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Links 21/5/2015: Fedora 22 RC2, CERN Chooses OpenStack





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Open source is about more than cost savings


  • Open source as a path to innovation
    So as technology leaders — as the drivers of innovation — we must always be on the lookout for new ways to ready our organizations for agility. One means to that end is open source. Open source is the ultimate platform for flexibility, right? A platform that affords us the agility we need to quickly adapt as technology evolves, business demands expand and markets mature. A platform that allows us to innovate how we want, when we want — rather than innovating on the path and at the pace of our vendors.


  • Open Source Software to Catalogue Cultural Heritage Before a Crisis
    Cultural heritage management tends to suffer from limited funding and resources, which can make a crisis — whether natural disaster, pipeline construction, or war — that much more catastrophic for assessing what’s in need of protection. An open-source system called Arches is the first online tool designed specifically to inventory heritage sites. It was created through a partnership between the World Monuments Fund (WMF) and the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), and its third version launched earlier this month.


  • Events



    • Protocols Plugfest Europe 2015
      Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at Protocols Plugfest Europe 2015. It was really good to get out of the bubble of free software desktops where the community love makes it tempting to think we’re the most important thing in the world and experience the wider industry where of course we are only a small player.


    • GNOME Asia 2015
      I was in Depok, Indonesia last week to speak at GNOME Asia 2015. It was a great experience — the organisers did a fantastic job and as a bonus, the venue was incredibly pretty!


    • [Event-Report] rootconf-2015




  • Web Browsers



    • Mozilla



      • Mozilla Integrates Propietary Pocket Plugin
        This is based on the proprietary former addon pocket, which is now no longer supported since it is being integrated.

        It's only the beta channel, but this has all the hallmarks of a half-baked revenue stream for Mozilla that ultimately sells out user privacy - and what's worse, is opt-out, rather than opt-in.






  • SaaS/Big Data



  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice



    • fresh breeze for LibreOffice
      LibreOffice is a great OpenSource project. They have a Design Group and help you a lot if you’d like to do something for LibreOffice. Now LibreOffice prepare the new release LibreOffice 5.0 and for this release I’d like to be finished the LibreOffice Breeze icon set. Uri and I work since last November on the icon set so you also have a package available in your repository. Now I’d like to post that we are nearly finished. 98 % (2.700 icons) of the icon set is done, so it is ready for your review. As the monochrome LibreOffice icon set Sifr is less finished than Breeze, I though the fallback icon set for Sifr is Breeze.




  • CMS



    • How open source disrupted the CMS market
      Open source is increasingly changing the software industry. We can see open source products gaining market share in almost every category today, and this development is continuing at a fast pace.

      Although a lot of business people still intuitively think of Linux when it comes to open source software, content management systems played a pivotal role in changing the mindset within corporations. Why? Because the CMS industry was one of the first to largely adopt open source products. Nowadays, the most corporations use open source content management systems for their web platforms. Some of them may not even realize it.




  • Openness/Sharing



    • France wants to accelerate its reforms through open government
      The action plan that France must submit as part of its membership of the Open government partnership (OGP) is mainly build on reforms already announced.


    • France will chair OGP in 2016
      France will chair the Open Government Partnership from October 2016 to October 2017, after the OGP Steering Committee accepted France’s application at a meeting in Mexico on April 24.


    • PDF Poland Central Eastern: Digital tools to promote openness and democracy
      Eastern Central Europe has to reinvent itself and digital tools are the way to succeed. This is one of the conclusions drawn during the Personal Democracy Forum Poland-Central Eastern. This conference, which took place in Warsaw in mid-April, was organised by the ePaństwo Foundation (Fundacja ePaństwo) - a Polish NGO aiming at developing democracy and transparency.


    • Open Hardware



      • VA’s ‘Grand Challenge’: Open-Source Prosthetic Limbs for Veterans
        Last week, VA’s Center for Innovation launched its three-month Innovation Creation Series for Prosthetics and Assistive Technologies. The aim of the series is to build a suite of special prosthetics and other state-of-the-art technologies to support wounded veterans in their day-to-day lives.






  • Programming



    • Java at 20: Its successes, failures, and future
      Although Java was developed at Sun Microsystems, Oracle has served as the platform's steward since acquiring Sun in early 2010. During that time, Oracle has released Java 7 and Java 8, with version 9 due up next year. InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill recently spoke to Oracle's Georges Saab, vice president of software development for the Java Platform Group, about the occasion of Java's 20th anniversary.


    • Happy birthday Java






Leftovers



  • Security



  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression



    • US Approves Saudi Use Of Banned Cluster Bombs (But Only If They're Extra Careful)
      Following a report on Sunday, where Human Rights Watch said video and photographic evidence showed that Saudi Arabia used cluster bombs near villages in Yemen’s Saada Province at least two separate times, the US State Department said it is "looking into" the allegations but, as Foreign Policy reports, said the notoriously imprecise weapon — banned by much of the world — could still have an appropriate role to play in Riyadh’s U.S.-backed offensive (as long as it was used carefully).


    • Africa as Battlefield
      The US is trying to win “hearts and minds” in Africa. It’s not going well.




  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife





  • Finance



  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying



  • Privacy



    • Snowden Sees Some Victories, From a Distance
      For an international fugitive hiding out in Russia from American espionage charges, Edward J. Snowden gets around.

      May has been another month of virtual globe-hopping for Mr. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor, with video appearances so far at Princeton and in a “distinguished speakers” series at Stanford and at conferences in Norway and Australia. Before the month is out, he is scheduled to speak by video to audiences in Italy, and also in Ecuador, where there will be a screening of “Citizenfour,” the Oscar-winning documentary about him.


    • Fighting that Terminator in our Pockets
      Communications massively collected for further behavioural analysis and profiling (PRISM) and sabotage of any commercial product dedicated to protect our data and communications (BULLRUN) are just examples of how everyday technology, now part of ourselves, has been systematically perverted and turned against us.


    • The new war on encryption is based on a lie
      Back in January, David Cameron made what sounded like a threat to ban, or at least undermine, encryption in the UK. "The question is," Cameron said, "are we going to allow a means of communications which it simply isn’t possible to read. My answer to that question is: no, we must not." On its own that might be dismissed as a politician talking tough to please his supporters, but it's part of a much wider attack on strong encryption from the authorities on both sides of the Atlantic.

      In October last year, FBI Director James Comey spoke of his agency's fears about things "going dark" because of encryption, while NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said encryption "does a terrible disservice to the public." A month later, NSA General Counsel Stewart Baker offered the view that the reason Blackberry had failed was because it used "too much encryption." More recently, Rob Wainwright, the director of Europol, the European Union's law enforcement agency, said encryption is "the biggest problem for the police and the security service authorities in dealing with the threats from terrorism," while the UK's National Policing Lead for Counter-Terrorism, Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, called products that offer strong encryption "friendly to terrorists."




  • Civil Rights



    • Border Patrol Agents Tase Woman For Refusing To Cooperate With Their Bogus Search
      Cooke knew the CBP agents needed something in the way of reasonable suspicion to continue to detain her. But they had nothing. The only thing offered in the way of explanation as they ordered her to return to her detained vehicle was that she appeared "nervous" during her prior interaction with the female CBP agent. This threadbare assertion of "reasonable suspicion" is law enforcement's blank check -- one it writes itself and cashes with impunity.


    • Tased Motorist to CBP Agent: 'What the Fuck Is Wrong With You?'
      After presenting her driver's license, Cooke, who surely learned in college that police (and even CBP agents!) need "reasonable suspicion" to detain someone, asks why she was pulled over. "You guys have no reason to be holding me," she says. A male agent who identifies himself as a supervisor has no explanation for the detention, but he says Cooke will have to wait for a drug-sniffing dog to inspect her car. "Well, they'd better be here soon, because if not, I'm calling 911, and this can all be figured out," Cooke says. "You guys are holding me here against my will." Eventually the female agent who first interacted with Cooke says she seemed nervous—an all-purpose excuse for detaining someone, since people tend to be nervous when confronted by armed government officials.


    • Pilot who landed gyrocopter at US Capitol now faces six charges
      A Florida man who piloted a gyrocopter through miles of America's most restricted airspace before landing at the U.S. Capitol is now facing charges that carry up to 9€½ years in prison.


    • Gyrocopter pilot indicted on six charges
      The Florida postal worker who flew his gyrocopter under the radar into Washington and onto the West Lawn of the Capitol earlier this year faces nearly 10 years in prison after being indicted by a federal grand jury on Wednesday.

      Doug Hughes, 61, was indicted in U.S. District Court in D.C. on two felony counts of flying without a pilot's certificate and lacking registration for his small aircraft, each carrying up to three years in prison.






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