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Links 9/1/2013: Valve's GNU/Linux Gaming PC, Android Massive at CES





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Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Cloud/Linux is behind the success of Barclays’ Pingit app


  • Barclays' Linux programme not a snub to suppliers


  • Barclays To Save ‘Billions’ With Own Cloud And Open Source
    Barclays bank has managed to cut its IT expenses by 90 percent after moving infrastructure into a purpose-built cloud, claims The Sunday Times.


  • Open Source Flex Gets Top Project Status at Apache
    It has been some time since I last wrote about Adobe Flex, which now has gained new status at the Apache Software Foundation.

    Flex first came to my full attention back in 2007 when Adobe decided to open source the Rich Application Framework. Adobe had been building flex since at least 2004 so the move to open source was not part of the original design.


  • A look back at open source creative tools in 2012
    For all of you free and open source creative tool fans out there, plenty of exciting developments happened over the past year—and there's some pretty awesome new things in the pipeline for 2013 as well! Here's a sampling of the good news:


  • Netflix Open Sources Janitor Monkey Cloud Computing Utility
    Although cloud computing platforms make headlines every day now, including leading open source platforms, it's still true that cloud computing is a young science, and there is a premium on reliable, mature tools for the cloud. Also, it's true that Amazon Web Services (AWS) is still the 800-pound gorilla in the cloud.


  • As ISPs Like Cablevision Cozy Up To Its Open Source CDN, Netflix Makes 3D And “Super HD” Video Available


  • Five awesome open-source front-end frameworks


  • ICEsoft Ships ICEmobile -- Open Source Platform for Mobile Java EE Apps


  • Web Browsers



    • Mozilla

      • Firefox OS shows up on a mystery phone, we go hands-on (update: now with video!) Mobile
        Firefox's mobile operating system showed up on a mystery phone tonight at a pre-CES event ahead of its unveiling later this year, carrying no branding and looking light on features. Sadly, the WiFi in the event space didn't give us much of a chance to explore the OS' inner workings, and the phone was dubbed a "mystery" device by Mozilla reps, but we did snap some pictures of it. We also know that it's got at least an ARMv6 CPU and 256MB of RAM, and likely more power than that. Mozilla's planning a 2013 launch of the Chrome OS -- an OS powered entirely by HTML5 -- in partnership with Telefonica, Qualcomm, and "a long list of industry supporters.



      • Firefox OS Reportedly Nearing Completion and Coming to CES
        There are more open source smartphones coming this year than you can shake a stick at, ranging from Ubuntu phones to Tizen Linux-based handsets. But among the most eagerly awaited phones are new handsets based on Mozilla's open Firefox OS. Back in February, we reported on how Mozilla is in an alliance with Telefonica and Qualcomm to become a serious player in the smartphone business. The partners are aiming to deliver their initial phones at low price points in emerging markets.


      • Firefox 18.0 Lets Loose IonMonkey Compiler
        Mozilla Firefox 18.0 is now available. The main feature of this open-source web-browser update is the introduction of IonMonkey, a faster JavaScript compiler.


      • Download Mozilla Firefox 18.0 for Linux


      • Firefox Makes Web Games and Apps Speedier
        Firefox’s new JavaScript compiler, IonMonkey, makes Web apps and games perform up to 25 percent faster. To see how exciting Firefox makes playing games or using apps on the Web, check out BananaBread, a fun 3D Web game created by the Mozilla Developer Network and powered exclusively by HTML5, WebGL and JavaScript.






  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Open source cloud battles: OpenStack leveling off as CloudStack interest gains
      Those are the findings of the latest report by a Chinese blogger who monitors the activity of open source cloud computing projects each month. Qingye (John) Jiang tracks four open source cloud computing projects in his blog using a Java program he created that pulls in records for every new discussion feed in the project's ecosystem, as well as on mailing lists and responses to comments.


    • Biggest Data
      The term "Big Data" has been around for a long time, but has obtained buzzphrase status only in the last two years. Although much that can be said about Big Data is positive and harmless (better medicine, better science, better analytic fodder for countless good purposes), one unspoken motivation behind the buzz is obtaining high degrees of market leverage. And much of that leverage is not in harmony with the constructive motivations and practices behind free software, open source and Linux. Because, behind many of the big APIs are vast jungles of exclusive and patent-protected functionalities and restrictions around use. Such as, for example, the spoken turn-by-turn directions Google wouldn't allow Apple to use. It can be dispiriting to see platform leverage exceeded by large proprietary databases and exclusive services made available through APIs. But it's important to bring attention to what's going on, so here we are.


    • OpenStack vs CloudStack: The Latest Score




  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice



  • Semi-Open Source



  • BSD

    • # Reviews: Making computing easier with PC-BSD 9.1
      I would like to begin the new year by talking about a project which I had the chance to play with in the final weeks of 2012. This project is PC-BSD, an effort sponsored by iXsystems which places a polished desktop layer on top of the FreeBSD operating system. Though at first glance it might appear as though PC-BSD 9.1 is a simple point release over last year's 9.0 release, the project's blog paints a very different picture. Some of the key features to PC-BSD's 9.1 release include the introduction of TrueOS, a server edition of PC-BSD. Basically, TrueOS is FreeBSD with a nice graphical installer, PBI tools and various modern conveniences which we will get to later. The new release of PC-BSD includes support for ZFS pools that include swap space, this allows users to create installs that are exclusively ZFS based and we will also touch on the benefits of this later.




  • Project Releases



  • Public Services/Government



  • Licensing



  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open source smallsats in Russia
      Modern trends in satellite development make us believe that the use of open source will not be limited to purely engineering solutions to prepare an in-flight software package for a dedicated hardware installation. Instead, there is a new paradigm of a “public satellite” as available to any user with access to an open hardware-software platform.


    • Open Data

      • OpenStreetMap: the Open Source of the Mobile Age
        One reason why its future looks rosy is the shift to mobile. By definition, smartphones are things you carry around, which makes geographical location a crucial piece of information for their users - and maps indispensable infrastructure for mobile services. Just as the availability of free open source powered an entire generation of Net startups, so OpenStreetMap will enable new companies serving the mobile sector to get going for minimal costs, but without compromising on quality. Indeed, in many respects, OpenStreetMap is the open source of the mobile world.




    • Open Hardware





  • Programming





Leftovers



Recent Techrights' Posts

Brett Wilson LLP Sent Over 5 Kilograms (or Over 12 Pounds) of Legal Papers! Because Writing About Microsoft Abuses is 'Illegal'.
How do you guys sleep at night? On a big pile of Microsoft money?
Extremism as a Weapon Against GNU/Linux (Microsoft Lunduke)
He ought to know the Halloween Documents. Wasn't he a Microsoft employee when these came out?
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 09, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 09, 2025
Elodie Bergot Still Doing Illegal Things at the EPO, Based on the Local Staff Committee Munich
They keep taking away from the staff while compelling the staff to do illegal things
Gemini Links 09/07/2025: Extreme Testing and Golang Documentation in Geminispace
Links for the day
Vice President of the European Patent Office (EPO) Complains That Techrights Gives Visibility to Legal and Technical Issues at the EPO
"Follow-up on enquiries relating to Dir. 1218 and 1001"
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com and Various Slopfarms That Lie About "Linux" and Are Promoted by Google News
Google does not seem interested in tackling this problem
Links 09/07/2025: War Updates and Microsoft Moving to India to Cut Costs
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Was Always a 'Movement' of Inclusion of Tolerance
Even the licences themselves remove access barriers
Links 09/07/2025: "Subprime AI Crisis" and "OpenAI May Be in Major Trouble Financially"
Links for the day
Huge Piles of Legal Papers ('Paper DDoS') Do Not Impress Judges and Regulators
they just make judges and regulators even more suspicious of the eagerness to resort to 'paper DDoS'
Lunduke Isn't Even Hiding His Anti-Linux Agenda (From "Linux Sucks" to "Linux is Pedophiles")
just trying to make a lot of trouble
Some People Use Computers to Get Actual Work Done
Tolerance and inclusion must extend to acceptance that some people don't agree with you, might never agree with you, and imposing what allegedly works for you on them is unreasonable
Example of "Old" Things That Still Work
The notion that something being "old" implies it must be discarded is typically advanced by those looking to sell more of something
Some Scheduled Maintenance Later Today
Typically the most vulnerable service during short interruptions is IRC
Computers Are Just a Tool
People don't get married because they love weddings, folks don't join the army because they love war, and most drivers don't drive to work because they love cars
Apple Way Past Its Prime
Apple deserves a decline
The FSF's SysOps Team Recovered From Serious Hardware Issue Within Hours
About half a day ago I noticed that all/most GNU/FSF sites were not reachable and thus reached out to a contact for any details
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 08, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 08, 2025
Slopwatch: Turning Bugs Into FUD About "Linux", Getting Basic Facts Wrong
all the screenshots are of fake articles; we don't want to link to any
Technical Reasons, Not Politics: With Wayland "it feels a lot like Linux from 20-25 years ago, which is horrendously frustrating, because it feels like we wasted one or two decades of progress and stability"
Lately, quite a few benchmarks were published to show Wayland compares poorly compared to what we had
PCLinuxOS Recovering From Fire
It looks like a nightmare scenario, where even backups onsite get destroyed
Links 09/07/2025: More Heatwaves, Officials Culled in Russia
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/07/2025: XScreensaver and Resurrection
Links for the day
Links 08/07/2025: "Cyberattack Deals Blow to Russian Firmware" and "Cash Remains King"
Links for the day
FSF40 T-shirt message
by Alex Oliva
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Creativity, Gotify with NUT Server, and Sudo Bugs
Links for the day
More on "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
"pepe the frogs"
Links 08/07/2025: Sabotage of Networking Infrastructure, Microsoft XBox Game Pass Deemed “Unsustainable”
Links for the day
Dalai Lama Succession as Evidence That Determined, Motivated People Can Reach Their Nineties
And we need to quit talking about their death all the time
Many Lawyers (for Microsoft) and 1,316 Pages to Pick on a Litigant in Person Who Exposed Serious Microsoft Abuses
Answers must be given
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Ancillary Justice and Small Web July
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 07, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 07, 2025