06.13.11
Posted in Europe, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 8:29 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
¿Cómo el destino del dinero del contribuyente se determina?
(ODF | PDF | English/original)
Resumen: La exclusión de importantes agentes del mercado y viables al poner la marca “Microsoft” , por ejemplo, ahí mismo dentro de los requisitos.
EL NEGOCIO de la contratación que es gracioso. En Suiza fue como un “negocio divertido” que condujo a una demanda que hemos cubierto en su mayoría hace un año en:
1. Microsoft demandado por su corrupción en Suiza, Microsoft deuda Revisado[http://techrights.org/2009/05/24/msft-corruption-in-switzerland/]
2. ¿Puede el Reino Unido y Hungría todavía ser demandados por Excluir el Software Libre?[http://techrights.org/2009/05/25/united-kingdom-hungary-rigging/]
3. Tres nuevos cargos de Violación de Defensa de la Competencia por parte de Microsoft[http://techrights.org/2009/05/14/antitrust-violations-by-microsoft/]
4. ¿Microsoft está violando la ley en Suiza también?[http://techrights.org/2009/05/09/switzerland-microsoft-london-olympics/]
5. Microsoft utiliza los grupos de presión para atacar la migración de Holanda con el Software Libre y una especie de soborno profesores de Sudáfrica para hacerlos utilizar Windows[http://techrights.org/2009/05/10/lobbyists-bribes-vs-free-sw/]
6. Buen artículo de ZDNet/eWeek Arruina Peter Judge por Atacar a Red Hat Cuando Microsoft comete el crimen[http://techrights.org/2009/05/25/zdnet-ruins-peter-judge-article/]
7. Semana de Microsoft de Asuntos de Gobierno: una mirada retrospectiva, una mirada al futuro[http://techrights.org/2009/05/28/microsoft-government-affairs/]
8. Demanda contra Microsoft / Suiza tiene éxito hasta ahora, más países/empresas deberían seguir su ejemplo[http://techrights.org/2009/05/29/lawsuit-against-switzerland-over-ms/]
9. Últimos informes sobre ofertas a granel Microsoft siendo bloqueado en Suiza, Nueva Zelanda[http://techrights.org/2009/06/01/microsoft-bulk-deals-derailed/]
10. Gobierno de Suiza y Federal Computer Weekly: ¿Por qué la hostilidad hacia el Software Libre?[http://techrights.org/2009/06/06/federal-computer-weekly-foss-fud/]
11. Suiza y el Reino Unido Bajo el Fuego Perpetuo por Compromisos con Microsoft[http://techrights.org/2009/06/17/switzerland-and-uk-backlash/]
12. Pleito sobre supuesta corrupción de Microsoft en Suiza intensifica al Tribunal Federal[http://techrights.org/2009/12/12/lawsuit-government-procurement/]
13. Cuando Sólo Microsoft/Lock-in se define como “Tecnología”[http://techrights.org/2010/07/07/lingual-loophole-for-bad-tender/]
14. Los Contratos Presuntamente Ilegales en Suiza con Microsoft Llevar Gente a la Corte Otra Vez[http://techrights.org/2010/10/10/blocking-competition-queezing-oems/]
15. Presuntamente ilegal de Microsoft Adquisiciones EE.UU. se congelan después de Demanda[http://techrights.org/2011/01/06/lawsuit-against-government/]
La práctica de la contratación ilegal, que excluye la competencia a lo que se está utilizando actualmente es un tema que hemos tratado muchas veces desde 2007. Hemos escrito sobre la situación en el Reino Unido en los mensajes, tales como:
1. ¿Ha Microsoft desatado sus Trolls a las autoridades del Reino Unido?[http://techrights.org/2009/02/28/richard-steel-vs-freedom-policy/]
2. “Cómplice” Jefe de Microsoft en el Reino Unido Salta del buque[http://techrights.org/2009/07/15/richard-steel-retires/]
3. Richard Steel y Microsoft Ballnux Franquicia (Actualizado)[http://techrights.org/2008/05/09/uk-cio-taxable-gnu-linux/]
4. Los signos de la corrupción de Microsoft en el Reino Unido y República Checa[http://techrights.org/2009/03/06/czech-republic-uk-ms-conduct/]
5. La saga Newhamicrosoft: Part Deux[http://techrights.org/2008/06/26/newhamicrosoft-saga/]
Los factores importantes que son el amiguismo y el nepotismo desempeñan un papel en todas partes, incluida la contratación pública. Vale la pena entender exactamente dónde ocurre y cuando ocurre, como explica este nuevo artículo[http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2077519/source-vendors-unfairly-excluded-government-contracts], Microsoft de alguna manera “gana” no porque tiene el mérito técnico, sino porque se inserta en la política. Para citar a:
Europeos del sector público contratos de TI son injustamente a favor de los grandes proveedores, como Microsoft haciendo caso omiso de las normas que rigen el uso de marcas en las solicitudes de oferta, según un nuevo informe.
[...]
Cuando las ofertas se encontraron para incluir marcas comerciales, se menciona que la gran mayoría pertenecen a Microsoft.
Bertrand Diard, director ejecutivo de datos de código abierto Talend gestión de proveedores, pidió al gobierno del Reino Unido para hacer cumplir las mejores prácticas y fomentar la competencia leal para los contratos del sector público del Reino Unido.
“El actual proceso de licitación del contrato de TI [en Europa] está plagado de problemas”, dijo. “Si va a haber ningún desarrollo de estándares abiertos en el Reino Unido, entonces la responsabilidad recae sobre los hombros de aquellos en la Oficina del Gabinete a seguir adelante con sus planes iniciales.”
Bajo las reglas de la Unión Europea, organismos del sector público debe evitar el uso de marcas comerciales en anuncios de licitación para los paquetes de software y sistemas de información, con el fin de fomentar la competencia.
A raíz de su larga defensa de la competencia disputa con Microsoft, funcionarios de la UE tuvieron que ser dispuestos a alentar a las organizaciones del sector público a considerar alternativas a la tecnología de Microsoft, especialmente en áreas donde la empresa con sede en Redmond domina el mercado, tales como sistemas operativos de escritorio y herramientas de productividad.
Si las plataformas hubieran sido evaluadas en base a sus características técnicas (y antifeatures), Microsoft se encuentran muy abajo. Como educador, el Sr. Pogson explica[http://mrpogson.com/2011/06/09/who-in-their-right-mind-would-run-stuff-on-that-other-os/] lo que está mal de Windows, para empezar:
No necesitamos más:
* DRM (Manejo de Restricciones Digitales),
* Llamando a casa,
* Re-re-re reinicio,
* ABI/API,
* Acuerdos de exclusividad,
* Cosas enredadas en el sistema operativo, como pasteles de barro, y
* Complejidad.
Basta! El uso de GNU/Linux libra de esta carga a la TI. He estado usando GNU/Linux para casi exclusivamente desde el año 2000 y sólo he tenido algunos problemas, por lo general no relacionados con la seguridad, en todo ese tiempo, mientras con la otra gente OS son cada vez balsas de problemas para solucionar mensualmente, como la maldición de una mujer.
Un lector habitual de nuestro nos dijo que el Sr. Pogson habían sido despedidos posiblemente debido a su preferencia por GNU / Linux, que en el sector de la educación no está tan extendida. En cierto sentido, puede haber sido expulsado, por así decirlo, por tener otras opiniones (que son muy defendible, por cierto). Del mismo modo, un periodista británico insinúa[http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/public-sector/2011/06/bristol-linux-house-sings-for.html] que mediante la emisión de las amenazas veladas tras el incidente Bristol (ver enlaces al final para el fondo), el lado que da poder y los beneficios del software propietario en el sector público británico no hace sino reforzar la percepción de que los que favorecen el Software de código Libre/Abierto sufren represalias. Un artículo dice: “Una tienda de Linux se ha pronunciado en defensa de los boo-hissstems integradores de otra manera culpado por dominar la industria, sofocando la competencia, estafando a los contribuyentes y presidir público que las fallas tan infame que desacreditó al gobierno anterior y se tiñe la reputación de toda una profesión. ”
Otro artículo, de la excelente periodista Mark Ballard, habla acerca de las amenazas[http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/public-sector/2011/06/computacenter-threatens-blockh.html]. Para citar: “Los grandes proveedores de TI son tan poderosos, se dice, que controlan la gran mayoría de TI del sector público, que se lleva a cabo en su interés comercial. Que puede contar como quid pro quo desde la perspectiva del proveedor. Pero cuando el proveedor es parte de un oligopolio, el mantenimiento de un monopolio, que es un poco desafortunado para nada tratando de respirar fuera de ese mundo confortable poco que se conoce como el gobierno de TI. “Para algunos de fondo, consulte los enlaces que publicamos bajo el gobierno y el público sector a principios de esta semana[http://techrights.org/2011/06/07/platform-11-new-wine/]. Los reproducimos a continuación. █
* ComputeCenter Culpable en fila de Origen del sector público abierto[http://www.microscope.co.uk/news/reseller-news/channel-blamed-in-public-sector-open-source-row/]
* ¿El final de código abierto por el piojo Condes?[http://www.bristolwireless.net/2011/06/the-end-of-open-source-down-the-counts-louse/]
* Los integradores de sistemas prestar estrategia de la Oficina del Gabinete de código abierto inviable, dijo a los diputados[http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2011/06/07/246890/System-integrators-render-Cabinet-Office-open-source-strategy-unworkable-MPs.htm]
Translation produced by Eduardo Landaveri, the esteemed administrator of the Spanish portal of Techrights.
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Posted in Apple, Deception, GNU/Linux, Marketing, Microsoft at 7:32 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The inaccurate caricatures of Net Applications are further doubted, not just by GNU/Linux proponents (who do have some hard numbers)
INACCURACY that is imposed by design (data/method) can be called “bias” and bias is always up for sale. It is the business model of so-called ‘analysts’ and PR people (who overlap to an extent). As we frequently remind readers, anti-GNU/Linux trolls like to point to Net Applications, which is paid by Microsoft and Apple. Alex Faaborg from Mozilla notes:
The data shown here is from Net Applications. This is proportional to Web usage on each platform, and not individual users. So for instance if iOS users browse the Web more than Android users, their box becomes proportionally larger.
Also I should add the caveat that Net Applications usually reports lower numbers for Firefox market share compared to the other public data sources (and our own internal metrics), but nonetheless, this treemap sure has a lot of orange in it.
In other news, Mr. Pogson counters new FUD of the “GNU/Linux Desktop is DEAD” flavour:
Yet another “GNU/Linux Desktop is DEAD” FUD-piece. Basically the authour writes that it won’t happen because it won’t happen, a circular argument. He even claims Dell, HP, ASUS and others selling PCs with GNU/Linux is not happening. I agree Dell is rather weak in its effort but HP intends to put Linux on most of its PCs and ASUS already does (ExpressGate – “In response to great user feedback, our plan is to proliferate Express Gate across our entire motherboard product portfolio, starting with over one million motherboards per month,” says Joe Hsieh, General Manager, ASUS Motherboard Business Unit. “Consumers want to turn their PCs on and off like any other appliance, and Express Gate has made that possible.”).
He goes on to claim that those defecting from M$ are going to Apple which is partly true but he has the wrong numbers for shares to show that. GNU/Linux is on about 10% of PCs and MacOS is on about 4%. M$ is losing, certainly, but Apple scarcely sells any desktops outside USA/Europe.
The skewed Apple statistics from Net Applications have always served as evidence of US-centric bias. Did having Apple as a Net Applications customer contribute towards this? No wonder corporate press which us funded by Apple and Microsoft (key advertisers) is grooming Net Applications. █
“There’s a lot of Linux out there — much more than Microsoft generally signals publicly — and their customers are using it…”
–Paul DeGroot, a Directions On Microsoft analyst
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Posted in America, Europe, Patents at 7:18 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
La bataille de Waterloo
Summary: France and the UK are giving in to American agenda of software monopolies; the FFII and Techrights counter that
SOMETHING rogue is going on in France and this time it’s not Barnier, whose lobbying for a software patents loophole we wrote in many older posts over the past year. “France to launch a national patent troll,” claims the president of the FFII (who is Belgian and fluent in French). While his claim links to 3 pages in French, his Slashdot description summarises everything as follows:
[zoobab:] “France is creating a state sponsored patent fund, FranceBrevets, which primary focus will be to sponsor, acquire and license patents in the ICT (read software patents) sector. The patent fund is at the initiative of the minister of Research, Valérie Pécresse, the Ministry of Industry, Energy and digital economy, Eric Besson. The primary target of the fund is to collect licenses on those patents, which is already seen in France as the biggest patent troll of the country. France is also supporting the European Unitary Patent, which is seen by many at the final attempt to validate software patents in Europe.”
“FranceBrevets and the European Unitary Patent: a good opportunity for patent trolls, jackpot damages for the whole EU,” he notes separately, further explaining that “France is creating a fund to heavily invest in software patents (priority is Information and Communication Technology)”; quite mystifying, no? It leads to more ambiguity and uncertainty for European developers. Symbian (Nokia) validated a software patent in the UK some years ago and Germany made things worse with a ruling on Microsoft's FAT. As one person noted, regarding the decision of Wilcox [1, 2, 3, 4], the Peer To Patent “UK pilot program will start as the US did, however; it will focus solely on computer-related technologies.” Citing Techrights it says:
Not everyone is so thrilled by this focus, particularly the many opposed to software patents in principle. At least one group argues that we ought not to “legitimize” software patents with programs such as Peer to Patent, “to [which] the issue is the quality of patents, not software patents in general.” This debate may prove especially problematic in adapting the original US model to European states, like the UK. Article 52 of the European Patent Convention (EPC) excludes “programs for computers” as patentable subject matter. UK law on the subject is confusing, to say the least; recent jurisprudence seems to have established that computer programs making a “technical contribution” are patentable – though exactly what this entails is unclear.
What is going on in Europe? It seems to be under the same American attack (brought by monopolists with government help) that New Zealand is under. As one person, noted in response at Twitter: “You know our multi-National-friendly govt will do what they ask. #FriesWithThat ?” █
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Posted in FUD, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Patents at 6:47 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The ‘new Microsoft’: if you can’t beat them, tax them
Summary: Microsoft strives to turn Linux/Android into its own cash cow and IDG (among other Microsoft-funded corporate press) is helping Microsoft achieve this, not to mention Microsoft patent trolls
THE PRO-PATENTS lobby is very strong because the oligopoly hires lobbyists to pretend to be the voice of the people. There is also a fair number of pro-Windows PR agents, whom Microsoft is compensating in all sorts of ways (we covered these before). It is rather easy to spot them and as noted in our daily links, Mary Jo Foley (the longtime Microsoft booster) said that the sellers discouraged her from buying a “Windows” phone (of course they did, because it’s rubbish). IDG is trying to blame the carriers rather than blame Microsoft’s product. Amazing! To quote:
At a Verizon reseller kiosk, a salesman clearly tried to deter me from buying a WP7 device altogether. Not only did not he appear to know the fundamental difference between Windows Mobile and WP7, his kiosk didn’t even offer WP7 devices and said you’d only find WP7 demo products at a few of Verizon’s big retail stores.
“Honestly, only 1 out of 500 customers comes in here asking for a Windows phone,” he said. “Verizon won’t roll them out to kiosks until it performs better on the market.”
At Sprint, a salesperson was impressed by my insistence on trying a WP7 device (Sprint has only on Windows Phone 7 model, the HTC Arrive), but still tried to sell me the Android-powered HTC Evo (like the one he held). When I told him I’d rather wait for another WP7 phone to hit Sprint, he tried to convince me to return on June 24 for the HTC Evo 3D.
Yes, Android phones are technically vastly superior. As one of our readers put it, “sales people tell customers that Windows Phoney 7 is crap, Microsoft press [IDG] complains. Mary Jo Foley complained about the same thing, last week on Twitter with some nasty Microsoft PR person. The company has an excuse for all of their failures, it’s always someone else’s fault. boo hooo.”
Mr. Pogson notes that annual sales are at a region of “472 Million Smart Phones, 50 Million Tablets and 360 Million PCs”. This helps show that GNU/Linux need not aim so hard at the desktop, not anymore perhaps. Microsoft is currently demolishing Nokia to take over at no cost. Glyn Moody notes a headline that says “Nokia still dominant in #Africa, has 61% of mobile ad impressions” (adding, “but for how long when cheap #androids”). My response to him was, “Microsoft won’t allow cheap Androids. It will tax Android (=cash cow) and send along trolls which Florian will be cheerleading for. Microsoft does not need the desktop. It needs patent tax on 472m smartphones & 50m tablets that are sold per year (mostly w/ Linux/Android)” (these comments can be found in Identi.ca).
We really ought to reform/remove the USPTO, but the corporate press is not helping at all.
Almost nobody (except patent lawyers) denies the fact that the USPTO is broken. Some call for its abolishment, while more conformist voices (arguably “cowards”) call for mild reformation. The truth remains that the USPTO and its proponents try to spread and expand its clout to other continents, thereby instantaneously giving amazing power to a lot of American conglomerates over other countries. So-called ‘trade agreements’ are utilities of this unjust agenda. It should be noted that Europe is not innocent here [1, 2] and countries in Africa, south America, and east Asia should be furious. Their politicians happily sign away their citizens’ rights and freedom, using all sorts of lies and euphemisms (“trade agreements” is one such euphemism).
“We really ought to reform/remove the USPTO, but the corporate press is not helping at all.”As we noted in the previous post, Microsoft is trying to spread the USPTO’s mentality like it’s some kind of a medicine that would benefit other countries rather than turn those countries into slaves of the likes of Microsoft, Intel, and IBM. Shameful, shameful stuff. Everyone except employees of those companies (including the patent lawyers) has everything to lose and nothing to gain. Monopolies do nothing to promote innovation, they promote protectionism, exclusionism, and nationalism within the subjugating country (not the oppressed ones). These market dynamics ought to be understood in the context of the attacks on Linux, which has origins outside the United States and is often characterised as being “non-American” (despite its permanent basing in Oregon).
An American company called IDG is one heck of a curse not just to the English-speaking world. Since it has many publications in many different languages, it can often provide the American bias its customers (advertisers, not readers) require if not demand. It echoes a lot of US-centric statistics (more on that in a later post) to glorify domestic companies and it also promotes a US perspective on law. In relation to the Windows Mobile/Phone/whatever brand they choose today, IDG is now spreading new propaganda which came from itself and is allegedly Microsoft-funded FUD. For a change, it noted at the bottom: “Full Disclosure: IDC is a sibling company to PCWorld, both of which subsidiaries of IDG” (this is rarely noted, if at all, when IDG promotes so-called ‘studies’ from IDC, funded by the BSA to lie annually and harm the public with those lies). Recent headlines from IDG’s fake “open source” blog include “Shame on Richard Stallman” and “Has Open Source Made Google’s Software Stack Obsolete?” The writers there often have a proprietary software background/bias, as we explained before. One of the Microsoft apologists there is having a FUDfest right now with a “30 days with Ubuntu” rally. Anyway, in that latest article which predicts success for “Windows Phones” (based on its own ‘study’), the author adds: “An issue not taken into account by IDC is Google’s legal troubles relating to Android software patents” (Android has no software patents, it’s like saying “FOSS patents”).
“The USPTO reexamination process is so cumbersome that it helps show what a farce the USPTO really is.”Ah… FUD time again. When the i4i verdict came out from the SCOTUS and coverage arrived to disappoint, where was IDG? Doing some investigative journalism or just playing ball for the US patent system which was victorious that day (it does not harm the Canadian one, yet). Where is IDG when Microsoft patent trolls are attacking Linux? It just doesn’t report. It doesn’t do its work. It is left for sites like Groklaw to pick up the pieces and criticise the broken system. Professor Webbink writes about the Interval case which also affects Linux: “Don’t hold your breath for the court to issues a stay.. Although the court in this case previously denied a stay, it did so on April 29 only because the USPTO had not acted on the reexamination requests. That has now happened (See the update to The World Kicks Back). Despite the fact that the USPTO has now ordered a reexamination of each of the patents, Courts are generally loath to wait on the USPTO reexamination process.”
The USPTO reexamination process is so cumbersome that it helps show what a farce the USPTO really is. It is biased in favour of patent maximalism because it sells better (selling monopolies is the USPTO’s business). It is therefore left for other companies to pool their efforts and fight outrageous software patents one by one. This new example counters one such patent and it says: “Some of you may have known, that Widget Press is being sued for patent infringing on US Patent US Patent 7,822,816 (816) that covers data collection on a mobile device using an electronic form. A lot of folks have generous offered financial assistance in helping Widget Press during this difficult time. Thank you. This post is mostly to address how you can help and to discuss briefly about the lawsuit we are in. If you feel so inclined to help us out after reading this post, please feel free to support Widget Press in any way you can.”
Patents should be discussed more often as anybody but patents lawyers and monopolies should vote strongly against them. Why doesn’t the corporate press play along with the people’s interests? Maybe it’s just not supposed to and was never supposed to. █
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Posted in Hardware, Microsoft, OLPC, Patents at 5:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Convicted monopolist Intel joins the Microsoft-style lobby of advocating monopolies on mathematical ideas such as algorithms
ONE THING THAT INTEL and Microsoft have in common is that both are committing crimes to gain and to protect their monopolies and when legal action is brought against them they just pay a bribe to have the evidence destroyed and for the legal cases to go away. Both Microsoft and Intel were found guilty in multiple continents and they had colluded for many years (recent example [1, 2]) as they rubbed each others’ back and forced smaller competitors out of the market.
“Intel submits that if New Zealand chooses to provide restrictions on the patentability of software, those who will suffer the most include citizens of the country, and particularly those who develop software.”
–David Simon, IntelIntel’s pretense (PR lies) is a subject we wrote about before. Do not believe what Intel says. It wants the world to perceive it as a GNU/Linux friend so that its hardware gets bought by people with a clue in computing. It’s a PR exercise. Intel paid SCO and attacked OLPC (which was Linux-based), then covered it up. Moreover, notes the FFII’s president upon this release of submissions regarding software patents in New Zealand, that “Intel says [PDF] you cannot distinguish hardware from software, very shocking from the number manufacturer of hardware” (does Intel ‘own’ the transistor yet?)
We have looked at the said submission and were appalled. There is also a very shameful lie there from David Simon (on behalf of Intel). He said that “Intel submits that if New Zealand chooses to provide restrictions on the patentability of software, those who will suffer the most include citizens of the country, and particularly those who develop software.” The very opposite is true, but don’t let facts gets in Intel’s way. Shame on Intel.
Glyn Moody notes that “#Microsoft fights desperately for #swpats” in there, but we already knew that. Microsoft and its front groups in New Zealand are a subject we explored quite thoroughly before (see this wiki page for details). The FFII’s president adds that the “European Commission DG Trade commenting on software patents guidelines in New Zealand, while EPC is not even EU law” (in New Zealand they try to legitimise software patents in the same way they do in Europe, by painting software as hardware or “device”). Mr Vassilis Koutsiouris from the intellectual property unit is deceiving New Zealand [PDF]. Is this what European taxpayers pay for? To harm themselves and empower monopolies whose billionaires have no qualm about lying? █
[Disclosure: Posted from an AMD box]
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06.12.11
Posted in News Roundup at 11:35 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Pogo Linux today announced that it has launched a separate storage division, Pogo Storage. Pogo Storage expands the company’s storage offerings with cost-efficient, entry-level to mid-range enterprise solutions. The new division is dedicated to helping small- & mid-sized organizations implement emerging storage technologies and get the most from their storage budget.
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Desktop
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As June 15th nears, the folks at Google must be busy biting their nails off. This is the big G’s first step into the world of operating systems, and they want everything to go just right. With the release of Chromebook, they will be competing with 3 operating systems which have been around for a very long time. Whether Google will manage to topple them or not, only time can tell; however, there are a few reasons that this might work out pretty well for them. Here are ten such reasons why Chromebooks will be a huge hit.
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Been waiting for Google Cloud Print to finally come to linux?
The wait is over!
For now, Google has only released the ability to serve up a printer to the Google cloud via Windows while explicitly noting that the capability to do so in Linux is on the way. However, the entire ‘Cloud Aware’ printer scheme has seemed to always been referred to as coming-soon and that is probably a ways off yet. So I remain skeptical as to when we will actually see this ability. [update: There are some out there now and reviews are trickling in.]
Luckily, Armooo posted a python script that you can run on Linux (and I assume *BSD, but haven’t tested just yet) to serve up your local CUPS printer to the Google Cloud.
The script can be found here at his Github page and uses Python and PyCups to serve up your CUPS-enabled printer to the Google Cloud.
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And since it runs on Linux software instead of the standard Windows or Mac OS, it’s a virus-free computer too.
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Server
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Orange Business Solo – 450 mins, 250 texts, 50MB email and a new phone
Twenty years ago open systems was the battle cry that shook the absurdly profitable proprietary mainframe and minicomputer markets.
The proliferation of powerful and less costly x64-based systems that can run Solaris, Linux or Windows is making more than a few Unix shops think the unthinkable: migrating away from Unix for their mission-critical workloads.
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Kernel Space
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After running the 3.0-rc2 for a few days I can say that I notice a higher responsiveness.
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Applications
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If you are looking for a fast, effective, and powerful file manager that is loaded with features, Krusader might be the right choice for you. Krusader is a twin panel file manager that will work on most Linux desktops, Krusader will also help you preform many daily tasks. You can also create your own customized user menu for functions you use most often. Krusader can even function with an optional terminal emulator below the main window. You can connect to remote file systems, work with archives, and much more.
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mplayer is a light weight, full featured media player. In fact it’s so light weight, it doesn’t even bother with a gui. Just run it from a terminal, and up pops a simple window showing the video and the video only. Manipulating the video (fast forward, pause, toggling subtitles, volume controls etc) is done through keyboard commands, which quickly become second nature. Mplayer plays any video or audio codec/container you can name and supports a number of display drivers, including displaying video on a terminal using ascii.
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I spend most of my time in Embedded Systems and Wireless Sensor Network lab of the university where I am studying, there are many research engineers as well as Phd students there who work there, as well as assistant, it is a collaborative environment and frequently I move in and out of the lab and for privacy I keep my screen locked when I leave desk. This sometimes gets very irritating, having to lock screen, type in password to unlock as you come back to terminal, I often thought tool like the ones we use to change presentation could be very useful to lock/unlock screen remotely as you leave Desk.
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Chemistry is the study of matter and the changes it undergoes. It is an extremely vivacious science which deals with a molecular scale and atomic interpretation of the world we live in, helping us to understand that world. Chemistry is regarded as the central science, given its close links with physics and engineering, with biology and medicine, and with geology and earth science.
There are a number of different branches of chemistry. These include organic chemistry which studies the structure, properties, reactions, and composition of carbon-based compounds, and inorganic chemistry which deals with non-carbon compounds. Another important subdiscipline is physical chemistry which deals with the relations between the physical properties of substances and their chemical formations studying, in particular, atomic, subatomic, macroscopic, and particulate phenomena in chemical systems.
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Proprietary
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Access launched a new Android- and Linux-ready version of its mobile browser, based for the first time on the open source WebKit engine.
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Instructionals/Technical
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Wine
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Games
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Just in time for the weekend, the Russian developers at Unigine Corp have released a new (and impressive) trailer of their OilRush game with native clients for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.
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Charlie, an Indie game developer from UK, makes fun score oriented arcade shooters. Under the name of Charlie’s Games, he has released some nice games for Linux, two of them are now available in software center – Irukandji and Bullet Candy Perfect.
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Desktop Environments
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K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)
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Those of you who are using Kubuntu are already familiar with Dolphin, the default file manager shipped in most KDE distributions. There are several very good file managers for KDE, and I must include here Konqueror or Krusader, however Dolphin’s goal is to offer as much as possible functionality while also keeping lightweight and fast. And yes, it does it perfectly well, offering powerful features and a clean interface at the same time.
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New Releases
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Macpup 525 is the latest and is based on Puppy Linux 5.2.5 ,”Lucid Puppy”, An official woof build of puppy Linux that is binary-compatible with Ubuntu Lucid Lynx packages. This contains all the apps from Lucid puppy with the addition of Firefox 4.0.1. Extra apps like Opera or Gimp are available for easy download from the Quickpet App on the ibar or the Puppy Package Manager. This version also includes the Enlightenment E17 window manager. The EFL libraries version 1.0.999 and E17 version 59456 where compiled and installed from source.
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Gentoo Family
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Pardus has been around for years, and occupies a luxury-car niche in the Linux world: easy to install and configure, extremely stable, very friendly, and very KDE-centric. I would say it’s comparable to Mepis in some ways. There are differences, of course. Pardus is a government-sponsored project, and it exists for the benefit of Turkish universities and research centers. The main support board is in Turkish, and the independent international one is hosted in Germany.
Most of the current code has been developed from the ground up, and it is considered an independent distribution. As far as I know, it has no derivatives, either, and no spins. In the Linux family tree, it is the sharp-dressed uncle you saw at funerals and liked, but whenever you suggested visiting him your parents suggested that he was probably out of town.
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Debian Family
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Stefano: I use the GNOME Desktop Environment with Awesome as a window manager.
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Derivatives
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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Yep it is not a dream, now you can boot your computer in one-third the time it normally takes and connect to web in less than 7 seconds.
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C Data Solutions announced a carrier board for its tiny CompactFlash-based Compact Computer (CoCo) that enables expansion via third party USB devices. The CoCo carrier board adds dual USB host ports to the uClinux-based CoCo, which offers a 500MHz Blackfin processor with 32MB SDRAM, 8MB flash, and an FPGA, and enables rapid prototyping of devices with a mix of CompactFlash peripherals.
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MontaVista and Finland’s Rightware Oy are developing a GENIVI-compliant in-car infotainment platform that uses the Linux operating system.
The two companies said in a press release that the product uses Rightware’s 3d user interface product, which is called Kanzi, on top of a GENIVI compliant MontaVista Linux.
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Phones
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Android
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Google upgraded its Android Market Webstore to inform users whether a given app is compatible with their Android devices. Meanwhile Google Maps has been updated with live tracking of public transportation in six cities in the U.S. and Europe, and Microsoft is trying to lure Android developers with new resources including an “Android to Windows Phone 7 API mapping tool” website.
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Samsung’s Infuse 4G on AT&T is a speedy Android 2.2 “Froyo” smartphone that offers a lot for its $200 price, including a 1.2GHz Hummingbird processor, an eight-megapixel camera, and a big 4.5-inch screen with Super AMOLED Plus display technology. The Infuse 4G’s delights make it clear why Samsung is quickly dominating the Android smartphone market, this eWEEK review says.
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Motorola Mobility and Sprint announced a Photon 4G smartphone that runs Android 2.3 on a 1GHz dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, offers a 4.3-inch qHD display, and has an optional, Atrix-like “laptop dock.” Motorola also announced that its 4.1-inch Triumph, running Android 2.2 on a 1GHz processor, will be exclusively available from Sprint’s Virgin Mobile USA prepaid service.
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A fabless startup called ICube announced a new multicore processor architecture aimed at Android tablets, claimed to be the first to handle both CPU logic and graphics processing in a “truly integrated” single core. The Harmony Unified Processor Technology architecture offers up to four processing threads per core, and will first appear later this year in a 65nm, dual-core IC1 SoC, says ICube.
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On May 24th and 25th, the Wikimedia Foundation hosted a CiviCRM coding sprint in our San Francisco office. CiviCRM is the premier open source constituent relationship manager; WMF uses it to store donor and contribution information. Our CiviCRM database contains more than a million contact records and a million contribution records.
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NetRexx, a variant of the Rexx script language, developed by IBM, has been made open source software under the aegis of the Rexx Language Association (RexxLA). The first indication that the language was to be made open source came in February, but now the process has been completed.
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Events
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The Linux Foundation is hosting a “Linux Learners’ Student Day” on August 16, the day before the full convention gets under way. It’s partnering with the Oregon State University Open Source Lab to host the student day, and is chartering a bus to take students from Corvallis and Portland up to Vancouver.
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Web Browsers
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Mozilla
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-Creating an interface that is unique to Firefox in a browser market headed towards commoditization (back+ forward+fast!)
-Ambient application-level notification
-Introducing the concept of tab browsing to users of the home button
-Building up the user’s mental model of the features that will also be available on other platforms, like the iOS application Firefox Home
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Firefox 5 started without any issues this time. First of all, it checked compatibility of installed plugins. Unsurprisingly, nothing was found. I did not install any plugins in Firefox, because I do not use this browser.
Once started, I could measure memory usage for cold-started Firefox 5 and Chrome 12. I closed all additional processes opened by installed Chrome Extensions via Chrome Task Manager for clearness of experiment .
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Mozilla and the SeaMonkey Project developers have released version 2.1 of their “all-in-one internet application suite”. SeaMonkey, formerly known as the Mozilla Application Suite, is the successor to Netscape Communicator and includes a web browser with advanced email and newsgroup support, an IRC chat client and HTML editing support.
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CMS
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According to BuiltWith, of the top million websites using content management systems (or CMSes), three systems own more than 75 percent of the total market share: WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. (All of which are open source, by the way.) Many are likely most familiar with WordPress, which TechCrunch has covered quite a bit (and uses to power most its sites, for full disclosure). WordPress is the most popular CMS on the Web, running 62 percent of the top million websites that use a CMS, according to BuiltWith, with Joomla now ranking second at 10 percent.
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Project Releases
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The Pidgin development team has announced the release of version 2.8.0 of its open source instant messenger application. Pidgin 2.8.0 implements basic silence suppression for voice calls to prevent wasting bandwidth for silent periods during a call, and adds the DigiCert High Assurance CA-3 intermediate CA certificate which is needed for validation of the Facebook XMPP interface’s certificate.
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Licensing
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Now, Having explained so much about Free Software will Mr Mike Isaac of Wired explain how Google’s banning an app violates the ‘license’ or philosophy of Open Source or Free Software?
Isaac wrote, “The word open speaks directly to the hacker ethos — open source software is made to be shared, pored over and freely distributed. Open networks were made to be entered, explored and (occasionally) exploited. Open markets, self-governed. For better or for worse, it’s pure libertarianism at its finest.”
The word ‘Open’ has been exploited by greedy corporates more than ever which leads to confusion and FUD. That’s why we recommend using the word Free Software to be clear of what you are talking about when you refer to THE open-source movement. You can see what kind of confusion is there even among writers. Greg Crowe of GCN writes,
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Openness/Sharing
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In 2009, the live-action sequences were shot for “almost nothing” by Hubert and executive producers Ian and Phil McCoy. Thousands of hours of postproduction followed and, as the film developed, so did the Blender Community. Artists gained skills and their portfolios grew — one used his Project London work to get a job with the US government creating 3D military models. “It’s really what we want, that the volunteers will be able to get something out of it too,” says Hubert. As the team hit the software’s limitations, they simply amended its code. “Nathan Vegdahl [a key contributor] made something that would auto matically scan a folder for new submissions, start the render, and organise all the resulting frames,” says the director. “It saved us a ton of time.”
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Open Hardware
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The HexBright Flex, which is slightly longer than the Prime model at 5.25 inches, offers a light intensity of up to 500 lumens which is five times greater than that of conventional LED flashlights. It is fully rechargeable through its micro-USB port thanks to its 18650 lithium-ion battery which is easily replaced. The Flex will ship with four default modes including hi, medium, low and flash, but one thing that differentiates it from other flashlights, besides its brightness, is that it can be re-programmed via USB. This allows the flashlight’s microprocessor firmware to be re-flashed when connected to a PC.
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Programming
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And while new languages have since been born, C++ has endured. Java is the only one to have outpaced it in popularity, according to the TIOBE Index. PHP, Ruby, and JavaScript? Sure, some might claim that they are the future, but C++ is the past, the present, and the future.
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The uberSVN application lifecycle management (ALM) platform, part of WANdisco’s Apache Subversion-based software and services, now incorporates the latest certified Subversion 1.6.17 binaries.
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Standards/Consortia
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In a previous column, I mentioned that I was invited to talk at a meeting at the European Parliament about innovation prizes last week. That’s not something that often happens, and I frequently get to hear about meetings only after the event, when it’s too late, which is very frustrating. But happily here’s one on the 16th June entitled “Interoperability and standards: making it happen“ that I’ve come across in time…
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PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
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Rupert Murdoch’s influence is so strong that even in parliament the phone-hacking scandal has been barely talked about
Bloopers en casamientos
Credit: TinyOgg
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Posted in Bill Gates, Deception, Microsoft, Patents at 6:59 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“My background is finance and accounting. As a socially conscious venture capitalist and philanthropist, I have a very good understanding of wealth management and philanthropy. I started my career in 1967 with the IRS as a specialist in taxation covering many areas of the tax law including the so-called legal loopholes to charitable giving. […] However, the Gates Buffet foundation grant is nothing more than a shell game in which control of assets for both Gates and Buffet remain the same. […] The only difference is that the accumulation of wealth by these two will be much more massive because they will no longer have to pay any taxes.”
The Gates and Buffet Foundation Shell Game
Summary: The loophole which plutocrats are exploiting and how we can tackle the problem or at least help people recognise this problem
TECHRIGHTS strives to promote ethics and to promote critical thinking, encouraging people to educate others about the difference between public relations and investigative journalism. As part of our investigation we sometimes deviate a bit from software and from patents, provided that a link/bridge remains. Politics cannot be explained without some science and, conversely, what happens in science cannot be accounted for while totally ignoring politics. Face it, it’s the way life goes. It is also the way government procurement is often being done. People in power tend to help other people in power (usually politicians help the rich and vice versa). Human engagement and civilised affairs have always been about “friend helps a friend/kin” (or “dog-eat-dog”). Software makes our life much easier, but for many of us (especially the ‘bottom’ 90% which the West likes to forget about or merely exploit) it can make life a lot more miserable. Software can help those on power “capitalise” on the labour and health/welfare of others. So we duly apologise for not always talking purely about technology. We worry about how it affects people’s life, e.g. their freedom, their relationship with their neighbours, etc.
“It is really all taxpayers who pay for it. They give their tax dollars for one man’s (or woman’s) self-promotional PR campaign.”In the coming weeks we are going to catch up with the Gates Foundation, which serves Microsoft as a lobbyist and a financier of Linux-hostile patent trolls. It is difficult to counter the message echoed by the press when the Gates Foundation spends approximately one million dollars per day (on average) just buying positive coverage rather than giving anything, but we are going to try. As Rusty explained in a recent episode of TechBytes, this trick is not unique and it has been done for many decades if not centuries. The basic idea is, people to whom tax would be at the range of many millions or over a billion realise that it might be cheaper to just set up an entity which exempts them from tax and then uses those savings to do some reputation laundering. In essence, money which was supposed to be paid back to the public as tax is being misused to portray some very greedy people as heroes of a nation. It is really all taxpayers who pay for it. They give their tax dollars for one man’s (or woman’s) self-promotional PR campaign. To make matters worse, in Gates’ case the tax haven as also used are an investment and lobbying vehicle which pushes governments to give taxpayers’ money to companies the foundation invests in (for profit).
Philanthrocapitalism needs to be scrutinised more. The relevance to us is that one such entity that engages in philanthrocapitalism (the largest of its kind) is harming people’s freedom and promotes Microsoft. By researching its behaviour we can help demonstrate what others like it are doing as well. The tricks are universal because the loopholes are mostly the same anywhere one goes.
Our most comprehensive coverage of this subject is from 2009 and to a lesser degree 2010 as well. At some stage we realised that it became repetitive as even though there was clearly news to be shared (e.g. Gates ‘buying’ another media outlet or gets caught in another major scandal), the principal symptoms were the same and elucidating it all was a cyclic exercise consisting similar counter-arguments. Like many other sites that reach a point where the unique conceptual material is exhausted, we are probably going to cover the Gates Foundation using links summaries and excerpts. Our readers are smart enough to infer the necessary from these and our wiki page on the subject contains rebuttals to most of the key points. █
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