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Links 24/1/2010: KDE Looks at Server Side, Parrot 2.0.0 Released



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • A question asked - why I use Linux
    This is a long and drawn out answer. It isn't a simple question.

    I've been using computer systems for more than twenty years, from micros to mainframes, so I'm no beginner. I was in on Microsoft operating systems from DOS 3.2 and I dabbled with Linux for a number of years. It was only recently that I made the full switch.

    The drive towards Linux has been partly because of what Linux offers, but more because of what Microsoft doesn't, or rather how their company works. Apple are the same.


  • GNU/Linux: Replacing a Dead Router with a Linux System
    Enter an old Dell Dimension XPS R400 PC that has been gathering dust in the closet. It has an 80GB Western Digital IDE drive, a Startech 10/100 NIC and 192MB of RAM in it. I received this old PC from a client that bought a new, custom built system from my company in October 2007. He no longer needed the Dell and was just going to trash it. Instead I convinced him to let me wipe the drive, install Mandriva 2008 on it and try to sell it on eBay. It did not sell when I listed it. The client did not want it back, so I just stuck it in the IT junk closet with several other old systems and flaky monitors. I decided to make this old Dell PC into my “new” router. Since it already has Mandriva 2008 on it I figured I could use that to get routing going and then upgrade the Mandriva later.


  • The Web, the Desktop, and the Google between
    Amarok has plugins that directly consume content from popular web sites and displays them to you as you play music. For example it can look in Flickr for photos of your currently playing track’s artist and display them in a nice slide show to enhance the mood, or display a Wikipedia page about the artists, or look up the lyrics of the song, or even look up similar Youtube videos and offer to play them – inside Amarok. Think you need a web browser to browse Youtube? Amarok has changed that! And this is what it is about – enhancing the power of desktop applications by giving them the ability to consume from similar web services. The possibilities are endless. Fact is that we have come to rely on the browser for too many things, and if you really stopped to think about it it’s really rather senseless. When I’m listening to music, why do I need to open an extra browser window just to find lyrics or look up artist/album information? When I’m writing a document, why should I have an extra browser window to look for material? When I’m writing a program, why should I have an extra browser window open just to look up API references? The browser is today trying to do too much! This awkward work flow needs to change – we need to make our desktop programs more ‘web-sensitive’ and independent of the browser. (Remember the documentation widget I built into PlasMate?). At KDE we have already identified this as a critical path in the evolution of the desktop, and are already setting plans in motion to this end. We even have a cool codename for the movement – Project Silk.


  • BETT 2010 Review
    The stand received financial sponsorship from Red Hat, Linux IT, University of London Computing Centre and The Learning Machine (Ingots) for which everyone is very grateful. Canonical, the commercial entity behind Ubuntu very kindly provided us with 600 Ubuntu 9.10 CDs (500 Desktop and 100 Server) to give away (thanks Larry) and there were a similar number of CDs containing a great collection of Education-centric Open Source desktop applications for Windows from Free Software for Students that was compiled and produced by Peter Kemp and David Wilmut. That’s around 1200 CDs in total full of completely Free goodness and fun. We encouraged all the recipients to copy, share and pass them on too! At the end of the show we had only a few (quite literally) of each remaining.


  • LCA

    • Photo Essay: Geekdom descends on Wellington
      Wellington's Convention Center this week hosted 700 open source software engineers - i.e. geeks - for a festival of discussion of all things linux at Linux.Conf.Au the annual Australasian Linux conference. Carl Suurmond was dispatched to catch the atmosphere with his camera on the final day. Tomorrow the conference will open its doors to the public for an Open Day for all things linux from 11am to 2pm.


    • Open-source alive and thriving
      New York University anthropologist Gabriella Coleman says the open-source software movement has emerged relatively unscathed from the economic downturn.

      Ms Coleman was the opening keynote speaker at Linux.Conf.Au, a trans-Tasman conference held in Wellington last week that attracted more than 600 open-source software developers and enthusiasts.

      She took the plunge and immersed herself in the world of open source in 2001, perceiving it was a culture worthy of academic study.








  • Desktop

    • Simmtronics Ships SimmBook with IBM Client
      Simmtronics Semiconductors Ltd. has entered into a global agreement with IBM Corp. As per the agreement, IBM has authorized Simmtronics to preload its IBM Client for Smart Work software solution in the Simmbook on Ubuntu operating system. This includes Lotus Symphony office productivity software which is made available at no charge to Simmbook customers.


    • How Linux Differs from Windows
      Since churches and ministries are always looking for ways to save money, learning as much as you can about free computer software alternatives is a good idea. Operating systems like Windows Vista and Ubuntu Linux do pretty much the same things, but in different ways.

      Cost and licensing

      Linux operating systems are published under open source licenses that make the source code available to everyone. Microsoft products, including Windows Vista and XP, are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. As for cost, most Linux distributions are free and can be used on an unlimited number of computers. Windows operating systems are expensive, and legally each license can only be used on one computer.


    • FF3.6 on ubuntu is not a reason why GNU/Linux is not ready for the mass-market
      Second: Remember that the way software is installed/maintained in the GNU/Linux world is completely different from Windows'. In Windows, as the writer said, you grab the software from internet (hopefully form a reliable location.... but we know that's not always the case, is it?), click on it, maybe will have to restart your computer.... a couple times (why the hell installing Adobe Reader requires you to reboot Windows? Is Adobe Reader the equivalent for Windows of glibc or something?) and then finally you are done with the software. In GNU/Linux, at least in Ubuntu (and every other distro that prides itself of being such), you have to wait for the maintainers of Ubuntu to review software to make it available. That's right.... they do that job for you, the user. And it's not just firefox that they maintain... they take care of thousands (literally) pieces of software to make them fit together and not mess with each other when you installed them on your beloved Ubuntu-powered box. And that not only sounds like a dauntin task... it really is. And what would be the equivalent of that in the Windows world? It would be like waiting for Microsoft to review the software when it's made available by its developers (have you seen how long it takes Microsoft to work on their own bugs? How long would it take them if they had to review other people's software as well?) and make it available to you through the centralized software they provided Windows with so that their beloved customers don't have to go leaping from site to site to grab the latest piece of malware-infested piece of software... oh, but there's no such thing for Windows, is there? Such a shame, you know.


    • The GNU/Linux “Chicken Little” Syndrome
      I run Mandriva 2010 at the moment on my desktop system here at the ERACC Intergalactic Spaceport and Karaoke Bar, otherwise known as my home office. I have been running releases of Mandriva for several years now. At first I too wanted to always have the latest, cutting edge release of every package out there. After a while I came to understand that if Mandriva package maintainers saw that a patch was necessary for an application I run then they would patch the version in the distribution and release the patched version in the update repository. If there were a new version of a software application that had security implications for a desktop user, then after testing the new version it would be included as an update for the life of that desktop release, usually 12 to 18 months. Long term desktop releases would get these updates if needed for their lifetime as well, usually 3 years. Then the next time I install updates I get the patched or new version.


    • Buying a Linux Laptop ...
      I was really having fun! At one site, I found a laptop with Windows 7 installed, but also with a selection to have none and an instant price-reduction when the “No OS” choice was made. That felt good!

      I finally found a computer which met all my needs; weight, size, quality of hardware and Ubuntu installed (one of many choices) at LinuxCertified.

      I hope others will join me in buying your next computer this way. You will find competitive prices and the satisfaction of not paying the Windows tax.








  • Server

    • IBM's Panasonic win points the way for enterprise collaboration services
      Panasonic has signed a deal with IBM to migrate its global workforce from Microsoft Exchange to IBM's hosted LotusLive service. IBM will initially migrate 100,000 employees to LotusLive iNotes, increasing to 300,000 over time. This is one of the largest commitments to cloud services by a global enterprise to date, and is a feather in the cap for IBM in its struggle with Microsoft for email and collaboration seats. However, in our opinion this is as much about delivering commodity services from the cloud as it is about IBM's win over Microsoft.


    • Lotus wins client from Microsoft
      Even though it recently landed a giant software deal with Japanese electronics firm Panasonic Corp., IBM Corp.’s Lotus unit, based in Westford, is still playing catch-up against archival Microsoft Corp.


    • Panasonic Dumps Microsoft, Goes With IBM








  • Applications







  • K Desktop Environment (KDE SC)

    • Anatomy of a developer sprint
      Two weeks ago I was at the annual KDE PIM meeting at Osnabrück. It was the eighth time that this meeting took place, and it was a blast, once again. This is amazing, so I'm taking the opportunity to reflect a bit on what makes this meeting so successful, how it evolved over time, and what we all can learn for running great developer sprints.


    • KDE Gears Up to a Free Cloud
      Day 2 of Camp KDE kicked off with a bang when Frank Karlitschek announced the start of a significant new KDE project. The ownCloud initiative will complement the Social Desktop and Get Hot New Stuff efforts which are already dealing with social and collaborative data. Like those, the ownCloud initiative strives to combine the rich desktop interfaces made possible by the Qt and KDE libraries with the large amount of social information and data users are putting online.








  • Distributions

    • 10 scripts to create your own Linux distribution
      Those familiar with Linux will be able to tweak settings, add and remove apps and customise the menu, toolbars and other desktop elements.

      Incredibly, those are about all the skills you need to create your very own Linux distro.

      We're going to take a look at some scripts that'll help you customise different distros.


    • Slackware 13 Revisit
      In my Slackware 13 review mfillpot gave some suggestions to improve the Slackware experience and I thought I would give them a shot. First off, changing the init level to 4 to allow KDM to show up instead of this startx business. I was happy to note that Slackware had emacs. So many distros have vi and I never really learned how to use it well. So I changed the value to 4 and restarted.


    • Making the Switch to Arch Linux
      Overall, I am really happy with Arch, although to be fair, I haven’t been using it for more than a day yet. However, the documentation is great and the installation was relatively quick and painless, so I am pretty pleased at this point. I look forward to getting more comfortable with it and switching my other machines as well.




    • New Releases

      • 2009-09-08: CRUX 2.6 released
        CRUX 2.6 has been released. Please check out the ChangeLog, the Release Notes and the Handbook. For download links, head this way.


      • 18Jan2010 DigAnTel Version 2.0 has been released.
        DigAnTel-2 is a FREE Digital / Analog VOIP Telephone system utilizing CentOS Linux (RedHat), Asterisk 1.4.22, FreePBX 2.6.0 with VoicePulse module, Openfire, vtigerCRM with click to dial, PostFix, OpenVPN, and automated Polycom Phone suppot. DigAnTel is the glue to bind these technologies thus creating a unified telephony system for your home or small business. The installation is completely automated and doesn't require a working knowledge of Linux or Asterisk.


      • FreeNAS 0.7.1


      • Greenie Linux 6.1K








    • Debian Family

      • A Windows XP-ish Debian at 120Mhz
        The novelty in this is not in the desktop arrangement; I’ve been slowly tweaking and adjusting this setup for the better part of a year. In fact the fun part of this is that I’ve never been able to arrange it on this machine, even though I wanted to for quite a while.


      • Rounding out a terminal-based Debian system
        Test runs at 120Mhz suggest this is a clean and brisk way to browse without overburdening the machine to a point of unusability. Firefox with Flash it is not, but if you are an unbeliever and demand a graphical browser on a Pentium Pro, this will satisfy. Furthermore, adding fbi to your system brings along fbgs, which allows you to display images and pdf files, respectively. For the reverse, try fbgrab and share your desktops with the world.


      • Ubuntu's Latest Alpha: 15-Second Boot Time
        Now that Alpha 2 of Lucid Lynx is available (it was posted late last week) it's easy enough to install that code onto the same PC test bed and measure the results. This version of the Ubuntu 10.04 beta booted up in -- wait for it -- 15 seconds. If you were around during the days of Windows 3.1, the concept of a 15-second boot time would be almost unfathomable. Come to think of it, it would be tough to imagine during the days of Windows Vista.


      • Sidux 2009-4 success: A little help from Ubuntu Lucid Alpha 2 goes a long way
        I'll get to Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 LTS Alpha 2 later, but the "safe graphics mode" boot option in that very Ubuntu live DVD helped me figure out how to get Sidux 2009-04 to boot on my Intel 82830 CGC (aka Intel 830m) graphics-running Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101.

        Over the course of two computing sessions I experienced both the Alpha 2 of the upcoming Ubuntu LTS release as well as the Sidux take on Debian Sid, circa early last year, both of which I've wanted to do in order to "plan" this laptop's future when I decide to leave Debian Lenny behind.


      • Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 Alpha 2: First impressions on 'difficult' hardware
        Ubuntu Lucid isn't even in the beta stage, let alone a release-candidate or fully baked release, and on my hardware it's looking very, very good. I'm no fan of free-software hyperbole, but Ubuntu Lucid really does look like the best Ubuntu LTS release ever, and I'm anxious to see it at release time in April.


      • Announcing Ubuntu User Day - January 23, 2010
        The Ubuntu User Days Team would like to announce the first Ubuntu User Day, on January 23, 2010. This will be a very informative one day session geared towards beginner and intermediate Ubuntu users, as well as people who are interested in using Ubuntu. We have 14 classes covering topics ranging from installing Ubuntu, finding help, equivalent programs, using IRC, getting involved in the Ubuntu Community and more. We have enlisted the help of many talented people to lead these classes throughout the day.


      • Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 177
        Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #177 for the week January 17th - January 23th, 2010. In this issue we cover: Developer Membership Board election results, Ubuntu User Days A Big Success, Bugs and hugs, Ubuntu Developer Week: January 25th – January 29th, 2010, Canonical Blog: ISV support for Ubuntu Server Edition widens, January 20th America's Membership Review Board Meeting, Ubuntu LoCo Re-Approval Process, LoCo Stories: the Ubuntu Honduras School Tour, Launchpad 10.1 roll-out 09.00-11.30 27th January 2010, Anonymous Access to the Launchpad Web Service API, Introducing Ubuntu Electronics Remix 9.10, and much, much more!


      • Interview With Ubuntu Manual Project Leader
        The Ubuntu Manual Project has stirred up veritable carnival of publicity over the last few months, signifying a huge appetite for such a document within the community.

        I decided to find out more on the project and its origins by interviewing the manual project leader (dare i say creator?) Benjamin Humphrey – also known as HumphreyBC.


      • Infinitely Virtual Offers Ubuntu 9.10 with All Virtual Dedicated Server Products
        Ubuntu 9.10 also offers its Server Edition, which provides the performance and security of Linux for the enterprise servers. Ubuntu Server Edition easily integrates with a user’s existing networks while providing a low total cost of ownership. The Server Edition goes further to offer multiple life cycle scenarios for users to choose from, and is supported by free life maintenance.



      • Infinitely Virtual Releases Ubuntu 9.10


      • GroundWork Monitor Enterprise 6.1 adds Ubuntu support
        Version 6.1 of the system and network monitoring suite GroundWork Monitor Enterprise is now available. For this release the development team focused on improving performance and have also added support for Ubuntu Server to the monitoring solution. GroundWork Monitor Enterprise supports both Ubuntu 8.04 LTS and the latest Ubuntu 9.10 release.


      • New flavours of Ubuntu being developed in Ireland
        Recently I popped down to the BT Young Scientist Exhibition here in Dublin. This is for secondary school students/ High school junior students in Ireland. It’s pretty amazing to see the enthusiasm they show for science and technology at an early age.

        The process starts months ago, students submit a one page proposal on a topic, if it’s accepted they research and come up with the results, prototype or something to show from it all. It also gives Industries who are based over here to come and show case their projects and encourage students into those areas. IBM, Google, Analog Devices to name a few all took part and all have offices here in Ireland.


      • ÜberStudent - Ubuntu version for Students and Researchers
        ÜberStudent is a free, Ubuntu-based operating system for higher education and emerging-generation high school students, those who wish to learn to excel at the tasks and habits of top students and researchers, and anyone who can benefit from easy-to-use yet powerful computing. Like Ubuntu, ÜberStudent is a complete operating system with programs for everyday computing tasks, but comes with an additional core of expertly configured programs, and many user-friendly extras, designed to increase your academic success. It’s Software Explorer enables you to easily extend ÜberStudent still further for specific academic disciplines, and it doesn’t stop there. Music and movie lovers, gamers, budding graphic designers, and those who insist on an ascetically eye-popping user interface will also be very pleased.


      • ÜberStudent












  • Devices/Embedded

    • iStorage DiskGenie secure portable hard drive
      The drive comes pre-formatted with the NTFS file system but you can change that according to your Mac or Linux needs.




    • Phones

      • Sony's First Linux Phone!
        Linux is gaining popularity in the mobile phone industry, thanks to Android. Sony Ericsson has also joined the Gnu-Linux club and announced the launch of their first Android-powered phone -- The Xperia X10.

        The Xperia X10 phone, named SO-01B, will be launched in Japan in April 2010 with NTT DOCOMO. This Xperia phone creates a unique Sony Ericsson user experience by combining best-in-class entertainment features with signature applications.




      • Android

        • It's Android or Apple: who needs other handset vendors?
          The runaway success of Apple's iPhone and of Google's Android OS tells a story that handset vendors don't really want to hear.


        • Google Chrome OS to Have Media Player to Challenge Microsoft
          The lead engineer for Google's Chrome Operating System told Ars Technica the emerging product and its Chrome Web browser sidekick will have a complete media player that approximates the functionality of Windows Media Player. Chrome OS boots up a netbook in a fraction of the time it takes to start today's existing computers. With Google's Chrome Web browser, Chrome OS loads Web applications in just a few more seconds.


        • Latest AdMob Report Shows Android Drinking Microsoft’s Milkshake
          The latest AdMob metrics report is out today and it's nothing we haven't seen yet. To sum it up quickly, Android continues to grow both here in the US and abroad. In the span of one year Android traffic (in the AdMob network) has grown from 1% overall to 16% for North America and Western Europe.

          [...]

          This time last year year, Windows Mobile accounted for 12% whereas now it sits at 3% right next "other." Ouch.


        • Google Nexus One gets multi-touch thanks to hacker
          Google has just dropped Android software 2.1 (which the Nexus runs on) into the open source trough, making it rife for hacking and modding. This is the first, and is described as a simple job. Chris Paget of H4RDW4RE, describes the tweak as "very much low-level Linux kernel hacking as opposed to a full on ROM.”












    • Sub-notebooks

      • ARM processors to overtake Intel in mobile devices by 2013?
        I’ve seen many similar reports that talk of Linux overtaking Windows for UMDs in a broadly similar timeframe. One thing’s for sure smartbooks and the like are here to stay.


      • ARM Seen as a Threat to Intel on the Mobile Front
        Despite the current developments and the latest advancements in x86 chips power efficiency, analysts seem to think that, even though Intel currently controls the netbook market with its new Atom chips, this dominance may be short lived. ABI Research suggests that the ARM architecture may make a strong incursion into this segment, likely taking away most of the mobile market share from Intel's units.












Free Software/Open Source

  • Eucalyptus Downloads On The Rise
    Open source Eucalyptus Enterprise Server includes APIs that mimic the proprietary functionality of Amazon's EC2.


  • Valdes and Astronaut putting VA VistA in the cloud
    A company launched by the founder of Linux Medical News is making the VA VistA software available in the cloud for the first time.


  • Magic Lantern firmware makes Canon EOS 5D Mark II the camera Canon should have released
    More awesomely, at 08:11 in the video (and here on the Wiki) Trammell tells us that his software is "free-as-in-speech GPL".


  • Regional council adopts open source
    Horizons Regional Council will take open-source software for a spin on its desktop computers early this year under a push to bring free software to public sector PCs.

    New Zealand Open Source Society president Don Christie says NZ Post and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet will also trial the software as part of the Public Sector Remix project.

    Fourteen government agencies have signed up for the project, and as of Wednesday 32 firms had responded to a survey seeking to identify the number and capability of New Zealand companies providing and supporting open-source software.




  • Nouveau







  • GIMP

    • Multi-column dock windows and [GIMP] 2.8 schedule
      The code refactorings and clean ups that have been made to enable single-window mode to be implemented has also resulted in improvements to multi-window mode. The most significant is the support for multi-column dock windows, as you can see used in the screenshot above. People having dockables on one screen and an image in full screen on another will probably find this useful, for example. Before this, you could only have one column of dockables inside a dock window.


    • Single Window GIMP Coming 27th December 2010
      We've discussed the singlewindow GIMP before - even telling you how to install it! Now GIMP developer Martin Nordholt has revealed that the 'target' release date for version 2.8 (AKA 'Single Window GIMP) is December the 27th 2010.






  • FSF/FSFE/GNU

    • FSF goes global with anti-Windows campaign
      The campaign, called Windows 7 Sins, argues proprietary software, particularly Microsoft’s, erodes internet users’ freedom..

      The organisation said today it would issue press releases about the Windows 7 Sins campaign in eight languages, with several more on the way.






  • Releases

    • Parrot 2.0.0 Released!
      On behalf of the Parrot team, I'm proud to announce Parrot 2.0.0 "Inevitable." Parrot is a virtual machine aimed at running all dynamic languages.


    • GNU SIP Witch 0.6.0 released


    • icecat 3.6
      I have uploaded a pre-release version of IceCat 3.6, if there will not be major problems, at the beginning of next week I'll make an official release. Please report on this mailing list any problem you may encounter.








  • Licensing

    • Control versus community
      However, permissive licences don’t ensure the ongoing freedom advocated by Richard Stallman, which underpins the FOSS philosophy. Significantly, though, Stallman is himself beginning to accept that they are sometimes necessary, as evidenced in a recent article in which he admits to having mixed feelings on selling licence exceptions. Could this shift in Stallman’s thinking be evidence of a fundamental change in the broader licensing landscape?








  • Openness

    • Government posting wealth of data to Internet
      The Obama administration on Friday is posting to the Internet a wealth of government data from all Cabinet-level departments, on topics ranging from child car seats to Medicare services.

      The mountain of newly available information comes a year and a day after President Barack Obama promised on his first full day on the job an open, transparent government.








  • Programming

    • Writing great scripts with Python
      When you combine the two, you elevate the art of literal misinterpretation to a higher form of genius. In Dr. Pun's latest article, you will learn all about writing scripts using Python, just not the Python you may expect. The calembour or the equivoque is so potent here, that essentially a bad idea becomes fantastic. Follow me.


    • How to benchmark a C++ code








  • Standards/Consortia

    • HTML5 video and codecs
      Recently, Vimeo and YouTube announced that they were moving to support the HTML5 video tag, as DailyMotion did last summer. This is an important step in making video a first-class citizen of the modern web, and that is great news. Unlike DailyMotion, however, Vimeo and YouTube chose to rely on the patented H.264 video encoding, rather than an unencumbered encoding like Ogg Theora. This means that the <video> pages on those sites will not work with Firefox.


    • Better video quality with html 5
      The proprietary flash player has left alot to be desired for Linux and Apple users. Especially if you are running with accelerated 3d and with compiz fusion. Finally it is possible to watch youtube videos in html 5 format instead of the flash player. And I have found an easy way to take advantage of this new feature. This experience for me at least has been so much better. No more low quality jerky video, but instead with html 5 the video can be viewed in high definition and still be smooth.








Leftovers



  • Security







  • Finance

    • Switzerland court rules UBS may not disclose US taxpayer's financial information
      The Swiss Federal Administrative Court [official website, in French] ruled [judgment, PDF, in German; press release, PDF, in French] Thursday that an American taxpayer's financial information at Swiss bank UBS [corporate website] may not be disclosed to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) [official website] pursuant to an August 2009 agreement [text, PDF; JURIST report]. The court ruled in favor of an undisclosed American taxpayer, who appealed a November decision by the Swiss Federal Tax Administration (AFC) [official website, in French] that would have allowed the disclosure.


    • Scandal: Albert Edwards Alleges Central Banks Were Complicit In Robbing The Middle Classes
      We present Albert Edwards' latest in its complete form as it must be read by all unabridged and without commentary. These are not the deranged ramblings of a fringe blogger - this is a chief strategist for a major international bank.








  • PR/AstroTurf

    • SCOTUS: No Means No
      As Peter Wallison argues in his great book on party finance, the real evil of American politics is that politicians must beg interest groups for the money to finance their campaigns. What we need is not “less money” and CERTAINLY not less speech – but more distance between donor and recipient. The mechanism for that is the political party. Reformers should be focusing on lifting limits on the flow of money from parties to candidates and restoring the role of the parties as the funders of campaigns. Instead of Candidate Smith asking Donor Gonzalez for money – and Donor Gonzalez asking for a favor in return – party chairman Robinson will ask thousands of donors for money on behalf of a slate of candidates, who will never know precisely whose gift was directed to them. That step will diminish corruption and the appearance of corruption.


    • Obama blasts Supreme Court on campaign finance
      President Barack Obama took a populist tone Saturday, denouncing the Supreme Court's decision to ease curbs on big business spending on election campaigns.

      Battered by a stunning Republican win this week in the liberal bastion of Massachusetts that robbed Democrats of their 60-seat supermajority, Obama defended his political agenda and vowed to continue fighting against "the special interests in Washington".

      "In my first year in office, we pushed back on that power by implementing historic reforms to get rid of the influence of those special interests," the president said in his weekly audio and video address.


    • Olbermann: U.S. Government For Sale
      In a Special Comment, Countdown’s Keith Olbermann envisions a future United States in which today's Supreme Court ruling permitting unbridled corporate campaign spending purchase all the power greed can afford.








  • Censorship/Civil Rights

    • Judge bans media from woman's trial in Henry County
      "I think the defendant's rights to a fair trial trump the First Amendment," he said.


    • Supreme Court says jury selection should be in public
      The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that the constitutional right to a public trial in criminal cases means that jury selection, including questioning of prospective jurors, should not be done behind closed doors.


    • Google Welcomes Clinton’s Call for Uncensored Web (Update3)
      Google Inc., clashing with the Chinese government over Web censorship, praised U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for calling for an unrestricted Internet where people can operate without fear of repression.

      “At Google we are great believers in the value to society of unfettered access to information,” the company said in a statement today. Google said it will work with governments, human-rights organizations and bloggers to promote free expression and increased access to information.


    • Russian Whistleblower Cop Arrested
      Remember the Russian cop's YouTube narrative on police corruption? Reader Max_W writes with the news that Alexei Dymovsky, the cop whose videos started a movement, was arrested (Google translation; Russian original) on January 22, 2010. He is in prison in the south of Russia. Max_W adds: "It seems only a president is allowed to have a video blog in Russia."


    • PayPal Freezes the Assets of Wikileaks.org
      "Paypal has as of 23rd of January 2010 frozen WikiLeaks assets. This is the second time that this happens. The last time we struggled for more than half a year to resolve this issue. By working with the respected and recognized German foundation Wau Holland Stiftung we tried to avoid this from happening again — apparently without avail."


    • Another Privacy Concern
      Suffice to say that it, 'clixpy', records everything I do when online to the text portal, key strokes, mouse movements, selections made etc., as shown by a live demo on clixpy.com, if I use a web browser. So it appears to be very intrusive and I'm extremely concerned for my privacy.

      What is the reason for 'clixby's presence? Is it a consequence of new UK laws or EU regulations, or is it something else. WHATEVER, I *DON'T* LIKE IT! Makes me think of PHORM.


    • Russian journalist dies after beating in police custody
      Russia's police force was today at the centre of another national scandal after a journalist beaten in custody died in hospital from his injuries.

      Konstantin Popov, 47, was arrested two weeks ago in his home town of Tomsk, Siberia, after neighbours complained that he was drunk and playing his guitar too loudly.








  • Internet/Web Abuse/DRM

    • BBC given go-ahead for Freeview HD copy-protection
      The BBC has been granted provisional approval for the BBC to introduce copy protection for content on the Freeview HD platform.

      With Freeview HD closing in on a commercial launch, focus has continued on what level of copy protection should be put in.




  • Intellectual Monopolies/Copyrights

    • ACTA: The new era of transparency
      How is that possible? It cannot be found out because the mandate is not made public. Magic, it reminds me of the charlatans who say they live without food and water supply, and it is their personal secret what makes them survive.


    • Obama Supports $675K File Sharing Verdict
      The Obama administration is backing $675,000 in damages a Massachusetts student must pay the Recording Industry Association of America for file sharing 30 songs.








Clip of the Day



Monsanto's Toxic Milk - Banned in Europe



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SLAPP Censorship - Part 68 Out of 200: Based on Their Particulars of Claims, Microsoft's Graveley and Garrett Seem Like the Same Person (Exactly Same Words Used, Sloppily Recycled)
almost identical (even a description of who they are and how they feel)
The Operating Systems statCounter Cannot Identify or Classify
Is it possible that statCounter just cannot properly decipher and classify systems brought by and controlled by eastern Asia as opposed to Europe and North America?
IBM Allegedly Used Apptio to Target and Sack (RA) Productive or 'Expensive' Employees, Are Apptio Staff Now Subjected to Layoffs?
Apptio is one of several companies that IBM buys only to sink together with the IBM boat, RMS Watson
Gemini Links 06/05/2026: "Who Knows That You Blog?" and New Official Antenna by Michael Nordmeyer
Links for the day
Links 06/05/2026: Apple Accepts That It Misled People on Slop and Begins Blocking Software/Games Made With Slop
Links for the day
Codecs and Software Patents - Part II - AV1 and HEVC Not Really Safe
We are, in effect, looking at a sort of cartel (like the one which came out of Germany with MP3)
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XIV - Antisemitism Inside the EPO
A sensitive topic for the European Patent Office (EPO)
Gemini Links 06/05/2026: Childhood Memories, Intense People, and Natural Web Exploration
Links for the day
Links 06/05/2026: Narges Mohammadi in Critical Condition and Copyright Infringement Rampant in Reddit
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 05, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 05, 2026
Ubuntu is Run by "N00bs" (and It Shows)
GNU/Linux users are not a small niche anymore
Gemini Links 05/05/2026: Bad Health, Pomera DM250 On Linux, and Children Using DO
Links for the day
Reading Closely What Microsoft Put in the Report, Expect Many More Layoffs Later This Year
The only thing that they grow rapidly is their debt
IBM is Collapsing, the People Responsible for the Collapse Aren't the Victims
IBM management has plenty of things to distract from right now
Media: Let's Repeat the Lie About Mass Layoffs Being a Win for a Buzzword
This says so much about the state of today's media
Links 05/05/2026: Live Nation Problems, Growing Tensions in the Gulf Again (Energy Crisis)
Links for the day
Gartner Pays The Register MS and the Effect is Visible (IBM Promotion; IBM Also a Sponsor, of Both!)
Follow the money
The Register MS Published Fake Article That Mentioned "AI" Almost a Dozen Times. It Got Paid to Do This.
If you keep seeing the term "AI" quite a lot in the media, be sure to check who pays for it
Links 05/05/2026: Germany, Depression, and Control of Online Discourse in Geminispace
Links for the day
Links 05/05/2026: "Republicans Made Children More Expensive" and "Internet Blackouts" Cripple Economies
Links for the day
Microsoft Lunduke Has a Serious Problem: He's Fronting for Sites That Insist on Exposing Children to Pornography
He's even contradicting himself a lot
What "Age Verification" Laws Are About
We know based on experience (even predating the Web) that kids will find workarounds, so such restrictions are difficult to enforce
Unsustainable 'Tech' (Debt) Giants Rely on US Taxpayers for Bailouts and Subsidies
In the past 6 months Oracle and Amazon alone borrowed over 100 billion dollars
Future-Proofing Techrights
2 days from now this site turns exactly 19.5 (years)
Microsoft is Waning Like IBM
There will be lots of "ex Softies" or "former Microsofters" out there
Chatbots Are Not Replacing Web Search, But They Contaminate Results
People still value pages written and curated by humans; they use search engines to find these
SLAPP Censorship - Part 67 Out of 200: Graveley and Garrett Claims Against My Wife and I Assert 'Distress', But It Was Just a Copy-Pasted Template (Mechanical Crocodile Tears)
Can barristers charge 10,000-15,000 US dollars (about $1,000-1,500 per page!) to do such shoddy, sloppy work?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 04, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, May 04, 2026
Links 05/05/2026: Energy Crises, Data Breaches, and Journalists Murdered
Links for the day
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XIII - Health and Safety With Cocaine
That they are trying to approach us (the President's own family) is a sign of weakness
Codecs and Software Patents - Part I - The 2026 Status Quo
It's frustrating to see how little (almost none) media coverage exists for these sorts of matters
Gemini Links 05/05/2026: ASCII Chessboard Without HTML and Ongoing Antenna Migration
Links for the day
Links 04/05/2026: Economics of Slop Discredited, Democrat and Republican Voters Want Cuts to Data Centres
Links for the day
IBM's "FutureNow" is the Rebranding of the Client Innovation Center (CIC), for Lobbying Purposes by IBM While Halving People's Salaries
So says a new comment
Libera.​Chat Openly and Publicly Admits It Has an LLM Slop Problem (Chatbots in Its Channels)
If there's a policy that bans chatbots (not humans), there's even a moral imperative for it
Microsoft: Yes, We Are Losing Windows Users and Yes, We Have Problems With Payroll (So We Lay Off Essential Workers)
From what we can gather, "hey hi" is now the name of everything at Microsoft
Ubuntu.com While Ubuntu.com is Under DDoS Attack and Intermittently Offline Due to Windows Botnets: Don't Use Ubuntu, Use Windows Instead
Unbelievable, as this is their advice when Windows zombies hammer away at their Web site and general infrastructure
Links 04/05/2026: "DNC Covering Up Its 2024 Autopsy" and Rudy Giuliani in Critical Condition
Links for the day
Linux Kernel Tainted by Software Patents That Make Linux Worse and the 'Linux' Foundation is Compiling Bribes to Enable This (Promotion of Monopolies and Tolerance of Software Patenting)
Why you need to reboot when a serious bug is found in Linux? "Licencing"...
ChromeOS and GNU/Linux Exceed 5% in New Zealand
Can we expect New Zealand and Australia to divest from GAFAM?
Links 04/05/2026: Energy Shortages Become More Visible, Germans Reject Military Service, Merz Says US 'Humiliated' Over Iran
Links for the day
KDE's Cornelius Schumacher Explains Why You Should be Slop-Free
Output is not measured by quantity of words
The Real News is Botnets (e.g. Windows With Back Doors), Not Iran
Let's focus on the botnets [...] Microsoft's aim is the opposite of security
SLAPP Censorship - Part 66 Out of 200: Alex Graveley Did Illegal Things, Then Asserted Mentioning Those Illegal Things is Privacy Violation
Alex Graveley "has suffered damage and distress" when the public found out he told women to kill themselves
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XII - Outsourcing Everything to Microsoft, Which is Illegal
Today's EPO isn't about technology or law
Melissa Chan on Why Press Freedom Matters to Everyone, Not Just Journalists
dispelling a myth
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 03, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, May 03, 2026
Gemini Links 04/05/2026: Another Old Web Pillar Gone and Simple Lobsters Mirror for Gemini
Links for the day