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Links 15/5/2015: GNOME 3.16.2, GNU Guix 0.8.2





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Top tips for finding free software
    Instead of MS Office, try LibreOffice, which contains a word processor, spreadsheet program, presentation software and much more. It borrows its design heavily from older versions of Office so it should be familiar. Even better, it can open and save Microsoft Office documents, and with each release it gets faster and more Office compatible.


  • Open-source and EMC (code)
    EMC’s commitment to open-source is changing the way the company does business — but it can be hard for such a large, established company to become accepted in that space. Brian Gracely, senior director of EMC {code}, is helping the company make that transition. While talking with theCUBE during EMC World 2015, Gracely laid out an overview of his work.


  • Handing On The Baton
    As a result, the Board unanimously elected Allison Randal as its new President yesterday. She is a fantastic choice, with long experience at the heart of the free and open source movement as well as in the business use of open source at all scales. She's been chairing the ongoing in-person Board meeting and continuing the move towards an OSI that enables people to make things better in open source as well as stewarding licenses.


  • Events



  • Web Browsers



  • SaaS/Big Data



    • DefCore, project management, and the future of OpenStack
      Rob Hirschfeld has been involved with OpenStack since before the project was even officially formed, and so he brings a rich perspective as to the project's history, its organization, and where it may be headed next. Recently, he has focused primarily on the physical infrastructure automation space, working with an an enterprise version of OpenCrowbar, an "API-driven metal" project which started as an OpenStack installer and moved to a generic workload underlay.


    • Oracle Refines Big Data Focus with New Hadoop Analytics Tools
      This week researchers at Gartner threw cold water on the notion that everyone everywhere is adopting Hadoop, the open source framework for culling fresh insights from large data stores. Their latest study showed that Hadoop is presenting difficulties for some enterprise users, and found that there are not enough trained Hadoop experts.




  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice



  • Openness/Sharing



  • Programming



    • How to put the R programming language to work
      We tend to think of programming languages as general purpose, able to deliver any kind of application given enough time and enough code. But sometimes you want a language focused on solving one class of problem as efficiently as possible -- think SQL for database programming.




  • Standards/Consortia



    • Auto industry first to get wireless charging open standard
      One of the most eagerly anticipated mobile device innovations is widespread application of wire-free inductive charging. Nobody will miss lugging power bricks around, looking for outlets to plug them in, and fumbling with cable connectors with attendant potential for port damage through extended or rough use. Along with the obvious convenience and non-mechanical connectivity’s durability are the minimal likelihood of corrosion with all electronics enclosed and protected from water or oxygen in the atmosphere, enhanced safety for medical implants enabling recharging/powering through the skin rather than penetrating wires creating opportunity for infection, and non radiative energy transfer.






Leftovers



  • The Circus of UKIP – on a TV near you!
    The Circus of UKIP has parked up in town and election or not its show rumbles on.


  • Science



  • Security



  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression



    • ‘Wrong as Often as Right’ Is Good Enough When Reporting on an Official Enemy
      So the sensational stuff in the article is what local South Korean journalists said they were told by South Korean intelligence about that country’s bitter rivals. But South Korean intelligence is a reliable source, right?

      Well, no—not according to the Post. In the article’s eighth paragraph, the reporters note: “The NIS report could not be independently verified. NIS’s claims turn out to be wrong as often as they are right.”

      Is it really the Washington Post‘s policy to base stories on claims that are “wrong as often as they are right”?


    • Migrant crisis: EU plan to strike Libya networks could include ground forces
      European plans for a military campaign to smash the migrant smuggling networks operating out of Libya include options for ground forces on Libyan territory.

      The 19-page strategy paper for the mission, obtained by the Guardian, focuses on an air and naval campaign in the Mediterranean and in Libyan territorial waters, subject to United Nations blessing. But it adds that ground operations in Libya may also be needed to destroy the smugglers’ vessels and assets, such as fuel dumps.




  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife



    • Bee Survey: Lower Winter Losses, Higher Summer Losses, Increased Total Annual Losses
      Losses of managed honey bee colonies were 23.1 percent for the 2014-2015 winter but summer losses exceeded winter numbers for the first time, making annual losses for the year 42.1 percent, according to preliminary results of the annual survey conducted by the Bee Informed Partnership (http://beeinformed.org), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Apiary Inspectors of America.


    • AP, Review-Journal Miss Jeb Bush's Yucca Mountain Flip-Flop
      Speaking in Nevada on May 13, Bush told a group of reporters that Yucca Mountain will not likely become the permanent storage location for the nation's nuclear waste. The Associated Press story quoted Bush saying the project "stalled out" and reported that he "said the waste dump shouldn't be 'forced down the throat' of anyone." And according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Bush also said "we need to move to a system where the communities and states want it."






  • Finance



    • Some of David Brooks’ Best Friends Are Progressives–So Long as They Don’t Scare the Wealthy
      Clinton also strengthened and lengthened copyright and patent monopolies. These are forms of government intervention in the market that have the same effect on the price of drugs and other protected items as tariffs of several thousand percent. In the case of drugs, the costs are not only economic, but also felt in the form of bad health outcomes from mismarketed drugs by companies trying to maximize their patent rents.

      And the federal government directly intervenes to redistribute income upward when the Federal Reserve Board raises interest rates to slow job creation, keeping workers at the middle and bottom of the income distribution from getting enough bargaining power to raise their wages.

      In these areas and others, David Brooks’ center-right politicians, as well as “opportunity” progressives, are every bit as willing to use the government to intervene in the market as people like Warren and de Blasio. The difference is that the politicians Brooks admires want to use the government to redistribute income upward, while Warren and de Blasio want to ensure that people at the middle and bottom get their share of the gains from economic growth. (Their agenda is laid out in more detail in this report from the Roosevelt Institute.)


    • URGENT: Senate backtracks on TPP fasttrack -- call Congress to oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership
      Just days after the Senate rejected the Obama administration's bid to fast-track the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership, they've backtracked, and now they're getting ready to rush fast-track through.




  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying



    • Lack of Oversight of Charter Schools Designed as a Plus; $3.3+ Billion Spent (Part 2)
      “The waste of taxpayer money—none of us can feel good about,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health & Human Services and Education just last month.

      Yet, he is calling for a 48% increase in the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) quarter-billion-dollar-a-year ($253.2 million) program designed to create, expand, and replicate charter schools—an initiative repeatedly criticized by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for suspected waste and inadequate financial controls.




  • Privacy



    • Internet.org Expands to Malawi Amidst India Backlash
      Facebook's Internet.org project this week expanded into Malawi, bringing free Web services to subscribers of Telekom Networks Malawi (TNM) and Airtel Malwai.


    • Privacy groups baulk at US government's 'fake' surveillance reform
      US RIGHTS AND PRIVACY GROUPS have reacted quickly to oppose the recently passed US Freedom Act, and asked Congress to reconsider and ensure that bulk data collection is prevented and that personal privacy is preserved.


    • Facebook’s Quest To Absorb The Internet
      Facebook never wants you to leave, so it’s swallowing up where you might try to go. A few years back, its News Feed brimmed with links to content hosted elsewhere. News articles, YouTube clips, business websites, ads for ecommerce stores.


    • Federal Appeals Court Rules NSA Spying Illegal
      A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the National Security Agency's bulk collection of billions of U.S. phone records is illegal, dealing a startling blow to the program just as Congress is weighing reforms to the government's expansive surveillance authorities.
    • France passes new surveillance law in wake of Charlie Hebdo attack
      The French parliament has overwhelmingly approved sweeping new surveillance powers in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris in January that killed 17 people at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher grocery in Paris.


    • USA Freedom Act Passes House, Codifying Bulk Collection For First Time, Critics Say
      After only one hour of floor debate, and no allowed amendments, the House of Representatives today passed legislation that seeks to address the NSA’s controversial surveillance of American communications. However, opponents believe it may give brand new authorization to the U.S. government to conduct domestic dragnets.
    • Tor Cloud Shut Down Amid Lack of Support
      The Tor Project has shuttered its cloud proxy service citing security vulnerabilities, usability bugs and a lack of resources.

      Tor offers its users the capacity to surf the Web anonymously, bouncing traffic through a series of relay servers so that no observer at any point can tell where that user’s traffic is traveling to or coming from. The Tor Cloud Project essentially offered a platform for creating network bridges within Amazon’s Elastic Cloud Compute in order for users to evade censorship.




  • Internet/Net Neutrality



    • Why net neutrality rules have angered some small Internet providers
      Giant Internet service providers are roaring mad about new net neutrality rules and the reclassification of broadband as a common carrier service. Reaction among small ISPs is more diverse, but some of them say they will be saddled with legal costs so high that it will prevent them from upgrading equipment that provides Internet service to small towns and rural areas.




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights



      • Why streaming services will not end piracy
        With the arrival of Netflix in Australia, there have been suggestions that people no longer have a valid reason to indulge in unauthorised downloading of movies. Such reasoning is short on logic.


      • Mega Rolls Out Legal Heavyweights to Refute Piracy Claims


        Mega.co.nz has today published an independent report which refutes claims that the site is a piracy haven. The analysis, carried out by Olswang, an international law firm that previously worked with the UK government on copyright issues, concludes that claims in a 2014 NetNames report have “no factual basis whatsoever.”








Recent Techrights' Posts

Ponzi Schemes Are Useful (to Corrupt CEOs)
Pathetic, corruptible so-called 'media' is bagging bribes to perpetuate the lies about "AI" (slop)
Body-Shaming Using Fakes
a lot of the people who casually claim "defamation" are themselves defaming loads of people every day
EPO People Power - Part XXIV - Today or Tomorrow You Should Write to National Representatives (Delegates) at the EPO in Your Country
Keep up the pressure!
Red Hat and IBM Layoffs, Staff Kept Quiet About it, WARN Act Skirted/WARN Notices Avoided
What a terrible company to be in
 
Gemini Links 04/01/2026: 64-bit Addressing and 39th Chaos Communication Congress
Links for the day
Windows Was Always the Punchline
What did we count to calculate taxes?
GNU/Linux Surges to About 4% in Peru This Year
one of the poorest counties in America
This Year Our Adoption of IRC Turns 18
We have used IRC for this site since 2008
The Doors Are Closing, Windows Closing Too
Microsoft wants more vendor lock-in, but at risk that this desire will simply alienate and drive away many users
The FSF's Program Manager, Dr. Miriam Sabrina Bastian, Left in October to Lead Climate School
We are not sure why Miriam Bastian decided to leave the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
Outline of Slop, LLMs, IBM, and Things to Come
This coming week and weekend will be very productive irrespective of how much "news" gets published by other sites
Links 04/01/2026: War Without Borders, "Large Hadron Collider Being Shut Down"
Links for the day
Links 04/01/2026: US Imperialism in Greenland and Venezuela, "Climate Protesters Face Greater Risk of Crackdown Amid Rising Authoritarianism"
Links for the day
2026 Should be the Year We All Stop Saying "AI" and Call Things What They Really Are
Don't give anyone the satisfaction of this misguided belief there's any intelligence there
GNU/Linux at All-Time High in Algeria
In 2026 it hit a new all-time high
Online Mobbing (and Worse) Disguised as 'Free Speech'
People who say they believe in "free speech" have been trying hard to silence RMS and squash the FSF
A 'Cancer That Attaches Itself' to Bulgaria?
"Cancer" is what Microsoft called GNU/Linux
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, January 03, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, January 03, 2026
GNU/Linux "Market Share" in Switzerland More Than Doubled Last Year, Based on statCounter
GNU/Linux continues its considerable growth
XBox Layoffs Imminent, More Appalling Sales Figures Published
Expect many layoffs in the gaming division
Slop Still Rare
So far a good start for 2026
Gemini Links 03/01/2026: Climbing, Waking Up, and Social Control Media Woes
Links for the day
Links 03/01/2026: Growing Censorship, Another US Invasion, and Will Smith 'Cancelled'
Links for the day
Links 03/01/2026: Twitter Turns From Disinformation Powerhouse to Production and Dissemination of Child Pr0n, "New China Cybersecurity Law Becomes A Reality In 2026"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/01/2026: Formatting Text for Gopher and Text-only Websites
Links for the day
Unverified Claim: Mass Layoffs at Microsoft to Start Around Week 3 (or 4) of This Month
Let's wait and see if the claim above is from an insider who has inside knowledge
Firefox Fell Below 1% in Asia
less than 1 in 100 Web users is detected/assumed to be using Firefox
Links 03/01/2026: Ryanair Fines and Facebook Misleads Regulators
Links for the day
New Record High for GNU/Linux in Benelux in 2026
If the above trends stand (throughout the year), then we can begin talking more seriously about a post-GAFAM Europe
In the Search Engine Market, Microsoft is Falling Behind Russia's Yandex
The so-called 'AI industry' is a boy that cries wolf
A Year of Relaxation, But Also of Hardcore Whistleblowing
Expect industrial action some time soon
The More Influential Richard Stallman (RMS) Becomes, the More Aggressive Attacks on Him (and the FSF) Will Get
We've meanwhile noticed disinformation being spread in social control media
GNU/Linux Reaches All-Time High of 5% in Indonesia (Not Counting Chromebooks and Android)
There are also related events in Indonesia and SUSE in particular seems to have been popularised there
EPO People Power - Part XXIII - António Campinos Knows He's Extremely Vulnerable at This Time
Campinos should never have been put in charge
Gemini Links 03/01/2026: New Organisation System (Notebooks) and "2026 Already Off to an Amazing Start"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 02, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, January 02, 2026
The More Buzzwords a Corporation Resorts To...
buzzwords are a fool's way to compensate for or disguise a lack of knowledge
So You Should Definitely Call it "Slop" and Stop Saying "AI"
with more XBox/gaming layoffs being imminent the blowback will be fun to watch
Why Are We Still Using Voting Machines?
Voting machines still seem to me like an infantile cargo cult and an act of salesmanship (like various security theatre rituals at airports)
"Works for Me!"
Who knows best?
Why IBM Workers Like Techrights (Same Reason EPO Workers Do)
IBM will likely be a daily theme (high rate of recurrence)
Workers Fly Away From IBM's Red Hat (This Year a Lot of Red Hat Staff is "IBM")
The stock (share price) of IBM says nothing about what actually goes on
In 2025 We Contributed to the Headlessness of the OSI, But It's Not Over Yet
By airing some 'dirty laundry' about the OSI last year we contributed to its current state
Africa's Largest Population Sees Diminishing Impact of Windows
less than 1 in 10 Web requests in Nigeria comes from Windows
Russia Cuts Finnish Cables ("Hybrid War"), Finland Cuts Off Microsoft
the birthplace of Linux
Links 02/01/2026: Science, Patent Maximalism, and Public Domain Day
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/02/2026: Books, Scams, and mkscript (a Script to Make Scripts)
Links for the day
Free Software is More Naturally Inclusive
large, intolerant, violent companies get painted as a glorious example of United Colours of Benetton
Strong Start for GNU/Linux This Year
based on statCounter
More Tools, Factorising Code
If some things in the site of Gemini capsules don't behave as expected, then that's likely due to a bug
Europe in 2026: Over 5% GNU/Linux, Not Counting Chromebooks
2026 has started strongly
State of Tech Journalism in 2026: Follow the Money
in order to understand what motivates an opinion piece one must follow the money
Slopfarm Says Microsoft's "Biggest Business" is the 'Business' Where It Loses Tens of Billions of Dollars
TOI still pretends to have a lot of output
At the Start of January 2025 Microsoft President Said Microsoft Would Spend 80 Billion Dollars on "AI" Data Centres. That Didn't Happen. Microsoft Laid Off 30,000 Workers, Debt Surged.
Maybe this coming Monday Microsoft will come up with more false promises and vapourware
Links 02/01/2026: Insurrectionist Attacks Musicians Critical of Him With Lawfare, Project Gutenberg Now Has Over 75,000 Books
Links for the day
Decline in LLM Slop About "Linux" is a Good Start for 2026
When the only remaining proponents of slop are slop, which is pretty much what's happening right now, the bubble is popping
EPO People Power - Part XXII - Contact Officials and Inform Your National Representatives (Delegates) of the EPO's Cocainegate
Europe's largest media intentionally covers up serious scandals in Europe's second-largest institution
Slopwatch Still Dead, Not Enough LLM Slop About "Linux"
this is the desirable thing
LibXML2 Will Carry on (Without or With the Name "LibXML2")
The proprietary software boosters are projecting
Gemini Links 02/01/2026: ThinkPad, SHARP Zaurus, Lagrange Handheld Support
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 01, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, January 01, 2026