Companies today can’t get away with not using open source, says Guy Martin, Director, Open@Autodesk, who recently sat down with us for a deep dive into Autodesk’s engagement with and contributions to the open source community.

“Like any company… we consume a lot of open source,” said Martin, “I was brought in to help Autodesk’s open source strategy in terms of how we contribute back more effectively to open source, how we open source code within our environment, which we want to be a standard — code which is non-differentiating and not strategic IP.”

But it’s not easy for a large company like Autodesk to engage with the open source community. Because they also have industry-leading proprietary solutions, they need to be extra careful with consuming and contributing to open source. They need to understand various licenses to avoid legal complexity, and they must be aware that releasing some code may also expose company IP.  These are areas where all companies must tread carefully, and developers need to be fully confident that they can use code efficiently without dealing with a heavyweight process to get permissions for using or contributing.

“There needs to be a process around what we are going to open source which involves legal at a very early stage,” Martin said.

Read more at The Linux Foundation

$ sudo apt install ngrep

$ sudo yum install ngrep

$ sudo dnf install ngrep

Click Here!

Effective management of your to-do list can do wonders for your productivity. Some prefer just keeping a to-do list in a text file, or even just using a notepad and pen. For users that want more out of their to-do list, they often turn to an application. In this article we highlight 4 graphical applications and a terminal-based tool for managing your to-do list.

GNOME To Do

GNOME To Do is a personal task manager designed specifically for the GNOME desktop (Fedora Workstation’s default desktop). When comparing GNOME To Do with some others in this list, it is has a range of neat features.

GNOME To Do provides organization of tasks by lists, and the ability to assign a colour to that list. Additionally, individual tasks can be assigned due dates & priorities, and notes for each task. Futhermore, GNOME To Do has extensions, allowing even more features, including support for todo.txt and syncing with online services such as todoist.

Install GNOME To Do either by using the Software application, or using the following command in the Terminal:

sudo dnf install gnome-todo

Getting things GNOME!

Before GNOME To Do existed, the go-to application for tracking tasks on GNOME was Getting things GNOME! This older-style GNOME application has a multiple window layout, allowing you to show the details of multiple tasks at the same time. Rather than having lists of tasks, GTG has the ability to add sub-tasks to tasks and even to sub-tasks. GTG also has the ability to add due dates and start dates. Syncing to other apps and services is also possible in GTG via plugins.

Install Getting Things GNOME either by using the Software application, or using the following command in the Terminal:

sudo dnf install gtg

Go For It!

Go For It! is a super-simple task management application. It is used to simply create a list of tasks, and mark them as done when completed. It does not have the ability to group tasks, or create sub-tasks. By default, Go For It! stored tasks in the todo.txt format, allowing simpler syncing to online services and other applications. Additionally, Go For It! contains a simple timer to track how much time you have spent on the current task.

Go For It is available to download from the Flathub application repository. To install, simply enable Flathub as a software source, and then install via the Software application.

Agenda

If you are looking for a no-fuss super simple to-do application, look no further than Agenda. Create tasks, mark them as complete, and then delete them from your list. Agenda shows all tasks (completed or open) until you remove them.

Agenda is available to download from the Flathub application repository. To install, simply enable Flathub as a software source, and then install via the Software application.

Taskwarrior

Taskwarrior is a flexible command-line task management program. It is highly customizable, but can also be used “right out of the box.”   Using simple commands, you can create tasks, mark them as complete, and list current open tasks. Additionally, tasks can be tagged, added to projects, searched and filtered. Furthermore, you can set up recurring tasks, and apply due dates to tasks.

This previous article on the Fedora Magazine provides a good overview of getting started with Taskwarrior.

Install Taskwarrior with this command in the Terminal:

sudo dnf install task

Space Hulk (the original DOS game) is a forgotten gem that by all rights should have inspired an entire genre of ‘real-time tactical horror’ clones. Based loosely on the Warhammer 40k board game (that also gave us the more-faithfully-adapted but less-critically-acclaimed Space Hulk: Ascension), Space Hulk was a masterclass in tension and tactics, with slow, powerful Terminator Space Marines stomping their way through abandoned corridors, and alien Genestealers doing their best to sneak around behind them and tear their hearts out through their armor.

Much like its venerable grandfather, Dereliction sees your squad of marines making their way slowly through a derelict vessel while fighting off swarms of alien bugs as they try to get from point A to point B and close the blast door behind them (ideally, for drama’s sake, at the last possible second.) Dereliction‘s also played in real-time with time-slowing if it all gets too overwhelming. After the encounter you can buy upgrades including new weapons and are free to replay missions you’ve unlocked previously for more coin.

Unlike Space Hulk, in Dereliction you have perfect information about the map and enemy movements. Rather than carefully managing an unknown threat you must deal with an overwhelming threat: but that razor-edge sense of impending doom stays with you. You need to juggle several tasks–locking doors, picking up useful and necessary items, operating terminals–while also being on watch for a stream of bugs that could instantly mess up your whole game plan. Well-coordinated, your marines can easily hold back the horde, but if you let something slip through its game over, man, game over.

The setting is your typical military-style spaceship built of square rooms and unlikely corridors, lockers full of cash and ammo crates stuffed with grenades, all shadowy or sickly lit. Creepy ambient noises and music set the mood perfectly. The story text is even well-composed; just evocative enough without seeming too purple.

Dereliction is dripping with atmosphere, which unfortunately tends to smear all over every important element of gameplay. The interface is largely integrated into the game map, which is highly immersive, but difficult to use. To know what keycard you need for a given terminal you have to peer at the actual in game model. To lock a door you have to spin the camera until you can hold your finger on the keyhole. To look at the map, you have to zoom all the way out, which is elegant at first, but cumbersome when you are trying to get a quick overview of your tactical situation. The lurid acid green floor lighting is the same color as the discs you drag around to identify and control your marines. 

These discs are also where you have info on health status, weapon and carried items. Since you are dragging this around to move the marines they can easily become separated from their vitals. There’s no other way to know at a glance even how many marines are still alive, not to mention what they are carrying or armed with. What’s more, without their discs around them troops gray-black armor blends into the gray-black bulkheads of the ship. If they are stuck somewhere away from their control spot, good luck trying to find them before they get eaten. You do have the ability to slow time while still handing out orders, but that doesn’t help much if you can’t figure out who’s who, where they’re going, and what they’re supposed to be doing.

Controls are especially fiddly. If your soldiers are stacked up it can be tough to grab the one you want. Dragging to move takes precious extra seconds, and sometimes fails if you try to move the wrong way, leaving your finger hovering over the screen for far too long. Some destinations will grab your cursor like a magnet while others won’t activate no matter how hard you try. It also takes a lot of wiggling to get the soldiers facing the right direction.

This is especially a big problem because units need so much handholding they won’t even turn around until the swarm is already devouring them. Pointed in the generally correct direction they will effectively defend their angle but turned too far one way and they’ll stubbornly ignore approaching death. They will also happily wade out into danger if they think that is the most efficient path to where you want them to go.

There’s a good game in here about carefully managing the movement of the aliens and protecting your perimeter. Some features do have opportunities to make interesting gameplay choices. For instance, I loved how locking a door behind you had the potential to backfire if the bugs were able to break through, thus essentially turning the passage into a one way path for aliens only. It was cool how you had to be careful not to break batteries–but they could be used as electrical bombs.

As it is, Dereliction has some pretty fundamental design problems that prevent it from being recommendable. It’s just plain hard to play for now, which is a shame since the atmosphere is so good and the genre is so under-served.

Selling video games is (maybe) surprisingly hard. Players talk all the time about what kind of experiences they want, but in the end getting them hooked on your game can take a little preparation and a lot of hard work. 

Today, we were lucky enough to chat with some of the dev team behind Narcosis, David Chen and Jeff Mattas, who did the heavy lifting of adding to the game’s story and selling that story to the press and public. This week, they and the rest of Honor Code re-released the game on PS4, and we were lucky enough to chat with them about their experiences in game development. 

It was a helpful chat, complete with tips from Chen about game marketing and Mattas on budget voice recording. If you’re an indie trying to get your game out in the world, you should definitely watch! 

And while you’re at it, be sure to follow the Gamasutra Twitch channel for more developer interviews and editor roundtables.