UNIX news roundup, with apologies to Tic Tacs

Here is a brief selection of UNIX and Unix-like headlines that have caught my eye, along with some commentary (or fanboy smarm passing itself off as 'commentary'):

• Now that the U.S. election season has reached its painful conclusion (and like the proverbial gift that keeps giving, there is sure to be residual pain to come), Computerworld's Sandra Henry-Stocker provides what could be a novel alternative the next time around in her latest opinion piece, Why scripts are better than politicians. As you work your way down her 20-point list, you'll notice the central proposition becoming less and less absurd. If I had to add my two cents to the list, and because I'm simply not wired to resist the temptation, I'd say scripts are better than politicians because you have nothing to fear if and when they reach for your Tic Tacs. (Audience groans, comedian apologizes.)

• The PC-BSD project has rebranded itself TrueOS (TrueOS Succeeds PC-BSD Desktop-Friendly Unix OS). While I've read additional material from other sources (including the project's home page), I have yet to come across an explanation for the reasoning behind the name change; my own inkling is that while hardly concealing the system's FreeBSD base, there may nevertheless be a desire for the project to present itself as something much more than just another distro. If you've ever gone with a vanilla install of FreeBSD and tried to make it more desktop-friendly from there, and then taken PC-BSD for a spin, you'll have no problem agreeing that it is indeed more than just FreeBSD with some extra goodies thrown in. Personally, I think the name change is befitting a project that works so hard at making FreeBSD so user-friendly that even your grandmother would find it intuitive. It is a complete operating system in its own right in the same way as Mac OS X, which also just happens to be powered under the hood by BSD. Beyond the fresh moniker, it should also be noted that the project now follows a rolling release model. Kudos to Kris Moore and the rest of the team.

• The OpenIndiana 2016.10 "Hipster" release has now been unleashed (OpenIndiana 2016.10 Unix OS Migrates to FreeBSD Loader, Adds MATE 1.14 Desktop), which I hope to try out as soon as absolutely possible. While I've been aware for some time of the switch from the Gnome 2 desktop to its successor fork, MATE 1.14, I was happily surprised to learn of GRUB being replaced by the FreeBSD Loader. Yes, my UNIX bias is showing - the use of GRUB by Solaris and most of the OpenSolaris descendant forks has always left me feeling like those systems were trying to come across as Linux-like, as if replacing CDE with Gnome 2 wasn't self-debasing enough. (Ah, let the flame war begin...)