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
- Security and blobs, by Alex Oliva (GNU Linux-Libre)
- Reprinted with permission from Alex Oliva
- Techrights Thanks Every Single EPO Worker Who Went on Strike Today
- We have so much in common
- EPO Staff Union: The Strike Actions and Other Industrial Actions "Have Already Delivered Measurable Gains."
- SUEPO Munich has just issued a statement to staff
- Based on Insider Leaks, Asha Sharma's Job is to Kill XBox While Talking About "AI"
- They cite SneakerSO
- Linux Kernel 7.0 Release Candidate Comes Out, Stallman Turns 73 in Three Weeks
- It predates Microsoft and Apple
- In Greenland, Firefox's Gecko and KHTML (KDE, But Bastardised by Apple) Bigger Than Chrome
- Are those Danes recognising the risk of monoculture?
- IBM Layoffs Definitely Still Happening
- Contrary to what some apologists try to say
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- Probably IBM's Worst Day in Wall Street in Well Over a Decade
- They try to blame some Anthropic slop, but that's just a distraction from IBM having nothing to offer
- The Monday After the 9PM-on-Friday Prepared Puff Pieces-Under-Embargo Microsoft Strategy for XBox Collapse
- There are more layoffs ahead at Microsoft's XBox
- Kyndryl Also in a Freefall Today, James Kavanaugh's Accounting Skills Seem to be Based on Pumping and Dumping
- What is the real value of Kyndryl when its debt is about twice its alleged "worth"?
- Not Much Left to "Pump" in This Slop Bubble
- let's hope that by the end of the year the whole bubble fully implodes
- IBM Common Stock Crashes Hard (Almost $100 Below the Levels of February's Beginning)
- Another Kyndryl?
- Links 23/02/2026: Withdrawal From Slop and Ukraine Invasion Enters Fifth Year
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 23/02/2026: Moving to Gentoo, Wake-on-LAN Script
- Links for the day
- Kyndryl Fell by About 50% in One Day, IBM Fell 23% in 20 Days
- the IBM Titanic
- Trusting the Evil Maids
- Don't listen to liars and frauds
- Aaron Swartz Has Already Explained What Reddit/Conde Nast Meant to Him and Why We Should All Avoid Reddit If We Value Software Freedom
- Aaron Swartz did not start Reddit
- Valnet's Good Legacy of GNU/Linux Advocacy in Journalism Form
- Let's hope they carry on like this
- Coders and Thinkers
- I used to be a hyper-productive coder; these days I do more thinking and writing
- Slop (So-called 'genAI') is Not a Skill, Slop Gets You Suspended or Even Sacked, It Can Eventually End Your Career
- Benj Edwards, a so-called 'Senior' so-called 'AI' so-called 'Reporter'
- Quitting Reddit (Social Control Media Controlled by Conde Nast)
- There is a new post in Reddit
- There is No Such Thing as "AI Skills", "AI Competency", "AI Fluency" Etc.
- Slop does not give anybody an advantage
- Links 23/02/2026: "What Boston Will Cost Me" and Women as Hostages
- Links for the day
- IRC Usage Levels Seem to be Rebounding This Year
- it looks like the total count (tally) of users increased a lot lately
- Microsoft Tricked the Media Into Lying About Microsoft Layoffs in January. Now It Does the Same (in February).
- Microsoft has got the media by the wallet (or balls)
- Free Software Projects Become Slow Due to Slop
- It does not improve efficiency or productivity, it reduces both
- EPO Strike Has Begun (or Resumed)
- The EPO status quo is untenable
- Links 23/02/2026: US Surrenders to Climate Change (to Benefit Oil Companies and Slop), UK Court of Appeal to Hear Mazur
- Links for the day
- GAFAM Jobs No Longer Lucrative
- Those days are long gone
- Germans Recognise the Contagion is Digital, Not Racial
- How to dismantle or neutralise those weapons? Turn them off
- Free Software (or Software Freedom) Ain't No Religion
- It's hardly surprising that some of the loudest opponents of Software Freedom and its luminaries also disregard or bend facts
- Dr. Andy Farnell Explains Why the Slop Industry is Like Trespassers and Thieves
- interesting new article about robots.txt files
- The Demise of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and Profession Based Around Bullying With SLAPPs and Empty Threats
- For press to survive and thrive in the UK we need the hired gun to be submerged
- Gemini Links 23/02/2026: Imperfect Journal, Evil, and "Progress Goes Boing!"
- Links for the day
- “Power is a Thing of Perception. They Don't Need to be Able to Kill You. They Just Need You to Think They are Able to Kill You” ― Julian Assange
- When leadership becomes corrupt enough to lose a sense of authority its days are numbered; it'll be replaced
- IBM Has Already Admitted 2026 Mass Layoffs (in 4Q Earnings Call)
- We showed this earlier this month, but some people bring that up again
- Reasons to Go on Strike in the European Patent Office (EPO)
- If you live in Europe and don't work for the EPO, you can still help
- First speech of Chanellor Hitler, Andreas Tille & Debian denounce Branden Robinson
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, February 22, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, February 22, 2026
- More and More Projects Quit Microsoft GitHub This Year, XBox Will See the Same
- Microsoft GitHub's embrace of slop as "strategic" gives us a clue of what'll happen to XBox very soon
- Google "Intelligence": Despite Slam-Dunk or "Smoking Gun" Proof, Drug Abuse in EPO Leadership is "Unverified Allegations"
- Google's slop (so-called 'AI') lacks intelligence
- 8,000 Pages/Articles Per Year
- We're eager to maintain a good production/publication pace and illuminate the sinister attempts to interfere with Freedom of the Press in the UK
- Don't Use the Future Tense to Discuss the Slop Bubble
- Wall Street does not react to reality; it reacts to panic, which is related to expectations
- Gemini Links 22/02/2026: Okonomiyaki and Midcrunch Crisis
- Links for the day
- The Broken Window Industry and Its Ongoing Desires to Make Technology Less Dependable
- Reliable computing is becoming harder to find
- Freedom Means Accepting He or She Who is Different
- In the Debian community we're sadly seeing some authoritarian overreach this month
- New XBox CEO Typecast in Social Control Media
- Microsoft apologists will fall back on (or shuffle between) the "racist" and "sexist" angle
- Sites Without JavaScript Deserve Your Visits
- We're not arguing that the Web should be as simple or barebones like Gemini Protocol/GemText
- EPO Strikes Are Already Working
- Campinos is already going "into hiding"
- Microsoft Windows Falls to Another New All-Time Low in Guatemala, It is a Bottomless Pit
- Maybe users come to realise that Windows means back doors and those doors are open to a regime that ought not be trusted
- "XBox" Will Become Slop After Mass Layoffs
- When all else fails, "AI it"
- Links 22/02/2026: Hardware Price Hikes Across the Board, "Microsoft Issues Statement on Potential Layoffs"
- Links for the day
- Microsoft "Layoffs Incoming"
- This transition isn't about promoting games; it's about canning the console
- Links 22/02/2026: "Bloat of Modern Fitness Apps" and Wikipedia Deprecates Archive.today
- Links for the day
- Our IRC 5-Year Anniversary (for Self-Hosted) is Fast Approaching
- A week from now it's March already
- Gemini Links 22/02/2026: Dream Job Gone and Slop in Taskwarrior
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 21, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, February 21, 2026
- GNU/Linux Grew a Lot in Nicaragua
- We've not noticed until today
- Techrights Has Over 1,000 Good Articles 'in the Tank'
- Drafts, notes, and lengthy documents
- New Article Challenges Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) for Choosing the Wrong SLAPP Cases to Investigate
- The one point we can agree on is that SRA does not know how to correctly select the worst culprits/offenders
- The Brand 'Watsonx' is a Terrible Name for IBM 'Hey Hi' (Chatbots) Because Watson Agreed With Adolf Hitler
- Almost a century has passed and IBM still believes that selling "intelligence", chatbots in particular, should be done under the name "Watson"
- Why IBM is Still Scary and Dangerous
- Keep a distance from "Big Blue" Bully
- Measuring the Growth of Our Mission and Community
- Something between experiment and prototype
- Richard Stallman in the United States - Part III - Georgia Tech Did a Fine Job Upholding Free Speech Principles
- The real problem was social control media (toxic)
- Debian's Master is Deleting Criticism of SystemD and Other Things (On-Topic and Published by Debian Developers), Resorts to the Excuse Messages Are "Too Long"
- Censorship serves nobody except the masters that control this censorship
- Digg's Latest Incarnation Already Failed, It's Infested With LLM Slop
- Many submissions go to slopfarms and some get summarised by slop
- Gemini Links 21/02/2026: Veganism and DeskPi RackMate T0
- Links for the day
- On The Web, XBox Already a Dying Breed
- Down to about 0.05% on large machines, based on statCounter [...] Microsoft will never publicly admit or say how many billions it lost on the XBox
- 2026 a Year of 'Top-Down' Microsoft Layoffs (Management First)
- Stay tuned for what comes next
- Your "Likes" Aren't Yours and They're Mostly "Worthless Clicks"
- Social hermits are not popular, irrespective of how many "Facebook friends" or "likes" they get
- Waggener Edstrom/Frank Shaw Lied, There Are Definitely Microsoft Layoffs
- Microsoft never issued a formal statement, it made allusions by proxy
- Microsoft-Controlled Media With Embargo and Press Operatives
- This won't be the last example of media manipulation for narrative control or face-saving "damage control"
- Slop Hype Makes Our Core Technology Less Reliable and Far Less Resilient (We Pay for the Catastrophe That Follows)
- Only slop-free projects can be trusted
- Going for 1,000 (Days of Uptime)
- universal records are vastly better
- Firefox is No-Go in China, Not Even 1% "Market Share" Anymore
- Given Mozilla's utterly rubbish marketing these days (politics over technical aspects), set aside the cheerleading for slop, there's hardly a chance of Mozilla Firefox reaching or exceeding 10% again
- EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part III - It's in His Eyes
- Workers are free to draw their own conclusions
- Links 21/02/2026: Tensions Over Iran and Illegal Cheeto Tariffs, Presidential Approval Sags
- Links for the day
- Links 21/02/2026: "Moving Away From Cloudflare", Many Layoffs or Shutdowns in Games (Including XBox/Microsoft)
- Links for the day
- GNU Linux-libre is a Grown-Up Today
- "before that, every distro that wanted to respect its users' freedom had to remove itself all of the binary blobs that were distributed as part of the kernel Linux's so-called sources"
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 20, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, February 20, 2026
- Gemini Links 21/02/2026: "The Evil of Action" and Slop Bots Causing Great Harm Online (Not Just the Web)
- Links for the day