. For example, communities can be more conscious about not scheduling conferences or meetings during religious holidays, such as Rosh Hashanna or Yom Kippur.

Download this infographic for key takeaways from the Linux Foundation DEI study Download Infographic

We also need to be mindful that off-color jokes, sexual imagery, hostility, unwelcome sexual advances, rudeness, and name-calling don’t go over very well in open source, nor in any community for that matter. We need greater awareness that these types of behaviors exist and methods to improve how we deal with them when they occur.

And although English is the lingua franca of open source projects, native language and English fluency are barriers for some open source participants, as are geopolitical factors.

The uncomfortable truth revealed in the survey data is that people from the LGBTQ+ community are more likely to experience threats, inappropriate language, sexual advances, and other forms of toxic behavior. 

So what do we do about it? We need a full-fledged commitment to abiding by and enforcing codes of conduct within our communities. It is incumbent upon us to not tolerate inappropriate and toxic behavior and appropriately support community members when abuse arises.

Above all, it’s perhaps too easy to forget the human being at the other end of a transaction or professional exchange, especially as COVID-19 exacerbated the remoteness nature of our interactions.

The remedy is a combination of many facets of our society – not just within open source – to dedicate resources, inspire leadership, demonstrate moral courage, pursue greater educational initiatives, and spread awareness of the opportunities that come from diverse communities. 

Let’s remember that diverse teams, where inclusion practices are upheld, are stronger, better teams that make more robust, more thoughtful, and higher performing technologies.

You can help the Linux Foundation spread awareness of DEI in your Open Source community by using these graphics and suggested verbiage for including in your social posts.

Linux Foundation DEI Report: By the numbers

The report was sponsored by AWS, CHAOSS, Red Hat, VMware, GitHub, GitLab, Intel, Comcast, Renesas, Panasonic, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Huawei, and NEC. It was written by Hilary Carter, Vice of Linux Foundation Research, and Jessica Groopman of Kaleido Insights. Researcher/Analyst Lawrence Hecht performed a quantitative analysis of the data with the support of Stephen Hendrick, VP of Linux Foundation Research, who conducted a peer review of the survey instrument.

2 Authors 2 Analysts 2 Designers 3 Editors 4 Deliverables 10 Survey Languages 14 Sponsors 24 Infographics 30 Research Contributors 2350 Survey Completes 7000 Survey Respondents Download the Report

The post On DEI Research: Why the Linux Foundation? Why now? appeared first on Linux Foundation.

Can Linux steal the desktop PC crown from Windows? Experts weigh in.  Windows Central

How to Get Google Assistant on Windows, macOS and Linux  BollyInside

Wine 7.0 arrives with a "large" number of improvements: Here's what's new  ZDNet

Building A Silent Linux Desktop For 2022 With The Streacom DB4 Review  Phoronix

The long time Phoronix reader, with an excellent long-term memory, may remember an odd article from back in August 2017 on buying a passively cooled computer. It tells the tale of the consumer who decided to buy a rather niche, fanless, therefore passively cooled computer.