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07.04.12

Links 4/7/2012: Blizzard’s Linux PR Crisis, Fuduntu 2012.3 Released

Posted in News Roundup at 11:43 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Why We Still Need the Open Source VLC Media Player

    The Monday Version 2.0.2 release of the free open source VLC media player points out a surprising hole in the age of the Internet video – there is still no universal standard for video formats and players.

    Fortunately, VLC is there to fill in the gaps among proprietary formats and competing ecosystems, playing just about every video in use.

  • .FREE, .OPEN gTLDs may not be open to public

    The applications for new gTLD domains offered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) have been made public, and although the .LINUX registry has been unclaimed, other potentially FLOSS-related gTLDs are being vied for in this big Internet land grab that could leave some domains out of public reach and in the hands of corporations.

  • Anubex Successfully Migrates BEZEQ to Open Platform

  • Web Browsers

  • SaaS

  • CMS

  • Education

  • BSD

    • Dru Lavigne talks about FreeBSD | Interview

      IT happens to be my third career. I started out as an entrepreneur (co-owner of an independent moving company). Once the company was established, I took a second job as a municipal government worker. After a few years it became obvious that the glass ceiling at that agency was far too short for my liking, so I went back to school to learn telecommunications, networking, and system administration.

    • The State Of Gentoo FreeBSD: Gentoo Sans Linux

      To some surprise, Gentoo FreeBSD — the port of Gentoo running with the FreeBSD kernel rather than the Linux kernel — is progressing.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Glibc 2.16 supports the x32 ABI – Update

      Among the new features of the GNU C Library (Glibc) 2.16, which was released on Saturday, is support for the x32 ABI (Application Binary Interface); the Linux kernel has offered support for the interface since version 3.4. Programs that are compiled for the x32 ABI can now access the 64-bit registers and data paths of 64-bit x86 processors while only using 32-bit pointers and data fields. In general terms, programs that are compiled for the x32 ABI avoid the overhead that comes with full 64-bit operation while making use of some of the most important advantages of x86-64 processors; this is thought to be of particular relevance for low-specification systems in the embedded and mobile markets.

  • Project Releases

    • Computer vision library ccv reaches 0.1 milestone

      After two years in development, ccv 0.1, “a modern computer vision library”, has been released. Ccv began development in 2010 when author Liu Liu, frustrated by problems with image preprocessing for a gesture recognition demonstration, decided to work on a different approach.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Data

      • ‘Governments that embrace open data will also switch to open source’

        Public administrations that grasp the benefits of making publicly available their data will also increase their use of free and open source, experts on open data agree. Open data and open source face comparable threats: initial lack of support and a fear for the impact on the organisation.

    • Open Access/Content

      • Free, open ebook offers ideas for rebooting American government

        Rebooting America: Ideas for Redesigning American Democracy for the Internet Age collects the wide-ranging, provocative, and often blunt responses this question generated. But the book’s title is somewhat misleading. The writers it features aren’t interested in merely rebooting American government — interrupting its core processes, taking it momentarily offline, then restoring it to an earlier, somehow simpler, state. They’re hacking on its principal architectures — its frameworks and principles — sketching mock-ups for a government that embraces open technologies and values to become more transparent, nimble, responsive, and accountable than previous iterations.

    • Open Hardware

      • How Open Source Hardware Is Driving the 3D-Printing Industry

        The potential of 3D printing to transform the way we get things – the market is predicted to hit $3.1 billion in the next four years – gets a lot of press. But not much of that attention has focused on the unique role of open source hardware in enabling 3D printing to realize its promise.

        Open source software has been a key player in all kinds of disruptive technologies – from the Web to big data. Now the nascent and growing open source hardware movement is helping to power its own disruptive revolution.

  • Programming

    • PCC: Portable C Compiler Isn’t Quick To Advance

      The Portable C Compiler 1.0 was released in April of 2011, but since then there hasn’t been many updates out of this open-source compiler that was originally spawned in the late 1970′s.

      The PCC web-site remains rather basic with not much information and the latest news is last year’s 1.0 release. The only information since that I’ve been able to find is that they do have limited C++ support going into PCC for the past few months, but the support is still very limited. The main language for the Portable C Compiler is C99. At the project’s current development pace, don’t expect C11 or C++11 coverage any time soon. And for supporting all of the latest instruction set extensions on the latest ARM and Intel CPUs, guess again.

Leftovers

  • Security

    • Security vulnerability found in Cyberoam DPI devices

      Last week, a user in Jordan reported seeing a fake certificate for torproject.org. The user did not report any errors when browsing to sites such as Gmail, Facebook, and Twitter, which suggests that this was a targeted attack. The certificate was issued by a US company called Cyberoam. We first believed that this incident was similar to that of Comodo and DigiNotar, and that Cyberoam had been tricked to issue a fake certificate for our website.

  • Finance

    • MMT: A Doubly Retrospective Analysis

      *We’re going to take a break from the regularly-scheduled MMP this week. In its place, I’m posting the keynote talk I gave at Bill Mitchell’s annual Coffee conference in Newcastle. As most of you know, Coffee is the sister center to UMKC’s CFEPS. Some of the participants asked for copies of my talk and I figured some of you might also enjoy it, so am posting it here. It has some of the history of the development of MMT—although it is based on my faulty memory so should not be taken too seriously!

    • Wall Street banks angling for Dodd-Frank loophole

      While all eyes were on the Supreme Court and Obamacare, a quieter battle was being waged against the president’s other major initiative, the Dodd-Frank financial reform act. Wall Street has already watered down or delayed most of Dodd-Frank. Now it wants to create a giant loophole, exempting its foreign branches from the law.

      ‌

      Yet the overseas branches of Wall Street banks are where the banks have done some of their wilder betting. Four years ago, bad bets by American International Group’s London office nearly unraveled the U.S. financial system.

      One advantage of being a huge Wall Street bank is you get bailed out by the federal government when you make dumb bets. Another is you’ve been able to choose where around the world to make the dumb bets, thereby dodging U.S. regulations. It’s a win-win. Wall Street wants to keep it that way.

  • Civil Rights

    • US Government Wants Access To Your Data

      US is becoming one of the most restrictive and invasive countries in the world. The recent Twitter transparency report, inspired by Google, shows that US government is topping the chart with maximum number of request to gain access to user data.

  • Copyrights

    • Kim Dotcom: Joe Biden Ordered the Megaupload Shutdown

      Kim Dotcom says he knows who ordered the shutdown of his company and related sites. The Megaupload founder informs TorrentFreak that he has insider information which reveals that none other than Vice President Joe Biden directed attorney Neil MacBride to target the site. Biden is known to be one of the best friends of former Senator Chris Dodd, who’s now heading the MPAA.

    • ACTA

      • ACTA Is DEAD After European Parliament Vote

        The battleground wasn’t some administrative office, but the representatives of the people – the European Parliament – which decided in the end to do its job beautifully, and represent the people against special interests.

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