today's leftovers

• Fair Code vs Open Source, Which Wins The Future?

  When developers release their software as open source, they are also giving a by-definition right to every company in the world to commercially use their software without having to obtain a license or share some profits with them. And this caused some problems in the open source world few years ago. For example, Amazon took the MongoDB source code (An open source database system), changed its name and then provided it as a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) on its AWS platform, and then charged people money to use it. MongoDB developers were angered since they literally got nothing back from Amazon although they are the original creators of 100% of the code. This adds some sustainability problems to open source projects, as anybody and any company can just take the code and then reuse it commercially without giving anything back to the original developers. The original developers may starve and the project may stop, and there would be no obligation by anyone to commercially pay them. Fair code initiative arose from this context; To prevent anyone from using the software commercially without contacting the original software authors first, making it under the umbrella of what’s known as source-available models.

• How to Convert a Project to REUSE Compatible License Statements?

  This blog post provides a step-by-step example about how the conversion of a project to REUSE compatible license statements is done in practice. For my setup, I have a readily configured kdesrc-build environment. First, I get out the most recent source code if the project I want to convert. For this tutorial, I use KTurtle, which is a nice and small application from KDE Education with just about 200 files.

• Best Python Data Science Libraries

• John Cook: Descartes and Toolz

  I was looking recently at the Python module toolz, a collection of convenience functions. A lot of these functions don’t do that much. They don’t save you much code, but they do make your code more readable by making it more declarative. You may not realize need them until you see them. For example, there is a function partitionby that breaks up a sequence at the points where a given function’s value changes. I’m pretty sure that function would have improved some code I’ve written recently, making it more declarative than procedural, but I can’t remember what that was. Although I can’t think of my previous example, I can think of a new one, and that is Descartes’ rule of signs.

• How big data forced the hunt for extraterrestrial intelligence to evolve

  Interest in SETI can be used to bring the public into science as well. A recent collaboration between the SETI Institute and the open-source software project GNU Radio aims to give people the opportunity to learn about radio engineering, digital signal processing, and radio astronomy. By purchasing a dongle for around $25, members of the public can digitize analog radio signals and process signals on their computers.        

• Getting credit: Taking your place in a meritocracy

  Dealing with either of those incredibly frustrating situations without appearing petty is difficult. But getting credit for your ideas and work is critical in today's organizational environments, especially those that aspire to be well-functioning meritocracies. Promotions, bonuses, and other forms of recognition (such as the opportunity to lead the project you proposed) are all generally based on performance. If people don't know you contributed, you'll likely be continually overlooked.

• Battlefield 4 On Linux | Ubuntu 20.04 | Steam Play

  Battlefield 4 running through Steam Play on Linux.

Flameshot Screenshot Tool 0.8.0 Released with Counter Tool

Flameshot, powerful yet simple to use screenshot tool, released version 0.8.0 with new editing tools, improvements, and many fixes. Flameshot 0.8.0 added the popular requested circle counter tool. It added a button in left-side of screen to open the sidebar, which was previously only accessible by hitting Space on keyboard. The blur tool has been replaced by pixelate tool. If the “thickness” is 0 or 1, the old blur behavior is preserved. If the thickness is increased past 1 the image will pixelate by the thickness.

today's howtos

• Backup and Restore your whole system with Time Shift

• How to set up Cloudflare privacy-focused DNS on Linux

• How To Install Canon Printer Driver In Ubuntu 20.04

• How to play The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard on Linux

• How to use the Ubuntu logo as the Menu Icon in Ubuntu 20.04

• Declutter Your Home Directory With The XDG Base Directory

• Using an IP camera in conference calls