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Links 10/9/2014: Brian Stevens in Google, Ubuntu 14.10 Expectations





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Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • 6 questions to accelerate open source in non-tech companies
    Though Linux and now many other technology companies have amply demonstrated how communities of volunteers and users can add significant value to development and support efforts, the decision to embrace a comparable strategy by non-tech companies involves a bigger leap—and bold new leadership willing to wade into some unfamiliar territory. Whereas a "hacker culture” inclines tech oriented users to join with others to solve common problems, and leaders to embrace that approach for their companies, it’s not nearly so automatic for, say, executives who deal with making cement, selling coffee, or marketing the trading of stocks and bonds. In fact for many non-technical leaders today, “embracing the crowd” (or a community of volunteers, or networks of customers, etc.) is still a big unknown, often seeming to be fraught with unmanageable costs and risks.


  • Is open source really 'open' to women?
    On a personal note, I am committed to the challenge of getting more girls on side, both at credativ and through backing members of the Open Source Consortium. I entered this arena with a Cultural Studies degree, which gave me a good grounding in philosophising, but only limited commercial insight. Contrary to any initial fears I might have had about being ostracised as a woman without any specialised technical knowledge in a male dominated environment, I've found it to be accepting and rewarding. From a fairly nonchalant initial association - attending Open Source Consortium meetings; helping organise annual Software Freedom Day events; interacting with Linux User Groups and online forums – I've become passionate about challenging the widely-held misconceptions about this world.


  • Here’s what Girl Develop It’s open source fellows built this summer
    “I didn’t think there was a place for me at Code for Philly,” she said late last month to the crowd at the showcase for Girl Develop It’s Summer of Open Source Fellowship. “I thought it was going to be a lot of intense tech guys working in Rails.”


  • The Disaggregation Of Networking, The Open Source Upstarts And Legacy Vendors' Business


    Cisco has a point here. With the aggregated model of networking, customers have “one throat to choke”. One vendor delivers both hardware and software and thus there is no doubt who is to blame when something goes wrong. But it’s hard to argue this point as a continuing factor as enterprise IT rapidly moves towards a distributed, disaggregated and composible paradigm across the board. Enterprise IT is becoming, by definition, a more distributed operation.


  • The Defunct Bitcoin SourceForge Project Was Hacked
    The original SourceForge project site for Bitcoin has been compromised along with an original email address of Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious founder(s) of the project.


  • A visual history of open source
    The open source movement has brought good things to the lives of countless people around the world. But have you ever wondered how it all got started? Check out this infographic that walks you through the birth of open source in the 1950s to today's thriving open source world.


  • Web Browsers



  • SaaS/Big Data



    • Citrix Cloud Leadership Changes May Be a Reaction to OpenStack's Momentum
      To be clear, the open source CloudStack platform that Apache now oversees is a different branch from the commercial one that Citrix oversees. The open source version from Apache is moving forward, but it's unclear what Citrix may be making of the momentum that OpenStack has.


    • Free courses for getting started in the open source cloud
      The cloud is a big place. There's no one technology, no one source of information, and no one topic that can cover everything. But to me, that's what is exciting about it. It's a place where having a multidisciplinary background is not only helpful, it's essential.


    • OpenStack Educational Resources Are Spreading Out


    • HAMR time for Google's MapReduce, says not-so-startup
      Like the idea of chewing on terabytes data using Google’s MapReduce but think it's too slow, too hardware-hungry and too complicated?

      A fledgling big-data analytics venture reckons it’s got the answer - a Hadoop programming framework built using Java it claims is 20 times faster than using ordinary Hadoop and that it claims uses less data-centre hardware. It’s easier to program, too, they claim.




  • Databases



    • NHS grows a NoSQL backbone and rips out its Oracle Spine
      The NHS has ripped the Oracle backbone from a national patient database system and inserted NoSQL running on an open-source stack.

      Spine2 has gone live following successful redevelopment including redeployment on new, x86 hardware. The project to replace Spine1 had been running for three years with Spine2 now undergoing a 45-day monitoring period.


    • FoundationDB SQL Layer: Storing SQL Data in a NoSQL Database
      FoundationDB has announced the general availability of SQL Layer, and ANSI SQL engine that runs on top of their key-value store. The result is a relational database backed up by a scalable, fault-tolerant, shared-nothing, distributed NoSQL store with support for multi-key ACID transactions.




  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice



    • Five free office suites for Linux
      Office suites are important productivity tools that many of us depend on day in and day out. Fortunately, we have a range of office options to choose from in Linux. Some are open source and some are not, but all are useful in their own right. Linux Links has a useful roundup of five free office suites.




  • CMS



    • 3 Drupal education distros reviewed
      Drupal is a powerful and flexible open source content management system that powers a large number of sites on the Internet. Drupal's flexibility means that sites built with Drupal can vary widely in form and function. In most cases, this flexibility is a benefit, but it can sometimes also be overwhelming. Growing a Drupal powered website from Drupal Core to a finished, customized site, by selecting from a wide variety of modules and themes, can be a complicated and time consuming process.




  • Healthcare



    • Why open source is positive for healthcare
      As a clinical consultant representing a proprietary software supplier in healthcare, you may be surprised to hear that I believe the attention that open source software is receiving is positive.

      This is not because open source can solve all of the current IT challenges within the healthcare service, but because it has the potential to drive a new level of innovation throughout the industry.


    • PwC-led team to offer 'open source' EHR to DoD
      PwC has joined forces with Medsphere, DSS, Inc. and General Dynamics Information Technology to vie for the coveted U.S. Department of Defense Healthcare Management Systems Modernization (DHMSM) electronic health record contract, and plans to merge "open source" software with commercial applications in its proposal, PwC has announced.


    • PwC to Proposes Open Source EHR for DoD EHR Modernization Project




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



    • GNU Health patchset 2.6.3 released


    • Deb Nicholson receives O’Reilly Open Source Award
      Those of you who follow MediaGoblin closely likely know of Deb Nicholson, our community manager. This post is a bit late, but nonetheless, I wanted to share something exciting that happened...


    • FSF Issues Their Rebuttal To Apple's New iPhone, Watch & Apple Pay
      John Sullivan, the Executive Director of the Free Software Foundation, has commented on Apple's much anticipated launch of the iPhone 6, Apple Pay, and the brand new product line: the Apple Watch.


    • GCC 5 Will Have Full Support For Intel's Cilk Plus
      While GCC has had Cilk Plus multi-threading support since last year that made it into GCC 4.9, with the upcoming GCC 5 release will be full support for Intel's Cilk Plus specification.

      GCC's C and C++ front-ends will have full Cilk Plus support for task and data parallelism. Cilk Plus is similar in concept to OpenMP with being a C/C++ programming language extension that adds multi-threaded parallel computing support. Cilk Plus provides the cilk_for, cilk_spawn, and cilk_sync programming keywords for simple yet effective parallel programming.




  • Openness/Sharing



    • Out in the Open: A Free Platform for Building Gear on the Internet of Things
      New devices like the Nest thermostat, the Dropcam camera, and various wearables do a pretty good job of talking to the internet, letting you easily monitor and use them through online dashboards. But such tools would be so much more useful if they also traded information on their own. It’s nice if you car tires let you know when they’re low via a web dashboard. But it’s even nicer if they can tell an air compressor exactly how much air they need and whose bank account to bill for it.


    • Open Data



      • Open data in education starts to show real traction
        At the Open Education Working Group we are interested in all aspects of open education, from Open Education Resources (OERs) and new learning and teaching practices, to open source tools and open licenses.






  • Programming



    • Apache Hadoop Transitions to Git
      The Apache Infrastructure team has gotten Git migrations down pat. Just ask the Apache Hadoop project, which moved from Subversion to Git in less than 10 days.






Leftovers



  • Apple stock (AAPL) struggles after iPhone 6, Watch release (+video)


  • Enter The iFlop, What Will Be Seen as First Apple Failure After Steve Jobs - But the first edition Apple Watch will of course sell massively to iSheep
    Today we finally had the launch of new iProducts, the two new iPhone models and the Apple Watch (aka iWatch). This blog talks about the more relevant Apple move. Not the significant upgrade to its popular iPhone line (I will discuss those in a later blog posting). This is about the other new iThing, the Apple Watch. What will eventually be known rather as the iFlop.


  • iPhone Payment Security
    Basically, there are two kinds of credit card transactions: card-present, and card-not-present. The former is cheaper because there's less risk of fraud. The article says that Apple has negotiated the card-present rate for its iPhone payment system, even though the card is not present. Presumably, this is because of some other security features that reduce the risk of fraud.


  • Will Android users switch to the iPhone 6?


  • Free Software Foundation statement on the new iPhone, Apple Pay, and Apple Watch
    The Free Software Foundation encourages users to avoid all Apple products, in the interest of their own freedom and the freedom of those around them.


  • Security





  • Finance



    • Standard Life Far Right Board
      Keith Skeoch, Executive Director of Standard Life, is on the Board of Reform Scotland, the neo-conservative lobby group which wants to abolish the minimum wage, privatize the NHS and pensions, and still further restrict trade unions.


    • Royal babies, Mojang to be bought & when the best is not the always “the best”
      The UK as a rule is very quick to jump on a “welfare state” bandwagon when the public feels someone is getting an easy ride. Thankfully I’ve never needed welfare/benefits at any point in my life, but I fully support the facility to be there for those in need. The press make a very good job of demonizing those on benefits and whilst there are a minority of cases where there has been abuse/fraud of the system, the vast majority of people don’t get the “easy life” that is promoted in the press and certainly are not in that position by choice. Talking of the easy life though, there’s one family who every tax payer in the UK already pay a lot of money for. There’s one family who not only get the best in life – an almost private health care service from the NHS, get driven around, have their own security and will never want for anything in their lives. Who? The Royal Family of course.




  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying



    • Fact Checking Is Dead: Mainstream Media Goes Nuts Repeating Debunked Claims By The Fake 'Inventor Of Email'
      I had honestly hoped that yesterday's story about the Huffington Post finally retracting its series of totally bogus articles (mostly written by Shiva Ayyadurai or his colleagues and friends, but a few by its actual "journalists"), pretending to argue that V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai had "invented email," would be the end of this story. Ayyadurai has built up quite a reputation around this false claim, even though it's been debunked over and over and over again.




  • Privacy



    • Targeted TV ads sell different people different stuff
      NEXT time you settle in for a night of television, pay attention to the adverts. Do they seem a little more personal than usual? If so, you are not alone – TV networks are increasingly using techniques borrowed from online advertising to show different ads to different people in the hope of better targeting customers.

      It used to be that everyone watching a channel saw the same ad at the same time, with perhaps some variation depending on your location. Now your neighbour with children could see a toy ad, while you get one for luxury cars. This week it was revealed that some US networks have started targeting people based on their voting record as political parties attempt to scoop up swing voters.




  • Internet/Net Neutrality



    • Tech Companies Unite for Net Neutrality Activism Today
      A consortium of technology companies, many of which depend on speedy and dependable access to their websites, are launching a very public protest today against controversial proposed changes to net neutrality regulations. The Internet Association and companies ranging from Reddit to Mozilla to Automattic will use rotating “still loading” icons on protest banners to conjure up images of the slow Internet speeds they envision if the FCC does away with existing net neutrality regulations. Clicking on the banners will take users to information about net neutrality.


    • Twitter, Netflix and Reddit hold net neutrality protest
      Twitter, Netflix and Reddit will take part in an "internet slowdown" protest in favour of net neutrality on Wednesday.

      They are among dozens of firms worried that proposed new regulations will mean extra charges for fast internet access.


    • Internet slowdown campaign begins in less than 24 hours
      The Internet Slowdown is a SOPA-like protest to raise awareness about net neutrality in the US. The movement’s aim is for you to ring up your lawmakers to to support net neutrality in future bills that they vote on regarding net neutrality.


    • The Web May Look Slow Today…
      To illustrate the point of the “fast lane/slow lane” approach proposed by the Federal Communications Commission, some of the biggest tech players today are leading a symbolic “Internet Slowdown” on their websites in what could be the largest virtual political protest since the 2012 blackouts in opposition to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).


    • Companies that sell network equipment to ISPs don’t want net neutrality
      IBM, Cisco, Intel, and Sandvine ask US not to regulate broadband as a utility.


    • Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Net Neutrality (HBO)




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights



      • U.S. Internet Provider Refuses to Expose Alleged Pirates


        Rightscorp, a prominent piracy monitoring firm that works with Warner Bros. and other copyright holders, wants Grande Communications to reveal the identities alleged pirates linked to 30,000 IP-addresses/timestamp combinations. Unlike other providers the Texas ISP refused to give in easily, instead deciding to fight the request in court.








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