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Links 6/9/2011: Android 3.2 Previews, wdiff 1.0.0 Released



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Understanding open source technologies, the ethical way
    The recent times have seen many big companies and even US government face brunt of invasions by hackers from other countries, creating a huge impact on world politics.

    With this trend several hackers offer help in repairing vulnerabilities in such systems. They in turn demand payments for the same, which is not ethical, because their work does not comply with pure assurance that an ethical hacker always guarantees.

    Thus for us ethical hackers, this unethical wayposes a threat to our image, which is yet to be repaired in the minds of governments and people in general.


  • Web Browsers



  • SaaS



  • Databases

    • NSA proposes Accumulo NoSQL database to Apache
      Built on top of Apache's Hadoop, Zookeeper and Thrift projects, Accumulo is a distributed key/value store based on the design of Google's BigTable. Developed by the US National Security Agency (NSA), the Accumulo project has now been proposed to the Apache Software Foundation for consideration and incubation as a new Apache project. Accumulo's big difference is that it has fine-grained label-based access control, which could allow different users to access a record but only see the fields they are allowed to see; the NSA developers believe such a database could work in "government, health care, and other industries where privacy is a concern".




  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Another Crack in Oracle’s Case Against Google


    • Oracle v. Google - Google Knocks Another (Minor) Chip Out of Oracle
      Two weeks ago Google won the right to file a motion for summary judgment on Oracle's affirmative defense of assignor estoppel. As we explained at that time, Oracle was arguing that, since Google now employs some of the named inventors in the patents Oracle is asserting against Google, Google should be precluded from challenging the validity of those patents.

      Oracle has now decided to throw in the towel on that defense by agreeing to stipulate to its dismissal with prejudice, i.e., they cannot reassert this defense again in this case. 387 [PDF] This is not that big a deal. There was almost no chance that Oracle was going to be successful with the assignor estoppel defense (their attempt to apply it in this case went far beyond anything any court has allowed). Nevertheless, it knocks one more issue off the table. Note that the dismissal with prejudice on this defense is not final until the judge enters the order, but given the parties have agreed to the stipulation, that is a mere formality.




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



  • Project Releases

    • wdiff 1.0.0 released
      So what has changed? As user noticeable changes we have updated translations for Updated Dutch, French, Danish and Slovenian as well as a completely new translation file for Ukrainian thanks to Yuri Chornoivan. The code will now give more useful results in case the diff program either cannot be executed or fails for some reason.




  • Public Services/Government

    • Can Whitehall open up to open source?
      What's Whitehall's attitude to software procurement? A cynic might sum it up as "nobody ever got sacked for buying Microsoft".

      The current government has vowed to change the civil service mindset that has always preferred to spend money with the biggest firms and has been conservative about open source software.

      The Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude has vowed to create a level playing field for open source as part of a drive to cut costs.

      Now a BBC Freedom of Information (FOI) request has given us a glimpse of how big the challenge will be.


    • Government a closed shop for open source
      Amid promises from the current Government to give greater opportunities to open-source providers, the BBC made a flurry of Freedom of Information Act requests aimed at discovering the use of non-proprietary software in Whitehall.

      The figures from each department are hardly conclusive and vary in detail, but point to a situation in which conservatism rules the day, with civil-service buyers reluctant to look past low-risk, high-cost packages from big-name suppliers.


    • Indian Government Takes the Open Source Route
      The draft ‘Policy On Device Drivers For Procurement Of Hardware For e-Governance’ states that the, “Government of India (GOI) endeavours to provide e-governance services, which are technology-neutral, cost-effective, interoperable and vendor-neutral. The GOI Policy on open standards is a step towards meeting this objective in the development of e-governance applications.” The policy will be applicable in all new e-governance projects, as well as in existing ones.


    • Department for Transport Embraces Open Source Platform and Cloud-Based Hosting in Latest Kainos Project
      The Department for Transport (www.dft.gov.uk/) has become the latest central Government organisation to extend its relationship with Causeway, the application management services arm of Kainos, with a new contract to support the Department’s web activities and migration to a cloud-based open source platform.






Leftovers

  • Armageddon of IT
    The “innocent” third parties for this change could either ship their products in virtual machines paying the “tax” or they could port their software to GNU/Linux. Either way would cost ISVs some money but all the software makers owe the manufacturers of all that lovely hardware a lot, I figure. They should be glad to contribute to software freedom. End users might need some retraining but the OEMs could easily host training sites to prepare users. There could be lots of opportunity for smaller ISVs to compete against the big guys if they can get software working on GNU/Linux sooner than the big guys.


  • Health/Nutrition

    • Nurses to Obama: Heal America, Tax Wall Street!
      As President Obama gets ready for his big jobs speech Thursday, America’s nurses have a message for him. "Heal America, Tax Wall Street!" the signs read as nurses rallied in front of 61 Congressional offices this week. The nurses are proposing a bold alternative to the “cut, cut, cut” rhetoric emanating from Washington, D.C.




  • Cablegate





  • Finance

    • Pray for Goldman Sachs
      Because no amount of money ultimately protects you against the collapse of a nation, against raging compatriots in the streets too desperate to care anymore. Look at Rome, Greece, Rwanda, Russia (twice recently -- the Czars, then the Commies). Take a look at Gaddafi, Hussein and all the other leaders in the Middle East who have been feasting off their people.


    • WHo Do You THiNK BuiLT AMeRiCa?
      Watch the news this Labor Day. You will have the unique opportunity to hear and see politicians, robbers, thieves and human strip miners tell you about how they have the best interests of "working" American men and women at heart.




  • Civil Rights



    • Facebook Complains About German Sites Changing Functionality Of 'Like' Button To Comply With Law
      Who's more powerful when it comes to determining how social voting functionality works in Germany? The government or Facebook? You may recall a few weeks ago there were reports of a German official effectively banning the Facebook "like" button on third party sites as a privacy violation. While it doesn't say it's officially in response to this, the German news site Heise implemented a neat little workaround, in which you have to first click on the icon to "activate" it, and then you can click the "like" (Google translation of the original German). Under this system, the "like" button isn't loaded until a user clicks on it, thus there's no issue of Facebook automatically tracking folks via the button.






Recent Techrights' Posts

Sanitised Plagiarism as "AI" (How Oligarchy Plots to Use Slop to Hide or Distract From Its Abuses, or Cause People Not to Trust Anything They See/Read Online)
This isn't innovation but repression
Recent Layoffs at Red Hat (2026 the Year of Ultimate Bluewashing)
I found it amusing that Red Hat's CEO has just chosen to wear all blue, as if to make a point
Team Campinos Talks About SAP Days Before EPO Industrial Actions and a Day Before the "Alicante Mafia" Series (About Team Campinos Doing Cocaine)
EPO staff that isn't morally feeble will insist on objecting to illegal instructions
Stack(ed) Rankings and Ongoing Layoffs at Red Hat and IBM (Failure to Keep Staff Acquired by IBM)
IBM is mismanaged and its sole aim is to game the stock market (by faking a lot of things)
Linuxiac May Have Reverted Back to LLM Slop (Updated Same Day)
Is he back off the wagon?
Links 15/01/2026: Internet Blackouts, Jackboots Society in US
Links for the day
 
Naming Culprits in Switzerland
Switzerland is highly secretive about white-collar crime
IBM's 'Scientific-Sounding' Tech-Porn Won't Help IBM Survive (or Be Bailed Out)
Who's next in the pipeline?
IBM Was Never the Good Guy
its original products were used for large-scale surveillance, not scientific endeavours
The Bluewashing is Making Red Hat Extinct (They All Become "IBM", Little by Little)
IBM does not care what's legal
Slopfarms Push Fake News About Microsoft Shutdown, 30,000+ Microsoft Layoffs Last Year Spun as Only "15,000"
The Web is seriously ill
Countries Take Action Against Social Control Media and 'Smart' 'Phones', Not Slop (Plagiarised Information Synthesis Systems or P.I.S.S.)
None of this is unprecedented except the scale and speed of sharing
Sites That Expose Corruption Under Attack, Journalism Not Tolerated Anymore (the Super-Rich Abuse Their Wealth and Political Power)
Sometimes, albeit not always, the harder people try to hide something, the more effective and important it is for the general public
Links 16/01/2026: Social Control Media Curbs in Australia Underway, MElon Still Profiting by Sexualising Kids 'as a Service'
Links for the day
More People Nowadays Say "GNU/Linux"
We still see many distros and even journalists that say "GNU/Linux"
LLM Slop on the Web is Waning, But Linuxiac Has Become a Slopfarm
I gave Linuxiac a chance to deny this or explain this; Linuxiac did not
More Signs of Financial Troubles at Microsoft, Europe Puts Microsoft Under Investigation
The end of the library is part of the cuts
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part I - An Introduction to the Mafia Governing the EPO
Are some people 'evacuating' themselves to save face?
Pedophilia-Enabling Microsoft Co-founder Cuts Staff
Compensating by sleeping with young girls does not make one younger
Microsoft Shuts Down Campus Library, Resorts to Storytelling About "AI" to Spin the Seriousness of It
Microsoft is in pain
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Back to Advertising the Talks of Richard Stallman
A pleasant surprise
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 15, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, January 15, 2026
Gemini Links 16/01/2026: House Flood and Pragmatic Retrocomputing Dogfooding
Links for the day
Links 15/01/2026: Starlink Weaponised for Regime Change (by Man Who Boasted About Annexing South American Countries for Tesla's Mining), Corruption in Switzerland Uncovered by JuristGate
Links for the day
GAFAM and IBM Layoffs Outline
a lot of the layoffs happen in secrecy and involve convincing people to resign, retire, relocate etc.
Coming Soon: Impact With EPO Cocainegate
Will Campinos survive 2026?
The Last 'Dilberts' or Some of the Last Salvaged (Comic Strips Which Disappeared Shortly After They Had Been Published)
Around the time the creator of Dilbert went silent he published some strips mocking TikTok and usage of it
The Creator of Git Probably Doesn't Know How to Install and Deploy Git
Nobody disputes this: Mr. Torvalds created Git
Slop is a Liability
Slopfarms too will become extinct because people aren't interested in them
GAFAM is a National and International Threat to Everybody
GAFAM is just a tentacle in service of imperialism
EPO People Power - Part XXXVI - In Conclusion and Taking Things Up Another Notch
They often say that the law won't deter or stop criminals because it's hard to enforce laws against people who reject the law
Running Techrights is Fun, Rewarding, and Gratifying
In Geminispace we are already quite dominant
Red Hat is Connected to the Military, Its Chief Comes From Military Family (From Both Sides)
The founder of Red Hat's parent company literally saluted Hitler himself (yes, a Nazi salute)
Don't Cry for Gaslighting Media in a Country Which Loathes the Press
my wife and I received threats for merely writing about Americans
Red Hat (IBM) is Driving Away Remaining Fedora Users
I've not used Fedora since Moonshine
Robert X. Cringely Has Already Explained IBM's Bullying Culture (Towards Its Own Staff)
IBM is a fairly nasty company
Proton Mail compromise, Hannah Natanson (Washington Post) police raid & Debian
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, January 14, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, January 14, 2026
Gemini Links 15/01/2026: "Ode to elinks", envs.net Pubnix and Downtime at geminiprotocol.net
Links for the day
Still Condoning Child Labour and Exploiting Unpaid Children Developers as PR Props (to Raise Monopoly Money)
These people lack morals. So they project.
"Security, AI or Quantum" on "the IBM Titanic"
Who's RMS?
Hours Ago The Register MS Published Microsoft Windows SPAM "Sponsored by Intel." The Fake 'Article' Says "AI" 34 Times.
The Register MS isn't a serious online newspaper
EPO People Power - Part XXXV - Where Else Will Corruption and Substance Abuse be Tolerated?
We need to raise standards
Status and Capital
People who do a lot are too busy to boast about it and wear fancy garments
IBM Paying the Price for Treating Workers Badly and Discarding Real Talent (Because It's "Expensive")
IBM is dead man walking
Turbulence Ahead
I last rebooted my laptop in 2023
Google News Rewards Plagiarism With LLMs (About Linux, Too)
Google is in the slop business now
Links 14/01/2026: Failing Economy and Conquest Abroad as a Distraction From Domestic Woes
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/01/2026: The Ephemerality of Our Digital Lives and "Summer of Upgrades"
Links for the day
Projection Tactics - Part III: Silencing Inconvenient Voices Online
If X gets banned in the UK, it'll be hard to see what the spouse says in public
Outsourcing on Microsoft's Agenda, Offshoring Also
"In some cases, India hiring is poised to replace certain roles previously based in the U.S."
Links 13/01/2026: 'Dilbert' creator Scott Adams Passes Away With Cancer, Ban on X/Twitter Considered for CSAM Profiteering
Links for the day
The Goal is Software Freedom for All
Anything to do with "Linux Foundation" is timewasting
Reminder That Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Is Not Free, And It's Because of IBM
software freedom just 'gets in the way'
Under IBM, in Order to Game the Stock Market, Red Hat Resorted to Boosting the Biggest Ponzi Scheme in Human History
This is what IBM turned Red Hat into
Revision handed Microsoft the keys to the distortion of the past/history
This isn't the first time The Register MS rewrites computing history in Microsoft's favour, as we pointed out several times in past years
What Will Happen to GAFAM After the US Defaults Rather Than Bails Out the Market?
Or tries to topple every government that doesn't play by its rules?
EPO People Power - Part XXXIV - Bad Optics for the European Union (for Failing to Act and Tolerating Cocaine Use in Europe's Second-Largest Institution)
There are principles in laws which tie awareness with complicity
EPO's Central Staff Committee is Now Redacting (Self-Censoring) Due to Threats From the EPO "Mafia"
"On the agenda: salary adjustment procedure for 2025 (as of January 2026)"
"AI" (Slop) 'Demand' Isn't Growing, It's Fake, It's a Pyramid Scheme
They try to resort to 'creative' accounting (fraudulent schemes like circular financing)
Difficult Times at IBM and Microsoft Ahead of Mass Layoffs (Probably Before This Month's Results Unless Postponed to 'Prove' Rumours 'Wrong')
IBM and Microsoft used to be tech giants. Nowadays they mostly pretend by pumping up their stock and buying back their own shares.
Canonical: Make Ubuntu Bloated (Debian With Snaps), Then Sell the 'Debloated' Version for a Fee
If people want a light distro, then they ought not pay Canonical but instead choose a light (by design) GNU/Linux distro
People Don't Want "Just Enough", They'll Look for Quality
That's why slopfarms will go away or become inactive
Gemini Links 14/01/2026: 3D and Tiny Traffic Lights Pack
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, January 13, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Slop Waning Whilst Originals Perish
Slop is way past its "prime"
XBox's 'Major Nelson' Loses His Job Again, This Time in a Microsoft Mono Pusher
Microsoft hasn't much of a future in gaming. XBox's business is in rapid decline and people who push Mono to game developers are the same