Linux in the News: New RC, Steve Jobs' Offer to Torvalds Recalled, OpenDaylight Summit...
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-02-18 09:46:04 UTC
- Modified: 2014-02-18 09:46:04 UTC
Summary: Kernel-centric news items from the past few days
Kernel Space
-
Linux kernel 3.14 RC3 includes several updated drivers (GPU, media, block, etc.), architecture updates (x86, ARM64, s390), filesystem improvements (Btrfs, VFS, NFS, OCFS, and kernfs fixes), as well as various mm and tooling (perf) improvements.
-
Linus Torvalds, the man behind the wonderful project Linux and Git was offered job by Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Inc. Torvalds never met Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft but he met Jobs in the year 2000 when he was working with Transmeta corporation, an American fabless semiconductor company. Jobs invited Torvalds to Cupertino Camps of Apple. Torvalds was offered thick salary and remarkable position within the organization and was supposed to do Non-Linux things at Apple. This was the point, Torvalds disagreed. Moreover Torvalds did not like the Mac Kernel, Mach.
-
Earlier this month at the OpenDaylight Summit, the software defined networking project announced its first code release, called Hydrogen.
Their open source controller is now available for download, published for everyone to see and use. But the structure and culture that got the project to this point, about one year after its formation, isn't so readily available for outsiders to see and understand.
-
As users everywhere begin to warm up to the benefits of running multiple operating systems in tandem, virtualization has become one of the hottest corners of the technology arena. Many open source tools are helping to drive this trend, and that is making the work of the Open Virtualization Alliance very important. The group has been up and running for years, and late last year it joined the Linux Foundation in an effort to integrate its efforts more closely with the Linux community.
-
All of the code for kdbus is living within its own Git repository right now and also there's code within the systemd Git while a compile-time switch must be activated now within systemd. Developers are hoping kdbus will be reviewed and merged into the upstream Linux kernel this year. Lennart shared a couple of kdbus features out on the horizon include sandboxing support, yielding CPU time to destination, priority inheritance, and priority queues.
Graphics Stack
-
This new multi-touch touch-pad implementation presents support for one / two / three finger tapping, two-finger scrolling, clickfinger, drag-n-drop on clickpads, and single-touch touch-pad support. There's also work underway in the clickpad software button support and better timeout handling. Other possible features include trackstick mode support, disable-while-tapping, pinch/rotation support, and other features.
-
An SGI fan and Phoronix reader happened to have an old set of SGI tapes dating back to the 90's regarding "Tech Talk" and "KGSI Radio" on SGI wares. The Phoronix reader, Steven Hill, digitized these recordings and obtained permission to release them from SGI after formally being marked confidential.
-
AMD has published a second version of their open-source Linux driver code for exposing the "VCE" video engine on modern Radeon GPUs under Linux via OpenMAX for accelerated H.264 video encoding.
-
The Radeon R600 Gallium3D driver has picked up support for another OpenGL extension that's mandated by the OpenGL 4.1 specification.
-
For those curious how AMD's Catalyst Linux performance is doing as we get 2014 underway with the first Catalyst 14.1 beta, here are benchmarks from nine different AMD Radeon graphics cards under Ubuntu Linux and running this latest publicly available driver when looking at both the OpenGL graphics and OpenCL compute performance.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Social Control Media and GAFAM as National Security Threats (Domestically and More So Abroad)
- "Algorithms control messages, swayed 2024 presidential election"
-
- Links 09/05/2026: "Grand Theft Oil Futures" and Mass Layoffs at Verizon
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 09/05/2026: Inkscape "Copy Text Style" and NomadNet
- Links for the day
- The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XVII - European Patent Office (EPO) Management Not Sharing Responsibility for Financial Resources
- For those who wonder, EPO strikes are still going on
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 08, 2026
- IRC logs for Friday, May 08, 2026
- Gemini Links 08/05/2026: Slop Falsely Marketed to Greedy Administrators and New Official Maintainer of Antenna Confirmed
- Links for the day
- Links 08/05/2026: French Prosecutors Seek Charges Against MElon, Europe Wants Young People Without Skinnerboxes (Smartphones)
- Links for the day
- 2,000-4,000 More Layoffs Expected at IBM's Kyndryl, Some Say Over 10,000 Layoffs
- They use euphemisms like "restructuring" or "rebalancing"
- Gemini Links 08/05/2026: Dissociated Pride and Prejudice, Smallnet Protocols Roundup
- Links for the day
- Links 08/05/2026: Slop Profiteer NVIDIA (and Circular Financing/Accounting Fraud Leader) May Be Liable for Mass Copyright Infringement, Kyndryl (IBM) Layoffs
- Links for the day
- Outgoing OSI Chief Was Paid by Microsoft to Advocate for GPL Violations (Using the OSI's Name). Now, Inside OIN, He Says GPL Violations Are 'Freedom'.
- It seems like only compromised people can be "allowed" to run today's OSI
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 70 Out of 200: Microsoft's Graveley Injunction Request 100% the Same as Garrett's (Pure 'Copy-paste', Not Even a Word or Single Character Changed!)
- Not so funny at all
- Over 97% of the 'Linux' Foundation's Budget Goes Not to Linux
- There is a term for this: mission creep
- Cloudflare is a Giant Pile of Debt, Now There Are Mass Layoffs and Media Coverage About This is Churnalism, Sometimes by Slopfarms (False Excuses)
- If Cloudflare goes under, it'll be great news
- NDAs as a Price Tag on Criticism (or Honest Expressions of Opinion)
- What ever happened to accountability? Suppressed by reverse bribes (via NDAs)?
- Internal Microsoft Communications Confirm: "Buyout" Offer Worse Than a Year's Salary and Microsoft Offers "Retirement" to Young People Who Cannot Retire
- Does that sound like a good offer or marching orders?
- It's Not a GAFAM World Anymore and There Are Far More Operating Systems Than Google's, Apple's, and Microsoft's
- we're not getting the full picture of what's happening
- Site Overhauls at Cybershow and at analognowhere.com (Less is More!)
- They seem to be replacing the heavy PHP backend with static HTML pages
- Microsoft's XBox is Going Away Like Microsoft's Skype (Slowly But Surely, Then All at Once)
- XBox is dying rapidly
- Codecs and Software Patents - Part IV - Things Got So Bad That Some Laptop Sales Got Banned in the EU (Over Software Patents!)
- If software patents lead to such severe outcomes, shouldn't the media pay closer attention to the problem?
- The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XVI - EPO Had Data Breaches, Covered Them Up, Now Lectures Staff That Didn't Do It and Didn't Cover It Up
- Imagine what would happen to staff if (non-anonymously) blowing the whistle on management leaking and then covering up EPO data breaches
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 07, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, May 07, 2026
- Mass Layoffs at IBM's Kyndryl, Slop Won't Save Kyndryl
- Kyndryl is a "done deal". It's done. It's finished.
- Kyndryl Holdings Inc Falls Almost 15% in 2 Days, What Does That Tell Us About IBM?
- The "Big Blue" 'shell game' isn't working
- Companies That Say They Are "Hey Hi" (AI) Leaders Don't Really Do Well, They Have Mass Layoffs Because Hype and Storytelling Won't Live Up to Shareholders' Expectations
- Microsoft's investment in slop is not going well
- Gemini Links 07/05/2026: Unicode and "RSS 4 Noobs (Getting Started)"
- Links for the day
- During IBM's Annual Event/Bash IBM's Stock Fell to (Almost) Lowest Level in a Year, Insiders Explain "IBM is on the Brink of Collapse."
- Anthropic - like IBM - pays the media for puff pieces, exaggerations, and obvious vapourware
- Servers Became "Cloud", VR Became "Metaverse", Now Bots Become "Agents" (of Slop)
- Changing the name of things won't prevent rejection, only delay the negative reaction some more
- Links 07/05/2026: "The ‘Perfect Storm’ Hanging Over Britain’s Public Debt" and "Internet Shutdowns Spread in Africa"
- Links for the day
- OSI Partners With Microsoft to Help Pretend Proprietary (GitHub) 'Celebrates' Open Source
- And a Microsoft operative announced this as well
- Links 07/05/2026: "Most Vibe-coded (Slop) Tools Are Not for You" and "Prepare for the PCB Shortage"
- Links for the day
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 69 Out of 200: Microsoft's Graveley Strangles, Gets Arrested, Charged, Then Asks for Apology From Those Who Reported It by Recycling Garrett's Plea for Apology
- Garrett realised that his "funny" lawsuit wasn't so funny anymore
- Codecs and Software Patents - Part III - AOMedia Video 1 (AV1) and Antitrust Issues
- As we'll show in later parts, this already results in bans of some hardware sales in Europe
- The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XV - Talking About Responsibility and Accountability While Failing to Hold Themselves Accountable
- what outlet is there for justice or for the Rule of Law?
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 06, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, May 06, 2026
- Gemini Links 07/05/2026: Dissociated Jekyll And Hyde, New Antenna 2.0.0
- Links for the day