2023 has been an absolutely insane year for Linux. And The Lunduke Journal has been there to cover every crazy moment.
Below you'll find -- in no particular order -- some of the craziest news stories to hit the world of Linux this year (or any year for that matter).
Note: Some of the stories linked to below contain political topics. While Lunduke.Locals.com strives to stay non-political, these few items simply were too wild to not mention. For those who would like to avoid reading the political stories I have placed a "[Warning: Political]" note next to those links.
Red Hat & IBM - One disaster after another
Red Hat was purchased by IBM back in 2019 -- and things have been getting progressively crazier and crazier since then. This year really took it to the max.
In 2023, Red Hat kicked the year off with a significant round of layoffs (including project leadership for Fedora, their community distribution), then Red Hat stopped work on Libre Office... then Red Hat restricts access to the GPL'd source code of Red Hat Linux.
Not a good year for the Linux giant. But those little mini-disasters were just a warm up for what came at the end of the year.
In December of 2023, a massive series of leaks (many of which were exclusive to The Lunduke Journal) [Warning: Political], revealed racist and discriminatory programs within both Red Hat and (parent company) IBM -- including racist hiring policies and racist training programs.
What will the resulting legal action and public backlash mean for Red Hat in 2024? How will all of this impact Linux (considering Red Hat's massive support of Linux) going forward? We shall soon find out...
The Implosion of SUSE & openSUSE
The longest-running Linux company in the world, SUSE, has had one heck of a hard year. First, their CEO gets axed back in March (unexpectedly, with no replacement ready to take over) -- then we find out that the CEO had greenlit a number of "risky deals" for the company leading up to her termination.
Then, a few months later, the company announces their de-listing from the German Stock Exchange.
Bad business news, to be sure. But it gets worse. The community focused portion of SUSE -- the openSUSE project and Linux distribution -- made two of the strangest moves imaginable.
First, openSUSE went on the warpath against half of their users and contributors by declaring people with certain politics to be "Rotten Flesh" that needs to be "Cut out" [Warning: Political].
Then, openSUSE decided they wanted to ditch one of their best assets: their long-standing, beloved, and recognizable mascot.
It's difficult to imagine how a year could be much worse than 2023 was for SUSE & openSUSE. We'll have to see what 2024 has in store.
Ubuntu to go 100% Snappy and Immutable in 2024
In 2023 we learned that the future of Ubuntu will be moving entirely to Snappy packaging... and to become an immutable Linux distribution. A massive (and controversial) technical change.
Ubuntu (and parent company, Canonical) remain a major force within the Linux world. So this shift is a noteworthy one. What impact will this have on the Ubuntu userbase? How will the rollout of this new "immutable Ubuntu" be received? That all remains to be seen.
GNOME now run by a "Professional Shaman"
This story is, quite simply, too weird to be true. And, yet, it is.
In October of 2023, the GNOME Foundation hired a new Executive Director -- a self-proclaimed "Professional Shaman" who performs, as her career, "group shamanic energy clearing", "shaman water", and sells a "How to become a professional shaman" course.
Even weirder? Both GNOME and their new Director began actively censoring anyone who mentioned the word "Shaman" -- effectively "Shaman-shaming" their new "Shaman" Director. Since then, the GNOME Foundation's new Executive Shaman has gone into publicity lock-down... with no available public appearances or prossence of any kind.
Just... wild.
GitHub to become... an A.I. platform?
An absolutely huge number of Linux-related projects utilize GitHub -- from applications to full distributions. And, according to Microsoft (who owns GitHub), the plan is to turn the source control platform into an A.I. system.
Seriously.
While the overall impact, of this change, on the Linux and Open Source world may be small (as many projects may simply move to another source control platform)... it's still weird enough that it's worth mentioning.
The De-Linux-ing of The Linux Foundation
In the 2022 Linux Foundation Annual Report, we learned that the foundation behind Linux had reduced their spending on Linux to just 3.2%. Then, at the end of 2023, we learned that spending on Linux had reduced even further... down to just 2% of their revenue.
And we began to see the results of that lack of Linux-focus with the dropping of Long Term Support Linux kernel versions.
Woof! That's a pretty wild drop in spending for the core project that their entire foundation is named after.
2023 was a weird one!
Massive technical changes! Corporate disasters! Significant drops in Linux and open source investments! Shamans!
I mean... shoot. The chaos and disasters at the two biggest Linux companies -- Red Hat & SUSE -- were absolutely wild.
Holy smokes. What a year!
I'd like to say that next year is going to be a whole lot more relaxed and sane. But I've got a sneaking suspicion... that 2024 is going to crank the crazy up to 11.
Worth noting: The craziest Linux stories of 2023 were all broken by The Lunduke Journal. Exclusive whistleblowers. Deep research. Topics that other Tech publications are afraid to even touch. Stay tuned. Because The Lunduke Journal is just getting warmed up.
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