Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 5/8/2010: Jolicloud Still in the News



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Open Source Community Paves Way for Developers to Improve Internet Access for the Aging, Disabled
    Aiming to greatly ease the barriers that the aging or people with disabilities experience in participating in Internet activities, the OpenAjax Alliance (OAA) announced it has created new open source tooling technology to help software developers make it dramatically easier for them to access and use Web 2.0-enabled business, government and consumer web sites. The new tooling technology simplifies the way Web applications are tested for compliance with current accessibility standards and guidelines, helping to speed up delivery of new accessible Internet applications.




  • CMS

    • Web Company Using Joomla to Improve People's Lives in Western China
      "Our company, Global Nomad, was started originally in 2005 as a non-profit with the aim of providing free web development training for unemployed locals here on the Tibetan Plateau in western China where we are located, and then hiring them to do the back-end development work for clients' websites.

      In 2008 we made the switch from non-profit status to that of a wholly foreign-owned enterprise, and since then are steadily growing as a web development company as our name spreads and our local employees' skills expand. Because of the free (sometimes even paid) training that we have provided for our local employees, they now are implementing Joomla onto client websites, thereby earning an income and becoming financially independent... which is significant in light of the current situation in western China of high unemployment rates and "brain drain" to the bigger cities in the eastern half of the country.

      Most of our clients come from the West including the US, Europe, and Australia, and thanks to the high-speed internet available even way out here in remote western China and open-source software such as Joomla, locals who used to be jobless can now earn a decent living implementing Joomla and doing back-end coding work for our clients.

      When I saw your invitation to interview web development companies who are using Joomla to make a living and become independent, I thought "perfect"! That is precisely what is happening here within our company. Please visit our website for more information about us (www.itsglobalnomad.com) and I do look forward to hearing from you."








  • BSD

    • FreeBSD 8.1 release uses different open source philosophy
      FreeBSD may not receive the attention that Linux does, but its latest upgrade could provide some instruction to the makers of Ubuntu about how to do open source releases. The makers of Ubuntu and the popular Linux Mint usually add new features to every release of these Linux distributions, whether or not these are features that the average users will ever need.








  • Project Releases







  • Licensing

    • SFC wins default judgement against GPL violator
      The default judgement was made on the basis that the company had ceased to respond to discovery requests from the court or the SFC. The SFC was awarded $90,000 damages and $47,685 legal costs. Westinghouse Digital Electronics was also ordered to hand over equipment in its possession that contained GPL code and forbidden to distribute devices which contained the BusyBox software.








Leftovers





  • Security/Aggression

    • Open letter to the media about the misuse of the term "hacker"
      Dear Sir/Madam,

      in the past weeks, especially in connection with the story about FBI's action against a cybercrime which lead to the arrest of a suspect in Slovenia, the word "hacker" has been used several times in the media in the wrong context and the wrong way. Since this term is differently understood by the experts then by the lay public, we feel it appropriate to warn about it in this open letter[1].

      "Hacker" comes from the verb "to hack", which is an expression that originated in the 50's of the previous century on the MIT[2] and means solving a technical problem in an unique way. In the computer jargon it is still used to label inventive and original modifications of a programme or system, based on a deep understanding and in a way that was originally not intended.








  • Finance

    • China fund raises finance to match Liverpool asking price
      The Chinese government fund represented by Kenny Huang has spent the past fortnight raising precisely the amount of cash required to finance a bid for Liverpool. Sources have confirmed to Digger that the China Investment Corporation, the sovereign wealth fund to the world's most populous nation, is the organisation being fronted by Huang, who yesterday admitted interest in bidding for Liverpool.


    • They First Make Mad: Summertime Tales of National Bankruptcy
      Both Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and then New York Fed President Tim Geithner assured senators in April 2008 banking committee testimony that the assets assumed by the Fed in its bail-out of Bear Stearns were "investment grade." In loading its own balance sheet with unprecedented credit risk, the Fed not only made the American people guarantors of toxic paper – and placed the value of the US dollar at greater risk – it materially misrepresented the quality of the securities involved. While credit quality and credit risk were at the heart of the unfolding banking crisis, the Fed itself was claiming that $30 billion in collateral it assumed consisted of only currently performing and investment grades assets. But the collateralized debt obligations and mortgage-backed bonds involved had already been downgraded at the time of the testimony.


    • UBS AG Hires Away Executives from Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC)
      UBS AG announced on Sunday that it will hire executives from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) and Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC) to build out its mortgage and lending business in the United States.


    • Goldman mulls private equity spinoff: report


    • Goldman Sachs Makes Plans To Spin Off Proprietary Trading: CNBC


    • Goldman Sachs Team to Reunite in Hedge Fund Merger
      Former top traders with Goldman Sachs will be working together again as two hedge fund firms merge.

      London-based Montrica Investment Management, with $1.1 billion in assets under management, is merging with TPG-Axon, an $8 billion New York-based firm, according to an investor letter.


    • Goldman Sachs holds its political tongue
      If you were running for office this year, would you want Goldman Sachs stumping for your election?

      Talk about radioactive. The firm epitomizes everything that Main Street hates about Wall Street these days -- rescued by the feds from billions of dollars in losses in the collapse of 2008, it quickly rebounded to post billions of dollars in profits. In the meantime, a federal lawsuit showed how Goldman created at least one exotic mortgage-backed product that was designed to fail, soaking one set of clients for the benefit of another. Nice!


    • Political Ads Off Limits, Goldman Promises
      The move was an unexpected sign of restraint after a major Supreme Court ruling this year that gave corporations the power to devote unlimited amounts to electing or defeating candidates for federal office.


    • Goldman Sachs Was Just a Small Fish in the Big CDO Pond
      The Wall Street investment bank was hardly alone in creating CDOs designed to fall in value and was hardly alone in betting against the housing market. Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal article on Deutsche Bank makes that clear. The German bank wasn’t just creating and selling mortgage securities to some of its clients, it also was advising other clients to bet the other way, and sometimes doing so itself.


    • Goldman Sachs runs afoul of residents over retail outlets
      The media is certainly hot and heavy for Goldman Sachs (GS) scoops. We noted recently the New York Times reported Goldman had Battery Park residents angry over the loud ferries it had been using. Now comes news from the Daily Telegraph that the gilded bank has also offended some people living near its fancy 200 West Street global HQ.








  • Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

    • Aussie opposition will scrap firewall
      Joe Hockey, shadow treasurer, has told Australian radio that the Liberal Party will oppose the Australian government's planned compulsory net filter.

      Communications minister Stephen Conroy has staked his reputation on blocking content from the internet which would be censored if it were a film for cinema release. The government announced a review of the contentious plan last month.








  • Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM

    • Is Google About to Sell the Internet Down the River?
      Indeed, this last factor is a crucial element of Net neutrality - not some minor, optional element that can be discarded. Consider a hypothetical situation when the Web was invented. Suppose we had the kind of pseudo-Net neutrality Schmidt seems to be advocating. According to this, it would have been perfectly permissible to allow the then-leading services like Gopher or WAIS traffic (anyone remember them?), say, to be delivered more quickly than Web traffic. So existing Gopher and WAIS incumbents (such as they were) could have conspired to throttle the Web. That is, if Schmidt's proposed “bridge”had been around then, there probably wouldn't be the Web as we know it - and certainly no companies based on searching it...

      The situation is exactly the same today, with the difference that we don't know what new services will be developed and run across the Internet. But we do know that we need an absolutely level playing field if they are to stand a chance of challenging current leaders and maybe replace them. Sadly, if Google's “compromise” goes through, we may see the situation where large companies with vested interests can discriminate against new entrants, with the result that online innovation is crimped.


    • Google, Verizon Compromise On Net Neutrality








  • Intellectual Monopolies





    • Copyrights



      • ACTA

        • Collateral Damage: The Impact of ACTA and the Enforcement Agenda on the World’s Poorest People
          Its unlikely to be the impact which the IP Enforcement Agenda is having on the poorest people in the world. Its unlikely because its apparent from both the latest leaked text of ACTA and the preceding leaked text that no consideration is being given to threat posed to the poorest people in the world by ACTA. The likely impact of the threat on the poorest people in the world is already indicated by the instantiation of an expansive “enforcement” agenda. I’ve pointed to some of the obvious consequences in a working paper hosted by the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at Washington College of Law.
















Clip of the Day



windows 95 on android



[an error occurred while processing this directive]



Recent Techrights' Posts

Real Security Elusive, Microsoft Layoffs to Coincide With Certificate Apocalypse
July 1
2026 is a Year of Strikes at the European Patent Office (EPO)
As it stands at the moment, to many people the EPO represents crime, not law
Only 1.5% Oppose the European Patent Office's (EPO) Strikes and Other Industrial Actions Until 2027
Among those polled/surveyed (in a ballot)
 
5 Years After Release of Vista 11 Not Even One in 5 People Use It (in the US)
It doesn't look like Vista 11 will ever be adopted like prior versions and announcing a Vista 12 will mostly upset companies/organisations that only recently "upgraded" to 11
Gemini Links 21/06/2026: Boca Raton, Perfect Summer Day, and LLM Doing Things Poorly
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 20, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, June 20, 2026
Microsoft Insiders - Not Limited to XBox - Expect a 'Bloodbath' (Their Own Word)
This isn't limited to XBox
Reports of "PIP" as Means of Mass Layoffs at IBM This Year
some insights into the PIPs
SLAPP Censorship - Part 112 Out of 200: Strangles Women, Then Refuses to Even Attend Any of His Own Hearings About It
It is meanwhile very apparent that Brett Wilson LLP is becoming a "mench sphere"
Gemini Links 20/06/2026: "There Was Never Supposed to Be a Camera" and "What Is A Programming Language"?
Links for the day
Geminispace Reaches Its 8th Year, Today It Has Turned 7
Gemini Protocol 'went live' 7 years ago, just before the COVID-19 pandemic
Links 20/06/2026: "Full Page Paralysis" and "Hopes For Xbox’s Future Might Be Over Before It Even Begins"
Links for the day
European Patent Office's (EPO) Strikes "at a Scale not Seen Since Battistelli", European Patent Grants Down by Over 25% in Past 3 Months
The actions are effective
Links 20/06/2026: Microsoft's "Year of Shame" and "Feed the Writers"
Links for the day
Web Browsers Are Technically Bloatware (No Matter What Runs in Them)
Don't make it a society that shames people into using a Web browser where none should be needed
Fedora Has Changed a Lot Since I Last Used It (IBM Dominates Almost Everything, IBM Agenda Displaces Community Goals)
"It is effectively 100% run by Red Hat/IBM employed people... even when they are community-elected representatives."
Andy (Cyber Show) on His Teacher Who "Squeezed Every Last Drop Out of Life, With Gratitude, Humility, Generosity and Mettle"
Some call them "eccentric" and are dismissive about what they have to offer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 19, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, June 19, 2026
Gopher/Gemini Links 20/06/2026: Slop With Tcl/Tk and Nokia 770 Perishes
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 111 Out of 200: Garrett and Graveley (the Latter Arrested for Strangling Women) Keep Ousting Their Collaboration in Litigation, Lawfare in a Foreign Continent
it's not law, it's just warfare disguised as "law"
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Lobbying in Lisbon...
reappointment campaign lobbying has not been restricted to the "home front" in Portugal
Slop Making Its Way Into Terms Where It Does Not Belong
Hopefully by year's end Google News can successfully cull (and deprive of traffic) almost all slopfarms
Links 19/06/2026: Microsoft Patent Troll Intellectual Ventures in Europe, "World Cup of Internet Resilience"
Links for the day
Links 19/06/2026: Salesforce Data Thefts and GAFAM's Conspiracy Theories That Data Center Opposition is a Foreign Plot
Links for the day
Links 19/06/2026: The Retweeting Class and Data Centres as National Security Risk
Links for the day
Don't Attack the Wives (or Spouses) of Pundits/Activists/Journalists
We will be writing several series about this in the future
Society Will Only Improve Owing to People Who Push Boundaries
Push boundaries with ideas and facts, not with forbidden language
Internet Relay Chat (Shorthand IRC) is Still Growing
Contrariwise, social control media is waning
The Register MS Published a New Page With "AI" 21 Times in It. It Was Paid SPAM.
The former editor of the The Register MS admitted to me (directly) that he knew all this "AI" stuff was stupid hype
Murdoch's Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Associates Dependence on a Ponzi Scheme With "the Future"
Those ludicrous ads (disguised as rankings) from WSJ deserve scorn and ridicule
The XBox Story is Still Fast-Developing, the Layoffs Are Confirmed to be Happening Already (Mid-June), Just Not "Officially"
Workers have Microsoft have long braced for what is happening this summer and will accelerate further in two weeks' time
Fake News From Rupert Murdoch's WSJ Could Not Keep IBM From Sinking
"2026 Best Companies for the Future"?
To GNU, AV2 Adoption May be a Year If Not Years Away
The leap between versions means that there is fertile ground for incompatibilities
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 18, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, June 18, 2026
Gemini Links 19/06/2026: "Born and Raised by the Internet", Fifteen Years in Gopher
Links for the day