Links 28/1/2012: Acting on ACTA, PacApt
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2012-01-28 15:42:57 UTC
- Modified: 2012-01-28 15:42:57 UTC
Contents
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Kernel Space
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A lot of noise has been made about a security vulnerability affecting the Linux core. The fault has been corrected and Linux editors are updating all of their systems after exploits appeared on the web.
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Applications
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The Fedora developers are currently working on implementing the plan to move all files stored in the Linux distribution's /bin/, /sbin/, /lib/ and /lib64/ directories to equivalent sub-directories in /usr/. Symbolic links will ensure compatibility with scripts and software that may otherwise be caught out by the change. The restructuring was first mooted last autumn, before being earmarked for inclusion in Fedora 17. The development team has since discarded the idea of moving all files stored in /sbin/ and /usr/sbin/ into /usr/bin/ and deleting the sbin directories.
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Instructionals/Technical
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Desktop Environments
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K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)
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The first tablet computer that comes with Plasma Active pre-installed.
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It’s no secret that we love Arch Linux and one of Arch’s best features is the simple, easy-to-use package manager, Pacman. Here’s how to get Pacman’s simple command structure in other Linux distributions.
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Debian Family
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People Behind Debian: Josselin Mouette, founder of the Debian GNOME team
Josselin Mouette is one the leaders of the pkg-gnome team, he takes sound technical decisions and doesn’t fear writing code to work-around upstream issues. He deserves kudos for the work he has put into packaging GNOME over the years. He can also be very sarcastic (sometimes he even enjoys participating to flamewars on debian lists), and there are quite a few topics where we have long agreed to disagree. But this kind of diversity is also what makes Debian a so interesting place…
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Derivatives
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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Linux vendor could change the way users interact with enterprise applications with its Heads Up Display. The intelligent HUD interface will understand user needs and respond to them.
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Following our previous articles, Ubuntu Flickr/Shotwell Photos Lens, Ubuntu Spotify Scope, Ubuntu DeviantArt Scope, Ubuntu SSH Lens, Ubuntu Binary Clock Lens, Ubuntu YouTube Lens and Scope, Ubuntu Calendar Lens, Ubuntu Web Sources Lens, Ubuntu Gwibber Lens, Ubuntu Books Lens, Ubuntu Cities Scope, Ubuntu Grooveshark Scope, Ubuntu Calculator Scope and Pirate Bay Torrents Lens for Unity, today we are introducing the Ubuntu Launchpad Lens for the Unity interface.
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Open Source Linux based gaming handheld and mini-laptop Pandora has created lots of buzz when it was revealed 4 years back.
Since then the project has gone under numerous rough stages, production issues, tech spec changes and financial problems. A limited batch of 4000 units was available for pre-orders but not everyone has got the device on time.
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Phones
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In this era of technology and internet, social networking sites are getting more and more popularity. People are spending hours in front of them. For creating a social media website a platform is necessary, to make this easy came the social networking platforms. In the case of social media software, market the competition is very high. If you are looking to start a social media website then it is difficult to choose the platform. Before choosing social media software just get all available information about it and conclude weather, it will benefit you or not. Let us now take a look of the five most popular open source-networking platforms available in the market
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Just 12 months ago, even the largest organisations lacked the infrastructure, tools and skills to turn large datasets into business insight. Today, though, the world has changed. A combination of low-cost, commodity hardware and great open-source software are lowering the Big Data bar for organisations of all types and sizes. Put simply, open-source solutions are allowing organisations to spin up hundreds of servers to support Big Data services in seconds, and pay only for the resources they use.
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Web Browsers
Chrome
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I bet that when you turn on your PC, one of the first programs that you start is your Browser .
Indeed, many say that the browser that we have installed in our computer show a part of us! There is, therefore, who prefer Opera: a browser elegant and very
particular, for those who prefer the aesthetics at the practicality, there are those who, following the mass chose the Firefox browser, which has won a great battle against IE in a recent past.
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Project Releases
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Openness/Sharing
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The Open Source Centre is designed to collect foreign information made public by media reports, press releases and announcements by international organizations, said the official at the Unification Ministry.
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Standards/Consortia
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As Flash's ubiquity begins to erode, standards-based Web technologies are going to become the path forward for developers who want to offer a user experience that works across all screens. The HTML5 video element is already widely supported in modern Web browsers, but the capabilities and codecs that are available differ between implementations.
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Security
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However, at security to get into the Capitol, I was told I could not bring the canteen in, even though it was empty. I asked if there was any reason for this. I was told I just couldn't bring it in. I asked if there was any place I could "leave" it, and I was told to go outside and there were dumpsters to the right. I even asked if someone could hold it for me, since it would just be an hour or so. No luck. Dumpsters, outside to the right. The canteen isn't anything special, but I do like it. According to the price tag still on the bottom, it cost $11 when my wife bought it for me. I can buy another canteen, but really, there's a bit of a principle thing to all of this. If the canteen itself is dangerous, then, putting it in a dumpster outside isn't going to change that.
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Civil Rights
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Hawaii's legislature is weighing an unprecedented proposal to curb the privacy of Aloha State residents: requiring Internet providers to keep track of every Web site their customers visit.
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Intellectual Monopolies
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One of the more important points in understanding some of the fights over the ridiculousness of today's copyright and patent laws is to recognize how knowledge (information) is a natural resource. It is the input that makes other great things. Economist Paul Romer's famous research really showed how knowledge and information as a resource is what creates economic growth. Once you recognize that fact, you begin to run into problems when you think about locking up that natural resource. Think of other natural resources. Do we think the world is better off if there's a greater supply of each of those? An abundance? If we have an abundance of wheat, that's a good thing. If we have an abundance of energy, that's a good thing. There may be side effects of such abundances, but the overall abundance is something worth cherishing.
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Copyrights
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We've talked a lot in the past about the "idea/expression dichotomy." This is an important concept in copyright law that says you can only copyright the specific expression, and not the idea. This is supposed to protect people from getting accused of copyright infringement for basically making something similar to what someone else made. Unfortunately, as we've been noting with dismay over the past few years, the idea that there's some bright line between "idea" and "expression" has been slowly fading away, and courts are, increasingly, effectively wiping out the distinction. In the US, we've seen this with the ridiculous case between a photographer, David LaChapelle, and the singer Rihanna, because some of her videos were clear homages to his photographs. The expression was entirely different, but the judge didn't think so, and Rihanna ended up having to pay up.
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Karaoke might be fun, but it's also proved legally dangerous over the years. One publisher of karaoke discs is taking a publisher co-owned by the Michael Jackson estate to court over alleged abuse.
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ACTA
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Earlier today, Loz Kaye, leader of the Pirate Party, published a statement highlighting a major threat to the Internet, to civil liberties, and our political and legal systems; ACTA. Following this, the Party has received many requests asking what we, ordinary citizens, can do about this and the best way to stop it.
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The reverberations from the SOPA fight continue to be felt in the U.S. (excellent analysis from Benkler and Downes) and elsewhere (mounting Canadian concern that Bill C-11 could be amended to adopt SOPA-like rules), but it is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement that has captured increasing attention this week. Several months after the majority of ACTA participants signed the agreement, most European Union countries formally signed the agreement yesterday (notable exclusions include Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia, Cyprus and Slovakia).
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Hardly Seeing Slopfarms Today, Even in Google News
- Google's adventures with slop increased its debt significantly
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 29 Out of 200: Violent Language Won't Go Away When You Use It in Your Site, Blog, and Social Control Media
- abuse began in 2012 because I had politely and accurately criticised Red Hat
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- 'Modern' Cars Not a Rosy Industry
- The current "modern" cars already have a shelf life similar to that of many toothpastes
- Wrongthink Detector and Filter in "Think About the Children" Clothing
- It is not about "age verification", it's a Trojan horse for social control
- IBM Facilities Now Deemed Legitimate (Military) Target, Along With GAFAM Bases
- Does IBM have any defences in place to protect against "downtime by explosions"?
- What Happens When Some Large News Sites Turn to Slop and Spew Out Nonsense
- LLM slop makes such grotesque mistakes abundant
- Links 01/04/2026: Quantum Hype (Turing and Google), "US Fuel Prices Surge Past $4 a Gallon"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 01/04/2026: "Sacred Week of Cycling" and Zenity for Scripts
- Links for the day
- Losing Debian: Sruthi Chandran election flop
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- French judgment: parasitisme by FSFE & Matthias Kirschner (CO23.002709)
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Microsoft Uses April Fools to 'Joke' About Inserting "Age Verification" (Surveillance) Into Linux
- MinceR says the "lkml [message/page] one is April Fools or at least they're trying to pass it off as April Fools [however] the [GitHub] one was archived on the 8th and yesterday, so that probably isn't..."
- IBM "Headcount Reductions" by Early Retirement and Death
- The tragedy at IBM started 33 years ago on the first of April
- Red Hat: Latin-1 character set under threat from Bishop Michael Martin, North Carolina
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 01/04/2026: Microsoft GitHub Now Pushing Ads Into People's Code/Commits, Earth Overshoot Day Draws Nearer
- Links for the day
- What IBM and EPO Workers Have in Common: European Media Not Covering Very Major News (Press Became Dysfunctional)
- Are IBM operatives working to scuttle the process of investigative journalism?
- Free Speech in the United Kingdom When "Chilling Effect" is Increasingly Prevalent
- If politicians cannot even use a term like "parasitic behaviour", then where do we as a society end up?
- Oracle Lays Off Because of Debt and Commercial Issues, Not Slop
- Like Scam Altman, Larry Ellison hangs around Cheeto King because he could use some bailouts in the form of government contracts or phony money with an incredible name like "Stargate"
- The Real Reason Many Sites and Forums Shun Microsoft Lunduke
- When forums say that they banned Microsoft Lunduke or don't want him mentioned it's probably because they are familiar with the "stench" that follows him around
- Gemini Links 01/04/2026: Hallucinations, Stitching, and Type Systems
- Links for the day
- Lots of Layoffs at IBM, "Media Blackout" About Mass Layoffs at IBM's HashiCorp and Confluent Last Month
- IBM is a dying company circling down the drain while manipulating or paying the media to pretend everything is fine
- Microsoft Under Investigation by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for Abusive Tactics
- What's noteworthy is that this is "set to begin in May"
- Sounds Like Red Hat (IBM) Layoffs in Slop Clothing
- This is an IBM policy. They try to justify staff cuts.
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 31, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, March 31, 2026
- In Time for April Fools (and Easter), 30,000 Oracle 'Pink Slips' While People Are Asleep
- Oracle probably has no choice but to fire a ton of people
- Gemini Links 31/03/2026: Five Years on Gemini (Rob's Gemini Capsule), OFFLIFIRSOCH 2026, and More
- Links for the day
- Slopfarms Persist, But Google Seems to Have Delisted Many
- We are still checking
- Links 31/03/2026: More Energy Shortages Noted, Taylor Swift Faces Trademark Infringement Suit
- Links for the day
- Chaff, Slop and Spam Help Distract From Parallel Crises at IBM
- IBM seems very eager to undermine discussion about what goes on inside
- Lacking Business Model, Bluesky Has Become Slop and Gravitates Towards Plagiarism, Bots
- LLM slop/plagiarism under the guise of "Artificial Intelligence" (AI)
- IBM-Spawned Lexmark Sold, Then Came Mass Layoffs, Now the CEO Who Did This is Leaving
- IBM is really not a magnet for talent at this point
- Not April Fools But April First: Red Hat Staff Becoming "IBM"
- claims of mass layoffs set to kick off at IBM some time soon
- Gemini Links 31/03/2026: Antenna Packed Up, AuraGem and AuraSearch Maintenance
- Links for the day
- Links 31/03/2026: More Social Control Media Bans, BBC Now Run by GAFAM (US) Executive
- Links for the day
- 'Broligarchs' Don't Want Science, They Want Entertainers to Entertain Them (and Make Them Richer)
- Of course this will result in things getting worse in the sciences and everyone who relies on the sciences
- When Republics Turn From Democratic Governments Into Imperialistic Dictatorships
- What goes on in the US would require talking about politics
- Companies That Have Nothing Except Buzzwords and Promises Will Perish
- Dishonest media will perish along with the companies it is covering up for
- The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to be Grilled in Two Weeks' Time by the British Government for "Recent Regulatory Failures"
- we escalated to our politicians
- GNU/Linux Will Thrive as Long as It's Modular, Not Monolithic
- To IBM, it's all about money. Nothing else matters.
- EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part X - People Are Leaving
- "I was happy to be at the EPO in the beginning, but since I realized it's all a big mafia"
- IBM's 33 Years as a "Financial Engineering" (Accounting Tricks) Company
- In relation to Red Hat, this "financial engineering" involves culling many workers and trying to replace them with slop
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 30, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, March 30, 2026
- Links 31/03/2026: Rising Costs, Cyberattacks, Novo Patent Expiry
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 31/03/2026: American Spring, Distributed Systems Simulator, and Calculus for Electronics
- Links for the day
- SUEPO Central Made a Strike (or Striking) Success
- Europe has more than enough qualified patent officials
- IBM Layoffs and Their Expected Scope in April 2026
- Such layoffs impact not only IBM "proper"
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 28 Out of 200: Facing Consequences for Impersonation and Worse
- It's not "funny". It is moreover libellous.
- Links 30/03/2026: South Korea Next to Curb Social Control Media Addiction and Manipulation, Notorious Patents in the US Challenged
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 30/03/2026: Going Back to Wrist Watches and Why LLMs in Programming Suck
- Links for the day
- Did IBM Pay thestreet.com for Puff Pieces? (Like It Did With Forbes)
- If so, there is no disclosure
- Wikipedia - Funded by Slop-pushing Companies and 'Broligarchs' - Gave Benefit of the Doubt to Slop, Then Regretted It
- Wikipedia sucks. Without slop it'll suck a little less.
- Payoffs of Lifelong Commitments
- "The Lifelong Activist"
- Links 30/03/2026: "We Can’t Income-Tax Ultra-Elites"; "The Pirate Bay’s Oldest Torrent Turned 22"
- Links for the day
- Today, Europe's Second-Largest Institution (EPO) Goes on Strike That Can Last Until 2027. Nobody in the Media Covers This!
- "We stand with the protesters"
- When the Cost (or Time) of Maintenance Exceeds the Value
- In recent years it seems like more people learn to remove things from their lives, not add more things
- Passage of Wealth Upwards, Blaming the Victims
- Tim Sweeney's net worth is 5.1 billion USD according to Forbes
- More Media Needs to Tell the Public Slop is a Giant Bubble, It Should Stop Taking "Sponsorship" Money to Inflate This Bubble
- If enough of (what's left of) the media changes its tune and quits being a parrot of GAFAM, then we can debate slop like grown-ups
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 29, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, March 29, 2026
- Trying to Hide One's Abuses by Imposing Silence on Critics ("My Profile Was Private")
- With enough daylight, sooner or later everyone knows you are a vampire
- Fedora Badges System Shows the Demise of Fedora Under IBM
- IBM isn't good at keeping what it buys
- IBM is Sunsetting Red Hat, It Only Uses the Brand and the Shell
- IBM buys or spins off companies as containers for "toxic assets" and debt
- Cisco Systems is a Still Weak Spot With Bug Doors
- nothing to offer except storytelling
- EPO Strike Begins Today and It's the Longest One Yet (Can Last a Year)
- Where's the media?
- Gemini Links 30/03/2026: Approaching April and Arvelie Calendar
- Links for the day