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Links 26/11/2011: Wine 1.3.33, KDE SC 4.8 Beta 1





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • Computing prodigy did his first Linux install at age 6
    Recent months have unearthed a wealth of computing and coding talent amongst Irish school kids with their hearts set on disrupting the technology world. The latest is a computing prodigy who at the age of six did his first Linux install.

    Dublin schoolkid Shane Curran, age 11, admits his obsession with computers began when was six, when he did his first Linux install. When he was 7 he learned how to programme in Visual Basic and built a simple web browser that he made available on the web for download.


  • Samsung leaps from consumer hero to enterprise zero
    Cars, hotels, healthcare, construction, financial and advertising services, data centres, systems integration and consultancy - even the dominant Linux enterprise operating system - bear the electronic giant's pedigree.


  • Presenters to get first warning: Linux Aus
    The process to introduce an official code of conduct for Linux Australia events is continuing, with the Linux Australia council today issuing a re-drafted code for the consideration of members, including a proposed new warning system for inappropriate speakers.

    The new draft of the code once again sets out how attendees and presenters should conduct themselves at Linux Australia events, strongly emphasising appropriate, all-ages conduct at all times.


  • Server

    • HP expands its x86 options with Mission Critical programme
      Serviceguard for Linux: This is a big win for Linux users on HP, and removes a major operational and architectural hurdle for HP-UX migrations. ServiceGuard is a highly regarded clustering and HA facility on HP-UX, and includes many features for local and geographically distributed HA.






  • Kernel Space

    • Linus Issues A Thanksgiving Day Linux Kernel
      Linus Torvalds has issued a Thanksgiving Linux kernel update for those not in a food-induced coma from this American holiday. The delicacy is the Linux 3.2-rc3 kernel.

      The Linux 3.2-rc3 kernel consists of "One quarter arch updates, two quarters drivers, and one quarter random changes. Shake vigorously and serve cold.."


    • Linux 3.2-rc3 - just in time for Thanksgiving
      Hey, since most of the US will be in a food-induced coma tomorrow, I just *know* that doing a new release candidate is a good idea.


    • Graphics Stack

      • Linux 2.6.38 To Linux 3.2 Nouveau DRM Benchmarks
        Earlier this month I showed the Intel graphics performance hasn't improved much in the Linux 3.2 kernel (but there might be a boost when RC6 is flipped on), but how is this new kernel shaping up for NVIDIA hardware owners wishing to use the open-source and reverse-engineered Nouveau driver? In this article are some benchmarks of the Nouveau DRM driver from recent Linux releases.






  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments



    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • Akademy KDE summit to take place in Estonia
        The search for a location for the KDE annual world summit Akademy 2012 is over. Tallinn, Estonia will be the venue for the event which will run from 30 June to 6 July 2012, according to the announcement by KDE e.V. The conference is jointly organised by the KDE e.V. and the host, the Estonian Information Technology College, which is located near to the Tehnopol Science and Business Park.


      • KDE SC 4.8 Beta 1 Is Available for Testing
        Softpedia is once again the first to announce that the KDE team proudly released a few minutes ago, November 24th, the first Beta version of the upcoming and renewed KDE Software Compilation 4.8 environment.


      • First KDE 4.8 beta released for testing
        The KDE Community has released a first beta of version 4.8 of the KDE Software Compilation (KDE SC). Aimed at testers, the development preview of the next major update to the open source K Desktop Environment brings changes to the Plasma Workspaces, applications and underlying platform, as well as various performance and stability improvements.




    • GNOME Desktop

      • The rules of the game
        Dave Neary was at college in his native Ireland in the mid 1990s when he discovered free software. He had "managed to get through a maths degree doing very little programming", and went on to do a research degree in image analysis where the ability to program became an essential part of his work. He remembers "turning to a friend and saying: 'I understand that these things are variables but what's the star thing in front of the variable name?' When he stopped laughing he told me, and that's how I discovered pointers."

        "The piece of software I was working on would only compile on UNIX so I ran an X-Server on my Windows desktop until somebody said 'You're not using Windows. Why don't you just install Linux and be done with it?', and I had to say 'Linux, what's that?'"

        This was in 1996. By 1999 he had taken a job as a developer with Informix which left him in something of a rut "where I was wanting to learn more than I was learning through my job. So I began to work on The Gimp. I hadn't worked on user interface software before," he says, "and started looking at bugs that were annoying me, scratching my itch, and got heavily involved in Gimp development."

        "The great thing about the free software world in general and also my upbringing is that I haven't been afraid to take things apart just to see how they work. I'm not afraid to get inside the hood and see what's going on even if I don't know what I am doing."

        He went on to become release manager for The Gimp and a member of the board of the GNOME Foundation, and later advised Nokia and Intel on community aspects of the Maemo and Meego projects.


      • GNOME 3.3.2 Development Release Is Here
        The GNOME Project announced a few minuntes ago, November 24th, the immediate availability for testing of the second development release of the upcoming GNOME 3.4 desktop environment, which brings assorted fixes and improvements.






  • Distributions



  • Devices/Embedded





Free Software/Open Source



  • Computerworld 25 years: Open source advocate says outlook is positive
    I am quite optimistic about the next 25 years of IT in New Zealand because, in recent months, I have got the sense that a number of auspicious trends are starting to converge.

    The new digital-native generation is starting get socially and politically involved in meaningful ways. For these young folk the internet is inextricably woven into their day to day social fabric.

    Their experience means they have some different priorities from earlier generations. Their influence seems to be quietly ushering in a new culture: one in which the opposite of open isn’t closed; this opposite of open is broken.


  • Convirture Open Source Server Tools for Virtualization and Cloud Management


  • appMobi Open Sources Its Mobile Platform During Black Friday


  • In the Open Source Community, the Platform Rarely Matters Anymore


  • In New York, open source data on bus location
    Last night, as I tried (and failed) to duck around raindrops on my way down Manhattan’s West 34th Street, I noticed something I hadn’t before: on the curbside bus stop, in blazing orange LED bulbs, were the times for the next city buses to arrive.


  • Ten things you didn't know about Sourcefire
    1. Headquarted in Columbia, Maryland, Sourcefire was founded in January 2001 by Martin Roesch, author of open-source intrusion detection system Snort.

    2. Snort is the world’s most widely-deployed intrusion detection and prevention technology, with nearly 4 million downloads to date.

    3. In addition to Snort, Sourcefire manages some of the industry’s most respected open source security projects, including ClamAV, the most commonly used open source anti-virus and anti-malware gateway product in the world, as well as Razorback.


  • "Inspire" Magazine: Open Source Jihad
    The recent arrest of Jose Pimentel, a 27-year-old convert to Islam who was allegedly planning to detonate an explosive device in New York, underscores the ongoing danger posed by so-called "lone wolf" terrorists. Pimentel, busy preparing a bomb at the time of his arrest according to prosecutors, is alleged to have wanted to kill American troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. The real significance of his plot, however, lies in the method he was using.


  • Open-source projects that deserve your cash
    People who enjoy open-source software often forget that most of the developers behind the code are working in their own time and at their own expense.


  • Science education prize goes to Open Source Physics
    In an attempt to raise the profile of worthwhile science education projects, Science magazine has started handing out the Science Prize for Online Resources in Education, or SPORE. This week's award is going to a project called Open Source Physics. Started by a group of college professors, the site offers simulation software on a wide variety of topics in the physical sciences (including astronomy), accompanied by guides and lesson plans that help integrate it into the classroom.


  • Events



  • SaaS

    • Italian people and the Cloud
      The storage is one of the favorite services offered by the Cloud: 76% of the sample interviewed is in favor of the storage of information in the Cloud, and consider the whole service a support in the work sphere (58%), in the education (38%), for social life (30%), for hobby sharing (21%) and to know new people (11%).


    • OpenStack is overstretched
      I'm back again at my daily job after a week travelling between San Francisco and Silicon Valley. It's clear that the hot topics there are cloud and flash storage; in fact the first meeting I had last week in Silicon Valley was with OpenStack.


    • 6 reasons why 2012 could be the year of Hadoop
      Hadoop gets plenty of attention from investors and the IT press, but it’s very possible we haven’t seen anything yet. All the action of the last year has just set the stage for what should be a big year full of new companies, new users and new techniques for analyzing big data. That’s not to say there isn’t room for alternative platforms, but with even Microsoft abandoning its competitive effort and pinning its big data hopes on Hadoop, it’s difficult to see the project’s growth slowing down.


    • Hadoop is an Open Source Revolution: Federal Computer Week Interview




  • Databases

    • Is CouchDB in Trouble?
      So to recap, CouchDB doesn't scale enough and it's also too big for smaller devices. CouchBase, one of the leading commercial sponsors behind CouchDB should be plenty worried.

      To be fair, Ubuntu leaving an upstream project for their own needs is nothing new. You need to look no further than Mark Shuttleworth's split from GNOME 3 with the Unity interface. The difference this time around though, is it's not just the community that Ubuntu is splitting from, but the commercial relationship too. It's one thing to have dis-agreements within an open source community, it's another not to be able to get a commercial vendor to help tailor a solution that will work.




  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice



  • CMS

    • PacktLib now Offers a Joomla! Library
      Packt has today announced a new subscription on PacktLib for Joomla! developers. Housing 26 books, this library will enable Joomla! developers to get up and running quickly, as well as extend their skills and knowledge to become serious professionals. Recently announced as the winner of the best 2011 Open Source CMS, a resurgent Joomla!, now with a six month development cycle, has proved itself to be one of the leading open source content management systems on the market.


    • Development of the world's most popular WordPress open source ecommerce plug-in




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Copyright vs. Community
      Copyright developed in the age of the printing press, and was designed to fit with the system of centralized copying imposed by the printing press. But the copyright system does not fit well with computer networks, and only draconian punishments can enforce it.




  • Project Releases

    • MyPaint reaches 1.0.0 with improved user interface
      The MyPaint developers have announced the availability of version 1.0.0 of their open source graphics-tablet-oriented digital painting application. The raster graphics editing software, which runs on Linux, Windows and Mac OS X, began development in 2005 and has focused on being able to respond to pen pressure when drawing, while having a simple, minimalistic user interface that is hidden until the user needs it. It offers extensive brush creation and configuration options for the artist, basic layer support and an "unlimited canvas" which avoids the need for resizing.


    • Google sets Wave shutdown date, points to open source projects
      Google has now set specific dates for the shutdown of Google Wave, the collaboration service it launched in May 2009 and officially abandoned in August 2010. It has been informing users by email that from 31 January 2012, it will mark all waves, the equivalent of a conversation or thread on the service, as read only. On 30 April 2012, the service will be turned off entirely. Google is directing users who are interested in continuing to work with Wave or a similar collaborative tools to look at open source projects.




  • Public Services/Government

    • Open letter to the Romanian Ministry for Culture and Patrimony
      A group of organisations and interested persons from Romania are addressing an open letter to the Romanian Ministry for Culture and Patrimony about the Romanian cultural patrimony on the Internet, which can be published at Europeana.eu, where our country was to submit 789,000 works until 2015 and currently has managed to publish less than 36,000. We ask about the status of this project and propose the use of the images contributed in the recent Romanian Wikipedia photography contest. The full text can be read on the ProLinux website or in printable format (along with the signatures list) from the APTI blog.




  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Source Physics


      Scientists routinely use computer modeling and computation in innovative research, including predicting the nature of He4 at extremely low temperatures and the impact of human activity on climate. Why does computer-based modeling remain absent from many educational programs?

      The Open Source Physics (OSP) project, www.compadre.org/osp/, seeks to enhance computational physics education by providing a central Web site containing computer modeling tools, simulations, curricular resources such as lesson plans, and a computational physics textbook that explains the pedagogic simulations' algorithms (1). Our resources are based on small single-concept simulations packaged with source codes that can be examined, modified, recompiled, and freely redistributed to teach fundamental computational skills. Students at all levels will benefit from these interactive simulations by learning to question and assess the simulation's assumptions and output.


    • Let Them Hack Your Innovation!


    • Open Hardware





  • Programming

    • ActiveState Commits To Free Stackato Micro Cloud
      Canadian dynamic language company ActiveState has said that that after its beta stage is completed, its Stackato Micro Cloud will continue to be free of charge for developers to use as their own private Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution on a single node. ActiveState's products all leverage community-driven open source projects, so with Stackato access assured, developers can build, test, and deploy applications on a micro cloud for free.


    • The R programming language gets 64-bit integer support
      The R programming language, a software environment designed especially for statistical computations and graphing, will now be able to process 64-bit integer types. A patch to enable this capability, from French R developer Romain François, is available to download from the CRAN server network. His approach involves storing int64 vectors in R as pairs of 32-bit integers in S4 objects, with one holding the high order bits and the other the low order bits. Behind the scenes, the arithmetic operations are carried out in high performance C++ code; François has modified almost all of the standard arithmetic operations available in R to transparently work with the new class.






Leftovers



  • SIM-free Lumia 800 handset is due at Clove in December
    ONLINE RETAILER Clove will start shipping a SIM-free Nokia Lumia 800 handset to people who want it at the start of December.

    Thus far Nokia's first Windows Phone 7.5 handset is available from only three firms on a SIM-free basis - Carphone Warehouse, Phones4u and Expansys - and this is the source of some disappointment, says Clove, because apparently there are people out there who want to pay the best part of €£500 for the handset.


  • source outgrown the Apache
    US lawmakers have launched an investigation into the threat of cyber espionage from Chinese telecoms firms operating in the US, singling out Huawei and ZTE.

    The House of Representatives committee on intelligence said yesterday that it was focused on the threat to America's security and critical infrastructure coming from "the expansion of Chinese-owned telecommunications companies - including Huawei and ZTE - into our telecommunications infrastructure".


  • Security





  • Finance

    • Many Influential Lawmakers Invested in Wall Street Giant Goldman Sachs
      Goldman Sachs, the most notorious investment bank on Wall Street, has two things in common with the legislators with significant investments in the company: wealth and power.

      According to research by the Center for Responsive Politics, 19 current members of Congress reported holdings in Goldman Sachs during 2010. Whether by coincidence or not, most of these 19 Goldman Sachs investors in Congress are more powerful or more wealthy than their peers, or both.


    • Goldman Sachs Announces Candidacy For President
      Goldman Sachs Inc., the global investment bank and financial services firm, announced this morning that it is running for president of the United States. The announcement was made at a farm near Waterloo, Iowa by the musician Ted Nugent, who was hired to speak for the candidate. “We love oil and God and gasoline!" shouted Mr. Nugent, as he held aloft two semi-automatic machine guns and a sleeve of red, white and blue painted grenades. "And we hate them people who don't look American and drive those weird tiny cars and use big words!" Mr. Nugent kept his remarks brief and did not mention the candidate, Goldman Sachs, by name. At the end of his speech, the outspoken musician fired off several rounds of live ammunition, screamed "Let's go eat a live bear!" and then charged into the woods with the frenzied crowd following behind.




  • Censorship

    • European court rules that ISPs can't filter web content
      The European Court of Justice has ruled that ISPs do not have the right to filter out copyright-infringed content from the web, marking a massive win for privacy evangelists and a huge loss for the movie and record industry.






  • Intellectual Monopolies





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