Links 1/3/2012: WebOS Layoffs, Eclipse Board Elections
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2012-03-01 09:21:05 UTC
- Modified: 2012-03-01 09:21:06 UTC
Contents
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Kernel Space
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OpenGL 3.0 can only be used with Intel's new graphics driver if a potentially patented technology is enabled in Mesa 3D. A new version of util-linux standard utilities collection adds several new programs. Videos of ELC presentations offer useful information on testing the ktest.pl framework, the state of ARM code in the Linux kernel and function tracing with ftrace.
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Applications
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In "Tweaking Text in Scribus," I briefly described the tools available for manipulating text in Scribus. Now, it's time to really get your typographic geek on, and look in greater detail at how to adjust the spacing of text in Scribus: how to adjust the space between lines of text (leading), between characters (kerning), and upon a line (tracking).
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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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New Releases
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Red Hat Family
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4t Networks now offers CentOS 6 for Linux-based VPS hosting and Cloud hosting services. CentOS 6 provides a free alternative to RHEL, for Linux-based clients.
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Fedora
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Debian Family
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Derivatives
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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Last night we kicked off the new season of our little Ubuntu Podcast with some new segments. We thought we’d have a little debate between the presenters, with live listeners able to tune in and give their opinion and feedback. The motion chosen was “Unity is the best choice for the future of Ubuntu”.
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The Raspberry Pi foundation attempted to launch its $35 Linux computer on Tuesday evening, but the organization's retail partners couldn't cope with the massive demand. Two British electronic component distributors that intended to sell the product were unable to do so--their websites went down, succumbing to the stampede of eager enthusiasts who sought to purchase the hotly-anticipated system.
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Suddenly tiny computers running Linux are everywhere. Norwegian company FXI Technologies has started taking the first orders for its Cotton Candy Linux computer that can run either Ubuntu or Android 4.0.
The $199 (€£139) computer’s small size – it is enclosed within a USB stick case – belies its power. Underneath lies a custom design comprising a 1.2 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex A9 processor with 1GB or RAM, supporting for up to 64GB of microSD storage.
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We spend time with Eben Upton, the man at heart of the $25 computer project known as Raspberry Pi. We learn all about the hardware, the dev board pricing scandal and – amazingly – why Ubuntu doesn’t want anything to do with it. Though otherwise candid, Eben refused to be drawn on the existence of a Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled Raspberry Pi ‘Model C’…
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Phones
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Android
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The Android-x86 Project has published a release candidate of its Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" port for the x86 platform. Aimed at netbooks and tablets, it includes the 3.0.8 Linux kernel with KMS enabled and, its developers say, should be able to run at most netbooks' native resolution.
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When I show friends and colleagues the things I’m able to do on my rooted Android device, many of them end up asking me to work similar magic on their hardware. I’ve always been happy to help out, and after a bit of research at home (how to get root, custom ROMs that are available, etc) I usually come to work a day or two later equipped with my laptop and the appropriate software. Unfortunately, I’ve recently come to realize that this doesn’t always work out to the advantage of the other person, or to me for that matter.
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Now that AT&T's lined up to get the just-revealed One X, and T-Mobile's taken claim to the One S (with Verizon always fed a steady stream of quality hardware), HTC's plans for Sprint seem to be up in the air, especially with the once cutting-edge EVO 3D closing in on its one-year launch anniversary. Well we've now learned from a trusted source that a high-end handset is in fact on its way to Sprint from the House of One, and it's codenamed the HTC Jewel.
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French Zigbee and NFC specialist Taztag is to unveil the first Android phone to include support for both NFC and Zigbee wireless communications at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week.
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Equalis, the leading provider of numerical analysis, visualization and simulation solutions for engineers and scientists, built on the Scilab open source numerical computation platform, today announced the availability of its Control and Power Systems module. These sophisticated new capabilities are included as part of the Equalis Pro Plus solution.
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Robert Frosts’s classic poem, The Road Not Taken, concludes with the line “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
If you’re a road-less-traveled kinda geek, then come along as we learn more about Rockbox, an open-source firmware upgrade for portable media players.
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Web Browsers
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Mozilla
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Once the darling of the web world Firefox has lost a little of its shine of late with many users being lured over to Google’s Chrome browser.
In response the Mozilla Foundation has turned up the heat and is now piling on the changes in an effort to keep up with the competition. Mozilla’s latest offering is a beta version of Firefox 11.
The new version has a healthy number of new features, but will it be enough to hold off Chrome?
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SaaS
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Databases
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Oracle/Java/LibreOffice
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OpenOffice.org has long been one of the top competitors to Microsoft Office, but the open source productivity suite's future was clouded in 2009 when Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems, which had maintained OpenOffice.org since late 1999. Oracle eventually donated the OpenOffice.org code to the Apache Foundation, which promises a new release this year.
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CMS
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Business
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FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
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Vastness of open source can leave anyone in confusion. Whether it is distro hunting or phrases that are used to explain related concepts. The one which annoys every single beginner is that Open source is said to distribute free software, so far so good, but what exactly we mean by free? Free as is Beer or Free as in Speech? Keep reading.
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Project Releases
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Minix, the Unix operating system that inspired Linus Torvalds to create Linux, has been expanded to give users a wider range of commands and features, thanks in large part to a Google Summer of Code project from last year.
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Public Services/Government
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Chris Chant, Director of the government’s G-Cloud programme, has confirmed to Computerworld UK that the next iteration of the recently opened CloudStore will be based on open source software.
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Openness/Sharing
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Programming
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The Eclipse Foundation has opened this year's elections for its board members. There are six seats on the board being elected, with three seats for elected representatives of the Committer Members (who contribute code to Eclipse projects) and three seats for the Sustaining Members (made up of of fee paying Solutions Members and Enterprise Members). There are four candidates for each set of three seats. The voting closes on 16 March 2012 and the final results of the election will be announced at the annual general meeting; this will take place at EclipseCon 2012, 26-29 March.
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The question is whether open sourcing can turn hardware into easyware. The concept of open source hardware came into the forefront with Facebook and its Open Compute project becoming popular. Customized server hardware is not an unknown concept though and companies like Rackspace and Google have been getting customized designs for quite a while now.
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Security
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Google has officially withdrawn its sponsorship from the 2012 Pwn2Own security challenge. According to Google, they pulled out after they discovered that exploits demonstrated at the event did not have to be disclosed to the affected vendors.
HP's TippingPoint which runs the annual event, disagrees.
"Affected vendors always receive full details for vulnerabilities discovered during the Pwn2Own contest – this is a key benefit for the vendor community," Aaron Portnoy, Manager of the Security Research Team at HP TippingPoint, told InternetNews.com. "HP DVLabs analyzes each vulnerability it receives to determine the root problem, severity of the vulnerability, and its susceptibility to attack to help vendors assess the risks and deal with mitigating them."
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Cablegate
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The first blow came in December, when private analysis firm Stratfor - which gathers open-source and paid-source information on global issues for subscription-based clients - had its company e-mail hacked. It was reportedly the work of the loose-knit, yet well-feared group of hackers known as Anonymous.
This week, the second blow was delivered as the website WikiLeaks began posting what it says is a body of internal Stratfor e-mails numbering in the millions and reportedly laying out just how the sausage is made at a modern-day private intelligence firm.
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Censorship
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Internet freedom and innovation are at risk of being stifled by a new United Nations treaty that aims to bring in more regulation, Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt has warned.
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Intellectual Monopolies
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Copyrights
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Although we are constantly reminded (or "educated" as they like to put it) that the major studios and labels are only looking out for the interests of the artists, we are equally constantly reminded (by these artists) that this just simply isn't the case. The latest artist to remind us exactly what's wrong with the standing system? Director Alex Cox, best known for Repo Man and Sid & Nancy, both cult classic films and punk touchstones.
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Following Rumblefish claiming copyright via YouTube's ContentID system (and putting ads on the video to monetize it) of a guy's nature video because the birds singing in the background sounded too much like a Rumblefish-licensed track, Rumblefish's CEO has gone into PR crisis mode, setting up an AMA (ask me anything) on Reddit to address the story. While he gets a smidgen of kudos for the funny title of it...
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A couple weeks ago, we pointed to an absolutely ridiculous "Africa IP Forum" that was being organized by WIPO and the US Department of Commerce, where it appeared the entire event was around forcing extreme IP enforcement on Africa, despite plenty of evidence that developing nations, such as most of those in Africa, are hurt by such enforcement.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Who Asked Software in the Public Interest (SPI) for a Refund? ($100,000, Resulting in Losses of $267,201 in 12 Months, Highest-Ever Losses)
- The IRS does not reveal who or what's tied to this refund (or the cause/reason)
- "Cloud Computing" Was Always a Joke, But This Week Was the Punchline
- Maybe stop following tech trends and fashions
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- Slopwatch: Google News is Promoting Fake 'Articles' About Fake Xubuntu, Fake Articles About Replacing Windows With GNU/Linux
- The quality of the Web deteriorates and unless someone cleans up the mess, real sites will lose an incentive to produce anything
- When "AI Layoffs" Mean Layoffs Due to the "AI" Bubble Popping
- many people that are laid off by Microsoft claim to be specialists in "AI"
- Mysterious grant forfeited, $100,000 from Software in the Public Interest accounts 2023
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Evidence: bullying, student union behaviour: Armijn Hemel's FSFE resignation
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Evidence: psychological abuse, stalking, Galia Mancheva, Susanne Eiswirt ignored by FSFE judgment for Matthias Kirschner
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Helping FSFE scam victims and conference organisers
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Nigerian fraud in FSFE constitution
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Worrying and Amusing Stories of "Clown Computing" Gone Awry
- Many of these disasters could be avoided
- Some Large German Media Covers Richard Stallman's Talks in Germany Earlier This Week
- LLM-based chatbots are just "bullshit generators" (as he has long called them)
- Links 22/10/2025: Amazon Plans to Replace Workers With Robotics, AWS and Clown Computing in General Ridiculed
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 22/10/2025: Niri Completely Changes Multitasking and Overview of Diff-ers
- Links for the day
- Links 22/10/2025: Study on Misinformation by Slop and Heavily Debt-Sabbled Microsoft OpenAI (ClosedSlop) Uses "Browser" as Gimmick/Distraction
- Links for the day
- They've Already Spent Close to a Million Dollars on Lawyers and Sent Us About 50 KG of Legal Papers (Sponsored by Mysterious Third Party) to Try to Censor Techrights, Without Success
- They try to overcompensate with sheer volume for a lack of solid, clear arguments (we are the victims here)
- Trouble in Red Hat/IBM and a Retreat to Ponzi Economics in Search of Wall Street Market Heist
- Would you invest your life savings in this kind of crap?
- 12 Months Ago the 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Officially Went 'Tag-Team'
- We're actually sort of flattered or proud that such despicable people are so desperate to censor us
- "Cloud Computing" Does Not Mean Safety
- Fault tolerance is related to the notion of software freedom
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 21, 2025
- IRC logs for Tuesday, October 21, 2025
- The Fall of Windows: From Something to Nothing
- Of course Microsoft will pretend everything is fine and "just trust the hey hi" (AI)
- Sounds Like Fedora is Ready to Become Less of a Slave of Microsoft (GitHub)
- This seems like a belated move in a positive direction
- XBox is a Dead Microsoft Product in a Dying Industry
- It's probable that another wave of XBox layoffs is just over the horizon (maybe even before month's end)
- Progress on Techrights Site Search
- Fun times
- IBM's Bluewashing of Red Hat Means the Layoffs Are Silent, Barely Reported
- Don't wait to hear about "Red Hat layoffs"
- Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Happy Disconnection, AWS Falling Apart, Closing of Gemlog Blue
- Links for the day
- Full Audio of Today's Richard Stallman Talk in the Technical University of Munich
- Free/Libre software and freedom in the digital society
- Microsoft XBox is Just Vapourware (Promises of Hardware That Doesn't Exist), Real Products Perish
- just as developers lose interest in developing for XBox Microsoft is increasing the costs imposed upon them
- Slopwatch: Fake Articles (Slop) in "Linux" Clothing in Google News (Noise)
- all about what Google does
- Links 21/10/2025: Even "Inventor of Vibe Coding" Rejects Vibe Coding, USPTO Experiments With Slop in Examination
- Links for the day
- Richard Stallman Talk Now Available for Viewing (Archived Copy, Not Live-streamed)
- This recording is over 2 hours old
- Links 21/10/2025: AWS-Induced Chaos and Social Control Media Curbs
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Programming, StarGrid, Brand-New Palm OS Strategy Game in 2025, and Chatbot as Addiction Mechanisms
- Links for the day
- The African Lion and the American Cowards
- Safaris exist for people to watch and enjoy animals
- Amazon Web Shenanigans Perfectly Timed for Today's Talk by Richard Stallman
- Maybe listen to him instead of looking for excuses to ridicule the messenger
- Mission:Libre Has Taken Off (Project by Carmen Maris)
- there will be a lot more to report on next month (after the event)
- Techrights to Publish More EPO Leaks Next Week
- We're meanwhile also doing lots of work on search, whose interface now looks better
- Links 21/10/2025: 'The Lost Art' of Neon Signs and Twitter (X) to Enable Identity Theft (or Handle Theft) as a Service
- Links for the day
- Plagiarism With LLM Slop: Hindustan Times (HT Digital Streams Limited) Has Become a Slop Factory/Hub
- What a disgrace
- A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe, by Richard Stallman
- "The surveillance imposed on us today is worse than in the Soviet Union. We need laws to stop this data being collected in the first place"
- Next Week We Launch Search at Techrights
- We're planning to launch it some time next week. Maybe Tuesday, maybe Thursday.
- Talk by Richard Stallman Will be Live-streamed in Less Than 10 Hours
- Happy hacking
- "No Kings" in the Software World (GAFAM Should Not Exist, Either)
- "No Kings" is a good slogan. Let's start by ridding ourselves of masters, not only those who reside in DC or visit DC
- Every Morning
- Bugs/edge cases combined with automation can spell disaster
- Insane, Deliberately Dishonest, or Just Another Bigot?
- very intellectually-dishonest human being
- A Lot of Techrights is Built on Perl
- Perl also runs the sister site
- The Register MS Selling Slop for Microsoft (Vapourware, Ponzi Scheme, False Claims)
- What will be left of The Register MS if it keeps repeating falsehoods and looking to profit from Ponzi schemes?
- analytics.usa.gov Says Less Than 14% of Web Requests (to Government Sites) Come From Vista 11
- Vista 11 was released more than 4 years ago!
- People Who Attempt to Take Down Correct Information Need a Doctor a Day
- “Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” ― George Orwell
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 20, 2025
- IRC logs for Monday, October 20, 2025
- Vista 11 is Sinking While Microsoft is PIPing (Mass Layoffs But Silent Layoffs)
- We're witnessing a shift in platform dominance
- Richard Stallman is Having a Good Week Already (Stallman Was Right About 'Clown Computing')
- That alone is worth bringing up in his talk
- An Update About Soylent News, With Jan Rinok "Back in the Saddle"
- Burnout or "near burnout" a possibility when having to curate abuse
- When Prominent GNU/Linux Distros Are Run by Spies
- What has Microsoft Canonical become?
- More Publishers and Companies Nowadays Say "GNU/Linux", Not "Linux"
- It's not to see InstallAware saying GNU/Linux this week
- Google News is Now Promoting a Parasitic Slopfarm Called "findarticles.com", Where Plagiarism of "Linux" Articles is Rampant
- Does Google even care about the slop epidemic? Google itself is a vendor of slop now (and it calls it "Gemini")
- Gemini Links 20/10/2025: Pumpkin Carving, "Hey Hi", and Other Buzzwords
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: Google News Promoting Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
- What is the value of Google News if so many results in it are fake 'articles?
- Rejecting 'Snoop-Phones' and Turning "Old" Phones (or Tablets) Into Freedom-Respecting Appliances
- Paul Fernhout (pdfernhout.net) wrote back to Akira Urushibatathis this past weekend
- Our Uptime This Year Was Better Than AWS (Also a Lot Cheaper)
- We never used "the cloud"
- Amazon Web Shenanigans
- An ongoing, experimental endeavour
- Death of Elias Diem: FSFE mailing list archives hidden
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 20/10/2025: Louvre Museum Reveals Weakness, About 7 Million Protest US Turning Into Oligarchy/Monarchy
- Links for the day
- They Should Have Listened to Techrights Over a Month Earlier (Xubuntu Site Compromised)
- we reported this issue about 40 days earlier and nobody did anything about it
- Richard Stallman to Give Another Talk Today in Bavaria (Bavarian Academy of Science)
- Tomorrow at 6 PM he speaks in Munich
- Apple is the Company of Dictators and Worse
- Apple is just another greedy corporation in search of sweatshops and even pedophiles (especially the high-profile ones)
- Counting Unhatched Eggs Is Not Counting Chickens
- Everything here will persist as normal
- Barry Kauler Explains That Puppy Linux and EasyOS Exclude Systemd to Keep Things Simple
- Barry Kauler's Puppy Linux is in the community's hands. He now focuses on EasyOS and more.
- The "Infinite Bread"
- The biblical story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 has software parallels
- Half a Year After Brian Fagioli Got Kicked Out of BetaNews for Slop He's Still Doing LLM Slop and Slop Images Targeting 'Linux' (Plagiarising Original Works)
- If the Web gets polluted or flooded by slopfarms such as these, and Slashdot then sends traffic so these slopfarms (Slashdot probably doesn't do this intentionally), then real writers with real knowledge of GNU/Linux will lose the spark for publishing
- In Many Cases and in Many Different Ways, Technology Became Less Durable and Less Reliable Over Time
- The "modern" things are more complex. And complexity is a foe or reliability and repair-ability.
- Microsoft's LinkedIn is Losing Money, Traffic, and Hope; Now It Wants to Sell Its Users' Lifeblood (and Data)
- Let this be a reminder of what social control media really is about
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 19, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, October 19, 2025
- Campaign of FUD Against Framework Laptops and GNU/Linux (Using Microsoft's Attack on Linux, 'Secure Boot')
- Ritual Defamation Cult has turned its attention over to Framework
- Microsoft Lunduke: Freedom of Speech Means Spreading What I Have to Say and Banning People I Disagree With
- 4Chan is one he aims for and he is siccing 4Chan trolls at people he doesn't like
- Liberation From 'The Feed'
- They rank things based on the editor's choice/ideology (he or she knows the sponsors, hence the masters)
- Microsoft's Killing of Vista 10 Seems to Have Resulted in More Articles About GNU/Linux (But Also FUD)
- We not only saw a rise in traffic, we also saw a remarkable rise in the number of articles