Programming News Picks: Focus on Free Software
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-02-16 23:26:19 UTC
- Modified: 2014-02-16 23:26:19 UTC
Summary: 2014 news picks that focus on programming and development, especially of Free software or using Free software tools
Demise of Proprietary
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HTML5 developers queried recently by tools vendor Sencha remain dedicated to building apps via Web technologies, even as doubts have been cast on how effective HTML5 is vis à vis native development. Many of those same developers, however, have dropped support for the classic Microsoft Windows platform.
Surveying 2,128 business application developers from the HTML5 development community, including users of its own tools, Sencha found that 70-plus percent of developers planned to do more with HTML5 in the 2013 timeframe than they had done the previous year. And 75 percent will work further with HTML5 in 2014. More than 60 percent of developers have migrated to HTML5 and hybrid development for primary applications. For the coming year, just 4 percent of HTML5 developers plan to cut back on HTML5.
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I still remember IBM's provocative announcement in 2001 that it was putting $1 billion toward the development and promotion of Linux. While such billion-dollar commitments from IBM are now so routine as to be unremarkable, back then a billion dollars meant a lot. I was working for an embedded Linux vendor at the time, and most of our sales cycle was spent explaining why GPL-licensed Linux wasn't the technology equivalent of terminal cancer. (Thanks in part to Microsoft's contribution.)
Google
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The second video features Jason Hibbets's full interview with Chris DiBona Open Source Director at Google. Find out how DiBona measures his performance, why he once called open source "brutal," and more on working for Google and the future of open source.
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Over 280 attendees representing 177 mentoring organizations gathered for a two-day, code-munity extravaganza celebrating the conclusion of Google Summer of Code with the annual Mentor Summit held at Google in Mountain View, California.
GitHub
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GitHub's position as the repository of choice for open source community projects is today one of dominance, most would argue.
Officially often referred to as a "web-based revision control service" (rather than simply a software code repository), this classification is an obvious nod to the site's inherent level of active community involvement as open projects are continuously developed, refined and augmented.
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So, what’s the problem? Well, that’s simple. It seems that Fox News’ technology department –run by a motley crew of half-witted quick-study-types– failed to explain GitHub, and also disregarded both spelling and punctuation in favor of adopting what I would describe as a rogue journalistic style; a style that exists far beyond the confines of traditional English language rules. It is now with great pleasure that I flog the holy-hell out of the following screen capture in an attempt to make them cry.
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I have an open source script for a specific site (I'm trying not to call anything by name here) that a few other developers and I recently moved to GitHub. We've been joined by several new developers since we moved to the new system, including one very active one in particular. However, this active one has started changing a lot of the project.
First of all, he deleted our versioning system (not like Git, but like that—we called it versions v4.1.16) and said it would be better to simply push the code to the site when we think it's ready. Now there's no centralized place to put release notes, which has become annoying.
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GitHub has become the de facto repository for open source projects. So, we were excited for the opportunity to sit down with GitHub's co-founder and CIO Scott Chacon during the All Things Open Conference in Raleigh, NC.
Python
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One year ago the Puerto Rico Python Interest Group (prPIG) was founded on one purpose; to create a sustainable user community based on software development in Puerto Rico. On February 20, 2014 we will celebrate our first anniversary with an open format meeting with lightning talks from the community.
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Programming languages are crucial to a programmer as they boosts their productivity. Keeping in mind the fact that programmers may not be comfortable with all the coding languages around, we thought of compiling a list of programming languages set to make it big in 2014.
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Python community, friends, fellow developers, we need to talk. On December 3rd, 2008 Python 3.0 was first released. At the time it was widely said that Python 3 adoption was going to be a long process, it was referred to as a five year process. We've just passed the five year mark.
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In an article entitled “Python Displacing R As The Programming Language For Data Science,” MongoDB’s Matt Asay made an argument that has been circulating for some time now. As Python has steadily improved its data science credentials, from Numpy to Pandas, with even R’s dominant ggplot2 charting library having been ported, its viability as a real data science platform improves daily. More than any other language in fact, save perhaps Java, Python is rapidly becoming a lingua franca, with footholds in every technology arena from the desktop to the server.
Git
LLVM
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It looks like there's finally going to be stable point releases of the LLVM compiler infrastructure for pushing out bug-fixes quicker, whether you're using the Clang C/C++ compiler or depending upon LLVM for your GPU driver compiler back-end.
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It's nearly one month late but the LLVM 3.4 compiler infrastructure is now available with the updated Clang C/C++ compiler front-end, the usual LLVM sub-projects, and also some new compiler tools.
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The release of LLVM 3.4 is imminent and with the major compiler infrastructure upgrade comes update to the Clang C/C++ compiler front-end, LLDB debugger, and other LLVM sub-projects. LLVM 3.4 is a very righteous release and in celebration of its forthcoming release, it's back into compiler benchmarking season at Phoronix.
Ruby
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Ruby 2.1 has many improvements including speedup without severe incompatibilities.
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The Ruby project has done a new major release on Christmas for their popular programming language. Ruby offers performance speed-ups but without severe incompatibilities, according to the release announcement.
Misc.
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Regular readers of this column won't be surprised to hear that I love both Ruby on Rails and PostgreSQL. Rails has been my primary server-side Web development framework for about eight years, and it has managed to provide solutions for a large number of consulting and personal projects. As for PostgreSQL, I've been using it for about 15 years, and I continue to be amazed by the functionality it has gained in that time. PostgreSQL is no longer just a relational database. It's also a platform supporting the storage and retrieval of many types of data, built on a rock-solid, ACID-compliant, transactional core.
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In the sometimes dark and mysterious world of computers, I see open source programming and community around it as a force of good. Open source sparks and kindles a connection between people that I think is hard to find elsewhere in programming. Working with open source, a programmer builds important and powerful collaboration skills. This is significant because many of us (programmers and self-proclaimed nerds) are rather antisocial. Open source programming helps us cultivate social behaviors like sharing, improved communication, and collaborating towards a common goal.
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So by the mid-1980s, programming in schools was surging...
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The Checkpoint-Restore Tool has reached version 1.0 as part of the CRIU project. Checkpoint/Restore In Userspace allows for users to freeze running applications and checkpoint it to the hard drive as a file and that checkpoint can then be restored to a running process later on. CRIU is different from suspend-and-resume with the Linux kernel in that this is a tool for handling individual programs and it is implemented in user-space.
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The development team behind the Clutter software, a library for creating compelling, portable, dynamic and fast graphical user interfaces (GUI), has announced a few days ago that the second maintenance release of the stable Clutter 1.16 branch is available for download.
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Jim Kukunas of Intel OTC published the set of 13 patches on Monday that include medium and quick deflate strategies, a faster hash function with SSE 4.2 support, PCLMULQDQ-optimized CRC folding, SSE2 hash shifting, and other changes/tuning.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Stack Ranking Against IBM/Red Hat Staff and a Signal of Mass Layoffs (RAs) Justified by Red Hat and IBM as Poor Performance/Misconduct/Other
- Working in an atmosphere like this sounds like a nightmare
- Microsoft's "valuation depends on infrastructure that does not exist."
- Indeed
- The Typical Trajectory: Datamation Began Experimenting With LLM Slop for Fake Articles. Then Datamation Died. (Last Month)
- It's always ending up this way
- Avoiding the Spooks (Nobody Watches the Watchers, They're Practically Unaccountable)
- If more people adopt encryption, it'll be easier for us to deal with whistleblowers
- Protecting Whistleblowers Requires Technical Knowledge/Skills
- even the highest media judges aren't aware of how to protect sources
- Report/Benchmark Says 'Vibe Coding' Results in Security Holes
- There are risks they don't like talking about
- Record Traffic in Geminispace or Over Gemini Protocol
- it's never too late to join
- The "Alicante Mafia" - Part III - Europe's Second-Largest Organisation on Strike, Protests, Other Industrial Actions to Come Impacting Over 95% of the Workforce
- The EPO's management is highly evasive, weak, and vulnerable
- The "Alicante Mafia" - Part II - Breakout of Discontent This Winter in Europe's Second-Largest Organisation
- So far we've caused a lot of panic and stress inside Team Campinos
- The "Alicante Mafia" - Part I - An Introduction to the Mafia Governing the EPO
- Are some people 'evacuating' themselves to save face?
- At Microsoft, "Firing People is a "Cheat Code" to Pump the Stock Short-term But They Are Literally Destroying the Company's Soul Long-term."
- They frame layoffs as a "success story"
- Google News Poisons Its Own Index With More Slopfarms (Including "filmogaz")
- Naming and shaming lazy slobs who rip off other people using LLMs can work, eventually
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- Microsoft Lunduke Keeps Distracting From the Real Problems With Rust
- Microsoft Lunduke is stigmatising critics
- Linuxiac Has Become a Slopfarm, Calling Them Out Isn't Fixing That
- What a shame. A once-decent site about "Linux" bites the dust.
- Luzern Lion Monument, Albanian Female Whistleblowers: Swiss jurists were cowards
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- The Splinternet is Already Here, Owing to the Militarisation of Technology (Slop, Social Control Media, Back Doors, and More)
- you know what's gonna happen next...
- Gemini Links 17/01/2026: Slow computing and Environment Leak
- Links for the day
- Links 17/01/2026: US Censorship and Violence Crisis, Growing Anger Levels Against Slop Sold as "Intelligence"
- Links for the day
- Accounts or Devices (e.g. Phones) That Get 'Burnt' Have Many Pitfalls
- Embassies and consulates habitually fail at this
- At Least 5 Women Quit Brett Wilson LLP in Recent Months. It's the Firm That Attacked My Wife and I on Behalf of Americans (One of Them Strangled Women).
- It seems like good news that the women escape this workplace
- Slop About Slop and Slop About "Linux"
- In short, avoid slopfarms
- EPO Abuses Covered in Spanish
- Knowing what we know (and heard/saw), the sinister silence of the media is perceived by some to be complicity of the lower order.
- Richard Stallman Encourages "ICE Out For Good" Protests, His Opponents Do Not (Passive and Uncaring About Human Rights)
- He has done a lot philosophically, politically, and so on
- Claim That IBM Marked 15% of its Workforce for Potential Layoffs
- No wonder we keep hearing from Red Hat people who say they hate IBM
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 16, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, January 16, 2026
- Great Reset at IBM, the Company That Pulps Red Hat
- In 2026 many workers are RTO'ed, PIP'ed, and at Red Hat many have effectively 'left the company' and now start afresh as "IBM" staff
- J.H.M. Ray Dassen & Debian, Red Hat, GNOME unexplained deaths
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Gemini Links 16/01/2026: "Porting My Main Website Over to Gemini" and Seeed Studio DevBoard
- Links for the day
- IBM Stacked and Ranked Badly, Maladministration Dooms the Company
- Now they stack people up for PIPs and layoffs ("RAs")
- Links 16/01/2026: UK Royal Family's "Legal Team Accused of Dishonesty, Fraud and Misconduct", OSI Still Controlled by Microsoft (the OSI's Spokesperson is on Microsoft's Payroll, Not Interim Executive Director, Deborah Bryant)
- Links for the day
- Writing About Corruption
- Fraud is everywhere
- The B in IBM is Brown-nosing and Buzzwords (or Both)
- International Buzzwords Machines
- Naming Culprits in Switzerland
- Switzerland is highly secretive about white-collar crime
- IBM's 'Scientific-Sounding' Tech-Porn Won't Help IBM Survive (or Be Bailed Out)
- Who's next in the pipeline?
- IBM Was Never the Good Guy
- its original products were used for large-scale surveillance, not scientific endeavours
- The Bluewashing is Making Red Hat Extinct (They All Become "IBM", Little by Little)
- IBM does not care what's legal
- Slopfarms Push Fake News About Microsoft Shutdown, 30,000+ Microsoft Layoffs Last Year Spun as Only "15,000"
- The Web is seriously ill
- Countries Take Action Against Social Control Media and 'Smart' 'Phones', Not Slop (Plagiarised Information Synthesis Systems or P.I.S.S.)
- None of this is unprecedented except the scale and speed of sharing
- Sanitised Plagiarism as "AI" (How Oligarchy Plots to Use Slop to Hide or Distract From Its Abuses, or Cause People Not to Trust Anything They See/Read Online)
- This isn't innovation but repression
- Sites That Expose Corruption Under Attack, Journalism Not Tolerated Anymore (the Super-Rich Abuse Their Wealth and Political Power)
- Sometimes, albeit not always, the harder people try to hide something, the more effective and important it is for the general public
- Recent Layoffs at Red Hat (2026 the Year of Ultimate Bluewashing)
- I found it amusing that Red Hat's CEO has just chosen to wear all blue, as if to make a point
- Links 16/01/2026: Social Control Media Curbs in Australia Underway, MElon Still Profiting by Sexualising Kids 'as a Service'
- Links for the day
- More People Nowadays Say "GNU/Linux"
- We still see many distros and even journalists that say "GNU/Linux"
- LLM Slop on the Web is Waning, But Linuxiac Has Become a Slopfarm
- I gave Linuxiac a chance to deny this or explain this; Linuxiac did not
- More Signs of Financial Troubles at Microsoft, Europe Puts Microsoft Under Investigation
- The end of the library is part of the cuts
- Team Campinos Talks About SAP Days Before EPO Industrial Actions and a Day Before the "Alicante Mafia" Series (About Team Campinos Doing Cocaine)
- EPO staff that isn't morally feeble will insist on objecting to illegal instructions
- Pedophilia-Enabling Microsoft Co-founder Cuts Staff
- Compensating by sleeping with young girls does not make one younger
- Microsoft Shuts Down Campus Library, Resorts to Storytelling About "AI" to Spin the Seriousness of It
- Microsoft is in pain
- Free Software Foundation (FSF) Back to Advertising the Talks of Richard Stallman
- A pleasant surprise
- Stack(ed) Rankings and Ongoing Layoffs at Red Hat and IBM (Failure to Keep Staff Acquired by IBM)
- IBM is mismanaged and its sole aim is to game the stock market (by faking a lot of things)
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 15, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, January 15, 2026
- Gemini Links 16/01/2026: House Flood and Pragmatic Retrocomputing Dogfooding
- Links for the day
- Links 15/01/2026: Starlink Weaponised for Regime Change (by Man Who Boasted About Annexing South American Countries for Tesla's Mining), Corruption in Switzerland Uncovered by JuristGate
- Links for the day
- Linuxiac May Have Reverted Back to LLM Slop (Updated Same Day)
- Is he back off the wagon?
- GAFAM and IBM Layoffs Outline
- a lot of the layoffs happen in secrecy and involve convincing people to resign, retire, relocate etc.
- Links 15/01/2026: Internet Blackouts, Jackboots Society in US
- Links for the day
- Coming Soon: Impact With EPO Cocainegate
- Will Campinos survive 2026?
- The Last 'Dilberts' or Some of the Last Salvaged (Comic Strips Which Disappeared Shortly After They Had Been Published)
- Around the time the creator of Dilbert went silent he published some strips mocking TikTok and usage of it
- The Creator of Git Probably Doesn't Know How to Install and Deploy Git
- Nobody disputes this: Mr. Torvalds created Git
- Slop is a Liability
- Slopfarms too will become extinct because people aren't interested in them
- GAFAM is a National and International Threat to Everybody
- GAFAM is just a tentacle in service of imperialism
- EPO People Power - Part XXXVI - In Conclusion and Taking Things Up Another Notch
- They often say that the law won't deter or stop criminals because it's hard to enforce laws against people who reject the law
- Running Techrights is Fun, Rewarding, and Gratifying
- In Geminispace we are already quite dominant
- Red Hat is Connected to the Military, Its Chief Comes From Military Family (From Both Sides)
- The founder of Red Hat's parent company literally saluted Hitler himself (yes, a Nazi salute)
- Don't Cry for Gaslighting Media in a Country Which Loathes the Press
- my wife and I received threats for merely writing about Americans
- Red Hat (IBM) is Driving Away Remaining Fedora Users
- I've not used Fedora since Moonshine
- Robert X. Cringely Has Already Explained IBM's Bullying Culture (Towards Its Own Staff)
- IBM is a fairly nasty company
- Proton Mail compromise, Hannah Natanson (Washington Post) police raid & Debian
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, January 14, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, January 14, 2026
- Gemini Links 15/01/2026: "Ode to elinks", envs.net Pubnix and Downtime at geminiprotocol.net
- Links for the day