Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links /4/2011: Mourning Mozilla Messaging, Celebrating Simple Java API for ODF



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • Linux's Own 'Canterbury' Tale: Laughing, Wishing and Hoping


  • Server

    • Penguin Computing overclocks Opterons for Wall Street
      Linux server specialist Penguin Computing has jumped into the overclocked server fray with a new Altus server aimed at clock-hungry high frequency stock trading applications.

      At the HPC on Wall Street Conference in New York City this week, Penguin Computing is showing off its Altus 1750 server, which is built using Advanced Micro Devices' "Lisbon" Opteron 4100 processors and its homegrown chipsets. The 1U rack-mounted server has three things that companies running high frequency trading systems want: density, low power consumption, and relatively high clock speeds.




  • Audiocasts/Shows





  • Kernel Space

    • Live video stream for 20th Anniversary of Linux


      This week sees the start of the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit, which also includes the Android Builders Summit. Held from April 6 - 8 in San Francisco, this invitation-only summit is a gathering of core kernel developers and end users.

      The Linux Foundation suggests that Linux is growing well out of adolescence in the commercial world -- and says that it will have 'working group' announcements that detail the formation of a new group to address more sophisticated enterprise requirements.


    • Graphics Stack

      • A Hot-Replace Server For Wayland Is Proposed
        While proposals for this year's Google Summer of Code is quickly coming to an end, there's been a last minute proposal for the Wayland Display Server. This proposal is to work on a hot-replace server.






  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments



    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • KDE Browswers Part 2: Rekonq
        The Good -Appears to have “Download them All” built-in if you enable the KGet settings in the preferences -Integrates perfectly with KDE -When you start up a new tab and then click on “recently closed tabs” the list of tabs has thumbnails of the sites. I think this is great because it helps you quickly find the site you’re looking for.


      • of rockstars, unicorns and Isaac Newton
        A question that has bugged me for some time, is how we can bring our creations into the hands of more users”, and how we can show the world that a truely open and community developed system can bring great value to more people. How can we overcome the technical barriers that hold back so many people from benefitting from our hard work, all the genius, love and creativity we put into software. Since my first contact with Free software, Linux openSUSE and KDE, we have done some very solid work. We have technically caught up with Microsoft, and are delivering a product that is up to par in many aspects, and better in many more ways. While we have booked immense successes, we have not reached the goal of making the Linux desktop ubiquitous in the desktop market. In a world of iPhones and Android, we even see closed development models based on similar technology as ours being a big success, market-wise, but failing to deliver the full Freedom of a community-driven development model to end users.


      • Making KDEPIM less annoying


      • KDE Remote Desktop Sharing – Stand On the RFB Protocol!
        KDE Desktop Sharing is also known as the KRFB that is a service stand on the RFB protocol. It is permits the users to share their system with other system of the user.

        The process is also helping the users to show their desktop as an administrator to solve their problem. In this regard, the users can get full control to access their desktop. KDE Desktop Sharing is well-matched with all regular RFB and VNC the users.


      • Nice Things To Do With Nepomuk – Part One
        The other day I needed to find a website. The only thing I could remember was that Vishesh gave me the link in IRC a few days back. So I had to grep through thousands of lines of IRC log which, quite frankly, sucks. Nepomuk should handle this. So what do we have to do to achieve that?


      • Graesslin Has Compositing Dreams, But is it Yours?
        There are times when one might want to disable compositing. Graesslin's example is in the case of saving battery life. Other's might be when starting a 3D game or other heavy applications, watching movies, or with older or lower resource machines. For these examples, KWin's usual method of unredirecting, or disabling composite on a per application basis while the actual effects engine is still running in the background, might be ineffective, counter-productive, or unsupported in a given application. While Alt+Shift+F12 can turn it off, most users don't know of it or want the hassle of knowing when to use it. So, Graesslin thinks something else should be done.


      • digiKam Tricks 3.0 Released
        This is a major release of the digiKam Tricks book, featuring a completely revised and updated content that reflects changes in the upcoming version 2.0 of the digiKam photo management application.


      • Nice Things To Do With Nepomuk – Part Two
        Let us now take a look at the data we created. For this we will fire up NepSak aka. Nepomukshell and use a bit of SPARQL for testing and debugging purposes (remember: when implementing stuff try to keep to the query API instead of coding your own SPARQL queries).


      • Another one bytes the dust
        I’ve just pushed a change to kdepim 4.4 which removes this annoying dialog in a few annoying cases.


      • KDE, what next?
        14 years ago, the KDE community was born with a very bold vision: give to everybody a cool, attractive, easy to use desktop environment, now we are a worldwide community with hundreds of members, we provide a very strong foundation with the kdelibs framework, many apps, the Plasma Desktop workspace and the Plasma Netbook workspace.




    • GNOME Desktop

      • Totem in GNOME 3.0, plans for 3.2
        Totem for GNOME 3 is available in the GNOME FTP servers. And now onto GNOME 3.2.

        There's a couple of major UI changes planned for Totem 3.2, with designs from the GNOME Design team (and Hylke in particular). These include the removal of the status bar, better fullscreen controls, more contrast when playing movies, etc.


      • Cheese in The Board
        I spent a few spare hours during this week to finally implement webcam support on The Board‘s photo elements. I still need to polish the design a bit but it’s pretty nice already!






  • Distributions

    • Slackware 13.37: Linux for the fun of it
      In short, Slackware users are those who want to tinker with their system and don't find it intimidating — or are willing to face intimidation to learn more about their systems. The users range from hobbyists to one who claims to manage more than 150 Slackware servers across the state. Which isn't to suggest that Slackware is likely to be a big choice on behalf of business. The Slackware site lists a few companies that offer Slackware support but it doesn't seem too many organizations are clamoring for it. I contacted Steuben Technologies and Adjuvo Consulting. William Schaub of Steuben Technologies says he's received only one serious call for Slackware support and says "My guess is either there isn't a lot of people running Slackware in production or (and this is more likely) that most people running Slackware on their servers have all the help in house that they need."

      The Slackware community may be smaller than those of major Linux distributions, but it's also largely free of politics and drama (Volkerding's health scare excepted). The distribution is driven by Volkerding, but it's not a one-man show. The changelog is full of acknowledgments from Volkerding to Robby Workman, Eric Hameleers, and many others.

      You could look at Slackware and say that it's out of date, a throwback to the days when Linux was the domain of the "l33t" and little more than a hobbyist OS. Another way to look at it is that Slackware is for users who miss the simpler days of Linux and still want to tinker with their systems.


    • Red Hat Family

      • CentOS 5.6 release imminent
        Yes, we have heard it a few times before, but this time it is true. CentOS 5.6 is being seeded to mirrors and work has started to bring the Release Notes up to speed. Already 82 days after RHEL 5.6.


      • Fedora

        • Quick look at Fedora-inspired Fusion Linux 14 - Mini Review
          Round-up: Fusion Linux is slightly buggy, but a good choice for home users who want everything out of the box and do not want the hassle of adding extra repositories to get codecs and then install them. If Windows gaming on Linux is your thing, this distribution could work for you. If you're not fussy about disk space and the mix of libraries thrown your way in Fusion, or you are already using Mint and are looking to move or just try out a Fedora base, this could also be interesting. And for advanced users, don't forget, you can customize the kickstart file from the start as it is availabl






    • Debian Family

      • 120 Megabits/s
        That’s the current load on a Debian mirror in the Netherlands. There are hundreds of Debian mirrors. The last update for Squeeze, the latest release Debian GNU/Linux, was March 19 so much of this traffic will be new installations. Let’s estimate how many installations of Debian GNU/Linux are happening…


      • Debian wheezy: lots of fixes, new stuff


      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • ShipIt comes to an end
          That’s not to say there won’t be CDs. We are going to make large numbers of CDs available to the Ubuntu Local Communities (LoCos) through a shipIt-lite program. We are asking the LoCos, who are much better placed than Canonical in many ways, to find creative ways to get CDs to those that need them. And of course, every single person reading this who has a CD is a potential distributor – it is after all free to copy, modify and redistribute. We will also continue to make the packs available through the store which are sold more or less at cost price (plus shipping).


        • Ubuntu 11.04: i686 vs. i686 PAE vs. x86_64
          At the end of 2009 I published benchmarks comparing Ubuntu's 32-bit, 32-bit PAE, and 64-bit Linux kernels. Those tests were carried out to show the performance impact of using 32-bit with PAE (Physical Address Extension) support, which on the plus side allows up to 64GB of system memory to be addressable from 32-bit machines, but is still significantly slower than a 64-bit kernel and user-space. In this article the tests have been carried out on modern hardware and with the latest Ubuntu 11.04 packages to see how the three kernel variants are performing in 2011.


        • Narwhal: Not Really Classic Yet
          Then we have the file menus, they’re not in the windows like they were in Classic Ubuntu. They’re somewhere else. This is a major headache and retooling for something that’s supposed to be following the style of the classic desktop.


        • Is Ubuntu 11.04 Beta the Beginning of the End?
          Canonical recently announced the release of Ubuntu 11.04 Beta into the wild, and it has some wondering about the future of the free operating system.

          Ubuntu has experienced a very good run. Since it emerged in 2004 as a derivative of the popular Debian GNU/Linux operating system, Ubuntu has made consistent strides to be unique and more than just another Linux distribution. Not only has its popularity as the most widely-used Linux flavor soared, its brand recognition has broken into mainstream tech media and helped develop a more user-friendly image for the free and open source operating system.


        • Video Demonstraton of a Few Things I Like in Unity


        • Ubuntu Natty Beta 1 Review + Screenshots Tour
          The appindicators, global menu, the compiz effects and the Ubuntu Software Center have definitely make Ubuntu Natty a much better version than its predecessor. However, when it comes to the Unity interface, it is really a hate or love affair. Even though I appreciate the work put in by Canonical, but until it becomes more customizable and doesn’t break my productivity flow, I still prefer the Ubuntu Classic interface.


        • Verdict Is?: Ubuntu 11.04 beta arrives
          My first impression with the 11.04 desktop was surprisingly positive. I was very much prepared to be underwhelmed, but found quite the opposite to be the case. The Unity desktop ran smooth and was very efficient. After playing with the desktop for a while it becomes quite clear the ultimate goal is that of touch screens. But even being touch-screen-centric, the desktop still works well under the current norm of mouse and keyboard.


        • The new Ubuntu Desktop: Unity
          When Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu announced that the next version of the popular Linux, Ubuntu 11.04, would use Unity, instead of GNOME as its default desktop interface he shocked the Linux desktop community. Now, with the release of the Ubuntu 11.04 beta, we can get a real look at Unity.

          Before going into that though, let me answer the question of why Ubuntu has decided to move from pure GNOME to the GNOME-based Unity. As Shuttleworth explained to the Ubuntu developers, “Lots of people are already committed to Unity–the community, desktop users, developers, and platform and hardware vendors.” In particular, he noted, “Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) favor Unity. They’re happy to ship it.”


        • Natty In The Final Stretch: A Retrospective
          This is a personal post and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of my employer, Canonical.


        • Why being an approved loco team doesn’t actually matter a jot
          I am a firm believer being a LoCo is just as much about being friends with your team mates as installing Ubuntu on numerous machines or explaining what OSS/FOSS is all about. At the end of the day we are a community and sometimes that means doing casual non Ubuntu events, these can be added to the LoCo Directory (LD) also. Not every event has to always be about Ubuntu.


        • Flavours and Variants









  • Devices/Embedded

    • Two Linux-based NAS devices reach market
      Qnap Systems announced a four-drive, rackmountable network attached storage (NAS) "TS-412U" server supporting up to 12TB and aimed at the SMB and workgroup markets. In other Linux-based NAS news, Buffalo Systems started shipping its home-focused Pogoplug-based Cloudstor NAS device, which offers free cloud based-storage in addition to up to 2TB local capacity.


    • Phones



      • Android

        • Google cracks down on Android 'fragmentation'


          Google has told mobile manufacturers and providers they will have to go through its head honcho to make any changes to the Android mobile operating system.

          The Silicon Valley giant has laid down the law to prevent Android becoming more fragmented. Any changes will now have to be approved by the company’s head of mobile, Andy Rubin, according to a report in Business Week.


        • Rooting a Nook Color: Is it Worth It?
          The Color Nook is a nice little piece of hardware for the price. The screen is crisp and clear, and it’s a great size for carrying around for reading books and light Web browsing. But you can do all that right out of the box — what about when you’ve rooted the Nook?

          I decided to go the “Auto Nooter” option to root the Nook so I could install third-party applications, rather than installing a different Android release. The procedure to root the Nook is simple enough. It looks much more complicated on paper (so to speak) than it actually is. So if you’re finding the long list of steps intimidating, don’t worry — it’s a piece of cake. You can root your Nook in about 20 minutes, as long as you have a MicroSD card big enough handy.






    • Sub-notebooks

      • Linux OS Hercules eCafe Netbook Does 13 Hours Per Charge
        The Hercules brand isn’t exactly a household name, but it is better known for the line of speakers than “real” computer equipment. Even so, they’re already onto the next generation of computing with two new eCAFE netbooks.

        The EX HD eCAFE netbook is the one that boasts a “real world” battery life of “at least” 13 hours. That should be more than enough to keep you Skyping and Twittering all day long. The Slim HD eCAFE netbook, on the other hand, has a claim to fame with its less than one-inch profile.




    • Tablets

      • Who will win the Tablet OS war?
        The question I have been asking myself over the past month is a very simple one, and one which I would guess is being asked by many of the companies making the growing range of of tablet PC devices and the operating systems that drive them: which factors will decide which companies come out on top in the long run and can we learn anything from the history of the PC?

        In the PC world it was the relentless pursuit of global domination by Microsoft that ensured that Windows ended up as the de-facto desktop operating system for almost the entire globe. There were a couple of other factors in play and of those, the ability of Windows to run on hardware built by multiple manufacturers was probably the most important of the lot.








Free Software/Open Source



  • NASDAQ in open source tech battle with €£7bn NYSE bid


    NASDAQ has placed its Linux-based IT systems at the front of an $11.3 billion (€£7 billion) effort to thwart a merger between the New York Stock Exchange and Deutsche Borse.

    The high-tech stock market is teaming up with InterContinentalExchange in an attempt to acquire NYSE Euronext from under the nose of Deutsche Borse, which only last month announced it was the approved bidder for the exchange.


  • Open source FusionDirectory forked from GOsa project


    The GOsa open source infrastructure management project has been forked with version 1.0 of FusionDirectory being released today.

    In February some GOsa developers decided to fork the project in order to provide better documentation; develop “the most powerful and universal” tool for IT management; and provide “more flexibility for development tools”.


  • Freedom through a clear governance model


    A while back, Mark Webb of the Met Office Hadley Centre for climate change described in a guest post, how his Cloud model project COSP introduced a governance model, based on one of our templates. This was a result of few informal chats over beers and his exploration of OSS Watch public resources. Mark also described some of the immediate benefits they experienced.


  • Decision criteria for open source and proprietary software
    The selection of operating systems was once one of the major decisions IT managers had to face when considering their options for service delivery, be it for servers or desktops. Until a decade or so ago, such choices were limited to choosing one from a range of proprietary operating systems supplied by vendors. But the past 10 years have witnessed a new option take hold in the form of open source operating systems. What drives the selection process when choosing between open source software and operating systems supplied by a vendor?


  • Web Browsers



    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla Dissolves Messaging Unit
        Back in 2008, Mozilla announced the formation of Mozilla Messaging.

        It was supposed to be an effort that was going to propel Mozilla's Thunderbird email client to the same level of adoption and interest as Firefox.

        It failed.

        Three years later, Thunderbird and Mozilla Messaging have not lived up to the initial hope of Mozilla Messaging. I don't think that Mozilla Messaging ever achieved the market adoption they hoped for and I don't think they ever figured out a revenue model either.


      • How To Use Firefox 4's "Awesome Bar" To Make Search Faster
        Getting used to your new Firefox 4 web browser? If so, you might have seen some improvements in the Location Bar.

        The updated features make browsing the web a cinch, so it's no wonder why more and more Internet junkies are calling it the Awesome Bar.


      • Firefox 4 Tips and Tricks






  • SaaS

    • How Many Open Source Projects Does It Take To Build A Cloud?
      For Linux vendor Red Hat (NYSE:RHT), the cloud isn't about any one particular project, it's about a combination of multiple open source projects.

      At the core of Red Hat's cloud strategy is its Cloud Foundations effort which extends Red Hat's infrastructure offerings for the cloud.

      "Cloud Foundations was named that for a reason," Scott Crenshaw, VP and GM of the Cloud Business Unit at Red Hat told InternetNews.com. "The evolution to improving IT infrastructure is a continuous process and you're never really done."




  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice/Symphony

    • Legacy should never be a burden
      While it’s clear we were and are the continuation of the OpenOffice project judging both by the numbers of contributors who have switched from OpenOffice.org to LibreOffice and by our manifesto itself, we also gained quite a few brand new people. I have the feeling that at least for some of them, they do not identify well with the notion that we are continuing some other project but would rather think of LibreOffice as something brand new (irrelevant of any technological arguments).


    • Using the Symphony office suite
      Discover a program similar to Microsoft Office, which you can download for free and includes word processing, spreadsheet and presentation tools




  • Education

    • I'm loving open source in schools


      It’s spring and I have fallen back in love with Open Source Software...

      I know, I know, I have been on and off this bike more times than I care to remember. My associates have warned me saying that’s it’s just another tease and I should stick with sensible software... but this time I am sure it’s the real thing.

      We met many years ago but somehow things just kept fizzling out; was it the odd pet names we used?... like Moodle, Gimp and Puppy, I don’t know, but I at least I never caught anything nasty apart from a brush with the karambas and some painful widgets.




  • Business



  • BSD



  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • GNU Free Call – the freedom to call out when you really need to
      Making phone calls for free is one of the things made possible by the Internet that is more useful to all people, regardless of how much they like or dislike computers. Computer-based free phone calls make possible to stay in contact with relatives living thousands of kilometers away or to set up phone conferences without any special telephone equipment or contract.

      Regardless of costs and of which software is used, computer based telephony seems also great for hearing impaired people. As software phone user said: “for the first time in years, I’m actually enjoying talking to others using a (computer) phone.




  • Government

    • Government Procurement: Great Expectations for FOSS
      This year has seen an increasing focus on the use by free and open source software (“FOSS”) by governments with recent announcements by the UK, the Australian Federal Government and NASA. FOSS projects and companies need to be aware of these efforts because of the scope of the opportunity to transform government and provide less expensive software infrastructure to government. Governments are also a very large market for software. Yet governments continue to be hampered by their habits of using proprietary software as demonstrated by the recent decision by an administrative court in Lille, France. http://lawandlifesiliconvalley.com/blog/?p=584 .




  • Licensing



  • Standards/Consortia





Leftovers

  • The Geek&Poke Tip For A Good Marriage


  • Security



  • Defence/Police/Aggression





  • Finance

    • Nuns ask Goldman Sachs bosses whether they're really worth $69.5m
      Goldman Sachs is facing a call from four leading orders of catholic nuns to review whether the pay awarded to chief executive Lloyd Blankfein and other top executives is excessive.


    • Duration of Unemployment, Unemployment by Education, Employment Diffusion Indexes
      Unfortunately the "27 weeks or more" category increased slightly in March to 6.122 million workers (about 4% of the labor force). This remains extremely high, and long term unemployment remains a serious problem.


    • Gauging the Pain of the Middle Class
      LIKE everyone else, government officials want to look good. That often leads them to enact policies that promote favorable movements in the indexes by which they are judged. But when those indexes are imperfect, bad choices often result. And that’s nowhere more evident than in economic policy.


    • The Bank Run We Knew So Little About
      That Aug. 20, Commerzbank of Germany borrowed $350 million at the Fed’s discount window. Two days later, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and the Wachovia Corporation each received $500 million. As collateral for all these loans, the banks put up a total of $213 billion in asset-backed securities, commercial loans and residential mortgages, including second liens.


    • Obama: Shift from imported oil, new jobs will come
      President Barack Obama says shifting the U.S. away from imported oil and toward cleaner forms of energy will add momentum to a trend that has led to 1.8 million new jobs in the past 13 months.


    • Follow the Money: From MERS to Fraudclosure
      Understand this precisely: This was not a case of slipshod handling, of sloppy paperwork, or bad management. This was a willful decision to break the law in order to save expenses and be more profitable.


    • Judge: Bad Securitization = No Standing to Foreclose
      In other words, if you screw up the process of securitizing mortgages by failing to assign the loan note (and/or physically keep track of it), you lose the right to subsequently foreclose in the event of a default.


    • Blankfein Reaps $19 Million as Cash Bonuses Return at Goldman


    • Giving Paul Ryan credit
      In general, seniors vote Republicans and poor people don’t. So the easy play for Paul Ryan was clear: limit the entitlement-reform portion of his budget to slashing Medicaid. Then he could say he was taking a first step on entitlements without enraging the GOP’s core supporters.

      He didn’t do that. Ryan — and the GOP — are proposing to privatize Medicare. They’re proposing to save money by giving seniors less than their now-private Medicare will cost. They’re endorsing a plan that is the single least popular option for balancing the budget — below raising the retirement age, cutting defense spending or raising taxes on the rich.


    • It's Time for Representative Ryan to Man Up
      Outside of Washington, people have a different conception of bravery. After all, over the last three decades the policies crafted in Washington have led to the most massive upward redistribution in the history of the world. The richest 1 percent of the population has seen is share of national income increase by close to 10 percentage points. This comes to $1.5 trillion a year, or as Representative Ryan might say, $90 trillion over the next 75 years. That's almost $300,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States.


    • Citi to start clearing smaller checks first
      Citibank will soon start clearing customer checks in a way that minimizes the potential for multiple overdraft charges.

      In an internal memo sent Monday, the bank said it will process checks starting with the smallest amounts first as of July 25. Most large banks process larger checks first, a practice consumer advocates say increases the potential for multiple overdraft violations on checking accounts.

      Customers are being notified of the change in statements this week.




  • Privacy

    • Data retention rejected by Czechs
      Data retention has been rejected as unconstitutional in the Czech republic. The EU Directive, pushed forward by the UK, creates an obligation to store everyone's traffic data, such as who you email or call on your phone, for possible use in criminal investigations.


    • Freedom Bill: Protecting our privacy?
      The Protection of Freedom Bill introduces a number of measures to help protect our fundamental right to privacy, particularly creating new Commissioners to deal with biometrics and CCTV, but did not seek to address many of the long-standing complaints about current protections.


    • Lohan threatens to sue over surveillance tape
      Just imagine you're a celebrity and any retail store you walk into might sell security camera footage of your beautiful mug? Doesn't sound too appealing, does it?

      Well, that pretty much sums up the feelings of one Lindsay Lohan, who is mulling a lawsuit against Kamofie & Co. after surveillance footage of her allegedly absconding with a necklace has been released into the wild.




  • Civil Rights

    • US IP Czar Proposes Limits on Civil Rights and Liberties to Protect Big Content
      The White House’s IP czar Victoria Espinel is calling on Congress to further expand and toughen U.S. intellectual property law, which is already among the most sweeping and strictest in the world. Copyright regulation has grown into a massive and complicated bureaucratic system, which has lost sight of it purpose and limits. The capture of this Administration and key members of Congress by the powerful special interests called Big Content continues to grow as demonstrated by this report, which fails to address the need for a balanced reform approach.




  • Internet/Net Neutrality/UBB



  • DRM

    • Halifax libraries won't pay rising e-book costs
      The manager of acquisitions for Halifax Public Libraries says she is not buying new e-book licenses from HarperCollins after the publisher increased the price of digital editions.

      HarperCollins used to offer unlimited lending on each e-book license but since the beginning of March the company has changed the policy. It now requires libraries to repurchase licenses after a limited number of uses.


    • Anonymous hacks Sony PS3 sites
      Several Sony PlayStation sites are unavailable this morning thanks to what looks like a distributed denial of service attack launched by Anonymous.

      The hacktivists have left the Scientologists alone in order to harass the console-makers because of Sony's action against two lads for jailbreaking PS3s.

      [...]

      In a strangely self-important and sanctimonious message, the hackers said:
      Congratulations, Sony.

      You have now received the undivided attention of Anonymous. Your recent legal action against our fellow hackers, GeoHot and Graf_Chokolo, has not alarmed us, it has been deemed wholly unforgivable....

      Now you will experience the wrath of Anonymous.

      You saw a hornets' nest, and stuck your penises in it.

      You must face the consequences of your actions.

      Anonymous style."




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights

      • Copyright Wars – Starving The Enemy
        Which is why artist after artist is abandoning the Record Labels and the Publishers to go it alone. It’s sad to see these companies in trouble. But it was inevitable.

        And this has those companies terrified. This is why they are screaming for Bill C-32 to be passed in Canada. It’s the companies that want it, not the artists. My guess is that they hope to use it as a springboard for further legislation, which would halt or slow the migration of the artists towards the better option.


      • 'My Works Are Like My Children'


      • US Copyright Group Drops Cases Against Alleged Hurt Locker Pirates
        Thousands of accused BitTorrent downloaders – including those of The Hurt Locker – can breathe a sigh of relief as their cases have been dropped. In what can be described as a major victory for those targeted, the complicated nature of these mass-lawsuits has forced the copyright holders to dump nearly all the defendants and rethink their strategy. Slowly, it appears that the US Copyright Group’s campaign to turn piracy into profit is crumbling.


      • Music Industry Destroys Another Powerful Free Download Tool
        If you know how, it is possible within just a few mouse clicks to have free access to one of the world’s largest resources of free music. Millions of tracks are available for free streaming but, with a few tweaks and the right software, they can be easily downloaded. The industry, seemingly powerless to do anything about the powerful source of the music, prefers to destroy the toolmakers – by fair means or foul.


      • Author Of Ridiculous 'Piracy' Report Defends Conclusions, Ignores Questions About Methodology
        But all of this ignores the main point: that the basic methodology he used for any of those calculations wasn't sound. People aren't complaining about the results. They're complaining about the methodology itself. And he doesn't seem to get that at all because he doesn't defend it at all.










Clip of the Day



Einstein vs Stephen Hawking -Epic Rap Battles of History #7



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Credit: TinyOgg

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[Meme] GAFAMfox
Mozilla Firefox in a state of extreme distress
Google Can Kill Mozilla Any Time It Wants
That gives Google far too much power over its rival... There are already many sites that refuse to work with Firefox or explicitly say Firefox isn't supported
Free (as in Freedom) Software Helps Tackle the Software Liability Issue, It Lets Users Exercise Greater Control Over Programs
Microsofters have been trying to ban or exclude Free software
In the US, Patent Laws Are Up for Sale
This problem is a lot bigger than just patents
ESET Finds Rootkits, Does Not Explain How They Get Installed, Media Says It Means "Previously Unknown Linux Backdoors" (Useful Distraction From CALEA and CALEA2)
FUD watch
Techdirt Loses Its Objectivity in Pursuit of Money
The more concerning aspects are coverage of GAFAM and Microsoft in particular
Links 23/11/2024: Press Sold to Vultures, New LLM Blunders
Links for the day
Links 23/11/2024: "Relationship with Oneself" and Yretek.com is Back
Links for the day
Links 23/11/2024: "Real World" Cracked and UK Online Safety Act is Law
Links for the day
Links 23/11/2024: Celebrating Proprietary Bluesky (False Choice, Same Issues) and Software Patents Squashed
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, November 22, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, November 22, 2024
Gemini Links 23/11/2024: 150 Day Streak in Duolingo and ICBMs
Links for the day