cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/19267793

https://mastodon.social/@peterjriley2024/112436295100404451

LibreOffice continues to enjoy strong demand following the release of version 26.8 in August. According to new figures from The Document Foundation, the open-source office suite recorded 9.4 million downloads over eight weeks, from August 24 to October 18, averaging more than one million downloads per week.

Even more impressive, LibreOffice’s total downloads for 2026 have already surpassed the entire 2025 figure, with ten weeks still remaining in the year.

The latest numbers follow the record-breaking first week of LibreOffice 26.8, which saw 1,031,162 downloads shortly after release. Before the announcement, weekly downloads were slightly below one million but have remained above since.

And those 9.4 million downloads don’t tell the whole story. TDF explains that Windows updates are counted separately, as are downloads of older LibreOffice versions, which also continue to attract considerable interest.

To provide a broader picture, the foundation shared website traffic statistics for the same period. The main download website recorded 11.4 million visits, the Windows update website received about 90 million visits, and the site serving older LibreOffice releases registered nearly 39.7 million visits.

Of course, these figures represent website visits rather than actual downloads or installations, so they shouldn’t be added to the reported 9.4 million total.

As for what’s driving the growth, TDF acknowledges that it cannot provide a definitive answer. Since LibreOffice downloads are anonymous, the organization has no reliable way to determine exactly why more people are choosing the software.

“We like to think that the consistency of the LibreOffice project – which has been championing the concept of digital sovereignty and standard document formats for years – and the robustness of the software, which has never sought to be a clone of the most widely used office suite on the market but has always strived to forge its own path, are two very important factors that, in the long term, represent a significant advantage over all other products.”

Whatever the reasons, the numbers are impressive. This suggests interest in LibreOffice remains strong well after the initial excitement around version 26.8. And with more than two months left in 2026, the project is on track to finish the year with substantially more downloads than in 2025.

"I said, 'Sundar, I'm thinking of the Atlantic Ocean. Can you handle it?'

"'No, no, no, this time I'm not doing it,' he said, 'Oceans are different, sir. They cover a lot of - really a lot of countries. Please don't ask us to do that.'"

The US president later said he would "probably pass" and keep the name Atlantic, before saying, "We're going to call it the American Ocean".

they're basically fish that walk on land

https://youtube.com/watch?v=CAQuoH_fOWM

A bit of a surprise, really, Wine is making its way to OpenBSD. An experimental port has been submitted, and early testing shows it can already run dozens of 64-bit Windows apps (including quite a few games).

The announcement comes from OpenBSD developer Thomas Frohwein, who made the proposed port public on the OpenBSD mailing list and describes it as possibly the most surprising port proposal of the year.

As Frohwein makes clear, getting Wine to work on OpenBSD has been a team effort with the bulk of the work being done by Andrii and Fabien. The biggest hurdle has been the %gs segment register. Wine needs this, but OpenBSD doesn’t allow applications to set GSBASE directly.

The breakthrough was a software workaround which uses the %gs prefix to generate the instructions, circumventing a major compatibility issue which had previously made getting Wine onto the OS so difficult.

The results are already very impressive. The dev team has successfully tested a good number of 64-bit Windows apps, and most run quite nicely. Even more surprisingly, a recent remaster of The Witcher 3 appears to run quite well (though again you do need to install vkd3d-proton to get the D3D12 via Vulkan to work).

Frohwein also posted links to screenshots and gameplay recordings to show off the progress. He pointed out that the gameplay in the recordings may look a bit less smooth than it actually is, as they were recorded directly from the system using FFmpeg.

Of course, there are still limitations. The biggest one is that WoW64 (Wine’s compatibility layer for running 32-bit Windows apps in a 64-bit environment) doesn’t currently work. The OpenBSD port is therefore limited to 64-bit Windows software.

The built-in Wine test suite is also disabled for now. Some of the tests need access to the X server, and some just hang (though the developers have not seen this in their own real-world testing with a large number of games).

For anyone wanting to play around with the port, Frohwein recommends starting with the 64-bit version of Notepad++ (a fairly light Windows app). He also suggests running Wine under a separate unprivileged user account until additional security restrictions can be implemented.

Importantly, Wine has not yet been officially accepted into the OpenBSD ports collection. The current submission is a work in progress which is being proposed for testing, feedback and review by the OpenBSD developers.

Still, given OpenBSD’s very strict security model and the technical difficulties of the task, getting Wine to run modern Windows apps and indeed some of the more demanding games is a significant accomplishment. If it does eventually make it into the official collection, it would go some way toward extending the range of software available to OpenBSD users.

For more details, see Frohwein’s announcement.

They are just not aware that they have this fear and can't therefore understand and work on it effectively. Some people just seem to be stuck in emotional toddlerhood.

Brax Technologies, the company behind the BraX3 smartphone and the open_slate tablet, opened pre-orders for the Wink last week with plans to ship it in two batches next year.

Rob Braxman, a co-founder of the company and known on the web as The Internet Privacy Guy, had presented the Wink at a roadmap event last month.

The Wink runs BraxOS, an Android-based operating system that does not include Google services, and the device comes with a physical switch located on top that can be configured to shut off the camera, microphones, location, sensors, or mobile network.

During setup, you can pick between Omni, a full Android experience, and Zero, a stripped-down mode limited to encrypted messaging, calls, messages, and optional navigation.

BraxOS does not support Google account sign-ins or Google Play Services, but Brax says most Android apps still run without issues. The exceptions are apps that check for Google's integrity services before starting, which includes a few banking apps.

The Wink can also wipe itself on triggers you set in advance, namely every restart, a long stretch powered off state, repeated failed unlock attempts, and a duress password.

Brax promises updates until 2032 and says anyone can build BraxOS from source, with files available in its BraX3 repositories.

Key specifications

Coming back to the hardware that powers all that, we have:

SoC: MediaTek MT8875 with an octa-core CPU (4x Arm C1-Pro and 4x Arm C1-Nano cores, 4 nm) and an Arm Mali-G625 MC2 GPU.
RAM & Storage: 8 GB, alongside 128 GB of built-in storage.
Display: 4-inch OLED touchscreen
Camera: 50 MP rear camera, sensor not disclosed.
Keyboard: Physical QWERTY keys that are touch-sensitive and support swipe scrolling.
Networking: Global LTE and 5G bands, plus physical SIM and eSIM support.
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.4.
Ports: USB-C 3.2 Gen 1, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, and a microSD slot for cards up to 1 TB.

Getting the device

Pre-orders come in two batches, each capped at the number of units being built:

Batch 1 is for buyers who pay in full at $449, a price Brax guarantees, and those units go out first in July 2027.
Batch 2 starts with a $30 deposit toward a $550 total. The remaining $520 would be charged around July 2027, with these units shipping in September 2027.

The deposit amount is refundable until the balance is paid, and orders can be changed or cancelled while they are still reservations. Shipping dates can also change, and reservation holders will be emailed about any change before the remaining amount is due.

Each unit is set to ship with the keyboard, a USB-C cable, and a translucent case.

If such phones interest you, you can also explore the MAKERphone 2.0.