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Links 23/12/2011: Amarok 2.5, KDE SC 4.8 Release Candidate



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Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Nine Open Source Discoveries I Made in 2011
    When writing about free and open source software, sometimes I seem to spend all my time complaining. So, after last week, when I described 2011 as a whole as a disappointment, I thought I should add some balance by mentioning some of the free software-related discoveries that delighted me during the past year.

    Many of these discoveries were not new in 2011, although several came into their own during the year. However, until the last twelve months, they were new to me. All are worth mentioning, just in case you've missed them:


  • Reinventing the open source wheel
    One of the greatest strengths of open source software development has been the notion that as an OSS developer, you can pretty much just pick and choose from the thousands of OSS projects out there to enrich your own project.

    (There are caveats to this idea, of course, the most obvious being license incompatibility. But, the general principle still holds.)

    But anecdotal evidence in the open source community seems to be demonstrating that the very opposite is occurring: new projects are often reinventing the wheel in their code, rather than partnering with someone else's project.


  • Open Source Apps: the Monster List


  • Events



  • Web Browsers



  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice



  • Project Releases

    • Ceylon Achieves Milestone 1
      Milestone 1 of Ceylon includes a reasonably complete and stable specification and a complete command line toolset (compiler, runtime, documentation compiler). A compatible release of the team’s Eclipse-based IDE is coming soon.




  • Licensing

    • VLC engine relicensed to LGPL
      As announced in a previous press release, VideoLAN and VLC developers have achieved the process of changing the license of the VLC engine to LGPL. The École Centrale Paris shares its happiness about this change.




  • Open Hardware

    • Arduino-Open Hardware and IDE Combo
      This article is a bit different from my usual column in two ways. First, it's starting with a hardware and software combo—something I've not done before. Second, the projects are linked to each other and come recommended to me by Perth LUG member, Simon Newton.






Leftovers

  • Adobe’s Cloudware Announcement Stirs Pricing and Privacy Concerns


  • Security





  • Finance

    • A Christmas Message From America's Rich
      It seems America’s bankers are tired of all the abuse. They’ve decided to speak out.

      True, they’re doing it from behind the ropeline, in front of friendly crowds at industry conferences and country clubs, meaning they don’t have to look the rest of America in the eye when they call us all imbeciles and complain that they shouldn’t have to apologize for being so successful.




  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • A New Lowe in Advertiser Cowardice
      The national hardware chain Lowe's pulled its advertising from the TLC reality show All-American Muslim--explaining that the question of whether Muslims can be presented as regular human beings is a "hotly contested debate."

      All-American Muslim is a reality show described by TLC, the cable channel that airs it, as "a look at life in Dearborn, Michigan--home to the largest mosque in the United States--through the lens of five Muslim American families...an intimate look at the customs and celebrations, misconceptions and conflicts these families face outside and within their own community."




  • Civil Rights

    • SOPA Broken Even Before Being Passed
      The way some congressmen are desperate to pass dangerous SOPA, ignoring all the warning being given by IT experts, shows how much money speaks when it comes to passing laws. SOPA is nothing short of a measure to break the Internet just to entertain the entertainment industry which is failing to keep up with the technological evolution.




  • Copyrights

    • Anti-piracy laws will smash internet, US constitution - legal eagles
      Legal experts are warning that the proposed PROTECT IP and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) legislation, currently working their way through Congress, will damage the world's DNS system, cripple attempts to get better online security and violate free speech rights in the US constitution.






Recent Techrights' Posts

KillerStartups.com is an LLM Spam Site That Sometimes Covers 'Linux' (Spams the Term)
It only serves to distract from real articles
 
Topics We Lacked Time to Cover
Due to a Microsoft event (an annual malware fest for lobbying and marketing purposes) there was also a lot of Microsoft propaganda
Gemini Links 22/11/2024: ChromeOS, Search Engines, Regular Expressions
Links for the day
This Month is the 11th Month of This Year With Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (So Far It's Happening Every Month This Year, More Announced Hours Ago)
Now they even admit it
Links 22/11/2024: Software Patents Squashed, Russia Starts Using ICBMs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 21, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, November 21, 2024
Gemini Links 21/11/2024: Alphabetising 400 Books and Giving the Internet up
Links for the day
Links 21/11/2024: TikTok Fighting Bans, Bluesky Failing Users
Links for the day
Links 21/11/2024: SpaceX Repeatedly Failing (Taxpayers Fund Failure), Russian Disinformation Spreading
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Earned Two More Honorary Doctorates Last Month
Two more doctorate degrees
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 20, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Gemini Links 20/11/2024: Game Recommendations, Schizo Language
Links for the day
Growing Older and Signs of the Site's Maturity
The EPO material remains our top priority
Did Microsoft 'Buy' Red Hat Without Paying for It? Does It Tell Canonical What to Do Now?
This is what Linus Torvalds once dubbed a "dick-sucking" competition or contest (alluding to Red Hat's promotion of UEFI 'secure boot')
Links 20/11/2024: Politics, Toolkits, and Gemini Journals
Links for the day
Links 20/11/2024: 'The Open Source Definition' and Further Escalations in Ukraine/Russia Battles
Links for the day
[Meme] Many Old Gemini Capsules Go Offline, But So Do Entire Web Sites
Problems cannot be addressed and resolved if merely talking about these problems isn't allowed
Links 20/11/2024: Standing Desks, Broken Cables, and Journalists Attacked Some More
Links for the day
Links 20/11/2024: Debt Issues and Fentanylware (TikTok) Ban
Links for the day
Jérémy Bobbio (Lunar), Magna Carta and Debian Freedoms: RIP
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Jérémy Bobbio (Lunar) & Debian: from Frans Pop to Euthanasia
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
This Article About "AI-Powered" is Itself LLM-Generated Junk
Trying to meet quotas by making fake 'articles' that are - in effect - based on plagiarism?
Recognizing invalid legal judgments: rogue Debianists sought to deceive one of Europe's most neglected regions, Midlands-North-West
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Google-funded group distributed invalid Swiss judgment to deceive Midlands-North-West
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 20/11/2024: BeagleBone Black and Suicide Rates in Switzerland
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 19, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 19, 2024