Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 26/11/2010: KDE SC 4.6 Features and Minor News (Happy Thanksgiving)



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • The quest for more – when $20 billion isn’t enough
    Simon Brew wonders if there are 20 billion reasons why the spirit of open source is being distorted…


  • LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership
    Back when the 2010 Linux Plumbers Conference was looking for presentations, the LibreOffice project had not yet announced its existence. So Michael Meeks put in a vague proposal for a talk having to do with OpenOffice.org and promised the organizers it would be worth their time. Fortunately, they believed him; in an energetic closing keynote, Michael talked at length about what is going on with LibreOffice - and with the free software development community as a whole. According to Michael, both good and bad things are afoot. (Michael's slides [PDF] are available for those who would like to follow along).

    Naturally enough, LibreOffice is one of the good things; it's going to be "awesome." It seems that there are some widely diverging views on the awesomeness of OpenOffice.org; those who are based near Hamburg (where StarDivision was based) think it is a wonderful tool. People in the rest of the world tend to have a rather less enthusiastic view. The purpose of the new LibreOffice project is to produce a system that we can all be proud of.


  • Web Browsers



    • Mozilla

      • Firefox 4 Minefield Now With Improved Add-Ons Manager
        One of the design elements that I did not like in the development builds of Firefox 4 until now was the add-ons manager. I have reviewed it in detail in the article How To Uninstall Add-ons In Firefox 4. Basically, what I did not like was that it looked kinda messy, hard to read and out of place.






  • Project Releases



  • Openness/Sharing

    • Non digital commons a lot more complicated than Free Software
      In September 2010 I went to the Open World Forum to present some first results of my research about local impacts of Open Data. The Forum was an interesting and varied event, that gave space to very interesting talks, keynotes and comments about freedom, education and gender diversity in software. Another great moment for me was the contribution to the final panel by John Wilbank, Vice-President for Science Creative Commons.


    • Open Hardware

      • Extend your Arduino
        The Arduino is a small programmable device that can hold a small program and perform tasks such as reading temperature sensors, turning on or off switches, and can even serve as the ‘brain’ for a robot. I have used the Arduino (actually freeduino) for projects related to HVAC and hydroponics automation.








Leftovers

  • Oracle whacked by DoJ complaint
    An industry group of 130 hardware maintenance providers has complained to the Department of Justice that they've been unfairly squeezed since Larry Ellison bought Sun Microsystems.

    The Service Industry Association has been complaining about Oracle's tactics for some time, but has now written to the DoJ.


  • Eat a Bagel, Lose Your Baby


  • Mother, shall I put you to sleep?


    Young family members of this district in southern Tamil Nadu have been pushing their infirm, elderly dependents to death because they cannot afford to take care of them.


  • Ghosts of Unix past, part 2: Conflated designs


  • Health/Nutrition

    • US response to cholera in Haiti, fund exclusive elections
      In the face of a cholera epidemic that has claimed the lives of over 1000 people, infected many thousands and is feared to intensify due to widespread flooding in the wake of Hurricane Tomas, officials have stated that the elections scheduled for November 28 will go ahead as planned. While some candidates have questioned the wisdom of holding elections during such turmoil, a rising chorus of critics is disputing the elections' very legitimacy and is urging the US, a primary funder, to take responsibility in guaranteeing a truly democratic process.


    • CDC Says Haiti's Cholera Due to "One Event"




  • Security



  • Defence/Police/Aggression

    • Twenty-First Century Blowback?
      From 2001 to 2010, the US military spent about $32 million on construction projects in Oman. In September, the Army upped the ante by awarding an $8.6 million contract to refurbish the Royal Air Force of Oman's air field at Thumrait Air Base.

      US efforts in Bahrain are on a grander scale. This year, the US Navy broke ground on a mega-construction project to develop 70 acres of waterfront at the port at Mina Salman. Scheduled for completion in 2015, the complex is slated to include new port facilities, barracks for troops, administrative buildings, a dining facility, and a recreation center, among other amenities, with a price tag of $580 million.


    • Barack Obama's hopes for a nuclear-free world fading fast


      Barack Obama's hopes of reshaping US foreign policy stand on the brink of failure tonight, after two of his most cherished initiatives — nuclear disarmament and better relations with Moscow — were dealt serious setbacks.


    • Guantánamo Bay prisoner payouts a first step to ending legacy of torture


      The government insisted today that it had started to draw a line under the legacy of complicity in rendition and torture that it inherited from the Labour administration by settling claims brought by 16 former Guantánamo inmates.


    • Guantánamo: security services must be protected, says Ken Clarke


    • Do Airport Screenings Really Make Us Safer?
      TSA's activities provide substantial fodder for both citizen and professional journalists. YouTube is full of citizen-made videos of TSA agents engaging in questionable activities, like aggressively patting down a three year old child or pulling the pants off a wheelchair-bound, 71 year-old man to examine his knee implant.


    • Silvio Berlusconi ally was link to Sicilian mafia, judges rule
      he man who spearheaded Silvio Berlusconi's entry into politics was also an intermediary between the media magnate and the Sicilian mafia, judges in Palermo ruled last night.

      In a lengthy written judgment on one of the Italian prime minister's closest associates, the judges said that before entering politics Berlusconi paid "enormous sums of money" to Cosa Nostra for protection and later handed over funds to safeguard his network's relay stations on Sicily.


    • Vox Taxi – Vox Dei
      I am not prepared to subscribe to such an anti-democratic statement. But if we want to move towards peace, we undoubtedly have to remove this huge rock blocking the road. We must infuse the public with another belief – the belief that peace is possible, that it is essential for the future of Israel, that it depends mainly on us.


    • Who's correct about human nature, the left or the right?




  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife



  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Pants on Fire: the Whoppers of the 2010 Elections
      Throughout the course of the 2010 Congressional midterm campaigns, candidates threw out countless fibs, questionable assertions, whoppers and half-truths. These are our candidates for the most misleading campaign ads of 2010, what are yours? Big Lie #1: Health Care Reform Guts Medicare


    • Capitol Hill's Top 75 Corporate Sponsors
      Want to follow the money? Below, the 75 heaviest hitters in corporate campaign cash, 1989-2010.

      1 AT&T

      2 National Association of Realtors

      3 Goldman Sachs

      4 American Association for Justice

      5 Citigroup

      6 American Medical Association

      7 National Automobile Dealers Association

      [...]




  • Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

    • Egypt blogger out after 4-yrs in jail
      An Egyptian blogger has been released after serving four years in prison on charges of insulting Islam and the president, a human rights group said on Wednesday.

      The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) said blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil, 26, known as Kareem Amer, was in bad health and was beaten by security officers before his release on Tuesday.

      The Interior Ministry was not immediately available for comment.

      Amer, a student at the state-run religious al-Azhar University, was arrested in 2006 on charges of insulting Islam and President Hosni Mubarak in his blog posts. He was sentenced to four years in prison and expelled from the university.


    • Liu Xiaobo's Nobel peace prize may not be given out at December ceremony


    • WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange wanted by Interpol over rape case
      An international arrest warrant is being issued for the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, after Swedish prosecutors were today granted permission to detain him for questioning in a rape case.


    • BlackBerry to 'allow Indian government to monitor messages'
      BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) is ready to allow Indian authorities access to the emails and messages of its most high-profile corporate customers, according to a ministry official in the country.




  • Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM

    • ISPs should be free to abandon net neutrality, says Ed Vaizey
      Internet service providers such as BT should be allowed to abandon net neutrality and prioritise users' access to certain content providers, the communications minister Ed Vaizey said in a speech today.


    • Oregon Senator Wyden effectively kills Internet censorship bill
      It's too early to say for sure, but Oregon Senator Ron Wyden could very well go down in the history books as the man who saved the Internet.

      A bill that critics say would have given the government power to censor the Internet will not pass this year thanks to the Oregon Democrat, who announced his opposition during a recent committee hearing. Individual Senators can place holds on pending legislation, in this case meaning proponents of the bill will be forced to reintroduce the measure and will not be able to proceed until the next Congress convenes.








Clip of the Day



Nokia X7 00 Symbian^3 Nokiasaga com



[an error occurred while processing this directive]



Credit: TinyOgg

Recent Techrights' Posts

IBM's Press Release About Results Mentions "AI" 10 Times, "Quantum" 4 Times
Blah blah blah AI"
Things We Could Do More Than Half a Century Ago But Can No Longer Accomplish
Newer is not always better
Linux Foundation an Enemy of the Planet, Proponent of Pollution and Global Heating
"could the "polluters pay" model be extended to the computing environment and used to take on Microsoft and Microsofters?"
Not Everything Can be Automated
not a new thing
IBM is Not Done Destroying Red Hat, Wait Till October 1st 2026 (More Layoffs and Bluewashing)
It's not bluewashing 'til it's 100% done
 
IBM in the Red After Bad Results (Shares Down in After Hours)
Will the CEO step down, retire, of what else?
Gemini Links 22/07/2026: Fault Lines, the Dark Web and Beyond, and Why Substack is Awful
Links for the day
Insult and Injury: Getting Banned, Not Just Sacked, by Microsoft
A former insider spoke about this in public 5 hours ago
Links 22/07/2026: "Dumb Phones" Not Enough to Tackle Harmful Addition, "MPEG-4 Visual's Road to Being [Software] Patent-Free"
Links for the day
Top secret: Cults inquiry submission concealed from public
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
An Hour Ahead of Alleged 'Results' (Amid Investigation Into Fraud) IBM Falls Back to New Lows
Only cents away from a 52-week low
IBM Headed for Lowest "Value" in 2 Years
In a nutshell, Krishna "can't keep it up" and IBM is now investigated for fraud
Investigation Progressing
There is nothing "funny" about receiving mortal threats for merely reporting information in a civilised country
Anupa Ann Joseph & Debian defamation gang
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
State of the Invidious Project
Never forget how hostile Google can be towards freedom
Prioritising the Safety of Women is the Best Approach to Foster Diversity in Technical Communities
Debian was never "normative", but that does not mean Debian should have such low standards
IBM Will Report 'Results' Tonight (CET), It's Already Investigated for Securities Fraud
"Five of the biggest US tech giants are carrying $1.65 trillion in debt that does not show up on their balance sheets"
Hardware Has Gotten a Lot Worse, Not Just Far More Expensive
prices go up fast
Amid Claims of Microsoft Bing Layoffs It Seems Like Bing Cannot Even Hold on to Second Place
Yandex is sometimes bigger than Bing
Wikileaks Does Not Publish New Material Anymore, But Wikileaks Still Changes the World
Wikileaks has a legacy that will soon turn 20
Links 22/07/2026: Postal IRCs, PlayStation Kills Discs, Union Action Against Microsoft, "Judge Considers Tossing Databricks Patent Suit Under California anti-SLAPP Law"
Links for the day
Same 'Journalists' Who Published Fake News for IBM (Pump and Dump) Now Write Puff Pieces About the Stock Falling
the media is so compromised
They Called It "Social" and "Media", But It Turned Out to be Slop and Child Porn
Why do any sane people still use social control media?
Age of consent: DebConf26 registered sex offender in Argentina?
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: In the Pole Position Despite a Dismal Track Record
António Campinos is an old hand when it comes to such high-level institutional intrigue
Site a Bit Slower Due to Visitors' Load
We'll try to work out better speeds
Gemini Links 22/07/2026: Emacs, Astrology Clock, Arduino, and Rogallo v1.0.0
Links for the day
After Involvement by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) LibreTech and Quibble Gain More Participants
RMS expressed gratitude for people who worked on Quibble and improved LibreJS after many years of inactivity
The Lessons From the Assange Saga
This will not end well
Apple Will Increase Surveillance of Customers, Record Verbal Communications Under the Guise of "Hey Hi"
Apple now drinks that same Kool-Aid
Dave Winer, Blogging Pioneer, Sells Out, Spews Out LLM Slop to Readers
Another one bites the dust [...] Now it's a slopfarm of sorts
GNU/Linux OS in ComorOS
Now, as in recent years or the last year, the GNU/Linux "signal" is growing significantly
Microsoft Redefines "Layoffs" to Give Smaller Tallies
It's not just calling them "buyouts" or saying people are merely "leaving" or "retiring"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 21, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 21, 2026
"LF Sex", Nothing to Do With Linux
a lot of explaining to do this week
Gemini Links 21/07/2026: Nostalgia, Shogi, and New Gemlog System
Links for the day
Guyana: GNU/Linux Rises to New High, 7%
Guyana is part of the trend
Oman: GNU/Linux Up to 7%
It was 5% last year
The Solution is Never 'Free Hosting' in Proprietary GitHub (Microsoft), the Solution is Self-Hosting
Third parties never care about your projects as much as you (yourself) care about them
Only a Matter of Time Before IBM Drops to $199 or a Lot Lower Than That
How long can IBM overload empty shells?
From GAFAM's Perspective, Jeremy Bicha Did Nothing Wrong
All is OK as long as he does not criticise monopolists and billionaires
Bluesky Was Such an Utter Failure That After 18 Months Mozilla Goes Hug a Nazi Platform That Produces Child Porn
What compels Mozilla to come back there? The child pornography scandal? The adorable leader?
GNU/Linux at Grenada Measured at 14% This Month
GNU/Linux was stuck at 0% for a long time
In WordPress, Newer is Not Better (Maybe Better Off With No WordPress at All)
To Hell with bloat and feature churn
As Slop Bubble Implodes (Inevitable), the Dishonest, Corrupt, Compromised Media Tries to Blame "China" Again (Like it Did With "DeepSeek" in Past Years)
Here we go again. We've been there before. Same spin, this time not "DeepSeek" though.
Lots of Microsoft Just Loses Money, Not Earning Money
Due to profitability challenges it's hard to believe Microsoft will ever find a buyer for XBox
Red Hat (IBM) Has Long 'Reassigned' (Bluewashed) Red Hat Staff to Ruin Fedora, Now It Does the Same to GNOME
What next from IBM's Krishna?
Links 21/07/2026: Google Stagnating, Slop 'Apps' Are "Flooding Apple’s App Store"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/07/2026: OPNSense Upgrade Problems, Zilog Z80 at 50, and Lessons From Terminator
Links for the day
IBM Lawsuits Over Alleged Fraud Are Piling Up
We'll keep an eye on the lawsuits
Arianna Taite on Odds of Australian (Daniel Pocock) Winning Clacton By-Election
His detractors somehow try to twist or frame him (Pocock) as an impediment to women while the exact opposite is true
This Coming Weekend Marks 4 Years Since We Dumped Content Management Systems (CMSs) in Favour of Static Site Generators (SSGs)
the first page dated July 25
Slop's Latest Casualty: The Credibility of Linus Torvalds
If you care about millionaires and billionaires, follow Torvalds (he is already in that "club")
Techrights Will Become More Productive (More Output) Over Time
Big stories about to land
Touch Grass
Happiness involves what humans have evolved to appreciate, not what humans create to sedate the mind (like skinnerboxes)
The Cyber Show on Technology Having Become a Tool of Mass Psychosis, Not Enablement or Emancipation
Technology as mass psychosis
The Rumour Said That a Second Wave of Microsoft Layoffs Would Come This Week (Ahead of Fake 'Results'), Maybe Tomorrow
Let's wait and see how "MSM" unfold
To Wikipedia, "Notability" is Just an Excuse to Hail People Who Serve Billionaires While Marginalising or Defaming the Rest
Wikipedia is an advertising space
Our Series About Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and SLAPPs Will Resume Soon
Originally, in 2025, we gave ourselves 6 years (until 2031) to cover these issues, but we've seen since extended that to 10 years (until 2036) because of the amount of material we have
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: The EPO Transparency Gap
Despite the "European" tag in the organisation's name, the European Union has no jurisdiction over the European Patent Organisation
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 20, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, July 20, 2026
Links 20/07/2026: Lashes for Songs in Iran, Kurdish Language at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/07/2026: The Boss Baby (2017) and 2026 Old Computer Challenge Epilogue
Links for the day
Canonical Staff Acting Like They Aim to Receive Job Offers From Microsoft
There are moreover allegations that Debian will do the same, in the same way Mono boosters infected both distros in tandem or in turn.
Worsening Staff Affairs at Microsoft
Microsoft is managing to piss off many of its own workers
Czech Mate for GNU/Linux on the Way
Czechoslovakia is having none of that "peace for our time" with Microsoft
Nobody Will be Left Who Trusts IBM Anymore
The common theme is, the management must be completely replaced as soon as possible and truth needs to come out
Wall Street is a Bubble and No Company is Worth 5 Trillion Dollars
It's not hard to see which stocks will crash the hardest (or fastest)
The Corrupt Have Historically Tried to Paint Their Exposers as the Real Problem
As usual, there are efforts to shoot or muzzle the messenger
Search Engine Market Share in Italy: Microsoft Falls to Third in Many Countries Including Italy
Expect more layoffs in Bing
Links 20/07/2026: Spotify Drowning in Slop, Expiry of Software Patents in MPEG-4
Links for the day
Gemini Links 20/07/2026: Another Step Towards Owning Personal Data and Gemtext2 Envisioned
Links for the day
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Public Missions and Private Ambitions
Despite the French government's strong formal pushback, the lobbying momentum generated by Campinos and Negrão proved unstoppable
"DOOM" and "Bloodbath": the State of Microsoft and XBox
Way to piss off fans
Karen Melchior Fought the Good Fight
stay tuned for Part 29
Links 20/07/2026: Notes on E-mail Encryption, Torvalds and His Employer Paid a Lot to Promote Slop (Pyramid Scheme)
Links for the day
What a Difference Six Years Make...
We are also beta-testing a new feature for the site; we plan to announce it some time soon
When It Comes to Slop, Richard Stallman is Opposite of Linus Torvalds
When it comes to computing, Dr. Stallman has long been a voice of reason
Daniel Pocock is in Mainstream Media This Week
Pocock's haters will absolutely hate this
In His Departure Post, Poul-Henning Kamp (phk) Explains Why Linus Torvalds is Full of "Hot Air" and Slop Bubbles
Having lived through previous bubbles as a UNIX geek, phk cannot be ignored
Whistleblowers Keep Flowing
Later today a police investigator should phone us regarding death threats we've received
We Need Less Gadgets, More Humanity
If people are being honest with themselves, many of the gadgets they claim they "cannot live without" are just excesses and distractions they could definitely leave behind
Technology and Gadgets Got Obese, Just Like Their Users
They now sell us so-called 'phones' for slop
Daniel Pocock in The Guardian This Morning
There is an opportunity here to spread a message, even if Pocock won't win a seat
"Samsung Recently Projected a 19-fold Surge in Second-Quarter Operating Profit", Now There Are Mass Layoffs
In a 9-month period Samsung's debt rose by about 80%
Gemini Links 20/07/2026: Dungeon Meshi/Undertale Crossover, "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Dark Web and Beyond"
Links for the day
IBM's Control of the Media "Just Showed What Taking Accountability Does Not Look Like"
It is no secret that IBM pays the media
Microsoft Loses XBox Lawsuit, But There Are More
The collapse of studios continues
GNU/Linux Approaching International Average in Djibouti
One can envisage further gains for GNU/Linux, seeing Microsoft is in such a bad shape
Daniel Pocock "[t]he Australian Taking on Nigel Farage — from Down Under"
This can help raise awareness of some issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 19, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, July 19, 2026