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Links 6/9/2011: Android 3.2 Previews, wdiff 1.0.0 Released



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Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Understanding open source technologies, the ethical way
    The recent times have seen many big companies and even US government face brunt of invasions by hackers from other countries, creating a huge impact on world politics.

    With this trend several hackers offer help in repairing vulnerabilities in such systems. They in turn demand payments for the same, which is not ethical, because their work does not comply with pure assurance that an ethical hacker always guarantees.

    Thus for us ethical hackers, this unethical wayposes a threat to our image, which is yet to be repaired in the minds of governments and people in general.


  • Web Browsers



  • SaaS



  • Databases

    • NSA proposes Accumulo NoSQL database to Apache
      Built on top of Apache's Hadoop, Zookeeper and Thrift projects, Accumulo is a distributed key/value store based on the design of Google's BigTable. Developed by the US National Security Agency (NSA), the Accumulo project has now been proposed to the Apache Software Foundation for consideration and incubation as a new Apache project. Accumulo's big difference is that it has fine-grained label-based access control, which could allow different users to access a record but only see the fields they are allowed to see; the NSA developers believe such a database could work in "government, health care, and other industries where privacy is a concern".




  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Another Crack in Oracle’s Case Against Google


    • Oracle v. Google - Google Knocks Another (Minor) Chip Out of Oracle
      Two weeks ago Google won the right to file a motion for summary judgment on Oracle's affirmative defense of assignor estoppel. As we explained at that time, Oracle was arguing that, since Google now employs some of the named inventors in the patents Oracle is asserting against Google, Google should be precluded from challenging the validity of those patents.

      Oracle has now decided to throw in the towel on that defense by agreeing to stipulate to its dismissal with prejudice, i.e., they cannot reassert this defense again in this case. 387 [PDF] This is not that big a deal. There was almost no chance that Oracle was going to be successful with the assignor estoppel defense (their attempt to apply it in this case went far beyond anything any court has allowed). Nevertheless, it knocks one more issue off the table. Note that the dismissal with prejudice on this defense is not final until the judge enters the order, but given the parties have agreed to the stipulation, that is a mere formality.




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



  • Project Releases

    • wdiff 1.0.0 released
      So what has changed? As user noticeable changes we have updated translations for Updated Dutch, French, Danish and Slovenian as well as a completely new translation file for Ukrainian thanks to Yuri Chornoivan. The code will now give more useful results in case the diff program either cannot be executed or fails for some reason.




  • Public Services/Government

    • Can Whitehall open up to open source?
      What's Whitehall's attitude to software procurement? A cynic might sum it up as "nobody ever got sacked for buying Microsoft".

      The current government has vowed to change the civil service mindset that has always preferred to spend money with the biggest firms and has been conservative about open source software.

      The Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude has vowed to create a level playing field for open source as part of a drive to cut costs.

      Now a BBC Freedom of Information (FOI) request has given us a glimpse of how big the challenge will be.


    • Government a closed shop for open source
      Amid promises from the current Government to give greater opportunities to open-source providers, the BBC made a flurry of Freedom of Information Act requests aimed at discovering the use of non-proprietary software in Whitehall.

      The figures from each department are hardly conclusive and vary in detail, but point to a situation in which conservatism rules the day, with civil-service buyers reluctant to look past low-risk, high-cost packages from big-name suppliers.


    • Indian Government Takes the Open Source Route
      The draft ‘Policy On Device Drivers For Procurement Of Hardware For e-Governance’ states that the, “Government of India (GOI) endeavours to provide e-governance services, which are technology-neutral, cost-effective, interoperable and vendor-neutral. The GOI Policy on open standards is a step towards meeting this objective in the development of e-governance applications.” The policy will be applicable in all new e-governance projects, as well as in existing ones.


    • Department for Transport Embraces Open Source Platform and Cloud-Based Hosting in Latest Kainos Project
      The Department for Transport (www.dft.gov.uk/) has become the latest central Government organisation to extend its relationship with Causeway, the application management services arm of Kainos, with a new contract to support the Department’s web activities and migration to a cloud-based open source platform.






Leftovers

  • Armageddon of IT
    The “innocent” third parties for this change could either ship their products in virtual machines paying the “tax” or they could port their software to GNU/Linux. Either way would cost ISVs some money but all the software makers owe the manufacturers of all that lovely hardware a lot, I figure. They should be glad to contribute to software freedom. End users might need some retraining but the OEMs could easily host training sites to prepare users. There could be lots of opportunity for smaller ISVs to compete against the big guys if they can get software working on GNU/Linux sooner than the big guys.


  • Health/Nutrition

    • Nurses to Obama: Heal America, Tax Wall Street!
      As President Obama gets ready for his big jobs speech Thursday, America’s nurses have a message for him. "Heal America, Tax Wall Street!" the signs read as nurses rallied in front of 61 Congressional offices this week. The nurses are proposing a bold alternative to the “cut, cut, cut” rhetoric emanating from Washington, D.C.




  • Cablegate





  • Finance

    • Pray for Goldman Sachs
      Because no amount of money ultimately protects you against the collapse of a nation, against raging compatriots in the streets too desperate to care anymore. Look at Rome, Greece, Rwanda, Russia (twice recently -- the Czars, then the Commies). Take a look at Gaddafi, Hussein and all the other leaders in the Middle East who have been feasting off their people.


    • WHo Do You THiNK BuiLT AMeRiCa?
      Watch the news this Labor Day. You will have the unique opportunity to hear and see politicians, robbers, thieves and human strip miners tell you about how they have the best interests of "working" American men and women at heart.




  • Civil Rights



    • Facebook Complains About German Sites Changing Functionality Of 'Like' Button To Comply With Law
      Who's more powerful when it comes to determining how social voting functionality works in Germany? The government or Facebook? You may recall a few weeks ago there were reports of a German official effectively banning the Facebook "like" button on third party sites as a privacy violation. While it doesn't say it's officially in response to this, the German news site Heise implemented a neat little workaround, in which you have to first click on the icon to "activate" it, and then you can click the "like" (Google translation of the original German). Under this system, the "like" button isn't loaded until a user clicks on it, thus there's no issue of Facebook automatically tracking folks via the button.






Recent Techrights' Posts

[Video] Dr. Richard Stallman at Technické Univerzitě v Liberci
New/via libre-liberec.cz
Security is Desirable, But Not When the Term Security is Misused to Imply Centralisation of "Trust" (Whose?)
'Security' is not an excuse for vendor lock-in
 
10 Days Ago Richard Stallman Gave a Long Interview in French (linuxfr.org)
English translation
Science, Not Fast Food/Junk Food
The commercial exploitation of users won't stop until users exercise full control over their software or - more broadly - their computing (including data)
The Free Software Foundation, Which Has Appointed a 43-Year-Old President, is Looking to Add Another Board Member (or Treasurer)
expect the FSF to add more people
Richard Stallman Confirms Next Week's Talk at Technical University of Munich, We Urge EPO Staff to Attend
That's probably late enough for EPO staff to attend after work
Gemini Links 18/10/2025: Notifications and Geminaut
Links for the day
Many Red Hat People Are Leaving, But It'll Be Framed Publicly as Leaving IBM
Similarly, IBM layoffs (or "RAs" as they're called) include Red Hat layoffs
Expect More Waves of Microsoft Layoffs This Month (at Least Two Rounds Confirmed Already)
From what we can gather, assuming the recent rumours about XBox are true, there will be at least 3 waves of Microsoft layoffs this month alone
Security Issues in Cisco and Jenkins Passed Off as "Linux" Problems
Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) tactics
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 17, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 17, 2025
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Linux Journal (Slashdot Media), UbuntuPIT, and Google News (Noise)
egregious plagiarism
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Links for the day
Links 17/10/2025: Fentanylware (CheeTok) Causing Problems, Japanese Government Blasts Slop
Links for the day
The Linux Foundation Seems to Have Turned Linux.com Not Only Into a Spamfarm But Also LLM Slopfarm
it's polluting the Web, even important domains like Linux.com, with spam and LLM slop
Links 17/10/2025: UK’s Largest Breach Penalty and Windows TCO Examples
Links for the day
Go Watch Video About Librephone, Get Microsoft Ads
Very ethical company...
Campaign of Defamation Against the People Who Built NixOS (and Are Now Pushed Out From Their Own Project)
We've already grown familiar with - and resistant to - such tactics
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Links for the day
Tux Machines Has Helped Separate Opinions/Analysis From News
In September 2023 we decided to split things apart and not repeat links in both sites
Tux Machines Has Improved Navigation of GNU/Linux and BSD News
Some more 'wiring' work
What a World Would Look Like If Everyone Used Free Software Only
Freedom is what matters, not "Open".
The Media Helps Microsoft, Amazon and Others (GAFAM and Beyond) Lie About Mass Layoffs Amid Valuation Bubble
The media, instead of saying that there's an "AI bubble" crashing the economy might instead choose the narrative of "jobs replaced by AI"
Bad Tempered? You Might Have Just Given Away That You're Losing the Argument
Brett Wilson LLP is fully aware that it is being investigated
Richard Stallman (RMS) is a Target of Defamation Campaigns Because of His Views on Software (But Politics Are the Excuse for Defaming Him)
Here in this site we try to refrain from politics, except in Daily Links
End of Vista 10 and Rise of GNU/Linux as Client Side Operating System
It seems certain GNU/Linux will grow in popularity over time
Taking Stock of a Week's Worth of EPO Leaks
We remain committed to exposing EPO corruption as long as it keeps happening
Mathieu Parreaux claims FINMA knew since day one
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Calumny, Libel, Joerg Jaspert & debian-private untouchable cyberbullies
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 16, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 16, 2025
Techrights Turns 19 in 3 Weeks
coverage of suppressed topics and protecting all sources/whistleblowers
International E-Waste Day Same Day as End of Vista 10
message from Akira Urushibata
The EPO's Central Staff Committee Presents Evidence That Staff Compensation Lowered While the Office Increases Income by Illegally Granting Invalid Patents
These people become millionaires by doing illegal things
Second or Third Wave of Microsoft Mass Layoffs in October 2025, This Time Portugal
Those are just the ones we know about, there may be several more
'Help Net Security' (helpnetsecurity.com) May Have Become a Slopfarm as Well
Zeljka Zorz, Editor-in-Chief at Help Net Security, was reported to us
Gemini Links 17/10/2025: Rant About Network Solutions, Strange Anomaly on Lagrange
Links for the day
EPO Staff Representation Lacks Social Dialogue With Relevant Management, Controversial and Sometimes Illegal Policies Implemented Without Necessary Input
"In this open letter, the CSC requests that the President submits an agenda item in the next available General Consultative Committee (GCC) meeting on setting up regular meetings between the CSC and the higher management of DG1."
Links 16/10/2025: Political Leftovers and Gemini Protocol Links
Links for the day
Lies Need to be Corrected
the Court never invited us
Slopwatch: Guardian Digital (linuxsecurity.com), Slashdot, Google News, and More
Maybe one day, once the bubble pops completely, Google News will just outright delist all slopfarms
Lufthansa Modern Slavery, Joerg Jaspert (ganneff) & Debian NSB Softwareentwicklung charade
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 16/10/2025: US Starting More Trade Wars With China, CIA War on Venezuela
Links for the day
SUSE Blog is Still LLM Slop, Marketing Manager at SUSE Cannot Write
Would you buy from a company or seek support from a company that cannot even write (or fakes writing)?
Pretend You're Not Dead: Microsoft Spent Almost Two Decades Rebranding Things as "Cloud, Then "AI", Now "XBox" and "Quantum"
"AI" bubble pops, Microsoft harping about "quantum" already
IBM Allegedly Found New Tricks for Silent Layoffs: LPI, Then MIS (Not PIP)
Remember that "Red Hat layoffs" won't be reported after the bluewashing
Links 16/10/2025: Red Lines and Feeding of Microsoft Trolls
Links for the day
MIT as a Propaganda Mill of GAFAM, Paid by GAFAM
"the news" today
Links 16/10/2025: Lies Euphemised as ‘Dueling Versions of Reality’ and Microsoft "Open" "Hey Hi" Resorts to Porn as No Business Model Was Found
Links for the day
The Local Staff Committee Munich (Representation of the EPO's Staff) Explains When Cluster of Pregnancies May Result in Reduced Pay
"...even one week of part-time working is sufficient to reduce the salary you perceive during the entirety of your maternity leave."
Another Black Eye for 'Secure Boot', Microsoft Media Tries to Blame "Linux"
It enables Microsoft to remotely control computers, even computers that don't run Windows and never had any Microsoft software installed
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT, linuxsecurity.com, and Various Slopfarms in Google News Attacking "Linux"
A new survey of the Web said that the majority of the Web is now slop (that's being said in the news this week)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 15, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 15, 2025
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Links for the day