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Links 26/6/2010: HP and Linux, GNOME Shell 2.31.4 is Out



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Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source

  • Open Tech Exchange talks to Tectonic
    The latest episode of OTE podcast features an interview with Tectonic in which we talk about open source software in Africa.


  • Open Source Geographic Tracking?




  • Events







  • Web Browsers

    • Android Becomes Flash Mobile's First BFF


    • Uncertain future for Flash
      And it's not just YouTube that uses Flash, almost all video sites do, as well as online games sites and entertainment sites. An older survey of websites by browser maker Opera found that in most countries around 30% of websites were built in or contained Flash elements. And in some countries that was as high as 40% or 50%. So it's safe to say that as much as 30% of the web relies in some or other way on Flash.


    • Mozilla: We're not 'on board' with Google's plugin spice
      Mozilla says it has "no official position" on NPAPI Pepper, the revamped browser plug-in API developed by Google for use with Native Client, a plug-in that runs native code inside its Chrome browser.






  • SaaS

    • Red Hat says everybody gets a cloud
      At its Boston developer summit Red Hat is pushing the theme that every company can have its own cloud with the first in a line of Cloud Foundation tools.








  • Programming

    • Take more note when Eclipse code drops on schedule
      Five years into my tenure on this beat and I still read, in comments, snark about open source programmers being amateurs, coding in their parents’ basements, in their pajamas.

      This was always a false image. Not that I have anything against a good parent’s basement, or a nice comfortable pair of jammies. And when open source was being born, at the bottom of the dot-bomb, there was high unemployment in the code-o-sphere.

      But the coders and the coding were always professional. There have always been a lot of people in open source who knew how to make the coding train run on time.








  • Standards/Consortia





Leftovers



  • Security/Aggression

    • Peace campaigner, 85, classified by police as 'domestic extremist'
      For John Catt, protest has never been about chaining himself to a railing or blocking a road in an act of civil disobedience. The 85-year-old peace campaigner's far milder form of dissent typically involves turning up at a demonstration with his daughter, Linda, taking out his sketch pad and drawing the scene.


    • Senator Moves To Form Federal "Cyber-Emergency" Agency
      The President would gain the power to unilaterally declare a national cyber-emergency and order operators of "critical infrastructure" to immediately implement "response plans" as provided for by the act. Those who fail to do so would be subject to fines, while those who comply would be protected from civil liability for any damages they might cause in doing so — government speak for "you can break people's stuff and they're just out of luck."


    • FBI Failed To Break Encryption of Hard Drives








  • Environment

    • Ushahidi tracks the Gulf Oil Spill: Open Source Crowdsourcing at Work
      Together, crowdsourcing and open source are a potent combination especially during possible emergencies. In this case, the Ushahidi based Oil Crisis Map has helped share data across communities and has openly presented the magnitude of the oil spill. Also, it has enabled people on the ground to actively participate in solving this crisis using current and accurate information.

      Ushahidi (Swahili for "testimony") itself emerged from another emergency - monitoring a disputed Kenyan election in 2007 with a mash-up of eyewitness reports onto a Google map. Today Ushahidi has developers from Kenya (where it started), Ghana, South Africa, Malawi, Netherlands and the US. Ushahidi was also used in Project Vote Report India for India's 2009 general elections to track election irregularities.








  • Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

    • Reporters Without Borders unveils first-ever “Anti-Censorship Shelter”
      Reporters Without Borders today launched the world’s first “Anti-Censorship Shelter” in Paris for use by foreign journalists, bloggers and dissidents who are refugees or just passing through as a place where they can learn how to circumvent Internet censorship, protect their electronic communications and maintain their anonymity online.








  • Copyrights

    • Creative Commons Responds to ASCAP
      Yesterday, we reported that ASCAP said that organizations like Creative Commons were undermining their copyrights. Today, we’ve received an official response from Creative Commons with regards to the letter writing campaign.

      In the same article, we discussed how Creative Commons was, contrary to what ASCAP said, not about undermining anyone elses copyrighted material, but rather, giving artists an option that was not the Public Domain (no rights reserved) nor Copyright (all rights reserved).

      Eric Steuer, a Creative Commons spokesperson, thanked ZeroPaid for the earlier posting as being well-thought out and was happy to respond to ASCAPs letter










Clip of the Day



CLUG Talk 25 August 2009 - Experiences as a Novice Linux User (2009)

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Recent Techrights' Posts

Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) Formally Announces Upcoming Richard Stallman Talk
Room 100, Scheller College of Business
The four freedoms and GNU/Linux naming controversy, by Akira Urushibata
Social control media owned and run by 'broligarchs' keeps attacking RMS for insisting on names that include GNU
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Not Doing Its Job, Instead It's Promoting Microsoft Ponzi Schemes
it participates in Microsoft's Ponzi scheme, which helps Microsoft distract from or excuse the mass layoffs
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This is a form of propaganda
 
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Microsoft buying from Microsoft isn't real income, it is accounting fraud
Crans-Montana, Le Constellation: journalists, victims' families, ProtonMail users at risk, police raids
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
GNU/Linux Reaches All-Time High in Tanzania
This month (and year) GNU/Linux is measured at an all-time high there, based on the data that statCounter can see
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Links for the day
Mass Layoffs in Microsoft's XBox Soon, Just Like We've Said for Months
IBM and Microsoft are heading in a similar trajectory and are hiding how bad things are using similar tactics
Mozilla's Assisted Suicide, Assisted by GNOME
Firefox is meant to get better all the time, but instead it gets worse
Now It's a Mainstream Media (MSM) Story: Microsoft Layoffs Coming, They'll be Vast (and They Blame "AI", As Usual!)
the books were cooked (accounting fraud) to hide what really went on
Frankly Getting Sick of Slop About "AI" (Slop)
Calling everything out there "AI" serves nobody and nothing but the Ponzi scheme
Stick to the Science, the Facts, the Observable Reality
Science is at the heart of this site
Africa's Search Market Has Been Unfavourable to Microsoft
In Africa, as we've just noticed, Bing is moving down, even more sharply this year
Slideshare is Slop
Be sure fools will rewrite history online
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Links for the day
Projection Tactics - Part I: What is "Serious Harm"? Or Whose?
the most serious harm was done to us
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Links for the day
EPO People Power - Part XXVII - Science- and Principles-First Journalism About Issues That Matter
journalism became so shallow that nowadays it can be replaced by bots
Media Gaslighting Dooms the Media
this "AI" gaslighting is done because publishers get paid to do so
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Microsoft Loves Freedom, Democracy... and Linux? No, Microsoft Laying Off Because "Microsoft Loves Linux" Was Failed Posturing, Its Former Staff Moves to GNU/Linux
"What are the running totals for IBM and Microsoft layoffs?"
GNU/Linux at 4% "Market Share" (Even According to Steam Survey)
Another milestone
Links 06/01/2026: Neglect of the Elderly, Abandonment of International Laws
Links for the day
Links 06/01/2026: More Reports Point to Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Later This Month), Greenland/Denmark Cautions the Dictator Who Illegally Invaded Venezuela
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Internet Policy/Net Reality: You Must Never Ever Rely on Google (no "S.E.O." Either)
Stack Overflow is dying
Ahead of Mass Layoffs Microsoft Tries to Rebrand or Redefine XBox (Because the XBox is Tentatively Dead)
2026 will be the last year of XBox in all likelihood
Richard Stallman (RMS) Announces His Georgia Talk 2.5 Weeks in Advance
A lot earlier than usual
Dr. Andy Farnell on Technology That Harms People (and Lack of Regulation Which is Needed to Address This Problem)
Dr. Farnell's article is long but well worth reading
GNU/Linux Rising to 5% in Cameroon and It's Hardly the Exception
"AI" is just a smokescreen as losses pile up
Rumours: Microsoft to Lay Off 12,500-25,000 Workers Soon (Tentatively Wednesday, 15 Days From Now)
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EPO People Power - Part XXVI - European Media Has Become Part of the Problem
it is as clear as daylight that Cocainegate is real
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It's about "narrative control"
Microsoft Layoffs in January 2026
Get ready
Google Still Boosting Slopfarms
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Links 06/01/2026: DIY Projects and Inertial Music
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