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Links 1/7/2015: OpenDaylight Lithium, OpenMandriva Lx 2014.2





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • 6 things technical leaders should consider around open-source software
    Many organisations have a wide array of open-source applications and code in use today – whether it be at the infrastructure and application layers, or in development frameworks and GitHub repositories.

    However, the applications developer and infrastructure teams come under increasing pressure as organisations rush to develop new services for customers, comply with growing amounts of industry regulation, or simply strive to meet the needs of the information generation.


  • Navigating through an open-source world
  • Open Source to power financial services innovations
  • AWS security looks to avoid cloud reboots with s2n
  • ​Amazon introduces new open-source TLS implementation 's2n'
  • Amazon Web Services Delivers Open Source Cryptographic Tool
  • Amazon Releases S2N TLS Crypto Implementation to Open Source


  • Amazon releases open source cryptographic module
    The software, s2n, is a new implementation of Transport Layer Security (TLS), a protocol for encrypting data. TLS is the successor of SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), both of which AWS uses to secure most of its services.


  • Engineers at Etsy play by their own rules
    Etsy, the leading marketplace for handmade goods, has grown by leaps and bounds over the past five years. During that time they've iterated on their model, their strategy, and their mission. One thing that's driven the success of those changes is their open workplace culture.

    I talked to senior engineering manager John Goulah about what it means to fail faster at Etsy, and he shared with me some interesting insights into the communication techniques Etsy uses to empower their associates and improve the experience of buyers and sellers on the site.


  • Altera, Brain4Net and CertusNet Join the OPNFV Project to Accelerate Open Source NFV


  • SaaS/Big Data



  • Databases



    • NoSQL and the next generation of big data
      Ingo is a senior solutions architect at MongoDB. He is active in many open source projects, and is the author of Open Life: The Philosophy of Open Source, a book on open source community ethics and business models.




  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice



    • LibreOffice 4.4.4 Released
      The Document Foundation today announced LibreOffice 4.4.4, the latest update to the 4.4 branch. Today's release brings 74 bug fixes including several crashes and import/export bugs. The announcement today also brought news of version 5.0 as well as reminders for the LibreOffice Conference in September.




  • BSD



    • PC-BSD 10.2 Gets Ready For Release, 11.0-CURRENT For Testing
      The PC-BSD development team today announced their 10.2 pre-release, which continues to be derived from FreeBSD. Additionally they've also announced new 11.0-CURRENT images for those wishing to get a look ahead at FreeBSD/PC-BSD 11.0.

      The PC-BSD 10.2 pre-release / 11.0 current announcement didn't offer many details about all of the changes in store, but once PC-BSD 10.2 and PC-BSD/FreeBSD 11.0 are officially out, you can expect lengthy write-ups on Phoronix.

      More details via the PCBSD.org blog.




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



  • Public Services/Government



    • It's 2015 And Congress Is Now, Finally, Allowed To Use Open Source Technologies
      First, the good news: members of the House of Representatives in the US Congress are now allowed to use open source technology in their offices, rather than the very limited list of proprietary offerings they were given in the past. Second, the bad news: how the hell is it 2015 and this is only becoming an option now? I guess we can't change the past, and so let's celebrate the House of Reps finally getting to this point -- which just happens to coincide with the upcoming launch of the House Open Source Caucus (led by Reps. Blake Farenthold and Jared Polis).


    • The House opens up to open source
      Traditionally, members of the House of Representatives have been presented with a limited plate of options when choosing technology to run their offices and manage their web presences. Members that wanted to take advantage of open source solutions — which are restriction-free, reusable and frequently more cost-effective — faced significant uncertainty and were pushed towards a small selection of proprietary options.


    • Extremadura schoolboard’s software deal protested
      Advocates of free software are protesting a tender by the school board of the Spanish region of Extremadura requesting proprietary software licences. The advocacy group, Extremadura Focus Initiative, is supported by the new, incoming government of the region and by several of Extremadura’s school teachers.




  • Licensing





  • Openness/Sharing



  • Programming



    • The Problem With Putting All the World’s Code in GitHub
      The ancient Library of Alexandria may have been the largest collection of human knowledge in its time, and scholars still mourn its destruction. The risk of so devastating a loss diminished somewhat with the advent of the printing press and further still with the rise of the Internet. Yet centralized repositories of specialized information remain, as does the threat of a catastrophic loss.


    • R, Matey: Hoisting the Sails for a Programming Language
      So what is R? The R programming language is a free and open source programming language for statistical computing and provides an interactive environment for data analysis, modeling and visualization. The language is used by statisticians, analysts and data scientists to unlock value from data.


    • A Code Boot Camp for Underprivileged Kids
      A science center in Johannesburg, South Africa, has opened the doors to a five-month course in Linux-based Web apps and entrepreneurial skills. The training is available free of charge to underprivileged students from nearby townships; if it's successful, it will be rolled out nationwide.


    • MIT develops donor 'transplants' for buggy code without access to the source
      A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have come up with a way to use 'donor' programs to improve the functionality and reduce system errors and flaws in open-source programs.

      Outlined in a paper dubbed "Automatic error elimination by horizontal code transfer across multiple applications," MIT researchers describe the Code Phage system, which automatically transfers code from donor programs to other applications which have buggy code and errors.


    • PHP for Non-Developers


    • PHP SIG - Autoloader
      The Fedora PHP SIG (Special Interest Group) is back / working.




  • Standards/Consortia



    • Op-ed: Safari is the new Internet Explorer
      Last weekend I attended EdgeConf, a conference populated by many of the leading lights in the Web industry. It featured panel talks and breakout sessions with a focus on technologies that are just now starting to emerge in browsers, so there was a lot of lively discussion around Service Worker, Web Components, Shadow DOM, Web Manifests, and more.

      EdgeConf’s hundred-odd attendees were truly the heavy hitters of the Web community. The average Twitter follower count in any given room was probably in the thousands, and all the major browser vendors were represented—Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, Opera. We had lots of fun peppering them with questions about when they might release such-and-such API.






Leftovers



  • Walmart Apologizes for Making ISIS Cake for Man Denied Confederate Flag Design
    A man in Louisiana is asking for an explanation from Walmart after his request for a Confederate flag cake at one of its bakeries was rejected, but a design with the ISIS flag was accepted.

    Chuck Netzhammer said he ordered the image of the Confederate flag on a cake with the words, "Heritage Not Hate," on Thursday at a Walmart in Slidell, Louisiana. But the bakery denied his request, he said. At some point later, he ordered the image of the ISIS flag that represents the terrorist group.


  • Science



  • Health/Nutrition



    • Everyone Gets Cosmetic Procedures, Says Time–and by ‘Everyone,’ They Mean Almost No One
      Even by the standards of newsweekly hyperbole, this is ridiculous. In the piece, Stein writes that “in the US, doctors performed over 15 million cosmetic procedures in 2014, a 13 percent increase from 2011 and more than twice as many as in 2000.”

      The population of the United States is now 319 million, so 15 million is about 5 percent per capita.

      Even that overstates how big “everyone” is, since most of those procedures are injections like Botox–a muscle relaxant that has to be readministered as often as four times a year. Coupled with the fact that Botox can be used on multiple parts of the body—each of which may be considered a different “procedure”—the “everyone” who “gets work done” turns out to be a tiny fraction of the population.




  • Security



  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression



    • Kirsty’s Story
      I knew with certainty that the BBC and official line of a lone gunman being responsible for the Tunisian attacks was a lie, because one of the victims of one of the “other” gunmen was my dear niece Kirsty.




  • Transparency Reporting



  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife





  • Finance



    • Greeks are rushing to Bitcoin
      With bank doors slammed shut, frantic Greeks are turning to online trading platforms to see if the digital money Bitcoin is a better bet than the euro.


    • Confusing Lending and Spending at the New York Times
      In fact, central banks have not spent this money, they have lent this money, mostly by buying government bonds. This matters hugely, because lending is a much more indirect way to boost the economy than spending.

      Lending by central banks is supposed to boost growth by lowering interest rates. This encourages borrowing in the public and private sectors. This helps to explain the growth in debt in recent years: Rather than indicating a troubling situation, this was actually the point of the policy.

      Rather than focus on the amount of debt countries, companies and individuals have incurred, it would be more reasonable to examine their interest burdens. These are mostly quite low.




  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying



    • Feds Awarded Colorado Charter Schools $46 Million because of "Hiring and Firing" Rules
      Between 2010 and 2015, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) awarded Colorado $46 million under the Charter Schools Program. Part of the reason the state landed the competitive grant was that charters are free to hire unlicensed teachers and then fire them at will, documents reviewed by CMD show.

      Designed to create and expand “high-quality” charter schools, the quarter-billion-dollar-a-year program has been repeatedly criticized by the watchdogs at the department's Office of the Inspector General watchdog for suspected waste and poor financial controls.


    • Jeb Bush dogged by decades of questions about business deals
      In early 1989, seven weeks after his father moved into the White House, Jeb Bush took a trip to Nigeria.

      Nearly 100,000 Nigerians turned out to see him over four days as he accompanied the executives of a Florida company called Moving Water Industries, which had just retained Bush to market the firm’s pumps. Escorted by the U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, Bush met with the nation’s political and religious leaders as part of an MWI effort to land a deal that would be worth $80 million.


    • STUDY: How The Media Is Covering Presidential Candidates' Climate Science Denial
      43 Percent Of Newspaper Coverage Failed To Note That Candidates' Climate Statements Conflict With Scientific Consensus. From March 23 -- when Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) became the first candidate to announce his presidential bid -- to June 22 of this year, newspapers and wire services surveyed by Media Matters published 54 news stories (in print and online) that included a presidential candidate denying either that climate change is occurring or that human activity is largely responsible for it. But the newspapers and wires failed to indicate that the candidate's position conflicts with the scientific consensus in 23 of those stories, or 43 percent of the coverage.




  • Censorship



    • Banned Books Week Celebrates Young Adult Books in 2015
      Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to read by encouraging read-outs, displays, and community activities that raise awareness of the ongoing threat of censorship. Last year, tens of thousands of people participated in Banned Books Week online. More than 500 videos were posted in a virtual read-out, and thousands participated in hundreds of events in bookstores, libraries, and schools and universities across the country.




  • Privacy



    • If You Can’t Beat ’Em: France, Up In Arms Over NSA Spying, Passes New Surveillance Law
      Yet also today, the lower house of France’s legislature, the National Assembly, passed a sweeping surveillance law. The law provides a new framework for the country’s intelligence agencies to expand their surveillance activities. Opponents of the law were quick to mock the government for vigorously protesting being surveilled by one of the country’s closest allies while passing a law that gives its own intelligence services vast powers with what its opponents regard as little oversight. But for those who support the new law, the new revelations of NSA spying showed the urgent need to update the tools available to France’s spies.


    • Surveillance Court Rules That N.S.A. Can Resume Bulk Data Collection
      The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled late Monday that the National Security Agency may temporarily resume its once-secret program that systematically collects records of Americans’ domestic phone calls in bulk.


    • Secret US court allows resumption of bulk phone metadata spying
      A secret US tribunal ruled late Monday that the National Security Agency is free to continue its bulk telephone metadata surveillance program—the same spying that Congress voted to terminate weeks ago.

      Congress disavowed the program NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed when passing the USA Freedom Act, which President Barack Obama signed June 2. The act, however, allowed for the program to be extended for six months to allow "for an orderly transition" to a less-invasive telephone metadata spying program.


    • Cloudflare Reveals Pirate Site Locations in an Instant
      According to an announcement from the site, Rights Alliance lawyer Henrik Pontén recently approached Cloudflare in an effort to uncover Sparvar’s email address and the true location of its servers. The discussions between Rights Alliance and Cloudflare were seen by Sparvar, which set alarm bells ringing.


    • Snoopers' Charter: Lobby your MP in Parliament
      The Government's planning to publish a draft of a new law that's likely to extend the surveillance powers of the police and GCHQ in early autumn.




  • Civil Rights



    • Fox News vs. Fox News Latino: NBC Dumps Trump Edition
      Fox News Latino's coverage of NBC's decision to sever ties with Donald Trump differed dramatically from Fox News' rush to defend the presidential candidate's incendiary remarks about Mexican immigrants. While Fox hosts praised Trump's stance and reticence to apologize, Fox News Latino characterized NBC's move as a victory for Latino media advocacy leaders.

      NBCUniversal announced Monday that it would sever ties with Trump after he characterized Mexican immigrants as criminals and "rapists," explaining in a statement: "At NBC, respect and dignity for all people are cornerstones of our values. Due to the recent derogatory statements by Donald Trump regarding immigrants, NBCUniversal is ending its business relationship with Mr. Trump."


    • O'Reilly Gives Donald Trump A Platform To Continue Calling Latin American Immigrants Rapists And Criminals


    • Judge Orders Lying, Cheating Government To Return $167,000 To The Man They Stole It From
      A federal judge has just ordered the government to return $167,000 it took from a man passing through Nevada on his way to visit his girlfriend in California. The officers really wanted that money, too. They used two consecutive stops to jerry-rig some probable cause… even though at that point they thought they were only dealing with $2000. From the original stop forward, the entire situation was deplorable, indisputably showing that everyone involved was more interested in taking (and keeping) a bunch of cash than enforcing laws or pursuing justice.




  • Internet/Net Neutrality



    • Cisco to buy cybersecurity firm OpenDNS in $635m deal
      Announced on Tuesday, the tech giant said the move will accelerate the development of the Cisco Cloud Delivered Security Portfolio, and OpenDNS will prove a boost to advanced threat protection services for Cisco clients.


    • EU plans to destroy net neutrality by allowing Internet fast lanes
      A two-tier Internet will be created in Europe as the result of a late-night "compromise" between the European Commission, European Parliament and the EU Council. The so-called "trilogue" meeting to reconcile the different positions of the three main EU institutions saw telecom companies gaining the right to offer "specialised services" on the Internet. These premium services will create a fast lane on the Internet and thus destroy net neutrality, which requires that equivalent traffic is treated in the same way.


    • Net Neutrality: Trialogue betrayed European Parliament's vote
      After months of negotiations behind closed doors between the Council of the European Union, the European Commission and the European Parliament (trialogue), the very positive text on Net Neutrality adopted by the European Parliament in April 2014 has become more ambiguous and weaker. Net Neutrality deserves more guarantees and La Quadrature du Net is regretting a third-rate agreement.


    • Court sets schedule for net neutrality case
      A federal court has set a schedule for the legal case over the Federal Communications Commission's controversial net neutrality rules.

      The telecom companies, trade groups and individuals suing the FCC must submit briefs to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia by July 30. Their supporters have until August 6 to submit their own filings.


    • Net Neutrality: Europe Slips Into Reverse
      Following a mammoth negotiating session that ended in the early hours of this morning, the European Union (EU) has released their long awaited rules on Net Neutrality.

      The EU Commissioner’s tweet and an accompanying press release proclaimed the rules as strong protection for net neutrality, but we’re not so sure. In fact, our initial response is one of disappointment. As others have pointed out, the proposals are unclear. At best they will lead to disputes and confusion, and at worst they could see the creation of a two-tier Internet. If enacted, these rules would place European companies and citizens at a disadvantage when compared to countries such as Chile and the USA.


    • The EU Could Kill Net Neutrality With a Loophole
      It seems the European Union has learned little from the hard-won fight in the United States to preserve net neutrality. Today, the European Commission announced an agreement between the European Parliament and EU Council that—on the surface—claims to promise to protect net neutrality, while simultaneously allowing for exceptions that would threaten its very existence.


    • Data roaming charges to be phased out within EU by 2017
      Data roaming charges associated with using your mobile phone while travelling abroad within the 28 member countries of the European Union will be a thing of the past as soon as June 2017. After that, consumers will pay the same price for calls, text messages and internet surfing throughout the EU.

      [...]

      The commission said it would also reserve the right to control traffic if it was in the public interest, for example, to combat child pornography or a terrorist attack.




  • Intellectual Monopolies





Recent Techrights' Posts

Not Only Mass Layoffs at IBM But Complete Shutdowns "Amid A.I. Boom"
apparently about 10,000 layoffs, not counting those who got pushed out by PIPs and other means
Search @ Techrights: Almost There Now (Maybe an Anniversary Gift)
Just to be very clear, search would not be unprecedented at Techrights
At IBM, Layoffs Start at 1AM (at Night)
not a single English-speaking site covers the news about the layoffs
Envy Makes People Do Self-Harming Things (and Harm to Others)
Online communities that can be deemed successful are built around trust, mutual respect, and collective accomplishment
What Julian Darley Wrote About the Stallman Talk Regarding "AI" in Oxford (2025)
From LinkedIn (Microsoft)
"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." -Galileo Galilei
This site is educational
Many People Have Said That They "Leave" IBM in Recent Days (Ahead of Mass Layoffs)
So the real extent of layoffs is greater than what's publicly stated (there are silent layoffs) [...] Whatever IBM says about the scope, scale, or magnitude of the "RAs", it doesn't tell the full story
 
Resisting Misogynists
Rianne has already added close to 100,000 pages to this site
Starting November on a Strong Note
All in all, this month started well for us as we have good, accurate publications with considerable impact
Fake Retirements Help IBM Keep the Layoff Figures Down
Yesterday we read that it was quite cruel how IBM (or Red Hat) compelled staff to pretend to be happily leaving or "retiring" when the reality was, they had been pushed out with some "package"
Cocaine at the European Patent Office Now a Subject in YouTube, Media Will Revisit the Topic
"The Cocaine Patent Office" is no joking matter
Gemini Links 05/11/2025: "Wuthering Heights" and "Winter is Coming"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 04, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 04, 2025
2 Days Until Site Anniversary Party, Search Likely to Launch Same Day
We're now just two days away from the nineteenth anniversary of the site
Richard Stallman's 2005 Article on Why Patents on Software Should be Denied
If patent law had been applied to novels in the 1880s, great books would not have been written. If the EU applies it to software, every computer user will be restricted, says Richard Stallman
"Last Day" at IBM and Red Hat as "Stealth Layoffs" (They Force People to Pretend It's Wilful)
So the real extent of the layoffs is being kept 'undercover'
Slopwatch: The WebProNews Slopfarm and the Serial Slopper
The Web is ill
Links 04/11/2025: Tensions Around Belarus Grow, Turkey’s Hype-inflation Continues
Links for the day
Corporate Media That Fails to Report Cocaine at EPO is Totally Failing to Report Mass Layoffs at IBM
How come nobody anywhere writes about this week's RAs?
Links 04/11/2025: Google Cloud Account Engages in Censorship of the Innocent, arXiv Spammed by LLM Slop
Links for the day
EPO Cocaine Chronicles: Our Aim Will be to Ensure This Becomes a Mainstream Media Topic, Not a Suppressed Scandal (Which the German State Deems Embarrassing and Detrimental to Its Pan-European Patent Franchise)
At the EPO, and perhaps in German media as well, people "fall upwards" (they get rewarded for bad things)
Static Site Generators (SSGs) Made Techrights Better, Faster, Easier to Manage
Consider adopting SSGs if you still use a CMS such as WordPress
But he Was Born in Manchester! (Origin Stories)
Borussia Dortmund does not exist!
GNU/Linux is American, Not Finnish
It started in Boston, not in Helsinki
'Hacker' 'News' Makes Dumb Assertions Against Smart People
A logical fallacy
We Turned Down Every Settlement Offer Because Truths Aren't Determined in Bank Accounts
Without free press, there won't be free society
Why I'm Always Proud of the Site I've Devoted My Life to
As a graffiti around the corner from our home says, "be a better person"
Standing Up or Standing for What's True But Inconvenient
Bad actors need to be called out
Media Coverage Regarding IBM is Vapourware and LLM Slop
With slop images, too
statCounter Says GNU/Linux Rose to 4% in the Russian Federation
Adoption of Vista 11 has been embarrassingly weak
Corruption is Not a Joke
we'll try to limit our use of humour to avoid misunderstandings or misinterpretations
The Slopfarm WebProNews is Overwhelming "linux" Results in Google News
Google News is slop
The Fall of IBM: What Happened?
Just like the EPO continues riding some old reputation acquired in the 1970s IBM relies on old myths like, "nobody gets fired for buying IBM."
IBM's CEO Already Has the Excuse for the Latest Wave of Mass Layoffs
Only days ago the CEO told a bunch of nonsense
Links 04/11/2025: Conflicts, Politics, and IPv6 at Home
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/11/2025: Entering WiFi Passwords and Programming Rambles
Links for the day
Arch Linux Seems Like the New Debian
Arch users (btw!) are growing in relative and absolute share
Analytics From US Government Affirm a Trend: Microsoft's "Market Share" in Search is Falling
the data set is large
Holding Institutions Such as the EPO Accountable Through Public Information
Speaking truth to power is never easy
Techrights Will Contact German Media About the EPO's Substance Abuse
This scandal won't "go to waste"
EPO Staff Losing Holidays, as Usual, as the Office Increases Profits by Illegally Granting Invalid Patents While Reducing Salaries
How much more can the staff endure and generally tolerate?
Free Software Does Not Always Speak for Itself, It Needs Advocates
Legal matters that relate to sharing of code will be discussed
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 03, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, November 03, 2025
The Register MS Continues Looking for Money in Promotion of the "AI" Ponzi Scheme
That The Register MS participates in this deceit rather than tackle/debunk it says a lot about The Register MS
IBM Layoffs in "Software", This Likely Impacts Red Hat as Well
Many people say "software" people are impacted
Escaping Proprietary Software, Not Just Escaping Microsoft
To take control of your life adopt GNU/Linux
A Lot of Fake News About Microsoft Headcount (Also: Microsoft's Debt Rose by About 24 Billion Dollars in Past 12 Months)
If you see some headline about Microsoft's CEO making claims about hirings, look away
Techrights Turns 19 in Three Days
It would be nice to meet for a chat
Akira Urushibata on How Grokipedia Fails to Work
The Grokipedia article gives the wrong character for the "Ko" on "Koan"
Links 03/11/2025: Data Breaches, Wars, and Digital Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/11/2025: Poetry, Old Androids and Small Shells
Links for the day
The Rumour Was True, Mass Layoffs at IBM Today
How widespread the layoffs are (or how they're disguised, e.g. PIPs) is hard to assess
Links 03/11/2025: Internet Anniversary
Links for the day
Two Years of Uptime
Reboots are seldom involuntary
Richard Stallman is Giving Another Talk in Less Than a Fortnight
in two weeks' time (13 days from now)
Windows Falls Below 20% in the UK
Many people choose to leave Windows altogether
Microsoft's Search Business Falls to Lowest Point in 2 Years, Based on statCounter
what can Microsoft sell other than shares in Microsoft?
Evidence Regarding Layoffs at Red Hat
Seems like IBM layoffs
Microsoft: Our "Goodwill" Value Grew More Than Tenfold Since 2011
Hallmark of pseudo-economics
GNU/Linux as a Boarding Pass
being mostly analogue is still feasible
Links 03/11/2025: Lack of Trust in LLMs and Windows TCO at Jaguar
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/11/2025: Books in October and Change
Links for the day
Mozilla Firefox Won't Survive and Many Sites Don't Work With It (Compatibility Abandoned)
The Web has become monocultural
Debian is Non-Free
Devuan might be worth looking into
Slopwatch: Brian Fagioli and LinuxSecurity
This is a real problem and most certainly a big problem because when people try to find real information about security and GNU/Linux they instead read "word salads" made by bots
Four Reasons to Party With Us in Four Days, Celebrating the Four Freedoms
Today we expect to be back to a more-or-less regular publication pace
Links 03/11/2025: The "Smartphone Panopticon" and Belarus' Hybrid Attacks on EU Intensify
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 02, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, November 02, 2025