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
- British Justice Minister Sarah Sackman Blasts Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
- The "legal industry" is due for "some reckoning"
- Someone at Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is Censoring the Birthday Greetings to Richard Stallman
- Some people remember
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- The EFF Has a Bug, Fixing This Bug is Likely Not Possible Anymore
- "the EFF's continued existence impairs the arrival of a replacement organization, one which will actually champion digital rights."
- Sophie Brun, Raphel Hertzog & Debian sexual conflicts of interest
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 17/03/2026: Microsoft Windows Broken by Samsung, Afghanistan-Pakistan War Escalation
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 17/03/2026: Newcomers and False-Positive 'Slop'
- Links for the day
- Héctor Orón Martínez & Debian shadow candidate pressure on Sruthi Chandran
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 17/03/2026: American Fentanylware (TikTok) Investors Implicated in Kickbacks, "Big Oil Knew It Was Wrecking Louisiana’s Coast"
- Links for the day
- For Third Time in a Week The Register MS Runs Google SPAM That Paints Google as an Ally of Women (Which is False, They're Womanisers)
- What does that make The Register MS to women?
- GAFAM Deprecating Old Videos ("Content") by Removing the Support for Their Format for No Good Reason
- "Security" is not a valid excuse
- Credit/Debit Cards Have Long Been Called Plastics, Over Time They're Becoming More Like Pure Plastics
- They cost less than a dollar to manufacture
- The European Patent Office (EPO) Holds a Public Demonstration Tomorrow and It'll be Live-streamed
- The EPO's workforce was meant to be capable of speaking many languages and have extensive experience in the sciences
- People Who Attacked Techrights Also Attacked My Mother
- Picking on old ladies because you don't like Free software advocates is never OK
- Little Community Element Left in CentOS
- CentOS, unlike Fedora, was meant to be long supported and solid
- Social Control Media is Cancel Culture (Companies Like Facebook Also Punish/Ban Accounts for Mentioning "Linux" and Lobby for Anti-Linux Legislation)
- The masters of Social Control Media decide what ideas can and cannot be expressed
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 16, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, March 16, 2026
- The European Patent Office (EPO) Illegally Transitioning Into 'Gig' 'Economy' Equivalent (a Shop for Patent Monopolies in Europe)
- for scabs aka SEALs
- At Least Six EPO Strikes Next Month (Yes, Six!)
- The pressure intensifies over time
- Several MPs Blast Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) for Inaction and Ineffective Action This Week
- "Four MPs have written to the SRA"
- Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 14 Out of 200: The Abusive Cases of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft and His Litigation Buddy Garrett Did Cause "Serious Harm"
- claims were de facto abandoned at the trial
- Today's Discussions About How IBM Pushes Workers Out
- The corporate media keeps trying - baselessly and in vain - to paint everything that happens with the "hey hi" brush
- Linux Teck (linuxteck.com) and Ubuntu PIT (ubuntupit.com) Are Botspam
- now they just keep experimenting by trashing their sites and reputation
- Links 16/03/2026: Moscow Experiencing Cellphone Internet Outages, "Salman Rushdie Is Tired of Talking About Free Speech"
- Links for the day
- Links 16/03/2026: Arctic Security and 'Mr. Nobody Against Putin'
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 16/03/2026: KN95 Skins and CSS Surprises
- Links for the day
- Debian is Dying for Some of the Same Reasons IBM's Fedora is Rapidly Dying
- Prioritising CoC censorship, not communities
- The Register MS is Again Femmewashing GAFAM (Which Makes Widows) in Exchange for Money
- This is a moral issue because they betray or harm women and prop up authoritarian regimes
- Gemini Links 16/03/2026: AB 1043, Lagrange Android Beta 47, and Poetry
- Links for the day
- "Slop-forking" or "Vibe-forking" as the New 'Noble' Plagiarism
- New Cloudflare Slop Project?
- EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part VII - Cult Mentality, Mobbing, Nepotism
- Does the EPO actually believe in the law?
- 2026 Microsoft Layoff Rumours
- Surely if we had properly-functioning media, then someone would investigate this rather than rely on official statements from Microsoft and WARN notices
- EPO Strike This Week
- contact your national representatives about it
- Gemini Links 15/03/2026: "Create Opportunities for Good Things to Happen", DOSbook, and Bitcoin Criticism
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 15, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, March 15, 2026
- Pirate Praveen Arimbrathodiyil & Debian denouncing volunteers, hiding romances
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 15/03/2026: WB Games Montréal Undergoes Layoffs, "Swiss Reject Cuts to Public Broadcasting"
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 15/03/2026: Messages in Bottles and Audio Streaming in Lagrange for Android
- Links for the day
- Microsofters' SLAPP Censorship - Part 13 Out of 200: Abuse of Process to Make False Accusations of UKGDPR Violations
- familiar barrister and same lawyers
- Thrown Under the Microsoft Bus
- Microsoft wants disposable contractors
- Quitting IBM and "Rumors of an Upcoming RA [Mass Layoffs] in April 2026"
- Blue layoffs or "RAs" were confirmed upfront by the CFO
- GNU/Linux Distro Builders Barely Paid Enough to Pay Basic Bills, Chief of "Linux" Foundation (Not Even Using Linux!) Increases His Own Salary by Over 50% in 5 Years
- Salaries or compensation correlate with the ability to exploit people, not to create things
- What Puts the Brakes on GNU/Linux Adoption on Laptops and Desktops is Monopoly Control (or Monoculture) Over the Distros
- Distros that adopt systemd are controlled by IBM and GAFAM
- The "Zero-Sum" Fallacy
- Fallacies like "zero-sum" - especially in the context of foreign affairs including war - are utterly ruinous
- A Happy Birthday to Richard Stallman
- Richard Stallman will turn 73
- Jürgen Habermas is Dead, But the Politicised, Inherently Corrupt, Corporatised Court for Patents That He Inspired Is Not
- In the news throughout the weekend
- Mountains of Abuses of Process by Brett Wilson LLP on Behalf of Americans and Sometimes at the Expense of British Taxpayers
- a virtual "limited liability"
- linuxteck.com FUD by LLM Slop, ubuntupit.com Passes the Slop Baton
- Unless they get back to doing long-form authentic articles, as opposed to slop, no good will come out of it
- Links 15/03/2026: New Shortages, Lynx Populations Depletion
- Links for the day
- Sruthi Chandran & Debian Diversity, Favoritism, Hidden Conflicts of Interest
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- software in the public domain
- Reprinted with permission from Alex Oliva
- Links 15/03/2026: Slop "Bubble Driving Interest in Chip Alternatives" and Wildlife Erosion Reported
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 14, 2026
- IRC logs for Saturday, March 14, 2026