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Links 21/3/2012: Torvalds Secrets, Radeon HD 7000 Driver Now Free/Libre





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • A Peek Behind the Curtain at Puppet Labs
    In this interview, Luke Kanies, CEO and founder of Puppet Labs, explains why the Puppet configuration management tool is a huge hit with sys admins, and tells us what to expect next from the popular open source project.


  • Open source moving in mobile
    We got another reminder of how disruptive open source software is to mobile computing this week, when Linux and Android merged back together. This appears to be good news for a number of parties, but Android and Linux developers and users seem particularly likely to benefit. The inclusion of Android code in the Linux kernel and the ability for Linux developers to more easily work on the Android environment and applications also ties into some of the key topics we’ll be covering in a Webcast March 21 titled ‘Open Source, A Tale of Two Cities in the Mobile Enterprise,’ presented by 451 Research and Black Duck Software.


  • Web Browsers



    • Chrome

      • Chromium OS Desktop Shell Eschews Google's Cloud-Only Mantra
        Ever since Google started working on its Chrome OS operating system, it has had a pronounced focus on allowing users to only work with cloud-based data and applications. This has drawn criticism from many users, and some from us here at OStatic, as seen in this post. With Chrome OS, Google placed a heavy bet on the idea that consumers and business users would have no problem storing data and using applications in the cloud, without working on the locally stored data/applications model that they're used to.






  • CMS



  • Licensing



  • Openness/Sharing



  • Programming





Leftovers





  • Finance



  • Censorship

    • America: Iran Can't Control The Internet, Only We Can


      The Obama administration has condemned Iran for trying to take control of the Internet. In addition, The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued guidance and licensing information to further support the free flow of information to citizens of Iran – a freedom the Iranian regime has consistently denied to its people.




  • Internet/Net Neutrality



  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights



      • ACTA

        • De Gucht goes rogue again
          Concerned of the ACTA dossier many citizens contacted the press staffers of his colleague Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Commissioner Michel Barnier is right when he emphasized the need for better communications. Karel De Gucht had the opportunity to embrace the public attention to ACTA, and strengthen the institutional cohesion with the European public, help the transformation of the EU towards an “Europe of the citizens”. He didn’t exercise this opportunity, and it appears to me the reason is a fundamental disrespect to democratic principles, he doesn’t take the public seriously.










Recent Techrights' Posts

SLAPP Censorship - Part 17 Out of 200: A Long Track Record of Online Abuse, Then Choosing a Low-Cost Law Firm to Muzzle People Who Have Illuminated This Abuse for Over a Decade
Censorship by targeting ISPs and webhosts isn't unprecedented
Symptom of Publishers Dying: They Move to Adopt Slop. Symptom of Software Companies Dying: They Move to Adopt Slop ('Vibe').
It'll always fail. It's hype. It's a bubble.
Under IBM, Red Hat Replaces Code With LLM Slop, Fedora is Slopware
Not even hiding it, those things are in plain sight
"systemd is essentially a corporate IBM/Redhat project and corporations of course will comply"
Microsoft and IBM care about users' freedom like Cheeto Lump cares about the US Constitution
 
Invitation to General Assembly After 1,200 EPO Workers Participated in the Demonstration 3 Days Ago
"the strike of 19 March was also very well followed."
A/Prof Susan G Kleinmann, Enkelena Haxhija & Debian-private risk to MIT
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 20, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, March 20, 2026
Plagiarism in "Linux" Clothing (LLM Slop in linuxiac.com, LinuxTeck.com, and linuxsecurity.com)
The net effect of those slopfarms is very negative
Links 20/03/2026: Facebook Weaponised Politically, Openwashing by LF and NVIDIA, Encyclopedia Britannica Sues Microsoft Proxy for Plagiarism
Links for the day
The EPO's Local Staff Committee Munich (LSCMN) Explains to the Administrative Council (AC) How Bad Things Have Become at Europe's Second-Largest Institution, Biggest Patent Office, and Corruption/Cocaine Hub (Jobs Sold to Friends)
We'll say a bit more tomorrow
IBM's Red Hat Diversity: Only 3 Women (Out of 11 Leaders)
For comparison's sake, the FSF is about 50% female
Gemini Links 20/03/2026: Depictions of Culture and The Social Smolnet
Links for the day
SimilarWeb Was Never a Reliable Yardstick for Traffic
5RB may need some "house-cleaning"
Strangulation, suffocation, Jonathan Carter & Debian toxic culture confirmed
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Reports or Hearsay Suggest Ogilvy Broke Up With IBM and Insiders Report Mass Layoffs in "Infrastructure" (Might Impact Red Hat Entrants)
hearsay in Social Control Media
Scheduled Server Maintenance Tomorrow Night
Starting 9PM
None of the Above (NotA) & Debian snubbing Sruthi Chandran
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 20/03/2026: Cryptography Pioneers Win Turing Award and BMG Sues Anthropic for Copyright Infringement
Links for the day
Even Uganda Understands That Journalists Never Belong in Prison
"Ugandan authorities must respect the spirit of this ruling and abandon any measures that seek to jail Ugandans for the free flow of ideas."
Inaction Helps Your Enemies
Without freedom, there's nothing else left
Windows Down From 99% to ~50% in Republic of Seychelles (République des Seychelles)
Windows fell by a lot
Confluent Insiders: IBM Laid Over Over 800 at Confluent, Not Just 800
For the record, the layoffs at Confluent won't be over. After the bluewashing there will be "IBM RAs" impacting Confluent folks, aside from PIPs
The Layoffs at IBM Carry on (Shades of Enron)
Is IBM another Enron?
"IBM boss Arvind Krishna... financial package valued at $38 million in calendar 2025 - equivalent to the average collective pay of 765 Big Blue workers."
continues to ruin the company to enrich himself while pretending he has a strategy
Gemini Links 20/03/2026: Digital Identity Bifurcation and a "Return to Gemini"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 19, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, March 19, 2026
SLAPP Censorship - Part 16 Out of 200: Detailing the Actors and Explaining Techrights' Own Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Network
For those who have not followed our story
Microsoft "hiding behind bigger news of war, Epstein, other companies' layoffs"
They know what's coming, they just don't know when
Joerg Jaspert (Debian Account Manager/DAM) personally approved Raphael Hertzog's wife Sophie Brun
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Letter 'A' prohibited by Code of Conduct extremism
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Spoiler: Diversity & Debian means different things to different people
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Admits Failures and Criticism of Inaction on SLAPPs
many if not all solicitors and solicitor firms in the UK are in effect unregulated
Archiving or Preserving Pages About IBM Layoffs
Layoffs at IBM and the media does not talk about these
ABC, the American National Broadcaster, "Now Publishes Slop"
If the "big media" absorbs slop, it'll no longer be trusted and therefore not read/watched by the public
Links 19/03/2026: Culling Deepfakes of Artists’ Music and "Age Verification Isn’t the Answer"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/03/2026: "Aktion GPT-4" and "Kill All Descendants"
Links for the day
"AI" 15 Times in Short 'Article' From The Register MS. And The Register MS Got Paid to Publish It.
gets paid to do this
People Who Decided to Boycott Novell Over Its Microsoft Alliance Should Also Boycott Canonical
As an associate put it, "selling out further, due to Microsoft moles inside Canonical"
Links 19/03/2026: "AI Glasses" as Euphemism for Mass Surveillance and ABC (US) Has Begun Publishing Slop as 'News'
Links for the day
The European Patent Office, Europe's Second-Largest Institution, is on Strike Today
Lots more to come
What People Impacted by the Bluewashing Layoffs at IBM Confluent Say (While the Media Says Nothing at All, in Effect Burying the News)
Worse yet, the mainstream media spreads lies about it right now
IBM Has Turned Red Hat and Fedora Into Slop
This is IBM policy
IBM is Being Robbed, Companies and Jobs Are Destroyed
Companies taken over by IBM will be exploited and destroyed to keep a bubble inflated for a little while longer
In Confluent Layoffs, IBM Vapourises a Quarter of Its Workforce (IBM Buys Something That It Destroys Already)
In the past, such things were typically referred to as "media blackout"; now it's just "the norm".
IBM Effect at Confluent: Mass Layoffs and IBM's Business Conduct Guidelines (BCGs) Said to be Violated
For Confluent employees who survived the layoffs there will be "culture chock"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 18, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Links 19/03/2026: LLM Fatigue (It Doesn't Work as Advertised), "Small Web Feeds"
Links for the day