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Links 6/11/2017: Mesa 17.3 Features, DragonFlyBSD 5.0.1 Released





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Giving Open-Source Projects Life After a Developer's Death
    You've probably never heard of the late Jim Weirich or his software. But you've almost certainly used apps built on his work.

    Weirich helped create several key tools for Ruby, the popular programming language used to write the code for sites like Hulu, Kickstarter, Twitter, and countless others. His code was open source, meaning that anyone could use it and modify it. "He was a seminal member of the western world's Ruby community," says Justin Searls, a Ruby developer and co-founder of the software company Test Double.


  • Events



  • Web Browsers



    • Mozilla



      • TorMoil: Tor flaw exposed IP addresses of Linux and Mac users [Ed: To be clear, this Tor bug the media crows about (with buzzword) only an issue if booby-trapped page with specially crafted links is accessed]


        Every time a user clicked onto links starting with file://, as opposed to https:// and http://, the vulnerability would kick into action. It's been named TorMoil by its finder.


      • Tor patches flaw that could expose MacOS and Linux IP addresses


      • TorMoil flaw leaks IP addresses of Mac and Linux Tor users


      • Tor Browser Users Urged to Patch Critical ‘TorMoil’ Vulnerability


      • Paul's activities and perspectives around Free Software


        A recent LWN.net article, “The trouble with text-only email“, gives us an insight through an initially-narrow perspective into a broader problem: how the use of e-mail by organisations and its handling as it traverses the Internet can undermine the viability of the medium. And how organisations supposedly defending the Internet as a platform can easily find themselves abandoning technologies that do not sit well with their “core mission”, not to mention betraying that mission by employing dubious technological workarounds.

        To summarise, the Mozilla organisation wants its community to correspond via mailing lists but, being the origin of the mails propagated to list recipients when someone communicates with one of their mailing lists, it finds itself under the threat of being blacklisted as a spammer. This might sound counterintuitive: surely everyone on such lists signed up for mails originating from Mozilla in order to be on the list.

        Unfortunately, the elevation of Mozilla to being a potential spammer says more about the stack of workaround upon workaround, second- and third-guessing, and the “secret handshakes” that define the handling of e-mail today than it does about anything else. Not that factions in the Mozilla organisation have necessarily covered themselves in glory in exploring ways of dealing with their current problem.






  • SaaS/Back End



    • Cumulus Networks Accelerates Web-Scale Adoption for OpenStack Environments


    • 451 Research: OpenStack Private Cloud Revenue To Overtake Its Public Cloud Revenue In 2018


    • OpenStack Aims to Improve Integration with Cloud Native Technologies
      The OpenStack Foundation is hosting its semi-annual Summit event in Sydney, Australia from Nov. 6 to Nov 8 highlighting use-cases and progress in the multi-stakeholder, open-source cloud infrastructure effort.

      At the first day of the event, several initiatives designed to help improve and promote integration between OpenStack and other open-source cloud efforts were announced. Among the announcements was the Open Infrastructure Integration effort, the launch of the OpenLab testing tools program, the debut of the public cloud passport program and the formation of a financial services team.

      "We're really put some focus into the strategy for the OpenStack Foundation for next five years," Jonathan Bryce, executive director of the OpenStack Foundation told eWEEK. "We spent the last five years developing code and building a large user base, looking forward we're listening to the challenges that users are facing to help us determine what we should be doing."




  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice



    • LibreOffice Lands An Initial Qt5 Interface Plugin
      A new VCL plug-in that is in development will allow LibreOffice to blend nicely with the KDE Plasma / Qt5 desktop.

      The Visual Components Library (VCL) that allows LibreOffice to make use of functionality across different graphical tool-kits and operating systems now has a Qt5 plug-in.




  • BSD



    • GhostBSD 11.1 RC1 is ready!
      This last development release of GhostBSD 11.1 release is ready for testing. All MATE and XFCE images are available only has 64 -bit architectures. For some of you, it might be chock that we are dropping i386 it is a decision that was hard to make. We hope for those that need i386 will find refuge to another BSD project.


    • [OpenBSD] Our 2017 Fundraising Campaign

      If a penny was donated for every pf or OpenSSH installed with a mainstream operating system or phone in the last year we would be at our goal.



    • DragonFlyBSD 5.0.1 Released




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



    • Video of VK2FUNK SDR talk at DEF CON 25
      Three interesting applications will be demonstrated, and their underlying theory and design explained. The audience will be exposed to some novel GNU Radio tips and DSP tricks. INMARSAT Aero will be revisited to show (in Google Earth) spatial information, such as waypoints and flight plans, that are transmitted from airline ground operations to airborne flights. A good chunk of the VHF band is used for airline communications; plane spotters enjoy listening to tower and cockpit communications.




  • Licensing/Legal



    • Shedding light on foggy GPL licenses
      The terms in GPL v3 clause 14 are very similar to those in the GPL v2.

      Over the years, I've seen many open source projects that say they are GPL licensed without explicitly indicating a version number, while also including the text of an entire GPL license (e.g., v2 or v3). The ambiguity this potentially creates may be beneficial or detrimental to you, depending on factors such as whether you are the licensor or the licensee.


    • GPL bodies in bizarre trademark fight


      Senior Linux kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman has claimed he asked the Linux Foundation to withdraw funding from the Software Freedom Conservancy back in 2016, because he was unhappy with the way in which the SFC went about enforcing compliance with the GPL, the licence under which the Linux kernel is published.

      Kroah-Hartman's claim was made as part of a long discussion about a spat between the SFC and the Software Freedom Law Centre, a body provides pro-bono legal services to developers of free, libre, and open source software, in which the SFLC has asked a court to cancel the trademark of the SFC due to what it claims is "priority and likelihood of confusion" to its own trademark.

      The bizarre aspect of the legal fight between the two bodies, both of which are involved in activities around the GPL, is that the SFLC launched the SFC in 2006 to carry out GPL enforcement.






Leftovers



  • Hardware



  • Security





  • Finance



    • The “Amazon Amendment” Would Effectively Hand Government Purchasing Power Over to Amazon
      THIS WEEK, REPRESENTATIVES of three major internet platforms — Google, Facebook, and Twitter — are testifying before Congress about their role in facilitating Russian meddling in the 2016 election. But a fourth giant sat comfortably removed: Amazon.

      Instead of getting yelled at by lawmakers, Amazon is on the verge of winning a multibillion-dollar advantage over retail rivals by taking over large swaths of federal procurement.

      Language buried in Section 801 of the House-passed version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which is being hashed out in a conference committee with the Senate, would move Defense Department purchases of commercial off-the-shelf products to “online marketplaces.” Theoretically, that means any website that offers an array of options for paper clips or office furniture; in reality that signals likely dominance for Amazon Business, the company’s commercial sales platform.

      Section 801 stipulates that the program should be designed “to enable Government-wide use of such marketplaces.” Scale, then, is key. Over time, this change would give platforms like Amazon access to all $53 billion in federal government commercial item purchases.


    • Offshore Gurus Help Rich Avoid Taxes on Jets and Yachts
      Buying a $27-million private jet or plush mega-yacht means millions in sales taxes — unless you know the right pro.

      Formula One auto racing star Lewis Hamilton got a new luxury jet, a $27 million candy-apple-red Bombardier Challenger 605 with Armani curtains. He also got a refund on the value-added tax.

      And the lawyers at Appleby, an elite law firm headquartered in Bermuda, were there to help.

      They teamed with the London-based accounting giant Ernst & Young to craft an arcane plan to sidestep the VAT, a consumption tax charged in Europe on everything from socks to cars. One of the conditions: Hamilton’s inaugural flight would have to touch down on the Isle of Man, the British crown dependency in the Irish Sea known for its lenient tax treatment of the world’s super-rich.


    • Liberal fundraisers held family millions in offshore trust, leaked documents reveal
      Canada’s future prime minister, Justin Trudeau, was vacationing with his family in the picturesque mountain village of Mont-Tremblant, Que., with a lot on his mind.

      After years of speculation, he had decided he was going to make a play for the country’s top political office.

      With him that weekend was longtime family friend Stephen Bronfman, 53, a third-generation descendant of one of Canada’s wealthiest families that had founded such iconic brands as Seagram, the Montreal Expos and the Eaton Centre.

      “(Trudeau) came to me and said, ‘You know, I’ve made a decision. I’m going to run for the leadership,’ ” Bronfman recalled in a 2013 interview. “I’d always told him, especially since he’d gotten in politics and was first elected, ‘Justin, anything I can do to help, just let me know.’ ”

      The well-connected Bronfman, a known philanthropist and environmentalist, took the reins of the party fundraising machine in late 2013, significantly boosting annual donations.





  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics



  • Censorship/Free Speech



    • Russian Media Outlet Accuses Google of Political Censorship
      As the controversy over Russia-linked content on U.S. websites continues, Russian online news outlet Federal News Agency accused Google of political censorship as its stories no longer show in Google News' search results.

      "FNA staff believe that that blocking of Google News users' access to content from Federal News Agency is an act of political censorship in the interest of the US government, aimed at restricting information on fighting international terrorism," the news outlet said in a statement.

      "To force Google to observe Russian and international law, the staff of Federal News Agency is preparing addresses to the [Russian] Anti-Monopoly Service and other government agencies, as well as a lawsuit," it went on to say.


    • Don’t let censorship be the answer to our highjacked social networks.
      Eight people were murdered by a terrorist in New York City, who in a choreographed attack copied from online forums, used a truck to mow down pedestrians at a time and place chosen to maximize destruction.

      At the same time, in Washington, DC, the so-called Tech Giants were testifying before a committee of the United States Senate about Russian interference in the last US presidential election…specifically, Russian usage of social media through paid ads to sow hate and dissent in America.


    • China warns on overseas content after Springer Nature pulls some articles
      Chinese distributors of overseas publications must verify that the content is legal in China, Beijing said late on Sunday, after a major western publisher blocked access to some content in the country citing local regulations.

      Springer Nature, which publishes science magazines Nature and Scientific American, said last week that it had pulled access to less than 1 percent of its articles in China, which it said was regrettable but necessary to avoid all content being blocked.


    • Top Academic Publisher Kowtows To China: Censors Thousands Of Papers, Denies It Is Censorship


      According to Springer, it is not really censoring articles in China, because people outside can still read them. That insults both Chinese researchers, whom Springer clearly thinks don't count, and our intelligence.




  • Privacy/Surveillance



    • Sen. Feinstein Supports "Backdoor" Warrants, So Why Don’t Reps. Nunes and Schiff?
      As the deadline for renewing and reforming key portions of the NSA’s spying apparatus looms less than two months away, two of the most important members of the House Intelligence Committee have stayed remarkably quiet in the conversation.

      Congress just introduced multiple bills to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a law that authorizes controversial NSA surveillance programs and is set to expire at the end of this year. Some of the bills include various ways to fix what is called the "backdoor search" loophole. Currently, the NSA "incidentally" collects the communications of countless Americans and stores those communications in vast databases. The FBI routinely searches through these databases for information about U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. The FBI does not obtain any probable cause warrants for these searches, skirting Fourth Amendment protections and earning these searches the title of "backdoor searches."




  • Civil Rights/Policing



    • UK Terrorism Law Used To Prosecute Actual Terrorist Fighter For Possessing A Copy Of 'The Anarchist Cookbook'
      We've reached the point in terrorism hysteria where someone can be prosecuted simply for having a copy of book already owned by millions. Ryan Gallagher details the trial of Josh Walker -- a man who actually left the UK to fight against terrorists, only to be charged under the nation's terrorism laws when he returned.

      [...]

      Not wishing to alarm outsiders, the group routinely destroyed its notes and other documents post-game. This was the direct result of being previously reported to the police by a janitor who came across notes the group left behind after role-playing a terrorist attack. Apparently, Walker forgot to toss his printed Anarchist Cookbook PDF into the fire with the rest of the prep materials.

      The prosecution claimed Walker retained his copy of the book -- again, a book anyone can download from the local library -- because he was "curious" about the contents. More ridiculously, the prosecution suggested the printed PDF Walker had in his bedroom "endangered public safety."




  • Intellectual Monopolies





Recent Techrights' Posts

Unverified Rumours: IBM Cuts Will Continue Another ~10 Days, Managers Will Invite Those Impacted for 1-on-1 Meetings
Right now IBM likes diversity because with adoption of low-paid demographies it gets to pay workers less for the same work
analytics.usa.gov: Vista 11 Scarcely Used, GNU/Linux Increasingly Dominant (Microsoft Loses "Goodwill", Depletes Cash Equivalents, and Debt Soars)
"Total current assets" fell by more than 2 billion dollars in the past 3 months
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)
 
For the Record: We Never Named Staff of the Law Firm That's Attacking Us, Except the One the Firm is Named After!
Just to affirm and be sure, I've used our new search facility
Techrights Became a Lot More Productive as a Result of Attacks on It
By default, it's safe to assume anything on the Web is garbage, especially in social control media
Links 05/11/2025: Medicare Privatisation and "Breaker Box Economy"
Links for the day
Techrights Search Will Come Early
Maybe tomorrow
It Seems Like GNOME/IBM Don't Like Women and When Budget is Limited Only Women Take the Fall
Seems like a very patriarchal, GAFAM-controlled Foundation
"Last Day" as in "IBM Sacked Me" (Cruel Euphemisms)
"The entire design and research technical leadership at IBM was laid off in the past year, including this round"
Shadow Crew and Ads Disguised as Articles
That The Register MS runs articles that are paid-for fluff isn't unprecedented
Vista 11 "Market Share" Has Fallen This Month, Based on statCounter
The US government's own data shows the same thing this month
This is How Mainstream Media, Boosted or Parroted by Slopfarms, Spins IBM's Commercial Failure and Mass Layoffs as "AI"
Some say "software focus", but most just resort to buzzwords and blame-shifting hype
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
"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." -Galileo Galilei
This site is educational
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
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
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