02.21.14

Links 21/2/2014: Screenshot Galleries

Posted in News Roundup at 4:00 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

• Robolinux 7.4.1

• SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP3

• Bridge 2014.02 GNOME

• GParted 0.18.0-1 Screenshot Tour

• Slackel 6.0 Beta 1 (Openbox) Screenshot Tour

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Police and Army: Not Protecting and Not Serving Ordinary People

Posted in News Roundup at 10:54 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Domestic and foreign abuses of power; examples from recent weeks for police and from the past 24 hours for the army/secret agencies

Police

• No bond for elderly Sebring woman who repeatedly fed bears

  Neighbors say Mary Musselman has been feeding backyard animals as long as they can remember.

  “She fed the squirrels, the birds, strays and that was in the community. She’s just always been that kind of soul,” says neighbor Patty Palmer.

• Stop Resisting Execution: Cold-Blooded Arizona Cops Assassinate Suspect with His Hands in the Air

  For absolutely no reason other than “because they could”, cops in Pinal County, Arizona executed a suspect who was standing there, not near any of the officers, with his hands in the air, offering no threat whatsoever. Without trial, judge, or jury, they simply assassinated the man, as his family looked on in horror. Warning: There is some graphic violence in the video below.

• Woman Collapses in Courthouse, Dies, Attorney Says She Was Stressed By Commando-Style Raid on Her Home, Husband’s Arrest

  Stacey Feigel’s husband, Sheldon, is facing multiple felony counts related to an alleged scam involving filing fraudulently for adverse possession on abandoned homes. While arriving in court for a hearing, Stacey collapsed from a “cardiac event” (according to the coroner) and died. Attorney Mark Coleman suggested stress from the raid and arrest could have led to her death.

Panic

• Noam Chomsky: Why Americans Are Paranoid About Everything (Including Zombies)

  I’ve never seen a real study, but my guess is that it’s a reflection of fear and desperation. It’s a very frightened country. The United States is an unusually frightened country. And in such circumstances, people concoct either for escape or maybe out of relief, fears that terrible things happen.

• Former CIA operative: Shoe bomb technology getting better

• US Officials Warn of Airline Shoe Bomb Threat

Foreign Policy

• New Jet-Powered Drone Can Kill 1,800 Miles From Home Base

  The U.S. may be forced to withdraw troops completely from Afghanistan by the end of the year. That’s bad news if you’re the CIA and your lethal drone flights over neighboring Pakistan rely on the close proximity of Afghan airstrips.

  Not surprisingly, the defense industry has already produced a solution: a new jet-powered drone that can range 1,800 miles from the nearest base.

• Drone attacks

  As Spencer Ackerman, National security reporter, said “it’s just so little transparency and so much opacity when it comes to Drones, belonged to CIA; if it were military then you could at least get the insight as how it works and debate about whether it should run this way”. With his comment on Drones dilemma, CIA is not required to give any information on any drone operations. They do not officially discuss drone programme, as Spencer Ackerman mentioned.

• Why a Pakistani reporter is suing the CIA for murder

  Kareem Khan’s son and brother died in a US drone strike. His lawsuit has made waves in Pakistan and overseas, and he was recently detained for nine days.

• Valley View: Drone strikes have psychological and moral impact

  A year ago, 8-year-old Nabeela ventured outside while her 68-year-old grandmother picked vegetables in their family garden. Moments later, the grandmother was blasted to pieces by two U.S. drone missiles. Nabeela and other nearby grandchildren were injured when the exploding missile lodged shrapnel in their bodies.

  No one is alleging the grandmother did anything wrong. Her fatal “mistake” was living in North Waziristan, a region in Pakistan pummeled by U.S. drone strikes (Amnesty International, Nov. 13).

• Report: U.S. drone strike may have killed up to a dozen civilians in Yemen

  A U.S. military drone strike in Yemen in December may have killed up to a dozen civilians on their way to a wedding and injured others, including the bride, a human rights group says. U.S. officials say only members of al-Qaida were killed, but they have refused to make public the details of two U.S. investigations into the incident.

• The American on Obama’s ‘Kill List’ Doesn’t Pose An Imminent Threat

  Last week I wrote about the news that the Obama administration is considering whether to assassinate another American citizen in a drone strike. The Associated Press reported the target is an American citizen and member of al-Qaeda, “and the Obama administration is wrestling with whether to kill him with a drone strike and how to do so legally under its new stricter targeting policy issued last year.”

• The Men We Kill, and the Men We Don’t

  The story told by the report is one of disputed identity. Anonymous US officials have said all of the twelve men killed were militants traveling with Shawqi Ali Ahmad al-Badani, allegedly a member of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the primary target of the strike. Officials say al-Badani was wounded, and escaped. Relatives of the dead say they didn’t know him.

• Jon Stewart Calls Obama the ‘Barry Bombs of Drone Strikes’

• Jon Stewart: President Obama Is Like ‘Barry Bombs’ of Drone Strikes

• Jon Stewart Compares Obama’s Drone Program With Bush’s Torture Policy

• Lithuania opens probe into CIA ‘black site’ allegations

  Lithuanian prosecutors said on Thursday they have opened an investigation into claims that a Saudi terror suspect was held in an alleged secret CIA jail in the Baltic state, reports LETA/AFP.

• Lithuania prosecutors to reopen probe into alleged CIA rendition of Saudi terror suspect

• Kevin Costner’s ’3 Days to Kill’: CIA hitman as sitcom dad

  Sitcom and sadism mix uncomfortably in Luc Besson’s “3 Days to Kill,” starring Kevin Costner as a CIA hitman and absentee father.

• Why Amazon’s Collaboration with the CIA Is So Ominous — and Vulnerable

  As the world’s biggest online retailer, Amazon wants a benevolent image to encourage trust from customers. Obtaining vast quantities of their personal information has been central to the firm’s business model. But Amazon is diversifying — and a few months ago the company signed a $600 million contract with the Central Intelligence Agency to provide “cloud computing” services.

  Amazon now has the means, motive and opportunity to provide huge amounts of customer information to its new business partner. An official statement from Amazon headquarters last fall declared: “We look forward to a successful relationship with the CIA.”

  The Central Intelligence Agency has plenty of money to throw around. Thanks to documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, we know that the CIA’s annual budget is $14.7 billion; the NSA’s is $10.8 billion.

  The founder and CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, is bullish on the company’s prospects for building on its initial contract with the CIA. As you might expect from a gung-ho capitalist with about $25 billion in personal wealth, Bezos figures he’s just getting started.

• Former CIA official accused of misleading lawmakers on Benghazi

• Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden Criticize the “Decline” of US Democracy

• Chelsea Manning rewarded for integrity in intelligence

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Death of Privacy: Lync in PRISM, Intel Dodges Questions on Back Doors, WhatsApp Joins PRISM, Censorship/Surveillance

Posted in News Roundup at 10:49 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: News about mass surveillance and privacy, collected over the past 24 hours

Wintelligence

• Microsoft Lync gathers data just like NSA vacuums up info in its domestic surveillance program (as we noted days ago)

  Microsoft’s Lync communications platform gathers enough readily analyzable data to let corporations spy on their employees like the NSA can on U.S. citizens, and it’s based on the same type of information – call details.

• Writing The Snowden Files: ‘The paragraph began to self-delete’ (don’t use Windows)

  One day last summer – a short while after Edward Snowden revealed himself as the source behind the momentous leak of classified intelligence – the Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger got in touch. Would I write a book on Snowden’s story and that of the journalists working with him? The answer, of course, was yes. At this point Snowden was still in Hong Kong. He was in hiding. He had leaked documents that revealed the US National Security Agency (NSA) and its British equivalent GCHQ were surveilling much of the planet.

  [...]

  By September the book was going well – 30,000 words done. A Christmas deadline loomed. I was writing a chapter on the NSA’s close, and largely hidden, relationship with Silicon Valley. I wrote that Snowden’s revelations had damaged US tech companies and their bottom line. Something odd happened. The paragraph I had just written began to self-delete. The cursor moved rapidly from the left, gobbling text. I watched my words vanish. When I tried to close my OpenOffice file the keyboard began flashing and bleeping.

• Intel chief dodges NSA questions in Reddit AMA

  One Redditer asked the Intel chief how the NSA revelations have impacted how Intel looks at hardware security, another asked for a response to questions of the security level of Intel processors. Krzanich issued no response to either question.

Lawsuits

• Lots to see in battle of surveillance lawsuits

  The legal fight against National Security Agency surveillance is shaping up to be a titanic clash, with pugilistic litigants trading charges and countercharges of bad faith and misinformation.

• NSA Spying Leaves Law Firms Vulnerable To Litigation

  A recent report that the National Security Agency spied on Mayer Brown LLP has stoked fears that client communications and data at a host of law firms may be vulnerable to prying eyes, leaving attorneys susceptible to lawsuits claiming they failed to take reasonable steps to protect sensitive information.

• Minn. man claims ‘victory’ over NSA after feds drop bid to block parody merchandise

• NSA lawsuits may lead to expansion of spying program

  Call it the law of unintended consequences: Lawsuits brought forth by National Security Agency spying revelations may actually prompt the agency to expand its controversial program — at least in the short term.

• NSA Phone Dragnet Lawsuits May Keep Old Data Alive

PR

• FBI director on NSA controversy: ‘Government operating as it was designed’

  While many Americans are still reeling from several controversies surrounding the federal government, a top-ranking official stopped by the Sooner State to provide his view on some of the incidents.

  FBI Director James Comey spoke with the media about some of the skepticism surrounding the government.

• NSA Official Warned About Threat 17 Years Before Snowden

  Seventeen years before Edward Snowden began releasing secret documents on U.S. electronic spying, an analyst with the National Security Agency foresaw just such a threat.

• Declassified Photos Give An Inside Look At The Ultra-Secret NSA

  The original members of the NSA are seen below in this photograph from 1935. At the time the organisation was called the U.S. Army Signal Intelligence Service and was responsible for Army communications security.

Paranoia

• Why AT&T’s Surveillance Report Omits 80 Million NSA Targets

  AT&T this week released for the first time in the phone company’s 140-year history a rough accounting of how often the U.S. government secretly demands records on telephone customers. But to those who’ve been following the National Security Agency leaks, Ma Bell’s numbers come up short by more than 80 million spied-upon Americans.

  AT&T’s transparency report counts 301,816 total requests for information — spread between subpoenas, court orders and search warrants — in 2013. That includes between 2,000 and 4,000 under the category “national security demands,” which collectively gathered information on about 39,000 to 42,000 different accounts.

  There was a time when that number would have seemed high. Today, it’s suspiciously low, given the disclosures by whistleblower Edward Snowden about the NSA’s bulk metadata program. We now know that the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is ordering the major telecoms to provide the NSA a firehose of metadata covering every phone call that crosses their networks.

• The NSA once banned Furbies as a threat to national security

  In 1999, after the Furby craze put tons of these talking toys beneath American Christmas trees, the NSA issued a memo banning them from its offices in Fort Meade. Because the commercials advertised Furbies as “learning” English over time, the folks in charge believed that Furbies contained an internal recording device, and they feared the toys would spill secrets in their cutesy voices. According to a 1999 BBC News article, anyone who came across a Furby on NSA premises was instructed to “contact their Staff Security Office for guidance.”

Politics

• Rand Paul: The NSA is still violating our rights, despite what James Clapper says

• NSA snooping must not disrupt global Internet governance model, warns EU politician

  Europe must ensure that fears of NSA-style government snooping do not disrupt its multi-stakeholder Internet governance model.

  That’s the verdict from this year’s FTTH Conference in Stockholm, as Sweden’s minister for information technology and energy, Anna-Karin Hatt, spoke candidly about the importance of securing a democratic future for the web.

  “We are all stakeholders in the development of the Internet, with legitimate interests and points-of-view that we want to – and need to – be able to pursue and protect,” she said.

  Hatt added: “The only logical way to continue developing the Internet is to protect and develop the multi-stakeholder model of decision-making we already have – a model that has been tried and proven to work.”

  “The revelations of the capacities and activities of the NSA is not a reason to abandon our multi-stakeholder model.”

• Mikulski Denounces Bill That Would Deny NSA ‘Material Support’ in Maryland

  Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., isn’t pleased with a bill pending in her state’s legislature that would prohibit state and local support for the National Security Agency.

  The legislation was proposed Feb. 6 by eight Republicans in the 141-member Maryland House of Delegates and would deny the NSA “material support, participation or assistance in any form” from the state, its political subdivisions and companies with state contracts.

• 15 Ways to Make Sense of Calls for NSA Reform

New PRISM Additions

• Facebook to buy WhatsApp for 16 Billion

Induced Censorship

• Surveillance and Pressure Against WikiLeaks and Its Readers

• Venezuela’s Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout

  For the last month, Venezuela has been caught up in widespread protests against its government. The Maduro administration has responded by cracking down on what it claims as being foreign interference online. As that social unrest has escalated, the state’s censorship has widened: from the removal of television stations from cable networks, to the targeted blocking of social networking services, and the announcement of new government powers to censor and monitor online.

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Links 21/2/2014: Games

Posted in News Roundup at 7:30 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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Links 21/2/2014: Applications

Posted in News Roundup at 7:28 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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Links 21/2/2014: Instructionals

Posted in News Roundup at 7:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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Ubuntu Makes Many Headlines Again, This Time Because of Real Phones

Posted in GNU/Linux, Ubuntu at 7:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Canonical’s latest marketing effort brings awareness of Ubuntu, Linux and even GNU/Free software to a lot of people all around the world

WHILE we may not agree with Canonical on everything, the company does have a positive effect on GNU/Linux adoption and many distributions are derived from it. When Canonical tried to kickstart the “Edge” we defended Canonical and criticised negative coverage which called “Edge” vapourware (a self-fulfilling prophecy). Well, now we know, based on the words of Canonical’s founder [1], that Apple played a role in making it hard to get screens for the “Edge”. CNET/CBS did not cover it properly (it seems more like Apple marketing), but it’s a serious issue which is at least being put out there right now.

Canonical and Ubuntu have not been making headlines for a while (except when Canonical was left with not much choice but to abandon its project, Upstart [2-5], as well as some non-news about Ubuntu Touch [6-8], Ubuntu desktop [9,10], convergence of those two [11-13], and servers [14]), so we were delighted to see a press release [15] followed by aggressive marketing by Canonical staff like Jono Bacon [16-17] really flooding the news/Internet with articles that mention (GNU/)Linux and the role it has in phones. This is not only good for Ubuntu; it’s probably good for Free software as a whole. It wasn’t just covered in FOSS sites or even technology sites; even general news sites covered it [18-55], bringing the message to a lot of people all around the world, even in poorer nations like the Philippines [56,57].

Well done, Canonical. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Apple ‘snapped up’ sapphire displays, says Canonical founder

   “Apple just snapped up three year’s worth of the supply of sapphire screens from the company that we had engaged to make the screens for the Edge,” he said (at roughly the 30:45 mark linked to above). The report about the sapphire display comments first appeared at Gigaom.

2. Ubuntu Will Switch To Systemd Abandoning Their Own init System Upstart

3. Systemd dominates and Debian, Ubuntu, Git updates – Linux Snippets

4. Linux init-system shocker: Mark Shuttleworth announces that Ubuntu will follow Debian and adopt systemd

5. Canonical Drops Upstart for systemd in Ubuntu Linux

6. Ubuntu Touch x86 emulator improves security, OpenGL

7. Canonical Confirms Arrival Of VLC, Spinlet, Mapbox & Other Third Party Apps For Ubuntu Touch

8. Canonical gets support from major app developers for Ubuntu Touch

   Canonical has announced that the company has got support from major app developers for Ubuntu Touch—the mobile version of the Ubuntu operating system.

9. Ubuntu 14.04 brings back menus in application windows

   Ubuntu users, I tell you this: good things come to those who wait. For all of you cheerful Ubuntu users, come 14.04, you’ll be able to choose whether or not you wish your application menus to appear globally or locally. With Locally Integrated Menus (coined by Unity Desktop member JohnLea), that will become possible.

10. Mesa 10.1 Should Make It Into Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

    Mesa 10.1 brings many new OpenGL features, new hardware support, and as with most Mesa updates is a very worthwhile upgrade for users of the open-source Linux graphics stack. There’s been many articles about Mesa 10.1 on Phoronix while there’s also the Mesa 10.1 feature overview. Mesa 10.1 itself is in a release candidate stage but should be officially released later this month on 28 February.

11. No Mobile Support for Ubuntu store apps until version 14.04

    Running an app simultaneously on your PC, tablet and mobile is the apex of technology nirvana, right? If you are a user of Ubuntu and into the news, you must have heard that there is a thing called “Karma app” into the market, which has been marketed up by Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon this week showed off Karma Machine, a reddit client built by a third-party developer using the Ubuntu SDK. What Karma does is that it allows you to enjoy the apps both on your PC, tablet and mobile but, strangely enough, it does not support Ubuntu Center in it. You ask why? Because there won’t be any cross platform support until Ubuntu 14.4.

12. Jono Bacon demos Ubuntu complete convergence with Karma Machine

    Canonical aims to unite the code base for all of their operating systems–for desktop, mobile, TV, and server–somewhere between the releases of Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 15.04. And the developers are pretty close to achieving this complete convergence.

13. This is what Ubuntu convergence is all about – a single app running across different devices

14. Joyent Partners with Canonical on Customized Ubuntu as a Cloud Service

    Joyent, well-known on the cloud computing scene and a growing player in Big Data analytics, announced a partnership with Canonical today to provide customers with optimized and supported Ubuntu server images in the Joyent Cloud. Effectively, users will be able to leverage a Canonical-customized Ubuntu in the cloud. The two companies also want to enable developers and enterprises to create mobile, big data and high-performance applications on Ubuntu and Joyent’s OS-Virtualized cloud platform.

15. Canonical Announces First Partners to Ship Ubuntu Phones Around the Globe

16. You’ll NEVER guess who’s building the first Ubuntu phones in 2014

    The first smartphones running Ubuntu will ship this year, Canonical now says – although the Linux vendor’s hardware partners are hardly the first companies you might guess.

17. Today’s Ubuntu News

    I am sure that you have all seen the exciting news about the first partners to ship Ubuntu smart-phones.

18. Two Ubuntu phones to hit market this year

    The wait is over, Ubuntu phones are coming. Canonical today announced that Meizu of China, and BQ of Spain, will start selling Ubuntu powered phones by the year end. While the company claims that these devices will be made available globally, it seems that the phones will be targeted at the local market of the two players as Ubuntu doesn’t hold enough weight to break the dominance of Android and iOS in stronger economies like EU and the US. Mozilla knows the reality and despite being much bigger than Canonical chose to focus on emerging markets for the same reason.

19. Ubuntu Touch gets grip on its first phone makers

20. Canonical, Partners Promise First Ubuntu Phones This Year

21. Is there still room for Ubuntu smartphones on the market?

22. Canonical announces first partners to ship Ubuntu phones around the globe

23. Daily Roundup: Ubuntu’s first phones, Lumia Icon review and more!

24. Ubuntu phones arriving in 2014 from Meizu and BQ Readers

25. First Ubuntu smartphones to debut in 2014

26. Canonical confirms partners for first Ubuntu phones

27. Canonical announces manufacturers of Ubuntu phones

28. Video: Did this Ubuntu superphone concept inspire the upcoming iPhone 6?

29. Canonical names first Ubuntu Touch smartphone makers

30. Ubuntu Phones from Meizu and bq Coming This Year

31. Ubuntu Touch Finally Has Hardware Partners

32. Ubuntu-based Smartphones Available In 2014

33. Ubuntu desktop moving application menus back into application windows

34. Linux Extends Its Mobile Empire With Ubuntu Phones

    Today, Canonical — the company that develops Ubuntu — announced partnerships with Spanish hardware designer bq and the Chinese mobile device company Meizu, saying that both would introduce phones over the next 10 months. The news is part of wider movement towards Linux phones across the world and particularly in Asia, where the open source OS can feed the enormous market for inexpensive devices.

35. Meizu And BQ To Roll Out Ubuntu Smartphones

36. Canonical announces BQ and Meizu as first Ubuntu phone partners

37. Meizu, bq to sell Ubuntu phones in 2014, platform a ‘credible alternative’ to Android

38. Two small manufacturers will release Ubuntu phones this year, Canonical says

39. Canonical announces Ubuntu phones for release in 2014

40. First Ubuntu phones coming this year from China’s Meizu and Spain’s Bq

41. First Ubuntu phones to launch in 2014

42. Canonical To Ship Ubuntu Smartphones From bq And Meizu Later This Year

43. Ubuntu phones from Meizu and bq in 2014 Canonical promises

44. Canonical announces first Ubuntu smartphone manufacturers

45. First Ubuntu phones to launch in 2014

46. Ubuntu smartphones coming later this year, Canonical reveals

47. Ubuntu phones to ship this year from two manufacturers

48. Meizu, bq to launch Ubuntu smartphones in 2014

49. First Ubuntu phones on track for 2014 as handset makers jump on board

50. Canonical details first Ubuntu smartphone partners, devices due to arrive later this year

51. Meizu and BQ Readers will ship Ubuntu phones this year

52. First Ubuntu Phone manufacturers announced

53. Canonical announces first Ubuntu smartphone manufacturers

54. Two Ubuntu phones with top apps in 2014

55. Ubuntu phones arriving in 2014 from Meizu and BQ Readers

    Canonical is finally poised to enter the mobile market. After years of teases, promises and demos, the company has locked up the first two manufacturers of Ubuntu phones. Meizu and BQ Readers will be releasing handsets with the Linux-based OS installed on them sometime in 2014. Details about release date, price and specs are still to be determined, but we were told to expect more info at Mobile World Congress (which kicks off this weekend). The list of supporting carriers also remains a mystery, but at least we know that there will be consumer-ready Ubuntu phones on the market before the end of the year. Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical’s founder, is keeping things close to his chest, but he did say that two more manufacturers with “household names” should be coming on board in 2015.

56. PHL among countries to get first crack at Ubuntu smartphones

    Filipinos may be among the first to get a first crack at using smartphones powered by the Linux-based Ubuntu operating system.

    Canonical said Smart Philippines will be among its first partners to ship Ubuntu smartphones manufactured by China-based Meizu.

57. Smart joins telco global leaders supporting Ubuntu

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Good Advocacy by the Linux Foundation Stresses the Jobs Effect, But Should Mention GNU Also

Posted in BSD, GNU/Linux, Kernel at 6:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Skills involving BSD, GNU, and other toolsets deserve coverage (at least by name) in the context of Free/Open Source software

THERE was recently a lot of coverage about jobs in Free/Open Source software (FOSS) and days or weeks later the Linux Foundation weighed in with its press release [1] about a study it had funded to frame this as a “Linux” boom. The Linux Foundation is run and managed by branding experts like Zemlin (they don't always do branding right) and marketing people, so this should not be shocking. The only problem is, they rewrite history to make it look as though only Linux counts (the big lie which gives the Linux Foundation power at the expense of camps like GNU/FSF). I am not an opponent of the Linux Foundation; I am a big fan of Linux, but I also care about accuracy and truth in reporting — something which the marketing community is unable, by definition, to care about.

Looking at the sort of headlines generated by the Linux Foundation’s latest marketing drive (e.g. 2-8]), it’s all about “Linux” but not about the rest of the stack (FOSS). The Linux Foundation is not the only entity which does this by the way. But what they call “Linux skills” often means command-line skills and basically familiarity with GNU utilities, not Linux (the kernel does not have many utilities of interest). Some tools, like OpenSSH, are from BSD. If we mislead the public by collectively referring to all those small programs as “Linux”, then we not only do a disservice to other projects but we also reinforce the philosophy of Linux, which does not stress or insist so much on freedom.

To give example of better actions from the Linux Foundation (as of late), it shared a story about a Pennsylvania high school adopting GNU/Linux and it generated some good headlines [9]. Its marketing staff issued a somewhat provocative, stereotypes-reinforcing (connoting Linux with scarce social/love life) Valentine’s post [10], not to mention today’s Facebook promotion [11] (people have openly complained about the Linux Foundation’s support for surveillance like Facebook for years). On the other hand, the Linux Foundation sets up new conferences that are named only after the kernel [12] (even when the conferences cover things beyond it [13]), which is another matter worth mentioning.

Ultimately, it would be fair to stress, not only the Linux Foundation calls/labels “Linux” a much broader system, exploiting a common misunderstanding/misconception. The Linux Professional Institute (LPI) too is doing that [14]. It often teaches GNU, but students are led to believe that it’s all “Linux”. We can do better than that. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. 2014 Linux Jobs Report: Demand for Linux Expertise Drives Hiring Priorities

2. Hiring managers desperately hunt for Linux talent: Report

   With hiring managers beefing up their plans to bring aboard talent with Linux skills over the next six months, a bright future awaits those professionals who know Linux.

   Tech recruitment firm Dice and The Linux Foundation have released the 2014 edition of the Linux Jobs Report. The two found that the growing demand for Linux talent is “driving salaries for Linux above industry norms.”

3. gNewSense Reviewed, Thanking Packagers, and Linux Jobs

4. Linux skills helping professional move forward – 2014 Linux Jobs Report

5. Keep Learning Linux—It’s The Future

6. Linux professionals are in high demand in technology job market

   Today in Open Source: Download the free 2014 Linux Jobs Report.

7. Demand for Linux Professionals is Growing

8. Demand for Linux skills rises

9. Pennsylvania high school adopts Linux, rolls out laptops to students

   Penn Manor High School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania will embrace the open source Linux platform, installing it on more than 1,700 laptops. Every student at Penn Manor HS received an Acer TravelMate laptop powered by the Ubuntu 13.10 OS – and the student body was encouraged to explore the OS and push its limits.

10. What Does Your Linux Candy Heart Say?

    How does the penguin community celebrate February 14 every year? Is it with a box of chocolates? Maybe if it’s sitting next to our keyboards alongside multiple coffee mugs. What about little Necco Sweethearts? Those “luv you” messages seem a little too general to fully express the amorous thoughts of those with Linux already seeded deep in their hearts.

11. Leaked: Linux’s Look Back Facebook Video

    After trying to conceal its Facebook posts from the world for nearly a decade, Linux’s Look Back Facebook video leaked today.

12. Linux Foundation Announces Schedule for Annual Collaboration Summit

13. Dive into the world of Linux and free software at SCALE 12x this weekend in Los Angeles

14. Linux certifications closer to Kosovo

    The Linux Professional Institute (LPI), the world’s premier Linux certification organisation, announced that Master Affiliate for the Western Balkans Region LPI-Greece recently appointed CACTTUS as LPI Sub-Affiliate for Kosovo, a company which has a strong experience in the market of Kosovo in technology and trainings.

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