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Links 24/7/2010: More Free Software News, Misc. Topics



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Contents





Free Software/Open Source

  • Free alternatives to Adobe Photoshop
    Although GIMP is often compared to Adobe Photoshop, the people in charge of the project do not consider their graphic manipulation tool to be a replacement for Photoshop. There is a great deal of controversy about whether or not the GIMP is a truly professional-quality image manipulation tool, at or exceeding the quality level of Photoshop. It is generally held that it is not, although it is usually recognized as the best free alternative to Photoshop, which is usually considered to be the ultimate professional tool of the trade.


  • Open Information Security Foundation Releases Suricata 1.0
    Available immediately for download under the Open Source GPL (GNU General Public License) version 2, Suricata includes new features that will enable it to identify and prevent more of the pressing security concerns faced by organizations.


  • MZmine 2: Modular framework for processing, visualizing, and analyzing mass spectrometry-based molecular profile data
    Conclusions: MZmine 2 is freely available under a GNU GPL license and can be obtained from the project website at: http://mzmine.sourceforge.net/. The current version of MZmine 2 is suitable for processing large batches of data and has been applied to both targeted and non-targeted metabolomic analyses.




  • Events







  • Mozilla







  • SaaS







  • Oracle/Sun

    • OpenOffice.org Download: Petition to Authorities to Remove Bait-and-Switch Advertising


    • Oracle Commits to Further NetBeans IDE Development
      As Oracle continues to consolidate the assets of Sun Microsystems, questions about which technologies will go and which ones will stay are still being asked. One such technology that could be at risk is the open source NetBeans IDE , which competes against the Eclipse IDE and its ecosystem, which Oracle also supports.


    • ForgeRock releases version 9.5 of OpenAM
      Discussing the announcement, ForgeRock chief strategy officer and former Chief Open Source Officer at Sun Microsystems Simon Phipps said, “This is an important milestone for the OpenAM community”, adding that, “This achievement marks the first fully community-sourced release of OpenAM. We’re very pleased that users of OpenSSO Enterprise 8 can easily and freely migrate to OpenAM 9.5 now that the updates have been made.”








  • CMS

    • Drupal and the enterprise
      This leaves Drupal and Acquia, the company Buytaert founded to offer Drupal support, caught between the Moon and New York City. Wordpress is hammering it in the mass market, among people who just want to build blog sites, and Acquia’s enterprise footprint remains minimal.






  • Project Releases

    • Blender 2.53 Beta
      The Blender Foundation and online developer community is proud to present Blender 2.53 Beta. This release is the first official beta release of the Blender 2.5 series, representing the culmination of many years of redesign and development work.








  • Licensing

    • GPLv3 now dominates at Google Code #oscon
      From the 'Open Source Licensing" files:

      Google's open source programs manager Chris DiBona (pic left) took the stage at OSCON today and he had some interesting things to say, about licensing.

      I've heard DiBona speak on open source licensing several times over the years. This time his talk wasn't about licensing specifics, but rather about adoption.

      According to data presented by DiBona, the GPLv3 license now represents more than half of the GPL licensed code that Google hosts on its Google Code site.






  • Openness/Sharing

    • Eight free open source books
      It doesn't matter if you're new to open source or a long-time user, there is always more to learn about. We scoured the Web for the best open source books. All of these are free books that can be downloaded and shared.


    • Vimeo integrates Creative Commons licences
      Online video service Vimeo started allowing its users to release videos under a Creative Commons licence. The company says that the feature was introduced because a number of users specifically asked for it. The settings dialogue of each video now contains an added "Licence" section in which users can choose from one of six Creative Commons licences. This allows users to determine the sharing conditions for their videos. While searching specifically for videos released under CC licences is not yet possible, Vimeo says it's working to provide this functionality.








  • Programming

    • D.P.H.
      I owe a whole lot to Perl. So does the practice of computing in general, and the construction of the Web in particular. Perl’s situation is not terribly happy; I wouldn’t go so far as to say “desperate”, but certainly these are not its glory days.


    • Ruby 1.9.2 gets a second release candidate






  • Standards/Consortia

    • Breaking Open the Video Frontier, Despite MPEG-LA
      Did you know that nearly every video produced for Web viewing has been, at one point or another, in MPEG format no matter in what format the video is ultimately saved?

      According to Chris "Monty" Montgomery, nearly every consumer device outputs video in MPEG format. Which means that every software video decoder has to have MPEG-licensed technology in order to process/edit video.

      [...]

      Which circles us back to where Montgomery is today: preparing that army of mages. Looking forward to a landscape where MPEG-LA is not quite so powerful, Montgomery anticipates that video, now that it's no longer as expensive, could become a real source of innovation in the FOSS community.








Leftovers

  • Hot News Showing Up Everywhere: Costco Sued For 'Violating' Hot News In Publishing Market Data
    It seems like every few days or so we're seeing lawsuits attempting to stretch the hot news doctrine further and further. News organizations who support hot news as a concept really have no idea what sort of can of worms they've opened up. Since the infamous (and ongoing) theflyonthewall case, we're seeing hot news pop up in all sorts of weird places. The latest, as sent over by Eric Goldman, is that Costco is being sued by "Banxcorp" for hot news violations (along with copyright violations and a bunch of other things) for republishing Banxcorp's data showing national average money market and CD rates.


  • Benchmarking performance in a virtualized world
    One problem with positing that a high-end Unix system will be used for a single transaction-processing application is that it leads to some pretty silly results. Take the leading TPC-C result on the Transaction Processing Council's Web site, for example. Consider what this 6 million transactions-per-minute figure means in the context of the TPC-C benchmark, a widely used metric for comparing system performance.




  • Science



    • Saturn's Moon Spawning Moonlets


    • Earth as an Extrasolar Planet
      Somewhere in the Milky Way, astronomers have found a world that sports crucial ingredients for life. When they trained a high-resolution spectrograph on starlight reflected from the planet's moon, they picked up traces of ozone, oxygen, sodium, and nitrogen. Alas, the planet is Earth. But the researchers say a similar technique could be used to find signatures of life on planets orbiting other stars.




  • Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

    • Enterprise filters block political Sex Party website
      Corporate web filters at organisations like Shell and the National Australia Bank (NAB) are blocking web access to the AEC-registered Australian Sex Party.

      The party is contesting the August 21 Federal Election with seven candidates in Victoria, including convenor Fiona Patten, who challenges Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.




  • Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM







Clip of the Day



KDE SC 4.5 RC1 - The Desktop part 1



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Recent Techrights' Posts

What Ruben Amorim and Stefano Maffulli Have in Common
Censors Wikipedia and Social Control Media
Microsoft Won't Cooperate in Trying to Tackle EPO Corruption (Microsoft Profits From This Corruption)
Use something like BigBlueButton, Jami, Ring, and Jitsi instead
We Are Sad to Hear the Story of Jonathan Riddell, Champion of KDE and GNU/Linux on Desktops/Laptops
I have enormous respect for Jonathan and everything he has done
 
Geminispace Growing at Pace of Over 10% Per Year
Contrary to what some pessimists try to claim
Linux Mint Forums Today: Disable 'Secure Boot', It Doesn't Improve Security, It's Just a Microsoft Obstacle to GNU/Linux Users
They also mention MOK
Solved Less Than an Hour Ago: Trying to Escape Windows, 'Secure Boot' Gets in the Way
'Secure Boot' wasn't meant to even exist in the first place
Stefano Maffulli, Executive Director of the Open Source Initiative, Resigns or Gets Removed (We'll Continue Covering OSI Scandals)
A dozen mentions of "AI", not much about "Open Source"
Andy Has Just Nailed It (Regarding Complexity and Failure, a la UEFI)
The users no longer own or control what they buy
Compatibility Support Module (CSM) Versus GNU/Linux Simplicity
what Andy recently called "solutionism"
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This is the sort of thing that motivated Luigi Mangione to assassinate a CEO
Ask Ubuntu About "Secure Boot" Violation and Laptops That Don't Boot GNU/Linux
Does anyone still believe that "Secure Boot" has anything at all to do with security?
Talking About the Problem vs Talking to the Problem
Wanting an audience is never a good excuse for compromising one's values and principles
Focusing on Patents
The reason we cover the EPO so much is that it's close to home
"Secure Boot Violation": The 'Joys' of Fake Security Gone Wrong
Not everyone reboots every day
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EPO Imitates Microsoft: "Three Days or More Per Week" Inside the Office to Get a Desk to Work on; "the Office Breaches Its Promise Towards Staff and Acts in Breach of Its Duty of Care"
The EPO serves no actual function in Europe
Links 15/09/2025: Political Affairs, Censorship, and Copyrights
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Gemini Links 15/09/2025: Music Genres, Invisible Networks, and Akademy 2025
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Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 14, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 14, 2025
Satya's Plan B: Try to Hide the Massive Extent/Scale/Scope of Microsoft Layoffs
fewer people buy Microsoft
Red Hat News About De Facto Mass Layoffs (Bluewashing) Gone From Reddit (Censored by Gatekeepers), Still Online in The Register
With RTOs, PIPs, relocation etc. expect IBM to "shed off" many Red Hatters
UEFI "Secure Boot Doesn’t Play Nice at the Moment"
UEFI "Secure Boot" does not improve security. It's an artificial obstacle in service of monopoly.
Gemini Links 14/09/2025: ROOPHLOCH, Music, and Reddit
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If You Want to "make your 'Windows PC' lean, mean, and fast" You Will Install GNU/Linux or Some BSD
That kind of article says a lot about IDG
Slopwatch: Google News Infested With Slop (About Half of the Results for "Linux" Today)
This is the sort of junk one finds when looking for "Linux" in Google News these days
Links 14/09/2025: Ricky Hatton Dies and McDonald's Declares War on Tipping Culture
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Links 14/09/2025: Disasters for CEOs Obsessed With Slop and Slop Companies School Like Fish
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"Bad Shim Signature" (Microsoft 'Secure' Boot)
"Fresh install not booting"
What Microsoft Garrett and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
Similar tactics, different "wings"
Links 14/09/2025: US "Economy Sagging", "Michigan Economy Wobbles From Tariffs"
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Gemini Links 14/09/2025: Minimalist Snippet Manager and Omarchy Linux
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The Face of the Digital Far Right: Microsoft Lunduke
Microsoft Lunduke is an online extremist that belongs to and panders to the far right
20 Years Later and Academia Isn't the Same
"I never dreamed of being a professor"
'Cancel Culture' by the Right: Microsoft Lunduke Contacts People's Employers Trying to Get Them Fired
Microsoft Lunduke panders to extremists online
"Bad Shim Signature"; So 'Secure' That It Overrides Users' Preferences and Turns Itself Back on (Coercive Measure)
This was a few hours ago
Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC logs for Saturday, September 13, 2025
Microsoft is Rapidly Dropped From Web Servers, Shows Survey
Microsoft lost about 8% "market share" in just 3 months
Many GNU/Linux Users Report MOK (Machine Owner Key) Issues in Recent Days
many people don't report this online and never post in Reddit
We Covered UEFI 'Secure Boot' Scandals. The World Listened.
To hell with UEFI 'secure boot'
Links 13/09/2025: Escalations in East Europe and POTUS’ Health Cover-Up
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Gemini Links 13/09/2025: Lagrange Turns 5 and Lagrange 1.19.2 Released
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Microsoft Inside Your Linux: "Security vulnerability that allowed an attacker to bypass UEFI Secure Boot."
2 hours ago
A New Low for "Linux Journal": Promoting MICROSOFT WINDOWS Using LLM Slop
They've just jumped the shark entirely
Fake News With Fake Numbers About Microsoft
"This is what happens when the world's economy is governed by sick old men"
Slopwatch: "Google News" is Fast Becoming a Mashup of Slopfarms, Linux Journal ("LJ") is a Dump of LLM Slop
Well done, Google News. Google itself can flourish as a slopfarm mashup.
Torturing Users Who Just Want to Run GNU/Linux on Their Own PC
"Linux does not want to install"
The Register MS Still Takes Money to Hype Up "AI" in Articles by Microsoft Resellers With the Term "AI" 30+ Times in Them
Notice how many times they mention "AI"
The Apache Logo News is VERY Old, Racists and 'Anti-Woke' Bigots Look for Something to Incite Other Bigots With
Nothing to see here, move along
Linux Mint 9/11: "4th One Today..." (in Reddit)
Remember that not everyone having an issue reports it to social control media like Reddit
Nepal Will Fall Without a Single Shot Fired, Thanks to Social Control Media
Or very few shots (by the authorities)
European Corruption in the European Patent Office (EPO) Targets Culture
"In reality, the project includes a new “legal instrument” shifting administrative burden and liability on EPO staff while creating new uncertainty and externalising Amicale activities."
European Authorities, Already Bribed and Infiltrated by Microsoft, Won't Help You Find BigBlueButton, Jami, Ring, and Jitsi
Because they're paid by Microsoft and are Microsoft 'addicts' themselves
UEFI Secure Boot Failing, as Expected for Nearly 15 Years Already (Techrights Said This Since 2012)
in the media
Debian 9/11
people report this issue
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Moving From Content Management Systems (CMSs) to Static Site Generators (SSGs) Saves You Time, Makes You a Lot More Productive
try to reduce the cost (financial and computational) of running your site
Pursuing Peace Through Violence
You cannot "see" a person's mind, until the mouth opens
Leak: European Patent Office (EPO) is Now Attacking Amicale Clubs
corruption has become the norm and scientists are robbed of any dignity
Can We Please Stop Celebrating Shooters?
"An important point to hammer on is that CoCs were never intended for uniform or symmetric application"
Oracle Fraud (or Defrauding Shareholders)
"the obvious [lie] is that watts are (wasted) electricity [and] and FLOPS are computing capacity"
Geminispace is Growing Faster in 2025 Than It Did in 2024
What matters is that corporations haven't ruined it and LLM slop is extremely rare
Links 13/09/2025: China Punishes for 'Negative' Posts, US Police Unable to Find Shooter
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Who's the Mystery Financier of SLAPP Against Techrights and Is That a Millionaire/Billionaire?
Whose idea was it to fund meritless lawsuits against my wife and I?
Slopwatch: Slow Slop Day
This distracts from or may take traffic away from the original articles, actually written by actual people
Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 12, 2025
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