Links 15/07/2008: No More Solaris for Salesforce.com, New Migrations to GNU/Linux
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2008-07-15 10:40:41 UTC
- Modified: 2008-07-15 10:40:41 UTC
GNU/Linux
Qt/KDE
- Chinese educational handhelds get Qt
- KDE Commit Digest: Issue 114
Global keyboard shortcuts for applets, and an Amarok and "python expression" runner in Plasma. A Java test applet and various interaction improvements in Plasma. Simple network and CPU monitors in the system-monitor Plasmoid. Initial import of PeachyDock, a Plasma-based alternative panel.
F/OSS
OpenOffice.org
SaaS
Abuse of Rights
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Why Techrights Cannot be Vilified (and Instead It Gets SLAPPed Repeatedly by Microsoft People)
- Attack dogs are all "bark"; because they have no actual "bite"
- Links 25/06/2025: Elon Musk’s Lawyers Caught Lying, WhatsApp Faces More Bans
- Links for the day
- Wayland Pushers Lose the Argument, Use LLM Slop and Chatbots to Make Up Arguments for IBM
- Another new low and low blow
- What is "MATA"?
- Think of it as GAFAM or "Meta"
- WebProNews is a Slopfarm
- Please avoid linking to WebProNews
- Another "Told You So!": XBox Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Many Recent Reports Were Chaff and Spin), Many Other Divisions Affected
- With mass layoffs at Microsoft the world would be much better
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- The 'Case' of the Serial Strangler From Microsoft is a Lot of Copypasta (Maybe Also LLM Slop) From the Matthew Garrett 'Case'
- 5RB deserves to know and the matter shall be properly reported in due course (when the time is right)
- Austrian GNU/Linux Usage Up to About 5% as More of Europe Abandons Microsoft
- Since inauguration day the Austrian people have adopted more and more of GNU/Linux
- Why the "Wayland People" and "Rust People" Will Lose Hearts and Minds (Same Reasons)
- Wayland pushers are fast becoming like "Rust People"
- 5,600 Pages/Articles Per Year
- So far this year we've kept all the promises
- BetaNews Beginning to Show What Its True Goals Are
- The 'new' BetaNews won't be about journalism. It's trying to sell things.
- Microsoft Has Lost "The War"
- We'll soon see the 9th or 10th wave of Microsoft layoffs in 2025 alone
- Slopwatch: A Wreck and a Dreck, "Flooding the Zone With Dreck" or Flooding the Web With Junk
- "Slopwatch" continues today because we have many new examples
- Links 25/06/2025: Thwarting More Software Patents, Overlap Grows Between EPO Corruption and Illegal Kangaroo Patent Courts in EU
- Links for the day
- Brian Fagioli Created Another Slopfarm Targeting "Linux" After BetaNews Became a Slopfarm of Phantom Accounts and Pseudonyms
- Mr. Fagioli even had slop about a dead Torvalds (hypothetical) as clickbait
- Wayland is Perfect, Nobody Can Escape Its Perfection! (Or Not)
- Do not form on opinion on Wayland based on politics
- Moral Duty for "Linux Sites" to Speak Out Against LLM Slop
- My wife has long complained about "Linux bloggers" keeping quiet and thus passive about a growing problem: slop
- In Recent Hours Google News Promoted at Least 3 Slopfarms That Relayed Linux Foundation Propaganda Made by Bots or LLM "Bullshit Generators" (as Dr. Stallman Dubbed Them)
- Google is circling down the drain and Google News too is hopeless
- Linux Journal is a Slopfarm, It's Experimenting With LLM 'Authors'
- Is Slashdot next?
- Microsoft LinkedIn is Dying and Many More Layoffs Are on the Way
- LinkedIn is just a failed acquisition of Microsoft. It causes losses and debt.
- Gemini Links 25/06/2025: Combinatorial Music and Self Hosting
- Links for the day
- Richard Stallman Coming Back to Europe This Autumn to Give More Talks
- His last talk in Europe attracted about 400-450 people
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 24, 2025
- IRC logs for Tuesday, June 24, 2025
- Social Control Media, Technology & Catholicism: Synod on Synodality review and feedback
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- How Many More Women Will Managers at Microsoft Strangle and Tell to Kill Themselves (or Try to Kill)?
- The world needs to know what happened
- The New BetaNews: 7 New 'Articles', All of Them LLM Slop
- BetaNews is basically defunct. Nobody writes there anymore.
- statCounter Estimates Only 1 in 300 Iranians Would Use Microsoft for Search
- Iranians don't quite trust Microsoft
- Gemini Links 24/06/2025: ftpd on FreeBSD and Online Small Web Magazine
- Links for the day
- Google News Does Great Harm by Promoting Slopfarms as Legitimate News Sites
- Slopfarms are sites which are 100% LLM slop
- Links 24/06/2025: Trouble at "Open" "AI" and ‘Siarhei is Free’
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 24/06/2025: Stimulants and Subscription Costs for DRM
- Links for the day
- When the Microsoft Aggressors Rely on Several Law Firms ('Attack Dogs', 'Guns for Hire'), Not Just One, Lawyering Up Against Techrights (Acting on Behalf of Americans Against UK Publishers)
- From serving customers at some restaurant he has moved on to bullying people with demand letters
- Links 24/06/2025: OpenAI [sic] May Soon Die (Too Much Debt) and Social Control Media Accused of Being Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda Amplifier
- Links for the day
- Nirbheek Chauhan in Planet GNOME Explains Why Wayland Pushers Are Losing
- "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
- Polygamy, from Catholic Synod on Synodality to Social Control Media & Debian CyberPolygamy
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Only a Third of or 1 in 3 Web-Connected Devices is a Desktop or Laptop, According to statCounter
- we can expect Android to widen its lead
- The Days Are Getting Shorter, the First Half of 2025 is Almost Over
- We're gratified to see significant increase in traffic and also positive feedback on the work we do
- Turning GNU/Linux Into a Political Football
- X (not the site) is Free software
- X Server Still Works for Many People
- A lot of people will grow suspicious of Wayland boosters/pushers if they persist and insist on using these tactics
- Exactly a Week Ago "BetaNews Staff" Said "Betanews Is Growing Alongside You". Since Then Every Article (All by "Camila Nogueira") Has Been LLM Slop.
- BetaNews is basically a slopfarm
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 23, 2025
- IRC logs for Monday, June 23, 2025
- The "Tarzan Effect" in Compilers and Software
- What happens when you forcibly make things 'work', either by hacks or by disregarding warnings (like those that compilers tend to issue)?
- Gemini Links 23/06/2025: Mass Tourism, Hair Love, and Google Gemini as a Googlebomb
- Links for the day
- Law Firm Burgess Mee Does Not Fully Deny Participating in Abusive Litigation for Serial Strangler From Microsoft
- I am not unfamiliar with these tactics
- The Modus Operandi of Wayland Pushers: Make It Political
- do what I say or you're a nazi...
- Links 23/06/2025: RFE/RL Contributor Vladyslav Yesypenko Released, Recording Industry Cutbacks
- Links for the day
- Brett Wilson LLP Solicitors (M): Over 99.9% of Our E-mail is Self-Marketing, We Send You 3.5MB E-mails for Less Than 1KB of Text
- Why would tech people entrust legal matters to such people?
- Peter Moon's (Computerworld) Interview With Richard Stallman
- Stallman: If you want freedom don't follow Linus Torvalds
- At What Point Does Outsourcing Constitute Malpractice?
- Brett Wilson LLP's new staff page is misleading
- United Arab Emirates (UAE) Sailing to GNU/Linux, According to statCounter
- countries in that region will quickly learn the price of neglecting digital sovereignty
- From Do Your Own Research to Do Your Own Search
- The Web is full of garbage; search engines amplify this garbage
- More People Moving to Geminispace?
- at age 6+ Gemini Protocol seems to have gained some maturity and it seems like more people use it
- Permutation in LLMs Does, Inevitably, Change Meanings and Therefore LLMs Cannot Properly Rephrase or Summarise Texts
- LLMs lack actual grasp or comprehension of what they spew out
- Links 23/06/2025: Many Security Breaches, Population Declines
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 23/06/2025: "America at the Crossroads" and OpenWRT Surgery
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 22, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, June 22, 2025
- Pure Dove
- Different means different, and sometimes those who "deviate" from "the norm" have a point
- Censorship is a Sign of Weakness Which Invites More Censorship Attempts
- revolutionaries don't succumb to pressure from bullies
- Why It's Unlikely That LLM Slop Will Dominate the Web in the Long Run
- Slopfarms will eventually perish (they have no actual value) and "survivors" on the Web will be sites that never depended on search engines and social control media
- GNU/Linux in Argentina Now Measured Near 5%
- Like in central Europe, they must be seeing an increasingly hostile US
- BetaNews is Fake News, Composed by LLM Slop
- nothing in BetaNews is written by humans anymore
Comments
RyanT
2008-07-15 13:38:45
http://somethingmild.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-to-make-software-agreeable.html
Was wandering what you thought about it, and if it is right/good enough, maybe you could include it in a future links section.
Roy Schestowitz
2008-07-15 19:41:51
I've just included a link to this. It's also up for discussion in USENET and in http://digg.com/linux_unix/How_To_Make_Software_Agreeable http://tech.propeller.com/story/2008/07/15/how-to-make-software-agreeable/
Saul Goode
2008-07-15 20:20:59
I haven't read your piece in detail yet (I will do so this evening), but it seems well-written and addresses a growing concern with regard to licensing of copyrighted works.
I tend to disagree with the presumption that the existence of a licensing agreement excludes the concept "sale/purchasing". While the courts have occasionally been inconsistent, for the most part they (U.S. courts, anyway) recognize a one-time payment in exchange for use of the software as being a "sale", regardless of any verbiage included in an EULA or other license. A recent court case supporting this "quacks like duck" interpretation is the one involving Ebay sales of Autodesk software [1]. To summarize the decision, a EULA can not trump the laws of copyright in the case of a "sale" of a copyrighted work.
Another recent case which might be interpreted as supporting your position (assuming my basic understanding of your position is correct) would be the Blizzard World Of Warcraft lawsuit against the "Glider" bot [2]. However, I think the distinguishing characteristic of this case is that -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- WoW is a subscription service (not a one-time fee) and as such is more of an ongoing lease arrangement. At least I hope that this distinction was critical to the otherwise worrisome decision.
I hope that as further litigation is resolved, the courts will continue to interpret the "first sale doctrine" as valid and that if a company wishes to have their EULAs recognized as lease agreements then it must not employ "sales" of their software. Those parts of EULAs which would grant the copyright holder more prerogative than the exclusive rights delineated in copyright law should be considered invalid.
I look forward to perusing your article in depth and apologize if I have misinterpreted your position on the issue. It is certainly an issue which warrants further scrutiny and discussion.
[1]http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080523-court-smacks-autodesk-affirms-right-to-sell-used-software.html
[2]http://www.davis.ca/en/blog/Video-Game-Law/2007/02/26/WoW-LAWSUIT-OVER-BOT-SOFTWARE
RyanT
2008-07-15 23:42:51
If anyone wants to discuss further, I'll put my email here:
theamazingjanet@hotmail.co.uk
Not my main account, as this is public, but still. I look forward to the in-depth responses, and yes, Saul it seems you've gotten my position correct.
I might elaborate in future, which will most likely go down the path of the likes of the GPL and propriatary models purely becoming applicable to development, and only being extended in fringe cases, and the standard model of ownership being the common/middle ground. Even if not agreed upon by some, it would certainly be more agreeable than the licensed proprietary model (I hope).
RyanT
2008-07-15 23:44:34
Roy Schestowitz
2008-07-16 17:27:51