Free/Open Source Software News: More Advocacy, Liberation, and Free Software on the Web
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-04-06 13:37:30 UTC
- Modified: 2014-04-06 13:37:30 UTC
Advocacy
The APC Chris Nicol FLOSS Prize recognises initiatives that are making it easy for people to start using free/libre and open source software (FLOSS). The prize will be awarded to a person or group doing extraordinary work to make FLOSS accessible to ordinary computer users.
Imagine a world with fewer queues in banking and retail, and more self-service options. Imagine no longer relying on one cubical or terminal for service. Sounds unreal? This world is now a possibility in South Africa thanks to the partnership between LSD and Cashware.
Essentially, an open-source software or OSS is a kind of computer software which has its source code made available and licensed by virtue of such a license agreement which authorizes the copyright holder to study, modify and distribute the software to anyone, without any further charges and for any purpose whatsoever.
Open-sourcing
As part of the ROS team the engineers at Willow Garage wanted a low price point entry available for new programmers. The TurtleBot's SDK contains a collection of programs that range from basic to advanced. Instructions show how to set up the bot, operate with a keyboard, operate with a joystick, and fully utilize the Kinect camera data. There's also a cleverly titled section about maintenance called TurtleBot Care and Feeding.
Cisco may be a multi-billion entity that was built around a proprietary operating system, but if recent moves are any indication, a wave of open interoperability has been steadily reshaping how Cisco is bringing next-generation IT infrastructure to market.
A few months ago we wrote about Linksys Reviving The WRT54G Router In 802.11AC Form. Belkin, which owns Linksys, has begun releasing code for this new router -- the WRT1900AC -- but with this early code is still some glaring problems.
Misc.
XBMC, an open source (GPL) software media player and entertainment hub for digital media that is available for multiple platforms, has just reached version 13.0 Beta 3 and is now available for testing.
Events
Apache and Nginx
Two of the world's most widely deployed web servers have both recently been updated to fix security vulnerabilities.
With so many Apache Hadoop distributions on the market, what sets them apart? MapR is hoping that bringing feature-rich open source searching to its Big Data platform via integration with Elasticsearch will help draw users by making Big Data analytics and business intelligence faster and more comprehensive.
Mozilla
Mozilla and the Rust community are pleased to announce version 0.10 of the Rust compiler and tools. Rust is a systems programming language with a focus on safety, performance and concurrency.
If you've ever done any web development work, you are probably intimately familiar with the fact that what you build on the web may show up fine in one browser, yet be completely broken in another. It used to be that this problem simply meant testing sites and pages across popular desktop browsers, but in the age of mobile technology, you now have to test your creations across mobile devices, too.
While Mozilla has mostly been in the headlines this week for news related to contributions made by its new CEO Brendan Eich, another piece of meaningful news regarding the company is largely being ignored: Google Chrome has moved past Firefox to take second place in desktop browser market share, according to web traffic stats from Net Applications. In March, Chrome grabbed 17.5 percent of desktop brower traffic, while Firefox sat in third place with 17.2 percent. This is a first for Chrome, according to Net Applications' data, and is possibly driven by Google's extensive advertising for Chrome and Mozilla's new focus on Firefox OS and mobile technology.
The latest Mozilla Firefox nightly builds have begun enabling the generational garbage collector to better compete with Google's Chrome on performance grounds.
In an exciting collaboration with Mozilla and Google, Intel is bringing SIMD to JavaScript. This makes it possible to develop new classes of compute-intensive applications such as games and media processing—all in JavaScript—without the need to rely on any native plugins or non-portable native code. SIMD.JS can run anywhere JavaScript runs. It will, however, run a lot faster and more power efficiently on the platforms that support SIMD. This includes both the client platforms (browsers and hybrid mobile HTML5 apps) as well as servers that run JavaScript, for example through the Node.js V8 engine.
Thimble is actually a subset of Mozilla’s Webmaker project, which is aimed at teaching all kinds of web literacy and development skills.
Many, many people have noticed that if we had a way to reliably record program execution and replay it later, with the ability to debug the replay, we could largely tame the nondeterminism problem. This would also allow us to deliberately introduce nondeterminism so tests can explore more of the possible execution space, without impacting debuggability. Many record and replay systems have been built in pursuit of this vision. (I built one myself.) For various reasons these systems have not seen wide adoption. So, a few years ago we at Mozilla started a project to create a new record-and-replay tool that would overcome the obstacles blocking adoption. We call this tool rr.
We support the Mozilla community and the vital work they've done—and must keep doing—for the open Internet. EFF has been following the discussions around the choice of Brendan Eich as Mozilla’s CEO, including the announcement that he is stepping down.
As partners to Mozilla in campaigns that have included the fight against SOPA/PIPA, the StopWatching.US Coalition against mass surveillance, the effort to Encrypt the Web, the battle to prevent non-consensual online tracking, and ongoing work to make Firefox a more secure browser, we appreciate the frank and honest discussion that the community has undergone over this issue and respect the openness of the process. In that respect, as in many others, the difference between a closed and an open community is profound.
McAvoy clearly appreciates his ability to speak his mind without fear of retribution. But he also demands the termination of employment of a person that he disagrees with.
That sounds like hypocrisy, and intolerance, to me.
The worst of what I’m seeing is this – people who have steadfastly supported gay rights (and minority rights in general) but don’t like seeing how Eich is being treated are being called bigots and worse by their colleagues.
Chrome(ium)
Google’s Chrome Remote Desktop app beta is released for invite-only. Chrome Remote Desktop allows you to set up your computer for secure remote access. This includes setting up your computer so that you can access it later from another machine; or you can also use the app to let a friend remotely access your computer temporarily, perfect for times when you need help solving a computer problem.
Last April we introduced Blink as the new rendering engine for Chromium. Since then, the project has grown to include over 200 active contributors, and code complexity has been reduced significantly. We’ve also made encouraging progress on our top priority for 2014: mobile web performance.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- IBM is Becoming "Garbage In, Garbage Out" (GIGO) "Just like Arvind and Krabanaugh." (CEO and CFO, Respectively)
- There are some decent new comments about IBM this morning
- If Your Company Lost About 30% of Its 'Value' in 3 Months, Then Maybe It Was Never Worth What You Claimed
- Does that make sense?
- Pleroma is Dying
- The last social control media that I joined was Pleroma
- Asia and Social Control Media
- statCounter reckons it's down from over 10% to just 3% since it began tracking those things
- Anonymous Threats Against My Wife and Against Yours Truly
- Promoting GNU/Linux and condemning people who attack GNU/Linux is not a crime
- Decades-Long Microsofter (Darryl K. Taft) and TIOBE Conflate Microsoft GitHub (Proprietary) With FOSS in Microsoft-Sponsored 'News' Site
- We do not intend to do a lengthy debunking because we covered this subject several times in the past
- Microsoft Cuts Continue, Visitor Center in Redmond Shut Down
- This goes on and on, leading up to the next giant wave of mass layoffs
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- IBM's Accounting Claims Don't Add Up
- IBM is an enigma. To Wall Street is claims to be doing extremely well, but insiders tell the complete opposite.
- Links 13/02/2026: "Cofounders Fleeing MElon’s xAI" and IOC Opposes Solidarity With Ukraine's Fallen
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 13/02/2026: Square Function with Diode Network and Calls Against Discord
- Links for the day
- Links 13/02/2026: SUSE Uses Microsoft Internally, MElon's Company Helps Turn Epstein Files Into Child Abuse (After the Pornography Scandals)
- Links for the day
- African Browser Choices Show a Growing Problem in the World Wide Web
- World Wide Web (WWW) becoming little but a transport layer for a particular proprietary application (Google Chrome) [...] we're back to the late 1990s
- If You Want Digital Freedom, Then Follow Richard Stallman, the "Linux" Brand Has Changed and OSI is Microsoft (GitHub)
- If you want something stable and predictable, then stick with GNU, the GPL, and GCC
- Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal and SRA Failing to Curb SLAPPs Against People Who Expose Wrongdoing
- We'll soon show messages that we transmitted to politicians
- Beware the Latest IBM SPAM, IBM is Already Down "After Hours"
- After a harsh day in Wall Street IBM's shares area already down again (after trading hours)
- Radicalism in Our Communities is Mostly Corporate, Not Grassroots
- Infiltration and systematic destruction can be shallowly painted as "inducing manners"
- Life Gets Better After Social Control Media
- Don't become part of these experiments
- statCounter Suggests Americans Are Dumping Social Control Media
- Are Americans getting fed up with social control media and quitting in droves?
- Back Doors and Fake Security
- They've militarised everything, even people's home computers
- Cost-Cutting and Book-Cooking at IBM
- It's like cutting salaries by more than 50%
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 12, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, February 12, 2026
- Mainstream Media Intentionally Ignoring EPO Strikes
- “EPO on Strike!”
- Jeffrey Epstein crypto disclosure: uncanny timing, Bitcoin demise, pump-and-dump, ponzi schemes
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Gemini Links 12/02/2026: Avoiding Coffee, Trying Ubuntu, and "Open Source Robot"
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Slop CEO Speaks of Layoffs
- They will go along with the "replaced by AI" baloney
- In Systematic Contempt of the British High Court, Brett Wilson LLP Spent Two Years Lying to Courts and Breaking Rules Against Us
- We criticise Brett Wilson LLP quite lot because of its conduct
- IBM Kyndryl as "Aggressive “Enron” Accounting"
- IBM Kyndryl continues to nosedive today
- Relationships evidence: Tiago, Tassia, Thais, Antonio & Debian favoritism, nepotism
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Debian pregnancy cluster: why it is public interest
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- IBM Bubble Deflating After James Kavanaugh's Accounting Trick With 'Toxic Assets' Comes Under SEC Scrutiny
- If something goes up based on false speculations, bonus numbers and self-serving lies, then it'll come back down, eventually...
- The EPO's Corruption and Violation of Rules is Spreading to the United Kingdom (Software Patents)
- Yesterday a letter was sent to the chief regarding salaries while reminding him of the next strike, which is only 11 days away
- State of the Slop, Slopfarms Containment
- Slopfarms still exist this year, but their visibility is limited
- IBM Continues Tanking Today, Already $58+ Lower Than Recent High, Insiders Explain Why
- The same CFO from the inception of Kyndryl is still the CFO at IBM
- Links 12/02/2026: Pushback Against, "NATO Is Expected to Step Up Arctic Security"
- Links for the day
- Links 12/02/2026: "Microsoft Just Forked Windows" and Windows Notepad is a Giant Security Hole
- Links for the day
- Put Criminals in Prison, Not People Who Report the Crimes
- Can people be sent to prison for opposing crime?
- Windows Has Become Increasingly Irrelevant
- There's a very massive wave of layoffs coming Microsoft's way
- Our Most Successful Year Ever
- The hired guns in London are eager to turn the UK into another China
- Slopfarms Waning, But Not Extinct Yet
- Metrics show that usage of LLMs is declining
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 11, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, February 11, 2026
- IBM's Stock is Crashing
- If it follows the trajectory of its satellite Kyndryl, it can fall and reach as low as $75
- Gemini Links 11/02/2026: Sunny Morning and "KiCad Aims to Ease Linux Installation"
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Loses Ground in Switzerland
- One issue is, Google and Apple seem to gain at Microsoft's expense
- Microsoft Layoffs Must be Very Near (and Very Large)
- just like IBM
- Bringing Attention/Awareness of EPO Corruption and Cocaine Use to the Mainstream Media
- What has Europe become? Prey to vultures?
- The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Delusion - Part V - Everyone Seems to Agree That SRA is a Sham
- We're going to start a new series soon
- A Can of WORMS - Part V - Up Next: The Comeback of RMS in the United States
- Guess who funds the cancellers
- Threats From 'Former' Red Hat (Now IBM) Staff While IBM's Likely Accounting Fraud Attracts Public Scrutiny
- We must be getting "warm"
- Matthew J. Garrett Has Just Sent a Threat to Put My Wife and I in Prison Because His Own Spouse Says He's a Rapist
- What really intimidates him is his own spouse
- Gemini Links 11/02/2026: Terminator Trilogy and Lagrange in the Apple App Store
- Links for the day
- Links 11/02/2026: Fentanylware (CheeTok) for ICE, Jimmy Lai Shows Journalism Became 'Crime' in Hong Kong
- Links for the day
- With Firefox Measured at 2% in the United Kingdom Time is Running Out for Web Site Support for Gecko/Servo Users
- The open Web is rapidly dying while Mozilla celebrates and champions slop
- Lawsuit reactions: EFF behaviour reveals zombification, censorship
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 11/02/2026: $700 Billion Slop Bill, Social Control Media Under Political Fire for Deliberate Health Harms
- Links for the day
- Amended Input From Software Freedom Institute for EU Consultation on Free Software
- "On 3 February 2026 Software Freedom Institute lodged a submission with the European Commission's inquiry into Open Digital Ecosystems"
- Mobbing at the European Patent Office (EPO) - Part VI - Attacks on Staff and Attacks on the Law Merit Another New Series
- new series coming shortly
- Nadella's Mindless PR Spam Ahead of the Layoffs 'Snowball' (Adding Up Batches) Turning Into an Avalanche
- Based on recent observations, the more puff pieces we see about Nadella, the closer we get to Microsoft "pulling the trigger" on mass layoffs
- When Happens to Red Hat If (or When) IBM Collapses
- IBM is in flux because its CFO is now implicated in what seems like accounting fraud
- IBM's Financial Engineering (Accounting Fraud) Shell, Kyndryl Holdings Inc, is Insolvent
- If this was done by the very same people who still run IBM, can we expect any better from "Sugar Daddy" IBM?
- 2026 a Very Productive Year and We Have Many Big Stories to Tell
- maybe we'll produce 8,000 new articles/pages by year's end
- Clownflare is in Trouble as Its Debt More Than Doubled in Less Than a Year, Expect Further Enshittification
- Clownflare isn't free
- After the Next Wave of Microsoft Layoffs Washington State Could be #1 for US Layoffs
- Microsoft Corp shares were down yesterday
- EPO's Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH): The EPO is Generally “Managed by Excel” (Microsoft)
- The current management has basically defined corruption to be "success"
- With an IBM Company Down Over 75% After Apparent Accounting Fraud the IBM Insiders Want Answers From James Krabanaugh
- He has no technical qualifications
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, February 10, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, February 10, 2026