Summary: Black Duck, Microsoft, Hadapt, and Red Hat talk about products and/or patents which relate to them
AFTER this previous post, the pro-patents crowd (the lawyers who confront us over these issues) suggested we focus more attention on the company Walker Digital. To quote the relevant parts:
The first lot, for Automatically Captured Images contained only a set of patent applications and foreign patents, yet the bidding petered out at $7,000,000. Bidding for a lot described as a Single Use Transaction Code stopped at $3,000,000. The last two lots, for Driving Directions with Visual Cues and a Certified Audio Vault reached $6,000,000 and $4,500,000, respectively. Altogether, that’s $20.5 M in exchange for the freedom for one company each to practice and manufacture the technology described in these patents. Generally, when good technology is adopted by one company, it gets copied by others, so it’s entirely likely that substantial additional value exists, not just for these patents, but Walker Digital as a whole.
But how did the covenants end up being sent to auction in the first place? Earlier this year, Walker Digital announced the hiring of a consulting firm to help create value out of its substantial patent portfolio
The Open Source Think Tank is the most unique invitation-only event of its kind, bringing together many of the world’s top thought leaders in a challenge to solve real world situations. The event is focused on the evolution and practical implications of open source and cloud computing.
It’s invitation-only, eh? Was Microsoft invited to an “Open Source Think” or does it get automatic admission by simply paying? This whole event is organised by a familiar entity.
Black Duck in reality promotes proprietary software covered by software patents. It is yet another firm that does not see the big picture and realise the hindrance to innovation by software patents. Like the Tea Party, these closed-minded firms play a game where the bigger players (Microsoft, Apple) have the advantage and exploit the smaller players without consequence or guilt. Unfortunately, there is an increasing number of misguided software companies with a patent strategy that is not progressively oriented around immediate abolition. “Our patent-pending Adaptive Query Execution™ capability is unlike any other offering in the market,” drones Justin Borgman, co-founder of Hadapt Inc. Next there will be a patent on using the equation “y=mx+b” with cloud (Internet) spreadsheet programs (that is, if one does not exist already).
Meanwhile, even Red Hat has not proven immune to the software patent bug. It’s legal team has produced harmful statements in a recent post; they spout praise and endorsement over the “strength” of Red Hat’s patent portfolio while still maintaining that the company is a fighter for patent reform:
The ranking of Red Hat’s patent portfolio as the 50th strongest in IT represents a jump of 16 spots from The Patent Board’s previous ranking on November 5, 2010.
[...]
At the same time, Red Hat continues to fight for software patent reform.
Red Hat has made itself open for accusations of hypocrisy. This is the last thing it needs at this point, especially in the light of the source code obfuscation controversy we discussed earlier. Red Hat needs to do what is right and stand up and firmly for its beliefs and the Free software community and software it originates from and depends upon. It can not continue to act like a “wishy-washy” politician if it seeks long-term viability. █
Posted in Microsoft at 10:54 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The modus operandi of Microsoft whenever a public policy is made that may exclude Microsoft’s standards-hostile, user-disrespecting, and overly-expensive software
Microsoft’s business model depends on restrictive proprietary software coupled with non-interoperable formats to produce a vendor lock-in relationship with its customers. It is no wonder then why Microsoft is trying to sabotage policy that encourages Free software and open standards. Microsoft’s main ammunition in this attack is lying. This translates into numerous, often dirty and immoral tactics. Statements along the lines of “‘excluding proprietary’ is ‘removing choice’” (Microsoft has the BSA lobby with this lie in numerous instances) are fabricated and policies are removed altogether by implanting cronies who reverse predecessors’ ideas (see Peter Quinn's story). In recent years, it is common for Microsoft to pretend that it too is open source (a familiar tactic in recent years), and fakers and even professors have been bribed to say that it is practical to use a mixture of both Free and proprietary. In the past, Microsoft only went for the full lobby of pushing proprietary only. █
“He [Bill Gates] acted like a spoiled kid, which is what he was.”
–Ed Roberts, Gates’ employer at MITS in the 1970′s (Atlanta Journal-Costitution, 04-27-97)
Summary: Even the closest friends of Bill Gates cannot stand the guy, whose antisocial behaviour they help reveal to the world
ONE day in the near future we hope to properly research the subject we once covered quite a lot (especially in 2009 and 2010). Quietly but surely and very steadily, Mr. Gates is taking control of more aspects of everybody’s life, from schools to food. He monopolises and controls those in all sorts of ways which we explained before and our criticism is backed by some voices from academia (professors), politicians, and free thinkers. It’s not hard to see what’s going on and a person who grew up with Mr. Gates, working closely with him since they were adolescents, is the co-founder of Microsoft, who is now known as Traul Allen because he is a patent troll of global proportions (he sues the whole world as Groklaw likes to cast it).
One point that we mentioned last week is Allen’s convictions and allegations against Gates, which we already knew about (Cringely wrote about it at least half a decade ago, Allen now concurs and puts it in a book).
Paul Allen’s memoir about his founding and helping run Microsoft paints Bill Gates as an unprincipled shark, conniving to get Allen to give up a sizable percentage of the ownership of Microsoft, and constantly bullying employees. Can Allen be believed? And if so, does Gates’ later life as a philanthropist make up for his youthful behavior?
People who worked for Gates shared similar stories, some of which say that Gates really bullied them and used the “F” word spuriously. Groklaw laughs with the above in mind, adding: “Final answers: yes and then no. Personally, I view Gates’ philanthropy as kind of in the same category as Macbeth’s handwashing.”
“Personally, I view Gates’ philanthropy as kind of in the same category as Macbeth’s handwashing.” –Pamela Jones, GroklawGates is still bullying everyone who does not agree with him, sometimes causing his opponents to be fired or not funded by anyone. This characterises people who are underqualified and use the mistreatment of others to hide their vulnerabilities and boost their own ego (people who do this typically lack confidence and lash out to make themselves feel better, at the expense of others). Remember: Gates never even graduated from college (not properly anyway, honorary doesn’t count). How come they treat him like economist extraordinaire? Possession of illegally-earned money is not the same as managing economies, but they allow him to enter the White House uninvited, regardless, and then lobby on issues of international financing. It’s insane. That has a lot to do with the way he markets himself, iconifying one’s image by emphasising false correlation between wealth and wisdom, rather than ruthlessness and familiarity with ways of breaking the law, then getting away with it (Gates’ father). Regarding the marketing of one’s character, we suggest people take a look at this wiki page, which we have not had time to extend since the start of the year. Well, the short version is that to start the whole thing, Gates bought a lot of the press (about a million dollars per day are spent on just this sort of deception by Gates), turning what may look like news and sound like news into public relations (PR) for himself, which in turn gives him a lot of wiggling room while he gets richer and more powerful, primarily by promoting patents (monopoly assurers) he invests in as well as lobbies for and convinces country leaders to pump public money into. This is a multi-faceted issue that we covered here many times (but not enough times, due to lack of time). It’s disturbing, but a lot of people turn a blind eye to it or believe the PR. It’s easier to just trust what’s heard a lot of times.
Interestingly enough, Groklaw has dug up some old information a couple of weeks ago and it stated regarding the story of Ed Roberts (Microsoft was dancing on his grave last year): “They may wax lyrical now, but Wikipedia includes this illuminating detail, referencing Stephen Manes’ book Gates, fleshing out my theory that partnering with Microsoft can lead to bad things — after Roberts gave them their big opportunity, this is what happened: “Roberts refused to sub-license BASIC to other companies; this led to arbitration in 1977 between MITS and the new ‘Micro-Soft’. The arbitrator agreed with Microsoft and allowed them to license the 8080 BASIC to other companies. Roberts was disappointed with this ruling. Since both Allen and Gates had been employees of MITS and he paid for the computer time, Roberts felt it was his software.”"
Separately, Gates and his buddy Nathan Myhrvold, whom he funded to amass patents and now attack Linux/RIM/other rivals, are mentioned again in the context of Intellectual Ventures (IV). The people at IV extort and also lobby for the sick patent law which exists — one that makes both of them (Gates and Myhrvold) a lot of money in their post-Microsoft days. It was only some months ago (about a year or more) when he was claimed to have spent about a million dollars just lobbying to change the patent laws and/or manufacture fake ‘studies’ to defend patent-trolling. Now, check this out:
Union Opposition To Patent Reform Legislation Funded By Intellectual Ventures
Pat Choate, noted political economist, filed a breach of contract lawsuit earlier this week against Intellectual Ventures, a patent aggregator, owner of approximately 30,000 patents, and plaintiff in numerous patent infringement lawsuits. According to a copy of the complaint obtained by GametimeIP.com, Choate was hired by IV to orchestrate opposition to the patent reform legislation in the 2005-08 time frame and beyond while “hid[ing IV] in the crowd” since its high-profile investors, like Bill Gates, supported patent reform.
Also revealed is IV’s connection to the surprising labor union opposition to patent reform. According to a 2007 PC World story, “the AFL-CIO, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), and the United Steelworkers — have sent letters to lawmakers saying they oppose two current patent reform bills.”
[...]
However, IV’s tune changed in 2009 when the damages provisions were modified, and IV actually held fund-raising events for patent reform booster Patrick Leahy. According to the Choate’s complaint, about $500,000 worth of his contract with IV has gone unpaid (possibly relating to IV’s change of heart) despite the fact that he was in the middle of a 25 month contract.
The author of this is actually a patents booster who is looking to work in litigation. He too has joined together the dots and decided to name Gates as a major financier of this whole mess.
So, will anyone be willing to contradict Gates’ partner in crime (they both started with sabotage) and still insist that Gates is a wonderful person? Don’t worry, tomorrow’s newspapers will be filled with glowing PR (masquerading as “news”) about Gates, who spends about a million dollars on this PR every single day. He has a lot to hide and money can buy public opinion these days. █
” In my case, I went to the garbage cans at the Computer Science Center and I fished out listings of their operating systems.”
Summary: Monopoly abuser Microsoft Corporation complains about Google “abuses” just a year after Microsoft was punished yet again for monopoly abuse
THE previous post may somehow seem too hostile towards Google. But it’s not, it was just an opinion constructed in the form of advice. Techrights is concerned about Google, but it realises that it is nothing like Microsoft has ever been and the managers at Google are not sociopaths for all we know. Mr. Brin, for example, is known as a modest guy who likes technology, not a manipulative law school dropout.
You know what I think this all means? I think it means Microsoft still doesn’t understand why it got into antitrust hot water, still accepts no responsibility. I understood that better when I read the Paul Allen excerpt from his book in Vanity Fair. The upper management are portrayed as ethically empty. Microsoft now seems to think that all it takes is a competitor to complain, and you end up like it did. That leaves out a powerful factor, which is that Microsoft really did abuse its monopoly position and it did harm to the market, to security, to customers, to competitors in ways that are disturbing to the rest of us. And no one had to use partners and subsidiaries to make it look like it was doing bad things. They really did them, and that is why they ended up in antitrust hot water. So this laughable conspiracy to try to hold Google’s feet to the fire will not end the way it does in Microsoft’s dreams, I don’t think. Because Google isn’t Microsoft. They live on different planets. And that will make all the difference. PS. Google and Android won. Microsoft with this filing waves the white flag.
This happened around the time when Opera, Google, Mozilla and others decided to ask the EC to look into Microsoft’s own anti-competitive practices in the browser market.
One tech lobbyist told POLITICO, for example, that Microsoft has centered some of its Beltway strategy on “pushing folks to investigate Google” long before it filed its antitrust complaint in Brussels — but that it’s not clear whether Google has the stomach to return fire.
“It appears Google is willing to defend itself from accusations that are untrue or unfounded, … but it’s not within their company culture to organize a campaign to cause trouble for Microsoft,” the source said.
Eventually came a whole article on the subject and Jones highlighted the report “Do Not Anger the Alpha Android”, commenting as follows:
What a coincidence. A Microsoft partner, Facebook, complaining about Google the very same day that Microsoft files an antitrust complaint. Is life not full of unbelievable coincidences? PS. I truly do hope Google watches their stuff like a hawk, given Facebook’s track record on privacy. And does Facebook have quality control standards on what outside companies can do with apps for Facebook, for example? I mean, come on.
And as for quality control, it’s real. I have an acquaintance I finally got to get an Android phone, and wouldn’t you know it, it couldn’t play Angry Birds. She happened to get one that wasn’t using the latest and greatest, and she was so mad about it she was going to drop the phone. It was possible to finally slide it on sideways, so to speak, and get it to run, and now she loves the phone, but quality control and consistency are hardly unnatural business concerns. Some of the stuff companies are putting out there bring the brand down, and that isn’t Google’s fault. And frankly the flood of complaining about Google looks to me like a coordinated campaign. There. I said it. I think reporters should research that and write about it next. I’ll bet you hit pay dirt.
Groklaw too acknowledges that there is a special relationship between Facebook and Microsoft (which owns part of Facebook, the company). For those who do not know the history of Facebook’s founder, be sure to read about it. He too is an unethical sociopath (now using so-called ‘charity’ to hide the truth and create a moral shield). A lot of people know nothing about it, but they ought to. And companies are actually run by really powerful people, with character, mood swings, ego, and penis envy. █
Summary: Criticism of Google’s organisation of patents and their translations which help legitimatise patent monopolies, taking them even further
AS noted in last night's show, Microsoft is trying to portray Google as an “IP” villain pretty much in the same way that SCO tried to portray IBM and individual people like Linus Torvalds as “thieves”. This is deliberate. But the point worth making is that Google — unlike IBM for example — is rather ambivalent on the subject. Google, unlike IBM, has not had a century as a massive company (during which to amass patents) and at times it seems like Google is prepared to abolish software patents if it can [1, 2]. On other occasions it contradicts itself, sometimes there seem to be inner conflicts between Google lawyers and engineers, and Google generally uses its expertise as knowledge arranger to catalogue patents-related information, thereby validating these increasingly-dubious systems. Over the past couple of years we gave examples on about three occasions.
Google will be better off without a system which favours long-established companies, which not only grew in size but also grew their paper-based monopoly in terms of size (filing for patents, i.e. protectionism). Well, see this new Vista Phony 7 cartoon which says it all really. Basically, that phone platform is dead in the water and this morning I saw a TV advert for it; all they do now is desperately market it using “Office” and “Xbox”. Pathetic. That’s why Microsoft is trying to extort Android from several different directions. And speaking of which, Kodak seems to be ‘pulling a Microsoft’ too (now that it doesn’t manage to make worthwhile products): “Shares of Eastman Kodak Co (EK.N) soared 16 percent in premarket trading after a trade panel in the United States last week agreed to review a case that could lead to the struggling photography company receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties.”
Windows Phone branding — like lipstick on the analogue photography pig — won’t change the reality. But anyway, the point worth making is that the worst thing Google could do at this stage is legitimise the very same system which threatens its Linux-based platform. Google is doing damaging things for perceived self benefit again (sucking up to the EPO), perhaps not realising that those patent translation it provides could be seen as unifying the system and serving towards the centralised court, whose power could elevate software patents all across Europe (it is a crucial matter and timing counts). What Google should ideally do is just snub the EPO and let it run dry, or realistically sink in its own multi-lingual mess. Instead, Google is helping an arcane system, trying to make PR out of it. Not good. Not evil, either. █
Resumen: Para hacer descarrilar/deshacerse de los planes del gobierno de migrar al Software Free/Libre (en el Reino Unido y otras partes) Microsoft paga a Lerner y a un colega de LSE, Schankerman, para repetir vieja FUD (Miedo Incertidumbre y Duda) de Microsoft.
Por medio de códigos internas sabemos que las autoridades BRITÁNICAS locales exploran la posibilidad de usar más Software Free/Libre y en las noticias de esta semana tenemos artículos como por ejemplo:
* El gobierno revela estrategia, con código abierto a la delantera[http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/public-sector/3267647/government-unveils-it-strategy-with-open-source-at-the-fore/]
El gobierno ha puesto en marcha una estrategia para cortar el gasto público en las TIC del gobierno por “millones de libras a través de deshacerce de la duplicación y del desperdicio”, y prometiendo mucho más uso del software libre.
La estrategia de las TIC del gobierno, puesta en marcha por el ministro para la oficina Francisco Maude del gabinete precisó hoy cómo el gobierno adoptará los métodos, las políticas y las habilidades correctas para asegurarse de que sus TIC apoyen servicios públicos eficientes.
* Reino Unido: Los Investigadores Dicen que el Código Abierto Baja los Costos, Aumenta la Seguridad[http://www.osor.eu/news/uk-researchers-say-open-source-lowers-costs-increases-security]
El sector del cuidado médico puede bajar sus costes y aumentar la seguridad de sus sistemas, haciendo más uso del código abierto, según la investigación en la Universidad del Instituto de Warwick para el Cuidado Médico Digital y el Centro Para la Informática de la Salud y de la Educación Multiprofessional en la Facultad de Medicina de UCL.
Esto compromete algunas vacas de efectivo de Microsoft (Windows y Oficina), así que el MONOPOLISTA puede ser visto defenderse de la misma vieja manera, a saber los puntos patrocinados por Microsoft siguen públicados en las noticias con el académico británico/americano que recibe dinero de Microsoft para hacer esto. Vea este nuevo ejemplo[http://www.zawya.com/mobile/default.cfm/sidGN_25032011_260314/actstory] de Schankerman y de un colega. Escribimos sobre él en [1[http://techrights.org/2011/03/03/lies-machine-vs-foss-policy/], 2[http://techrights.org/2011/01/20/factual-errors-and-microsoft-funded/], 3[http://techrights.org/2011/01/19/professors-sponsored-by-microsoft/], 4[http://techrights.org/2011/01/18/controlling-minds/]]. El artículo dice: No crea todo que usted lee sobre campos de la tecnología, pero también debe decir no crea que todo usted lee adentro sitios de la tecnología como el nuestro porque la fuente olvida mencionar el dinero de Microsoft que fue inyectado en este caso. Éso es cómo las noticias y la opinión pública siguen siendo compradas, barato.
Según otra alarma de Europa[http://arebentisch.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/microsoft-roundtable-on-eu-spectrum-policy/], Microsoft ahora está organizando una mesa redonda en el Espectro Policy de la UE:
Quisiéramos recordarle sobre la discusión de mesa redonda sobre recientes desarrollos en la política del espectro y su impacto en la industria de las TIC. El acontecimiento será el miércoles 13 de abril en el centro ejecutivo del informe de Microsoft, Avenue de Nerviens 85, 1040, Bruselas. El acontecimiento comenzará en el 10:30 y será seguido por un almuerzo y un tour dirigido en nuestro nuevo Centro de la Nube y de la “Interoperabilidad”. La discusión de mesa redonda ofrecerá presentaciones de los expertos dominantes en la materia, cuyos diversos puntos de vista deben asegurar una discusión animada.
Más distorsión de la política europea y del cabildeo de la compañía americana. ¿Qué podía salir mal posiblemente? Es muy simple que Microsoft engañe a políticos, o como Tim lo puso el otro día[http://openbytes.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/why-a-start-up-should-avoid-microsoft-mpit-fail/], el lunes que un sitio fue lanzado con el apoyo de David Cameron para ayudar empresarios con el lanzamiento de su empresa. Oh alegría, usted sabe que esto será “bueno”.
Hemos visto qué sucede cuando los M.P.(Microsoft Professionals) consiguen implicadas en ello.
¿El título del post es por qué una PYME debe evitar a Microsoft? (MP+IT = #Fail) y recibimos anoche un enlace (vía el IRC) de Microsoft que hace movimientos que podrían potencialmente hacer dependiente de Microsoft al programa espacial de la India (que intentaron pasarlo disfrazado como cierta clase de caridad, no de lock-in -cerrojo). Sea vigilante porque como Pamela Jones de Groklaw lo puso la otra noche[http://techrights.org/2011/03/31/traul-allen-on-bill-gates-evil/#comment-113736], entendí mejor cuando leí el extracto de Paul Allen de su libro en Vanity Fair. Retrata a la gerencia superior [de Microsoft] como éticamente vacía. █
“Conseguirámos que se vuelvan adictos, y entonces imaginaremos alguna manera cómo colectar en la década próxima.”
Summary: Operating systems, form factors, and some Ubuntu derivatives
THIS episode was recorded on a wired connection and it covered many interesting topics from the past couple of weeks. Tim will post some show notes at a later date/time. Update: the show notes are up now.
Mitel announced an updated version of its Linux-based Unified Communications server for the SMB market. The Mitel 5000 CP 5.0 adds support for up to 20 eight-party conferences, bidirectional synchronization of voice messages with email, dynamic extensions for up 10 associated devices, a new web portal, and a System Open Architecture Interface (OAI) Toolkit for third-party app integration.
We popped along to Google’s London HQ this week to talk Chrome OS, Google’s new low-resource Linux-based operating system for netbooks and notebooks.
Chrome OS product marketing manager, Eli Lassman, took us through the features of the CR-48 prototype portable which TechRadar saw last week and gave us some background on the imminent launch of notebooks featuring Chrome OS.
Android will represent 45 percent of global smartphone market share by 2016, while Samsung’s Bada OS may reach 10 percent, says ABI Research. Contrary to a recent IDC study, which estimated that Windows Phone 7 will be the number two platform in 2015, ABI says Microsoft will achieve only seven percent market share by 2016.
There’s a rumor going around that we’re going to be launching our 20th Anniversary of Linux celebration activities next week.
Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s true. But, you’ll have to be either at The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit or watching the free, live video feed to get all the details (we’ll have a website you can go to afterward to get “the skinny” as well). Our working groups are also preparing to share some news that we’ll include here at Linux.com after it’s public.
A few months ago, I was talking to Jennifer Cloer, the Linux Foundation’s Director of Communications, and I asked her if she’d ever considered running a media training session for free software developers, which would help us improve the situation. She was very enthusiastic about it, and we quickly agreed that the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit would be a great opportunity to make it happen. We made contact with Amanda McPherson, who thought it was a good idea, and the deal was done. On Thursday April 7th, we will run a 4 hour session aimed at giving participants knowledge and tools to deal more effectively with the press.
Earlier this week was benchmarks of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 “Fermi” with the open-source Nouveau driver. The reverse-engineered Nouveau support for the GeForce 400/500 series is incomplete and requires users to generate their own custom firmware before there is even 2D/3D/video acceleration support. The initial tests on the GeForce GTX 460 also yielded a disturbingly large performance difference between the open-source and closed-source NVIDIA drivers, where as with previous generations of NVIDIA GPUs the performance difference is more manageable. Here is another look at Nouveau for Fermi, but this time from a GeForce GTX 485M.
Earth science (also known as geoscience) is the focus of understanding the sciences related to the planet Earth. It includes a wide range of fields such as geology, geography, geophysics, meteorology, oceanography, and glaciology. Some people are surprised to learn that astronomy is also regarded to be an earth science. Geology is generally considered to be the primary earth science.
Based on Qt and Libtorrent- rasterbar, qBittorrent is a Free Software alternative to the popular uTorrent client. It’s cross platform and provides the same features everywhere.
According to Wikipedia, ‘to grok’ is to share the same reality or line of thinking with another physical or conceptual entity. For example, to say that you ‘know’ LISP is simply to assert that you can code in it if necessary — but to say you ‘grok LISP’ is to claim that you have deeply imbibed the world-view and spirit of the language, with the implication that it has transformed your view of programming.
Getting started with Django, or for that matter, Rails, typically involves creating a model. This is likely to be just a relational table. The framework creates a form with the option to insert, edit and delete records. And you have a working application in a matter of minutes.
The Grok tutorial (http://grok.zope.org/doc/current/tutorial.html) comes as a surprise; it starts with views and templates instead. Persistence of data ‘magically’ happens behind the scenes, using ZODB. The tutorial exposes you to the basic usage of Zope Page Templates and its relationship to the Python code. You will get a flavour of Grok quickly, though building a working application takes more effort.
Q: Camp KDE is co-located this year with The Linux Foundation’s Collaboration Summit. Can you tell us about what attendees should expect at Hotel Kabuki?
Jeff: Co-locating with the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit gives us a great opportunity to engage with the attendees of the Collaboration Summit and in return, for our attendees to become part of a broader Linux event. As one of the largest open source communities in the world, collaboration, both internally and externally, is an important part of the KDE community experience. As a result, many of our attendees are looking forward to discussing collaboration techniques and technologies with the larger attendee base of the Collaboration Summit.
I know this may not sound like good news to many but let me remind you that it will take another 6 months of development after Ubuntu 11.04 is released until Oneiric so even though Unity may seem a bit rough on the edges right now, it has a lot of time to improve.
The installation failure leaves a sour taste in the mouth. It also reminds me why I’m usually wary of small distributions, since they are plagued with exponential complexity problems that stem from adding and removing components, without the ability to thoroughly check the consequences of these changes.
Starting with the false promise of a lightweight desktop, which turn out to be a Gnome, pimped up and polished, followed by an application crash and ending in a big fiasco, Neak failed the test of usability. MoonOS 3 was not the prettiest, but at least it worked fully. MoonOS 4 does not even install. Worse, it killed my PCLinuxOS installation. Luckily, Windows survived intact. This is a test box, so no worries there, but still.
The latest live build of GParted, version 0.8.0-5, is now based on Debian Sid. Another major improvement is the addition of ssh packages to this version. The team has also patched a bug related to setxkbmap.
The SliTaz team is pleased to announce the release of a new cooking ISO featuring over 2900 packages. All packages have been rebuilt using our new cooking tool, now included in tazwok. It contains Linux Kernel 2.6.37 compiled against glibc 2.13, binutils 2.21 & gcc 4.5.2. The Core LiveCD includes Midori 0.3.3. Tazpkg is now entirely translated to French and we are open to additional translations. Tazwok has been entirely rewritten and it’s now possible to recook SliTaz from Scratch using any ISO. This ISO is the first of a release candidate series which leads us to a stable 4.0 release.
Foresight is a Linux distribution for your desktop that features a rolling release schedule that always keeps your desktop up to date; a revolutionary package manager, Conary; the latest GNOME, KDE and Xfce desktop environment and an innovative set of excellent, up to date software applications.
Open source operating system and middleware firm Red Hat may be about to snap up a business intelligence company, CBR has learned.
The news was confirmed in a CBR interview with CEO Jim Whitehurst here yesterday. Asked whether he agrees that business intelligence looks like a bit of a gap in the firm’s portfolio, Whitehurst said: “I think gap might be a strong word. When I think of gap I think of a hole with a piece missing. I think BI is a logical extension from a middleware portfolio.”
Ubuntu 11.04 dubbed Natty Narwhal will bring some major changes to the traditional Ubuntu desktop. As the conventional desktop gets a major overhaul, the spanking new Unity interface is busy preparing itself to replace the time-honored Gnome interface. Furthermore, some well-known default applications are getting replaced by newer and more feature-laden ones. While many users have welcomed these changes with open arms, a few disapproving nods have raised doubts over their success. Nevertheless, Ubuntu 11.04, which releases on 28th April 2011, promises to bring a burst of freshness to the Linux desktop along with a slew of new users.
Canonical, through David Planella, announced last evening (March 31st) that the Ubuntu App Developer Week will take place between 11th to 15th April, 2011, on the Ubuntu IRC channel.
A review of the beta release of Ubuntu 11.04 shows the problems that happen with regular releases and radical change. Things break and the system is rough. That’s the advantage of Debian GNU/Linux testing flavour. They put all that rough stuff in a separate branch of the distro until it’s ready. Ubuntu charges ahead like a bull in a China shop.
Lenses are one of the cool new features present in Ubuntu 11.04 and although the OS itself might not yet have been released properly, developers are already exploiting the opportunities that lenses – and the Unity desktop as a whole – provide.
The next version of Ubuntu, Natty Narwhal, will include the ability to try out apps before you install them. The feature right now can be accessed by installing a package, qtnx, through apt-get or otherwise. The package adds a “Test Drive” button on the software center, which will launch a full-fledged app you’re about to get into an environment.
Peppermint Linux is a very light-weight, yet an awesome distro. It’s one of the minimalistic distros convenient for carrying around on a USB stick when heading off to solve your family’s “I HEARD YOU’RE GOOD WITH COMPUTERS” moments, although its focus isn’t primarily as a tool for fixing broken PCs – it’s more of an actual, desktop/laptop/netbook distro.
Permabit Technology on Tuesday announced an iteration of its Albireo primary data deduplication software for SMB network-attached storage systems based on Linux servers.
Albireo Virtual Data Optimizer (VDO), which will be available in the second half of this year, offers inline deduplication and optional data compression as a component of storage systems. Permabit sells a higher-end version of its Albireo deduplication product to NAS vendors such as BluArc, Xiotech and LSI Engenio.
HP released its WebOS 3.0 software development kit (SDK), which takes advantage of new features available on the recently announced HP TouchPad tablet. Meanwhile, HP’s new CEO Leo Apotheker offered more details on how HP plans to spread WebOS across multiple devices and establish partnerships with smaller companies to expand the Linux-based platform.
OSADL (Open Source Automation Development Lab) announced four new members, including new “silver” member AMD. OSADL, which has begun testing real-time Linux on AMD’s G-Series processors, also announced “bronze” memberships for Spanish software engineering firm DSM4, German automotive technology manufacturer Eberspacher, and Austrian industrial research firm OpenTech EDV.
As we announced earlier, Nokia will no longer refer to official releases as Symbian ^3 or Symbian^4, but will deliver continuous evolution of the platform to partners and customers – including consumers. In line with this approach we are not delivering software builds, but do offer build tools through this website, and a SDK through Forum Nokia.
I take issue with Nokia’s use of the word “open”. Let me show you the new license, then we can compare it to the old, and you can be the judge as to whether this is a move to openness or even treading water in place, or as I view it, the exact opposite.
As successor it will follow the good example of the community driven Maemo Coding Competition 2010. Quim Gil wrote lot of good things about this “grass roots community success”.
Steven Elop was very generous in his admission of the role played by Africa and Asia in the success of Nokia and promised to “reward such disproportionate achievements with disproportionate investments”, though he did not explain as to what disproportionate investment would mean.
Now that it’s clear Elop has not completely sold out to Microsoft, we’d want to see a change in so many things, not least is the perpetual delays in the delivery of devices on their schedule date. I’d also personally like to see Africa’s loyalty to Nokia rewarded with the possible siting of a plant here on the continent. So yes Nokia will remain an independent company from Redmond, but will that last forever?
The planned transaction between Nokia and Digia is an important one for both companies, which will have positive outcomes for Qt and the Qt community, including commercial customers and our employees.
Partly thanks to Verizon Wireless’ 4G LTE network, HTC’s Thunderbolt is the fastest phone eWEEK has tested. The $250 price for the Android 2.2 phone is high, and HTC and Verizon need to work on extending battery life, but users who have access to Verizon’s 4G network will be sorely tempted by the Thunderbolt’s speed, big screen, and nicely tuned eight-megapixel camera, says this eWEEK review.
Inflight telephony vendor Aircell announced its first Android-based phone, designed specifically for business aircraft. Due later this year, the Aircell Smartphone offers a 3.8-inch screen, said to be the largest available in the aviation telephony market.
Amidst all the chaos surrounding the Qt project, the power of open source software has shown itself. The Romanian developer Bogdan Vatra has ported Qt to Android. To avoid trademark conflicts, the result was named Necessitas.
Before looking at how to setup the tools and build an application, lets look at the system from the users’ view. When downloading a Qt based application, the size matters. The classic wiggly example that has shipped with Qt since the dawn of time is only about 113kB. Animated Tiles, provided by Bogdan Vatra, requires a 153kB download.
HCL Infosystems announced three Android 2.2 tablets for the Indian market, featuring one-button access to HCL’s India-focused Touch online service. The “ME” tablets include the seven-inch ME AE7 and ME AM7, both with 800MHz processors, as well as the 10-inch, 1GHz ME AP10, says the company.
HTC is about the hit the iWorld with its Flyer Tablet. The tablet is far more advanced than the iPad. Steve Jobs was right when he said “We’re going to use the best pointing device in the world,” he says. “A device we’re all born with. Our fingers.” But, we need to do more than just pointing. Its the complex combination of fingers to manipulate a tool which makes them the best writing/drawing devices as well. The device was invented ages ago — its called pen/pencil.
Google is one of the few companies which prefer looking ahead than holding onto the past. The company did not waste a week in breaking Android down and rebuilding it from scratch for tablets. Honeycomb is today far more advanced than generic iOS.
The open source world, moreover, is full of multinational personalities — from Mark Shuttleworth, who holds dual-citizenship in the United Kingdom and South Africa and who lives on the semi-autonomous Isle of Man, to Richard Stallman, who takes pride in his polylingualism and has sworn off employment in his native United States. And Linus Torvalds himself, of course, was born into the small Swedish-speaking minority of Finland, and now resides in Oregon.
Shifting from control to community is not easy. Recent weeks have provided a number of examples of how the demand for collaborative development from the community can outpace corporate strategy.
North Bridge Venture Partners today announced the continuation of its highly successful annual Future of Open Source Survey. In 2011, North Bridge is pleased to welcome The 451 Group as a major partner in the survey. The survey, which involves more than 20 industry collaborators and polls a wide variety of members of the open source community, will reveal the most important issues, opportunities and future expectations of the industry in 2011. Open to the general public beginning on March 21, the survey has a target close date of April 22. The survey results will be presented during the Open Source Leaders keynote panel on opening day of this year’s Open Source Business Conference (May 16, 2011 at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square). Moderating this panel will be Michael Skok, general partner at North Bridge Venture Partners. Michael will be joined on the panel by: Jim Whitehurst, CEO, Red Hat, Tom Erickson, CEO, Acquia, Mike Olson, CEO, Cloudera, and Adrian Kunzle, managing director, JP Morgan.
With tight budgets ahead as far as the eye can see, NASA is increasingly looking toward open source technology and the help of a volunteer community to help out. The U.S. space agency hosted its first Open Source Summit this week to reach out to the open source community and explain its often confusing and incompatible open source license.
Published on 31/03/11 – Breaking news on the browser market in March 2011 with two expected releases: Internet Explorer 9 on the 15th March, and Firefox 4 on the 22nd. What follows is the first results of the battle between the latest versions of the most used browsers in Europe.
Mozilla, the non-profit organisation behind the Firefox web browser, has announced that it’s proposed “Do Not Track” (DNT) header is gaining industry support. In a post on the Mozilla Blog, Alex Fowler, Technology and Privacy Officer for the Mozilla Foundation, says that “Two developments bring it closer to being respected by industry”.
Browser add-ons are a great way of bolting on new functionality and customizing the experience to a high degree. But they’re also a great way of slowing down browser quite a lot, which is why Mozilla is introducing several new measures to cut down on poorly optimized add-ons for Firefox.
Today, the OpenNebula project announces the general availability of the final release of OpenNebula 2.2.0. This is a stable version and it is targeted at production deployments. Clouds running any OpenNebula 2.0.x versions are recommended to upgrade to this release.
Edging ever closer to enterprise software maturity, the Hive data warehouse software has been updated with new capabilities considered essential for production use, such as indexing, concurrency and advances in authentication management.
Hadoop, the open-source file system and MapReduce implementation for massive-scale data, was the talk of the conference Wednesday at our Structure Big Data conference in New York. From new Hadoop distributions to end-customers’ plans, Hadoop was all anyone could talk about. One of the companies whose name crept up in conversations was a stealth-mode company called Mapr, which is building a proprietary version of Hadoop and is likely to launch later this year.
Zenoss Inc., a leading provider of management software for physical, virtual, and cloud-based IT environments, today announced the availability of Zenoss Datacenter Insight. With this release, Zenoss became the first to deliver a solution capable of analyzing today’s dynamic cloud-based infrastructures, providing unified analytics and reporting of all physical, virtual, and cloud-based IT resources.
OpenStack is a collection of open source technologies delivering a massively scalable cloud operating system, and it is supported by a global software community that is collaborating to enable any organization to create and offer cloud computing services running on standard hardware. Gluster intends to expand its contributions beyond its initial OpenStack endeavors, with the goal of ultimately delivering virtual appliances that complement the OpenStack framework and deliver scale-out storage for the cloud. Notable participants and contributors include Rackspace (NYSE: RAX) and NASA.
From a posting to the Harmony-dev list earlier this week, the long-term standing PMC (Tim Ellison) is stepping down.
At this point, it is unclear who if anyone will step up to the Harmony project. Due to the licensing dispute over the rights for an open-source project to implement an alternative implementation of Java, the Harmony project will never be able to call itself a JavaVM or an implementation of the Java core language libraries.
Ravel, an Austin, Texas-based company, wants to provide a supported, open-source version of Google’s Pregel software called GoldenOrb to handle large-scale graph analytics. Ravel COO Zach Richardson told me at our Structure: Big Data event last week that the company would release the GoldenOrb code on March 31 and explained how such databases can help run analytics on massive amounts of data across huge numbers of nodes without taking as much time as Hadoop or MapReduce. He also explains that Ravel will introduce enterprise versions of GoldenOrb and Apache Mahout, an open-source, machine-learning platform that utilizes Hadoop to analyze large data sets.
It’s been a long and crazy road to get to this point and the team would like to thank everyone that has helped us get here. Every patch, bug report, and thought-provoking question has been invaluable in getting Drizzle this solid.
Now I’ve never been a big fan of OpenOffice. I saw it as a huge pile of legacy code with little future. Part of that was due to the “WE OWN OPENOFFICE” Governance from Sun/Oracle, part due the the slowness and UI horror.
Java Community Process Executive Committee, which has become an Oracle-IBM owned body post Apache’s exit, has approve the Java Specification Request (JSR) for the next release of the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) 7 – JSR 342.
Oracle said in a press statement that Java EE 7 will further enhance the Java EE platform for cloud environments. As a result, Java EE 7 based applications and products will be able to more easily operate on private or public clouds and deliver their functionality as a service with support for features such as multi-tenancy and elasticity (horizontal scaling).
Open source ERP software vendor OpenERP has launched an online apps library with more than 1,000 free applications.
The OpenERP-based applications are all open source, and range from complete applications like CRM, accounting, project management and inventory management to specific applications like fleet management, marketing campaign automation, eCommerce integration and point-of-sale.
Infobright, the open source analytic database company, today announced with Zend Technologies, the PHP Company, a new benchmark demonstrating that their products, when used together, deliver higher performance in database analytics for PHP-based Web applications. As more companies move their business online, they need real-time access to data and analytics for informed decision-making about sales, customer behavior, financial trends and more. Infobright and Zend have teamed up to provide developers with tools to quickly build PHP applications that can capture and analyze this data in a highly dynamic environment.
OpenERP is launching today its Apps library, where all the OpenERP-based applications are open source! With more than 1,000 applications and growing, available for free, OpenERP Apps is one of the world’s biggest repositories of enterprise management applications.
Alfresco Software, the open platform for social content management, and Jive Software today announced a partnership to bring best of breed content management and social business software together for customers. The companies are collaborating with Jive consulting partner, SolutionSet to deliver an Alfresco-Jive connector that brings enterprise-class repository functionality to Jive content and allows Alfresco content to behave as native Jive content.
Portland-based open source software startup Collaborative Software Initiative Inc. has raised $3.7 million in new capital investment.
The funds, disclosed this week, come from OVP Venture Partners and the Oregon Angel Fund. They are part of an expected $5.8 million funding round, said Stuart Cohen, the company’s CEO and former head of nonprofit Open Source Development Labs.
The Cabinet Office publication of a procurement policy note on open standards for government IT requirements is the latest in a long line of policy requirements concerning both open standards and open source.
Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude outlined the plans today, promising to create a level playing field for open source software and impose compulsory open standards, starting with interoperability and security.
“For too long, Government has wasted vast amounts of money on ineffective and duplicate IT systems,” said Maude. “We will end the oligopoly of big business supplying government IT by breaking down contracts into smaller, more flexible projects. This will open up the market to SMEs and new providers.”
The two open source tools are called IT Dashboard and TechStat Toolkit, and Kundra writes:
“We launched the IT Dashboard and the TechStat Accountability Sessions to improve IT transparency and accountability across the Federal Government. The Dashboard has helped us shine a light on IT projects, providing performance data to fuel TechStat reviews, which have led to over $3 billion in cost reductions. Today we are releasing the software code of the IT Dashboard and the TechStat toolkit to the public for two reasons. First, to take the platform to the next level, we want to tap into the collective talents and ingenuity of the American people, to enhance functionality, improve the code and address existing challenges such as those identified by David Powner and his team at GAO. Second, CIOs from across the country and around the world such as Maarten Hillenaar of the Netherlands, Kyle Schafer in West Virginia and Jason DeHaan of the City of Chicago are all interested in implementing these platforms in their respective organizations.”
The other, even if it is tokenistic, plus is the publication of the report in Open Document Format, a truly open standard. (It is also available in Word and as a PDF). A government spokeswoman did admit that she didn’t actually have anyway of opening an ODT document and it is noticeable that on the web page they don’t have an icon for ODT, but it is at least a move in the right direction.
Slightly more concerning is the presumption against any IT contract that will cost more than £100 million over its lifetime.
Among unsung open source collaboration efforts, the FIRST annual robotics competition deserves much more attention than it gets. Aimed at students, including young children, noted inventor of the Segway scooter Dean Kamen is behind the program, which challenges students to develop open source robotics software and components, with prizes for the winners. This program tends to fly mostly under the radar, but year after year it produces ever more interesting incentives for students.
Limor Fried is a maker’s maker. Sure, she’s got prime geek credentials: She earned an electrical engineering degree from MIT, invented several delightfully nerdy things to do with Altoid tins, and reverse-engineered the legendary Roland TB-303 synthesizer. Now she runs Adafruit Industries, a New York City company that makes open source electronics kits and components for the growing tide of DIYers who are inventing the future. But that’s not why she’s on the cover of Wired. This is why:
Intel announced today that Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice president and general manager of its Ultra Mobility Group (UMG), will be leaving the company. While a reason for the resignation was not cited, it could be related to the chip giant’s failure to obtain smartphone design wins for its Atom processor.
Google Summer of Code is a world-wide program that encourages students to participate in coding Open Source software by offering a paid stipend for participation in the project. Students are paired with a mentor from one of the registered projects.
Revolution Analytics, the leading commercial provider of R software, services and support, and IBM Netezza today announced a partnership to integrate Revolution R Enterprise and the IBM Netezza TwinFin ® Data Warehouse Appliance. For the first time, customers seeking to run high performance and full-scale predictive analytics from within a data warehouse platform will be able to directly leverage the power of the open source R statistics language. Under the terms of the agreement, the companies will work together to create a version of Revolution’s software that takes advantage of IBM Netezza’s i-class technology so that Revolution R Enterprise can run in-database in an optimal fashion.
The Eclipse Foundation is pleased to announce that developers may now sign-up for access to a beta version of the OrionHub service, a hosted implementation of Orion. Orion is a new Eclipse initiative to define a platform for building and integrating web development tools. An early release of Orion provides web developers with an editor for JavaScript, HTML and CSS that runs in popular browsers and the ability to easily link with popular web-based tools. The OrionHub service provided by the Eclipse Foundation will allow developers to experiment with Orion and provide feedback to the Orion open source community.
Not that long ago the TV screen and the computer monitor were two very separate and distinct devices. That’s no longer the case.
In an effort to try and help guide best practices and standards for a converged world, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has setup a Web and TV Interest Group. The charter for the group is for it to help identify requirements and potential solutions to ensure that the Web will work well with TV. The group recently held a meeting to help identify some of the issues that are currently facing the converged Web and TV world.
While he actively particpiated in the odf plugfest he also took time out to interview some of the key attendees at the event and has been kindly agreed to let us post the interview he did with Mark Taylor.
Meet Jacob Barnett, now 12 years old, mildly autistic and with an IQ of 170 – higher than Stephen Hawkings and Albert Einstein. At age three, he was solving 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzles and now he’s already got a paid research position at Indiana University.
For a taster of this little man’s out-of-this-world genius, watch this (and enjoy his mother’s comedic timing). There are plenty more videos on his mother’s YouTube channel too.
Ironically, Intel made an statement quite contrary to what Oracle says. Intel’s president and chief executive officer Paul Otellini, said, “Intel’s work on Intel Itanium processors and platforms continues unabated with multiple generations of chips currently in development and on schedule. We remain firmly committed to delivering a competitive, multi-generational roadmap for HP-UX and other operating system customers that run the Itanium architecture.”
Last January, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) and New York radio station WNYC sought help from the public to find out which senator put an anonymous secret hold on the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, killing the bill at the end of the last congressional term.
Today sees the depressing milestone that Bradley Manning has been imprisoned for 300 days. I was proud to speak at the rally in support of him on the 20th March outside the US Embassy, like demonstrators across the globe.
For over seven months he has been held in military arrest in conditions that most of us could not imagine enduring. To be confined in a tiny windowless cell. To be held in solitary confinement 23 hours a day. To be forced to stand naked. To be put under intolerable psychological pressure. No wonder that Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve, likened the conditions to those in Guantanamo Bay.
The billionaire Koch brothers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to gain political influence and change America. Their work and spending is driven by the goal of increasing their own profit through decreasing regulations. The expansive and diverse nature of their efforts makes it overwhelming to keep tabs of all they’ve done that has caused harm. And that’s why Brave New Foundation is going to keep connecting the dots and telling the full story of what they’ve done to our country.
Our work at Brave New Films has always focused on the best way to tell the full story, to connect all the moving pieces and to highlight how one example of a problem in our democracy is always representative of a larger problem
The disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant hasn’t stopped some U.S. legislators from insisting U.S. nuclear power plants are completely safe, but that support may be based less on facts than on financial influence.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) tapped the Federal Reserve’s discount window at least five times since September 2008, according to central bank data that contradict an executive’s testimony last year.
Goldman Sachs Bank USA, a unit of the company, took overnight loans from the Federal Reserve on Sept. 23, Oct. 1, and Oct. 23 in 2008 as well as on Sept. 9, 2009, and Jan. 11, 2010, according to the data released today. The largest loan was $50 million on Sept. 23 and the smallest was $1 million on the most recent two occasions.
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein received a major hike in his 2010 compensation, according to a proxy statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today.
The March 19 issue of The Economist included a special report on The Future of the State. In an excellent series of articles, the special report explains why the continuing growth of government is no longer sustainable, especially in the more advanced economies with aging populations like the US and Western Europe. It highlights what some governments are doing to address the problem, especially Singapore and Britain. Finally, the report offers a set of recommendations that governments might follow if they want to get a handle on the extremely complex and challenging problem of reforming the state.
A new special interest group has purchased an expensive TV ad campaign in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race but operates out of a UPS store. The self-named “Citizens for a Strong America” (CSA) advertises its address as “834 Park Avenue #306″ in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, but this address is nothing more than a box at a UPS Store. The TV ad campaign attacks Supreme Court candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg for an ad that was not created by her campaign. The ad CSA is complaining about argues that Supreme Court candidate Justice David Prosser failed to prosecute a priest who young boys said had molested them. (CMD does not endorse or oppose either candidate; CMD reports on front groups, PR campaigns, and spin, with a particular focus on corporate-funded spin.)
A FOX News station has been sent a notice of a proposed fine for airing fake news in the form of a “video news release” (VNR) without disclosing that the “news” segment featuring General Motors was produced to promote GM’s cars.
As the European Commission’s consultation on the revision of the anti-sharing directive (IPRED) is coming to an end, let’s look at a hearing that took place in January at the European Court of Justice. At issue is the injunction pronounced by a Belgian judge forcing an Internet Access Provider (IAP) to implement broad filtering mechanisms to block all unauthorized transmissions of copyrighted works. In this case, the Commission is pushing forward a pro-copyright industry approach by calling for more repression. Such increased repression is also promoted through the upcoming revision of IPRED. It has to be stopped.
The Governor of Maine, Paul LePage, ordered a commemorative public mural depicting Maine’s labor history be removed from the state’s Department of Labor, saying he had gotten complaints that the artwork was too pro-labor. The 36-feet long, 8-foot tall work by Judy Taylor of Tremont, Maine depicts workers like Rosie the Riveter, child laborers, shoemakers, textile workers, strikers and the first female American cabinet member, Frances Perkins, who served as U.S. Labor Secretary.
So why are so many corporate-funded ad campaigns pushing the idea that public sector workers are Public Enemy Number One, and why now?
As with so many other PR tactics corporations are using right now, we need to look to the tobacco industry — the original authors of corporate America’s PR Playbook — to better understand the persuasive efforts filling the media landscape that are designed to shape public sentiment towards various sectors of American workers.
A previously-secret, internal Philip Morris (PM) presentation from 1996 reveals that company’s long-term plan to divide the ranks of anti-smoking advocacy groups, like the American Lung Association, the American Cancer Society the American Heart Association and others, to weaken their joint efforts to reduce smoking rates. Just like public sector workers, these organizations command tremendous credibility with the public. When these groups join together to advance a single cause, they muster significant power to sway public and legislative opinion. When these organizations unite to advocate effective policies, like public smoking restrictions, together they can really make a difference. Thus these nonprofits were formidable opponents for tobacco companies, and a force that PM needed to hobble.
Billionaires Charles and David Koch of Koch Industries are funneling $5.6 million through the astroturf group FreedomWorks for an Ohio TV ad campaign starting March 18, 2011 that continues the attack on labor unions that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker started in February.
Charlatan Glenn Beck launched an absurd effort to discredit concerns about the cascading failures of the nuclear plants in Japan in the wake of the 9.0 quake and tsunami. In a genuinely shocking and callous segment on his radio show, Beck literally laughed off concerns about the potential nuclear meltdown.
La Quadrature du Net has sent its submission to the European consultation on the “Intellectual Property Rights” Directive (IPRED). The citizen organization asks the EU Commission to renounce to increasing repression against the sharing of cultural goods over the Internet, and calls for an open-minded reflection on the future of copyright, patent and trademarck law. Lawmakers, citizens and NGOs must all engage in this crucial debate that will directly shape the future of the Internet.
Apple has become progressively more aggressive about its products’ trademarks lately. The more talked-about example has been its aggression regarding the term “App Store” The problem is that Apple itself would refer to “app store” generically and even talked about other companies’ possible “app stores”, yet now, when Microsoft wants to make an “app store” for the Windows Phone operating system, Apple is claiming that “App” is short for “Apple”. This is truly disingenuous because practically every app developer on the face of this planet and many users out there too know that “app” has always stood for “application”, not “Apple”. Well, this sort of behavior has gone on even further. Many thanks to the good folks at Tuxmachines and LXer for providing the links; you can go to those sites to follow the original links. Follow the jump to read more.
Less than a week after her investiture ceremony, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell laid down a landmark verdict that will make it easy for copyright holders to send cash demands to people they suspect of copyright infringement. Many people called the decision into doubt, and the revelation that Judge Howell previously worked as an RIAA lobbyist and as the Managing Director of a pirate-chasing outfit hints at a conflict of interest.
Comparisons were then drawn with the French ‘Hadopi’ scheme, with evidence from the MPA suggesting that while Hadopi was “more aggressive” than the DEA, the European Commission’s objections to it had apparently been resolved; the argument being that if Hadopi was acceptable to the EC, so must the (allegedly weaker) DEA.
The show ends with “Tears and Rain” (the song, not real tears and rain). We hope you will join us for future shows and 
