It’s not often we here in the Linux blogosphere must cope with death — figuratively speaking — in the projects and products we love. After all, when it’s open source, what may “die” one day will likely be reborn the next as something new thanks to the beauty of forking, among other things. Just recall Fuduntu — it may have closed its doors earlier this year, but soon afterwards Cloverleaf was born.

There once was a time when Windows users could feel relatively safe and secure as they made their online excursions around the World Wide Web. Those days ended relatively quickly, of course, followed soon afterwards by a similar waning of confidence on the Mac side. For those of us who prefer Linux, however, the Age of Innocence — as one might call it — has lasted much longer.

There once was a time when Windows users could feel relatively safe and secure as they made their online excursions around the World Wide Web. Those days ended relatively quickly, of course, followed soon afterwards by a similar waning of confidence on the Mac side. For those of us who prefer Linux, however, the Age of Innocence — as one might call it — has lasted much longer.

What a difference a day makes, as the old saying goes — or, perhaps more aptly here in the Linux community, what a difference an app makes. Which app, you may ask? Why that would be Microsoft Office for Android, of course — the arrival of which a few weeks ago has caused no shortage of jubilation in the Linux blogosphere. “It looks like Linus has won,” noted a recent article.

Fans of Ubuntu will have to be forgiven if they’ve been a little distracted lately. After all, exactly two weeks ago Canonical launched its crowdfunding campaign for the new Ubuntu Edge smartphone. It’s not just any crowdfunding campaign, of course — it’s a big one. Really big — to the tune of $32 million. No one ever said Mark Shuttleworth lacked ambition.

The dog days of summer may best be endured at a leisurely pace, but for those of us here in the sweltering Northern reaches of the Linux blogosphere, that simply hasn’t been an option. Far from being the lazy month many typically expect, July has brought not only a fiery debate over codes of conduct among kernel programmers but also the launch of Canonical’s ambitious Ubuntu Edge crowdfunding campaign.

Anyone who has ever spent five minutes in the Linux blogosphere is probably already well-aware of Linux creator Linus Torvalds’ propensity for speaking his mind in the plainest of terms. It was just slightly more than a year ago, after all, that he dropped an “F-bomb” on Nvidia, though that’s by no means been the only example over the years.

It’s no secret that humans tend to be motivated by cash, and developers are no exception — heck, even Microsoft knows that! Little wonder, then, that Linux developers took in the latest from the Tizen project with such interest. “Tizen is a brand new ecosystem, with a brand new store,” the announcement read.

Well the Fourth of July may have come and gone for another year here in the Land of Stars and Stripes, but for Linux fans, every day is Independence Day. Freedom from the dictates of a few giant software behemoths is what we celebrate each and every time we use our computers, not to mention the world of user choice that comes along with that freedom.