Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 18/6/2010: WordPress 3.0, OLPC for 90,000 in Uruguay



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



  • Desktop

    • All hail the easy to use!
      This is why I like SimplyMepis. I like Linux Mint. I like PCLOS. I like Sabayon. I like Pardus.

      Oh, I still like Slackware, Debian, and Gentoo too, for nostalgic reasons, but when it comes to choosing a desktop these days, I pick from the first list.

      I know why the bigger commercial distros can't include all that stuff and why some others don't. But this is why we hope these smaller projects never give up and go home. They make life easier and these days, we can all use that.


    • Linux Desktop Stigma Draws Ire and Fire
      Stand up and be proud of what you've done for Linux. Yes, you'll draw your share of ire and fire but isn't every great fight worth it for the freedom it brings to everyone?








  • Applications

    • Scenari – A powerful application to create and publish documents
      This application is most probably going to be of interest to people working in the education field, as I am, but not only.

      I discovered scenari when one of the developers came for a 3 days workshop at my university. I create resources and teach online and have been so far doing very poorly regarding online multimedia documents. Mainly out of ignorance and poor taste for multimedia techy stuff, I have given .pdf online and that was about it..


    • Serve Up Your Music with Zeya
      Have you always wanted to set up your own music station to stream your latest music collection to your friends or colleagues? Have you been thinking lately of setting up an always-on music streaming server so that you can just open up your web browser and listen to your favorite tracks? A music server is great in a dormitory, laboratory or office where the file server can double up as the music server! I will show you how using Zeya.


    • Bringing improved PDF support to Google Chrome
      Millions of web users rely on PDF files every day to consume a wide variety of text and media content. To enable this, a number of plug-ins exist today which allow users to open PDF files inside their browsers.


    • Disk Backup With Amanda On Debian Lenny








  • Games

    • Heroes of Newerth - Charge!
      Linux games are many and varied. You can find pretty much anything you need, from simple arcades via racing all the way to expansive and elaborate tactical shooters. Still, one aspect of the Linux gaming scene is underplayed, this being the Real Time Strategy (RTS). For whatever reason, there's a lack of great strategy games for Linux. You will find some, but not as many as you would hope for.






  • Distributions

    • Pay what you want for Kiddix OS
      From Microsoft Bob to Edubuntu there have been a number of attempts at making computers of various sorts easier and more useful for young people. Another participant in this space is Kiddix, “a complete operating system and software environment for children, built from the ground up with your family’s needs and safety in mind.” Kiddix is built upon Linux, and aims to present things in a very “kid friendly” way. Through the end of June, Kiddix is running a “Pay What You Want” promotion, allowing you to pay any amount to buy their OS.




    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat @ Year Highs
        Shares of Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT) booked a new 52 week high today by trading above $32.34, traders are definitely monitoring Red Hat's price action to see if this move attracts further buying into the stock.


      • New Highs for Shares of Red Hat, Deckers, and Alaska Air (DECK, ALK, RHT)


      • Red Hat Announces Finalists in Fourth Annual Innovation Awards
        The Red Hat and JBoss Innovation Awards finalists are recognized in four separate categories. In addition, a fifth category recognizes a finalist that is deploying a combined solution from Red Hat's platform and middleware portfolios. Each Red Hat Innovation Awards category winner will be provided with complimentary admission to the 2010 Red Hat Summit and JBoss World, where they will be recognized at an awards ceremony in a general session for both Red Hat Summit and JBoss World attendees.








    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Canonical's (Possibly) Excellent Adventure
        Is Canonical taking on Red Hat with its new commercial support service? Canonical's move "is not as much a competition as an expansion into a growing market," Pogson opined. "GNU/Linux has taken about all it can from Unix operating systems; now it is time to kick M$ out of servers."










  • Devices/Embedded

    • OLPC's New XO for 90,000 Teens in Uruguay
      OLPC has just been awarded an order from Plan Ceibal for 90,000 XO's for teenagers in Uruguay. Yes, there will be a new XO specially for teenagers. Uruguay already has 380,000 of the original XOs for younger children, and now the kids can graduate to one designed for them as they mature.

      It's to be a dual boot laptop. Note not triple boot. No Microsoft in this picture at all. GNOME has leaped into the pool to help out. The press release says, "It will feature the learning-focused Sugar user interface together with the Gnome Desktop Environment to provide a dual-boot Linux operating system with office productivity tools." I wish I were a teenager in Uruguay so I could have one. If they do the partner program, I'm in.






Free Software/Open Source

  • About software forges
    I had the opportunity to talk a little bit with Dirk Riehle at LinuxTag about business models, collaboration and infrastructures, and one of the arguments was about software forges, like SourceForge or GForge. I would like to provide a little bit of overview of our discussion, along with my reasoning about the future of such forges.




  • CMS

    • WordPress 3.0 “Thelonious”
      Arm your vuvuzelas: WordPress 3.0, the thirteenth major release of WordPress and the culmination of half a year of work by 218 contributors, is now available for download (or upgrade within your dashboard). Major new features in this release include a sexy new default theme called Twenty Ten.


    • Clickability FUD on Open Source versus SaaS
      Clickability, a proprietary SaaS platform for content management, has compared SaaS to Open Source. Not only is the comparison inaccurate, it omits the downsides of SaaS and frankly, they are comparing apples to oranges. Open Source is a licensing and development model, SaaS is a software delivery model. Either they are distorting things on purpose, or they don't understand Open Source at all. In other words, time to look at some good ol' FUD and to share my take on Open Source versus SaaS.








  • Healthcare

    • From Apache to Health and Human Services
      Brian Behlendorf, one of the founders of the Apache web server project and the CollabNet cooperative software development company, is contracting now with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on the CONNECT software project. CONNECT helps hospitals and agencies exchange medical data, which gives doctors critical information to improve patient care.






  • Business

    • Open Source: The capitalists' choice
      After all, giving away your "intellectual property" for the greater good may be a nice theory in some ideal world, but it rather flies in the face of capitalism, doesn't it?

      Rubbish! In fact, I'd argue that Open Source is actually more true to capitalist principles than traditional proprietary software practices. It all comes down to the principle of efficient markets.

      Proprietary software is akin to the privatisation of the railways. It pays lip-service to the perceived efficiency benefits but if you look at it closely, you realise that the fundamental motivation of competition is absent.








  • Openness/Sharing







  • Open Data

    • The UK’s public data tsunami gathers speed
      When the British Government said at the beginning of May that they would be releasing a ‘tsunami of public data’ you had to wonder whether reality would match up to the rhetoric. Oh ye of little faith... A fortnight ago, the Government released hundreds of new datasets - including a full list of Government expenditure - and this week, Transport for London announced that they too would be releasing lots of their transport data for free to the public.


    • Victory on FDA Data
      Back in February, we were encouraging participation in the Open Government Directive conversations happening at federal agencies, since they were busy creating their open government plans, and in a uniquely responsive position.

      Sunlight’s Nancy Watzman, submitted a request for the Department of Health and Human Services, calling on them to release a database on drugs, medical devices, and food recalls by manufacturers. Nancy has been writing extensively on HHS and FDA data issues, including our award-winning investigation, Heart of the Matter.


    • Consuming the Transport for London Data
      The following guest post is from Julian Todd, who works on projects such as Public Whip, UNdemocracy, and ScraperWiki. He is also a member of the Open Knowledge Foundation’s Working Group on Open Government Data.. The post was originally published on Julian’s blog, Freesteel.

      Yesterday Transport for London made a data dump of various locations and links to their traffic cameras, station locations, and so on.








  • Inhibiting Open Access

    • The EU proposal for increasing access?
      The aim is to restrict the conditions that would permit to increase the number and the range of accessible format works available. The Joint recommendation is about when "there is no appropriate commercial product on offer." If a book exist in an audio format but not in a indexable format or searchable format, is it "on offer" to people with disabilities?


    • Accountability and Transparency at ICANN? Not looking good
      I’ve been keeping schtum about the Accountability and Transparency Review Team (ATRT) for a while for three reasons:

      1. I submitted a proposal along with a team of professional evaluators to be the review’s “independent expert” 2. I know nearly all the members of the team and I respect them all 3. They’re working to a tight timetable so you have to give some benefit of doubt








Leftovers



  • Science



  • Security/Aggression





  • Environment

    • EU deal signals ban on illegal timber
      The compromise between the European Parliament, the Spanish EU Presidency and the European Commission is a step towards ensuring that illegally harvested timber and wood products cannot be sold on the EU market.

      It is estimated that 20-40% of global industrial wood production comes from illegal sources, with up to 20% ending up on the EU market.


    • What happens when energy resources deplete?
      One view is that energy prices will rise, substitutes will be found, and prices will come back down again, perhaps settling at a somewhat higher equilibrium reflecting the cost of producing the substitute energy source. The economy will continue to function pretty much as before. The catch is that we aren't finding reasonably-priced, scalable substitutes, so this isn't happening. Oil prices are down, but not because of substitutes.


    • The oceans look delicious now.


    • Conservatives to Obama: Leave BP alone!
      Joe Barton says it is "a tragedy of the first proportion" that BP agreed to Obama's request to set up a $20 billion fund to compensate Americans -- and then he apologizes to BP CEO Hayward!


    • [corp-focus] Closing BP's Escape Routes


    • Stonemirror
      As BP's boss Tony Hayward is grilled by US Congressional Comittee the results are all too predictable. You'd think Tony Hayward was a politician, with the skills he;'s shown at evading responsibility and dodging questions. It seems however that the politicians grilling him are understandably a tad annoyed at this behaviour. The problem is this; they (the politicians) spend their ENTIRE POLITICAL CAREERS doing the very same.






  • Finance





  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Autopsy on wacky Jacqui's ID astroturfing
      The documents reveal the site bought 50 million adverts on Facebook and other social network sites. These 50 million ads resulted in an awesome 537 people completing the survey on the site. We can only hope the government was paying per click-through rather than for each view of its advert.






  • Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

    • What will Iceland’s new media laws mean for journalists?
      The Icelandic parliament has voted unanimously to create what are intended to be the strongest media freedom laws in the world. And Iceland intends these measures to have international impact, by creating a safe haven for publishers worldwide — and their servers.


    • Privacy of Government Workers Limited by High Court
      The U.S. Supreme Court, putting limits on the privacy rights of government workers, ruled that a California police department acted reasonably when it reviewed personal text messages on an officer’s government-issued pager.

      The justices today unanimously rejected arguments by SWAT team member Jeff Quon that the city of Ontario violated his rights under the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable government searches.






  • Copyrights

    • Filesharing: Die wundersame Musikvermehrung Filesharing: The wondrous music reproduction


    • Are Bad Copyright Laws Killing Jazz And Harming Jazz Musicians?
      In the face of increasing examples of such copyright policies doing exactly the opposite of what they intend, how is it that our elected officials continue to buy the claims from a few entrenched industries, that copyright needs to be made even more strict? How many more musicians have to have their art and creativity stifled?


    • Google Planning A Paid Content System For Publishers In Italy
      Google (NSDQ: GOOG), which had hinted for nearly a year now that it was working on building some sort of paid content system for publishers, is reportedly launching such a system in Italy, where it has had some of its ugliest confrontations with the news industry. According to a report in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Google is reaching out to publishers there to get them to participate in the program, which it is calling Newspass.


    • Internet File-Sharing Service Is Sued by Music Publishers
      A coalition of eight music publishers sued the file-sharing service LimeWire on Wednesday, accusing it of copyright infringement, according to the National Music Publishers’ Association, the industry group that organized the suit.


    • The Economics of Copyright
      There's no pretending this report is light reading, but I do think it represents an important statement about the need for basing copyright law on empirical evidence. Against the background of blatant lobbying during the passage of the Digital Economy Act, that surely has to be good news for everyone – whether or not they are copyright geeks.


    • Saying information wants to be free does more harm than good
      It's time for IWTBF to die because it's become the easiest, laziest straw man for Hollywood's authoritarian bullies to throw up as a justification for the monotonic increase of surveillance, control, and censorship in our networks and tools. I can imagine them saying: "These people only want network freedom because they believe that 'information wants to be free'. They pretend to be concerned about freedom, but the only 'free' they care about is 'free of charge.'"

      But this is just wrong. "Information wants to be free" has the same relationship to the digital rights movement that "kill whitey" has to the racial equality movement: a thoughtless caricature that replaces a nuanced, principled stand with a cartoon character. Calling IWTBF the ideological basis of the movement is like characterising bra burning as the primary preoccupation of feminists (in reality, the number of bras burned by feminists in the history of the struggle for gender equality appears to be zero, or as close to it as makes no difference).

      So what do digital rights activists want, if not "free information?"


    • A boost for legally shared media – new TV & movie titles!
      Pioneer One can be found over at VODO, a tracker site for free to download media and a worthwhile visit, since these files will not have a warning letter dropping through your letterbox for sharing them. The pilot episode apparently cost $6000 dollars to shoot and there are 7 episodes in the first series to be followed with a planed 4 more series.


    • Europarl Question: Stronger protection for copyright holders










Clip of the Day



Henny Keyzer - CLUG Talk 28 April 2009 - Microcontrollers (2009)

41K



Recent Techrights' Posts

EPO Examiners Point Out to the Heads of Delegations in the Administrative Council of the EPO That the "AI Policy" of the Office is Illegal
"the Central Staff Committee (CSC) asks the Administrative Council to exert its supervisory role and instruct EPO management to enter into genuine dialogue with the staff representation on the AI Policy, to revise the “Leverage AI” target of 90% AI-automated classification in the SP2028 and to put in place the measures supported by staff in the resolution."
French Cities Dumping Microsoft Because They Recognise Software Freedom, Open Standards, GNU/Linux Autonomy
We hope that more French cities - maybe Paris - will follow Lyon.
LWN is a Voice of GAFAM (Through Linux Foundation, Their Front Group or Occupying Force Inside Linux)
remember who the chief editor works for and who sponsors many of the articles
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)
EPO Squeezing the Staff - Part II - Office Breaks Rules, Ignores Courts, Defies Justice
False promises everywhere
IBM - Like Microsoft - is a Dying Company and Perishing Brand ("AI" is a Lie and Decoy)
"Arvind is cutting costs (layoffs, PIPs, forced RTO, etc...) like crazy. IBM offices are closing all over the place in the US."
"Code of Conduct" Invoked When Fedora and Red Hat Users (Since the 1990s) Don't Want to Use Wayland
That is IBM "DEI"
Microsoft Layoffs Next Week: About 10% to be Laid Off in Microsoft Gaming (2 Days Before Independence Day), About 20%+ of XBox Staff
Microsoft is rapidly collapsing
 
Keeping Things Accessible
Gemini Protocol seems to be growing
Technical People Need Technical Lawyers
Technical Litigants in Person (LIPs) have many real and concrete advantages
10,000+ Articles in About 20 Months (and How We Got Here)
More bloat does not beget efficiency and "bells and whistles" tend to have a hidden cost
Links 26/06/2025: Illegal Kangaroo Court (UPC) Failing Scandinavia, K-Pop Agencies Abuse People
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Gemini Links 26/06/2025: AuraGem Twitch Proxy is Back and UI Sluggishness
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Links 26/06/2025: Noise Pollution Considered High in Europe, Mass Layoffs Next Week in Microsoft Confirmed, Very Large in Scale and Scope
Links for the day
No, I Don't Want Your Latest XYZ, ThankYouVeryMuch...
Wayland is finally ready?
China Keeps Breaking Into Microsoft Systems, So for True Sovereignty, Nations Wary of China Need to Dump Microsoft
Looking at data from Taiwan (not China) and Maharlika (not Philippines, the king is dead and Spain is out), there are encouraging signs
Linux Journal Wants Ads on Its LLM Slop or Ads as 'Articles'
it's basically another BetaNews
How to Kill a Monopoly
in 10 simple steps
Mozambique: GNU/Linux Rose From 0.5% Last Year to 3% This Year
what (or how) statCounter is measuring
Next Month Marks 11 Years Since Our In-Depth EPO Coverage
The same is happening to Microsoft right now
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Campaigns Against Vista 11, Adds 4 New Associate Members Per Day
If more people understood the underlying principles, more of them would flock to Free software overnight
Canonical Seems to Have Culled Some Sources of LLM Slop From Planet Ubuntu
It's like "junk food", it's not information
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 25, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 25, 2025
On "Weak Claims"
For the record, they sent me unjustified threats, repeatedly tried injunctions (censorship)
EPO Squeezing the Staff - Part I - Burnout and Family Health
more exceptional circumstances
This Month's Mail (MX) Server Survey Shows Microsoft at 0.20% "Market Share"
We need to remind people that desktops and laptops decline (in proportion to other client devices) and at the "back end" GNU/Linux is already dominant and has long been dominant
Links 26/06/2025: Filespooler Guide and Learning to Code
Links for the day
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"
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
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
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
What is "MATA"?
Think of it as GAFAM or "Meta"
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?
WebProNews is a Slopfarm
Please avoid linking to WebProNews
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.
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
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