Intrepid what?

The name of the next Ubuntu animal in the menagerie: With its April/October release dates firmly etched in stone, Ubuntu has named its October 2008 release Intrepid Ibex. Interpid what? Ibex — it’s a is a type of wild mountain goat with large recurved horns that are transversely ridged in front (and, dang, those horns are long). Here are the details right from the horse’s, er Mark Shuttleworth’s mouth.

The next set of names that come from Linux Mint, once they reach “Z” (Zelda?) will start again with an “A” but will end with an “e”, according to Linux Mint’s Clement Lefebvre. I mentioned the naming convention in the Linux Mint chapter of “Eight Distros a Week” — it’s alphabetical women’s names ending in “a” — and wondered aloud when they got to “Z,” whether the names restarting with “A” would end in a “b.” Nope, Clem says, they’ll start with “A” but the last letter will be “e.” Nice touch. Thanks for clarifying that, Clem.

G’day, Firefox: While Firefox‘s gains against Internet Exploder generally focuses on the percentages garnered in Europe, the place where Firefox is really taking off is Oceania, where 31 percent of Australians and New Zealanders are using the browser. Those are the results from a French polling firm called XiTi, and the story can be found here. And here in North America? A hefty 21 percent, third behind the Aussies and Kiwis of Oceania and the 23 percent of Europe.

Rolling Funder: The blogger known as Helios — a man who has made it his life’s mission to promote GNU/Linux at every turn — has an interesting concept in a recent blog which, if it works (and my money is on it working), would make a truly sound foundation for building a truly grassroots promotional vehicle for FOSS. I’m very much on board with this one, Helios — count me in.

On the BSD side . . . Steven Rosenberg of Click is smack in the middle of a BSD odyssey which is as intriguing as it is informative and entertaining. Not only this, it has kindled my interest in attempting to get NetBSD running on one of these old Macs just one more time (although, sheesh, Steven — those 5 a.m. posting times on your blog must be murder . . . .).

(Larry Cafiero, editor/publisher of Open Source and Free Software Reporter, is an associate member of the Free Software Foundation.)

One in four Europeans choose Firefox

An interesting story that originates in Europe today, brought to our attention courtesy of DesktopLinux.com, states that nearly a quarter of European Web surfers do their surfing with Firefox which, according to the story, has the browser market share of 24 percent. When I went to school, that was close enough to say “one in four.”

“Firefox browser usage has increased substantially — by nearly 5 percent — in Europe over the past year, French web analyst firm XiTi reports,” says the story. “During the week of March 5 through 11, 2007, the open-source browser exceeded 24 percent share of Europe’s browser market, according to the market researcher.”

Slovenia and Finland have the most per capita users, in the mid-40s percentage-wise, and Germany is in the mid-30s.

We in the U.S. — with a meager 15 percent of the browsing public using Firefox — are slowly but surely getting on the bandwagon, since figures have Firefox steadily climbing, but a far cry from the 78 percent market share that Internet Exploder forces on most of the public.

(Larry Cafiero, editor/publisher of Open Source Reporter, is an associate member of the Free Software Foundation.)