Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 28/8/2010: Diaspora Coming Within Weeks, SFLC Now in India Too



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • Open source scores
    Microsoft is laggard in everything except desktop operating systems, Office and gaming. Internet Explorer has not been able to pass the Acid 3 test which signifies that it is not standards-compliant.

    What Mr Scott would fear to accept publicly is the rise of the Ubuntu operating system and how the future release (Meerkat) is being adapted to netbooks (where Win 7 has not been ported). Mobile applications have been hammered and its newer version was greeted with a big yawn. It’s difficult to compare search engines in terms of content but Microsoft-funded agencies have been claiming Bing’s "meteoric rise". The fact is that Google does not need to shout about its offerings.

    There is a serious lack of choice from OEMs while buying new hardware. Mr Scott may not be aware that Linux has been ported to almost everything under sun. I run my entertainment servers attached to Wi-Fi that streams music and is connected to the web on 10-year-old legacy systems ported to Unix which does not need a reboot. Windows does not provide "support" to old hardware.


  • Applications



  • Distributions





Free Software/Open Source



  • PixelLight Open-Source Cross-Platform 3D Engine
    It’s built entirely in C++ and already runs on Windows and Linux, with test versions already running on mobile devices and web browsers. Definitely looks like something to keep an eye on.


  • Open-source 3D engine PixelLight released


  • Brazil goes all-digital with 2010 census
    Better known for its beaches and passion for soccer, Brazil also happens to be the world’s second-leading open source country (just behind the U.S.) and boasts an IT services sector that rivals China and India. The South American country is now putting its digital leadership on display by carrying out its first-ever paperless, all-digital population census.


  • Government saving with open source
    Achieving significant efficiency savings and more from IT is possible - Peter Dawes- Huish, CEO, LinuxIT, considers how open source based systems and outsourcing can provide the solution

    I attended a seminar the other day and I was amazed just how much misinformation there was around the adoption of open source based software and the services surrounding it. The reasons, the strategies, the options, the benefits it offers both the private and public sector today.

    I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's because open source (OS), by its very nature with such a developer led resource is such a fast moving field, or those within the OS community and providers of Enterprise Open Source, like LinuxIT, just need to work harder at getting across the ability of OS to transform the management and performance of IT environments. Its ability to contribute towards IT innovation, interoperability, reliability, flexibility, return on investment and so on.


  • Web Browsers



  • SaaS



  • Oracle

    • The future of Solaris


      In 2005, Sun released the source code to Solaris, described then as the company’s crown jewel. Why do this? The simplest answer is that Solaris had been losing ground to an open source competitor in Linux. Losing ground was a symptom of economics. Students who had once been raised on Solaris were being inculcated with Linux knowlege. The combination of Linux and x86 were good enough and significantly cheaper; new companies for whom the default had once been Sun/Solaris/SPARC were instead building on x86/Linux. OpenSolaris along with x86 support were specifically intended to address this trend. Indeed, the codename for OpenSolaris was “tonic” — the tonic for Solaris’ problems.




  • CMS

    • Replacing SharePoint with Open Source CMSs
      Probably the most compelling reasons to deploy an open source solution instead are price and flexibility. The licensing costs of SharePoint, plus Windows Server, plus SQL Server and the rest of the bundle are not insignificant. If you’d prefer to avoid becoming too deeply entrenched in Microsoft-based solutions, you’ll find several open source alternatives — and three I personally recommend: Alfresco, MindTouch, and Drupal.

      Why those, and not some of the other open source CMSes? Alfresco and MindTouch are two of the most feature-compatible replacements for SharePoint. Drupal is not a direct replacement for all of SharePoint’s features, but handles many of the use cases for which SharePoint is popular. All three not only enjoy a strong user and developer community, but also have strong commercial support, making them much more suitable for enterprises that choose open source but still seek support and training services.


    • Open-source Diaspora set launch date
      Diaspora, an open-source social network describes itself as “privacy-aware, personally-controlled”, will be launched on 15 September, according to the developers. The project is considered as an alternative to Facebook, but many believe that it is difficult to challenge the world’s largest social network, which has 500 million users and is estimated to be worth $33bn currently. A team of four US students built up Diaspora trying to solve some of the problems appeared in Facebook, when it was criticised for being overly complex and confusing, as well as privacy concerns. “We want to put users back in control of what they share,” Max Salzberg, one of the founders said. Diaspora made headlines earlier this year when Facebook was in intense criticism.


    • Facebook alternative Diaspora eyes launch date


    • Elgg, the open source social networking CMS announced version 1.7.2
      A new version of the popular open source social networking CMS, Elgg has been released! 1.7.2 is primarily a bugfix release.




  • Business



  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



  • Government



  • Openness/Sharing

    • Designing culture: The other community plumbing
      4. Don't be Tom Sawyer.

      Here stood the board fence which tom sawyer persuaded his gang to pay him for the privilege of whitewashing. Tom sat by and saw that it was well done.

      Tom Sawyer is interesting because Tom, by being a smooth talker, convinced everyone to do his work for him. Many companies approach their community strategies as having other people painting their fences. The popular term now is crowdsourcing. In this model, a company says "I have a lot of problems. Maybe I can convince a bunch of people to do my work for me." Sometimes it works, like Dell's IdeaStorm. But it works only for big, powerful brands. It doesn't work when a company asks for help, and everyone ignores them. And it doesn't work because as a company, you can't build a community around yourself.


    • Pharma's Future: Open-Source R&D
      The future of pharmaceutical R&D may lie in open-source research, with key data being made available to a number of people, including college students and university researchers, in an open and collaborative process. Open-source drug development would leverage an online community of computer users worldwide.


    • Open Hardware

      • Open Source: A Developing Robotics Industry
        The Menlo Park, Calif-based company, founded in 2006, develops open-source hardware and software for the robotics industry. Its robot PR2 (Personal Robot 2) is being sold as an example of what software developers can do with an open-source robotics platform.






  • Programming

    • Ruby on Rails 3.0 due this week
      Ruby on Rails 3.0, a major upgrade to the popular open source Web development framework, is due in a final release this week, the founder of the framework, David Heinemeier Hansson, said on Tuesday.






Leftovers

  • John Lennon's loo fetches €£9,500 at auction for Beatles fans


    A porcelain lavatory which John Lennon told a builder to use as a "plant pot" has fetched €£9,500 – nearly 10 times its guide price – at an auction today.

    The loo was used by the music legend when he lived at Tittenhurst Park in Berkshire between 1969 and 1972.


  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Walter Reed says it mishandled nuclear material
      The military's flagship hospital acknowledged Thursday it mishandled two packages of radioactive material last spring in an incident regulators said may have exposed staff and patients to elevated radiation levels.


    • MIT researchers unveil autonomous oil-absorbing robot
      The system, called Seaswarm, is a fleet of vehicles that may make cleaning up future oil spills both less expensive and more efficient than current skimming methods. MIT’s Senseable City Lab will unveil the first Seaswarm prototype at the Venice Biennale's Italian Pavilion on Saturday, August 28. The Venice Biennale is an international art, music and architecture festival whose current theme addresses how nanotechnology will change the way we live in 2050.








Clip of the Day



Richard M. Stallman Speech Patents Calgary Canada 2005



[an error occurred while processing this directive]



Recent Techrights' Posts

How to Tackle Corruption Effectively and Gradually
In my personal, humble experience
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: A Tale of Two Antónios
"Campaign for the Re-Appointment of the President"
 
Many Countries Divest From Microsoft
new numbers at statCounter today
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: A Tale of Two Antónios - On the Campaign Trail in Brussels
Part 1
SEO is an Acronym That Stands for Slop Engine Orientation
The Web changed a lot when Web directories, portals, and then social control media gained popularity
IRC Network OFTC is Shedding Off Servers
Down to 17
Julian Assange's Counsel Jennifer Robinson Has Just Won an Award
Jennifer Robinson is relatively young
Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (Swiss Federal Railways) and Richard Stallman
It seems like RMS is receiving endorsement or at least belated recognition from very high-profile institutions
Almost 30 Years After Rob Malda Made Slashdot It Still Inspires New Implementations
Maybe the issue isn't Slash per se, just the complexity of it (which SoylentNews complained about in the past)
Links 02/06/2026: "The Infosec Phrasebook", 'Perfect Randomness' and "Leaving the Tech World Professionally"
Links for the day
Faking Demand for Slop: Google's Search Prompt Becomes Slop Prompt (Bait, Switch, Fake Usage)
If there is no consent, then it's unsustainable
When You Give People (or Companies) Money to Buy Your Own Products and Then Call It "Revenue"
A lot of modern "economics" don't benefit ordinary people (all they get is high inflation rates); they're devaluing money by faking economic activity
IBM is Self-Detonating, the Cheeto-Infused Rally is Another Con by Don
pump and dump
"Quantum" as the "Next Big" Bubble
disappointing and delivering nothing
Links 02/06/2026: "$1.5 Trillion Defense Budget Benefits Billionaire Cheeto Mussolini Supporters", US "Plans to Criminalize Sleeping Outside"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/06/2026: Organising Oneself and Killing Off Distracting "Notifications"
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 95 Out of 200: The Growing Risk of Tolerating Men Who Abuse and Physically Assault Women
FOSS should not be a "safe harbour" or "hideout" for criminals
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 01, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, June 01, 2026
Rust is a Disaster for Both GNU and Linux, But 'Linux' Foundation (GKH) Keeps Promoting It Despite the Problems
And non-GPL licences
IBM's CEO and his "pump and dump scheme" ("Arvind's lies about quantum")
Don't be misled by Wall Street
Gemini Links 01/06/2026: Xylophone Essay, Ham Radio, and Slop Contaminating USENET/Newsgroups
Links for the day
Links 01/06/2026: Patent Applicant Disclosures Drop After the January 2025 IDS Surcharge, "China Exports Surveillance"
Links for the day
Links 01/06/2026: Irreversible GAFAM Bans and "The Pirate Bay Remains Resilient"
Links for the day
Running and Writing Sites for People, Not Bots (Including Search Engines)
Had those sites spent more time focusing on RSS feeds (not social control media "games") and less on SEO (trying to game search engines), they wouldn't be sobbing now
SBB, the Swiss Railroads, Want to Hear Richard Stallman
Can Dr. Stallman persuade key decision makers to adopt not only "Linux" but also Software Freedom (not the same thing), as he did in South American before? Or like he did in Kerala?
Resumes and Vanity Pages
Wikipedia is fast becoming a glorified marketing company
Trusting Microsoft is Foolish
Mr. Rossmann says they "gaslight customers" in their Web site, but it goes a lot further than this
Techrights in a Nutshell, in Very Generic Terms
"for dummies"
SLAPP Censorship - Part 94 Out of 200: SLAPP by Garrett's Litigation Buddy Started 20 Months Ago, He Has Not Even Put in His Defence Yet!
This is what happens when one deals with incels and misogynists who promote slop and Microsoft
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 31, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, May 31, 2026
Gemini Links 01/06/2026: Buckingham Palace Garden Party, TUI Annoyances, Lateral Thinking with Withered Technology
Links for the day
Links 31/05/2026: Heat Wave Grips France and Edgar Morin Dies
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/05/2026: Backup vs. Mirror, Year of the Death of a Euphemism, Slop Makes Only Yet Another (Untested) Calculator
Links for the day
IBM Red Hat Has a Long History or Track Record of Misusing Trademarks to Send Lawyers to Try to Take Down Pages and Web Sites of Critics
Red Hat claims to own words; IBM thinks it owns names
Richard Stallman is Coming Back to Bern to Give a Talk Next Month
another big talk coming up
Gravitating Towards What Your Role in Society May Be (or What You're Truly Good At)
Many IBMers already realise that they spent years if not decades of their lives working on mostly meaningless products/projects
900 Days Later
900 days is a very long time (almost 1,000)
Cybershow Requires Free Software to Record Shows
Cybershow is run by people who understand that without Software Freedom there can be no sovereignty
Losses at Microsoft's GitHub Seem to be Deepening
How many billions of dollars has Microsoft lost by betting on the false prediction that it can somehow "monetise" public code by LLMs?
Links 31/05/2026: Slop 'Code' (Junk) "Increasingly Leads to Production Failures" and "Huge Slop Costs With No Clear Benefits"
Links for the day
European Patent Office Strikes Intensify Tomorrow, Huge Strikes Planned for June, 10,000 Strike Participations Registered
Campinos may well be ousted soon
SLAPP Censorship - Part 93 Out of 200: A Blueprint of Reckless Lawfare in the UK, Waged and Funded by Americans (in Another Continent)
Lawfare powered by slop companies (including Microsoft) from America, targetting British people who consistently oppose slop because it's objectively terrible
Links 31/05/2026: Watershed Moment, Traveller RPG Book Binding, and GUI Annoyances
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 30, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, May 30, 2026