02.05.12

Contents

• GNU/Linux
  • Distributions
  • Devices/Embedded
• Free Software/Open Source
• Leftovers

GNU/Linux

• Desktop

  • Lenovo Wants to be Number One in PCs. Look What They Do in India.

    They are off to a good start clinching a deal for 300K (3 lakh) notebooks running GNU/Linux for ELCOT in the Tamil Nadu state of India.

• Kernel Space

  • Talk Of A Brand New API For KVM Virtualization

    A discussion has been started about a next-generation API for Linux KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) virtualization.

    Avi Kivity of Red Hat has written to the KVM developers in a proposal for a brand new API for KVM. The API would rework syscalls, state accessors, KVM’s device model, ioeventfd/irqfd, guest memory management, and the vCPU FD mmap area, among other potential improvements over the existing API.

  • Graphics Stack

    • Is Compiz On Its Deathbed?

      It’s been brought up in the forums about the state of upstream Compiz developments. Some Phoronix readers go as far as calling upstream Compiz being dead. Those comments were largely based upon outstanding Compiz bugs, the lack of Compiz releases, and the lead developer apologizing for the “failure” of the Compiz project on his blog. In his blog posting from December, Sam Spilsbury apologized for the lack of new direction, lack of development, and not any increased stability for the project.

    • Wayland 1.0 Is Set For H1’2012 Release

      A few days ago I wrote that the Wayland Display Server is preparing for a stable 1.0 release and now this weekend from FOSDEM new information has been learned.

      Kristian Høgsberg shared during his session on Saturday afternoon in Brussels that they are indeed planning the 1.0 release. In fact, the Wayland 1.0 stable release should be here soon. This stable (i.e. non-experimental) release is planned to be out in the first half of 2012. So before the summer, we should have a stable Wayland release where the core protocol and APIs will not be broken after that point.

    • Intel’s Brewing New Linux Graphics Driver Features

      Eric Anholt of Intel spoke on Saturday at FOSDEM 2012 in Belgium about the state of the Intel Linux graphics driver user-space and some of their future plans.

      At the bottom is the video I recorded of Anholt’s presentation about the Intel Linux graphics driver developed out of their Open-Source Technology Center. Here are some of the keynotes from his FOSDEM 2012 presentation:

• Applications

  • Proprietary

    • Dropbox offers an additional 5GB of cloud storage to beta users

      For users willing to be guinea pigs, Dropbox is offering an opportunity to score 5GB of free space through the popular cloud storage service. PCWorld is reporting the 5GB is actually in addition to the standard 2GB issued to free users, making the possible total for free Dropbox users a roomy 7GB.

      Some of you may also be interested to know that Microsoft’s Skydrive is still offering 25GB of cloud storage. Despite the enormous amount of storage space Skydrive offers, limits imposed on the service have made it unappealing for many. Microsoft claims it’s working on alleviating those concerns though, for what it is worth.

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • Synergy! as many PCs as you like with just one keyboard and one mouse!

    • How to Jailbreak iPhone 4S and iPad 2 on Linux

    • How to : Download Google Maps for Offline Purpose in Android

    • How to create facebook application using PHP and graph api

    • Top Boxee Box tips and tricks

    • Automatically Detect File Changes on Your Server

  • Wine

    • Bordeaux 75% off sale

    • Wine 1.4-rc2 released

  • Games

    • What The New Linux Game Publishing Will Look Like

      Clive Crous, the new CEO of Linux Game Publishing following the resignation of founder and CEO Michael Simms, has issued a message to Linux gamers concerning the future of LGP.

      The key items brought up in the message by the new Linux Game Publishing CEO are listed below while the message in full can be read via this copy in the forums.

      - Michael Simms will still be involved with Linux Game Publishing in an advisory capacity and in porting some titles over to Linux.

• Desktop Environments

  • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

    • KDE Commit-Digest for 22nd January 2012

• Distributions

  • New Releases

    • Latest Release: Hanthana 15.5 i386 DVD ISO ~ 3.8 GB

    • Netrunner 4.1 version (32/64bit)

  • Debian Family

    • Derivatives

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin Updates: Unity 5.2 Is Available to Update

• Devices/Embedded

  • Phones

    • Android

      • Bouncing malware from Android Market

        The battle between malware writers and those trying to make their life miserable is a never ending one, will forever be a never ending one. The nature of the battle field makes it so.

        The bad guys will always find a way, sooner or later, to penetrate the security wall around an application. And as soon as one hole is patched, they will find another one. It is like a movie that never ends, with your device as the stage.

  • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

    • Spark Linux tablet specs updated, going up for pre-order next week

Free Software/Open Source

• SaaS

  • Banks Push Hadoop Envelope to Open Big Data’s
    Secrets

    Given the promise of new analytics technologies, becoming more data-driven is on the minds of most IT decision makers these days. In a recent report on the impact of big data on analytics, “More than half of the organizations polled identified analytics as among their top five IT priorities,” says Julie Lockner senior analyst and VP of data at the Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), an IT strategic advisory firm based in Milford, Mass.

    “With the promise big data is poised to bring,” says Lockner, “organizations are exploring their options for solving business challenges with emerging [data] technologies. It’s just not practical or cost-effective to use traditional [database] platforms and technologies that were designed before the big-data era.”

  • Big Data: Will Open Source Software Challenge BI & Analytics Software Vendors

• Semi-Open Source

  • Analyzing Magento Community Edition

    Magento Community Edition is an open source system, which means that it can be downloaded for free, and modified to suit specific programming and/or design requirements. What’s unique and valuable about this model (compared to hosted solutions-where one is locked into a specific company for hosting and support) is that an ecommerce entrepreneur can have complete control over his/her website.

• BSD

  • KMS For FreeBSD Is Still A Work In Progress

    FreeBSD still lacks mainline support for kernel mode-setting (KMS) on modern hardware, but at least it’s still being worked on.

    As I routinely get such questions via email, for those wondering about the state of kernel mode-setting (KMS) or the ability to use the latest Linux DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) drivers on FreeBSD, it’s still out-of-tree and is considered a work-in-progress to be used by experienced BSD desktop users.

• FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Lecture on free software

    A lecturer on ‘Copyright v/s Community in the Age of Computer Networks’ was delivered by Richard Mathew Stallman developer of GNU/Linux at the BKB Auditorium at Gauhati University today.

• Open Access/Content

  • Elsevier Publishing Boycott Gathers Steam Among Academics

    Elsevier, the global publishing company, is responsible for The Lancet, Cell, and about 2,000 other important journals; the iconic reference work Gray’s Anatomy, along with 20,000 other books—and one fed-up, award-winning mathematician.

  • U of T and Western sign agreement with Access Copyright

    I am very pleased to announce the agreement of a voluntary licence between Access Copyright, University of Toronto and Western University (formerly University of Western Ontario). The attached press release went out at 7:00 pm today (Monday) and is now on our website.

  • U. of T. and Western Capitulate to Access Copyright

    In an astonishing development that has caught all but a handful by surprise, U. of T. and Western have signed copyright deals with Access Copyright that appear to be an early and complete capitulation to an important battle over the costs and parameters of access to knowledge in Canadian post-secondary institutions.

• Programming

  • Google Summer of Code 2012 is on!

Leftovers

• Microsoft Loses US Smart Phone Market Share — Again

• Finance

  • Goldman to face mortgage debt class-action lawsuit

    Goldman Sachs Group Inc was ordered by a federal judge to face a securities class-action lawsuit accusing it of defrauding investors about a 2006 offering of securities backed by risky mortgage loans from a now-defunct lender.

• Censorship

  • Transport Canada Issues DMCA Takedown Over On-the-Record Response

    Transport Canada has reportedly issued a DMCA takedown notice to Scribd over an on-the-record response it provided to a journalist. The move is particularly odd (though not unprecedented, see here and here) given the document was issued to a journalist and the government changed its crown copyright licence last year to allow for private and non-commercial public use without the need for further permission.

• Civil Rights

  • Assange followers give a stand-out performance

    WIKILEAKS founder Julian Assange faces a tense wait after seven judges of the British Supreme Court adjourned to decide whether he will be extradited to Sweden to face allegations of sexual assault.

    The two-day appeal by Assange against a lower court’s decision to uphold the validity of a Swedish arrest warrant marks the end of a year-long legal battle to avoid extradition, sparked by allegations by two women in 2010 that he sexually assaulted them.

    The appeal ended in a war of words between Assange’s barrister, Dinah Rose, and Clare Montgomery, QC, representing the Swedish Judicial Authority, as each sought to persuade the judges to support their respective positions not only on the fate of Julian Assange, but on the future of a controversial extradition treaty that operates throughout the European Union.

• Internet/Net Neutrality

  • Rogers vows end to Internet ‘throttling’ in 2012

    Rogers Communications Inc. RCI.A-T will stop “throttling” Internet traffic on its network later this year – a long-awaited move that follows a similar decision by rival BCE Inc. BCE-T

• Intellectual Monopolies

  • Copyrights

    • You Will Never Kill Piracy, and Piracy Will Never Kill You

    • Ten Key Questions and Answers About Bill C-11, SOPA, ACTA, and the TPP

      In recent days there has been massive new interest in Canadian copyright reform as thousands of people write to their MPs to express concern about the prospect of adding SOPA-style rules to Bill C-11 (there are even plans for public protests beginning to emerge). The interest has resulted in some completely unacceptable threats and confusion – some claiming that the Canadian bill will be passed within 14 days (not true) and others stating that proposed SOPA-style changes are nothing more than technical changes to the bill (also not true). Even the mainstream media is getting into the mix, with the Financial Post’s Terrance Corcoran offering his “expert” legal opinion that CRIA’s lawyers are likely to lose their lawsuit against isoHunt.

    • ACTA

      • Acta goes too far, says MEP

        The French MEP who resigned his position in charge of negotiating the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta) has said it “goes too far” by potentially cutting access to lifesaving generic drugs and restricting internet freedom.

      • Maladministration complaint against the European Parliament

        I just filed a maladministration complaint with the Ombudsman against the European Parliament for systematically lying about the existence of documents:

        The European Parliament cultivates secrecy.

        On 21 June 2011, the coordinators of the International Trade committee (INTA) decided to ask the Parliament’s legal service an opinion on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The INTA committee’s Chairman, Mr Moreira, sent a letter to the legal service. In the letter, the Chairman allegedly left out a question on safeguards against disproportional criminalisation. While this was known in Parliament, no Member took action to solve this. I requested, among other documents, the coordinators’ minutes of the INTA committee.

      • Ambassador Apologises for ACTA, Anonymous Announces Attacks (adds)

      • Smoking gun on ACTA Criminal Sanctions

        We discovered a smoking gun on the criminal sanctions aspect of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). A declassified document reveals that the Commission made proposals and fundamentally steered the negotiations on criminal sanctions in ACTA for which no corresponding EU harmonisation exists. There is no “Acquis” element on criminal enforcement of intellectual property rights, yet. Criminal sanctions in ACTA were formally negotiated by the Council “Presidency” on behalf of the EU member states.

      • Can Poland stop ACTA?

        The EU Council and Commission have opposing opinions on whether Poland can stop ACTA. Who is right? – only the Court of Justice may tell.

        According to ZDNet, Poland may not ratify ACTA, which could spell the end of ACTA for the entire European Union:

        “Tusk’s backtracking could spell the end of ACTA for the entire European Union. If Poland or any other EU member state, or the European Parliament itself, fails to ratify the document, it becomes null and void across the union.”

        ZDNet added: “The European Commission confirmed to ZDNet UK that if just one member state does not ratify ACTA, the deal will not enter into force anywhere within the EU.”