Fedora 20 beta released

Fedora 20 Beta Released

After a short delay the beta of Fedora 20 has been released, according to DistroWatch. You can download the Fedora 20 beta at the links below.

The Fedora Project is excited to announce the beta release of Fedora 20, code-named ‘Heisenbug’. A community-produced, free, Linux-based operating system, Fedora 20 features some of the latest and best of what the open source world has to offer. The Fedora 20 release coincides nicely with the 10th anniversary of Fedora. The first Fedora release (then called Fedora Core 1) came out on November 6, 2003. Since then, the Fedora Project has become an active and vibrant community that produces nearly a dozen ‘spins’ that are tailor made for desktop users, hardware design, gaming, musicians, artists, and early classroom environments.

Fedora 20 download links:

Fedora-Live-Desktop-x86_64-20-Beta-5.iso (944MB, torrent)

Fedora-Live-KDE-x86_64-20-Beta-5.iso (922MB, torrent)

Fedora-Live-LXDE-x86_64-20-Beta-5.iso (699MB, torrent)

Fedora-Live-MATE-Compiz-x86_64-20-Beta-5.iso (744MB, torrent)

Fedora-Live-XFCE-x86_64-20-Beta-5.iso (636MB, torrent)

More at DistroWatch

I haven’t had a chance to play with the beta, but I’ll probably poke around later this week. I’m looking forward to the final release of Fedora 20. You can view a full list of changes and improvements on the Fedora 20 beta release announcement.

arkOS Takes On Google

A young programmer is going after Google with a new operating system to replace Google’s services, according to VentureBeat.

For most of us, Google shutting down Reader was annoying. For Jacob Cook, it was a call to arms.

He’s now building an operating system that anyone can use to replace all of the services that Google provides — or any other cloud company, for that matter. Email, chat, file sharing, web hosting: With Cook’s arkOS, you’ll be able to run all of those essential services on a secure, private server in your own home that’s about the size of a credit card.

ArkOS is a Linux-based server operating system that’s designed to run on the popular, diminutive Raspberry Pi hardware.

More at VentureBeat

Good for him, I hope he succeeds in his efforts. Google used to be the “do no evil” company but those days seem to be long, long in the past. So it will be terrific if arkOS is able to offer a viable alternative for consumers.

Canonical Sends Takedown Notice to Privacy Critic

Wired has a disturbing report about Canonical playing hardball with a critic of Ubuntu’s privacy policies. The report is from November 8 but I’m including it today for those who might have missed it.

Linux maker Canonical has sent a takedown notice to the operator of fixubuntu.com, a month-old website that’s critical of the company’s privacy policies.

According to an email that Canonical sent to Micah Lee, the site’s operator, fixubuntu.com needs to come down because it uses Ubuntu’s logo and trademark. This could “lead to confusion or the misunderstanding that your website is associated with Canonical or Ubuntu,” the email read.

But Lee isn’t taking the thing down. In fact, as far as takedown targets go, Micah Lee may be the worst person Canonical could have picked on. He’s a staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online rights advocate.

More at Wired

Hmm. How many other sites have the Ubuntu logo but aren’t actually connected to Canonical? And what exactly defines the “ubuntu community” as mentioned in Canonical’s statement?

It seems to me that Canonical has overreacted to this situation, and has simply drawn more attention to the Fix Ubuntu site. How many people would have even known it existed if they hadn’t sent that takedown notice? Probably not very many in the grand scheme of things.

I took a peek at the Fix Ubuntu site and I didn’t see any Ubuntu logos, so perhaps the site owner has resolved the situation by removing them. Still, Canonical’s response probably leaves them looking like the bad guy.