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Links 26/12/2016: Darktable 2.2.0, HandBrake 1.0.0, Linux 4.10 RC





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • FreeDOS 1.2
    The official announcement is on our website at www.freedos.org—but since I announced the FreeDOS 1.2 RC1 and RC2 here, I figured I'd make a brief mention on this blog too.

    We're very excited for the new FreeDOS 1.2 distribution! We've added lots of new features that you should find useful and interesting.

    Thanks to everyone in the FreeDOS Project for their work towards this new release! There are too many of you to recognize individually, but you have all helped enormously. Thank you!


  • FreeDOS 1.2 Released With New Installer & More Commands


  • Top 10 open source projects of 2016
    We continue to be impressed with the wonderful open source projects that emerge, grow, change, and evolve every year. Picking 10 to include in our annual list of top projects is no small feat, and certainly no list this short can include every deserving project.

    To choose our 10, we looked back at popular open source projects our writers covered in 2016, and collected suggestions from our Community Moderators. After a round of nominations and voting by our moderators, our editorial team narrowed down the final list.



  • Krampus adopts one free software tool for each month in 2017
    Curious how Krampus is doing this year? Well, as the recently hired manager of Krampus's open source programs office, I'm excited to tell you that we have an ambitious plan to adopt one free software tool during each month of the coming year.

    Our story might be useful for other non-software-focused businesses (Krampus, Inc. doesn't currently produce any software) who are also are curious about open source alternatives and want to follow a similar path. To get you in the spirit, I've included all the links that made us feel like 12 months of free and open source software adoption is possible.


  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice



  • Public Services/Government



    • Low Code, Not Open Source, is Key to Federal IT Agility [Ed: Anti-FOSS, using buzzwords]
      The federal government is striving to increase the agility of the IT systems that underpin mission-attainment and service-delivery. Taking a cue from the private sector, federal agencies are seeking faster time-to-delivery for new capabilities and a rapid response in the face of changing conditions. To that end, U.S. Chief Information Officer Tony Scott recently announced a new government website, Code.gov, promoting a shared-services approach to open-source software under the new Federal Source Code Policy.

      Unfortunately for the feds, open source is not the answer to the agility challenge. The reason why is right there in the name of the site and the policy: code.




  • Openness/Sharing/Collaboration



    • Open-Source Parametric CAD in Your Browser


      If you’re looking for a parametric open-source CAD program that can run in your browser, this is it. It’s far enough along that you can use it for real-world (albeit simple) modeling. CAD does, however, still require a certain type of spatial thinking and reasoning. So, if you’re new to the 3D modeling world, it might be worth tinkering with a more learning-oriented tool like BlocksCAD.


    • How “open source” seed producers from the US to India are changing global food production
      Frank Morton has been breeding lettuce since the 1980s. His company offers 114 varieties, among them Outredgeous, which last year became the first plant that NASA astronauts grew and ate in space. For nearly 20 years, Morton’s work was limited only by his imagination and by how many different kinds of lettuce he could get his hands on. But in the early 2000s, he started noticing more and more lettuces were patented, meaning he would not be able to use them for breeding. The patents weren’t just for different types of lettuce, but specific traits such as resistance to a disease, a particular shade of red or green, or curliness of the leaf. Such patents have increased in the years since, and are encroaching on a growing range of crops, from corn to carrots — a trend that has plant breeders, environmentalists and food security experts concerned about the future of the food production.




  • Programming/Development



    • Ruby 2.4.0 Released
      We are pleased to announce the release of Ruby 2.4.0.

      Ruby 2.4.0 is the first stable release of the Ruby 2.4 series.


    • Ruby 2.4 Programming Language Has Performance Updates & More
      The Ruby project has continued in its annual tradition of releasing a new version of their programming language on Christmas, a tradition held up now for the past number of years.


    • DocKnot 1.01
      This is the second release of my new documentation generation system for my packages. It's still probably not of much interest to anyone other than me, particularly since the metadata format is still rapidly evolving so I've not documented it yet. But the templates are getting fleshed out and it's generating more and more of my package documentation, which will make releases much easier.


    • krb5-strength 3.1
      krb5-strength provides password strength checking plugins and programs for MIT Kerberos and Heimdal, and a password history implementation for Heimdal. This is the first new upstream release since I left Stanford, since I don't personally use the package any more. But it's easy enough to maintain, and it was overdue for merging some contributed patches.


    • rra-c-util 6.2
      This is my general collection of utility functions, standard tests, and portability code, mostly for C but also including a fair bit of Perl these days.


    • anytime 0.2.0: Feature, fixes and tests!


    • C TAP Harness 4.1






Leftovers



  • Defence/Aggression



  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting



    • Josh Earnest: Obama Hasn’t Gotten Enough Credit for Being ‘Most Transparent’ President
      Earnest said this is one of the biggest “beefs” he has with journalists, claiming that “President Obama has been the most transparent president in American history.” And he wishes Obama got more credit for it.


    • NYT’s James Risen: Obama WH Has Been ‘The Most Anti-Press Administration’ Since Nixon


      You may remember the years-long legal battle journalist James Risen underwent in which the government was pressuring him to identify his confidential sources in a leak case. The case was finally resolved two years ago, but Risen has been on record saying the Obama White House has been “the greatest enemy of press freedom that we have encountered in at least a generation.”

      He told Stelter today that not only does he still believe that, but he believes this White House to be the most secretive and “the most anti-press administration since the Nixon administration.”




  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature



    • Polar Bears’ Path to Decline Runs Through Alaskan Village
      Come fall, polar bears are everywhere around this Arctic village, dozing on sand spits, roughhousing in the shallows, padding down the beach with cubs in tow and attracting hundreds of tourists who travel long distances to see them.

      At night, the bears steal into town, making it dangerous to walk outside without a firearm or bear spray. They leave only reluctantly, chased off by the polar bear patrol with firecracker shells and spotlights.

      On the surface, these bears might not seem like members of a species facing possible extinction.


    • Major flooding in UK now likely every year, warns lead climate adviser


      Major flooding in the UK is now likely to happen every year but ministers still have no coherent long-term plan to deal with it, the government’s leading adviser on the impacts of climate change has warned.

      Boxing Day in 2015 saw severe floods sweep Lancashire and Yorkshire, just weeks after Storm Desmond swamped Cumbria and parts of Scotland and Wales. The flooding, which caused billions of pounds of damage, led to the government publishing a review in September which anticipates 20-30% more extreme rainfall than before.

      But Prof John Krebs, who leads the work on adapting to global warming for the government’s official advisers, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), told the Guardian: “We are still a long way from where we need to be, in that there is still not a coherent long-term view.”






  • Finance



    • Election Losses Don’t Stop Corporate Efforts to Block Voter-Approved Minimum Wage Hikes
      Voters spoke very clearly on November 8 when they elected to raise the minimum wage in Arizona and Maine, along with Colorado and Washington State.

      But those wins, the democratic process, and the express will of the people are being defied and denied in Arizona and Maine, where corporate lobbyists and their legislative allies are working to block, delay, even rewrite the laws approved on Election Day.

      These efforts to flout voter-approved laws are part of ongoing conservative and corporate-backed strategies to keep wages low.




  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics



    • ALEC’s Little Brother, ACCE, Has Big Plans for 2017
      I recently returned from the American Legislative Exchange Council’s 2016 States and Nation Policy Summit, in Washington, DC. As a Mayor, I was most interested in the corresponding meeting of the American City County Exchange (ACCE), an offshoot spawned by ALEC in 2014 to spread ALEC’s ideas about “limited government, free markets, and federalism” down to the most local levels of government.

      I had attended the 2014 ACCE conference and was eager to see how the group had evolved in its formative years. What plans were its leaders developing in response to the surprising ascension of Donald Trump to President-elect, and the consolidation of republican power in the Congress and in statehouses nationwide?

      The short story is the group is working hard to expand its membership and stable of corporate sponsors, but in the meantime a handful of people are cranking out cookie-cutter “model” ordinances with little informed discussion.


    • Trump Urged to Put Nation Before Family Profits
      With just four weeks left until inauguration, President Elect Donald Trump has yet to deliver on his promise to tell the American people how he is going to handle his corporate empire in order to avoid crippling conflicts of interest.

      With investments and developments in at least 20 countries around the globe, not to mention the United States and Washington, DC, Trump brings an unprecedented array of conflicts to the White House, along with an equally unprecedented risk of bribery, foreign influence, and corruption.


    • Happy Holidays from the Video Asshats at Your State Department
      So what better use of taxpayer money and time than for your State Department to make idiotic holiday videos?

      Acting like an asshat is something of a State tradition year-round, but these annual videos seek to memorialize it. The very broad theory is that these things “humanize” American foreign policy in a way drones do not, and because they get lots of “clicks,” prove those foreigners really do love us after all. Of course, lots of people slow down for gory car wrecks, too.


    • Is Donald Trump a traitor? His path to the White House suggests a pattern of profound disloyalty
      During the 2016 presidential campaign, Republican nominee Donald Trump urged a foreign power, Russia, to interfere in the American election in order to undermine his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. Russia complied. The American intelligence community, including the CIA and FBI, has reached a “strong consensus” that the Russians interfered with the presidential election in order to help Donald Trump win.

      It has also been reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally directed this espionage operation. So serious was Russian interference in the American presidential election that the Obama administration warned Putin that it was tantamount to “armed conflict.”

      Republican leaders in Congress were briefed on Russia’s interference in the presidential election and how it was targeted at elevating Trump and hurting Clinton. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other congressional Republicans chose to block any public discussion of these findings. In what could be construed as a quid pro quo, McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, has been selected by President-elect Trump for a Cabinet position in his administration.




  • Privacy/Surveillance



    • Congressional Committees Say Backdooring Encryption Is A Bad Idea
      Two bipartisan Congressional committees are the latest to express their opposition to government-mandated encryption backdoors. The House Judiciary Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee have arrived at the same conclusion as the experts FBI director James Comey insists on ignoring: encryption backdoors are a net loss for everyone, no matter what gains might be experienced by law enforcement and intelligence agencies.


    • Revealed: British councils used Ripa to secretly spy on public
      Councils were given permission to carry out more than 55,000 days of covert surveillance over five years, including spying on people walking dogs, feeding pigeons and fly-tipping, the Guardian can reveal.

      A mass freedom of information request has found 186 local authorities – two-thirds of the 283 that responded – used the government’s Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) to gather evidence via secret listening devices, cameras and private detectives.

      Among the detailed examples provided were Midlothian council using the powers to monitor dog barking and Allerdale borough council gathering evidence about who was guilty of feeding pigeons.

      Wolverhampton used covert surveillance to check on the sale of dangerous toys and car clocking; Slough to aid an investigation into an illegal puppy farm; and Westminster to crack down on the selling of fireworks to children.




  • Civil Rights/Policing



    • In Pictures: ‘Treated like animals’, Hong Kong’s ‘Snowden refugees’ dream of better life
      The story of how impoverished refugees helped Snowden evade authorities in 2013 only emerged in September, propelling them into the media spotlight.

      Former National Security Agency contractor Snowden hid out in Hong Kong where he initiated one of the largest data leaks in US history, fuelling a firestorm over mass surveillance.

      After leaving his initial hotel bolthole, he went underground, fed and looked after by some of the city’s 11,000 marginalised refugees.

      [...]

      She also says her case worker recommended she have an abortion when she was three months’ pregnant with Danath.

      ISSHK told AFP it “completely denies” that allegation, and has rejected assertions by the refugees and their lawyer Robert Tibbo that it has breached its obligation to provide them sufficient humanitarian assistance.

      But Supun feels refugees in Hong Kong are treated “like animals”.


    • Progressive causes see 'unprecedented' upswing in donations after US election
      One man wrote a check for $10,000 to an organization that helps women get elected to office, saying he was “embarrassed” that Donald Trump won the presidential election.

      Someone else walked into the office of an organization advocating for immigrant rights and handed over a bag of cash he had just collected from members of his local community civics group.


    • Tea-maker at Cumhuriyet daily headquarters jailed for ‘insulting’ Erdogan
      Åženol Buran, a tea-maker working at the Cumhuriyet daily’s İstanbul headquarters, has been arrested by a Turkish court for allegedly insulting President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, the Cumhuriyet daily reported.

      According to the daily, Buran was late to work on Dec. 24 after authorities closed roads and stopped public transport to deny access to the ÅžiÅŸli district, where President ErdoÄŸan was to attend a meeting.

      “When I finally arrived at the building [of Cumhuriyet], the security chief asked me why was late. I explained the situation and he told me that the police closed the roads because of the president. He also told me that I would serve him a glass of tea if he pays us a visit,” Buran said.


    • Does Whistleblowing Pay? New Study Says Yes!
      New research by Jaron H. Wilde, an assistant professor of accounting at the University of Iowa’s, Tippie College of Business, “demonstrates for the first time that financial shenanigans at companies decrease markedly in the years after truth tellers come forward with information about wrongdoing in their operations.”




  • Intellectual Monopolies





Recent Techrights' Posts

Not Much Better Than LLM Slop: Linux Foundation-Funded 'News' Site Writes Linux Foundation 'News', Composed by Linux Foundation Operative, Quoting Linux Foundation Staff
...they get paid (sponsored) to produce this spam. Then they call it "journalism".
Annual Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE 22x) 'Bought' by Microsoft and Microsoft Exceeded Sponsorship Limits by Giving Double the Maximum Permitted Amount
When people get bribed they tend to forget how to utter a simple word: "No."
EPO Examiners Point Out to the Heads of Delegations in the Administrative Council of the EPO That the "AI Policy" of the Office is Illegal
"the Central Staff Committee (CSC) asks the Administrative Council to exert its supervisory role and instruct EPO management to enter into genuine dialogue with the staff representation on the AI Policy, to revise the “Leverage AI” target of 90% AI-automated classification in the SP2028 and to put in place the measures supported by staff in the resolution."
French Cities Dumping Microsoft Because They Recognise Software Freedom, Open Standards, GNU/Linux Autonomy
We hope that more French cities - maybe Paris - will follow Lyon.
LWN is a Voice of GAFAM (Through Linux Foundation, Their Front Group or Occupying Force Inside Linux)
remember who the chief editor works for and who sponsors many of the articles
The 'Case' of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft is a Lot of Copypasta (Maybe Also LLM Slop) From the Matthew Garrett 'Case'
5RB deserves to know and the matter shall be properly reported in due course (when the time is right)
EPO Squeezing the Staff - Part II - Office Breaks Rules, Ignores Courts, Defies Justice
False promises everywhere
 
Wayland is About Less Choice, About Removing Choices, It's Not About Freedom
IBM insists that it cares about "diversity"
Keeping Things Accessible
Gemini Protocol seems to be growing
Escaping Colonialism (or 'Hegemony') Requires Abandoning GAFAM, Microsoft in Particular
Europe is already in the process of abandoning Microsoft
Microsoft Will Shut Down More Studios This Week, Its Media Operatives Will Tell Lies About the Magnitude of the Shutdowns and Layoffs (They Always Do)
Many people who get counted as "workforce" are "temps" or similar
What Linux Foundation 'Research' is: Paid Marketing
What is Linux Foundation 'Research'?
No, IBM Does Not Care About People With Disabilities
"Aktion T4" did not seem to bother Watson
Microsoft's Financial Problems Mean Shutdowns, Not Just Mass Layoffs
If the original rumour is true, then expect almost 30,000 Microsoft workers to be let go this year
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 26, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 26, 2025
The Netherlands: GNU/Linux Measured at All-Time High
Are any Dutch cities going to announce dumping Microsoft?
Gemini Links 27/06/2025: "Interstitial Existence" and Autocorrect
Links for the day
Technical People Need Technical Lawyers
Technical Litigants in Person (LIPs) have many real and concrete advantages
10,000+ Articles in About 20 Months (and How We Got Here)
More bloat does not beget efficiency and "bells and whistles" tend to have a hidden cost
Links 26/06/2025: Illegal Kangaroo Court (UPC) Failing Scandinavia, K-Pop Agencies Abuse People
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/06/2025: AuraGem Twitch Proxy is Back and UI Sluggishness
Links for the day
Links 26/06/2025: Noise Pollution Considered High in Europe, Mass Layoffs Next Week in Microsoft Confirmed, Very Large in Scale and Scope
Links for the day
No, I Don't Want Your Latest XYZ, ThankYouVeryMuch...
Wayland is finally ready?
China Keeps Breaking Into Microsoft Systems, So for True Sovereignty, Nations Wary of China Need to Dump Microsoft
Looking at data from Taiwan (not China) and Maharlika (not Philippines, the king is dead and Spain is out), there are encouraging signs
Linux Journal Wants Ads on Its LLM Slop or Ads as 'Articles'
it's basically another BetaNews
How to Kill a Monopoly
in 10 simple steps
IBM - Like Microsoft - is a Dying Company and Perishing Brand ("AI" is a Lie and Decoy)
"Arvind is cutting costs (layoffs, PIPs, forced RTO, etc...) like crazy. IBM offices are closing all over the place in the US."
"Code of Conduct" Invoked When Fedora and Red Hat Users (Since the 1990s) Don't Want to Use Wayland
That is IBM "DEI"
Mozambique: GNU/Linux Rose From 0.5% Last Year to 3% This Year
what (or how) statCounter is measuring
Microsoft Layoffs Next Week: About 10% to be Laid Off in Microsoft Gaming (2 Days Before Independence Day), About 20%+ of XBox Staff
Microsoft is rapidly collapsing
Next Month Marks 11 Years Since Our In-Depth EPO Coverage
The same is happening to Microsoft right now
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Campaigns Against Vista 11, Adds 4 New Associate Members Per Day
If more people understood the underlying principles, more of them would flock to Free software overnight
Canonical Seems to Have Culled Some Sources of LLM Slop From Planet Ubuntu
It's like "junk food", it's not information
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 25, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 25, 2025
On "Weak Claims"
For the record, they sent me unjustified threats, repeatedly tried injunctions (censorship)
EPO Squeezing the Staff - Part I - Burnout and Family Health
more exceptional circumstances
This Month's Mail (MX) Server Survey Shows Microsoft at 0.20% "Market Share"
We need to remind people that desktops and laptops decline (in proportion to other client devices) and at the "back end" GNU/Linux is already dominant and has long been dominant
Links 26/06/2025: Filespooler Guide and Learning to Code
Links for the day
Why Techrights Cannot be Vilified (and Instead It Gets SLAPPed Repeatedly by Microsoft People)
Attack dogs are all "bark"; because they have no actual "bite"
Austrian GNU/Linux Usage Up to About 5% as More of Europe Abandons Microsoft
Since inauguration day the Austrian people have adopted more and more of GNU/Linux
Why the "Wayland People" and "Rust People" Will Lose Hearts and Minds (Same Reasons)
Wayland pushers are fast becoming like "Rust People"
5,600 Pages/Articles Per Year
So far this year we've kept all the promises
BetaNews Beginning to Show What Its True Goals Are
The 'new' BetaNews won't be about journalism. It's trying to sell things.
Microsoft Has Lost "The War"
We'll soon see the 9th or 10th wave of Microsoft layoffs in 2025 alone
Slopwatch: A Wreck and a Dreck, "Flooding the Zone With Dreck" or Flooding the Web With Junk
"Slopwatch" continues today because we have many new examples
Links 25/06/2025: Thwarting More Software Patents, Overlap Grows Between EPO Corruption and Illegal Kangaroo Patent Courts in EU
Links for the day
Links 25/06/2025: Elon Musk’s Lawyers Caught Lying, WhatsApp Faces More Bans
Links for the day
Wayland Pushers Lose the Argument, Use LLM Slop and Chatbots to Make Up Arguments for IBM
Another new low and low blow
Brian Fagioli Created Another Slopfarm Targeting "Linux" After BetaNews Became a Slopfarm of Phantom Accounts and Pseudonyms
Mr. Fagioli even had slop about a dead Torvalds (hypothetical) as clickbait
Wayland is Perfect, Nobody Can Escape Its Perfection! (Or Not)
Do not form on opinion on Wayland based on politics
What is "MATA"?
Think of it as GAFAM or "Meta"
Moral Duty for "Linux Sites" to Speak Out Against LLM Slop
My wife has long complained about "Linux bloggers" keeping quiet and thus passive about a growing problem: slop
In Recent Hours Google News Promoted at Least 3 Slopfarms That Relayed Linux Foundation Propaganda Made by Bots or LLM "Bullshit Generators" (as Dr. Stallman Dubbed Them)
Google is circling down the drain and Google News too is hopeless
Linux Journal is a Slopfarm, It's Experimenting With LLM 'Authors'
Is Slashdot next?
WebProNews is a Slopfarm
Please avoid linking to WebProNews
Microsoft LinkedIn is Dying and Many More Layoffs Are on the Way
LinkedIn is just a failed acquisition of Microsoft. It causes losses and debt.
Gemini Links 25/06/2025: Combinatorial Music and Self Hosting
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Coming Back to Europe This Autumn to Give More Talks
His last talk in Europe attracted about 400-450 people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 24, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Social Control Media, Technology & Catholicism: Synod on Synodality review and feedback
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
How Many More Women Will Managers at Microsoft Strangle and Tell to Kill Themselves (or Try to Kill)?
The world needs to know what happened
The New BetaNews: 7 New 'Articles', All of Them LLM Slop
BetaNews is basically defunct. Nobody writes there anymore.
Another "Told You So!": XBox Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Many Recent Reports Were Chaff and Spin), Many Other Divisions Affected
With mass layoffs at Microsoft the world would be much better