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The H archive: features by Richard Hillesley


The following is a list of features that have been written for The H by columnist Richard Hillesley.

Richard Hillesley lives in Totnes in the south-west of England. He was a software engineer for 17 years, and is a former editor of LinuxUser magazine.


16 August 2012
GNOME – from abyss to common ground

GNOME's recent development has been widely criticised, from Linus Torvalds to its own contributors. Richard Hillesley looks at the background to this and the possible ways forward. Can GNOME ever be the defacto favourite desktop of Linux again? more »

20 July 2012
Healthcheck Mandriva - Rebooting the company

After what may have been the most tumultuous months in the company's often tumultuous history, Mandriva is planning a comeback with a new community oriented strategy. Richard Hillesley looks back at that history and talks to the people charting Mandriva's future. more »

25 June 2012
Giving the code away

Why do corporations give away code under free and open source licences? And how do they make a real community grow around these projects? Richard Hillesley looks at the difficulties and rewards to giving away code more »

30 May 2012
Enforcing the GPL – Kernel hackers join the fight

The Samba Team and seven kernel hackers have come together with the Software Freedom Conservancy to help efforts to ensure compliance with the GPL by those who implement Linux and other GPL software. Richard Hillesley talked to those involved more »

19 April 2012
HealthCheck Fedora - Where's the beef?

Richard Hillesley examines Red Hat's early history and the genesis of the Fedora distribution. With "Beefy Miracle" due to be released soon, a look backwards grants insight on where Fedora is headed in the immediate future more »

21 March 2012
Enforcing the GPL with Judo moves

By leveraging the power of copyright, GPL enforcers can use copyleft to defend free software. Richard Hillesley looks at who does this enforcement and what effect it has on the wider open source ecosystem. more »

13 February 2012
Wayland - Beyond X

Having been in development since 2008, Wayland has now seen its first "real release", 0.85; the first full version should appear by the end of 2012. As it is expected eventually to replace the X Window system, Richard Hillesley looks at the problems that have accumulated for X and how the development of Wayland seeks to address these more »

11 January 2012
HealthCheck: Linux Mint

The success of Linux Mint is down to its usability - easy to set up and get running and then use. The latest development is a new user interface, Cinnamon. Richard Hillesley looks at the history of Mint and considers whether Cinnamon marks a turning point for the distribution more »

19 December 2011
LXDE and Xfce – the other desktops

GNOME and KDE may be the high profile Linux desktop environments, but they are not to everybody's tastes. Richard Hillesley describes the different approaches taken by a couple of the more prominent alternatives more »

24 November 2011
The rules of the game - a conversation with Dave Neary

Richard Hillesley talked with Dave Neary about his experience working with open source communities and companies, and discovered that the important thing is not so much what the rules are, but that everyone knows what they are more »

14 November 2011
HealthCheck Ubuntu - The search for unity

Ubuntu has come a long way since Mark Shuttleworth was inspired to create the Debian-based distribution in 2004, however, after seven years of success, a release is now being greeted with less than universal acclaim. Richard Hillesley looks at the history of Ubuntu and whether the Unity gamble will pay off more »

28 October 2011
Open core or dual licensing? The example of MySQL

It has been suggested that Oracle might be planning to move MySQL away from dual licensing to an open core model. Richard Hillesley takes us through the arguments, and the pros and cons of these different models more »

06 October 2011
LibreOffice - a dive into the unknown

The Document Foundation (TDF) and LibreOffice turned one year old last month, and it has been a good year. LibreOffice was a dive into the unknown, and an opportunity to prove what the community already knew: that a chance to swim free could only bring positive results more »

16 September 2011
Arch Linux – "It is what you make it"

Many Linux distributions have taken the path of easy GUI-based installation in order to appeal to a broader mix of users. But not Arch Linux, which emphasises simplicity of technical complexity over general usability. Richard Hillesley explains. more »

02 September 2011
We won and we didn't notice – a conversation with Jeremy Allison of Samba

On a recent visit back to the UK, lead Samba developer Jeremy Allison met up with Richard Hillesley. Richard here relates Allison's description of the history of his involvement with open source, Linux and Samba more »

26 August 2011
Digging deeper with Gentoo Linux

Gentoo is not like other Linux distribution. The Gentoo swims faster than other penguins, and dives deeper. Where more fashionable distributions worry about fast installation and ease of use, Gentoo worries about efficient compilation and degrees of customisation. Richard Hillesley explains its history more »

10 August 2011
A foundation for the desktop – one apple, two ideas

The often predicted tipping point for Linux on the desktop just never seems to materialise, despite a variety of attempts from numerous companies. Richard Hillesley takes us through the history of these attempts, analysing the reasons for failure, and has a modest proposal of his own to offer more »

06 July 2011
OpenOffice - splits and pirouettes

Following the acceptance of OpenOffice as an Apache Incubator project, Richard Hillesley takes a look at how the controversies surrounding LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org have highlighted issues with the licensing and corporate governance of open source projects and communities more »

06 June 2011
Novell's open source legacy – wake up, little SuSE

As the dust settles and Novell parts company with open source, where does that leave SUSE? Richard Hillesley takes a look at the history and the impact on OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Mono and more, and has some suggestions for SUSE more »

16 May 2011
Groklaw – "The blog that made a difference"

As PJ retires from running the influential Groklaw website, Richard Hillesley talks to her about how Groklaw went from being a personal project to "the blog that made a difference" more »

 


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