09.09.19
Posted in Deception, Europe, Finance, Patents at 10:44 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Thank you for smoking the EPO’s ‘free’ cigarettes
Summary: Tax evasion and UPC lies aren’t going to help the integrity of the patent system; au contraire — those are becoming an existential threat to the system being exploited by law firms (and accountants)
IT OUGHTN’T be so hard to understand that the European Patent Office (EPO) relies on its credibility for survival. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) learned this the hard way and gradually adapted (e.g. respecting 35 U.S.C. § 101). With people like António Campinos and Benoît Battistelli in charge of the EPO, however, hope seems slim. They actively collaborate with predators and abusers. They choose the side of liars and trolls. They abuse truth-tellers and staff representatives. They ignore courts and attack judges. This won’t end well.
Yesterday we saw Accountancy Today moaning that tax evasion for the rich monopolists (via patents) is “still so low” — that’s in their headline!
Another parasitic occupation and a colossal scam? It’s just shameless self-promotion from “Mark Tighe, founder and managing director at specialist tax consultancy Catax” (come to me for your tax evasion needs! I shall figure out how to use patents to deny taxpayers your tax contributions…)
From the article, which was published in a British site:
Patent Box tax relief was phased in from 2013 with the full scheme in place by 2017, offering a reduced rate of corporate tax on all profits made from patents.
In fact, it offers a near halving of the rate of corporation tax paid on intellectual property (IP) related profits to just 10 per cent.
The aim is to incentivise the development of new patented inventions in the UK and build a competitive future economy.
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Just over 1,000 Patent Box claims are made each year, compared to more than 5,600 patents granted on average every year between 2012 and 2017.
The 1,160 Patent Box claims made in 2015/16 had a total value of £754.3 million while the 1,025 recorded so far for 2016/17 are worth £942.5 million. This means the thousands of eligible companies who fail to claim are missing out on six figure sums.
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Happily, patents secured via the UK intellectual property office (IPO) will not be affected by Brexit. More surprisingly, nor will patents obtained through the European Patent Office (EPO) because the EPO is not an EU organisation.
So companies holding patents registered via the UK IPO or the EPO can relax, knowing their patents are still protected and they will still qualify for the Patent Box tax relief.
This “Patent Box tax relief” is a major scam that we covered here many times before, usually in relation to other European countries.
Wouldn’t British Team UPC just love it? It’s not like these people have an integrity; we know whose interests they generally serve…
Regardless, only hours ago IP Kat (British blog) published this post that boosts Team UPC’s lies. IP Kat’s Riana Harvey ended up propping up nothing but the Bristows nonsense and Watchtroll. This comes to show what IP Kat has already turned into: lobbying of the litigation ‘industry’. The cited articles are all bad (under “Patents”); they’re dishonest propaganda and deliberate lies. Just check the comments. In response to the first one (we’ve mentioned this ridiculous piece days ago) one person wrote:
I agree that, if the BVerfG were to dismiss the constitutional complaint, there could be an interesting (theoretical) question about whether the Federal President would be obliged to sign into law the Geman legislation relating to the UPC.
However, I am not sure whether that is the whole story. Just because the Federal President could sign into law legislation that ALLOWS Germany to ratify the UPCA, does this necessarily mean that the Federal President would also be OBLIGED to deposit Germany’s instrument of ratification? Is that not a separate step that would need to be agreed and coordinated with the government?
Regardless of the technicalities of the role of the Federal President, I find it rather fascinating that anyone is still pressing for Germany to ratify the UPC under the current circumstances. This is because the current Brexit deadline of 31 October will have been and gone long before the earliest date that the UPC can possibly (or practicably) come into force. If the UK ceases to be an EU Member State after 31 October 2019, it is difficult to see how the UPCA, which REQUIRES the Participating Member States to be EU Member States, could EVER come into force.
This could turn into a chicken and egg situation, as the preconditions for the UPCA to come into force would not be met … but an amendment to the definition of the Participating Member States (to make the UPCA a valid Agreement again) could not be made until AFTER the unmodified Agreement enters into force.
In other words, it would be totally bonkers for Germany to press ahead with ratification under the current circumstances … and this does not even consider the still unresolved question of whether the UPCA is in accordance with EU law (either with or without the participation of the UK). The position of the German government therefore makes sense to me. What does not make any sense whatsoever is why a firm of attorneys (who, after all, tend to be a rather conservative breed) would advocate for such a reckless and irresponsible course of action. One can only speculate…
Lucky Luke then said that “the purpose of this piece is not about legal coherence. Some circles have long withdrawn from sensible legal discussion, instead resorting to the desperate spreading of wishful thinking…”
Here’s the full comment:
Missing in this remarkable construct is one minor aspect: Support from German constitutional law.
According to Article 59(1) of the German Grundgesetz, the Federal President is Germany´s sole representative in matters of international law, while the initiation of negotiations on the conclusion of an international agreement and the negotiations themselves (including the definition of political objectives and the contents of the agreement) are the sole responsibility of the Federal Government. The role of the Federal Parliament is limited to the legislative proceedings on the agreement’s ratification. A simple Google search will quickly confirm this legal situation.
Hence it is difficult to see why the Federal Government as well as the Federal President would not have full and unimpeded discretion on whether and how to proceed in terms of the UPCA, subject to the overall political situation.
But, yet again, the purpose of this piece is not about legal coherence. Some circles have long withdrawn from sensible legal discussion, instead resorting to the desperate spreading of wishful thinking, often disguised as pseudo-legal theories created out of the blue. Things must indeed be looking rather grim for the UPCA.
There are some more comments in there, providing more information and not lies, unlike the Bristows “articles” that IP Kat decided to cite (Bristows also has key positions in IP Kat itself).
In another thread boosted by IP Kat some hours ago “Concerned observer” wrote about “UPC-promoters bag of tricks to somehow drum up business for the UPC (and, by happy coincidence, for the litigation firms that will be handling the UPC litigation)?”
The full pair of comments:
Small problem – the UPCA cannot be amended unless and until it comes into force. Thus, if the UK leaves the EU without an agreement before the UPCA comes into force, then the UPCA will be dead on arrival – for the reasons discussed in my comment on the previous UPC-related post.
Also, I take issue with your comment that Article 38 of the Statute is “probably not a very important core article”. The reason for this is that the preliminary reference procedure is a cornerstone of the EU legal system and so is an ESSENTIAL prerequisite for compliance with EU law. In my view, there are already strong reasons to doubt the UPC’s compliance with EU law, even with a fully functioning Article 38 of the Statute. However, rendering that Article ineffective (at least for the UK) would make non-compliance with EU law an absolute certainty.
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So there is no “safety net” even under consideration in the UK. This seems to me to be yet another strike against the UPC.
Who in their right mind would risk requesting unitary effect when the UK’s participation remains highly doubtful and when there is no obvious way of recovering rights in the UK for any EPUEs that might, after grant, suddenly cease to have effect in that territory?
This would leave the UPC with only those patents that are not opted out of the system. My understanding is that this would be slim pickings indeed. Thus, even if miracles happen and the UPC struggles into life, it looks like anyone who is inclined to sign up as a UPC judge will be twiddling their thumbs for at least a few years. Or can we expect something else to be pulled out of the UPC-promoters bag of tricks to somehow drum up business for the UPC (and, by happy coincidence, for the litigation firms that will be handling the UPC litigation)?
Well, it doesn’t matter what these pre-filtered comments say, Bristows/Kluwer/IP Kat will carry on pushing pro-UPC lies. Kluwer Patent Blog totally lacks integrity and sadly IP Kat turned away from truth-seeking, instead becoming a distorter of the truth.
This kind of reckless behaviour and sheer refusal to cover EPO abuses will doom these blogs if not the whole system. They’re incapable of telling the truth. This how justice too dies. █
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Posted in Europe, Patents at 10:10 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Unless the underlying rules are respected and Europe’s largest patent office actually follows the laws it’s governed by, Europe’s patent system won’t promote innovation; the European Patent Office’s decision on Alexion (patent application 3124029 rejected) is good news
BOTH the European Patent Office (EPO) and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) still grapple with a question that should not even be asked. Why? Because the answer to it should be obvious. The American 35 U.S.C. § 101 is pretty clear about naturally-recurring phenomena and Europe has already spoken — many times in fact — about patents on life. If only Campinos and Battistelli actually obeyed the law…
Today’s EPO not only tolerates patents on life and nature; it’s also actively promoting software patents in Europe. The EPO is totally out of control!
To our surprise, and for a change, yesterday we saw this article from Phil Taylor (pharmaphorum). When patents are misused not for elevation of the sciences but for monopoly that enables ruinous price hikes in medicines this is what should happen:
The European Patent Office has blocked an attempt by Alexion to extend the patent protection for its blockbuster drug Soliris, setting up biosimilar competition from 2022.
The EPO delivered its verdict late last week but Alexion’s share price remained unscathed by the news, suggesting investors are confident that the company will be able to migrate revenues to its follow-up drug Ultomiris by that date.
In a brief Securities & Exchange Commission filing, Alexion said the EPO had rejected its attempt to extend two patents for Soliris (eculizumab) and it is considering an appeal.
It’s also facing a patent challenge to Soliris in the US from Amgen, which is developing a biosimilar version of the drug called ABP 959 and has petitioned the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to review Alexion’s intellectual property on the drug. It made the move after Alexion won an extension on its US patent life until 2027.
Soliris – a complement C5 inhibitor used to treat several rare diseases including paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) and atypical haemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS) – achieved sales of $1.94 billion in the first six months of the year, accounting for more than 80% of the biotech’s total sales in that period.
Kelly Davio (Center for Biosimilars, i.e. patent maximalists and monopolists) responded as follows to the EPO denying antibody patents:
Last week, Alexion disclosed in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission that the European Patent Office (EPO) did not grant Alexion its request for 2 patents on its brand-name eculizumab product, Soliris, a C5 complement inhibitor that treats rare and ultrarare diseases.
The Form 8-K, dated September 5, indicates that the office declined to grant patent application 3124029, which covers a pharmaceutical composition comprising an antibody or antibody fragment binding to C5 for use in treating a patient with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH), and patent application 3167888, which relates to the composition of matter of eculizumab.
This will probably be mentioned by patent maximalists’ blogs such as IP Kat and Kluwer Patent Blog in days to come. Both like to promote patents on life/nature, especially in their current composition (they’re both run by Big Pharma firms and their lawyers).
Mind this new IP Kat comment from “CRISPR scientist” (profiteer), who defends monopolies on life itself, ignoring health risks: “It would be feasible, but it would require a separate round of gene editing since no one could want to introduce a marker into the functional gene that is the subject of the first round of gene editing. The gene editing process is complicated, time consuming and costly. And every round of editing harbors the risk of additional unwanted modifications. So, can there really be a benefit if one has to perform an additional round of gene editing only for administrative sake? I shall think no. […] I don’t think that reasonable people are actually worried about their own health. Genetic material in the food you consume has very little possibility to influence your body. And I do doubt that it may cause food allergies. As the article correctly points out, the actual risk is what will happen to the ecosystem. I agree that heavy dependence on fertilizer or herbicides is detrimental. However, that is not what CRISPR is about. Gene editing is simply a stunning, secure and reliable technique to modify a plant’s genome. Banning gene editing because it may cause harm in certain scenarios is much like banning operations per se simply because people may die if operated wrongly. We can’t igonore the benefits that gene editing is bringing a world where we need more nurtrious food and crops that are able to resist climate change.”
This is the classic propaganda/talking point from GMO proponents. We spent a lot of time and energy confronting these lies about a decade ago when we wrote a great deal about Monsanto, now part of Bayer in Germany.
Anyway, it’s nice to see the EPO rejecting bad patents, probably showing a little bit of respect for the EPC, for a change…
Miquel Montañá has just mentioned the EPC in relation to a case outside the EPO’s remit; he ought to take note of the fact that the EPO’s management violates the EPC every day, rendering it moot! To quote yesterday’s post from Montañá:
As readers are well aware, one of the difficult tasks when applying article 69 of the European Patent Convention (“EPC”) and its Protocol of Interpretation is to strike the right balance between “interpreting” the claims in the context of the specification, while, at the same time, avoiding “importing” features of the specification into the claims. A judgment of 12 February 2019 from the Barcelona Court of Appeal recently published has warned against the risk of using specification for the purpose of unduly restricting the scope of protection of the claims.
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Interestingly, the Court of Appeal relied on the case law from the European Patent Office (“EPO”) Boards of Appeal (for example, T 1018/02, T 1395/07, T-544/89 and T-681/01) noting that, although they do not decide infringement cases, they do have to interpret the scope of protection of the claims when they examine validity.
Finally, the Court of Appeal added that, although in the past the Court had “read” in the claims features mentioned in the specification which were not explicitly mentioned in the claims, this was done in exceptional cases only, when the feature omitted in the claim was essential for the functioning of the invention. The Court of Appeal added that “But this is not the case, because the interpretation of the defendant and its expert relies solely and exclusively on the preferred embodiments disclosed in the drawings.”
All in all, the main teaching of this interesting judgment is that when applying article 69 of the EPC and its Protocol of Interpretation, care must be applied to avoid “importing” features of the specification into the claims.
Readers are well aware, as we’ve shown many examples lately, that European courts very often deviate from EPO judgments, which sometimes get delivered by the Boards that are afraid of the Office. This lack of independence is, in its own right, a gross violation of the EPC. █
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Posted in Europe, Patents at 9:39 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
What good is a patent office that prioritises ‘licensing’ (shakedown) and litigation over actual innovation?
Summary: EPO staff ought to be alarmed by the Office choosing to work with litigation and shakedown ‘societies’ rather than actual scientists, who may or may not choose patents as part of their strategy
THE European Patent Office’s (EPO) outsourcer in chief António Campinos is flying places when he’s permitted to board the plane. “Excellent discussions on the future of the European Patent system with @EPOorg President Antonio Campinos and his team last week in @prh_fi,” said an EPO’s retweet yesterday. Just like Battistelli, he only even meets with patent maximalists, not scientists. Both also promote software patents in Europe in defiance of what software professionals actually want.
“The EPO’s relationship with patent trolls is undeniable; the EPO even invites them to EPO panels.”I personally think SUEPO should call for an EPO strike again. I don’t get to say what they do, obviously, but what are they waiting for? Nothing is improving. They're next on the chopping block. Do something. Before it’s too late… not just for you but for Europe as a whole.
The EPO’s relationship with patent trolls is undeniable; the EPO even invites them to EPO panels. As has become a daily occurrence lately, yesterday the EPO once again advertised an event of a patent trolls’ front group. This is who today’s EPO works with/for! From/about Dublin, Ireland they say: “How can you make win-win IP deals with large companies and research organisations? We’ll tell you at this conference…”
They already liaised for a similar event elsewhere in Europe (with LES/I). They then retweeted (also yesterday) a couple of tweets about it [1, 2]. Why does Enterprise Ireland go into bed with a patent trolls’ front group? As we recently explained, "Patent Trolls Are Destroying Free/Open Source Software and They’re Coming to Europe, Thanks to the European Patent Office" (that was last week). Something must be done. █
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Posted in News Roundup at 10:54 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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Audiocasts/Shows
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Every day, our data hits the market when we sign online. It’s for sale, and we’re left to wonder if tech companies will ever choose to protect our privacy rather than reap large profits with our information. But, is the choice — profit or privacy — a false dilemma? Meet the people who have built profitable tech businesses while also respecting your privacy. Fact check if Facebook and Google have really found religion in privacy. And, imagine a world where you could actually get paid to share your data.
In this episode, Oli Frost recalls what happened when he auctioned his personal data on eBay. Jeremy Tillman from Ghostery reveals the scope of how much ad-tracking is really taking place online. Patrick Jackson at Disconnect.me breaks down Big Tech’s privacy pivot. DuckDuckGo’s Gabriel Weinberg explains why his private search engine has been profitable. And Dana Budzyn walks us through how her company, UBDI, hopes to give consumers the ability to sell their data for cash.
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Android 10 has a lot we like while the PinePhone is real and closer than we thought.
Plus Red Hat’s new desktop strategy, and what we think Mozilla is getting right.
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Kernel Space
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Linux Foundation and Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF)
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My name is Kelsey Skunberg and I am starting my senior year for my Undergraduate in Computer Science at Colorado State University. This summer, I had the honor of participating in the Linux Kernel Mentorship Program through CommunityBridge. Throughout the mentorship, I grew very fond of working on open source projects, learned to work with the open source communities, and my confidence as a developer has grown tremendously.
Since the beginning, I found the Linux kernel community to be very welcoming and willing to help. Many of the developers and maintainers have taken time to answer questions, review patches, and provide advice. I’ve come to learn contributing is not quite as scary as I first anticipated. It’s ok to make mistakes, just be open to learning and new ideas. There are a lot of resources for learning, and developers willing to invest time in mentoring and helping new contributors.
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I chose to work on PCI Utilities and Linux PCI with Bjorn Helgaas as my mentor. Bjorn has been an incredible mentor who provided me with a great amount of advice and has introduced me to several tools which make the development process easier.
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Sysdig is doubling down on its efforts to make its open source Falco project the de facto means for pulling security metrics for runtime security and intrusion detection. The company has already contributed Falco to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and has hired Kris Nova, a CNCF ambassador who worked for Heptio (now part of VMware) and Deis (now part of Microsoft). Nova is also credited with developing kubicorn, an infrastructure management tool for Kubernetes.
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Together with my colleague Bettina Bassermann and SUSE partners, we will be running a series of blogs and webinars from SUSE (Software Development, Microservices & Container Management, a SUSE webinar series on modern Application Development), and try to break the ice about Microservices Architecture (MSA) and Cloud Native Application Development (CNA) in the software development field.
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Graphics Stack
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Longtime Intel open-source graphics driver developer Chris Wilson today sent out a set of patches attempting to enable IOMMU coverage for graphics by default.
With the exception of the Broadwell generation of graphics, at this point he believes there is little fallout from turning on IOMMU for their graphics by default. One of the benefits to flipping on IOMMU is that instead of memory corruption that might not be detected, there will be a DMAR fault that is reported and can be tracked via their CI infrastructure, etc.
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When it comes to Navi graphics processors in workstation cards, there’s now confirmation of at least one coming with the “Navi 14″ GPU.
A patch adding a new Navi 14 PCI ID to the AMDGPU Linux kernel DRM driver is for a “workstation SKU” mentioned in the patch message. Details beyond that clear confirmation of Navi 14 for a workstation model aren’t known. There are two “workstation” Navi 14 PCI IDs added of 0×7341 and 0×7347.
We’ve seen the various driver bits of Navi 14 getting ready but this is the first time we’ve seen Navi 14 brought up in the context of workstation parts. We’re also starting to see some SRIOV bits for Navi as likely further feature work with workstation in mind.
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Today I made a new release of Gthree, version 0.2.0.
Newly added in this release is support for Raycaster, which is important if you’re making interactive 3D applications. For example, it’s used if you want clicks on the window to pick a 3D object from the scene. See the interactive demo for an example of this.
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Applications
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Ah, the humble to-do list. When used badly, it becomes a source of stress and a trigger for procrastination. When used well, the to-do list can help you focus on what you need to do, when you need to do it.
There are a few ways to keep a to-do list. You can use pen and paper. You can run a command-line to-do list manager. Or, you can use a to-do list on your desktop.
The latter is what I want to focus on in this article. So, let’s take a look at four to-do list managers for the Linux desktop.
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Video editors are costly software, especially those are more advanced such as Adobe Premiere Pro. However, there are plenty of known/unknown Video Editors available which are totally free of cost and open sourced. Here we list 10 free video editors which might be useful for you and your use case.
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Mumble is a free, open source, low latency, high quality voice chat application.
Mumble is primarily intended for gamers, and was the first to establish true low latency voice communication over a decade ago, but finds good use in many different environments as well.
We heard from users who record podcasts with our multi-channel audio recorder, players seeking realism with our positional audio in games, Eve Online players with huge communities of over 100 simultaneous voice participants (I bet they make good use of our extensive permission system 😄), the competitive Team Fortress 2 community making us their required voice communication platform, hobby radio transmission users, and a variety of workplaces adapting Mumble to fit their needs – be it on-head mobile devices or communicating across countries or into airplanes.
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Mumble, the free VoIP application, has reached version 1.3.0 stable after more than 2 and a half years since the previous stable release, and almost 10 years since the last Mumble 1.2 feature release. Mumble 1.3.0 includes new Lite and Dark themes, individual user volume adjustment, dynamic channel filtering, and much more.
Mumble is a free and open source, VoIP application primarily created to be used by gamers, but not only, similar to TeamSpeak (which is proprietary). The application uses a client/server architecture, and it features high sound quality and low latency, using encrypted communication. It runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and iOS, and there are various third-party clients too, including for Android, which Mumble doesn’t officially support.
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For fans of the Mumble open-source VoIP communication program that is popular with gamers, Mumble 1.3 was released as their first major release in years.
It’s been nearly ten years since Mumble 1.2 launched and even two and a half years since the last v1.2 point release came with security/bug fixes. Mumble 1.3 is huge with over 3,000 changes.
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Move over Discord, Mumble has rolled back into town with a massive new release for this open source voice chat application.
This is the first major release of Mumble in a few years, so of course it comes with some truly massive changes. Checking on it Mumble 1.2 was release all the way back in December, 2009! Nearly 10 years in the making—holy cow!
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Over the last year I’ve reviewed a bucketload of open source graphical music players. They’ve been a mixed bag. Some are truly mindbogglingly awesome, others falling way short of my (fairly) modest requirements. The music players I’ve reviewed include ncmpy, ncmpc, and Cantata. I’ve also reviewed Nulloy, Museeks, Pragha Music Player, Yarock, qoob, aux.app, MellowPlayer, Kaku, Strawberry, Headset, Qmmp, QMPlay2, Olivia, and the truly sublime musikcube. My favorite music player is Tauon Music Box.
The vast majority of the music players I’ve covered are GUI software.
Continuing my series, here’s a further graphical music player. Bearing the handle Musicalypse, it’s cross-platform software that offers both an audio player and server functionality.
Musicalypse is an open source application developed and maintained by Thomas Gambet. It’s built with web technologies. In this case, this means the code is a combination of Scala and TypeScript built on a foundation of Angular, akka, and Electron.
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Proprietary
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Speaking at a CNN conference last week, Apple’s VP Internet Services, Jennifer Bailey discussed Apple’s plans around Apple Pay.
She made a highly significant statement retail banking professionals should think deeply about:
“We’re not interested in being a bank… particularly the regulated part of that.”
Think about that.
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Instructionals/Technical
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The tac command is essentially the cat command, but its purpose is to concatenate files in reverse. Like cat, it has a convenient fallback mode to print to standard output (STDOUT) if no output file is provided, making it one of those commands that are more often used as a lazy pager—like less and more—than the function it is named for.
The cat command is often overused and abused, and cat is often taken as a joke command like ddate or cowsay. It often gets paraded out in April Fool’s day articles detailing stupid terminal tricks. So, it may come as a surprise that tac actually has a legitimate reason to exist.
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Games
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Announced earlier this year from Revolution Software Ltd, they’re working on a follow up to the absolute classic Beneath a Steel Sky called Beyond a Steel Sky.
We didn’t report on this initially, as Linux was nowhere to be seen in any announcements. However, their Steam page recently went live last week and in the system requirements we can clearly see a “SteamOS + Linux” section. Not only that, it’s properly filled out too requiring “16.04.3 LTS + SteamOS (latest)” so it’s certainly seemingly like no accident.
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It seems Blizzard have been having some issues with World of Warcraft and the newer WoW Classic with them coming under a DDoS attack. Their countermeasures (well, whatever they’ve done recently) seem to have blocked Linux players in Wine but there’s a fix.
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Announced only recently by Weappy Studio and THQ Nordic, Rebel Cops will pull out the turn-based strategy element from This Is the Police and create a game out of it.
The XCOM-like strategy layer appeared in This Is the Police 2 and I actually quite enjoyed it. I adore turn-based tactics anyway, so hopefully it will be nicely polished.
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The recent update released on the weekend continues expanding and improving upon the base game. There a new ten player map, a new Tier 2 Mech Engineer unit which can build and it has an AA attack, the pathfinding system was improved with much better performance and less memory use, the AI was improved in the late-game, Rusted Warfare can now handle many more installed mods, support for installing compressed mods, the ability to easily switch team layouts when making a game (like 5v5 to FFA and so on). There’s more smaller new features plus a few balancing changes.
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Protolife is a strange beast, not really like other tower defense strategy games and little over a year after the release it’s coming to Linux.
I’ve been testing it for quite some time, after chatting to the developer since last year. To see it finally coming is excellent. The developer, Volcanic Giraffe, just recently released a big update to the game including a level editor and Steam Workshop support.
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If you need a good Visual Novel, the Misadventures of Laura Silver: Chapter I released with Linux support last month.
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Desktop Environments/WMs
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K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt
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The KStars team is glad to announce the release for KStars v3.3.6 for Windows, MacOS, and Linux.
This release is packed with many small quality of life improvements and bug fixes.
We cleaned up the popup menu so that mount actions are more intuitive. Took this chance as well to add some lovely Breeze icons to the mix.
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GNOME Desktop/GTK
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The GNOME 3.34 Release Candidate (RC) has been released over the weekend to public testers in case last minute bugs are discovered before the final release of the open-source desktop environment. The source packages are available to download under the GNOME 3.33.92 umbrella, along with a Flatpak runtime.
The Release Candidate milestone doesn’t bring any important changes to the upcoming GNOME 3.34 release, but only minor fixes and updated translations. With this, the development cycle of the GNOME 3.34 desktop environment has come to an end and the development team is now preparing for the final release.
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The popularity of Linux has skyrocketed and companies dealing with Linux products/distros are making a lot of money from it. Even though Linux is synonymous with open-source, that concept is eventually moving out of the picture.
While many people believe that Linux distros shouldn’t come with a price, considering the user base and the efficiency it brings, charging money for Linux distro actually makes sense even though many Linux distros come with a user donation option.
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New Releases
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After many weeks of tweaks, adjustments and issues addressed the final version of LXLE 18.04.3 is being released for public criticism. LOL…. come on that’s kinda funny.
This release concentrated on slimming down the distribution; Providing computing essentials with a focus on low system resource usage while maintaining ease of use.
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Several weeks in the works, the LXLE 18.04.3 release is based on Canonical’s latest Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS (Bionic Beaver) operating system and features a new “Open ‘File’ as Root” option, increased applications menu speed, keyboard shortcut overlay list, screen magnifier tooltips, reshuffled Games section, and an updated lock screen that now includes random fortune quotes.
LXLE 18.04.3 also comes with Pinta instead of GIMP, Lxtask instead of Htop, Sakura as default terminal, Bookworm instead of FBreader, Abiword, Gnumeric, and Spice-Up instead of LibreOffice, and Pitivi instead of OpenShot. The PulseAudio equalizer, Lubuntu Software Center, and Java OpenJDK packages have been removed from this release.
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Arch Family
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As per the official announcement, the Manjaro project will stay as-is. However, a new company has been formed to secure the project and allow them to make legal contracts, official agreements, and other potential commercial activities. So, this makes the “hobby project” a professional endeavor.
In addition to this, the donation funds will be transferred to non-profit fiscal hosts (CommunityBridge and OpenCollective) which will then accept and administer the funds on behalf of the project. Do note, that the donations haven’t been used to create the company – so the transfer of funds to a non-profit fiscal host will ensure transparency while securing the donations.
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One of the most popular Linux distribution, Manjaro Linux, is heading toward its commercial path with the creation of a company around the project to keep it sustainable.
The project has founded a company called Manjaro GmbH & Co. KG, to enable full-time employment of maintainers and exploration of future commercial opportunities.
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Fedora Family
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When you install the Fedora Workstation, you’ll find the world-renowned Firefox browser included. The Mozilla Foundation underwrites work on Firefox, as well as other projects that promote an open, safe, and privacy respecting Internet. Firefox already features a fast browsing engine and numerous privacy features.
A community of developers continues to improve and enhance Firefox. The latest version, Firefox 69, was released recently and you can get it for your stable Fedora system (29 and later). Read on for more details.
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Debian Family
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Debian GNU/Linux 10.1 “Buster” and Debian GNU/Linux 9.11 “Stretch” are now available to download as new installation mediums for those who want to deploy either operating system release on computers without downloading hundreds of updates from the repositories after the installation. It consists of 34 security updates, 102 miscellaneous bugfixes, and 2 removed packages.
“This point release mainly adds corrections for security issues, along with a few adjustments for serious problems. Security advisories have already been published separately and are referenced where available,” Debian Project explains. “Please note that the point release does not constitute a new version of Debian 10 but only updates some of the packages included.”
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In this video, we are looking at Sparky Linux 9.9 XFCE. Enjoy!
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Canonical/Ubuntu Family
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Yaru theme might get a full light theme (and a full dark theme that already exists, but with further refinements) instead of the mixed theme that’s currently default in Ubuntu.
While users have been voicing their opinion about the need of using a fully light theme with Ubuntu by default, that’s not why there are talks to have a Yaru light theme. Instead, it looks like there are issues with the headerbar buttons lack of contrast compared to the background, and this is where the Yaru Light idea comes from.
Feichtmeier, a Yaru theme contributor, sums up the issues with using a mixed theme (light theme with dark headerbar), including in the argument that Gtk is not ready for an inverted headebar, and that “in a normally lightened room at day the dark headerbar is worse usability wise than a light headerbar”, also adding that basically all platforms or toolkits use a full light or full dark theme for day/night.
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Devices/Embedded
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Have you ever run into that awkward situation where you were actively busy doing something totally off company’s duties on the computer and got caught red-handed…
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There are several single board computers that come with NVMe SSD either directly like on ODROID-H2 SBC or indirectly via an expansion board such as M2X extender board for Khadas VIM3.
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Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications
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Pulumi has launched version 1.0 of its modern infrastructure as code platform. The latest version introduces new capabilities designed to help developer and operations teams overcome organizational silos and achieve productivity, reliability and security on any cloud using familiar programming languages and open source tools and frameworks.
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For the end-of-year internship period some of the projects on the table include integrating Jenkins with GitHub apps, fixing lock-related warnings within the Linux kernel, better displaying a JSON schema within Firefox, and various other possible projects.
Women and other under-represented groups in tech can apply to Outreachy. The stipend for the Outreachy internship period is at $5,500 USD plus a $500 travel stipend.
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Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)
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Lightbend has recently announced CloudState. Created by the team behind Akka, Play and the Reactive movement, CloudState is the first open source serverless framework designed to bring stateful management on Knative/Kubernetes stack.
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FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
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Up to now the LLVM compiler stack has been used when wanting to target the Linux’s eBPF in-kernel virtual machine while now the port for the GNU Compiler Collection has been deemed in good enough shape and merged.
Oracle developers can be thanked this time as it’s their crew that nursed the GCC eBPF port into shape.
The GCC eBPF port is roughly equivalent to the capabilities of targeting eBPF from LLVM/Clang. There are some missing bits of functionality but they plan to get to that with time.
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Programming/Development
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In the world of commerce, disruptive technology can make all the difference, but so often comes from simple idea, and usually one borne out of necessity. Caxton’s printing press was based on the need to produce larger quantities of written material to the court. The automobile was an attempt to support greater workforce mobility to the post-industrial age, while the telephone aimed to improve communications to the late Victorian era. And, of course, they all survived and thrived.
Looking at FS computing, not much has stuck it out for any length of time, as the digital era heralds all manner of popular, disruptive technology, that so often supersedes what went before. Application programming interfaces (APIs), distributed ledger technology (DLT), blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI). Nothing stays the same.
Bucking the trend. When good ideas persist
A couple of exceptions prove the rule, however. Against a post-war scramble to modernise commerce and economic progress, the Common business-oriented language (COBOL) was designed specifically for an easier commercial future. Created in the late 1950s with commercial, governmental and academic minds meeting to manage its creation, the new language of COBOL provided unprecedented readability, simplicity and suitability for large-scale commercial business applications that made it indispensable.
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PyCharm is an integrated development environment (IDE) used for the development of Python projects specifically. It is a very robust and well-designed system in the sense that it provides everything that a Python user would ever need. It has support for web elements in the form of Django and possesses equally strong tools for data science applications as well.
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This week we welcome Aymeric Augustin (@aymericaugustin) as our PyDev of the Week. Aymeric is a core developer of Django, a Python web framework. He is also an entrepreneur and speaker at several Django related conferences.
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We have sent out the details to more than 40 venues.
Like last year, we also want to give the chance to other venues who were not on our list to participate in the RFP. For this purpose, we are making the details available in this blog post as well.
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A developer can set a conditional execution structure to develop into python code to manage a few kinds of Boolean and arithmetic operations.
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Science
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“Dr. Doom.” A few students joked, as we walked out of the seminar room. I didn’t laugh. I was uneasy, wondering if some of the climate forecasts from today’s chemistry department seminar would come to pass sooner than expected.
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Security (Confidentiality/Integrity/Availability)
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A vulnerability in the Linux Kernel could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause a denial of service (DoS) condition on a targeted system.
The vulnerability is due to a use-after-free condition that exists in the atalk_proc_exit function of the affected software. The vulnerability is related to the anet/appletalk/atalk_proc.c, anet/appletalk/ddp.c, and anet/appletalk/sysctl_net_atalk.c source code files. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a request that submits malicious input to the targeted system. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary code or cause a DoS condition.
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The Exim mail transfer agent (MTA) is impacted by a critical vulnerability that may allow local or unauthenticated remote attackers to execute programs with root privileges on the underlying system.
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Security updates have been issued by Debian (expat, ghostscript, libreoffice, and memcached), Fedora (chromium, grafana, kea, nsd, pdfbox, roundcubemail, and SDL), Gentoo (apache, dbus, exim, libsdl2, pango, perl, vlc, and webkit-gtk), Mageia (dovecot, giflib, golang, icedtea-web, irssi, java-1.8.0-openjdk, libgcrypt, libmspack, mercurial, monit, php, poppler, python-urllib3, rdesktop, SDL12, sdl2, sigil, sqlite3, subversion, tomcat, and zstd), openSUSE (chromium, exim, go1.12, httpie, libmirage, python-SQLAlchemy, and srt), Oracle (firefox, ghostscript, and kernel), SUSE (apache2, mariadb, mariadb-connector-c, postgresql94, python-Django1, python-Pillow, python-urllib3, and qemu), and Ubuntu (exim4).
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Ethical hacking is not just a single skill, it is a whole set of skills and among these skills includes the usage of different tools for different techniques to work faster and with less effort.
Today we will discuss about the browser extensions that every ethical hacker should use to make its life and hacking a lot easier than before, and we will be talking about the best among them and the purpose of each of them. Some of these extensions will be Chrome-based only, others will be Firefox-based only and some of these will be available for both.
Now let’s start with those browser extensions:
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Defence/Aggression
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Last week, in a well-received Wall Street Journal op-ed, former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis delivered a critique of Donald Trump that was as hollow as it was self-righteous. Explaining his decision to resign from the administration, the retired Marine general known as “Mad Dog” eagerly declared himself “apolitical,” peppering his narrative with cheerful vignettes about his much beloved grunts. “We all know that we’re better than our current politics,” he observed solemnly. “Tribalism must not be allowed to destroy our experiment.”
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Washington, D.C. is buzzing with talk of troop withdrawals and the impact on peace talks in Afghanistan. The U.S. may start withdrawing troops within months, the start of what would be a gradual withdrawal of all 14,000 U.S. troops from the country.
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“He is literally the worst deal maker of all time.”
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The West appears, suddenly, devoid of its greatest virtues, constructed century after century, preoccupied now only with reproducing its own defects and with copying the defects of others, such as authoritarianism and the preemptive persecution of innocents.
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With a series of tweets, President Donald Trump has upended nearly a year of U.S.-Taliban negotiations on ending America’s longest war. He has “called off” the talks and asserted that a planned secret meeting between him and Taliban leaders at Camp David, set for Sunday just days before the 9/11 anniversary, is now canceled. Some question whether it was a face-saving attempt after the deal his envoy said had been reached “in principle” faced serious challenges.
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Environment
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On September 4, 2019, the National Geodetic Survey (NGS) began collecting U.S. aerial damage assessment images for Hurricane Dorian. Imagery is being collected in specific areas identified by NOAA in coordination with FEMA and other state and federal partners. Collected images are available to view online via the NGS aerial imagery viewer. View tips on how to use the imagery viewer.
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The rising and falling of the sea is a phenomenon upon which we can always depend. Tides are the regular rise and fall of the sea surface caused by the gravitational pull of the moon and sun and their position relative to the earth. There are some factors that cause the tides to be higher than what is “normally” seen from day to day. This bulletin tells you when you may experience higher than normal high tides for the period of time between September and November 2019.
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Many of us think of the Amazon as an untouched wilderness, but people have been thriving in these diverse environments for millennia. Due to this long history, the knowledge that Indigenous and forest communities pass between generations about plants, animals and forest ecology is incredibly rich and detailed and easily dwarfs that of any expert.
For one thing, Indigenous people see animals and humans as integral to nature. This holistic view is often missing in contemporary, science-based forest governance and conservation strategies, which tend to focus solely on forest cover.
In my Silent Forest project I’m investigating how Indigenous communities in Colombia apply traditional ecological knowledge in wildlife management. Based on my research so far, I would like to argue that subsistence hunting, and the traditional ecological knowledge that guides and regulates it, must be recognized as a key forest-management strategy.
Obviously hunting of wild animals is unpopular among conservationists, and meaningless poaching for exotic pets and animal parts can never be justified. However, in many areas around the world, Indigenous and forest communities have hunted, and continue to hunt, for subsistence. For them hunting is not a sport or a recreational activity. It’s a food source and a way to balance animal populations. So, even though it may sound paradoxical at first, hunting can actually strengthen long-term environmental management, because it’s how Indigenous and forest communities assess forest health and meet their food-security and livelihood needs. It’s also why Indigenous and forest communities often have a vested interest in healthy forests and thriving wildlife.
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Energy
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The appointment of Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, half brother to de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, comes as Saudi Arabia prepares for a much-awaited stock listing of state-owned oil giant Aramco.
“Khalid al-Falih has been removed from his position,” said SPA, citing a royal decree. “His royal highness Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman is appointed minister of energy.”
The Kingdom also replaced the deputy energy minister, SPA added. Since his appointment as oil minister in 2016, Falih has been the face of Saudi energy policy but the veteran technocrat had seen his portfolio shrink in recent weeks.
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Overpopulation
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Spare a thought for the poorer residents of Jakarta, Indonesia’s sprawling capital city.
If your house on the Indonesian coast is threatened by the ocean because of climate change, then maybe – if you’re lucky and wealthy enough – a move to higher ground further inland may be possible.
But what happens when a whole city, with millions of people, is threatened by rising seas?
Jakarta has a population of more than 10 million. Established as the capital of what was the Dutch East Indies in the 17th century, the city is built on swamp land on the north-west coast of the island of Java.
But not only is Jakarta threatened by rising sea levels: rapid, largely unplanned expansion and building work has resulted in the city becoming, according to experts, one of the fastest-sinking urban areas in the world.
It’s estimated that up to 40% of the area of Jakarta is now below sea level. In northern districts of the city bordering the sea, rising sea levels are threatening many neighbourhoods, and flooding is common.
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Finance
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Capitalists seek to maximize profits and reduce the cost of labor. This sums up capitalism at its core. It is defined by these immutable objectives. It is not about democracy. It is not, as has been claimed, about wealth creation for the working class. It has nothing to do with freedom. Those capitalists, especially in corporations, who are not able to increase profits and decrease the cost of labor, through layoffs, cutting wages, destroying unions, offshoring, outsourcing or automating jobs, are replaced. Personal ethics are irrelevant. Capitalists are about acquisition and exploitation.
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AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
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“This latest round of endorsements shows we are not only retaining and engaging supporters from 2016, but building new support from a broad swath of leaders from around the state.”
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With a family of five, a two-story home and a pharmacy, Tamer al-Sultan had a life many in the besieged and impoverished Gaza Strip would envy, but he still felt trapped.
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Progressives hope for an America where healthcare is a human right for everyone—and women’s right to choose remains secure—and gays are safe from cruelty—and people of all sorts are welcome equally in a multicultural society—and college is affordable without crushing debt—and marijuana no longer brings jail terms—and safety measures curb gun massacres…
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“This is not a time to tell ourselves that Trump is losing. This is being built as we speak.”
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Mark Sanford, the former South Carolina governor and congressman, has decided to launch a longshot Republican challenge to President Donald Trump, saying Sunday that he aims to put his Appalachian trail travails behind him for good as he tries to navigate a path to the presidency.
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Unlike Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren is a team player—she’s been spending time of late reassuring the Democratic Party’s traditional power-brokers, both small and large, that she cares deeply for the party’s institutions.
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Climate change is an existential threat to human civilization. If only corporate media acted like it.
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“Those willing to make the most specious claims do seem to get booked most frequently.”
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A Friday report from Politico detailing how the U.S. Air Force is diverting resources to prop up President Donald Trump’s Turnberry resort in Scotland prompted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to call for impeachment.
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Privacy/Surveillance
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I grew up in a cult. Since leaving 12 years ago, I’ve studied the tools and techniques used by cults to entrap their members. As you might guess, I hold a deep-seated desire to NEVER be pulled back into one, so a big, loud alarm bell blares in my head when I spot the signs that an organization is relying on groupthink to control its members. Here’s what I see in the tech industry.
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Civil Rights/Policing
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He crossed the border without permission or, as far as I could tell, documentation of any sort. I’m speaking about Donald Trump’s uninvited, unasked-for invasion of my personal space. He’s there daily, often hourly, whether I like it or not, and I don’t have a Department of Homeland Security to separate him from his children, throw them all in degrading versions of prison — without even basic toiletries or edible food or clean water — and then send him back to whatever shithole tower he came from in the first place. (For that, I have to depend on the American people in 2020 and what still passes, however dubiously, for a democracy.)
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The Indonesian government should immediately allow unfettered access to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to travel to Papua to investigate the situation.
After video circulated of Indonesian militias racially abusing indigenous Papuan students outside their dormitory in Surabaya on August 17, 2019, Papuans demonstrated in at least 30 cities across Indonesia, including Jakarta. Rioting Papuans burned down the local parliament building in Manokwari and prisons in Sorong, West Papua province, and in Jayapura, Papua province.
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The death of former President Robert Mugabe at a hospital in Singapore on Thursday September 6, 2019 rang memory bells about the hush-hush, but spirited conversations that Zanu-PF comrades used to have about this day, during the 2013 election campaign in which his advanced age and mortality were campaign issues.
In one such conversation, General Constantino Chiwenga was adamant that calls, which were then spreading and getting louder, for Mugabe to name a successor and retire were misguided because “as a founding leader Mugabe was entitled to die in office like his departed co-founders Joshua Nkomo, Simon Muzenda and Joseph Msika, who had died in office with the dignity of the office befitting a founding leader”.
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In my country Latinos are treated as dirt and a murdering coward travelled 1000 miles from his home state to kill off migrants in El Paso.
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AmaZulu King Goodwill Zwelithini KaBhekuzulu is taking a tough stance against gender-based violence.
Zwelithini has issued a royal order to his nation to, protect women and children.
The king says the country needs to wage relentless war.
“The first war we have to fight is against HIV and AIDS which is destroying our children, we must also fight against women abuse and fathers who kill their children,” said Zwelithini who was speaking at the annual uMkhosi WoMhlanga ceremony at his Enyokeni Royal Palace in KwaNongoma in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
“Another war is against alcohol and drugs that is continuously given to our children.”
Gender-based violence took centre stage at this year’s uMkhosi WoMhlanga.
The ceremony was attended by thousands of maidens.
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Yvonne Chaka Chaka’s daughter Fortunate is one of several business owners who lost merchandise worth thousands of rands when looters destroyed her store in Maboneng, Johannesburg and made off with all its stock this past weekend.
The musician arrived home from Namibia on Sunday to learn that her daughter’s store had been hit by thugs.
“They stole everything, all the clothes and everything in the shop. Even the mannequins are on the floor. It is terrible. There was a lot of damage.”
Ma Yvonne said her daughter and the store’s staff heard the looters, but couldn’t stop the attacks.
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Monopolies
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Patents and Software Patents
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The Federal Circuit affirmed in an opinion by Judge Wallach, joined by Chief Judge Prost and Judge Newman; the Chief Judge also wrote a concurring opinion.
[...]
The Chief Judge wrote separately in concurrence because while agreeing with the panel decision her reasoning regarding the limiting nature of the “wherein” clauses took a different logical path. She characterized the posture of the case as being “unusual,” due to the reliance by all on the claim construction issue. The Chief Judge found no fault with the panel’s application of the claim construction rubrics established by case law that she says constitute “a well-established set of legal standards governing claim construction,” and also stating that “the majority has already ably articulated those standards in detail.” To this able articulation, the Chief Judge added “one narrow but crucial point” that bears consideration in her view.
[...]
For Chief Judge Prost, the name of the game is the language of the claim, and resort to the specification and prosecution history is only taken to ensure that the claim language has been properly interpreted.
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Copyrights
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The aftermath of Blurred Lines continues, from Ed Sheeran, to Katy Perry, and now Drake is being sued for a beat…however, this case is slightly different in that Drake is accused of sampling without a licence, not copying a substantial part by recreating. Started from the Bottom Now We’re Here with the details and other terrible Drake puns…
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And thanks to the partnership with the bank, the streaming service can get information on the bank’s customers, including their ages and location, and perhaps a whole lot more.
“We know how they spend their money, so it’s easier for us to target people,” said Okeke.
That doesn’t sound like a joke. But the barcodes and military are up for debate, potentially. Or maybe not.
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Posted in Bill Gates, Deception, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 6:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Published yesterday
Published last month
Summary: Microsoft’s notion of “love” redefines the concept of a corporation and it’s reducible to intentional lies that enable a silent, gradual takeover of the competition
“MICROSOFT loves Linux.”
LOVES!
A corporation loves. It falls in love. Whatever…
“We’ve said all along (since 2015) that it is an expensive (well-funded) PR campaign based on pure lies.”Tell us some other fiction, Linux Foundation. Like "open source loving Microsoft..."
Welcome to the parallel universe where corporations are people and corporations are infatuated. When do corporations go to toilets (as opposed to down the toilet)? Do corporations also get pregnant? Can we medicate corporations?
Anyway…
About “Microsoft loves Linux”…
We’ve said all along (since 2015) that it is an expensive (well-funded) PR campaign based on pure lies. The lies are very much intentional, which is what technically makes them lies.
How about that old banner that said Microsoft’s “SQL Server loves Linux”?
So proprietary software that doesn’t even run on GNU/Linux (not any more than a piece of software running under WINE can “run on GNU/Linux”) apparently “loves Linux”…
“People who use a Web browser without an ad blocker in order to access some technical GNU/Linux sites (howtos, forums etc.) typically get bombarded with Microsoft Azure ads. This is what Microsoft wants.”Anyone who ran this PR image (“SQL Server loves Linux”) in an article is a liar or corrupt (or both). We named some of these people. The likes of Microsoft Peter…
People who use a Web browser without an ad blocker in order to access some technical GNU/Linux sites (howtos, forums etc.) typically get bombarded with Microsoft Azure ads. This is what Microsoft wants. They waste a fortune on this ‘coup’. They lie about love and then hope that a bunch of fools will choose Azure for hosting (clown computing with surveillance as part of the agreement).
If that’s not bad enough, Microsoft also hijacks the term "Linux" The term or the name “Linux” will become meaningless and uninteresting if or when people search for “Linux” and then get all sorts of Microsoft and Windows stuff (like WSL).
This is exactly what Microsoft wants. Those are brand dilution tactics. Microsoft loves [to googlebomb] Linux [in order to promote Vista 10, Azure etc.]
“The one sure thing is, media has been corrupted. This is why it keeps telling lies like “Microsoft loves Linux”.”That’s the “true love” if corporations have any.
Watch how this Twitter user gets called “Microsoft troll and spammer”. Yucca (@jjaone) on Twitter wrote: “Your AVI says you “teach and advocate Linux and opensource etc. ” but your tweets are all about Microsoft proprietary malware and promotions of their monopoly techs and data collection ecosystem. You are nothing but Microsoft-troll and spammer…”
Those are the dubious “Linux people” who are actually not dedicated to Linux (like the current sole editor of Linux.com). Hours ago we saw this article on how to become a ‘serf’ to Microsoft at the expense of one’s battery and bandwidth (serving proprietary software of Microsoft from an Android phone).
Why would anybody want to do this?
One reader decided to tell us this morning about the NY Times publishing a Microsoft “Fluff Piece”. It’s that typical “GAFA” nonsense (pretending Microsoft is now “good” and no “GAFAM” exists).
This is common (especially expected from the NY Times). Bill Gates, hiding behind his scam ‘charity’, has this paper by the balls (he literally visits their headquarters with demands!).
Bill Gates has in fact got much of the media by the balls because he keeps bribing it. We gave lots of examples; none of this has stopped. He bribes not only American media. He does this worldwide. But here’s the more interesting part: We now know, after the death of Epstein, that Gates sometimes used Epstein as his ‘courier’ (this is confirmed now; there are reports about it in the mainstream media). Now we know, for a fact, that Gates is laundering his bribery not only of media but also of academic institutions. He has done that at least once (that we know of) through Epstein (whom he flew with and met even after the scandal unfolded).
Maybe corporations cannot love. Or maybe they can love in all sorts of sick ways. The one sure thing is, media has been corrupted. This is why it keeps telling lies like “Microsoft loves Linux”. █
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Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software at 5:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
War is “peace”; Aircraft carriers are for “defense”…
Aircraft carrier USS Enterprise
Summary: Words are losing their meaning and that includes “Open Source”, which nowadays often just boils down to substitution of terms for marketing purposes (without actually changing business models or ethics)
HAVING just mentioned how the Linux Foundation offers openwashing services (for a fee), we thought it’s time to deal with an issue sometimes alluded to in editorial comments (in Daily Links).
“It’s like “trial version”, almost like freeware. It’s designed to just get people or businesses locked in.”A short while ago Analytics India Magazine (habitual booster of Microsoft and GitHub) was openwashing Microsoft (more of the same nonsense and fiction; the subject of our next post). Even more than before! It’s openwashing pure proprietary software and surveillance like Azure, using a stunt we mentioned the other day. The headline in particular is interesting; it refers to “Enterprise Open Source”; that is a totally meaningless term designed to create the illusion that Free software, by default, is not suitable for use in a business. That’s what terms like “commercial software” typically insinuate and the term “Enterprise” is closely related to “Enterprise Edition”, which basically means proprietary ‘edition’. In reality, or in practice, the term “Enterprise Open Source” is often used to describe proprietary software with an openwashing slant (e.g. CE/Open Core). It’s like “trial version”, almost like freeware. It’s designed to just get people or businesses locked in. That gives Free software and Open Source alike a bad name. Because it’s neither of those things.
“They should be banished, based on their corporate affiliations, but surely they can summon some spin to frame that as an act of intolerance…”Make no mistake about it; Microsoft does that too! A lot!
When we hear the term (of a real department/account) called “Open AT Microsoft” we immediately think “open your bowel…”
These Microsoft openwashing staff are full of bullshit. They’re lying for the criminals who manage them and often become moles inside the Free/Open Source software community. They should be banished, based on their corporate affiliations, but surely they can summon some spin to frame that as an act of intolerance (as if a large corporation is a gender or a race). Speaking of which, about an hour ago an article was published to say “Russell Gelvin, an Attorney for Traverse Legal, will talks about the pros and cons of using open source software.” But the headline of it is a misfit. █
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Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, Marketing, Microsoft at 5:27 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
There’s often a misunderstanding because there’s “Linux” in the name Linux Foundation
From the sponsor prospectus here
Summary: The decline of the Linux Foundation (as a credible group) means its substitution of technical staff with mindless parrots who spread lies for corporate sponsors (for a fee)
LAST week we began refactoring our Daily Links template so as to better suit topics we cover. Here at Techrights we shall soon be moving the Linux Foundation out of its (nested) Linux section because ~90% of the time this front group says and does things which have nothing at all to do with Linux. Today’s Linux Foundation, to put it quite bluntly, is a tax-exempt PR firm with a glorified trademark. Its sole aspiration is increase of revenue by all means possible.
It’s really sad and it is also worrying. The Linux Foundation has become little more than GitHub outsourcing services. That’s what it does on the ‘technical’ side, advocacy aside (advocacy like "Open Source loves Microsoft")…
“If you want openwashing, we’ll build something on a Microsoft proprietary software platform (GitHub is proprietary, in NSA PRISM)…”
“The Linux Foundation has become little more than GitHub outsourcing services.”That’s one of the main propositions of today’s Linux Foundation. It wasn’t always like that.
After sacking all Linux.com writers and editors back in April (notice how nobody in the media covered that) the Linux Foundation remains nothing but a PR agency. No journalists, just PR people. The sole editor of Linux.com proudly describes himself as “filmmaker”…
But he never made a single film!
So he’s not a filmmaker but a liar. “Vlogger” at best…
He is trying to attract as ‘clients’ people who want a “vlogger” with a channel in YouTube (like SiliconANGLE theCUBE). That’s just PR. “Guy with a camera…”
And Jono Bacon has once again unmasked himself (a few hours ago) as a marketing guy.
“Previously running marketing at EMC and Box, Whit has also advised numerous of companies…”
“He is trying to attract as ‘clients’ people who want a “vlogger” with a channel in YouTube (like SiliconANGLE theCUBE).”Bloody hell, Jono…
How much do they pay you per PR post? Any more than the thousands of dollars they pay for a tweet (see image at the top; it’s from the Linux Foundation’s brochure).
The sad thing is that Planet Ubuntu now amplifies marketing from Jono Bacon and his “clients”, even stuff that has nothing to do with GNU, Linux, Ubuntu or even FOSS.
What have you become, Jono?
The openwashing industry won’t call itself that (what it really is); watch out for groups, firms, companies or ‘trade groups’ whose income/revenue source is something like “consulting” or “sponsorship”; they’re not charities and there’s expectation of something in return. Bill Gates does it too.
“The openwashing industry won’t call itself that (what it really is); watch out for groups, firms, companies or ‘trade groups’ whose income/revenue source is something like “consulting” or “sponsorship”; they’re not charities and there’s expectation of something in return.”Openwashing by such large monopolies of proprietary software (and NSA collaborators) seems to be helping these monopolies recruit opportunistic defectors, who then become their moles. Even if they’re desperate for money, that doesn’t make a good excuse.
One reader has sent us this old article by Bob Weinstein. “You may be working for a corporate cult,” the headline warns. In a sense, this is what this foundation of Jim Zemlin became and we know who is worshiped. █
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Posted in Free/Libre Software, FUD, Microsoft, Security at 1:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Anti-FOSS is to be expected. It’s the business model.
This is the founder of Security Boulevard attacking Stallman simply because he occasionally speaks of Palestinians’ human rights (article bumped up by the publisher earlier this summer)
Summary: Free/Open Source software (FOSS) is being discredited using an aggregator of Microsoft-connected FUD firms, concurring with or confirming the Halloween Documents that suggested attacking FOSS by proxy
OUR daily links can be tricky to prepare because we’re reluctant to link to FUD and misinformation. So years ago we added the “Openwashing” section to it and under “Security” we often add editorial comments (corrections and clarification attempts). The FUD typically comes from the same domains. For instance, sites called “Windows” something or “Microsoft” something are likely to be Linux-hostile sources (sometimes they push Vista 10 under the guise of “Linux”, e.g. WSL).
“The FUD typically comes from the same domains. For instance, sites called “Windows” something or “Microsoft” something are likely to be Linux-hostile sources (sometimes they push Vista 10 under the guise of “Linux”, e.g. WSL).”A lot of FOSS FUD is also sourced back to ZDNet, which became an anti-FOSS propaganda machine, funded in part by Microsoft (Microsoft buys ads and bias from CBS, the parent company). Last night we saw “Lilu/Lilocked ransomware has now infected thousands of Linux servers” (this is the third such ‘report’ we see; it started with ZDNet where this got disseminated and spun as a major “Linux” issue).
Then there’s Security Boulevard, where the ‘content’ is rarely original. They mostly attack licensing and security aspects of Free software. It’s endemic. This gateway-as-a-’news’-site acts as an amplifier/loudspeaker/megaphone of anti-FOSS firms, usually Microsoft-connected ones. WhiteSource is to Microsoft the ‘new’ Black Duck and it’s a regular feature there, along with Black Duck’s parent company, Snyk, and other parasites looking to sell themselves by bashing FOSS.
Security Boulevard and WhiteSource are now working together on a “webinar” (published days ago); WhiteSource also works closely with Microsoft (co-authoring anti-FOSS papers and they are formally partners). This means that Shimel at Security Boulevard is indirectly in bed with Microsoft and is likely ‘in it’ to attack FOSS. It’s not hard to see whose voice he’s looking to facilitate. His track record was mentioned here last month and many times a decade ago when he published FOSS-hostile pieces in IDG’s “Open Source” section [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] (also see the screenshot at the top). That section of IDG (the “Open Source Subnet”) was, at least at the time, infested with people who neither understood nor liked FOSS. In fact the “Open Source Subnet” was like an extension of their “Microsoft Subnet”; only the titles varied.
As recently as days ago we saw Microsoft-connected firms (anti-FOSS FUD firms, including WhiteSource, as we noted half a decade back) again being boosted with their anti-FOSS venom by this anti-FOSS, anti-RMS, pro-Microsoft Shimel-founded Security Boulevard. It’s like its sole role is to propel these firms into Google News, ‘dressing up’ corporate lies as ‘news’.
Be careful, people; the site is pure poison which amplifies more poison. It amplifies Microsoft partners, whose principal role is delegitimising FOSS. █
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