Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 20/10/2012: Ubuntu Getting More Closed, OpenOffice.org Promoted in Apache





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Achieving Photorealism in Blender
    (Unfortunately the video I recorded on the day was too dark and difficult to hear, so I figured there was no point in uploading it. Sorry about that!)


  • The Apache Software Foundation Announces Apache OpenOfficeâ„¢ as a Top-Level Project
    The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), the all-volunteer developers, stewards, and incubators of nearly 150 Open Source projects and initiatives, today announced that Apache Open Office has graduated from the Apache Incubator to become a Top-Level Project (TLP), signifying that the Project’s community and products have been well-governed under the ASF's meritocratic process and principles.


  • OSI and OSHWA agree on logo usage
    The Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA), which was officially launched in June, has signed an agreementPDF with the Open Source Initiative (OSI) to settle a dispute over its Open Source Hardware (OSHW) logo. Following concerns that the logo OSHWA was using to denote the open hardware nature of devices was too similar to the OSI's trademark, both organisations worked out an agreement that clarifies the difference between the logos and the areas they are applied in.


  • Open Call for Packagers!
    In the past, we’ve had people pull code right out of our master branch. There were a few problems with this technique for deployment; pulling out of the active branch of development meant that a podmin had no idea as to how stable the latest code for a pod could be. Secondly, we think that setting up a pod should be easier, as people shouldn’t have to mess around with a terminal and lots of config files to enjoy the benefits of a decentralized social web.


  • Open Source Vendor Zarafa Solves Apple’s iOS Problems


  • Events



  • SaaS



  • Databases

    • 10gen: Growing the MongoDB world
      10gen, the company set up by the creators of the open source NoSQL database MongoDB, has been on a roll recently, creating business partnerships with numerous companies, making it a hot commercial proposition without creating any apparent friction with its open source community. So what has brought MongoDB to the fore?




  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Congrats Apache OpenOffice!
      Today the Apache Software Foundation announced that Apache OpenOffice â„¢ is a top level project, and I really wish to congratulate with the Apache OpenOffice Community to have achieved this important milestone.


    • LibreOffice 3.5.7 Released
      What's a conference without a release announcement? The Document Foundation didn't find out today because it announced the release of LibreOffice 3.5.7. 3.5.7 is "the seventh and possibly last version of the free office suite's 3.5 family, which solves additional bugs and regressions, and offers stability improvements over LibreOffice 3.5.6."


    • Mark Hurd: Oracle Accepts Cloud And Hadoop
      Oracle chief operating officer Mark Hurd says the company really is enthusiastic about open source, big Data and the cloud


    • Is Hadoop the Answer to Oracle Customers' Big Data Problems?
      Oracle customers are facing a big data problem, and Hadoop is the answer - reluctant as Oracle is to admit it.

      Speaking at the Oracle product and strategy update in London yesterday, Oracle president Mark Hurd said that the company's customers are growing their data up to 40% a year, putting tremendous pressure on IT budgets.


    • Apache Elevates Open Source OpenOffice – So What?
      There was a time when OpenOffice was where I spent a good chunk of my work day. Those days are now in the past, as I've moved on and so has every single major Linux distribution. We've all moved to a faster more agile open source office suite. We have moved to LibreOffice.




  • Education

    • Parents of non-traditional learners advocate for open education
      While Thomas Edison is often lauded as the most prolific American inventor, his mother, Nancy Edison, and how she fostered an open education and an open mind in her son is often overlooked. When a headmaster labelled Edison as being 'addled,' slow, and unteachable, his mother disagreed and decided to withdraw her son from school and teach him at home. She knew her son was a bright, curious, creative child who thought divergently yet was often disorganized, disruptive, and hyperactive; today he would most likely be diagnosed as having ADHD.




  • Healthcare



  • Business

    • Up to Date on Open Source Analytics
      I’ve been updating the computational analytics platform on my Wintel notebook the last few days. I’d fallen behind several versions on each of the main tools and decided to get them all back in synch at once. The good news for hackers like me is that there are so many freely-available, open source analytics products to choose from. The bad news is that it takes a focused effort to stay up to date on the latest largesse.




  • Funding



  • BSD



  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • New Features Coming Up For The GCC 4.8 Compiler


    • Initial ARMv8 Support For 32-bit GCC Port
      Developers from ARM Holdings have published their initial ARMv8 patch for the GNU Compiler Collection for the 32-bit "AArch32" compiler port.

      ARM developers had already been working on their 64-bit ARM / AArch64 compiler port, which was officially approved just days ago. The latest ARM open-source compiler patch is ARMv8 in the AArch32 port with basic functionality.




  • Project Releases

    • VLC Media Player 2.0.4 supports Opus decoding
      Version 2.0.4 of the VLC Media Player has been released by the VideoLAN project. While the minor version number change may not reflect it, the new release is described as a major update by its developers as it fixes numerous regressions and introduces support for the IETF's Opus lossy audio compression format. It also brings several other improvements and platform-specific changes.




  • Public Services/Government



  • Programming

    • The Growth of Google Summer of Code
      I recently sat down with Chris DiBona to talk about the 15th anniversary of Slashdot. In addition to discussing the joys of heading an email campaign against spamming politicians, and the perils of throwing a co-worker's phone into a bucket, even if you think that bucket is empty, we talked about the growth of Google Summer of Code. Below you'll find his story of how a conversation about trying to get kids to be more active with computers in the summer has led to the release of 55 million lines of code.


    • Subversive brings Subversion to Eclipse






Leftovers

  • The Pioneers of UNIX
    Steve Jobs? Steve Jobs didn't do jack. If you want to know who is responsible for the modern world you have to look at the people working at Bell Labs in the 1970s and 1980s. The people who created UNIX. It was from that invention that we have the modern world. UNIX led to Linux which led to Android. UNIX led to the BSD family of operating systems which led to Apple OSX. UNIX led to the C programming language in which most system-level software today is written. Ever wonder why URLs use forward slashes? It's because UNIX was instrumental in the creation of the Internet.


  • Security





  • Finance

    • Why I Left Goldman Sachs, Chapter Three: “My Alleged Competition”
      On Monday morning, Grand Central Publishing will release Why I Left Goldman Sachs: A Wall Street Story, a memoir penned by former Goldman employee Greg Smith, based on his op-ed for the New York Times entitled, “Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs.” When Smith’s piece came out last March, few if any senior executives inside the bank were pleased, in part because it came as a total shock. No one at Goldman had known Smith was planning to have his resignation letter printed in the paper. No one had known he had issues with the firm’s supposedly new and singular focus on making money at all costs. No one, at least at the top, even knew who Greg was. Obviously all this left the bank at a competitive disadvantage in terms of fighting back and for the time being, Smith appeared to be handing Goldman its ass. Getting cocky, even. Perhaps thinking to himself, “When all of this is over, I could be named the new CEO of Goldman Sachs.” As anyone who has ever won a bronze medal in ping-pong at the Maccabiah Games will tell you, however, winners are determined by best of threes. And that anyone going to to the table with Goldman Sachs should be prepared for things to get ugly.


    • Big Oil and the U.S. Chamber Fight to Keep Foreign Bribery Flourishing
      In a new lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), big energy extractors are pushing for carte blanche in their interactions with foreign governments, making it harder to track whether their deals are padding the coffers of dictators, warlords, or crony capitalists. The United States Chamber of Commerce, American Petroleum Institute, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, and the National Foreign Trade Council filed a lawsuit on October 10, 2012 against a new SEC rule, which requires U.S. oil, mining and gas companies to formally disclose payments made to foreign governments as part of their annual SEC reporting.




  • Censorship



  • Privacy



  • Copyrights





Recent Techrights' Posts

"Many Applications Labelled as "Cybersecurity" and Given a Veneer of Legitimacy Are Really "Weaponised" and Abusive Code"
New from Dr. Andy Farnell
Security Advisory: Debian falls for social engineering hacks
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
 
Plagiarism by Bots: Guardian Digital, Inc (linuxsecurity.com) Still Creates Fake Articles About "Linux"
100% fake
[Teaser] [Meme] New Ways to Impoverish Patent Examiners (Entrusted to Block Unjust Monopolies or Monopoly Applications)
Coming tomorrow!
Apple Tax funds: railways, defective concrete blocks in Ireland's North and West
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Daniel Pocock, Nomination for Ireland, Dublin Bay South, General Election 2024
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 08/11/2024: TikTok Bans and Clownflare Issues/Perils
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/11/2024: RPS, O.D.I.N., and RSS in Yahoo News
Links for the day
Donald Trump as Censor in Chief Can Now Leverage Censorship Companies and Fake Protection Disguised as 'Security'
Centralised CAs were trouble all along
Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part VI
By Dr. Andy Farnell
A Death of a News Industry
A theme we explored thrice today
Deciphering Centralised CAs and Why Their Demise Should be a Goal
Encryption in transmission is good; but who controls the key exchange and certification/authentication/validation?
Links 08/11/2024: Strikes, Recessions, and Slowdowns
Links for the day
[Teaster] [Meme] New Ways of Wrecking (NWoW)
The EPO
Gateway for News and Blogs
In the long run, this site and its sister site (less overlap between them now) should hopefully become a popular destination for people who look for information, not chaff
Going Even Faster
We hope the site will be faster soon
Psychopaths Who Reaffirm Our Work's Value
Psychopaths and sociopaths lack empathy, so they're willing to go very far and stoop as low as they deem necessary
[Meme] How Low Can You Go at the European Patent Office?
Not just in terms of patent quality
More Cuts/End to Benefits for EPO Workers (Europe's Working Conditions Incompatible With the European Patent Convention)
"The Office is now reviving it but plans to introduce new cuts on benefits"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 07, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, November 07, 2024
Gemini Links 08/11/2024: US Election, RetroChallenge 2024, and More
Links for the day
[Meme] Questioning Proprietary Software? Not OK...
A disaster long in the making
Links 07/11/2024: HTTP/3, Health Research, and Punditry
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/11/2024: On Writing Publicly and Record Player Table
Links for the day
Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) Hosted SOSS as Microsoft Propaganda Platform With Microsoft Front Group OSI
They essentially promote what they're attacking under false pretences [...] OSI is deeply corrupt. It's more toxic than arsenic.
Anti-Linux FUD, Now in LLM Form, Thanks to Brittany Day
They attack Linux with chatbots
[Meme] When You Discredit People Who Discredit Secret Code
proprietary systems with hundreds of millions of transistors (and hundreds of millions of lines of code)
The High Cost of Making Scepticism of Proprietary Voting Machines a "Trump" and "Conspiracy Theory" Territory
Time to get back to paper? Or read an old paper?
Links 07/11/2024: Online Manipulation in Social Control Media, Election Deniers, and More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/11/2024: emacs-guix and File Hoarding
Links for the day
[Meme] Election Day at the European Patent Office
Less than 60 minutes left to cast your vote
Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO) Election Ending Today
In one hour
[Meme] When the Patent Office Does Illegal Things and Staff Speaks Out
many leaks received today
Today We Got an Early Birthday Gift
Exciting times
[Meme] Going Too Far to the Left Can Breed Militant Ideology
Some people can never be appeased because they prefer not to be appeased
Apple's Debt Has Skyrocketed While Gimmicks Like Vision Pro Failed
In Apple's case, the debt is almost double the "Cash on Hand", which isn't even cash
FSF Expressed No Preference Regarding Presidential Candidates (Its Founder Did)
Because he is a principled person, he does not prioritise loyalty to customers or employers (money)
A President Trump is Excellent News to Microsoft
His racist policies gave lots of contracts to Microsoft
Who Next on the Linux Foundation's 'Kill List'?
Remember that only about 2% of the "Linux" Foundation's budget goes to Linux
Links 07/11/2024: Facebook Scams, Journalists on Strike
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 06, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 06, 2024
Microsoft-Connected Publishers Want Us to Think That Linux is Some Sort of a Virus and a "Backdoor"
"The problem is with windows and the attack vector is via Windows"
We've Made it to 18! Here's to Another 18!
Going on for another 18 years means until some time at the end of 2042
Links 07/11/2024: Political Angst and Laptop Issues
Links for the day
Even LKML Subjected to Slop/SPAM by Guardian Digital, Inc (linuxsecurity.com)
They're really awful
Links 06/11/2024: BPF in RFC 9669, More Facebook Fines for Privacy Abuses
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/11/2024: Political Shock and Hermaic Encouragement
Links for the day
Planet Debian Allows Politics (But It Depends on Your Opinions and Debian's Big Sponsors)
Planet Debian is OK with politics... as long as all your political opinions are the "correct" ones and you add cute animals
What Makes RMS Such an Attractive Target ('Discreditisation' Campaigns)
Don't be so easily fooled
The Biggest OEMs or Vendors of GNU/Linux Stopped Competing With Microsoft (Which Pays Them to Promote Windows, Too)
Where are the competition authorities (or regulators for that matter)?
Let's Encrypt Falls to a New Low of Only 0.6% of Gemini Capsules Known to Lupa
In Gemini Protocol, certificates for encryption are required, but centralised Certificate Authorities (CAs) aren't needed
Computer-Generator Crap Flooding the Web, the Latest Example About "Linux"
Here's today's example
Links 06/11/2024: Election Disinformation and Legal Actions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/11/2024: Stargazing and Death on Hallowe'en
Links for the day
Would You Trust a Liar?
Why lie about the authorship?
Mass Layoffs at Mozilla Announced During US Elections
Maybe nobody will notice?
[Meme] Announcing "Results" Before Everyone Even "Played"
There is a "tech" angle to otherwise political news
US Polls Close in One Minute (Social Control Media Does Not Care, Will Not Wait)
US election results will be known in about 2 days
Concentration and Centralisation Versus Aggregation or Syndication
KDE has a history of burying old sites
Social Control Media, Even Hours Before Polls Have Closed
Has social control media controlled by CPC (TikTok) and the Trumpmobile guy (Musk's "X") done enough to convince people not to even vote (based on presumptive "results", presented a long time before all polls have closed)?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 05, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 05, 2024
Wayland Pains in Community-Led Distros of GNU/Linux
Few people and companies use Wayland; there's hardly any technical or practical reason to choose it
IBM Still Conflating Microsoft With 'Security'
As a meme
Sanctions Cause Fragmentation in Software
some Chinese Linux developers are already subjected to restrictions similar to Russians'
Web Failing With Slop, Even in 'Linux' Sites (LLM Spam)
Add SEO prompting to the mix and the Web becomes a pool of slop, not knowledge
[Meme] State of the World Wide Web and Online Journalism
Technically a failure (DRM) and cannot even get basic things right
Trump's signature policy, building a wall, copied from Irish-Australian student politician
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Linus Torvalds' self-deprecating LKML CoC mail linked to Hitler's first writing: Gemlich letter
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] Turning 18 in One Day
just one more day