10.03.10

^{Gemini version available ♊︎}

Links 3/10/2010: Gimpbox Introduced, ACS:Law Boss Could Go Bankrupt

Posted in News Roundup at 5:09 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux
- Distributions
- Devices/Embedded
Free Software/Open Source
Leftovers
Clip of the Day

GNU/Linux

Quo vadis Linux?

I was trying to figure out a topic to write about. I usually focus on Tutorials and tips, as not being a native English speaker, my grammar is not good enough to write opinion posts.
This time I decided to write about the future of Linux, and I was focusing of topics like:

* Need of marketing
* Teaching children how to use computers with Linux instead of others.
* Focus on new devices, like smart phones, tablets, etc.
Tracking Weekly Enterprise Linux News & Trends
Desktop
- Guess What? Linux May Not Be for Everyone
  
  My wife is a special case of another kind. Once the initial learning for Linux was over, she would have been happy as a pig in mud. I spent a day with her getting Gnome configured to look and act as much like Windows XP as possible. And everything was pretty much working OK. But Danielle is an Excel guru. She stopped using Google Docs’ spreadsheet function because it was too basic for her needs. So, for her, using OpenOffice.org’s Calc is like trying to fly a stealth bomber in which all the buttons were moved to random locations in the cockpit. As far as I can tell, everything she wants to do is possible, but it’s somewhere else or done in a really weird way. I don’t regularly do 1/4 of what she does with spreadsheets, so I have no idea where these things are. Unlike problems with Nautilus or Rhythmbox where I use the programs daily and, therefore, know what to do, I have no idea how to do the things she wants to do. And the inline help has left her….unsatisfied.
- Desktop Applications
  
  So, TFA and some of the comments are pure ignorance. The presumption is that OpenOffice.org has failed as desktop software because M$’s Office still remains active. What nonsense! That is “winner-takes-all” and not relevant to the question of success or failure. Being driven from the market is only one way to fail and monopolizing the market is only one way to succeed.
Server
- Small Chips in Big Servers
  
  Intel was caught napping on 64bitness. They may be napping on the ideal cloudy server. If Intel lets ARM march in, ARM and GNU/Linux could take a big chunk out of Wintel in the server/workstation space. What’s wrong with a ton of passively cooled CPUs on a motherboard? Is Intel worried for the CPU cooler makers? Is Intel worried that ARM may be better at this role than Atom?
- Dell server certified for Ubuntu
  
  Dell and Canonical have jointly certified a range of PowerEdge servers for Ubuntu Server Edition. The majority of systems have been certified for the current version 10.04 LTS, which Canonical plans to maintain until April 2015. Some older models, have been certified with older versions down to Ubuntu 8.04.
Kernel Space
- Graphics Stack
  - X.Org Server 1.9.1 Is Approaching; RC1 Released
    
    Under the release management of Apple’s Jeremy Huddleston, the first release candidate for the first point release in the X.Org Server 1.9 series is now available. X.Org Server 1.9.1 will be the first update to X.Org Server 1.9, which was released in August, and should make it out around the same time as the X.Org 7.6 katamari release later in October.
Applications
- Gimpbox Combines GIMP Image Editor’s Tools into a Single Window
  
  Linux only (maybe): The free, open-source image editor, GIMP, uses multiple windows for its tools and dialogs, but they’re getting combined into a single window in a future release. Impatient types can combine everything right now, though, with a Python script.
- Instructionals/Technical
- Games
  - Hexagonal Tetris game ‘HexGlass’ is far from original, fun to play
    
    If you’re not familiar with the ‘Tetris’ then welcome to earth – I will take you to our leader. Everyone else has likely succumbed at least once to the addictive puzzler and as such it needs no formal introduction.
    
    Hexglass is a Tetris-styled puzzle game with a slight difference. Instead of using square blocks to create a ‘Tetris’ you are instead given hexagonal shapes of varying forms. You must arrange, rotate and align these into horizontal rows of hexagonal bricks, completing a row makes it disappear and scores you some points – just like traditional Tetris.
Desktop Environments
- Enlightenment Foundation Libraries 1.0 Hit Beta
  
  At long last, the EFL (Enlightenment Foundation Libraries) have reached a beta status for their version 1.0 release. Among the libraries hitting this beta status are Eina, Eet, Evas, Ecore, Embryo, Edje, E_Dbus, Efreet, and Eeze. New snapshots are also available for Enlightenment and Elementary.
- GNOME Desktop
  - Shared Color Profiles 0.1.2
    
    Richard Hughes updated his pack of freely distributable generic ICC profiles that are used by GNOME Color Manager.
  - Another Record Month! GNOME Amazon Affiliate fees September 2010
    
    September has beaten our previous record month . In total approximately $635 has been received from in affiliate fees from Amazon compared to the previous record of $500 a nice 27% increase
Distributions
- Red Hat Family
  - Fedora
    - Disgruntled with Fedora
      
      What I’m looking for is a distro that supports the latest version of KDE, uses pulseaudio, networkmanager and usually sports the latest kernel. Bonus if they refuse to package Mono. Fedora used to be the ideal distro for me but after F14 this will change because of the new policy. Fedora will eventually turn into Fedbuntu.
- Debian Family
  - Canonical/Ubuntu
    - Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat T Shirts now available in Canonical store
      
      Two new T Shirts for the Maverick Meerkat release of Ubuntu that comes out in just over a week have appeared in the Canonical Store.
    - Announcing the First LoCo Day Event
      
      It is my great honor to be able to announce a new Ubuntu Classroom event that will be taking place: LoCo Days! To quote the wiki, “Most Classroom sessions done in the Ubuntu community are done in English. However, we have a large LoCo community as well.
    - ITworld review: Ubuntu 10.10 scores close to a ten
      
      Under the hood Maverick Meerkat uses the 2.6.35-22.33 Linux kernel, which is Ubuntu’s take on the 2.6.35.4 stable kernel. What’s noteworthy about this kernel is that it’s a bit more stable than previous ones and it includes support for Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors. Sandy Bridge is Intel’s next generation of PC and server chips. That doesn’t matter now except for developers, but if you want to get the most from your next high-end PC purchase in 2011, you’ll want this support.
    - Ubuntu Adding Mobile Streaming to its Ubuntu One Cloud Service
    - Flavours and Variants
      - Kubuntu Hidden Extra: Message Indicator Shift Click
        
        The plasma-widget-message-indicator is not new to Kubuntu, but it got some nice improvements in this cycle. It got a visual overhaul to fit the new visual theme of KDE 4.5 (and in my opinion looks generally more pleasing to the eye), but the new killer feature is one you can’t see at all.
Devices/Embedded
- Phones
  - Android
    - Microsoft’s case against Motorola won’t hurt Google, Android or Linux
      
      Consumers don’t pay attention to patent infringement cases. Unless the court opts to halt sales of Motorola’s Android smartphones, which is also unlikely, the market for Android devices will keep skyrocketing.
    - With Android Apps, Open Means Open–And That’s A Good Thing
      
      The bottom line is that Android is an open ecosystem–much more open than the one surrounding Apple’s iPhone. As long as Android is open, everything from porn to GPS tracking will be more likely to show up on the platform than it is on Apple’s. Increasingly, though, it’s precisely the openness of Android that is making it an attractive platform, and one predicted by many researchers to become much more dominant in coming years.
    - Google opens Android database at former phone store URL, but only for devices using Google services

Free Software/Open Source

Max Out Your Video, Graphics, and Audio Arsenal

If you think back to what you were doing digitally 10 years ago, and then think about what you’re doing today, odds are that you work with video, graphics and audio much more than you ever did before. Within the world of open source, there are not only outstanding free applications that can improve your experience in these areas, but there are many free guides and tutorials to get you going with them. In this post, you’ll find a huge number of resources for pumping up your multimedia muscles. Spend some time with these, and you’ll collect some rich dividends.
Why There Won’t Be a LAMP For Big Data

It is possible that we’ll see standardization of componentry around specific projects like Hadoop – although even that seems unlikely with the rampant proliferation of query, import and other ecosystem projects – but I do not expect to see a standard stack of software used to tackle generic Big Data problems, because there really aren’t many generic Big Data problems. Inconvenient as that might be from a vocabulary perspective.
FLOSS on YouTube

# Guadalinux on hundreds of thousands of computers in schools and offices in Andalusia, Spain. A million downloads so far.
Apache Shindig 2.0: OpenSocial implementation for Java and PHP

Apache Shindig 2.0 is available to download and is licensed under the Apache 2.0 licence. An overview of the project explains Shindig’s history and how it implements the OpenSocial specification.
Events
- Women Proved “Securest” in the Defcon Social Engineering Game
  
  In a recent post (Hackers Play “Social Engineering Capture The Flag” At Defcon), I pointed to a game in which contestants used the telephone to convince company employees to voluntarily cough up information they probably shouldn’t have.
  
  Of 135 “targets” of the social engineering “game,” 130 blurted out too much information. All five holdouts were women who gave up zero data to the social engineers.
Web Browsers
- Google hands number 7 shirt to Chrome browser
  
  Mountain View updated Chrome to 7.0.517.24 for Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome Frame. But the latest release is light on new features, which has left some Chrome fans a bit nonplussed.
Databases
- Five Enterprise Features in PostgreSQL 9
  
  The PostgreSQL Global Development Group recently released PostgreSQL 9.0, with major new features and more than 200 addons and improvements for the popular database.
  
  If you look at the release notes you’ll find a ton of new features and enhancements to existing features. For example, this release brings better error messages for unique constraints, improvements in PL languages for stored procedures, and a lot more. Wading through the PostgreSQL 9.0 release notes is a DBA’s delight, but what are the top features in this release? I pinged PostgreSQL core team member Josh Berkus and got some input on the most important features for PostgreSQL 9.
Oracle
- Java Guru James Gosling Pulls No Punches in Oracle Diatribe
  
  Gosling sums the whole dispute up as “all about money,” and provides many more details in the transcript.
Business
- Semi-Open Source
  - A Cloud Server is One Thing, Data in the Cloud is Another
    
    Open source cloud players are pursuing promising hybrid strategies, and as that continues, their flexibility may make them the big winners.
FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
- GCC 4.4.5 Brings Bug-Fixes
  
  While GCC 4.5 has been around since this past April, if you are still living with GCC 4.4 for whatever reason (like being hit with a massive performance regression), you may be pleased to know that on this Sunday afternoon there is the GCC 4.4.5 release that’s now available. GCC 4.4.5 was delayed a bit, but it’s here and offers up bug-fixes but no major new features.
Project Releases
- ForgeRock announces OpenDJ LDAP directory service
  
  ForgeRock has announced OpenDJ, a Java based open source directory server as part of its I3 platform. OpenDJ, a standard compliant LDAP directory server built for scalability and stability, is a based on OpenDS, a project initially developed by Sun Microsystems, and ForgeRock has announced that a key OpenDS developer, Ludovic Poitou, has joined its ranks. ForgeRock CEO Lasse Andresen said “It’s a real delight to work with him again”. Enterprise subscriptions to OpenDJ are available now from ForgeRock.
Government
- Topic Report No 16: INSPIREd by Openness: The case of the implementation of Directive 2007/2/EC in Greece as a general model for open data regulation within the context of Public Sector Information
  
  This state of play report on recent PSI initiatives in Greece discusses the national transposition of the INSPIRE Directive by the Greek Parliament: the National Infrastructure for Geospatial Information (3882/2010). This is a vitally important piece of legislation both in the context of open data and the regulation of Public Sector Information. It adopts a life cycle approach and increases the threshold of protection of the re-use of public sector information. This was the result of lengthy process and a concentrated effort to create a functional and sustainable system for the sharing of Geospatial Information in the context of the Greek legal system. The success of Law 3882/2010 is something yet to be tested in its implementation. However, the author concludes that it is significant as a model for increasing administrative capacity in dealing with open data. This report demonstrates the value of the EU focus on INSPIRE and PSI legislation.
Openness/Sharing
- A little bit of federated Open Notebook Science
  
  Jean-Claude Bradley is the master when it comes to organising collaborations around diverse sets of online tools. The UsefulChem and Open Notebook Science Challenge projects both revolved around the use of wikis, blogs, GoogleDocs, video, ChemSpider and whatever tools are appropriate for the job at hand. This is something that has grown up over time but is at least partially formally organised. At some level the tools that get used are the ones Jean-Claude decides will be used and it is in part his uncompromising attitude to how the project works (if you want to be involved you interact on the project’s terms) that makes this work effectively.
- Open Access/Content
  - The Great Disconnect: Scholars Without Libraries
    
    This naming of a threat seemed interesting when read in connection with Steven Bell’s recent ACRLog post, “Underground Resource Sharing,” in which he related the outrage over Netflixgate to a blog post by a scholar who was horrified to discover that once he finished his degree, the library cut him off from JSTOR. (Apparently he thought an alumni association deal would keep the connection open to everything; anyone who has had to negotiate a license agreement to spend over ten thousand dollars to share two seats across the total population of three institutions, each kicking in over 10K for the privilege is now rolling around on the floor laughing so hard it hurts. Or … well, it hurts, anyway.) How was he supposed to get any work done? He reported feeling a “fresh surge of hatred” for his alma mater. (Excuse me, but does this mean everything you publish in future will be open access? Whose fault is it that research findings have to be paid for and fenced off? You’ll find a hint if you look in the mirror.) Comments on his post pointed out that, duh, you just get a friend to send articles to you, or you join a Facebook or FriendFeed group dedicated to swapping articles or just get somebody’s login. Too bad we spent so much on EEBO – apparently everyone has a bootleg login.

Leftovers

Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM
- Europe should keep the internet open
  
  Who gets to decide what you do on the internet: you or your internet service provider? Until recently, the answer was simple: you decide which services and websites you want visit. This is changing rapidly, however. Most internet providers want to restrict your internet traffic. Unless the European Commission prohibits them from doing so. Bits of Freedom together with EDRi on 30 September 2010 urged the European Commission to prohibit this. If you have 5 minutes, you can do the same.
Intellectual Monopolies
- Copyrights
  - P2P Backed Film Platform to Reward Influencers
    
    Supported by a conglomerate of file-sharing sites and applications, the VODO project offers a novel distribution platform for indie filmmakers. The model has already proven itself as all major releases have been downloaded by hundreds of thousands of users. However, to really tap into the core of peer-to-peer distribution, the focus will now shift to peer-to-peer promotion.
  - Top Legal Experts Explore Reforms to Copyright Law
    
    Berkeley, CA-September 28, 2010…A group of leading experts on copyright law and policy released a report today that explores ideas for meaningful reforms to the U.S. copyright system. Crafted over three years by a group of legal academics, private practitioners, and corporate attorneys, the report examines several ways to improve and update the law in an era of rapid technological change.
  - UK Law Firm Gallant Macmillan Taken Offline In Revenge Attacks
    
    Law firm Gallant & Macmillan, which was threatened with a DDos attack by 4chan yesterday, appears to have disappeared from the internet. It is unclear whether the host disconnected the domain in advance of the attack or whether Gallant & Macmillan is now the latest company to be forced offline through traffic overload.
    
    Anonymous group 4chan began waging war on copyright bodies and solicitors involved in accusing internet users of copyright infringement as part of what it described as a ‘operation payback’.
  - Gallant Macmillan – site is down but 4chan not to blame? Who’s next?
    
    It’s being reported by some tech writers that Gallant Macmillan might have been taken down with a new ddos by users from 4chan (It also suggests the possibility that the site was taken down intentionally by its owners.)
  - ACS:Law Boss: I Feel Defeated And Could Go Bankrupt
    
    After disgruntled letter recipients mailed off a barrage of complaints to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority against ACS:Law owner Andrew Crossley, he told his advisor that not only did he “feel defeated” but that in his long-term interests it might be better if he “shut up shop”. Doing so, he explained, would bankrupt him.
  - Third Blender film available to download
    
    In just under 15 minutes, the film narrates a traditional fantasy story with all the pathos expected from the genre – a young female warrior called Sintel finds an injured baby dragon and nurses it back to health. When the baby dragon, barely able to fly, is kidnapped by a powerful older dragon, Sintel takes up the pursuit.
  - ACTA
    - Danger of international accord on repressive policies in final ACTA talks, says RSF
      
      According to the latest leaks, on 25 August 2010, the wording of the section on the Internet entitled “Special Measures Related to Technological Enforcement of Intellectual Property in the Digital Environment” has been softened but it still gives governments a lot of scope to introduce repressive provisions including filtering and a “graduated response” leading to the disconnection of illegal downloaders.
    - Countries reach tentative anti-counterfeiting pact [Very bad article, propaganda]