Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 25/7/2010: Catch-up With Last Week's News



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source

  • Virgin charity limbers up for London Marathon with open source tools
    Businesses everywhere clearly want to achieve maximum visibility and control over key management information. Whether open source tools can play a special part in building more cost effective IT infrastructures for the acutely 'cost-aware' charity sector is open to question.

    Looking to realise efficiencies via this route, Virgin Money Giving will be using the open source Talend Integration Suite with the Jaspersoft reporting tool to restructure and optimise its data for reporting.


  • Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary Partners with ByWater Solutions for Koha Support and Implementation
    ByWater Solutions, an open source community supporter and official Koha support company, announced today that the Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, of Allen Park, MI. has partnered with them for the installation and support of the official Koha integrated library system.


  • Digium and Open Source Software
    Asterisk is the open source telephony software created by Mark Spencer in the late 90s as an alternative to more expensive proprietary PBX systems. At the time, Spencer needed a telephone system to distribute customer service calls to his Linux engineers and decided to "build" his own PBX rather than pay for a new system.

    Spencer also opted to make Asterisk available as open source software to minimize ongoing development costs (this business model was also consistent with the anti-proprietary software movement of the time). A beautiful example of necessity (+ limited capital funds) being the mother of invention.


  • Facebook Built Walled Garden with Open Source Software
    Facebook supports its social network of 500 million users with LAMP software infrastructure. This open source approach, also used by Google, Twitter, Yahoo and others, is a departure from the proprietary products offered by Microsoft, Oracle and IBM.


  • MobileBeat: Aava offers a truly open-source mobile device platform


  • Ocean Blue Releases World's First Open Source MHEG and CI Plus Authoring Tool Supporting Development of Innovative Digital TV Applications




  • Reports

    • Open Source Gains Respect From Mainstream Vendors
      Several major IT vendors, including Dell, HP, Citrix and Rackspace Hosting gathered at OSCON this week to deliver a host of open source-related announcements to the ever growing open-source market.


    • Open Source Technology Set for Rapid Growth, Study Says
      More than two-thirds of organizations anticipate increasing their investment in open source technology, according to a recent survey by Accenture. With such an open source expansion, there is a need for effective training solutions that will show organizations how to harness open source technology properly. LevelTen has released a schedule that will offer a fast-paced Acquia training overview for Drupal users.


    • Open source growing quickly


    • Open Source Technology Set for Rapid Growth, Study Says
      Of those surveyed, 40% said they plan on migrating mission-critical software to open source platforms within the next 12 months.


    • Open Source Software In Enterprise Application Infrastructure Market - New Market Report Published
      Open Source Software (OSS) has been a part of the IT market for over two decades. Recently, the commoditization of IT markets, changing attitudes to the production and distribution of intellectual property, and the recession have put the OSS firmly in focus, particularly in the application infrastructure part of the stack.


    • The situation with the social media - a position paper
      Open Source as a concept is solely devoted to finding out the best methods to spread a product in an open manner, where open is to be understood purely within the logic of the market. The hacker attitude, based on play and sharing amongst peers, has been co-opted therein by an approach that is based on the logic of exploitation of time and labor with profit as the driving motive, and not individual and/ or collective welfare.






  • Events

    • Open Source SIG: The next instalment!!


    • O'Reilly Open Source Awards announced
      At the OSCON 2010 open source convention taking place in Portland, Oregon, O'Reilly Media's Edd Dumbill has announced the winners of this years O'Reilly Open Source Awards. The awards have been presented each year since 2005 to individuals for their "dedication, innovation, leadership and outstanding contribution to open source".


    • Open Hardware Summit
      The concept of open source hardware has interested me for some time. There are a number of wildly popular (at least with the geeks) products available for “free”. This particular type of free is akin to freedom and not cost. If you have the materials and tools on hand you could build a Makerbot from scratch or mill a circuit board and solder up your own Arduino compatible board, but even then it isn’t completely free. The freedom comes from sharing the design, making incremental improvements, and combining the community effort with a product to make it better.








  • Mozilla

    • An Introduction to Firefox's Tab Candy


    • Firefox 4 Beta 1 Will Change Browsing Experience Forever !


    • Mercury News interview: Mitchell Baker, chairwoman, Mozilla
      In the days after Microsoft's Internet Explorer had ground its browser rival Netscape into the digital dust, Baker, who had been working on the open-source Mozilla project within Netscape, was laid off in 2001. She stayed on at the nonprofit Mozilla organization as an unpaid volunteer because she believed its mission was crucial to the Internet's future.

      Nearly a decade later, Mozilla's Firefox browser is the window to the Web for nearly a third of the planet's Internet users. Firefox is even more popular in most of the rest of the world than in the U.S., and in some countries, including Germany, has become the most popular browser. Microsoft Internet Explorer, meanwhile, has slid from a dominating 95 percent of the market to a bare majority of users.








  • Databases





  • Oracle

    • Oracle Acquisition of Sun May Spark Resurgence of Java and Faster Growth of MySQL According to New Survey of Open Source Developers and Enterprise Customers
      Jaspersoft, the world's most widely used business intelligence platform, today released the findings of a global survey of open source community members about the future of Java and MySQL under Oracle (ORCL). Contrary to dark predictions by many in the open source community prior to its acquisition of Sun, Oracle was viewed by most respondents as a better steward of Java and MySQL than Sun. Indeed, most large organizations planned to use more Java than before and most expected to see MySQL innovate and improve faster under Oracle than under Sun.


    • Oracle's "stewardship" of MySQL and Java: how's it going so far?
      There is a generally accepted edict in the technology publicity business that when you run out of news and product announcements, the best idea is to commission a survey for the hell of it. Despite this reality of 'lies, damn lies and statistics' - on the face of it, the poll carried out by open source BI player Jaspersoft may have some validity.

      The company polled 130,000 customers and community members and found 'people' are planning to do more with MySQL and Java under Oracle than Sun. I'm slightly worried by the fact that the company used the term people rather than programmers (or IT professionals at least), but let's continue.


    • Report: Java and MySQL doing fine under Oracle


    • Study: Most MySQL users not too worried about Oracle
      Some 43 percent of respondents said they believed MySQL development would improve under Oracle. Another 35 percent expect it to remain the same, while 22 percent are anticipating the database will suffer under the giant vendor's wing.








  • CMS

    • WordPress 3 review
      WordPress is now seven years old and, with millions of active users, is widely recognised as the world’s most popular blogging platform. The latest release is the open source platform’s 13th major update and is crucial to WordPress’ ambitions to move on from its blog-based origins.






  • Healthcare







  • Semi-Open Source

    • Open Source Business Models Become More Attractive
      On the former, OpenGeo offers a whole stack of geospatial data. Those sophisticated enough to be able to plow through the databases and apps and extract the data they need or desire can do so. For others, OpenGeo sells its services in building software based on that data or in supporting that software.

      Though the "open core" business model has come under attack lately, this doesn't seem to fall under that category.








  • Government

    • AT: Increasing number of schools turn to open source
      The number of schools in Austria that are considering to use or are using open source is increasing, according to school IT administrators and open source developers involved in education.

      For instance, the number of schools using LinuxAdvanced, based on Debian Linux, is 'continuing to increase slowly', says Rene Schwarzinger, one of the developers of the Linux distribution tailored for use by schools.








  • Openness/Sharing





  • Programming

    • IDES 101, PART II: 5 More Open-Source Coding Environments for Developers
      2) NetBeans If you're a Java developer, you've at least heard of NetBeans, a free, open-sourced IDE originally created for Java development. With this Java focus, NetBeans -- with its just-released 6.9 version -- supports the full Java EE 6 specification as well as a basket of Java standards including Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) 3.1, JAX-RS 1.1, JAX-WS 2.2, JAXB 2.2, and Java Persistence JPA 2.0. Aside from Java, NetBeans also supports JavaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, Groovy, C/C++, Scala and Clojure. The IDE includes direct integration of Project Kenai for hosting open-source projects.








Leftovers



  • Security/Aggression

    • WPA2 vulnerability found
      Perhaps it was only a matter of time. But wireless security researchers say they have uncovered a vulnerability in the WPA2 security protocol, which is the strongest form of Wi-Fi encryption and authentication currently standardized and available.


    • Ian Tomlinson ruling: we must all fight this whitewash
      Hundreds of thousands of us have now seen the footage of the newspaper-seller shambling peacefully home from work. We've seen how, without warning or provocation, PC Simon Harwood attacked him from behind, hitting him with a baton then shoving him to the ground. We know that the officer had unlawfully removed his badge, and that his face was obscured by a balaclava. We know that, a few minutes afterwards, Ian Tomlinson collapsed and died. We also know that the Metropolitan police lied about his death to the media and to Tomlinson's family.








  • Digital Economy (UK)

    • A Guide to the Digital Economy Act - Part 2
      This is the second in a series of posts explaining what the Digital Economy Act will do, how it works and how it will affect individuals. It is aimed at providing an objective and descriptive overview of the legislation, rather than opinion or comment on the content. Some parts may be legally technical.


    • Government’s Online Tools Used Against Digital Act
      The FSF is calling on opponents of the law to use the government's online feedback service to call for it to be repealed

      [...]

      In a statement this week, the FSF called on UK citizens to use the government’s newly created “Your Freedom” site to call for the repeal of the Digital act. The “Your Freedom” site was created by the coalition government as a forum for citizens to nominate laws and regulation which should be scrapped.










Clip of the Day



OSCON 2010: Paul Fenwick, "The World's Worst Inventions"



[an error occurred while processing this directive]



Recent Techrights' Posts

Wayland is About Less Choice, About Removing Choices, It's Not About Freedom
IBM insists that it cares about "diversity"
Keeping Things Accessible
Gemini Protocol seems to be growing
Not Much Better Than LLM Slop: Linux Foundation-Funded 'News' Site Writes Linux Foundation 'News', Composed by Linux Foundation Operative, Quoting Linux Foundation Staff
...they get paid (sponsored) to produce this spam. Then they call it "journalism".
Annual Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE 22x) 'Bought' by Microsoft and Microsoft Exceeded Sponsorship Limits by Giving Double the Maximum Permitted Amount
When people get bribed they tend to forget how to utter a simple word: "No."
EPO Examiners Point Out to the Heads of Delegations in the Administrative Council of the EPO That the "AI Policy" of the Office is Illegal
"the Central Staff Committee (CSC) asks the Administrative Council to exert its supervisory role and instruct EPO management to enter into genuine dialogue with the staff representation on the AI Policy, to revise the “Leverage AI” target of 90% AI-automated classification in the SP2028 and to put in place the measures supported by staff in the resolution."
French Cities Dumping Microsoft Because They Recognise Software Freedom, Open Standards, GNU/Linux Autonomy
We hope that more French cities - maybe Paris - will follow Lyon.
 
Links 27/06/2025: Journalists Under Fire and Microsoft Has Serious Slop Problems
Links for the day
X is Dying, But Not XServer/X11. Twitter X.com is Dying.
People or businesses or government officials (and departments) that still rely on Social Control Media are playing Russian Roulette with their future online
Escaping Colonialism (or 'Hegemony') Requires Abandoning GAFAM, Microsoft in Particular
Europe is already in the process of abandoning Microsoft
Microsoft Will Shut Down More Studios This Week, Its Media Operatives Will Tell Lies About the Magnitude of the Shutdowns and Layoffs (They Always Do)
Many people who get counted as "workforce" are "temps" or similar
What Linux Foundation 'Research' is: Paid Marketing
What is Linux Foundation 'Research'?
No, IBM Does Not Care About People With Disabilities
"Aktion T4" did not seem to bother Watson
Microsoft's Financial Problems Mean Shutdowns, Not Just Mass Layoffs
If the original rumour is true, then expect almost 30,000 Microsoft workers to be let go this year
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 26, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 26, 2025
The Netherlands: GNU/Linux Measured at All-Time High
Are any Dutch cities going to announce dumping Microsoft?
Gemini Links 27/06/2025: "Interstitial Existence" and Autocorrect
Links for the day
Technical People Need Technical Lawyers
Technical Litigants in Person (LIPs) have many real and concrete advantages
10,000+ Articles in About 20 Months (and How We Got Here)
More bloat does not beget efficiency and "bells and whistles" tend to have a hidden cost
Links 26/06/2025: Illegal Kangaroo Court (UPC) Failing Scandinavia, K-Pop Agencies Abuse People
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/06/2025: AuraGem Twitch Proxy is Back and UI Sluggishness
Links for the day
LWN is a Voice of GAFAM (Through Linux Foundation, Their Front Group or Occupying Force Inside Linux)
remember who the chief editor works for and who sponsors many of the articles
Links 26/06/2025: Noise Pollution Considered High in Europe, Mass Layoffs Next Week in Microsoft Confirmed, Very Large in Scale and Scope
Links for the day
The 'Case' of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft is a Lot of Copypasta (Maybe Also LLM Slop) From the Matthew Garrett 'Case'
5RB deserves to know and the matter shall be properly reported in due course (when the time is right)
EPO Squeezing the Staff - Part II - Office Breaks Rules, Ignores Courts, Defies Justice
False promises everywhere
No, I Don't Want Your Latest XYZ, ThankYouVeryMuch...
Wayland is finally ready?
China Keeps Breaking Into Microsoft Systems, So for True Sovereignty, Nations Wary of China Need to Dump Microsoft
Looking at data from Taiwan (not China) and Maharlika (not Philippines, the king is dead and Spain is out), there are encouraging signs
Linux Journal Wants Ads on Its LLM Slop or Ads as 'Articles'
it's basically another BetaNews
How to Kill a Monopoly
in 10 simple steps
IBM - Like Microsoft - is a Dying Company and Perishing Brand ("AI" is a Lie and Decoy)
"Arvind is cutting costs (layoffs, PIPs, forced RTO, etc...) like crazy. IBM offices are closing all over the place in the US."
"Code of Conduct" Invoked When Fedora and Red Hat Users (Since the 1990s) Don't Want to Use Wayland
That is IBM "DEI"
Mozambique: GNU/Linux Rose From 0.5% Last Year to 3% This Year
what (or how) statCounter is measuring
Microsoft Layoffs Next Week: About 10% to be Laid Off in Microsoft Gaming (2 Days Before Independence Day), About 20%+ of XBox Staff
Microsoft is rapidly collapsing
Next Month Marks 11 Years Since Our In-Depth EPO Coverage
The same is happening to Microsoft right now
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Campaigns Against Vista 11, Adds 4 New Associate Members Per Day
If more people understood the underlying principles, more of them would flock to Free software overnight
Canonical Seems to Have Culled Some Sources of LLM Slop From Planet Ubuntu
It's like "junk food", it's not information
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 25, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 25, 2025
On "Weak Claims"
For the record, they sent me unjustified threats, repeatedly tried injunctions (censorship)
EPO Squeezing the Staff - Part I - Burnout and Family Health
more exceptional circumstances
This Month's Mail (MX) Server Survey Shows Microsoft at 0.20% "Market Share"
We need to remind people that desktops and laptops decline (in proportion to other client devices) and at the "back end" GNU/Linux is already dominant and has long been dominant
Links 26/06/2025: Filespooler Guide and Learning to Code
Links for the day
Why Techrights Cannot be Vilified (and Instead It Gets SLAPPed Repeatedly by Microsoft People)
Attack dogs are all "bark"; because they have no actual "bite"
Austrian GNU/Linux Usage Up to About 5% as More of Europe Abandons Microsoft
Since inauguration day the Austrian people have adopted more and more of GNU/Linux
Why the "Wayland People" and "Rust People" Will Lose Hearts and Minds (Same Reasons)
Wayland pushers are fast becoming like "Rust People"
5,600 Pages/Articles Per Year
So far this year we've kept all the promises
BetaNews Beginning to Show What Its True Goals Are
The 'new' BetaNews won't be about journalism. It's trying to sell things.
Microsoft Has Lost "The War"
We'll soon see the 9th or 10th wave of Microsoft layoffs in 2025 alone
Slopwatch: A Wreck and a Dreck, "Flooding the Zone With Dreck" or Flooding the Web With Junk
"Slopwatch" continues today because we have many new examples
Links 25/06/2025: Thwarting More Software Patents, Overlap Grows Between EPO Corruption and Illegal Kangaroo Patent Courts in EU
Links for the day
Links 25/06/2025: Elon Musk’s Lawyers Caught Lying, WhatsApp Faces More Bans
Links for the day
Wayland Pushers Lose the Argument, Use LLM Slop and Chatbots to Make Up Arguments for IBM
Another new low and low blow
Brian Fagioli Created Another Slopfarm Targeting "Linux" After BetaNews Became a Slopfarm of Phantom Accounts and Pseudonyms
Mr. Fagioli even had slop about a dead Torvalds (hypothetical) as clickbait
Wayland is Perfect, Nobody Can Escape Its Perfection! (Or Not)
Do not form on opinion on Wayland based on politics
What is "MATA"?
Think of it as GAFAM or "Meta"
Moral Duty for "Linux Sites" to Speak Out Against LLM Slop
My wife has long complained about "Linux bloggers" keeping quiet and thus passive about a growing problem: slop
In Recent Hours Google News Promoted at Least 3 Slopfarms That Relayed Linux Foundation Propaganda Made by Bots or LLM "Bullshit Generators" (as Dr. Stallman Dubbed Them)
Google is circling down the drain and Google News too is hopeless
Linux Journal is a Slopfarm, It's Experimenting With LLM 'Authors'
Is Slashdot next?
WebProNews is a Slopfarm
Please avoid linking to WebProNews
Microsoft LinkedIn is Dying and Many More Layoffs Are on the Way
LinkedIn is just a failed acquisition of Microsoft. It causes losses and debt.
Gemini Links 25/06/2025: Combinatorial Music and Self Hosting
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Coming Back to Europe This Autumn to Give More Talks
His last talk in Europe attracted about 400-450 people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 24, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Social Control Media, Technology & Catholicism: Synod on Synodality review and feedback
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
How Many More Women Will Managers at Microsoft Strangle and Tell to Kill Themselves (or Try to Kill)?
The world needs to know what happened
The New BetaNews: 7 New 'Articles', All of Them LLM Slop
BetaNews is basically defunct. Nobody writes there anymore.
Another "Told You So!": XBox Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Many Recent Reports Were Chaff and Spin), Many Other Divisions Affected
With mass layoffs at Microsoft the world would be much better