For the few that liked my blog and, after a couple of months of silence, thought that I was dead… well I am alive and kicked (no that’s not a typo; I know it should be “kicking”, but the reality is that I feel like I’ve been kicked in my back). What happened… well, a lot of work and, finally, a two-week holiday in Brittany kept me out of the real World. And, now that I am back, I am taking a look around. A number of new interesting news items stand out from the rest.

First, FSDaily is back! And, even if I will not probably be one of the most assiduous readers, it is definitely good news for everybody out there who likes free software like we do.

Wengophone 2.1 has been released on May 15th, 2007

Wengophone 2.1.0 is out, and 2.1.1 is near. Unfortunately, this news is not as good as it should be. In fact, while many aspects of the application have improved (more features and stability to name some), there are now some serious problems in the audio support of the GNU/Linux version that will probably discourage the “normal” users from using it. The hope is now is that this will encourage some kind developers to contribute to the code. The risk for Wengophone in the mean time is that it might slide from a killer- to a killed application…

Skype 1.4 Beta for GNU/Linux is out

At the same time Skype, Wengo’s “target”, is working on the 1.4 release for GNU/Linux. If we had to judge from the appearance, for once they are working hard on the platform: nice graphics on the web page, and a lot of distribution-specific builds for the most recent versions. Competitors have been warned…

And now, despite the old saying “dulcis in fundo”, the bad news. A dry press release from CMP announces the closing of SysAdmin magazine, which has, for more than a decade, been a guiding light for Unix/Linux System Administrators. This is immensely sad news; for the 200 workers that are being laid off in the first place: I wish them all the best. It’s sad news for everybody that had the priviledge to contribute to the magazine: I have been one of those and this just makes my sadness even greater. It’s sad news for the readers, who will hardly find another reference point in the printed-paper market for a comparable price. To the people at SysAdmin Magazine: thanks for everything good you gave us, sorry for the bad things that eventually made our roads diverge when I was a subscriber.

Enough for now. What about the future?