GNU turns 40: Stallman’s baby still not ready for prime time, but hey, there’s cake
It turned the software industry upside down regardless
https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/20/gnu_turns_40/

Happy birthday to GNU. On September 27, there will be events in both the US and Switzerland to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the GNU Project.

That day in 1983, the eternally controversial Richard Stallman announced his project to create a new operating system, recursively named GNU’s Not Unix. This year, the Free Software Foundation is celebrating this as the project’s anniversary

This is notable. GNU has had lots of influence on software industry. GNU has been a huge world changing success or a failure depending how you look at it.

It is arguable that in the sort of narrow, specific sense that Stallman himself tends to favor, the GNU Project failed. There isn’t a complete, working GNU OS.

The GNU kernel, named Hurd, is still incomplete and not ready for daily use, even after all this time. It was a very ambitious design, a true microkernel. Very few projects have managed to get that to work well. The state of the art has arguably moved on from the Mach microkernel that Hurd uses.

To be more fair and balanced, though, the GNU Project has been a massive success which has changed the shape of the entire computer industry. On one, low level, there are multiple GNU OSes based around the Linux kernel

Then some sad news I saw first at
https://www.facebook.com/100064470498902/posts/pfbid0HBTF1msxChhdaPvd2ZkLvtAuEPzXcVSZwnV6UACfM41XGwYGufK8q3jWW4yYmFqZl/

Richard Stallman reveals he has cancer in the GNU 40 Hacker Meeting talk https://audio-video.gnu.org/video/gnu40/rms-gnu40.webm It’s disheartening to hear the news. I sincerely hope for his speedy recovery and wish him all the best. He is a crucial figure in the current era of SaaS and cloud computing, especially with the abundance of unreliable AI generators controlled by big tech. It’s a tough situation. #gnu #freesoftware #opensource

Also noted on other news sources:

Free software pioneer Richard Stallman is battling cancer
https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/29/richard_stallman_cancer/

Project’s 40th anniversary celebration in Switzerland on Wednesday a very changed figure.

Richard Stallman is Battling Cancer
https://news.itsfoss.com/richard-stallman-battling-cancer/

To celebrate the GNU Project’s 40th anniversary, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is organizing a hackday on Oct. 1 (GNU 40) for families, students, and anyone else in the US.

Looking at the keynote, Richard Stallman does not look the same without his iconic beard and long hair. Considering he is already undergoing chemotherapy to treat cancer, that explains it.

Richard Stallman personal page is at https://stallman.org

New boards, new software, and a 25 percent boost in community-provided libraries among the highlights from Arduino’s 2021.

The full report is now available for download from the Arduino website at https://blog.arduino.cc/2022/01/13/the-2021-arduino-open-source-report-is-out/

Not it seems that RISC-V is even more promising as many big names are now in game. There’s an understandably high level of interest in RISC-V processors among our community, but while we’ve devoured the various microcontroller offerings containing the open-source core it’s fair to say we’re still waiting on the promise of more capable hardware for anything like an affordable price. This could however change soon.

Canonical Launches Its First Official Ubuntu RISC-V and SiFive aims to make Ubuntu the “reference OS for early adopters” of Linux on desktop-class RISC-V. Canonical has confirmed official RISC-V support for its popular Ubuntu Linux distribution, initially through a partnership with SiFive to release operating system images for its HiFive Unleashed and Unmatched high-performance single-board computers (SBCs).

Will We Soon Be Running Linux On SiFive Cores Made By Intel? Intel Licenses SiFive’s Portfolio for Intel Foundry Services on 7nm. This includes their latest and fastest P550 64-bit core, bringing forward the prospect of readily available high-power RISC-V computing.

SiFive RISC-V Proven in 5nm Silicon by TSMC. OpenFive, a SiFive business unit that is the leading provider of customizable, silicon-focused solutions with differentiated IP, is continuing to make progress with AI design solutions with the creation of a reference design chiplet architecture using OpenFive Die-to-Die interface, OpenFive HBM3 IP subsystem, and SiFive 7-Series processor IP, for 2.5D-based SoCs.

China’s ISCAS to build 2,000 RISC-V laptops by the end of 2022 as nation seeks to cut reliance on Arm, Intel chips. Software porting efforts aim to make sure Android, Linux, Firefox, and Chrome work well.

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1) Influence (and control) over Open Source institutions by organizations and companies who are, in most areas of their business, opposed to Open Source.

2) Influence (and control) of Open Source projects, institutions, and communities by those seeking to harm others.

What comes next?

If I had to make a prediction for 2020, based on the increasing activities over the last couple years… I would say that things will only accelerate and intensify with both of the issues I call out here.

There is an interesting looking project called “RedHawk” which is described as:

“A software-defined radio (SDR) framework designed to support the development, deployment, and management of real-time software radio applications.”

github link: https://github.com/redhawksdr

Here’s the documentation:

https://redhawksdr.github.io/Documentation/index.html

An Australian hacker has spent thousands of hours hacking the DRM that medical device manufacturers put on CPAP machines to create a free tool that lets patients modify their treatment.

Check also Cool Tools Honorable Mentions for some awesome looking maker tools and materials that didn’t fit in the podcast!