Introduction In my recent deep review of the QuirkLogic Papyr E-Ink tablet, I purposefully focused on the device’s stock settings. Since I promised the folks at QuirkLogic that I would provide them with extensive critical feedback, I needed to keep my feedback focused on the device exactly as they configured it. Yet, each of us […]
On October 21, 2022, I had the privilege of being interviewed by Derek Taylor of DistroTube about my advocacy and use of free and open source software as a professional Catholic theologian. Here, I share a full transcript of that interview.
The FreeBSD Foundation is a “non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and promoting the FreeBSD Project and community worldwide.” Part of the explicit mission of the Foundation is to provide “workshops, educational material, and presentations to recruit more users and contributors to FreeBSD.” Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the folks at the Foundation launched a monthly […]
In the weeks leading to 13-RELEASE, the #freebsd-arm mailing list was ablaze with a heroic collective effort to ensure that a flawless image for the Pi 4 was available on the actual release date. I am here to say that it was a success.
The Free and Open Source Developers European Meeting (FOSDEM) is one of the world’s largest annual gatherings for free software advocates (like myself) and developers to share and discuss our work. Because the meeting was virtual this year (in response to the pandemic), I was blessed with the opportunity to participate by pre-recording a presentation. […]
One month ago, I launched the GitHub repository awesome-theology. I intend Awesome Theology to be a new contribution to the Awesome project. Awesome is a parent system by which “awesome lists about all kinds of interesting topics” are made and maintained by persons who are engaged in those topics. The Awesome Manifesto specifies that an […]
Historical theologians and GNU/Linux geeks both crave order where order is hard to find. Legacy file types and minor conflicting precedents in the tradition cause chaos to fall as acid rain on the continents in which each group’s members work. One drop of order brings sweet, albeit temporary, relief—whether it be a coherent summary of […]
Until recently, my favorite GNU/Linux distribution was Manjaro, which is based on Arch Linux. Manjaro is to Arch as Ubuntu is to Debian—an overhaul of the parent distribution that is intended to be intuitive for (nearly) all users and immediately functional on (nearly) all desktop systems. Manjaro with i3wm—my first tiling window manager—remains my OS […]
Although I cannot endorse the hostile tone of the folks who participate in the Suckless project (“Software that Sucks Less” inasmuch as it is both free and open source and as minimal as possible while functioning as intended), I am grateful for their work. Like many GNU/Linux aficionados, I use the “Stuff that rocks” list […]
Faculty and administrators at Catholic institutions have a responsibility—perhaps, I dare suggest, a moral imperative—to employ free and open source software. That responsibility becomes particularly clear during a time when we are all involved in remote instruction as a temporary means of survival. At this moment, we have a unique opportunity to reevaluate our software choices. Let us not allow that opportunity to be wasted. Moving forward, we ought to use only free and open source software.