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04.07.10

Links 7/4/2010: North Korea’s “RED Star”; Nokia Tablets to Come

Posted in News Roundup at 1:50 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Linux is not an operating system, or is it?

    If you are at all familiar with my brain sneezes (I could use another word here but this is a respectable blog :) then you know I am always rabbiting on about Linux. I am always Linux this and Linux that. This gets some people upset and they claim that it should be GNU/Linux or perhaps more accurately Linux/GNU. There is a word in the English language (which I hope I am using) called context. In other words, I use the word Linux in the context of a complete Linux based distribution and believe that my readers understand that context.

  • Egypt: Linux InstallFest a Success!

    The Egyptian Linux Users Group organizes an event every now and then in order to raise the awareness of the masses of Free Open Source Software (FOSS). They help distribute Linux CDs for free, help people in installing Linux on their machines, and give awareness sessions and brief introductions to FOSS-related software and technology.

  • UNISSA, BOSSC hold networking event today

    UNISSA (Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali) and the Brunei Open Source Software Community (BOSSC) will be holding a networking event today from 2pm to 4.30pm at the basement of the UNISSA library.

  • Popularity of Open Source Software rising

    THE Brunei Open Source Software Community (BOSSC) kicked off a successful networking event highlighting examples of Open Source Software (OSS) as a major tool in national development.

    At an event held at Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali (Unissa) Library, the Brunei Open Source Software Community (BOSSC) held four presentations hosted by Unissa’s Centre for Promotion of Knowledge and Language Learning.

  • Acadiana Open Source software group now meeting at LITE

    Many computer users are not aware of the wealth of free software that is available to the public; one of the most prominent being browsers like Mozilla Firefox. “Raising awareness and evangelizing open source software and its benefits is part of the mission of our group,” adds Turland. “If someone is interested in using open source software and isn’t sure how to get started, we’re more than happy to help them out.”

  • SouthEast LinuxFest Announces Partial Speaker List
  • Red Star OS spotted in North Korea

    Today the BBC has reported about a study from South Korea’s Science and Technology Policy Institute, which warned that the Red Star software is designed to increase government control over its citizens and their access to technology and the Internet. What? In North Korea?

  • NK Goes for Linux-Based Operating System

    According to researchers at South Korea’s Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI), North Korea’s Linux-based “RED Star” software is mainly designed to monitor the Web behavior of its citizens and control information made available to them.

    However, the computer operating system does represent North Korean efforts to advance its computer technology, which lags as a result of the country’s isolation, relying on Linux and other open-source software, said Kim Jong-seon, a STEPI researcher.

  • PRESS DIGEST – South Korean newspapers – April 6

    North Korea is expanding the use of its Linux-based operating system “Red Star” developed in 2002, into diverse areas and it is currently using its software to monitor citizens’ Web behaviour, said a researcher for the South Korea’s Science and Technology Policy Institute.

  • North Korean operating system better than Windows
  • Windows, Linux Get Knocked-Off

    Of course the operating system wouldn’t be complete without numerous programs that allow North Korean authorities to watch what users are doing and of keep outsiders from getting in.

  • 10 Ways to Explore Linux

    1. Live CD – Live CDs are bootable CD images that you burn to a CD or DVD, place in your CD/DVD drive, reboot your computer and enjoy a full Linux-based system without installing, partitioning or altering your current system. Everything runs from CD. Some things don’t work well, or at all, but you’ll have a first-hand Linux encounter that’s easy to use, acceptably fast and fully loaded.

  • The oddest places to find Linux

    Open source isn’t just a license or a coding methodology, to many it’s a religion. And the central prayer of that religion is an ode to Linux. In the spirit of such love, Linux has begun to sprout up everywhere. Here’s a compilation of some of the more surprising places you’ll find this beloved operating system.

  • 9 Weird Places to Find Linux

  • Server

    • Most Reliable Hosting Company Sites in March 2010

      Rank Company site OS Outage
      hh:mm:ss Failed
      Req% DNS Connect First
      byte Total
      1 www.memset.com Linux 0:00:00 0.012 0.586 0.129 0.260 0.260
      2 DataPipe FreeBSD 0:00:00 0.016 0.065 0.027 0.056 0.083
      3 iWeb Technologies Linux 0:00:00 0.016 0.134 0.083 0.165 0.165
      4 ReliableServers.com FreeBSD 0:00:00 0.016 0.250 0.083 0.197 0.337
      5 INetU unknown 0:00:00 0.021 0.702 0.073 0.158 0.301
      6 Swishmail FreeBSD 0:00:00 0.021 0.159 0.086 0.173 0.438
      7 www.singlehop.com Linux 0:00:00 0.021 0.258 0.104 0.429 0.962
      8 Hosting 4 Less Linux 0:00:00 0.025 0.116 0.091 0.186 0.474
      9 Kattare Internet Services Linux 0:00:00 0.029 0.153 0.093 0.187 0.443
      10 www.dinahosting.com Linux 0:00:00 0.029 0.121 0.130 0.258 0.258

    • Mad Dog 21/21: When Price/Performance Outruns Elasticity

      IBM has announced a range of Power7 servers for the i and AIX user communities. (These machines support Linux, too, but that doesn’t define their markets.) Mainframes based on the z11 (which will share some components with the Power7 chips and which could end up with a different name) are expected to debut before long.

    • IBM Promotion Cuts PowerVM Hypervisor Upgrade Fees

      PowerVM runs on Power5, Power5+, Power6, Power6+, and Power7 systems, and can be used to provide logical partitioning for OS/400 V5R3, i5/OS V5R4, and i 6.1; AIX 5.2, 5.3, and 6.1; Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5; and Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 and 11. I went through the pricing for PowerVM when the new pricing was announced as part of the Power Systems convergence back in April 2008, and you can check that out here.

  • Kernel Space

    • CUBRID Joins Linux Foundation

      The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that CUBRID is its newest member.

      CUBRID provides an open source database system that is optimized for web services to support mission-critical Internet applications. The company is joining the Linux Foundation to gain access to exclusive networking opportunities and face-to-face collaboration with members of the Linux community.

    • Harping on Metadata Performance: New Benchmarks

      The test system used for these experiments was a stock CentOS 5.3 distribution but with a 2.6.30 kernel and e2fsprogs was upgraded to 1.41.9. The tests were run on the following system:

      * GigaByte MAA78GM-US2H motherboard
      * An AMD Phenom II X4 920 CPU
      * 8GB of memory
      * Linux 2.6.30 kernel
      * The OS and boot drive are on an IBM DTLA-307020 (20GB drive at Ulta ATA/100)
      * /home is on a Seagate ST1360827AS
      * There are two drives for testing. They are Seagate ST3500641AS-RK with 16 MB cache each. These are /dev/sdb and /dev/sdc.

    • The Linux Foundation Wants Your “We’re Linux” Contest Videos

      We’ve covered the Linux Foundation’s “We’re Linux” video contests before, and there’s another underway right now. This year’s prizes include a trip to LinuxCon in Boston later this year, a chance to win a fully-loaded Linux laptop, and bragging rights for submitting the best “We’re Linux” video from all the entries.

    • QA with Parallels CEO: Prioritizing Kernel-Level Contributions

      Beloussov: Since Parallels was founded in 2000, we have been a strong contributor and supporter of Linux – in fact we did not support any other platforms until 2005.

    • AMD announces OpenGL 4.0 and 3.3 support on Windows and Linux platforms

  • Applications

  • GNOME Desktop

    • Welcome Gnome 2.30

      When I was updating my system I realized there were a lot of gnome packages to be upgraded, my enthusiasm immediately rises, gnome 2.30 was out.

  • Distributions

    • Announcing the Gentoo Wiki Project
    • Getting the most out of Mandriva Linux

    • Red Hat Family

      • Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.5 Trails RHEL 5.5

        That’s pretty quick and in my view, one of the quickest turnarounds yet from Oracle with their version of RHEL. Oracle has been releasing its own version of Linux with OEL, based on RHEL since 2006 and they’ve been updating OEL as Red Hat updates RHEL.

      • Open cloud: Game changing technology for govts

        Red Hat urges governments to implement cloud computing founded on both open standards and open source as de facto. Open Source technology by its nature, provides a robust and interoperable foundation for many of today‘s cloud computing deployments. Moreover, it obviates the problem of vendor lock-in that has prevailed for decades.

        Red Hat has the enabling open source technology that governments can already leverage today to implement robust, high performance clouds that are reliable, available and scalable.

      • Fedora

        • Fedora 13 – See What’s New!

          All of these features are marked as 100 percent ready and approved by the Fedora technical steering committee for the Fedora 13 release.

          Anaconda StorageWorks Filtering – The last part of the Anaconda-publicized code of the storage configuration.

          Automatic Print Driver Installation – Necessary packages will be installed on hardware that requires these packages when found by the system.

    • Debian Family

      • Installing Debian Linux; experiences, thoughts and opinions…

        So, to sum up, Debian is one hell of a Linux distribution. Perhaps not as newbie-friendly as some others, but it’s still pretty easy to use. Whatever criticism I’ve heard so far is simply wrong, as I’ve met none of the problems described. I can see myself using Debian for the next few years to come, at least until I decide to fiddle with Gentoo…

      • The role of the Debian ftpmasters

        Linux distributions don’t simply appear on mirrors and BitTorrent networks fully formed. A great deal of work goes on behind the scenes before a release sees the light of day. Linux users who aren’t involved in the production of a Linux distribution may not fully appreciate all of that work. Take, for example, the work done by Debian’s ftpmasters team.

        [...]

        Debian is, as Jaspert alluded to, “not getting smaller” and managing the number of new packages is a “kind of Sisyphean task.” The Debian archive contains thousands of packages, and the NEW queue can have hundreds of packages awaiting approval. NEW packages are those entering Debian for the first time, which do not have source packages in the archive, or those adding new binary packages. New versions of existing packages are moved automatically into the pool.

      • Ubuntu

        • New Ubuntu look too destructive

          Take a good hard look at your screen and ask yourself if it is possible to accidentally close an application while reaching for the File menu. In most cases the answer is a clear no, but for users of Ubuntu, it has become a very real and dangerous use case.

          All the fuss began in March when the decision was taken to refresh Ubuntu’s look and branding, which included a set of new default themes that moved the trio of minimise, maximise and close buttons from the PC standard right-hand side to the left side of the title bar. Suffice to say that despite the positives of the updated Ubuntu look, users overwhelmingly detested the movement of the window buttons — as shown by the over 630 comments, the vast majority of which are intensely negative, on this bug report.

        • Lucid Lynx two weeks after

          While still in Beta, Lucid Lynx is humming along quite nicely two weeks after I installed it on my Acer laptop. Sure, there are the little annoyances linked to using a Beta product from Ubuntu, for instance, the large daily updates of software and the occasional application crash. For the most part, though, Lucid Lynx is quite usable and I’m growing to like it.

        • What To Do After Installing Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx? Run This Script!

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

  • Photoshop VS. GIMP

    GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

    It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.

  • OfficeSIP Communications Makes Its VoIP SIP Products Open Source

    OfficeSIP Communications makes its two enterprise VoIP SIP clients officially open-source. OfficeSIP Softphone and OfficeSIP Messenger are now publicly available, and their source code published under the GPL license. The two products complete with the source code are available for immediate download at the company’s Web site, officesip.org.

  • Open Source Firewalls – Untangle and pfSense comparison

    So this week I had the opportunity of setting up a little lab to test both of these firewalls. Before this week I had no idea these firewalls even existed, and the only open source routing/firewall software I even knew of at the time was Vyatta; which is really only for routing purposes.

  • Deploy Open Source CMS Solutions with BitNami Virtual Appliances

    Open Source solutions are becoming even more popular by the day. But that doesn’t mean they are any more easier to install and set up. BitNami offers a number of new virtual appliances though that should do the trick.

  • OSCON Makes It Happen: O’Reilly Open Source Convention Reveals Program and Opens Registration
  • Opinion: Open source support – as good as it should be?

    The result could be misleading, Christie suggests. “I think we may have asked the question the wrong way.” His company, Catalyst IT, was part of the survey; “and we provide those services”, he says. But someone in the company clearly did not think so.

  • Mozilla

    • Mozilla Wants Your Opinion on Open Web

      The open source community spends a lot of time kicking around the idea of an open Web and how best to develop open and non-proprietary specifications for Web technologies. Creating a plan is one thing, but communicating the importance of an open Web to non-technical computer users is another. Mozilla has taken the reins in an attempt to form an understandable explanation and wants your help.

  • SaaS

    • Open Source: SaaS Threatens the future of OS

      Dries Buytaert, founder of the popular Open Source CMS Drupal product, says that cloud computing has done an ‘end run’ around the Open Source community. His point is that while SaaS and Cloud computing is offering up a totally new delivery model, it is echoing the practices of traditional closed-source vendors.

    • GroundWork, Eucalyptus Team For Cloud Monitoring

      GroundWork Open Source and Eucalyptus Systems have paired up to offer integration between Eucalyptus’ open source private cloud offering and GroundWork’s monitoring software for cloud application management.

    • Eucalyptus, GroundWork As Allies: Cloud Stack Coming?

      Basically the two open source firms announced they have established a technical partnership. They are not producing products together, but they are ensuring their software will work together. Eucalyptus produces Eucalyptus 1.6.2, which provides the basics of establishing a self-provisioning cloud, one whose API functions, such as the directive, “run this workload,” are compatible with Amazon’s EC2.

  • CMS

    • Moving to an Open Source LMS: 3 Stories

      Part of the reason for Sakai’s success at the 2,200-student college–which self-supports Sakai internally, in contrast to many smaller schools–was approval of the move to open source, according to Instructional Technology Consultant Mary Glackin. She was a member of the original Sakai implementation team and is on the college’s current Sakai management team.

  • Business Intelligence

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • GCC 4.5 Release Candidate Is Finally Here

      GCC 4.5 has been running a bit behind schedule due to outstanding regressions, but last week the last of their highest severity regressions were addressed, which paved the way for a release candidate. Today the release candidate for version 4.5 of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) has arrived.

  • Releases

  • Government

    • Pushing for consistency in ICT across government

      “A coordinated approach to ICT web services seems to be missing in New Zealand” says event director, Tim Knapp. “Many of the government departments I’ve spoken to are in dire need of an organisation that can provide independent advice on open source web technologies, particularly as there’s so many to choose from. Australia are far ahead of us on this front, where they’ve setup the Open Source Business Cluster to fill this need”.

      Mr Knapp goes on to say “Plone is particularly suited to government as it is an enterprise-level content management system, exceeds the E-government standards for government websites, and therefore was officially sanctioned by the State Services Commission back in 2005″.

    • Medsphere Systems Markets Open Source Electronic Health Records System

      Experts agree that electronic medical records can lower costs and improve care. Yet just 10 percent of U.S. hospitals keep any computerized records, according to a survey in the New England Journal of Medicine last year. The biggest reason is cost: depending on the size of the hospital, the price of a digitized record system can run from $20 million to $100 million.

    • Qualitix Clinical Research Co., Ltd. Selects the OpenClinica Enterprise™ Electronic Data Capture (EDC) Solution for Multi-National Clinical Trials

  • Licensing

    • EPL/GPL Commentary

      A while ago, we received a request to take a look at an open letter on the compatibility of the Eclipse Public License (EPL) and the GNU General Public License (GPL). This led to a number of conversations with the Free Software Foundation (FSF) on the topic. What we have learned and the conclusions that we have drawn are outlined below. You can also find the FSF’s summary and conclusions on their blog.

  • Openness

    • OSHUG, new UK user group for open source hardware

      Osmosoft will be hosting the first meeting of OSHUG, the Open Source Hardware User Group on April 29th. OSHUG’s first meeting will include presentations by Professor David May and Alan Wood. May, currently CTO of XMOS Semicoductor, architect of the transputer and author of occam, the concurrent programming language, will be introducing the XCore XS1 microprocessor architecture. Wood will be discussing Amino, a “networked creator tool for hardware and software production” which his company, Folknology, are developing.

    • Is Sharing Contagious?

      Zuckerman story has been covered by various reporters. He relayed to me that the most common question he gets asked is, “Why would someone who is almost 40 do this without any compensation, what’s going on here?” His motivation, he admits, is multi-faceted. “It was driven by self-interest in the sense that I was bored and needed to be proud of something I created.” On the flipside, there is the “joy I get from helping people.” But the unexpected consequence of Zuckerman’s tool library is how his idea of sharing and kindness is spreading to affect the lives of dozens or maybe hundreds of other people he does not know or has never met.

    • MONDO 2000: An Open Source History

      At the end of the process, estimated to take approximately two years, a collaboratively-edited electronic document will be released on the web. A more closely-edited print book composed of selections from this process — edited by Ken Goffman aka R.U. Sirius (that’s me!) with Morgan Russell — will be published. Finally, the video footage might be rolled into a Mondo 2000 film documentary.

    • Mondo 2000: An Open Source History

  • Programming

Leftovers

  • Environment

    • How to connect mining disasters and climate change

      Environmentalists are often criticized by conservatives for embracing the science of climate change because it fits neatly with their ideological positions on conservation and sustainability. I think there is certainly some truth to that. But I’d argue that there is even more truth to the opposite position: Energy company executives and the politicians who carry their water reject science and oppose energy legislation because it conflicts with their ideological belief that anything that interferes with private profit-making is evil government intrustion.

  • Finance

    • CMD Releases New Wall Street Bailout Total, $4.6 Trillion in Federal Funds Disbursed

      Today, the Real Economy Project of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) released an assessment of the total cost to taxpayers of the Wall Street bailout. CMD concludes that multiple federal agencies have disbursed $4.6 trillion dollars in supporting the financial sector since the meltdown in 2007-2008. Of that, $2 trillion is still outstanding.

      CMD’s assessment demonstrates that the Federal Reserve has provided by far the bulk of the funding for the bailout in the form of loans amounting to $3.8 trillion. Little information has been disclosed about what collateral taxpayers have received in return for these loans. CMD also concludes that the bailout is far from over as the government has active programs authorized to cost up to $2.9 trillion and still has $2 trillion in outstanding investments and loans.

    • Goldman Sachs’ Aganga Named Nigerian Finance Minister

      “While we continue to pray for the speedy recovery of the President, permit me to emphasize the policy continuum of governance and to insist on the imperative of this team to roll up its sleeves, and to redouble efforts so as to meet the expectations of our people who are yearning for good governance,” Jonathan said today.

    • Meg Whitman’s Shady Goldman Sachs Past — Is It California’s Future?

      Just when you thought you’d had enough of Goldman Sachs running things — and running them into the ground — along comes Meg Whitman. Most Californians know she’s using her fortune to run for governor. They probably don’t know that she was once on the board of Goldman Sachs, and most likely still would be if she hadn’t been cited for a practice one law firm describes as “essentially … an illegal bribe … to corporate leaders.” Then came the Congressional investigation, and the investor lawsuit, and … well, it was probably best to just leave the board.

    • Goldman Sachs’s ties to Meg Whitman questioned

      The Wall Street press can be pretty tough, but it’s nothing like the political press. Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay, and now a candidate for governor of California, is finding that out now. Her opponents no doubt are only too happy to have her relationship with Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) aired in the media. The firm, by the way, has been embroiled in a controversy about whether it advised clients to short California muni bonds that it helped underwrite.

    • Poll: Goldman Sachs and other big banks have poor reputations

      As reported by Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs, with arguably the most vexing image issues, came in 56th out of 60. Citigroup (NYSE: C) came in 57th. Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) came in 52nd and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) came in 53rd. American International Group (NYSE: AIG) came in at 59 and Fannie Mae at 58. Freddie Mac, now a ward of the government, came in dead last.

  • Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

    • MPs call for more support for local news media

      John Whittingdale, the committee’s chairman, said that local media was facing “unprecedented challenges” from the recession and the internet. “This has led to the closure of a large number of newspapers, many commercial radio stations becoming loss-making and the possible end of regional news on commercial television,” Mr Whittingdale said. “This has serious implications for local democracy.”

      The committee wants the Government to press ahead with changes to cross-media ownership recommended by Ofcom, the media regulator. These include relaxing the rule that no local newspaper publisher with more than 20 per cent of a market may also own a Channel 3 regional television licence.

    • Wikileaks and the dream of the open web

      In case you have not seen it yet, Wikileaks has released a video of an American helicopter crew opening fire on a group of men in Iraq, and later firing on a van that was trying to retrieve the wounded. I have been debating with myself whether to embed the video here. It is seriously disturbing, and I am concerned about potentially tasteless juxtaposition between the seriousness of the subject matter and the light-hearted nature of this blog, but I have decided that this is important enough that it requires all of the promotion it can get.

    • Mainstream media ignores Wikileaks video
    • Military can’t find its copy of Iraq killing video

      After being pressed to release its version of the WikiLeaks clip, U.S. CENTCOM says it can’t locate the footage

    • (en) Venezuela: all detainees released and charges dropped following union march in Maracay

      Having recovered from inhaling an amount of tear gas, I accompanied Robert González – the executive secretary of the Oil Workers’ Federation (Federación Petrolera) – as he was being interviewed by TVS Maracay (a regional TV channel). While he spoke to the journalist, a group of more than 30 police surrounded us. As soon as the TV cameras switched off, they pounced on us and, pushing against us, bundled us into the van. Amidst the tussle, they seized and broke my anarchist banner, which read, “FOR LIBERTARIAN AUTONOMY AND AGAINST THE REPRESSION OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS”. Twelve people in total were packed into the police van, including two members of the Workers’ League for Socialism (LTS). They didn’t tell us what our charges were, or where we were headed.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM

    • An overview of what net neutrality means

      Net Neutrality is the principle of keeping web content equally accessible regardless of its provider, origin or destination. According to the Free Press Action Fund’s Savetheinernet.com campaign, net neutrality is threatened by the major conglomerates in the telecommunications industry who wish to provide themselves with an advantage by slowing down sites that aren’t associated with their companies and don’t pay a fee for the faster service.

  • Intellectual Monopolies/Copyrights

    • Memo To News Sites: There Is No Future In ‘Digital Razzle Dazzle’

      So here’s my position: There is no future in a paywall. No salvation in digital razzle dazzle.

    • Final Version of “Copying Is Not Theft” Released!

      Question Copyright’s first Minute Meme is a response to messages that have tried to convince people that copying information is the same as stealing property, when it’s an entirely different (and generally positive) thing. Until the air is cleared on that point, it’s hard to have any kind of useful conversation about copying, sharing, copyright, or licensing.

    • How to Thrive Among Pirates

      1) Price your copies near the cost of pirated copies. Maybe 99 cents, like iTunes. Even decent pirated copies are not free; there is some cost to maintain integrity, authenticity, or accessibility to the work.

      2) Milk the uncopyable experience of a theater for all that it is worth, using the ubiquitous cheap copies as advertising. In the west, where air-conditioning is not enough to bring people to the theater, Hollywood will turn to convincing 3D projection, state-of-the-art sound, and other immersive sensations as the reward for paying. Theaters become hi-tech showcases always trying to stay one step ahead of ambitious homeowners in offering ultimate viewing experiences, and in turn manufacturing films to be primarily viewed this way.

      3) Films, even fine-art films, will migrate to channels were these films are viewed with advertisements and commercials. Like the infinite channels promised for cable TV, the internet is already delivering ad-supported free copies of films.

    • Nintendo Deletes Fan-Made Pokemon MMO

      Nintendo has issued a cease-and-desist notice to the creators of the open source Pokémon MMO Pokenet, requiring that they take down their website and surrender the pokedev.org domain name used for the game, claiming unauthorized use of Nintendo trademarks, according to Joystiq.com.

    • ACTA/Digital Economy Bill

      • ACTA treaty draws fire in NZ submissions

        InternetNZ and the New Zealand Open Source Society have released their submissions to the Ministry of Economic Development’s consultation on this month’s ACTA negotiations, with the two organisations taking different, but equally critical tacks on the issue.

      • ‘No evidence ACTA is needed’ – InternetNZ

        Internet New Zealand has strongly opposed the signing of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) by New Zealand in a submission to the Ministry of Economic Development.

      • Submission Criticises Lack Of Evidence For ACTA Approach – InternetNZ
      • InternetNZ slams ACTA digital enforcement discussions
      • Open Letter to the Negotiators of ACTA

        In the Internet Community, we do not believe that it is even theoretically possible, short of instituting an entirely undesirable Orwellian police state, to effectively prevent music and films from being shared over the internet in non-commercial ways. We expect that any efforts by governments are any other party to stop this will fail, although they will surely be harmful side-effects, like for example the notice-and-takedown provisions of the DMCA in the USA are already being abused by enemies of the freedom of speech. (By contrast, the appropriate handling of copyrighted digital assets in commercial contexts is a solvable problem, as the international standard ISO/IEC 19770-1 on Software Asset Management proves. In my opinion, enforcement efforts should focus on that area where it is actually possible to achieve progress.)

      • NZOSS Submission on ACTA

        The New Zealand Open Source Society has made a submission on ACTA to the Ministry of Economic Development. The submission explores the relationship between legislation of the United States passed in 1998 called the DMCA with provisions in the Copyright Amendment Act 2008 and the leaked provisions in ACTA. The NZOSS does not wish to see a regime where citizens will be disconnected from the Internet based only on notices from rights holders, but rather maintain a position where proper judicial oversight and process will be maintained. Video here.

      • The Digital Economy Bill: Thinking further about copyright

        Two photographs. Nearly a century apart. Of people watching a sports game without paying.

        The question is, were they stealing? Would you call it stealing? I wouldn’t. But I know some people who would.

Clip of the Day

More Background Manipulation with the GIMP


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    One can leverage the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to better understand how, over time, the Foundation called “Linux” deviated or diverged away from its mission statement for the sole purpose of raising corporate funds and selling influence to corporations (passing the community’s hard work to them — a form of tacit privatisation)

  10. Microsoft Redefining Ownership and Identity of GNU/Linux

    The idea that “Microsoft loves Linux” is as insane as it gets; but the lie which is “Microsoft loves Linux” is a powerful enabler of Microsoft entryism, e.g. if Greg steps down, does a Microsoft employee become the deputy of Linus Torvalds?

  11. Things That Cannot Be Said

    The limits on what we can say are mostly defined by what sources permit us to say publicly (for the sake of source protection)

  12. Fake European Patents (on Algorithms) Leading to Fake Embargoes

    Law firms have gotten their way in Germany; instead of supporting the productive workers the patent system is nowadays promoting the litigation 'industry' and it ought to be corrected

  13. From Moderate Advice to FUD and Misinformation: The Case of a VPN Vulnerability (CVE-2019-14899)

    What should have been a trivial bugfix in a variety of operating systems and bits of software — both proprietary and Free software — somehow became anti-Linux FUD, clickbait and worse

  14. Dangerous Thinker

    Society oughtn't be alarmed by people who say unusual things; it should be wary and sceptical of those corporations ever so eager to silence such people

  15. Unitary Patent (UPC) Died Along With the Credibility of Managing IP and the Rest of the UPC Lobby

    It is pretty astounding that Team UPC (collective term for people who crafted and lobby for this illegal construct) is still telling us lies, even in the absence of underlying supportive facts, and pressure groups disguised as "news sites" latch onto anything to perpetuate an illusion of progress (even in the face of a growing number of major barriers)

  16. IRC Proceedings: Friday, December 06, 2019

    IRC logs for Friday, December 06, 2019

  17. Links 7/12/2019: Fedora 31 Elections Results, Lots of Media Drama Over VPN Bug

    Links for the day

  18. Links 6/12/2019: DRM in GNU/Linux and Sparky Bonsai

    Links for the day

  19. The EPO Rejects Innovation

    The EPO ceased caring about the needs of scientists whose work involves invention; instead, EPO management crafts increasingly lenient guidelines that yield illegal European Patents (not compatible with the EPC) that heavily-besieged EPO judges are unable to stop

  20. Startpage CEO Robert Beens in 'Damage Control' Mode, Trying to Get Startpage Relisted After Selling to a Massive Surveillance Company

    PrivacytoolsIO is being lobbied by the CEO of Startpage to relist Startpage, based on no actual refutations at all

  21. IRC Proceedings: Thursday, December 05, 2019

    IRC logs for Thursday, December 05, 2019

  22. Links 5/12/2019: qBittorrent 4.2.0, Expensive Librem 5 and OpenBSD Bugs

    Links for the day

  23. Microsoft Staff Repeatedly Refuses to Tell How Many People Use WSL, Defends Patent Extortion and Blackmail of Linux Instead

    The people who develop WSL (mostly Microsoft employees) get easily irritated when asked how many people actually use this thing; but more interestingly, however, they reveal their disdain for GNU/Linux and support for Microsoft blackmail (for 'Linux patent tax')

  24. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, December 04, 2019

    IRC logs for Wednesday, December 04, 2019

  25. Links 4/12/2019: Tails 4.1, UCS 4.4-3 and Proxmox VE 6.1

    Links for the day

  26. Google Tightens Its Noose

    Now it’s official! Google is just a bunch of shareholders looking to appease the Pentagon at all costs

  27. Europeans Still Need to Save the European Patent Office From Those Who Attack Its Patent Quality

    Patent quality is of utmost interest; without it, as we're seeing at the EPO and have already seen at the USPTO for a number of years, legal disputes will arise where neither side wins (only the lawyers win) and small, impoverished inventors or businesses will be forced to settle outside the courts over baseless allegations, often made by parasitic patent trolls (possessing low-quality patents they don't want scrutinised by courts)

  28. We Never Accepted and Will Never Accept Corporate Money

    Corporate money is a unique problem because of its magnitude and the fact that it's impersonal; shareholders can only ever accept its supposed justifications if they're receiving something in return (of proportional worth to the payment/transaction)

  29. IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, December 03, 2019

    IRC logs for Tuesday, December 03, 2019

  30. Links 3/12/2019: elementary OS 5.1 Hera, Plasma 5.17.4, Firefox 71

    Links for the day

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