Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 01/08/2009: CentOS is Fine



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • [Opensourc3 Magazine publishes its first issue]
    Issue 1 looks at the Linux KVM Hypervisor Technology, System Automation with Puppet, Cloud and Hypervisor Technologies, Building IP Networks and Linux iSCSI solutions.


  • First they bash it, then they use it.
    GNU/Linux is a really good concept. It empowers the end user and gives you tons of choices, power and freedom. You can choose from hundreds of different distributions, install thousands of free software and customize your OS significanty if you choose to. On the other hand, most proprietary software locks you in and dictates to you what you can do or not do with it.




  • Kernel Space

    • Don't Miss the Boat
      If you're in the mood for Linux — and who amongst us isn't — September may be your month, as the Linux Foundation presents the inaugural LinuxCon in Portland. Just shy of two months ago we sounded the call to rise, shine, and catch the early bird rate — sadly, the early bird's worm is no more. It's still possible, though, to grab yourself a spot and shave a nice slice off the price.






  • Applications

    • If You Pay for a Linux Word Processor, Is It Really Worth the Price?
      Meanwhile, industry heavy-hitters Sun Microsystems, Novell, and IBM Lotus keep building on their Linux heritages with new releases of distinctive commercial word processors. So, too, does, ThinkFree, an innovative California-based start-up that's just added ThinkFree Mobile Netbook to its growing line-up of crossplatform suites. Haansoft, a South Korean distributor of Linux OS and word processing software, just so happens to hold a majority interest in ThinkFree.


    • A new player in Linux music production
      I recently discovered a fairly new project that has an interesting take on Linux music production: the Open Octave Project. The goal of Open Octave is to provide an environment for audio and MIDI production specifically for orchestral music and film scoring. What is different about this project - compared to other Linux audio / MIDI solutions - is that the developers don't build a new application from scratch. Instead, the team chose to combine and adapt existing projects into an unified framework. This actually works two ways: in using existing applications, the team doesn't have to reinvent the wheel and can use existing quality tools, and by contributing their efforts back to the original projects, these benefit as well. So what's in store with the Open Octave Project? Let's delve a little deeper...


    • Gaze at the stars with Stellarium
      We have had lots of programs featured here on Dedoimedo, but we never really focused on educational software. Until today. I'm going to present Stellarium, a beautiful, pleasant, addictive open-source planetarium software.

      [...]

      Stellarium is a young application. Still, it already shows many exciting, promising features that will surely help it grab wider and wider audience. Stellarium is a great choice for the final frontier fans. It can also help hobbyist astronomers, physics students and seems like an excellent way of getting children hooked into science.


    • 3 Dockbar like applications for Linux / Mac OS X / Windows
      In the past, the dock bar has been just an appearance enhancer in operating systems. People have been led to believe that the dock is for those who are more conscious about appearance rather than performance and because of this, they quickly lost interest in it once they got used to it.


    • Go Back to School With Linux: Part Three
      Today marks the final installment in our series that takes a look at educational versions of popular Linux distributions ideal for students returning to class in the next few weeks. We've already talked about Edubuntu and openSUSE Education, so today let's take a look at Debian Jr.








  • Distributions



    • Red Hat

      • Red Hat to step up developer efforts
        Red Hat will step up its efforts to help drive developer contribution and remains unfazed by desktop competition, according to its chief executive Jim Whitehurst.


      • [CentOS] Open Letter
        The CentOS Development team had a routine meeting today with Lance Davis in attendance. During the meeting a majority of issues were resolved immediately and a working agreement was reached with deadlines for remaining unresolved issues. There should be no impact to any CentOS users going forward.

        The CentOS project is now in control of the CentOS.org and CentOS.info domains and owns all trademarks, materials, and artwork in the CentOS distributions.

        We look forward to working with Lance to quickly complete all the agreed upon issues.

        More information will follow soon.












  • Devices/Embedded

    • Motorola enlists help developing apps for new wave of mobile phones
      Motorola Inc. is calling on mobile phone application developers as it readies the release of several new phones later this year.

      The company's turnaround strategy for its mobile phone division rests on Android, a platform created by Google. Schaumburg-based Motorola plans to have several Android-powered phones on shelves for the holiday season.






Free Software/Open Source

  • The White House Sends an Invitation: PCAST Meeting Aug. 6 and 7
    PCAST is a group of scientists and engineers who advise the President and the Office of the President, providing policy recommendations. The purpose of the meeting is to set priorities for the coming year.

    I know many of you are stakeholders, CEOs and executives of companies and leaders and contributors to software projects, but you don't have to be: the general public can contribute also. I'd so dearly love to go and speak about FOSS, but I don't feel it would be wise, due to the death threat situation, but you can go and represent yourself. And it will be streamed. There is even an opportunity to send written comments at any time. I'll give you the details in a moment, but if you've ever complained that the government is clueless about tech and FOSS, this is your opportunity to contribute in a positive way.


  • Time Marches On: Mozilla Sunbird Finally Approaches 1.0
    The Mozilla Project’s long-awaited calendaring app is about to see 1.0. After five years of development, the project released 1.0 beta builds this week. We took Sunbird for a spin to see how it manages our time.


  • Official Google Chrome Themes Coming?




  • Openness

    • Code Rush in the Creative Commons
      Last year, to commemorate the release of Firefox 3.0, I posted a heavily-annotated copy of Code Rush — the commercially-unavailable documentary from 2000 about the open-sourcing of the Netscape code base and the beginning of the Mozilla project. Shortly afterwards, I interviewed Code Rush director David Winton about the film, who asked that I take the video offline while he decided what to do with it. Last week, he made a decision.








  • Programming

    • A first look at Eclipse 4
      The Eclipse development environment has become a very popular open source project. A flexible software tool kit, Eclipse can integrate the products of several vendors as plug-ins, for example for modelling, development and software tests; for some time now, Eclipse hasn't just been about Java. The Eclipse Foundation behind the development environment has grown into an influential consortium: in November 2001, IBM introduced the source code of a development environment into the newly established Eclipse.org open source community. IBM then dominated the scene for a long time, until the foundation was established as an independent and non-profit organisation for the development of the Eclipse platform in 2004.








Leftovers



  • Web Abuse

    • Surveillance Self-Defense International
      6 Ideas For Those Needing Defensive Technology to Protect Free Speech from Authoritarian Regimes and 4 Ways the Rest of Us Can Help

      Introduction: The Internet remains one of the most powerful means ever created to give voice to repressed people around the world. Unfortunately, new technologies have also given authoritarian regimes new means to identify and retaliate against those who speak out despite censorship and surveillance. Below are six basic ideas for those attempting to speak without falling victim to authoritarian surveillance and censorship, and four ideas for the rest of us who want to help support them.








  • Intellectual Insanity

    • In a Mermaid Statue, Danes Find Something Rotten in State of Michigan
      The problem is that this ode to the old country allegedly infringes the copyright of Danish artist Edvard Eriksen. In May, just as preparations for this year's Danish-themed festivities were getting under way, the town got a letter from the Artists Rights Society -- a New York-based organization that enforces copyrights on behalf of artists, including Andy Warhol and Picasso. The letter said that the statue is an "unauthorized reproduction" and had to come down. If not, the town would have to pay a licensing fee.


    • Pictures From Public Places Not Private
      Internet accessibility of images amassed by governmental organizations, commercial entities and individuals is the basis of novel privacy violation claims. However, Internet distribution of images of both individuals and private places collected from public places remains lawful.






  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Obama Taps Another MoFo Lawyer
      President Barack Obama has nominated Ketanji Jackson, of counsel to the D.C. office of Morrison & Foerster, to fill a spot on the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

      Jackson, 38, would be one of seven voting members of the commission, which overseas the sentencing guidelines used by federal judges and advises Congress on criminal law. The position is part-time, requires confirmation by the Senate, and would end in October 2013.


    • Amanda Palmer Talks About Connecting With Fans: Fans WANT To Support Artists
      i started my band in 2000. we didn't play rock clubs. we played in our friends houses, in our own houses, in art galleries, in lofts, at parties. then we gradually brought the party indoors, into clubs that would book us once they knew we'd bring in 50 drinking/paying bodies. i treated our email list like gold. i obsessively stayed up all night and added named after every show. we took the time to meet every single fan who wanted to meet us after every show (i still do this, and i know that brian does it in his current punk band, world/inferno). but this wasn't because i felt it was mandatory....i did this because we LIKED it.


    • Reasons Why Copyright On Art And Music Could Be Deemed Unconstitutional
      Bell is interpreting the Constitutional clause in an even stricter manner -- suggesting that any work covered by patents or copyright needs to promote both progress in science and in the useful arts, which is an even higher bar, though I'm not sure I'm convinced it was meant to be both. Also, many would retort that the Constitution grants the Congress the ability to determine if such monopolies promote the progress of science and the useful arts -- and as long as Congress says they do, then we should consider that they do (no matter how wrong they might be).


    • Italian RIAA Sues The Pirate Bay For 1 Million Euros
      Lawyers from FIMI (Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana) and FPM (Federation against Musical Piracy) say they will sue Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm in Italy, seeking damages in excess of 1 million euros. Their lawyer told TorrentFreak that so far, the prospective defendants have had no official notification.


    • European Commission secret move on 3-strikes
      The European Commission is secretly talking with industry on Europe-wide 3-strikes measures. In what would appear to be British-inspired intiative, it wants to broker agreements between broadband providers and rights-holders, threatening EU legislation if they do not co-operate.

      A meeting was held on 6 July, attended by rights-holders, trade unions, and Internet providers. The Commission's agenda was to start of series of talks to set up ‘voluntary agreeements' for dealing on online copyright protection of ‘creative content' which is defined as ‘books, films and music'. ‘Sanctions and remedies' were discussed, as well as ‘legal alternatives to piracy'. The Commission is threatening to bring in a new European law which would bring in copyright enforcement measures against Internet downloading in all Member States, if no agreement is reached.










Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day



Luis Casas Luengo, Director of Extremadura's Fundecyt foundation 12 (2004)



Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Gemini Links 14/08/2026: Slower Internet, Logging Off Made Easy, and Human Code
Links for the day
Links 14/08/2026: "Mystery of Dark Oxygen", People Despise Slop, and Backlash Grows Against Fake Currencies (Energy-Wasting Scam Like Slop)
Links for the day
Free Publicity
They say there's no such thing as "bad press" or that every publicity is good publicity, sometimes free publicity
Farage's fears, media hijacked by-election, what really happened in Clacton
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
It's Friday. A Ton of People Departing From IBM and Red Hat.
A mere subset of people who announce this in public at Microsoft's LinkedIn
GNU/Linux and ChromeOS Beyond 11%
Combined with ChromeOS, it's already past and beyond 11%
Chatbots/LLMs Are the Next "Clown Computing", Pure Hype, a Serious Mistake
Programs that scan text and emit something similar (but full of errors)
Links 14/08/2026: Slop 'Music' Causing Problems, Slop Data Centre Contractor Unpaid (Massive Debt), and The Cyber Show Says We're "Colonised By Wankers"
Links for the day
Fake Growth of Social Control Media is Misleading
nowadays people look for alternatives - ones not controlled by MElon, CPC, and Kapo-Berg
statCounter: Windows Down to All-Time Low of 25%, Android Leads the Pack, GNU/Linux About to Leapfrog Apple, Overtaking MacOS
The situation was very different in past years
Microsoft's Mass Layoffs (Including 'Voluntary' Secret Layoffs) Take Their Toll on Seattle
How much longer can they hide their crises?
Planet Fedora ("Fedora People") is Just IBM Staff, Former IBM Staff, and LLM Slop
this is what Fedora boils down to now
Explanation of What Will Happen to Red Hat (and Other Acquired Companies) After August
In short, a lot will be scuttled; history shows it happens over and over again
SLAPP Censorship - Part 149 Out of 200: It Took a Long Time to Show What Jason Arday (at Cambridge) and Harvey Weinstein (in Hollywood) Really Were
Really bad when society endures abuse because the abusers silence their exposers
Gemini Links 14/08/2026: 32-bit RISC-V and BlackBerry
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 13, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, August 13, 2026
'Voluntary' Layoffs (a Form of Silent Layoffs): Microsoft Global Voluntary Separation Agreement (GVSA) in August 2026 and September 2026
Today and yesterday
Microsoft Sees Windows on Fire, Pours Gasoline Over It
The latest move from Microsoft defies logic
Racing Towards "Woman Zero"
They don't seem to value women
The Legacy of Gerstner (Rapid Destruction) Continues at IBM
They say IBM never recovered from Gerstner, who instead of saving the companies (IBM and others he claims credit for) set up a collision course of rapid shrinkage
Counters in Clacton Commence in 3 Hours at Clacton Leisure Centre
Even a few hundreds of votes for Pocock would be considered a great success
Swiss army to attack 2,900 domain name owners? Cult of ETH Zurich & Debian
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
IBM's Bluewashing of Confluent Carries on, More Layoffs Coming, Same Likely Applicable to Red Hat
September 30 is a day before this next phase of bluewashing at Red Hat
Headlines About Microsoft and Ransomware, But They're "SPONSORED FEATURES" at The Register MS
The Register MS habitually publishes LLM slop too
Links 13/08/2026: K-pop Suicide Due to Social Control Media, Legal Problems for Facebook Over Safety
Links for the day
'Cancel Culture' Isn't About Empathy, It's About Making Good People Homeless
Seeing what they did to RMS, remember that those "concern trolls" are about everything other than ethics and morals
Daniel Pocock in The Nerve
Lots of publicity owning to the enrollment
Why Support Daniel Pocock
Our readers who come from IBM and the EPO are certainly familiar with the tactics of censorship and what that sort of censorship leads to
SLAPP Censorship - Part 148 Out of 200: The Manosphere
Those people don't just threaten our national sovereignty, press, democracy etc. They also endanger women everywhere.
Gemini Links 13/08/2026: Health, Partial Eclipse Sketches, and Guilelessness
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Reaches 10% "Market Share" in statCounter
As of this morning
15% of IBM Marked for Potential Termination, PIPs are the "New Layoffs" (or RAs) at IBM
IBM is a dying company, but it does not want the press to say this or for people to understand that
Links 13/08/2026: "The Rise of the Measles-Industrial Complex" and Spotify Curbs Slop
Links for the day
Daniel Pocock on Australia's 9News (Nine Entertainment)
This gives visibility to software and technology issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 12, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 12, 2026
Gemini Links 12/08/2026: Losing a Child, "The OpenWeb Needs Diversity", and Gmail Woes
Links for the day
Voluntary' Layoffs and 'Proper' Layoffs at IBM This Year
When will IBM management confess that 15% of staff is already marked for potential removal?
Links 12/08/2026: Trouble in Proprietary Chaffbot Company 'Open' 'AI' and Slop "Investors Are Suddenly Quaking in Their Boots"
Links for the day
Daniel Pocock in National News in Australia the Day of the Election
"Posted 20m ago" (Thursday in Australia), it's timed nicely to help illuminate Pocock and give him last-minute exposure
The Register MS Has Just Published Slop Spam for NVIDIA and HP, It Says "AI" 43 Times
As usual, The Register MS ought to be ashamed of itself for participating in it
The Slop Debt (Trillions of Dollars, Money That Does Not Exist) is Causing the Collapse of GAFAM et al
This slop hype will end up like "metaverse", except "metaverse" never ended up justifying trillions of dollars in "investment"
Simpler Means More Reliable
The simple old way of local storage and local backups is still the best
Clownflare and statCounter See GNU/Linux at ~8% in Norway
Norway has long championed GNU/Linux compared to the rest of Europe
Social Control Media is the Opposite of Information
That says a lot about social control media
Clacton manifesto: Reform UK hacking, leaks, raw sewage & 8GB Swiss Archive
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
statCounter Today: ChromeOS + GNU/Linux Measured at 10.98% Globally (Desktops and Laptops)
Clownflare does not quite refute this
The Register MS Has Just Published Fake Article About Replacing Linux With Proprietary Google System, "Sponsored by ASUS."
All of those things are proprietary GAFAMware
Links 12/08/2026: "X’s Advertising Business Continues to Tank", "Stop Feeding the Billionaires"
Links for the day
Lack of Empathy Rampant in the Sector
Sociopaths are sociopaths. They cannot help themselves
Before the "Big Tech" (That Almost Everybody is Forced to Use) Was Controlled by Men Who Hate Women
Such rejection and even hatred of women qualifies/enshrines oneself as an "incel"- a dangerous and violent online cult
In Defence of Hoarding CDs, More So When Digital Restrictions (DRM) Come to More 'Content' and Even Offline/Physical Media Won't Work When Some Remote Server Says "No" (or Goes Offline)
made to serve and entertain owners, not to allow companies like Sony and Microsoft subjugate owners
Clownflare: In Finland, Birthplace of Linux Kernel, GNU/Linux Now Bigger Than Apple's MacOS
It's not just in Finland where we see such trends
More Mass Layoffs Due to Monumental Debt Excused as "Investment" (in Slop)
They're maxing up the private debt and their country is already insolvent
METRO Interviews Daniel Pocock a Day Before Election
The article is behind a wall that blocks people who block ads
Enshittification More Than a Century Ago
Is enshittification more than a century old?
GNU in 1991 (35 Years Ago): Compiler and Lots More Ready, Linux Now Becoming 'Vibe Heap' (Slop Replaces Real Code)
Without curbs in place, many Linux developers will flee
Company-Wide 'Reorg' ('Redundancies') at IBM, Mark October 1st 2026 in the Calendar
Is Oct 1 the new Apr 1?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 147 Out of 200: The SLAPP Series is 'Slow' Because Timing Matters
It is important to stress that after this series is finished there will be many more series, with some of them showing raw evidence of what we've been illuminating and telling
Even ZDNet Accepts That "Market Share" of GNU/Linux May Have Doubled on Desktops and Laptops
GNU/Linux is definitely growing, and quite quickly in fact
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 11, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 11, 2026
Microsoft Layoffs and Shutdowns Continue This August, Morale Low, Employees Set Up Giant Inflatable Rat to Protest Against CEO
nothing demonstrates their anger better than what they did to the CEO
Gemini Links 12/08/2026: Sophomore Slump, Mandatory Phone Addiction, and Vintage Web Game Gallery
Links for the day