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Links 19/4/2021: Linux 5.12 RC8, GNU Poke 1.2, EndeavourOS 2021.04



  • GNU/Linux

    • F(r)iction: Or How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Start Loving Vim

      It is Dec 2009, and I am ready to quit my job.

      I wanted to focus on writing my first book; neither my commitments at work nor the state of technology was helping.

      Writing is hard work.

      Few tasks in the modern world can be as singular – or as daunting – a pursuit as sitting down in front of a blank piece of paper, and asking your brain to vomit out words that communicate an idea to readers. I am not suggesting that writing can’t be collaborative of course, but merely illustrating how daunting it can be for writers to set off on a new piece by themselves. This is true for fiction

      and non-fiction writing, but since I am a novelist I’d like to focus primarily on fiction in this article.

    • What job did you do before tech?

      Who doesn't love a trip down memory lane? When recounting our career paths, they're often crooked and veer in unexpected directions. Many of us take pride in that. We trusted our intuition or a friend's advice and it led to experiences we'll never forget that shaped who we are today. And where we are today.

      I asked our community of writers to share a little bit about what kind of jobs they had before they got into tech. Here are 13 of them you're sure to enjoy.

    • 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup: April 18th, 2021

      This has been a very interesting week as we saw new releases of the LXQt desktop environment, Nuvola Player web-based music player for popular music streaming services, as well as the Escuelas Linux and EndeavourOS Linux distributions. In addition, the OpenMandriva team teased us with their upcoming OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 release and openSUSE Tumbleweed devs added the latest GNOME 40 desktop environment in their repos.

      Linux hardware vendors System76 and Star Labs also teased us with their upcoming COSMIC desktop environment for Pop!_OS Linux and the Coreboot Configurator tool, and the Metro Exodus FPS game arrived on Steam for Linux. Security-wise, there were new Linux kernel updates for all supported Ubuntu and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 releases, as well as for CentOS Linux 7.

    • Desktop/Laptop

      • Purism Librem 14 Linux laptop is now shipping

        The Purism Librem 14 is a notebook with a 14 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel matte display, an Intel Core i7-10710U hexa-core processor, support for up to 64GB of RAM and two M.2 slots for solid state storage.

        It also ships with Purism’s custom Linux distribution called PureOS as well as the open source Coreboot firmware (a replacement for proprietary UEFI or BIOS firmware). And the Librem 14 is one of the only laptops with hardware kill switches that let you disable some features when you’re not using them for the sake of privacy.

      • Purism Librem 14 Linux Laptop Begins Shipping

        If privacy is your main reason for investing in a laptop with a Linux OS, go for the Purism Librem 14. It uses GNU/Linux PureOS, and the company detects software and hardware tampering with PureBoot and the Librem Key.

        Purism Librem 14 is ultra-portable workstation laptop that was designed chip-by-chip, line-by-line, to respect your rights to privacy, security, and freedom. It is probably the most advanced, secure, and powerful laptop that Purism made so far.

        With this laptop, the Intel Management Engine has been disabled to reduce risk and bloat in the system. If you’re one who’s always worried about someone seeing through your camera or listening through your microphone, Purism takes that fear away with their security promise. Their hardware kill switches will physically disconnect the camera and mic if your laptop detects anything suspicious.

    • Server

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • This Week in Linux 147: System76 COSMIC Desktop, Slackware 15.0, LXQt, Zorin OS 16, Xinuos vs IBM | This Week in Linux

        On this episode of This Week in Linux, System76 made some waves when they announced their new COSMIC Desktop Environment. Slackware is back with a vengence ok not really with a vengence but Slackware did announce the Be..00ta version of Slackware 15.0. In addition to Slackware, we’ve also got some other great topics in Distro News this week with Manjaro 21.0, Zorin OS 16 Beta and we’re even going to take a look at the latest release of FreeBSD. We’ve got some more Desktop Environment news with the release of LXQt 0.17 and JDE 2.0. Mailspring Email Client is back in the news with release 1.9 and we’re continue the much beloved Legal News section with Xinuos Sueing IBM & Red Hat. All that and much more on Your Weekly Source for Linux GNews!

      • Late Night Linux – Episode 121

        We go through a load of your feedback about Auacity’s new file format and UI toolkit, hacking a Firestick, Google search, the future of Fedora, and more. Plus Joe gives up on KDE.

      • GNU World Order 402

        Finishing up with **binutils** with a look at **ranlib** , **readelf** , **size** , **string-GNU** , **strip** , and an brief mention of **windmc** and **windres**.

    • Kernel Space

      • Features Expected For Linux 5.13 From Apple M1 To FreeSync HDMI To AMD Aldebaran - Phoronix

        If all goes well Linux 5.12 will be released tomorrow and in turn will kick off the Linux 5.13 merge window (otherwise 5.12-rc8 will be issued and the stable then a week later). In any case once the Linux 5.13 merge window does open there are a lot of prominent changes expected.

      • Linus Torvalds Says Rust Closer for Linux Kernel Development, Calls C++ 'A Crap Language'

        Google's Android team supports Rust for developing the Android operating system. Now they're also helping evaluate Rust for Linux kernel development. Their hopes, among other things, are that "New code written in Rust has a reduced risk of memory safety bugs, data races and logic bugs overall," that "abstractions that are easier to reason about," and "More people get involved overall in developing the kernel, thanks to the usage of a modern language."

      • Linux 5.12-rc8
        Ok, so it's been _fairly_ calm this past week, but it hasn't been the
        kind of dead calm I would have taken to mean "no rc8 necessary".
        
        

        So here we are, with an extra rc to make sure things are all settled down. It's not _that_ rare: this is the fifth time in the 5.x series we've ended up with an rc8, but I have to admit that I prefer it when a release doesn't end up needing that extra week.

        Because let's keep it to just one extra week, ok? We have occasionally done rc9's too, but I really don't expect that this time around.

        About half of this is once more networking, with driver and bpf verifier fixes standing out. Other than that it's mostly other driver updates (gpu, dmaengine, HID, input, nvdimm) and arch updates (mainly arm and arm64).

        And a number of one-liner build fixes for unusual configurations.

        So it's not tiny, but it's all small enough that you can easily scan through the shortlog below and get a fair sense of what's going on.

        Let's plan on a final 5.12 release next weekend - but please do give it one last test to check that it is all solid. Ok?

        Linus
      • Linux 5.12 Diverted From Release To Allow An Extra Week Of Testing
      • 10 Fun Facts About Linus Torvalds and Linux

        In this interesting article you can find 10 fun facts about Linus Torvalds and the Linux Kernel and operating system

      • Openwall Releases 'Linux Kernel Runtime Guard' 0.9.0
    • Applications

      • GNOME Commander 1.12.1 Is Released

        GNOME Commander is a graphical file manager in the two-pane style. It is like a graphical version of the GNU Midnight Commander. Boomers will remember this style of file managers from classic DOS software such as the Norton Commander. The latest version has six small bug-fixes and minor updates to the translations for five different languages.

        [...]

        GNOME Commander is very efficient if you want to select ten files from a folder with dozens and move them around - as long as you are willing to use the keyboard. It's not really very efficient or elegant to use with a mouse. The GNU Midnight Commander is a almost identical non-GUI alternative if you like this style of file managers.

      • LuxCoreRender 2.5 OptiX Performance Tested With 19 NVIDIA GPUs - Phoronix

        Released last week was the LuxCoreRender 2.5 open-source physically based renderer. Significant with this v2.5 update is OptiX/RTX acceleration support in addition to its existing CUDA, OpenCL, and CPU render paths. Given that, here are some fresh benchmarks of LuxCoreRender 2.5 across an assortment of NVIDIA graphics cards.

      • List Of System Cleaning Tools For Ubuntu

        Let’s have a quick look into the list of system cleaning tools for Ubuntu and Ubuntu based operating systems in 2021.

      • Martin Michlmayr: ledger2beancount 2.6 released

        I released version 2.5 of ledger2beancount, a ledger to beancount converter.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • Download A Portion Of Youtube Video with Youtube-dl And FFmpeg

        Even though there are multitude of programs available to download and encode videos, I prefer to use Youtube-dl and FFmpeg. These two utilities are just enough to download videos from online and encode, decode, transcode, crop and mux the downloaded videos. Today, we will see how to download a portion of YouTube video with Youtube-dl and FFmpeg in Linux.

        Before I know this tip, I would usually first download the entire video using Youtube-dl and then trim it down to my desired duration using FFmpeg as shown below.

      • Linux bluetooth HeadSet Audio HSP/HFP WH-1000XM3

        I am an archlinux user using Sony WH-1000XM3 bluetooth noise-cancellation headphones. I am also using pulseaudio and it took me a while to switch the bluetooth headphones to HSP/HFP profile so the microphone can work too. Switching the bluetooth profile of your headphones to HeadSet Audio works but it is only monophonic audio and without noise-cancellation and I had to switch to piperwire also. But at least now the microphone works!

        I was wondering how distros that by default have already switched to pipewire deal with this situation. So I started a fedora 34 (beta) edition and attached both my bluetooth adapter TP-LINK UB400 v1 and my web camera Logitech HD Webcam C270.

        The test should be to open a jitsi meet and a zoom test meeting and verify that my headphones can work without me doing any stranger CLI magic.

      • How to Search Wikipedia by command Line on Ubuntu Linux

        Browsing anything through the terminal shell on Linux gives a professional and power user vibe. There are plenty of pieces of stuff that you actually can do through the terminal shell despite using it on a conventional method. If you’re an internet folk, no wonder you use google or Wikipedia quite often a day. Guess what? In Linux, there are ways to search things on Wikipedia by command line (terminal shell).

      • How to install lftp on FreeBSD using the CLI

        I need to download a large file and get the specified file using several connections to speed up downloads on FreeBSD. How do I install lftp and download files using FreeBSD?

      • AWS EKS AccessDenied: The aws-auth ConfigMap in your cluster is invalid

        Deleting a managed node group from AW EKS.

      • Change Login Screen Background in Ubuntu 20.04 via Graphical Tool

        Want to change the GDM login screen background wallpaper? There’s now a graphical tool to do this in Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 20.10, as well as Pop!_OS 20.04, Pop!_OS 20.10.

        Since Ubuntu 20.04, changing the login screen background is not easy because the CSS code are packaged into a .gresource file. Thanks to community, some scripts were made to do the job from the command line.

        To make life easier, there’s now a graphical tool called GDM Background to change GDM background via a few clicks.

      • How to Upgrade Ubuntu 16.04 LTS to 20.04 LTS using command terminal

        Recently, Canonical’s developers have announced that Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) will receive ESM (Extended Security Maintenance) support from April 30, 2021. Thus, this Long term supported Linux distro is now on the verge of losing its regular maintenance updates with admission to the ESM program.

        If you don’t know what is ESM? It is a period of time offered by Canonical for its Ubuntu LTS systems that have expired the regular LTS support period of 5 years. Companies will continue to receive security updates for a fee. Private users can get ESM support for three instances free of charge. This means the users who still don’t want to upgrade their Ubuntu 16.04 LTS to either 18.04 or 20.04 LTS can continuously use it while having a security update till 2024-04. The last version of Xenial Xerus is Ubuntu 16.04.7.

      • Install and use Wget command like a pro

        Wget is a free software package for retrieving files using HTTP, HTTPS, FTP and FTPS, the most widely used Internet protocols. It is a non-interactive commandline tool, so it may easily be called from scripts, cron jobs, terminals without X-Windows support, etc.

      • How to Install Puppet on Ubuntu 20.04

        Puppet is an open-source, automation admin engine used to perform administrative tasks and server management remotely. This tool is available on Linux, Unix, and Windows. This configuration management tool will help you automate the management and configuration of your server infrastructure. After following this tutorial, you should have fully set up Puppet master and client nodes on your Ubuntu systems.

        This tutorial help you to install and configure Puppet master and agent nodes on Ubuntu 20.04 Linux systems.

      • How to Deploy Seafile Server with Docker to Host Your Own File Synchronization and Sharing Solution 05:40

        First off, what is Seafile?

        Seafile is a self-hosted file synchronization program that works with the server-client model, as in you have several devices like your laptop and phone that connect to a central server.

        Unlike some more popular alternatives like Nextcloud or ownCloud, Seafile tries to follow the philosophy of “do one thing only, but do it well”. Likewise, Seafile doesn’t have extra goodies built in like Contacts or Calendar integration.

        Seafile instead focuses solely on file syncing, sharing, and the things surrounding it, and that’s it. As a result of that though, it ends up doing so extremely well.

      • Run background processes in Linux using the Screen command

        A background process is a process/command that is started from a terminal and runs in the background, without interaction from the user.

        Some commands in Linux take time. In order not to waste our time when we have to use such commands, we can put them in the background of the terminal and continue our work. Most often this happens when we are hooked up to the terminal via SSH and we do not want to open ten more unnecessary windows.

        In this article, we will talk about the background processes in Linux and we will show you how to start a command in the background and how to keep the process running after the shell session is closed.

      • How to create desktop shortcut for any app in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

        Unlike Windows, creating a desktop shortcut on the Ubuntu Linux system for installed applications is not pretty simple. Of course, it is not some Sisyphean task but as compared to Windows, it would be a little tricky for new Linux users.

        Furthermore, we cannot just drag and drop applications from the Ubuntu launcher to create their desktop shortcuts, then how to add application shortcuts in Linux Desktop? Well, for that we manually have to visit the applications folder on our Linux system to copy the .desktop file of an installed application.

      • How To Migrate CentOS to AlmaLinux - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to migrate CentOS to AlmaLinux. For those of you who didn’t know, AlmaLinux OS is an open-source, community-driven project that is built from the source code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). AlmaLinux is a completely binary compatible fork of RHEL 8 and it is built by the creators of the established CloudLinux OS.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation AlmaLinux OS.

        As usual, backup important data from your CentOS system before starting the upgrade process. Please note that the almalinux-deploy script is only to convert the latest CentOS 8.3 version to AlmaLinux 8.3. If you are running older versions like CentOS 7.x or 6.x, this script will not work.

      • How To Install Jenkins on Ubuntu 20.04/18.04 [Ed: Just updated]

        Jenkins is a leading self-contained open-source automation server that is used to automate repetitive technical assignments involved in building, testing, and delivering or deploying software.

        Jenkins is Java-based and can be installed through Ubuntu packages, Docker, or by downloading and running its web application archive (WAR) file that includes all the contents of a web application to run on a server.

        In this article, you will learn how to use the Debian package repository to install Jenkins on Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 18.04 with the apt package manager.

      • How to use the W3M text-based web browser on Linux

        Do you need a text-based web browser on Linux to use in your terminal? Don’t like using Lynx, as it seems dated and sluggish? Hoping for something better? Check out W3M. It’s a modern text-based terminal web browser for Linux that has much more to offer.

      • How to Install or Enable Cockpit on AlmaLinux 8 - Linux Shout

        The Cockpit on AlmaLinux is a server management platform that allows administrators to easily manage and control their GUI or CLI Linux server systems remotely using a browser. Among other things, admins can take a look at the systemd journal, check the load or start and stop services. It has a responsive design thus we can also use it conveniently on tablet s and smartphones.

        We can monitor our remote server performance using just a browser without actually having physical access to it. Furthermore, we can also access the command shell with root access to issue commands and install various packages over the server remotely.

        Since AlmaLinux 8 is based on RHEL just like CentOS 8, this means by default out of the box, the Cockpit is already installed on your system. Just we need to enable it.

      • How to Export and Delete Saved Passwords in Firefox - Make Tech Easier

        Firefox comes with a built-in password manager, also known as Lockwise. The Lockwise password manager is safeguarded with your Firefox account and allows you to access your passwords on the desktop and mobile. If you have been using Lockwise but now want to migrate to another password manager app, here we show how you can export and delete your saved passwords in Firefox.

      • How to Install Docker on Ubuntu Linux

        Docker has taken the software engineering industry by storm, and it has not only revolutionized the way we ship and deploy software but has also changed how engineers set up software development environments on their computers.

        This guide shows you how to get started with Docker by installing it on Ubuntu Linux 20.04 (Focal Fossa), the latest Long Term Support (LTS) version of Ubuntu at the time of this writing.

    • Games

      • Stylistic adventure horror 'Of Love and Eternity' has a visual style like nothing else

        Well this is definitely different! Of Love and Eternity is a stylistic adventure horror game about love and separation.

        This has to be one of the biggest surprises for me so far this year, as the style and atmosphere here is simply incredible. Honestly it's like absolutely nothing else out there. Such a hard game to describe to, you simply need to experience it. Mashing together low-poly characters, with a number of screen effects results in something pretty wild here. It starts off with a cut-scene that starts off with a murder scene, and then progresses into an undead third-person adventure that's simply mesmerising.

      • Steam Tinker Launcher: Making Tinkering Much Easier

        Ever heard of Steam Tinker Launcher? If I have to go by the preliminary results of the Linux Gamer survey (still open by the way!), most of you have not. It is a tool that helps you to launch your Steam games with specific options (such as launch flags) and making it very easy to manage individual game settings if needed.

        Frostworx, who is the developer of Steam Tinker Launcher (STL from there on), has agreed to answer questions from us about his tool (and more!).

        [...]

        I was sure that some other users could have a use for such a tool as well, so I released it publicly very early. With STL having so many options, this might sound totally contradictory first, but I like the “one thing well” philosophy. It is incredibly fascinating how many games using SteamPlay/Proton simply work out of the box on Linux, but those games which do not work require many different, often very specific customizations to get them working. The “one thing well” philosophy doesn’t apply here with hacking one solution for one game, but with offering one single tool which covers every possible tweak required to get any game working.

        [...]

        Frostworx: I’m sure we’ll see several new SteamVR announcements. Although there are several old Linux-related SteamVR issues still not fixed, I’m pretty confident that the Linux VR situation will improve a lot, including additional new VR peripherals with Linux drivers. Finally getting functional Valve Index cameras would be really nice. There probably won’t be too many new games (pandemic), but most of the major titles will work fine from day one on Linux. I’m also confident that there will be at least one Linux native masterpiece by the end of the year (likely from Valve).

      • What have you been playing? Have a Sunday chat with us

        Another week comes to a close and there's been a number of fun releases lately - so come have another community chat in the comments about what you've been playing.

        For me here, to I'm sure no surprise, there's been a rather lot of Metro Exodus since it's now released for Linux. Quite a beauty this one, another game where (like Valheim), I find myself taking screenshots constantly because some of the scenes are just awesome or completely surprising.

      • The Sunday Papers - Linux and Gaming odds and ends

        It's Sunday, a time for coffee, a sit in the sun and perhaps a little gaming? Time for a small round-up of some missed bits we wanted to go over recently.

        First up CrossCode has received it's final update, as Radical Fish Games add in some extra content to the A New Home DLC including some new quests and other things to do. This really is the final update too, finishing off the 9-year long overall development cycle on the game. They've also confirmed no plans for a sequel but a new game is in progress code-named Project Terra, which will be an action-RPG. You can buy CrossCode on GOG and Steam.

        Are you a game developer looking to use purchased marketplace Assets from the Epic Games Store on Linux? Well, as usual Epic Games don't officially support Linux but for grabbing your assets there's now the open source Epic-Asset-Manager found on GitHub. Could be useful for some of you. Also to note that the Heroic Games Launcher found on GitHub appears to be able getting support for the Unreal Marketplace with the next version with code that's been merged in.

      • Rome Total War Remastered Ships in 10 Days

        In just about 10 days from now, Rome Total War Remastered will be released on Steam (29th of April). It’s a fairly old game in the Total War series, but this time around the Remaster is not some half-assed effort just to adapt the UI and resolution to modern hardware: they have actually decided to refresh several aspects of this older title at the same time. Here’s an overview of what is being updated...

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • Tales of the KDE Network Kerala

          Kerala is a fertile ground for Free/Libre Software. If you want to know a more detailed history, please see the article by Sasi Kumar. Though KDE couldn’t get the momentum it deserves there. Yet, various KDE products are well integrated into the curriculum of public schools, such as GCompris, Kpaint, Kstars etc. Apart from those, Kdenlive is used as a tool in the creative works of school children, Krita is getting famous in universities and Plasma desktop is used by a daily newspaper.

          Our strategy to reach out to more users and spread the community is through the already famous applications. But we felt that we are not equipped enough to reach out to more people. So in the first half of the year 2021, we decided to fix that. We are making Plasma workspace localization as good and complete as we can. And we decided to do GCompris and Krita tutorials in Malayalam. But our work is not restricted to it. We didn’t miss any occasion where we can talk and spread the news about KDE and its products.

    • Distributions

      • Educational Distro Escuelas Linux 6.13 Introduces OBS Studio and Kolibri

        Escuelas Linux is an educational distro designed for the use in educational institutions from preschools to high schools. The latest version, Escuelas Linux 6.13, is here two months after Escuelas Linux 6.12 to introduce two new apps that are now pre-installed in the installation image.

        These are the famous OBS Studio video recording and live streaming software, which is ideal for teachers and students to share their knowledge, as well as Kolibri, an adaptable product ecosystem for offline-first, high-quality teaching and learning, and it’s ideal for places where there’s no Internet connection.

      • New Releases

        • Zorin OS 16 Beta Released with Remarkable Changes. Download and Test Now.

          The Zorin OS team announced the release of the Zorin OS 16 Beta which is immediately available for download and testing. With this pre-release, Zorin OS promises some massive changes. Let's take a look.

        • Proxmox Backup Server 1.1 Available With Tape Backup And TFA

          Proxmox Server Solutions has announced the release of Proxmox Backup Server 1.1. The new version is based on Debian 10.9.

          Proxmox Backup Server is free and open-source, enterprise backup solution, for backing up and restoring virtual machines, containers, and physical hosts. It comes with key features like incremental backups, deduplication, Zstandard compression, and authenticated encryption.

          Proxmox Backup Server is a bare-metal solution based on Debian. It is easy to manage, offering both command line and web-based user interfaces, and is licensed under the GNU AGPL, v3.

        • Zorin OS 16 looks great: the Linux distro that wants to appeal to Windows 10 and macOS users with as little friction as possible
        • EndeavourOS: Our April release is available



          We are proud to announce our second release of 2021 and this one is a bit more than a refresh ISO release, so before you hit the download button and go play with it, just sit back and let us inform you first because we are really excited about this release.

          [...]

          The other new feature on the knowledge base are video tutorials, like the wiki articles, this category will expand over time and at the moment it contains general Linux and Arch specific tutorials from the Youtube channels Chris Titus Tech and EF Linux. Very soon videos from DistroTube, Eric Adams and TechHut will also be added to enhance the experience.

        • EndeavourOS 2021.04 Offers Two New Community Editions

          EndeavourOS 2021.04 release introduces BSPWM and Sway tiling window managers as a community edition.

          EndeavourOS is a user-friendly Arch Linux-based distro with some handy new features that improve the user experience. Rolling releases are the norm for Arch-based Linux distributions. EndeavourOS might well be the perfect solution for less experienced Linux users to getting the best that Arch Linux offers. It is an ideal starting point to begin exploring what makes Arch-based distros different from the rest of Linux world.

        • EndeavourOS Introduces BSPWM, Sway, and Drops Deepin. Download and Update Now



          EndeavourOS 2021.04 release is here. And the team brings a handful of new features and updates. Take a look.

        • EndeavourOS Linux Has a New ISO Release with BSPWM and Sway WMs, Various Improvements

          Powered by Linux kernel 5.11.14, the new EndeavourOS Linux release for April 2021 ships with the latest Mesa 21.0.2 graphics stack, NVIDIA 465.24.02 graphics driver, as well as the Calamares 3.2.39.3 graphical installer, which makes it a breeze to install this Arch Linux-based distribution.

          But besides the usual updates, the new EndeavourOS Linux ISO release brings various improvements for a better out-of-the-box experience. For example, there’s now better support for computers with an NVIDIA GPU, the automatic login feature should work correctly after the installations, USB support can now be enabled when running EndeavourOS in VirtualBox, and EndeavourOS’s tools now look better.

        • Arch-Based Endeavour OS Spins Up April Release, Adds Sway Community Edition

          While Arch Linux now has its own convenient installer for quick and easy Arch installs, for those in search of an out-of-the-box, desktop-friendly Arch based Linux distribution Endeavour OS remains one of the leading options in 2021. This weekend marks the availability of Endeavour's April 2021 install media refresh.

          In recent weeks Endeavour OS developers have been working on expanding their network of mirrors, continuing to improve their ARM support, and more. Endeavour OS also decided to drop the Deepin desktop environment from its list of options for the online installer. Dropping Deepin was done in the name of performance issues with that desktop that remain ongoing.

      • Screenshots/Screencasts

        • A Quick Installation Of FreeBSD 13.0

          FreeBSD just released version 13.0, which is the first release of the stable/13 branch. Since it's a major release and I don't cover FreeBSD much, I thought it appropriate that I take a look at this release.

      • Slackware Family

        • Slackware Approaches 28th Birthday With New Beta Release

          Slashdot reader LeeLynx shares news from The Register about a Slackware 15 beta release (following the debut of February's alpha), "nearly five years after the distribution last saw a major update." (And nearly 28 years after its initial release back in 1993...)

        • Oh hello. Haven't heard much from you lately: Linux veteran Slackware rides again with a beta of version 15

          From the department of "I'm not dead yet" comes news of a Slackware 15 beta release, nearly five years after the distribution last saw a major update.

          Created by Patrick Volkerding (who still lays claim to the title Benevolent Dictator For Life), the current release version arrived in the form of 2016's 14.2.

          While there have been some rumblings over the years, the lengthy absence of a full new version hinted that all might not be well with one of the oldest Linux distributions and its band of contributors.

          Indeed, Slackware is getting close to entering its fourth decade: it was created in 1993 and was the first Linux product distributed by community veterans SUSE. But a five-year gap is a long time in the open-source world, and users would have been forgiven for taking the extended gestation period between releases as a sign that maybe it was time to look elsewhere.

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • Robbi Nespu: My FOSS contributions and rants on Feb-April 2021

          After a while using and involve (contribute) with Fedora for fews years, I sometimes get a feel that Fedora and Red Hat moving so fast on everything and feel it not community oriented it more like leader oriented, take a look on something worth called as “flamewar” on Fedora-devel list which debate on changes on os-release.. check the Wiki here

      • Debian Family

        • Debian's election results

          The Debian project has voted strongly to retain Jonathan Carter as the project leader. On that other little nagging issue, the project has voted not to issue a statement regarding Richard Stallman's return to the Free Software Foundation board of directors. This, too, was a relatively strong result over the other options. Details can be found on the specific pages for the project leader and general resolution ballots.

        • Bits from Debian: Debian Project Leader election 2021, Jonathan Carter re-elected.

          The voting period and tally of votes for the Debian Project Leader election has just concluded, and the winner is Jonathan Carter!

          455 of 1,1018 Developers voted using the Condorcet method.

        • General Resolution: Statement regarding Richard Stallman's readmission to the FSF board result
        • Debian Votes to Issue No Statement on Stallman's Return to the FSF Board

          Seven options were considered, with the Debian project's 420 voting developers also asked to rank their preferred outcomes...

        • Jonathan Carter Re-Elected As Debian Project Leader

          Jonathan Carter who was initially elected as Debian Project Leader last year to succeed Sam Hartman has now been re-elected for another year serving in this role.

          [...]

          During this year's DPL voting was also a general resolution vote over whether Debian should make a statement regarding Richard Stallman's readmission to the FSF board. The choices were calling on the FSF board to remove him, call for Stallman's resignation from all FSF bodies, discourage collaboration with the FSF while Stallman is in a leading position, call on the FSF to further its governance processes, support Stallman's reinstatement, denounce "the witch-hunt against RMS and the FSF", or Debian will not issue a public statement.

          In the end, Debian decided to go with issuing no statement on the matter: "Debian will not issue a public statement on this issue." The most voted on proposal reads, "The Debian Project will not issue a public statement on whether Richard Stallman should be removed from leadership positions or not. Any individual (including Debian members) wishing to (co-)sign any of the open letters on this subject is invited to do this in a personal capacity."

        • Russell Coker: IMA/EVM Certificates

          I’ve been experimenting with IMA/EVM. Here is the Sourceforge page for the upstream project [1]. The aim of that project is to check hashes and maybe public key signatures on files before performing read/exec type operations on them. It can be used as the next logical step from booting a signed kernel with TPM. I am a long way from getting that sort of thing going, just getting the kernel to boot and load keys is my current challenge and isn’t helped due to the lack of documentation on error messages. This blog post started as a way of documenting the error messages so future people who google errors can get a useful result. I am not trying to document everything, just help people get through some of the first problems.

          I am using Debian for my work, but some of this will apply to other distributions (particularly the kernel error messages). The Debian distribution has the ima-evm-utils but no other support for IMA/EVM. To get this going in Debian you need to compile your own kernel with IMA support and then boot it with kernel command-line options to enable IMA, in recent kernels that includes “lsm=integrity” as a mandatory requirement to prevent a kernel Oops after mounting the initrd (there is already a patch to fix this).

        • Flsynclient compiled in OE for next Easy

          Psynclient is a good idea, it is a shell script that uses gtkdialog. But we have had trouble with it. We used to use 'flsynclient', which is a compiled binary that uses the FLTK GUI library. Back in the Pyro-series, I compiled it in OpenEmbedded, but failed in the Dunfell OE. FLTK is a C++ library, and a change in the GNU compiler broke the build in the OE cross-compile environment.

        • Foomatic PPDs now in EasyOS

          ...his post has a link to another post, reporting "filter failure". I don't know about that, however a first step will be to put all the PPDs into EasyOS. I previously thought that I had to install 'foomatic-db-engine' and 'foomatic-db' to get the PPDs, however, Debian has a DEB with them already extracted, named 'foomatic-db-compressed-ppds' -- which does not require the previous two DEBs. There is a package 'foomatic-filters', which provides an executable 'foomatic-rip', however, 'cups-filters' provides that executable. So also, 'foomatic-filters' is not required.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

        • Canonical's mini-Kubernetes, MicroK8s, has been optimized for Raspberry Pi

          To say Kubernetes, everyone's top container orchestration pick, is hard to master is an understatement. Kubernetes doesn't have so much as a learning curve as it does a learning cliff. But, Canonical's MicroK8s lets you learn to climb it in your home. And, with its latest release, it's easier than ever to set up a baby Kubernetes cluster using inexpensive Raspberry Pi or NVIDIA Jetson single-board computers (SBC).

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • FSF

        • GNU Projects

          • GNU poke 1.2 released

            I am happy to announce a new release of GNU poke, version 1.2. This is a bug fix release in the poke 1.x series, and is the result of all the user feedback we have received since we did the last release. Our big thanks to everyone who provided feedback :) See the file NEWS in the released tarball for a detailed list of changes in this release.

      • Programming/Development

        • LLVM 12.0.0 Release

          LLVM 12.0.0 is now available! Download it now, or read the release notes:

          https://releases.llvm.org/12.0.0/docs/ReleaseNotes.html https://releases.llvm.org/12.0.0/tools/clang/docs/Release... https://releases.llvm.org/12.0.0/tools/clang/tools/extra/... https://releases.llvm.org/12.0.0/tools/flang/docs/Release... https://releases.llvm.org/12.0.0/tools/lld/docs/ReleaseNo... https://releases.llvm.org/12.0.0/tools/polly/docs/Release... https://releases.llvm.org/12.0.0/projects/libcxx/docs/Rel...

          Binaries and sources for 12.0.0 can be found on GitHub: https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/releases/tag/llvmorg...

          LLVM 12.0.0 would not be possible without the help of our volunteer release team! Thanks to all the release testers:

          Yvan Roux, Neil Nelson, Hans Wennborg, Dimitry Andric, Albion Fung, Sylvestre Ledru, Diana Picus, Tobias Hieta, Brian Cain

          Also, a big thanks to everyone else who helped identify critical bugs, track down bug-fixes, and resolve merge conflicts.

          And special thanks to Galina Kistanova and Andrei Lebedev for helping to set up buildbots for the release branch!

          If you have questions or comments about this release, please contact the LLVMdev mailing list!

          -Tom

        • Dirk Eddelbuettel: RcppAPT 0.0.7: Micro Update



          A new version of the RcppAPT package interfacing from R to the C++ library behind the awesome apt, apt-get, apt-cache, … commands and their cache powering Debian, Ubuntu and the like arrived on CRAN yesterday. This comes a good year after the previous maintenance update for release 0.0.6.

          RcppAPT allows you to query the (Debian or Ubuntu) package dependency graph at will, with build-dependencies (if you have deb-src entries), reverse dependencies, and all other goodies. See the vignette and examples for illustrations.

        • Perl/Raku

          • gfldex: Coercing the unspeakable

            Having a dynamic compiler for a dynamic language does come with perks. However, using silly method names is not specced. So a problem solving issue is still in order.

        • Rust

          • Lang team April update

            This week the lang team held its April planning meeting (minutes). We normally hold these meetings on the first Wednesday of every month, but this month we were delayed by one week due to scheduling conflicts.

          • Rust Rewrite: Worth It Or Just A Big Meme?

            With Rust growing in popularity so are the people who believe it's the greatest language ever made which will solve every problem but is there actually some merit in rewriting an entire code base in a new programming language.

  • Leftovers

    • Science

      • Finnish Quantum Institute Announced

        Aalto University, University of Helsinki and VTT are already strong global leaders in the research and development of the technology needed for quantum systems, such as devices and sensors, novel quantum materials, and quantum information. Finland is currently building a 3-stage Quantum Computer in a co-development project led by VTT and together with Finnish start-up IQM. The project showcases Finnish expertise and provides an initial platform for both further research, innovation and commercial activities.

    • Education

    • Health/Nutrition

      • The Southwest Offers Blueprints for the Future of Wastewater Reuse

        No country is immune from water scarcity issues — not even the world’s wealthiest country, the United States.

      • Opinion | Covid-19 May Fade, But Will the Tracking Tools Built to Fight It?

        We must ensure that temporary Covid-19 data surveillance infrastructures do not needlessly outlast this once-in-a-century pandemic.

        At the start of the pandemic, technologists and policymakers touted the promise of technology to track and warn individuals of potential Covid-19 exposure and high-risk areas. But whether due to overburdened contact tracers or the lack of early and coordinated adoption, those technologies never became a central part of the public health effort against the disease.

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • Security

          • Microsoft can no longer maintain Windows 10.
          • A Linux Admin's Getting Started Guide to Improving PHP Security

            Running PHP on a Linux web server is a prerequisite for the use of many popular applications such as Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal. Linux administrators and web developers must approach PHP with caution, as new vulnerabilities in poorly written and implemented PHP code are abundant and dangerous.

            In a recent security incident, hackers were able to add a backdoor to the PHP source code. Although the backdoor mechanism was discovered before it made it into production, the incident serves as the latest reminder of the importance of prioritizing PHP security.

            PHP security is inextricably tied to web server security. Because the popular open-source server-side scripting language is often paired with MySQL, PHP compromise can mean a compromise of the accompanying MySQL database, as well as any web applications running on the web server.

            This article will examine how you can configure and run PHP securely to mitigate the risk of attacks and compromise, secure web applications, protect user privacy and maintain a secure and properly functioning Linux web server.

          • Privacy/Surveillance

            • During Indianapolis shooting, FedEx cell phone policy meant some family members couldn’t reach workers

              In a statement to The Verge on Saturday, a FedEx spokesperson described the cell phone policy: “To support safety protocols and minimize potential distractions around package sortation equipment and dock operations, cell phone access within certain areas of FedEx Ground field operations is limited to authorized team members.”

            • In a Spasm of Violence, Indianapolis Faces the Country’s Latest Mass Shooting

              The chaos within the facility, and in the homes of the employees, was intensified by the fact that many employees did not have cellphones with them.

              Jim Masilak, a FedEx spokesman, confirmed on Friday that cellphone access is limited within the warehouse, where packages are sorted for shipping, to minimize distractions. Such policies are common in the industry.

            • Misinformation about Permissions Policy and FLoC

              Better advice: how not to opt-in

              Here’s how not to opt-in to Google’s FLoC:

              Don’t load untrusted third-party content that might get classified as an ad (only applies during the origin trial)

              Don’t call document.interestCohort(), and don’t load third-party scripts that might call it either.

              If you have to resort to adding a Permissions-Policy header to opt your site out of FLoC, it means that you’ve accidentally opted yourself in by including a tracking script (malware) on your page. I’d wager that opting into FLoC wasn’t the only nefarious thing those scripts do; chances are they bundle a host of other fingerprinting measures.

    • Defence/Aggression

      • UN rebel Denis Halliday on the collapse of the U.S.-dominated world order

        Denis Halliday is an exceptional figure in the world of diplomacy. In 1998, after a 34-year career with the United Nations — including as an assistant secretary-general and the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq — he resigned when the UN Security Council refused to lift sanctions against Iraq.

      • Opinion | What's Needed for a More Lasting Peace in Afghanistan

        President Biden announced a removal of all U.S. troops by September 11, but he failed to include some important details.

        An Afghan taxi-driver in Vancouver told one of us a decade ago that this day would come. "We defeated the Persian Empire in the eighteenth century, the British in the nineteenth, the Soviets in the twentieth. Now, with NATO, we're fighting twenty-eight countries, but we'll defeat them, too," said the taxi-driver, surely not a member of the Taliban, but quietly proud of his country's empire-killing credentials.

      • Muslims stormed the Easter service in a German church, shouting “Allahu Akbar” and recording the worshippers on videotape

        Mayor Hans-Peter Seum explained that he had not been informed about the incident by the police or the municipality so far. The Nidda police station had confirmed the events to him on request. The Protestant parish emphasises “that Christianity demands and also lives tolerance towards other religions. This must also be expected from people who belong to another religious community.”

      • Sweden wins Locked Shields 2021 cyber defense exercise

        The team from Sweden finished Locked Shields 2021, the largest and most complex international live-fire cyber defense exercise globally, with the highest score.

        Blue Teams from Finland and the Czech Republic took second and third place respectively.

    • Environment

      • Opinion | No Blank Check for Enemies of the Environment in Brazil

        Civil society organizations in Brazil sent an open letter to the United States government asking it not to support the destructive environmental policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

        The U.S. government is bringing together world leaders for an online Climate Summit on 22-23 April to discuss combating the climate crisis. The climate summit is part of U.S. President Joe Biden's efforts to reposition his country as an international leader in the fight against climate change.

      • Energy

        • Chemical Used in Many Oil Refineries Could Cause Mass Deaths If Leaked

          The morning of Wednesday, February 18, 2015, had started just like any other day for Summer Spencer. Back then, she was a sixth grader at South High School in Torrance, a coastal city in the South Bay region of Los Angeles County. But at around 9am, Spencer and her classmates were given a ‘shelter in place’ order by their teacher. It was, the now 17-year-old says, pretty exciting at first. “I just figured I might not have to go to my next class.”

        • Natural Gas Is Getting Cheaper. Thousands Are Paying More To Heat Their Homes Anyway.

          In September 2020, West Virginia’s chief utility regulator told the state’s natural gas customers that she had good news: Their bills were about to drop significantly thanks to the state’s drilling boom and the declining price of wholesale gas.

          “I hope that this news will brighten your day and help to keep you and your family warm throughout the upcoming heating season,” Charlotte Lane, chair of the state Public Service Commission, wrote in a column that was syndicated statewide.

        • How The U.S. Could Halve Climate Emissions By 2030

          A 50% cut would not be the world's most aggressive target, but it would put the U.S. among the four most ambitious countries. Going back to 1850, the U.S. has pumped more emissions into the atmosphere cumulatively than any other nation.

          Still, achieving that target by 2030 won't be simple, requiring both political buy-in and a sweeping deployment of cleaner cars and clean energy sources.

    • Finance

      • Opinion | Taxes and Renewal: Biden's First 100 Days

        We continue to fund nuclear weapons programs at Cold War levels, blind to the fact that none of them can ever be used and that their very existence threatens our existence.

        Each Spring in April we fund our national priorities. This year, as the last, we face an altered reality as we continue to grapple with a global pandemic that has taken the lives of over 560,000 Americans and almost three million people worldwide, racing against viral variants and vaccine availability while hoping to avert a fourth surge.

      • Colleges Are Using COVID as an Excuse for Austerity. Unions Are Pushing Back.

        As COVID-19 swept across the U.S. last winter and spring, colleges and universities adapted swiftly to the situation. Though it was swift, it was not without pain: Just as quickly as professors learned to teach through a screen on Zoom, administrations slashed budgets. In the early days of the pandemic, little was certain about the future — if students would defer fall enrollment, how states might cut education funding or if the federal government would step in to offset the financial impact of the crises. Nevertheless, public and private higher education institutions across the country put in place austerity measures ahead of what they foresaw as a fiscal emergency.

      • Dogecoin is on a run, has escaped the yard, and is headed to the moon

        Look, it’s not my fault that the interest rate is zero percent — that was always gonna make shit weird, because there’s almost nowhere safe to park your money without losing some of it to inflation. That means a lot more money is sloshing around than usual, which is fueling everything from SPACs to Gamestonk. What worries me is that we could be locked into zero interest rate policy world for as long as five years, which is an awfully long time for memes to mess with actual money. As long as there’s this much money sloshing around, anything goes. Anyway, if you are a hedge fund that called the top on Dogecoin based on an Elon Musk tweet, let me know — I’d love to interview you and find out how that call went.

      • Robinhood can’t handle the Dogecoin rally

        Robinhood has a history of exactly this kind of whoopsie. In March 2020, there were three huge outages which Robinhood has said were due to “stress on our infrastructure.” And infamously, in January, Robinhood limited trades on GameStop, pissing off the entire internet and getting itself hauled in front of Congress in the process because it hadn’t planned for anything approaching the scale of Gamestonk.

        Look, the app is very pretty and easy to use, but if it fails during the most crucial buying and selling periods, are users going to stick with it? Whether you make money on your Dogecoin trade matters more than than how nice the app is. Besides, there’s the now-public Coinbase platform to trade cryptocurrency on anyway — even if it doesn’t support Dogecoin.

      • Roger Stone, wife sued by DOJ for $2M in unpaid taxes
    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • Biden Vows to Raise Refugee Cap After Backlash But Leaves the Number Uncertain

        After President Joe Biden on Friday came under fire from human rights advocates and progressive lawmakers for signing a directive to retain the historically low 15,000-person refugee cap imposed by former President Donald Trump, the White House issued a statement that appeared to walk back Biden’s widely criticized move.

      • ALEC Seeks Constitutional Amendment to Block Expansion of Supreme Court

        News broke earlier this week that progressive Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate are planning to unveil legislation to expand the U.S. Supreme Court by four seats, increasing the number of Justices to 13.

      • Republicans Who Voted to Impeach Trump Are Outraising Pro-Trump Challengers

        The 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump brought in sizable campaign cash to start the 2022 cycle — and outraised their primary challengers — amid scathing attacks from the former president and his allies.

      • Opinion | How Amazon Gerrymandered the Union Vote—And Won

        The PRO Act would put voting decisions back in the hands of workers and the National Labor Relations Board.

        In all of the coverage about how Amazon and its relentless anti-union campaign defeated the union organizing drive at its fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama, one key feature of Amazon's campaign deserves highlighting—namely, Amazon's countless tactics to try and delay the vote and dilute the union's support by adding thousands of workers to the bargaining unit who hadn't previously been involved in the organizing drive. This common tactic, which is straight out of the standard union avoidance playbook, unquestionably played a significant role in defeating the organizing drive. Yet the tactic is perfectly legal under our current labor law. The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act would put a stop to this tactic and put voting decisions back in the hands of workers and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

      • Opinion | Will Trump End Up In Prison?

        Accountability for criminal Republican presidents can't happen soon enough.

        The Biden administration on Thursday laid it right out in the open.

      • The Vatican Remains Silent on the Persecution of Chinese Christians

        Last November, Pope Francis, for the first time, called China’s Muslim Uighurs a “persecuted” people, something human rights activists have been urging him to do for years. However, during his solemn Urbi et Orbi Easter blessing on Easter Sunday, Francis snubbed the Uighurs as he carefully omitted any reference to those suffering human rights abuses under China’s Communist regime when he named an array of countries, such as Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Nigeria, and Tigray where people are plagued by violence and conflict.

        All things being equal, there is one group whose suffering the Argentinian pope has yet to acknowledge—the Chinese Christians, whose plight is getting worse by the day.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • ‘Divisive’: How Corporate Media Dismiss Ideas Unpopular With Elites

        New York Times columnist Paul Krugman ( Twitter, 12/29/20) described a $2,000 Covid relief check as “divisive,” even though 75% of Americans (and 72% of Republicans) wanted the government to prioritize another universal payment. All too often, words such as “divisive,” “contentious” or “controversial” are used merely as media codewords meaning “ideas unpopular with the ruling elite”—what FAIR calls “not journalistically viable.”

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Czech police announce manhunt for two Russian nationals matching Skripal-poisoners’ description

        Police officers in the Czech Republic seek two Russian nationals who used passports registered to Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. (While in the country, the men later switched to Moldovan and Tajikistani passports under different names.)

      • What comes next The Russian authorities want to designate Alexey Navalny’s political and anti-corruption network as ‘extremist.’ This would be the legal fallout.

        State prosecutors in Moscow have filed a lawsuit to designate Alexey Navalny’s entire anti-corruption and political infrastructure as “extremist” organizations, effectively outlawing all of these groups. Specifically, officials are targeting the Anti-Corruption Foundation and the Citizens’ Rights Protection Foundation (both of which Russia’s Justice Ministry has already designated as “foreign agents”), as well as Navalny’s nationwide network of campaign offices. Meduza asked Valeriya Vetoshkina, a human rights lawyer at Team 29, what might happen to everyone now working and volunteering at Navalny’s organizations, and what the authorities could do to supporters.

      • Kamala’s KHive trolls boosted by bots while media defends harassment campaigns
      • Washington state governor OKs bill banning for-profit jails

        One of the country’s largest for-profit, privately run immigration jails would be shut down by 2025 under a bill signed Wednesday by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.

        The measure approved by the Washington Legislature bans for-profit detention centers in the state. The only facility that meets that definition is the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, a 1,575-bed immigration jail operated by the GEO Group under a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

      • As Chauvin Trial Wraps Up, Police Killings Provoke Protests Across US

        "This keeps happening and it simply needs to stop," said a demonstrator in Chicago, where an officer shot a 13-year-old who had his hands up.

        Racial justice advocates and critics of police violence took to the streets for protests in multiple U.S. cities Friday night as the trial of Derek Chauvin—the former officer accused of murdering George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, last year—neared its conclusion in Minnesota.

      • America is not on trial. Derek Chauvin is

        One thing I do appreciate about the Derek Chauvin trial is that people are actually calling it "The Derek Chauvin Trial." This is not "The George Floyd Trial." Floyd did not get a trial because he died before he could have his day in court. Remembering that, repeating that, and reminding people of that is extremely important. Years back, when Michael Brown and Freddie Gray were killed, I remember being frustrated not just at the sight of their killers, but with how the public referenced the trial as if the victims were the subjects facing charges, not the killers. All heard was, "What's up with the Freddie Gray case? Any updates on the Freddie Gray case?" The names of his killers: Caesar R. Goodson Jr., Garrett E. Miller, Edward M. Nero, William G. Porter, Brian W. Rice and Alicia D. White should have been incorporated into the narrative and actively used because they were the suspects on trial. Defense attorneys in all of those cases wanted to frame the trials around the victims instead, digging through through their pasts in the most racist ways possible, wanting to justify their deaths. They are trying this with Floyd as well.

        What I don't appreciate is how some cable news outlets and pundits are pushing this idea that "America is on trial" right now. America is not on trial. Derek Chauvin is on trial. Chauvin's indictment has not changed the standard procedures of police in America. We see this with the new body camera footage released that shows how Officers Joe Gutierrez and Daniel Crocker treated Lt. Caron Nazario in Virginia, pulling him over and pepper spraying him even though he was in uniform and following their orders. (That really doesn't matter in America.) About 10 miles away from where Chauvin is being tried, 26-year police veteran Kim Potter shot and killed Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old unarmed Black man, and the department claims she mistook her gun for her taser, which is the dumbest excuse I have ever heard. It's like these people don't even care to try harder in their own defense. It's like they know they don't have to.

      • Two Dozen Senators Tell Biden It Is 'Past Time' to Finally Close Guantánamo

        "With sufficient political will and swift action, your administration can finish the job."

        Echoing recent demands from human rights advocates and former detainees, two dozens members of the U.S. Senate Democratic Caucus on Friday pressed President Joe Biden to finally close the Guantánamo Bay offshore military prison, where 40 men are still being held despite global outrage over the facility and its long record of torture.

      • Opinion | Voter Fraud Revisited

        This year, over 300 bills have been introduced to restrict voting rights.

        From time to time it is good to be reminded that the consequences of trump's verbal attack on the election could have been even worse than it was. As it is, his most notable verbal legacy is his repeated use of the words "voter fraud" to describe the reason he lost the 2020 election. After he lost the election, the trump did all he could do to preserve the country's cherished political system. Not only did he endlessly (and selflessly) shout "voter fraud," but he went to extraordinary lengths to prove its existence so that the country could be spared the prospect of living under a president who had not been duly elected by its citizens, but had, instead, been elected and installed as the result of an election marred by voter fraud.

    • Monopolies

      • ILA “Kyoto Guidelines on Intellectual Property and Private International Law” published with comments [Ed: “Intellectual Property and Private International Law” sounds like little but a globalised front group for robber barons and monopolies. All those groups do a great disservice to society, yet the lawyers want to join them and share the loot.]

        The International Law Association’s Committee on “Intellectual Property and Private International Law” has finished its work with the adoption and publication of the “Kyoto Guidelines on Intellectual Property and Private International Law”. The Guidelines are the outcome of an international cooperation of a group of 36 scholars from 19 jurisdictions lasting for ten years under the auspices of ILA. The Kyoto Guidelines have been approved by the plenary of the ILA 79th Biennial Conference, held (online) in Kyoto on December 13, 2020. The Guidelines provide soft-law principles on the private international law aspects of intellectual property, which may guide the interpretation and reform of national legislation and international instruments, and may be useful as source of inspiration for courts, arbitrators and further research in the field. Different from older regional projects, the Kyoto Guidelines have been prepared by experts from different world regions. The Guidelines have now been published with extended comments as a special issue of the Open Access journal JIPITEC.

      • Patents

        • Forward Pharma Reports Financial and Operational Results from the Year Ended December 31, 2020 [Ed: Update on a catastrophe of massive losses, caused in part by EPO corruption that leads to inability to assess patent applications properly]

          Research and development costs for the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019 were $327,000 and $1.0 million, respectively. The decrease in research and development costs for the year ended December 31, 2020 is the result of lower costs incurred in connection with the EP2801355 patent (“355 Patent”) opposition in Europe (“Opposition Proceeding”) and lower share-based compensation.

          General and administrative costs for the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019 were $3.1 million and $4.2 million, respectively. The decrease in general and administrative costs in the year ended December 31, 2020 resulted from lower share-based compensation.

          During the year ended December 31, 2020, the Group recognized a foreign exchange loss of $3.0 million, resulting primarily from the weakening of the U.S. Dollar compared to the Danish Kroner during the period. During the year ended December 31, 2019, the Group recognized a foreign exchange gain of $759,000, resulting primarily from the strengthening of the U.S. Dollar compared to the Danish Kroner during the period.

          Other finance (expense) income primarily includes bank fees, or negative interest, on Euro and Danish Kroner cash holdings net of interest income on U.S. Dollar cash holdings.

        • A closer look at patent licensing and the record filing system in China [Ed: Another puff piece sponsored by patent litigation firms in China. What happened to actual reporting and journalism?]

          Yuejing Li of DEQI Intellectual Property discusses the record filing system of a license for patent exploitation in China

        • ToolGen Files Proposed Protective Orders in CRISPR Interferences

          Senior Party ToolGen Inc. has filed a protective order in each of Interference Nos. 106,126 (naming as Junior Party the Broad Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University) and 106,127 (naming as Junior Party University of California/Berkeley, University of Vienna, and Emmanuelle Charpentier, collectively "CVC") ('126 protective order and '127 protective order). The protective orders, patterned after the one entered by the Board for CVC in Interference No. 106,115 as Junior Party, protect from public disclosure ToolGen's priority statement until such time (if ever) that either of these interferences enter the Priority Phase (likely to be late this year).

          Each Protective Order requires that confidential information be labeled "PROTECTIVE ORDER MATERIAL" and that disclosure be limited to the Parties (including, for CVC: Caribou Biosciences, Inc.; Intellia Therapeutics, Inc.; CRISPR Therapeutics AG; ERS Genomics Ltd.; TRACR Hematology Ltd., and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and for Broad: The United States Government (National Institute of Health (NIH)); and Editas Medicine, Inc.), their in-house counsel and their representatives; expert witnesses, under the proviso that such an expert is not "a competitor to any party, or a consultant for, or employed by, such a competitor with respect to the subject matter of the proceeding; and 'other employees,'" which expressly include anyone not otherwise expressly set forth in the Order, provided that they sign an undertaking agreeing therein to keep confidential whatever they learn know about ToolGen's priority statements and the factual predicates thereof. ToolGen can oppose such disclosure but bears the burden of showing why the Board should restrict any such individual from access. Also encompassed in the Protective Order are Office personnel and their staff, all of which are burdened by the same confidentiality provisions.

          These confidentiality restrictions govern what efforts at maintaining confidentiality are required for all encompassed by the Order. Also, any submissions for which confidentiality should be maintained under the Order should be filed/served in redacted and non-confidential versions, with any redacted version having filed therewith a Motion to Seal, justifying the grounds for seal under the protective order. The documents will remain sealed unless, "upon motion of a party and after a hearing on the issue, or sua sponte, the Board determines that some or all of the redacted information does not qualify for confidential treatment."

        • One year on: how counsel tackle Federal Circuit briefs rulings [Ed: Patent profiteers pressuring high courts (when they're not infiltrating those courts)]

          Practitioners from Sanofi and five law firms reflect on best practices for briefs and oral argument preparation at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

        • Patent settlements and competition law – guidance from Europe’s top court [Ed: Patents as a mere extortion tool rather than anything to do with justice or science; this is how bullies like Microsoft blackmail companies to act the way they otherwise wouldn't have.]

          On 25 March 2021, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled for the second time on a “pay-for-delay” settlement. These are settlements of a patent dispute that involve payments or other value transfers from the originator manufacturer to the generic manufacturer in return for a delayed market entry. The ECJ dismissed appeals by the originator manufacturer Lundbeck and five generic manufacturers against the ruling of the General Court (GC) of September 2016, which in turn had upheld the European Commission’s (Commission) infringement decision against them of June 2013.

          The ECJ’s judgment refines the framework established in its first pay-for-delay ruling (GSK (Paroxetine), judgment of 30 January 2020) and introduces a novel duty of care for undertakings to preserve evidence.

          This article summarises the judgment, puts it in the context of other pay-for-delay decisions by the Commission and European courts and assesses the judgment’s practical implications.

          [...]

          The ECJ’s findings on potential competition make clear that pay-for-delay agreements will rarely be exempt from scrutiny under Art. 101 TFEU. This is understandable from an enforcement perspective. However, the consideration that the very fact that the originator felt a need to conclude an agreement indicates potential competition appears circular. A broad definition of potential competition also has implications at other levels of the legal assessment. For instance, fines are calculated based on the value of the sales affected by the infringement. The ECJ deemed sales in all countries affected where Lundbeck was threatened by potential competition (para. 190). The broader the notion of potential competition, the more sales are included in the calculation of the fine.

          What the Lundbeck judgment leaves open, is in which scenario existing patents suffice to preclude potential competition because they constitute an “insurmountable barrier”. Both the GSK (Paroxetine) and Lundbeck cases revolved around process patents and the ECJ made continuous references to this fact in its reasoning. If, in contrast, a patent protects the compound, the answer might be different, at least where market entry is sufficiently far away. Another potential “insurmountable barrier” could be an orphan drug status, i.e. market exclusivity that is granted for drugs developed to treat rare (“orphan”) diseases. In any case, the strength of the patent does not play a crucial role. The ECJ wants to avoid requiring competition authorities to ascertain the strength of a patent or anticipate the outcome of challenges and infringement proceedings (para. 60).

          The ECJ puts the type of agreements concluded by Lundbeck in the “by object”-category. At the other end of the spectrum lie settlement agreements that involve payments that only compensate for the disruption and costs caused by the dispute – such agreements are clearly admissible. Many settlements involving value transfers will however fall in the grey area between these two extremes. In this regard, the Servier case that is already pending at the ECJ should provide further clarity.

        • Minesto enhances and extends its IP protection with approved patent

          Leading marine energy developer Minesto reinforces its already extensive patent portfolio covering the company's unique ocean energy technology. Minesto has been granted a new patent by which the company extends the protection of its core technology.

        • Concerns raised ahead of EBoA’s VICO hearing [Ed: Not only is this illegal; they've already stacked the court to pretend otherwise.]

          As the EPO’s Enlarged Board of Appeal prepares to hear a case on the legality of mandatory video-conference hearings, counsel call for clarity

        • Counsel set out concerns over VICO hearing

          Counsel say they are concerned that pending national court actions and worries over legal provisions could discredit a hearing to address the legality of mandatory video-conferences at the EPO’s Boards of Appeal.

          Speaking to Managing IP, in-house and private practice lawyers say the BoA must address these concerns if the matter is to be heard in a fair manner.

          In the past few days, two patent attorney associations have filed briefs with the Enlarged Board of Appeal, which will hear the case in May, to outline their concerns.

          One source also speculates that the concerns about VICO might in reality be driven by a desire for attorney firms based close to the EPO’s offices in Munich to retain their “oligopoly”.

        • What does the UK-EU Brexit deal say about intellectual property? [Ed: It doesn't say anything about "intellectual property" because no such thing exists and the article makes it clear that there are many pertinent and different things it's actually dealing with (so intellectual property is a misnomer as well as propaganda term)]

          Similarly, the TCA changes little with respect to the patent regimes in the UK and EU, in part because patent protection in Europe is achieved through the European Patent Office, which is not an EU agency. It therefore remained unaffected by the UK's exit from the EU.

          However, there is room for divergence in the way in which the supplementary protection certificate (SPC) system operates, as under the TCA, the UK is free to amend its rules in this regard (see textbox below for an explanation of SPCs). The TCA simply requires the EU and the UK to have in place further protection for patent protected products, so as to compensate the holder for any reduction in protection brought about by an administrative procedure such as obtaining a marketing authorisation.

          Having said this, the system of supplementary protection certification will continue in the UK, save that the UK Government has made legislation providing that SPCs for the UK will only be granted on the basis of a UK marketing authorisation. There is no change to the length of protection or fees.

        • Book Review: The Law of Artificial Intelligence [Ed: Now they claim there's a "law" of buzzword and marketing hype; the insanity never ends...]
        • Road to success: in-house on the Patent Prosecution Highway

          Counsel at Titan Medical, Teleflex and Promerus reveal creative tips for getting the best claims possible through the PPH’s fast-track examination procedures

        • As good as new: why IP is central to repurposed drugs [Ed: Patent propagandist (spreading fabrications) Charlotte Kilpatrick is acting not as/like a journalist here but as a megaphone of pharma monopolies and the patent cartel; as if the public doesn't exist. The publisher is a force of occupation here.]

          Sources from the pharmaceutical industry explain why research organisations should learn about IP before trying to bring an approved drug to market

        • Managing priority in US and European patents
        • NICE recommends Alexion’s long-acting Ultomiris for PNH

          In Europe, biosimilar competition is expected to begin in 2022 after the European Patent Office rejected an attempt to extend its patent life at the end of 2019.

        • Pragmatic policy decisions needed in the case of independent AI inventions [Ed: Introducing vague "HEY HI" nonsense assures the debate will be infantile and based on buzzwords, not substance, often bringing rise to software patents agenda and patent maximalists]

          The greatest challenge for IP in the area of artificial intelligence (AI) will be to achieve some level of harmonisation worldwide. IP expert Adam Liberman has said this in the second part of a series of interviews with authors and editors of Kluwer IP Law. Liberman is director IP advantage at Deloitte and adjunct professor at the University of New South Wales. He has over forty years’ experience in advising on intellectual property, licensing, commercial and corporate matters.

        • Carbon Expands in Italy and the UK as 3D Printing Demand Grows [Ed: Well, citing EPO as a source overlooks the fact they bribe scholars for self-serving propaganda about patents]

          With 3D printing continuing to disrupt traditional manufacturing in a wide range of key industries in Europe, it is creating an opportunity for companies like Carbon, looking to secure their share of the market well into the future. Particularly in Italy and the UK, small businesses and many of the largest companies have begun incorporating additive technologies into their workflow, including several famous automotive brands, like Ferrari, Ducati, and Rolls Royce. In fact, European patent applications for additive manufacturing (AM) have seen a growth rate of 36% per year, according to the latest data from the European Patent Office (EPO). This is more than ten times greater than the average yearly growth of all EPO applications combined in the same period, which was a modest 3.5% in comparison.

        • Tracking the evolution of standard essential patents in China [Ed: Why are those 'articles' composed by litigation firms?]

          Shan Jiao of Lifang & Partners explores how standard essential patents litigation in China has evolved following recent developments in the area

        • A view of valuation and licensing of standard essential patents [Ed: Monopoly by any other name and some call it a fraud]

          As standard essential patents continue to gain economic importance, disputes surrounding them see no end in sight. Given the economic benefits at stake, the question arises how to come to grips with the valuation of standard essential patents. To provide some insight, I consider the Top Down and Comparable License approaches, as they have gained wide- scale recognition.

        • China emerges as a key litigation venue for standard essential patents [Ed: Lots of "sponsored" articles this past week, in effect shameless self-marketing in "news" clothing;' is journalism that defunct?]

          Guanyang Yao and Xiaoning Yu of Liu Shen & Associates consider the reasons behind China’s growth as a litigation venue for standard essential patent cases and evaluate the strategies of related parties

        • Immutep granted European Patent for LAG525 antibody in combination therapy
        • An Overview of the Latest Amendment to the Chinese Patent Law [Ed: China changes its law to better serve and protect oligarchy at everybody's expense.]

          The Fourth Amendment to the Chinese patent law will become effective on June 1, 2021. The Patent Law of the People’s Republic of China, originally established in 1985, had its last amendment in 2008. Although the new amendment of the Patent Law is still pending implementation and the details awaiting clarification from the next version of patent examination guidelines, the amendment shows that Chinese patent law is moving towards harmonization with the laws of most other major markets. We highlight a number of the notable changes below.

        • VLSI Technology v. Intel: patents from a portfolio valued at $7 million allegedly created $3 billion in value--will the jury buy that?

          Another post, another dispute involving a non-practicing entity (NPE) financed by Fortress Investment. The previous post was about a couple of additional VoiceAge EVS v. Apple cases I just learned about. While Munich is the world's #1 patent injunction venue, at least for the tech sector, the Western District of Texas is where parties go to seek Texas-size damage awards, such as in the second VLSI Technology v. Intel trial in Waco before Judge Alan Albright. That trial will continue on Monday.

          It seems to me that many technology industry and patent professionals have sympathy for Intel because it already suffered so much last month when the first VLSI trial ended in a $2.2 billion damages award. At the same time, hardly anyone expects that first VLSI award to be upheld, simply because appeals courts typically reverse such decisions (sometimes reducing damages to zero by finding no infringement or holding the asserted patents invalid). For example, just yesterday Apple--Intel's ally against Fortress Investment--convinced a Texas judge (Eastern District in that case) to order a retrial, setting aside a $506 million jury verdict. The only thing that is unusual about that decision in Optis Wireless v. Apple is that a judge from a plaintiff-friendly federal district in Texas did so. Most of the time, those decisions are made by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

        • Patent Office Updates You Need to Know [Ed: EPO continues to break the law when it comes to hearing (among many other violations of the law)

          The European Patent Office (EPO) has announced that all visitors from abroad must abstain from visiting the EPO if they have recently visited a high risk area, unless they had a negative COVID-19 test on the fifth day or later after leaving the high risk area. All oral proceedings before the examining and opposition divisions will continue to be held by video conference, without requiring agreement of the parties.

        • Non-Transitory Innovation?

          The (revised) chart above shows the percentage of issued utility patents whose claims include at least one reference to the term non-transitory.

          The chart does not reflect any kind of innovation transformation. Rather, in a February 2010 memo, PTO Dir. Kappos announced that claims directed toward information stored in computer readable memory would be rejected as ineligible under Section 101.

        • How China’s new Patent Law transforms the issuance of damages [Ed: Notice those 'articles' are sponsored and are in principle sales and marketing, not facts]

          On October 17 2020, China promulgated the fourth amendment to the Patent Law (the amendment), which will become effective as of June 1 2021. Substantial changes are made in terms of patent filing and patent enforcement, among other matters.

        • Stability Analysis of Patents with Compound Subject Matter during Invalidation Stage [Ed: Patents being granted far too easily and quickly. They don't seem to care about the consequences and place the burden on the wrong parties.]

          This part mainly compares the examination standards for supplementary experimental data in the United States, Europe and China, and on this basis, gives some suggestions on examination practices in China.

        • XORTX Announces Notice to Grant European Patent

          XORTX Therapeutics Inc. ("XORTX" or the “Company”) (CSE: XRX) (OTCQB: XRTXF), a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing therapeutics for the treatment of progressive kidney disease, is pleased to announce that it has received notification of intention to grant the patent “Compositions and Methods for Treatment and Prevention of Hyperuricemia Related Health Consequences” by the European Patent Office for this PCT international application. The patent covers compositions and methods for the prevention and treatment of diabetic nephropathy (DN) using uric acid lowering agent and specifically xanthine oxidase inhibitors. Aberrant purine metabolism and specifically, chronically increased serum uric acid concentrations have been associated with kidney disease progression.

        • Software Patents

          • Decision from EPO Enlarged Board on the patentability of simulations [Ed: A tribunal that lacks autonomy from corrupt EPO management, under active pressure from the Office to allow illegal software patents, does just that]
          • IDnow Welcomes Bundesnetzagentur Decision And Predicts Turning Point For Digital Identity Verification [Ed: The disaster of allowing patents on algorithms because "HEY HI" (AI)!]

            The decision of Bundesnetzagentur to allow AI (artificial intelligence) based identification methods for new use cases in Germany is a confirmation of IDnow’s platform strategy and at the same time a turning point in international competition for German technology companies.

          • Can an AI own a patent? A new legal drama will decide [Ed: "HEY HI" nonsense out of control. Even computers are now being called "HEY HI".]

            The drama is all about Dabus. Dabus is not DaBaby’s alter ego or an incognito performer who is being sued for copyright infringement. Instead, Dabus stands for ’Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience’. In over-simplified plain English, Dabus is AI that’s hypothetically capable of creating patentable inventions independent of human involvement. And therein lies the drama.

          • Marks & Clerk accused over ‘secret commissions’ from IP referrals [Ed: Marks & Clerk, lobbyists for software patents and proponents of EPO corruption (they help the corrupt regime there, in exchange for favours), turns out to be incredibly corrupt itself]

            An organisation representing mainly SMEs has filed a group-action lawsuit against Marks & Clerk alleging that the firm received “secret commissions” for referring intellectual property renewals work.

            The particulars of claim was filed at the England and Wales High Court on Monday, April 12, by an organisation called Commission Recovery Limited (CRL). The allegations concern work that M&C referred to IP services provider CPA Global, which is not listed as a defendant.

            The claim alleges that while clients agreed to CPA Global taking on their renewals work, they were unaware of the commissions being paid to M&C, and that these payments constituted unauthorised profit.

            According to a CRL statement, these secret commissions have earned M&C between €£2 million ($2.7 million) and €£3 million per year in the UK – with the total figure likely to exceed €£50 million.

          • Algorithmic solutions in China under amended guidelines [Ed: Articles about software patents being composed by parties that stand to profit from endless litigation; why has journalism been replaced by marketing and propaganda and what does this mean to society? Same loopholes (actually, method for bypassing the law) as EPO.]

            Lei Jia of Beijing Sanyou Intellectual Property Agency considers whether there is a need to separately determine whether the algorithm includes ‘technical features’ in the revised guidelines for patent examination

          • RideApp Inc. v. Lyft, Inc., No. 2020-1284, 2021 WL 1141320 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 25, 2021)

            RideApp, Inc. sued Lyft for patent infringement on its central system which analyzes and calculates data to match passengers to drivers near them. The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling on RideApp’s invalid claims. The court found RiderApp failed to provide a specific algorithm to show how the patent system works and to limit the scope of its claims.

            Lyft is one of the most popular ride apps in the United States. Riders can use Lyft to find available vehicles near them for a ride. Also, riders can share rides with other riders for a more affordable price, and Lyft can pair riders with the best driver for their route and pick-up spot. RideApp is an app that shows the best route for drivers to avoid congestion and traffic, especially in urban areas. The app also allows users to share real-time location information, so people who want to carpool or share rides can easily use the app to help them to arrange trips. RideApp’s technology is supported by US patent 6,697,730, which is an automated transit system that minimizes the social costs of urban transportation.

      • Trademarks

        • How brands manage social and political issues [Ed: Just like greenwashing, corporations looking to exploit all sorts of "Causes" purely for marketing purposes, even if misleadingly, and even if those corporations are a big contributing factor to the very same issues the "Causes" seek to address]

          Counsel at Sterne Kessler, Mondelēz and Beanstalk hashed out the opportunities and challenges of taking a stance on moral matters

        • Counsel lay out new challenges for brand management [Ed: Webchats disguised as "Forum", wherein the litigation giants that fund it basically push their agenda for the sole purpose of lobbying and profit, and we know at whose expense...]

          Counsel at Bird & Bird, David Yurman, Quality King Distributors and Steve Madden delved into influencers and enforcement at the MIP Global Trademark Forum this week

        • [Guest Post] Conference report: 'The New Age of Fashion: Sustainable Horizons'

          Leading with the important message that despite being a ‘buzzword’ (especially, perhaps, in a post-pandemic world), ‘sustainability’ has no real definition...

      • Copyrights

        • China adapts copyright law to reflect global business trends [Ed: Seems like this publisher became advertising space from front/cover to back; imagine a magazine about energy composed and sponsored by BP]

          Xiangjing Luo and Lian Yunze of Jadong IP Law Firm assess the key practical differences and implications that will arise from the third amendment to China’s law on copyrights

        • GitHub Reinstated YouTube-DL But Restoring Forks is Apparently a Problem

          After the RIAA had youtube-dl removed from GitHub last year, the platform decided to reinstate the YouTube-ripping tool, claiming that the industry group's takedown was unwarranted. However, users who forked the project weren't so lucky and according to a counternotice filed this week, GitHub isn't responding to informal restoration requests. There is probably a good reason for that.

        • Reckless DMCA Takedown Purges Legitimate Websites from Google Search

          The homepages of several legitimate organizations, including Live Nation Asia and Living Map, have been removed from Google search results. This is the result of an extremely reckless DMCA takedown notice that also targeted NASA, the BBC, and the UK Government.



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Examples of boasting about the association
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Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
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