The Fedora Project is looking for a volunteer Diversity Advisor

Fedora seeks Diversity Advisor

Diversity is a hot topic in open source right now, and it has inspired some passionate exchanges between Linux users in various discussion threads online. The Fedora Project has jumped on the diversity bandwagon is now seeking a Diversity Advisor.

Larry Cafiero reports for FOSS Force:

The Fedora Project — mythically known as the “bleeding-edge distro” which only experienced users can use, but which in reality can be used easily by anyone from kids to grandmothers — understands the unique connection between diversity and open source. They are looking for a Diversity Advisor, and they’re seeking your help.

I am sure a lot of qualified people will lining up for a crack at the Diversity Advisor once the committee has been formed, and it would be interesting to see who ends up in the position. Rest assured you won’t have competition from me in the resume race. While I’m sure I qualify and while I think I’d make a pretty good Diversity Advisor by various metrics Fedora may be using, I firmly believe that I am hamstrung by a demographic reality: No matter how qualified, the last person promoting diversity should look like 90 percent of the tech field (i.e., a middle-aged, straight white guy).

More at Foss Force

You can read the original Diversity Advisor job post on the Fedora Magazine site:

Increased diversity is crucial to the future of open source. A range of contributors from varying backgrounds brings broader experience to the table, which makes for healthier projects — and ultimately better software. To make Fedora a more diverse community, the Fedora Council (our new governance and leadership body) has an open position for a Diversity Advisor, and we need your help to find the perfect person for this role.

The Fedora Diversity Advisor will lead initiatives to assess and promote equality and inclusion within the Fedora contributor and user communities, and will develop project strategy on diversity issues. The Diversity Advisor will also be the point of contact for Fedora’s participation in third-party outreach programs and events.

We’re forming a search committee to find the most awesome and incredible human being for the job — and this message is the invitation to join that committee. In earlier conversations, we’ve talked about the various benefits of asking someone within the project to fill the role vs. inviting someone from the outside, with experience in open source and communities but not necessarily deeply with Fedora. There clearly are benefits and disadvantages either way, and we’re open to either one.

Note that the Diversity Advisor currently an unpaid, volunteer position. I personally hope we can change that in the future, but we also wanted to take the steps we can now to make progress. This is not a token role; it carries full participation in Council consensus for any and all project issues relevant to diversity.

More at Fedora Magazine

Fedora’s ad for a Diversity Advisor inspired some colorful responses from Linux redditors:

Realkman666: “Finally earning that m’lady moniker.”

Krysanto: “How about you invest that money in something more useful like a professional developer instead of chasing the diversity trend.”

Nmapster: “That’s a good point, but also note that this is “an unpaid, volunteer position” and so they’re not really investing money.”

DucBlangis: “Oh god, the multicolored pencils…”

Ventomareiro: “When a Free SW project mistreats contributors: “shut up, you can’t say anything, code talks!” When a Free SW project decides to become more welcoming: “how dare they, I have contributed nothing but I won’t stop shouting!”

More at Reddit

DistroWatch reviews Bodhi Linux 3.0

Bodhi Linux is a minimalist distro that uses the Enlightenment desktop. The latest version of Bodhi Linux is 3.0. DistroWatch has a full review of it, and notes that Bodhi Linux 3.0 ships with a very well done version of the Enlightenment desktop.

Jesse Smith reports for DistroWatch:

Bodhi has two stated goals: to be minimal and to provide a working Enlightenment desktop environment. I think it is clear the project completes these goals. Bodhi ships with very little software, the distribution fits on a CD and Bodhi has a fairly small memory footprint. By modern standards, the project is certainly minimal.

Regarding Enlightenment, Bodhi ships with a working copy of the desktop environment and, in my opinion, the Bodhi distribution ships the best working implementation of Enlightenment available. Personally, I do not like using the Enlightenment environment. I find the interface awkward and it takes me a long time to find the controls or settings I want, if I find them at all.

I believe an operating system should either provide users with all the software they are likely to need or provide an easy way to access additional software. Most distributions try to do both. Bodhi, with its minimal approach, starts us off with very little software so ideally it should make acquiring new applications easy. In my opinion it does not. We do have access to the web-based AppCenter and the interface is easy to navigate, but the AppCenter is a slow way to acquire new applications and these new items need to be located and downloaded one at a time.

I think whether a person enjoys running Bodhi or not will depend heavily on whether they like Enlightenment. Some people find it attractive and I will readily admit the interface is responsive. I can certainly see how Bodhi would appeal, especially since not many distributions out there support Enlightenment and almost none supply it as the default user interface.

More at DistroWatch

Arindam Sen at Linuxed has a more positive take on Bodhi Linux 3.0:

Bodhi Linux is really good as far as speed is concerned. Applications open up pretty fast, the distro consumes low RAM and boots up/shuts down faster than any other distro I have used. However, power usage is a bit higher than I expected for a lightweight distro and it may drain out laptop batteries faster than say, a Lubuntu 14.10. Further, Enlightenment desktop environment is significantly different from other DEs like KDE or GNOME and hence, may take a bit of time for users to get familiar.

Personally, I liked Bodhi Linux over other Ubuntu 14.04 LTS spins as they ship more updated packages and Linux kernels, than say even Linux Mint. The issue with LTS distros is that they tend to get antiquated with a couple of years. With Bodhi Linux, I guess the users can avoid it. Also, did I mention that Bodhi Linux supports touch screen? So, it can be a viable alternative to Win 8 in the low powered touch screen Windows 8.1 laptops flooding the market.

More at Linuxed

I did a review of Bodhi Linux 3.0 on DLR, and found it to be a great choice for minimalist Linux users:

Bodhi Linux 3.0 is clearly geared toward minimalists. If you’re someone that wants a zillion apps installed by default or that wants to browse through thousands and thousands of apps in an app store, then it’s probably not for you. In that sense Bodhi is almost the exact opposite of a distribution like Ultimate Edition, for example.

But if you’re someone that wants a very light-weight desktop, and that only needs or wants certain core applications then Bodhi Linux 3.0 might be a perfect choice for you. It really is a minimalist’s dream in that sense. It compares quite well with other minimalist distros such as Lubuntu or Xubuntu.

More at Desktop Linux Reviews

HTC One M9 reviews

Reviewers mostly praised HTC’s One M8 phone when it was released, and now reviews have started to appear for the new HTC One M9. According to The Verge, HTC fixed the slippery grip issue found in the One M8 but blew it again with the camera.

Dan Seifert reports for The Verge:

On the whole, the experience of holding, using, touching, and taking the M9 in and out of pockets is the same as it was with the M8, save for the lack of worrying that the phone was going to slip out of my hands like a bar of soap at any given moment.

The M9 is also really fast. It’s got Qualcomm’s new flagship Snapdragon 810 processor and 3GB of RAM, which means I almost never have to wait for an app to open or for the homescreen to redraw itself. This isn’t to say the M8 was slow — it wasn’t by any means — but the M9 bring a whole new level of speed. It’s easily the fastest Android phone I’ve used.

I tested the M9 against the iPhone 6 side-by-side in a variety of situations, and the M9’s images were softer, not as well exposed, filled with noise reduction artifacts that gave them a watercolor look, and often had inaccurate white balance. The iPhone 6 took better pictures in nearly every comparison. Apple (and to a certain extent, Samsung) has a huge advantage that HTC doesn’t: it controls its supply chain very tightly and can choose from the best camera components before anyone else. It’s a disadvantage that HTC hasn’t been able to overcome, and it’s very obvious with the M9’s camera.

On the good side, the M9 is a beautifully designed smartphone, with a great screen, great sound, speedy performance, and all-day battery life. It’s just like last year’s phone in those respects. But on the ugly side, the M9’s camera is a huge disappointment, not only because it doesn’t improve upon last year’s M8, but because it simply doesn’t work as well as many of the other phones you can choose from.

More at The Verge

Chris Velazco at Engadget found the HTC One M9 to be a “modest step forward”:

It might sound maudlin, but I really wanted to love the One M9 as much as I did the One M7. This seemed like the year HTC would nail it again. They came close! I’m still surprised that it’s Sense that I’m most impressed with. BlinkFeed is a first-rate time sink, and theming is a lovely, awfully personal way to kill a few minutes and make your M9 really feel like yours. Sure, the app suggestions are so bad they’re almost great for a laugh, but I can ditch them whenever I feel like it.

Alas, the M9 is let down by a camera that isn’t as good as it should be, strangely tuned BoomSound speakers and the occasional questionable design decision. And yet, despite those quirks, the M9 is still a very, very good phone. It’s an utter powerhouse even with thermal throttling in the mix and the now-traditional One aesthetic is as attractive as it’s ever been (strange metallic edge aside). That doesn’t change the fact that it’s still the biggest question mark of the One trio to date, and now I — along with others, surely — are left wondering where HTC goes next.

More at Engadget

Phil Nickinson at Android Central also found faults with the One M9’s camera:

The more we’ve used the camera on this more final software, the more we get the same feeling we’ve had the past couple of years. The M9 is going to be capable of taking some perfectly fine pictures. It’s not not as impressive as we’d like it to be all of the time. Backlighting continues to pose problems. And it almost feels like it gets a little confused when trying to focus on images in the distance. Or maybe it’s like the imaging software is struggling to figure out what to do with the extra data the 20-megapixel sensor gives it. (The old ImageChip 2 used by the UltraPixel system isn’t in the M9 anymore, even with the UltraPixel lens on the front facing camera.)

The HTC One M7 was the company’s best phone. The M8 also was its best phone. Both had flaws. The M9 does as well. The question we have to ask ourselves year after year is about the sum of the parts. The M9 is mostly familiar, both in form and function. But HTC still has some serious work to do in the camera department. It’s perhaps a little overdramatic to say that it’s an anchor pulling the ship down, but it’s definitely an oar stuck in the water. And with all the advances from its competitors over the past we’ve just about reached that point in which it’s extremely difficult to overlook that compromise.

More at Android Central

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