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
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- We need to get rid of the baseless stigma
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- organisation operating outside the Rule of Law
- Affirming What We Already Know: Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is Profoundly Incompetent
- "SRA ordered to pay solicitor £50k in costs after failed prosecution"
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- Links for the day
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- Kudos to all those who participated in the strike
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- Links for the day
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- be sure to speak to people who actually work there
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- That's why they envy and attack him
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- RMS is still going places with his Migros bag (Swiss retail giant)
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- large-scale layoffs are inevitable, no matter how long Microsoft delays or procrastinates
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- Amutable chasing money and trying to impose TPM etc. on everybody
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- Call for industrial actions to stop the salary erosion of EPO staff
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- The founder of Oracle now uses his wealth for right-wing ideological reasons, nothing else
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- we can expect many sales/contracts to get canceled
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- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- The "Alicante Mafia" - Part XVI - The Associates of Mr. Cocainegate Don't Want to Talk About Cocainegate (Right of Reply)
- Nobody wanted to talk about cocaine at the EPO
- The "Open Source" (Corporate Openwashing) Fake Community Rejects Democracy, Open Source Initiative is in Effect Dead
- This is basically the end of the OSI
- Cracks and Holes in Microsoft's Slop Bubble (Also, Windows is Declining)
- "More Bad News For Xbox As Microsoft Blames Gaming For An Annual Decline In Its PC Business"
- Microsoft's Debt Exploded by More Than 20 Billion Dollars This Past Year, Says Microsoft
- Expect more mass layoffs
- Strike at the EPO Today
- Next month we'll start a new EPO series
- State of the Slop and The Register MS Runs Ads as 'Articles'
- Yesterday we could not find much slop about "Linux"
- Gemini Links 30/01/2026: Announcing Crossyword and SYN Attack
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
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- Links for the day
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- Links for the day
- Goodbyes to Red Hat and IBM
- PIPs let them do the same with less "wasted" on severance or with obscene narrative-shaping
- RMS Was Right 35 Years Ago
- Stallman’s viewpoints have remained the same
- The Need to Understand the Projection Tactics Against RMS
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- Links for the day
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- the company's debt grew
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- IBM isn't a healthy company
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- a lot of America is moving to Free software this year
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- We'll soon finish the series
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- Links for the day
- Emmanuel Macron on Europe's GAFAM Addiction/Dependence: "There is No Such Thing as Happy Vassalage"
- Microsoft has long worked to prevent commodification
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- In a matter of days we'll just see how much IBM's debt has grown
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, January 28, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, January 28, 2026
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- EPO Technical Meetings Show no Breakthroughs, a Strike Goes Ahead This Friday
- Apparently there was another (fourth) meeting today [...] The industrial actions are working already
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- At least it's no longer hard to 'contain' the slop problem, knowing which domains are the culprits and seeing that Google is their main 'feeder'
- IBM to Announce 'Results' Shortly, Expect Lots of Chaff Like "Quantum" and "Hey Hi" (Nothing Material to Show)
- We're still seeing layoffs and an exodus
- Links 28/01/2026: ChatGPT Has Financial Problems, White House Sharing Fakes (or Deepfakes) in Official Accounts/Sites
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 28/01/2026: FlatCube NES Port Finished and "Why I Still Write on the Small Web in 2026"
- Links for the day
- Upcoming Techrights Series About the Public Appearances of Richard M. Stallman (RMS) in the United States
- we plan to drop all pretences about "Open Source" and instead focus on Software Freedom
- Upcoming Techrights Series About the Experiences of EPO Insiders
- We'll start the new series some time next week
- Links 28/01/2026: Microsoft Ordered to Stop Spying on School Children, Apple's Brand Tarnished by Its Complicity With Human Rights Abusers
- Links for the day
- Upcoming Techrights Series About the Failure of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to Stop Hired Guns Who Work for Americans That Abuse Women
- The SRA has demonstrated nothing but considerable incompetence at many levels
- The "Alicante Mafia" - Part XIV - The EPO Vice-President Steve Rowan and the Hidden Alicante Connection is a Big Deal
- We'll soon take a closer look at Ernst
- Gemini Links 28/01/2026: Particle and AirMIDI
- Links for the day
- Amandine Jambert (EDPB/CNIL/FSFE), motive for lying, trust in blockchain and encryption
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Over at Tux Machines...
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- IRC logs for Tuesday, January 27, 2026