05.12.08
Posted in News Roundup at 1:57 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Education
Information and Access
Success Stories
GNU/Linux Miscellany
Ubuntu
Share this post:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Permalink 
Send this to a friend
If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.
Pages that cross-reference this one
What Else is New
European Patents Losing Their Appeal, Lustre and Glamour
Years of assaults on EPO staff — including EPO judges — have taken their toll and the quality of patents is nothing like it used to be
Software Freedom and The U.S. Constitution
“We need to stand for the freedom to not use the software — we need to enjoy that freedom without giving up the rest of the existing Free software ecosystem.”
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, December 14, 2019
IRC logs for Saturday, December 14, 2019
Links 15/12/2019: Wine 5.0 RC1 Released, KDE Frameworks 5.65.0, Qubes OS 4.0.2 RC3
Links for the day
It Matters a Lot What You Call the System
Why the best name for the best operating system would be "GNU", not "Linux" (media has twisted the words so as to marginalise GNU and its politics/philosophy)
Only the EPO Goes as Far as Bribing Publishers (the Media) to Promote Software Patents and Publish Fictional Stories
The world’s patent offices are growing tired of granting software patents which courts later toss out (because these patents are not valid); not only does the EPO advocate such patents — typically using a bundle of buzzwords — it’s also bribing the media to help
EU Needs to Show That It Cares About SMEs and Not 'European Champions' That Are Actually Foreign Monopolies
Judging by the EU’s nearly blind and unconditional support for the management of the EPO — no matter how abusive and corrupt it has gotten — one has to wonder if the ex-EU official in charge of the EPO reveals a profound democracy deficit as well as growing dangers to Europe’s businesses — the productive firms to which patent maximalism often represents far more risk than opportunity
Guest Article: The Free Software Movement Should Come Out From the Box
"From now onwards we have to think from a user’s rights perspective and mobilise users of Free software. They should know what rights they ought to get."
IRC Proceedings: Friday, December 13, 2019
IRC logs for Friday, December 13, 2019
Links 13/12/2019: QEMU 4.2.0, GNU Guile 2.9.7
Links for the day
Links 13/12/2019: Zorin OS 15.1, Vim 8.2
Links for the day
Linux Foundation Has Outsourced All the Licence Compliance Stuff to Microsoft, a Serial GPL Violator
OpenChain Specification/OpenChain Project and Automated Compliance Tooling (ACT) are yet more examples -- the latest of many -- of the Linux Foundation being outsourced to Microsoft, not only for code but also documentation and hosting
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, December 12, 2019
IRC logs for Thursday, December 12, 2019
Copyleft: Keeping Code Free
Now that news about "Linux" is dominated by promotion of proprietary software we ought to remember what perpetrators of such a strategy seek to eliminate
Plans That Worked, Plans That Failed
"I am still looking for good news, but the more good I try to find, the more nastiness I uncover. This is by far, Free software's worst year ever. 2019 Sucks!"
Links 12/12/2019: KDE Applications 19.12, Qt Creator 4.11, New VirtualBox
Links for the day
Brand Dilution in Action
Microsoft's proprietary software which spies on people and businesses is getting a "free ride" on the "Linux" brand; and nobody seems to care, nobody seems to notice how perverse that it
At the EPO Money -- Not Quality -- is King
Financiers are ruining quality
The EPO's Strategic Failure 2023
Potemkin social dialogue
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, December 11, 2019
IRC logs for Wednesday, December 11, 2019
EPO Promoting Software Patents in Countries Where These Are Illegal
The EPO's vision of 'unitary' software patents (patents on algorithms in countries that disallow such patents, as per their national laws) won't materialise, but in the meantime a lot of Invalid Patents (IPs) are granted in the form of European Patents (EPs) and this is wrong
We Support GNU and the FSF But Remain Sceptical and Occasionally Worry About an RMS-less FSF
Richard Stallman (RMS) is not in charge of the FSF anymore (it's Stallman who created the FSF) and there's risk the decisions will be made by people who don't share Stallman's ethics or the FSF's spirit
Links 11/12/2019: Huawei Lobbied by Microsoft (Because of GNU/Linux) and Microsoft Still Googlebombs Linux to Promote 'Teams'
Links for the day
Links 11/12/2019: Edge Native Working Group, CrossOver 19.0 Released
Links for the day
Instead of Fixing Bug #1 Canonical/Ubuntu Contributes to Making the Bug Even More Severe (WSL/EEE)
Following one seminal report about Canonical financially contributing to Microsoft's EEE efforts — celebrated openly by GNU/Linux opponentsclosing bug #1 Ubuntu basically decided not that it was fixed but that it would no longer attempt to fix it (“wontfix”)
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, December 10, 2019
IRC logs for Tuesday, December 10, 2019
Today's Example of Microsoft's Faked 'Love'
“On 7 September 2017, users began noticing a message that stated “Skype for Business is now Microsoft Teams”. This was confirmed on 25 September 2017, at Microsoft’s annual Ignite conference,” according to Wikipedia
Links 10/12/2019: Kubernetes 1.17, Debian Init Systems GR
Links for the day
'Cancel Culture' as 'Thoughtpolice' Creep
Richard Stallman spoke about an important aspect of censorship more than 2 decades ago (before “Open Source” even existed); it was published in Datamation (“Censoring My Software”) 23 years before a campaign of defamation on the Internet was used to remove him from MIT and FSF (censoring or ‘canceling’ Stallman himself)
Microsoft Still Hates GNU/Linux and Mark Shuttleworth Knows It (But He is Desperate for Money)
We're supposed to believe that a PR or image management (reputation laundering) campaign alone can turn Microsoft from GNU/Linux foe into friend/ally
Content is available under CC-BY-SA
Challenger said,
May 12, 2008 at 11:43 am
Sometimes I think that M$ is responsible to some extent to the growth of FOSS and Linux. If it wouldn’t be for the exploitation of M$ – we wouldnt have seen such rapid adoption of FOSS by other companies.
Challenger said,
May 12, 2008 at 11:44 am
there would be no GPL/FOSS/Linux/OpenJDK/OpenOffice…if it wasnt for M$..
Roy Schestowitz said,
May 12, 2008 at 12:32 pm
The Free Software movement predates Microsoft’s dominance. Had it not been Microsoft, it probably would have been someone else, unless of course there was diversity in the market and far less abuse of power.
Watching the iTunes/iPod monopoly, however, not to mention Intel’s recently-exposed corruptions (been going on for ages), I believe the problem is a regulatory one. The market rules just don’t work. That’s what anti-Trust laws were made for a long time ago, but some governments neglect them (possibly given some dosh to do so).
Roy Bixler said,
May 12, 2008 at 1:10 pm
In the case of the US, the reason for the lax anti-trust enforcement is largely the ideological bent of the current administration. They strongly prefer that the government takes a passive role when it comes to regulating the market. A rally cry during the Reagan years was to “get government off your back.” Now, it is very clear to that he was referring to big business.
ZiggyFish said,
May 12, 2008 at 5:18 pm
I wonder if the soon to be new government, well fix US’s stand on Microsoft.