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Lunduke Computer Operating System Status - July 5, 2024
Licensing & Governance!
July 05, 2024
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This was a rather quiet week for the Lunduke Computer Operating System (LCOS).  It is Independence Day here in the USA, and I took a little time off to celebrate with the family.  Likewise, one of the key early developers (working on the first version of our image creation script) took the week off to go camping.

Family time is important.  As is good BBQ.

Just the same, two very critical decisions were made this week.  Decisions which will have far reaching implications for the future of the project.

BSD Licensing

For all 100% original code (developed specifically for the Lunduke Computer Operating System), the BSD 2-Clause license will be utilized.

The BSD 2-Clause was selected for a wide variety of reasons.  Notably: simplicity, flexibility, and the fact that it has been well tested for over a quarter of a century (as the primary license of the FreeBSD project).

Also known as the "Simplified BSD License", it contains only two clauses:

  1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
  2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

This license will be used for the imaging scripts, installation software, and any original software built for LCOS.

Of course, it goes without saying that a complete, functional LCOS installation will include a wide variety of licenses (from a wide variety of pieces of software).  But the parts we specifically build will use the BSD 2-Clause by default.

Government Structure

There are a great many issues plaguing many Free and Open Source Software projects -- often stemming from individuals, with motives contrary to the original vision of the project, gaining control over moderation or governance.

We see this happening in a number of different Linux Distrubutions and projects right now... and it just plain sucks.

In order to prevent this from taking place, The Lunduke Computer Operating System will be a monarchy.

While multiple, specialized governmental organizations may be created within the project (to fill specific needs)... a monarch will sit at the head, with the authority to override any and all decisions made by any such governmental bodies.

Some projects call this role a "Benevolent Dictator".  We call it a monarch.  For no other reason than because I like the sound of it.

All hail, King Lunduke.

Lots To Do

There remains a tremendous amount of work to do in these early days -- with a pretty hefty to-do list to crank through in the weeks ahead.  But progress is being made.  Even during holidays.

Regally yours,
-King Lunduke

Past Status Reports

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Looking for the Podcast RSS feed or other links? Check here:
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Those in power with openSUSE make it clear they will not allow me anywhere near anything related to the openSUSE project. Ever. For any reason.

Well, that settles that, then! Guess I won't be contributing to openSUSE! 🤣

Looking for the Podcast RSS feed or other links?
https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4619051/lunduke-journal-link-central-tm

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openSUSE says "No Lunduke allowed!"
September 13, 2023
"Andreas Kling creator of Serenity OS & Ladybird Web Browser" - Lunduke’s Big Tech Show - September 13th, 2023 - Ep 044

This episode is free for all to enjoy and share.

Be sure to subscribe here at Lunduke.Locals.com to get all shows & articles (including interviews with other amazing nerds).

"Andreas Kling creator of Serenity OS & Ladybird Web Browser" - Lunduke’s Big Tech Show - September 13th, 2023 - Ep 044

July 1985

I had just graduated high school.

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It's been a full 40 years, you Commodore people. Why no anniversary celebration?

(Also, hat tip to the marketing team for this Stanley Kubrik callback).

Coming back after taking an extended break celebrating pride month for the 8th time this year and supporting Hamas, the GNOME Foundation has decided to place a donation button in the GNOME 49, alpha 1, settings. Unlike the KDE Plasma donation button, this one doesn't seem able to be removed.

Personally, I have nothing against asking for support, but I remember the outrage caused previously when gnome extensions put in donate buttons. So, it will be interesting to see if this causes any backlash among the unemployed socialists that make up the bulk of GNOME users (excluding all the ones working for Red Hat, Canonical and other mega capitalist corporations).

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13 hours ago

GPT-5 is legit

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Gpt-5 was released halfway through a coding hackathon so I just happen to be in a position to see its improvement. I’m using Cursor for the agentic coding tool and Claude models the first week. It’s been wonderful. There’s a good chance I’ll actually subscribe when my free trial is up.

Then GPT- 5 was released. I had it redo the look and feel of the app and it did a much better job. It’s faster. It’s cheaper. And the coding appears to be on par. That was never my experience before with OpenAI models vs Claude.

Some say it’s better. Your really have to work hard to definitively answer that -...

Quick Lunduke Journal reminders: 50% off through Sunday, where to find links

Hello all of you amazing nerds!

With The Lunduke Journal videos now being subscriber exclusives, I wanted to take a moment for a few quick reminders:

  • All articles — as well as all audio podcast episodes — remain free for everyone. See Lunduke.com for all of the links for where you can grab them.

  • If you have a Lifetime Subscription (via either Locals or Substack) and have any issues or questions — feel free to reach out via email: [email protected].

  • The 50% off discounts for new subscriptions runs through end of the day Sunday (the 10th).

Seriously. Feel free to take advantage of that discount. Save some serious buckazoids and support The Lunduke Journal in the process. It’s a win-win.

-Lunduke

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Number of Orphaned Linux Kernel Modules Doubles in 2 Years
Intel layoffs & Russian bans have contributed to a growing number of abandoned Linux Kernel Modules -- which now make up over 8% of all Linux modules.

Over the last few days, a number of Linux Kernel modules have officially become “Orphaned” — meaning they no longer have a maintainer to look after them in any way.

Image
 

This most recent surge in “Orphan” Linux Kernel modules is due to a round of fairly massive layoffs happening at Intel, with the company reducing total staff by tens of thousands before the end of this year.

And, of course, among those being laid off are multiple programmers who were paid maintainers of Linux Kernel modules. Things like the Intel CPU temperature drivers, Slim Bootloader, and the Time of Day clock. All are now “Orphan” modules, with more expected over the coming months.

This isn’t the first event which has caused a surge in Orphan modules.

In October of 2024, a wave of Russian programmers (and programmers suspected of working with Russian companies) were banned from contributing to the Linux kernel. This was in response to President Biden’s Executive Order 14071, which forbade Russians from working with or using GPL'd software made in the USA.

Which, naturally, included the Linux Kernel.

How Many Orphans Are There?

All of which begs the question… exactly how many Linux Kernel Modules now have no maintainer at all?

Figuring that out is a pretty trivial task. Linux Kernel Modules with maintainers (or which had maintainers) are listed in the Linux “MAINTAINERS” file.

And, as of August 8th, 2025, there were 138 Kernel Modules specifically listed as having a Status of “Orphan”.

But that only tells us part of the story. What we really need to know is how fast the number of Orphan Modules is growing… and what percentage, of all modules, are not maintained.

Turns out, both numbers are… not great.

 

Over the last 2 years — between August of 2023 and August of 2025 — the number of “Orphan” modules in the Linux kernel grew from 75 to 138.

They nearly doubled.

Now let’s look at the percentage of Orphaned Modules.

Since we know that there are roughly 2,496 Modules which have an active maintainer (give or take, based on a quick look at the MAINTAINERS file) that means that a little over 5% of all Linux Kernel modules… are orphans.

 

Though that doesn’t tell the whole story.

There is also another category of Kernel Module where the status is listed as “Odd Fixes”. Meaning “It has a maintainer but they don’t have time to do much.”

If we consider those modules as also “Not Maintained” (along with the “Orphan” Modules), the total percentage of un-maintained Kernel Modules grows to 8.6%.

 

The Future of Linux is Unmaintained

Considering the upcoming layoffs at Intel — whose employees are the current maintainers of well over 200 different modules — the possibility of “Not Maintained” Linux Kernel Modules hitting over 10% isn’t a far fetched idea.

And we’re not talking about seldom used hardware drivers here. We’re talking about things like “temperature sensors” and “time of day” (and all manner of critical hardware support like ACPI and Ethernet drivers).

While it’s reasonable to assume that some of the most critical Kernel Modules will get new (often volunteer) maintainers — thus saving them from becoming true “Orphans” — many will fall into an abandoned state. As has been the case over the last few years.

What result that will have on the Linux kernel — and the broader Linux ecosystem — remains to be seen. But we’ll find out soon enough.

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Lunduke's Non-Woke Software List (for August, 2025)
From Operating Systems to Web Browsers. There's lots of Woke Software out there. Let's take a look at some decidedly NON-Woke options.
There’s a heck of a lot of Woke Software out there. Especially in the Open Source world.

What, exactly, is “Woke Software”? Glad you asked. Because I’ve defined it.

 

Simple, right?

I’m sure we can all think of some examples. Mozilla Firefox, NixOS, Godot, and a whole mountain of others.

But what about… Non-Woke Software? You know… software which doesn’t hate you for being a normal person?

Luckily there is a growing number of decidedly Non-Woke options. And, even better, some of them are truly outstanding. Below I have collected my personal favorites as of August of 2025.

Operating Systems

Multiple Non-Woke Linux Distributions (and even a few BSD options) are available.

  • OpenMandriva - A classic Linux distribution.

  • GhostBSD - A FreeBSD based distro focused on usability.

  • Omarchy - An Arch + Hyprland configuration.

  • Devuan - A fork of Debian without SystemD.

I can personally vouch for the quality of all of those options. They are all unique and worth taking for a test-drive.

My personal favorite? OpenMandriva.

Web Browsers

As of right now, there are two web browsers I can recommend.

  • Brave - A Chromium based browser focused on privacy and ad blocking.

  • Ladybird - A from-scratch browser (not yet usable for a daily driver).

Though, honestly, only Brave is truly usable, right now, as a daily driver. But Ladybird is making such rapid progress that it seems worth including in this list to keep an eye on.

E-Mail Clients

If you’re looking for a desktop Email client, there’s really only one noteworthy option at the moment.

While Betterbird has not made a point of being Non-Woke, they are a fork of Mozilla Thunderbird. And Mozilla is the king of Open Source Wokeness.

Other Software

Here’s a few Non-Woke pieces of software which just don’t fit in the other categories. Hopefully, as the quantity of decidedly Non-Woke, quality software grows, we’ll have enough to add a few additional categories.

  • Redot - A fork of the Godot game engine.

  • XLibre - A fork of the Xorg X11 Server.

  • Hyprland - A Wayland window manager / Desktop Environment.

  • SQLite - A small, fast SQL database engine.

Once again, all quality, recommended software.

While this list may not be a mile long, it’s growing — and many of these projects are seeing significant success. Which is pretty fantastic.

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