Life is like a roller coaster, as the popular saying goes, filled with both ups and downs. Here in the Linux blogosphere we’ve certainly experienced our share of downs in recent months — thanks in large part to a frustrating spate of FUD — but lately the clouds have parted and the sun is shining on Linux with full force once again.

There are few things more gratifying to those of us here in the Linux blogosphere than seeing the many and varied virtues of our favorite operating system get officially recognized. It happens with increasing regularity these days, of course — after all, there are so very many virtues to consider — but recently an example emerged that has been warming FOSS fans’ hearts ever since.

Well it’s spring storm season in many parts of the world, so it should come as no great surprise that we’ve had some storms here in the Linux blogosphere as well. The latest example? None other than an intriguing poll about paying for Linux. Could you, would you, do you pay for Linux? the poll asked. The question had barely hit the airwaves when the stampede began.

Well the FUD continues to flow fast and furious here in the Linux blogosphere, where local pharmacists have recently noticed a sudden surge in demand for blood pressure medications. No sooner did Linux fans begin to calm down after the recent attack on open source in general, in fact, than a fresh report arrived from down under that caused tempers to flare up all over again.

There’s been no shortage of gloom and doom here in the Linux blogosphere lately, what with Fuduntu’s demise, a fresh round of anti-FOSS FUD, and even criticisms of Linux distros’ girth. So it was with particular joy that Linux bloggers received the news about the all-new BeagleBone Black.

It’s a well-known fact that statistics can be manipulated to suit virtually every occasion and purpose, but every once in a while an example comes along that illustrates that rule with breathtaking clarity. Case in point? Two recent surveys on the topic of FOSS that came out in the very same week.

The size of Linux’s waistline has long been the focus of recurring attention here in the Linux blogosphere, even drawing occasional criticism from Linus Torvalds himself.
Recently, however, a fresh weight-related complaint was made — not about the kernel itself, but about today’s Linux distros.

Last Monday delivered both death and taxes. April 15 was not only the day U.S. taxes were due, but also the day two bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon. The magnitude of that tragedy is far beyond the scope of this column, of course, but Monday also brought a casualty — albeit on a much smaller scale — to those of us here in the Linux world. It wasn’t a human death, fortunately.

It’s no secret that brand image is a crucial consideration in most any consumer product’s success, and Linux is surely no exception. That’s been a hot topic of conversation before, but recently it’s popped up again with a fresh new twist. "The Linux Inside Stigma" was the title of the post that started the ball rolling this time, and rolled it has.

It’s a good thing the tequila flows so freely here in the Linux blogosphere, or public health officials would have a lot more problems on their hands. After all, between Secure Boot, Canonical’s wild moves and the Menace of Mordor — er, Redmond — Linux fans have more than their fair share of things to worry about in any given day, week or month.

There may never be any shortage of topics to debate and discuss here in the Linux blogosphere, but it’s not often that we see not just one but two major developments happening in the same area on the same day. That, however, is just what happened last week in the world of browsers. The day started off just like any other ordinary Wednesday; then news about Servo and Blink arrived, and it quickly became clear fate had more in store.

Political and economic news from around the globe may bombard us with annoying regularity here in the tech community, and as most of us know, the news is almost always bad. That, of course, is why it’s such a good thing we have Facebook to filter out what we don’t want to hear. It’s also why we all waited in rapt attention for the Facebook Home announcement.

It seems fair to say that every tech community out there has its own hot-button issues that are pretty much guaranteed to get conversations flowing and blood pressures rising. The Linux community, of course, is no exception, and it’s difficult to imagine a better illustration than a debate that came up recently. "The Linux Desktop Mess" is the title of the post that got the discussion going.

Kona, an innovative social networking platform for businesses and organizations, was launched in late 2012. It grew out of a vision developer Scott DeFusco had for a way to solve communications issues shared in peoples’ business and social lives. DeFusco and Kona cofounder Jeff Eckerle developed the new approach to online collaboration as an internal start-up within Deltek, an enterprise resource planning vendor

It’s not exactly any secret that Microsoft has had its fair share of legal troubles over the years, many of them arising from its pesky little habit of finding ways to shut the door on competitors. So when Secure Boot came along in Windows 8, many considered it just a matter of time before a formal complaint was made.

It seems scarcely a day can go by without someone declaring some technology or another "dead." Take the netbook, for example. People have been saying for years it’s dead; today, however, we have the Chromebook phenomenon. The command line is another popular target, of course, but few can compete with the Linux desktop itself, the death of which has been trumpeted so many times now that Linux Girl has lost count.