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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

The Register MS Helps Prove the "AI" Frenzy in the Media is Evidence of Compromised Media, Not Legitimate "Revolution"
Ignore the hype and carry on
Microsoft Insiders on "Effectively Being Silently Laid Off From Microsoft"
People are laid off by the thousands without the media uttering a word or the companies confirming anything
Microsoft's XBox CEO Asha Sharma Tells Staff That Many Thousands of Layoffs Are in Fact "Return to Growth"
Get it? Layoffs are "growth".
Gemini Links 07/10/2026: Nostalgia, Neutral Map, and Shorthanding
Links for the day
 
Links 08/10/2026: Slop Scammers (Pushers) Inflate Hosting Bills and "YouTube Testing Everything"
Links for the day
London Became Synonymous With the Royal Courts of Justice
London used to be a place where we go on holiday/retreat/break; nowadays we have only one destination there
Brigading Against Women - Part XXIII - Extremism in the Mix and Getting the Police Involved
In 2012 I was getting heckled a lot for opposing back doors in Linux; it has not stopped since
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 07, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Gemini Links 07/10/2026: On Feeling Guilty Leaving the US, Multinet, and Limiting Net Usage
Links for the day
The Cyber Show Explains the Concept of "Data Rape"
a metaphor some might find crude
FREE BEER is Still Online, But Barely Active
25 years ago or even 20 years ago many spoke of open/free beer (or "COLA")
Syria: GNU/Linux Has Surged to 8% "Market Share"
I don't have a convincing explanation for this
IBM Dimming Down the Lights on IBM Consulting, No Knowledge or Experience Required
They just "ride" the (old) brand, that's all
Statement on American SLAPP
Crossposted from schestowitz.com
Today The Register MS Published "SPONSORED FEATURE" and "SPONSORED POST" With "AI" 31 Times in Them
This isn't a "Reality" or "Era of AI", it's a paid-for spam campaign
Links 07/10/2026: Unrest in France and Rumours of Plague in Russia
Links for the day
Brigading Against Women - Part XXII - The Lozza Problem (in Length)
Garrett's case was a waste of the Court's money
JavaScript in Richard Stallman's Web Site
For search he is using CGI, not JavaScript
EPO's Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) Plans Presentation Next Week (Coinciding With Apparent Coronation of 'Cocaine King' Campinos)
They've outsourced this session to the dictator's spying eye
The GNOME Foundation's Code of Conduct Has Been Misused to Hide Corruption
People who value free speech and freedom of expression won't touch social control media with a 10-foot bargepole
Voting for Freedom of the Press
American elections happen every 4 years
What Brett Wilson LLP and Matt Garrett Don't Want People to See/Read
Book-burning is counterproductive
Book-Burning Mindset Does Not Work
It makes the suppressed voices more widely known
Microsoft's XBox in 'Freefall'
XBox is practically finished
Slop is Plagiarism
Plagiarism is not "theft" and copyright infringement is not "piracy"
IBM is Almost Defunct
IBM is doomed. It just tries to test how much more patience the shareholders have.
Criminalisation of Journalism
"Journalist Derya Okatan arrested in Turkey for allegedly possessing classified material"
Brigading Against Women - Part XXI - Hiding Behind the Veil of "Privacy" After Telling Nazi Things in IRC Channels of Techrights and Physically Threatening People
To merely explain an abuse (or crime) requires naming people; that's a fundamental tenet of reporting
Links 07/10/2026: Quitting Smartphone and "Meta's Muse Is Spying on All Your Friends and Family"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/10/2026: Greed, In Praise of Zotero, and The de-Google Path
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 06, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 06, 2026
Microsoft Hiring Only on the Cheap
Much of the same can be said about GAFAM and IBM
Gemini Links 06/10/2026: Nightfall Express, Shorthanding, and Raspberry Pi Desktop Gets a Debian Trixie Refresh
Links for the day
20th Anniversary Next Month
We are currently trying to agree on a plan for next month's celebrations
Taking Photos With Richard Stallman (RMS)
What's the point?
GAFAM Attack on FreeDesktop
Now they push lots of LLM slop into Linux
EPO Union Bemoans Lack of Social Dialogue as Dictator Wishes to Govern Forever (No Elections, No Rivals), Hide the Many Issues
"Exchange of open letters"
GNU/Linux Has Risen in France Since the Order to Adopt GNU/Linux (in Public Services)
We can expect the same in countries like Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, and The Netherlands
On Microsoft Hiring Freeze or No Permanent Jobs at Microsoft Anymore (Amid Many Silent Layoffs)
Microsoft has changed what it can offer workers
IBM Cannot Hide the Layoffs Forever
we welcome whistleblower to tell us more and send us documents related to that
EPO's Central Staff Committee Asking The Council to Get Rid of Corrupt Campinos
We'll be covering EPO scandals around the time of that meeting
Gemini Links 06/10/2026: EU Kids Act, Practicality of Gemini, and Games
Links for the day
Links 06/10/2026: Data Breaches Epidemic and Turkey Blocking Journalists
Links for the day
The Whole Point of Computing is That Computers Are Deterministic (Speed With Predictable Accuracy)
Unlike stochastic parrots that stochastically utter out lies
It's Not a Linux Back Door If It's an Unpatched Device
"Linux Backdoor" is a glaring misfit, a possibly 'obscene' term
What is a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA)? When Law Firms Become the Litigants.
And the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) needs to be more serious about tackling this
Brigading Against Women - Part XX - Attempts by Lozza to Deplatform Techrights and Tux Machines Only Days After I Sued Garrett and My Wife Also Sued Garrett (Shortly Before the Serial Strangler From Microsoft Joined)
in 2024
Links 06/10/2026: A Year Since "NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner Released From Prison", World Tries to Deal With El Niño
Links for the day
"SIRIUS CORPORATION LIMITED" as Evidence of the Financial Shell Games in the UK
Rianne and I still have some fond memories of the time the ex-wife of the CEO treated us like human beings
Lots of Silent Layoffs at IBM Last Week, Employees Explain Patterns of Those Impacted
It wasn't just gossip, it actually happened even if the media chose to look the other way (as usual)
Gemini Links 06/10/2026: Fighting for Purpose, Gemlogs, and Gemtext
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 05, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, October 05, 2026