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Links 23/12/2011: Daiwa (Bank) Selects GNU/Linux, Thunderbird 9.0





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • NEVEX’S Flint: More User Interaction, Linux Support in 2012
    Here’s an update on NEVEX Virtual Technologies, the start-up application performance solution provider that recently launched its signature CacheWorks platform. According to NEVEX Product Manager Andrew Flint, the company is planning to support Linux and VMware ESX environments and add new dashboards for increased user interaction in 2012.


  • Server

    • Linux Virtualization and Tired Open Source Myths
      The more things change, the more they stay the same. That is certainly true of anti-open source virtualization FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt). Linux virtualization is robust and enterprise-worthy, and is evolving rapidly. It is a threat to the established giants of virtualization.






  • Kernel Space



  • Applications



  • Distributions



    • Red Hat Family



    • Debian Family



      • Derivatives



        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu 12.04 'Precise Pangolin' to Feature Power Management Improvements
            Ubuntu’s declining popularity was a hot topic on the Internet recently, with a number of sites using Distrowatch's annual web rankings to ring alarm bells for the popular Linux distro. But there were those who looked askance at these reports -- and quite rightly so, accusing them of grossly exaggerating the extent of Ubuntu’s alleged decline. Whatever be the true extent of its decline, the fact is Ubuntu is still a very popular Linux distro and Canonical will have another chance of redeeming itself with Precise Pangolin in a few months’ time.


          • Ubuntu Running On NOOK Tablet


          • Linaro brings Ice Cream Sandwich & Oneiric Ocelot together on ARM boards
            Open-source software engineering group Linaro has pushed out a build of Android Ice Cream Sandwich for low-cost development boards from Samsung and ST-Ericsson. The build supports hardware acceleration for Systems on a Chip utililzing ARM's Mali-400 graphics processor.


          • Ubuntu 11.10: Unity comes of age
            Has Canonical's controversial new desktop interface improved enough to not only be an amiable desktop for Ubuntu, but to fend off the competition from Windows 8?


          • Flavours and Variants

            • Linux Minted
              Yesterday I installed Linux Mint 12, almost officially the world's most popular Linux distro, made easy for simpletons such as myself. I was swayed by ZDNet contributor Jamie Watson, as he has detailed the progress of Linux Mint 12 thoroughly.

              It's kind of based on Ubuntu 11.10 'Oneiric Ocelot', with the main distinction being the inclusion of GNOME 3 and the beautifully crafted bridging of old and new features using Mint GNOME Shell Extensions. As they say themselves "It’s a brand new desktop but with traditional components."












  • Devices/Embedded



    • Phones

      • Switched On: Open source, open issues for webOS
        HP's decision to contribute webOS to the open source community represents, at the very least, a detour from the company's plans to "double down" on the operating system acquired from Palm, Inc. The good news for fans of the OS is that HP will continue to invest in the software's development, albeit probably not at the unsustainable rate at which it was going it alone.


      • Android









Free Software/Open Source



  • Twitter Releases Whisper Systems' TextSecure Android Code Under Open Source Licence


  • Twitter makes TextSecure Android security technology open source


  • LinkedIn open sources code from IndexTank acquisition
    Solid engineering talent is such a prized resource nowadays that many tech firms have taken to doing acqui-hires, which is the practice of buying a company for its employees rather than for its products or technology. But it’s not just startup founders and programmers who are benefiting from this trend — the open source community has been a winner as well.


  • LinkedIn Open Sources Search Engine
    Joining its fellow social-networking companies in the public release of internal code, LinkedIn has opened sourced software obtained in October with its acquisition of the IndexTank search-engine software provider.

    "We are looking forward to seeing IndexTank thrive as an open-source project," wrote LinkedIn director of engineering, and former CEO of IndexTank, Diego Basch, in a blog post announcing the release.


  • The Open-Sankor IWB Open Source Software
    Sankor program team will be at the British Educational Training and Technology Show (BETT) in London from January 11 to 14, 2012 to present Open-Sankor IWB Open Source software dedicated to universal interactive education and, concurrently, to open and free digital learning resource creation and sharing throughout an international ecosystem of connected teachers.


  • Events

    • 4th international FOSS conference from Dec 27


    • International meet on free software next week
      The International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (Icfoss) will organise the Fourth International Foss Conference, Kerala (Fossk4, http://fossk.in/4) from December 27 to 29.

      The event is being organised by the Icfoss and supported by the Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC), Delhi; the Computer Society of India; and the Institutions of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).




  • Web Browsers



    • Mozilla

      • Thunderbird 9.0 Arrives, Via Mozilla's Rapid Release Cycle
        Mozilla has delivered the latest version 9.0 of its Thunderbird email and news client, a free and open source application that Windows, Mac and Linux users can take advantage of. You can get version 9.0 now, at this download site. Not everyone realizes that just as Mozilla has moved to a rapid release cycle for the Firefox browser, Thunderbird is being update much more rapidly than ever as well. Here are some of the enhancements in the latest version of Thunderbird.


      • Mozilla Releases Firefox 9.0 Into The Wild
        Mozilla has readied the 9.0 version of the Firefox browser for public download. In line with the product release, Mozilla confirms that an existing agreement with Google has been extended for at least three years to keep the search giant's technology closely tied to the browser.






  • SaaS

    • Ex-Google Man Sells Search Genius to Rest of World
      Srivas and crew are selling a product based on Hadoop, an open source incarnation of Google’s GFS and MapReduce platforms. But unlike its competitors, MapR is offering something that’s very different from the open source Hadoop project. The company spent two years rewriting Hadoop behind closed doors, eliminating what Srivas sees as major flaws in the platform.


    • OwnCloud Emerges As Open Source Competitor to Dropbox, Box.net
      If you've used popular cloud-based services for storing and sharing files, such as Dropbox and Box.net, you're probably familiar with how convenient they are, and how much they provide for free. In the past few days, though, an open source competitor to them, dubbed OwnCloud, has been getting a lot of attention. It's a Linux-based way to set up your own cloud computing instance, which means you don't have to have your files sitting on servers that you don't choose, governed by people you don't know.


    • Hadoop challenger works to add developers
      LexisNexis has worked for more than a decade to develop a large scale system for Big Data manipulation, and it believes that it has produced something that's better and more mature than the better known Hadoop technology.


    • New Relic Joins OpenStack Community to Provide Proven Application Performance Management for Organizations Leveraging Open Source Cloud
      New Relic, Inc., the SaaS-based cloud application performance management provider, today announced that it has joined the OpenStack(TM) community, a global collaboration of developers and technologists producing the open standard cloud-computing platform for both public and private clouds. Organizations deploying web applications on OpenStack can use New Relic to automatically monitor web apps in production and proactively identify and eliminate potential bottlenecks.




  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • VirtualBox 4.1.8 brings fixes for 3D support
      VirtualBox logo The VirtualBox development team has released the fourth maintenance update to the 4.1.x branch of its open source desktop virtualisation application for x86 hardware. As a maintenance update, VirtualBox 4.1.8 has no new features but does include changes that improve overall stability while also addressing several bugs found in the previous versions.


    • Disgruntled employee? Oracle doesn't seem to care about Solaris 11 code leak


    • Oracle Revs Up Solaris Studio 12.3
      Software developers offered new code analysis tools and extra speed via advanced compiler technology


    • Non-profit launches new OpenOffice.org fork
      A few days after the Apache Software Foundation reiterated its claim on the OpenOffice.org trademark, another non-profit in Germany has decided to flaunt the ASF and the Apache OpenOffice.org incubation process by releasing a new version of the popular open source office suite: White Label Office 3.3.1.

      The new office suite, now available for download, appears to be a direct slap in the face of the ASF by the German non-profit Team OpenOffice.org e.V., which has proclaimed its mission to keep OpenOffice.org development alive.




  • Project Releases



  • Public Services/Government

    • UK Government Open Standards: The Great Betrayal of 2012
      And if you want any further proof that the UK Cabinet Office has given up trying to defend UK interests, and totally capitulated to the pressure of proprietary software companies


    • Govt CIO acts on open source omission
      The Australian Government's acting CIO has stepped in to ensure open source software is considered as part of one of the largest software tenders currently on offer in Canberra.

      The Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO) has counselled the Parliamentary Services Department (DPS) over its compliance with the Government’s Open Source Policy after the DPS released a request for tender (DPS11097) to revamp its integrated library system (ILS).




  • Openness/Sharing



    • Open Data

      • Mapping rivers, streets and trash bins
        The idea is to create a free and open source map of the neighbourhood that everyone can use and share. We make use of the open source OpenStreetMap (OSM) project, and the first step is to figure out how much of the neighbourhood is already mapped. After this, mapping activity (who goes to which street and what kind of data to collect) can be planned out. Then comes the fun part of exploring little alleyways, noting down details of shops, street-names, speed-breakers, trees and even trash bins. After that we discuss interesting observations and upload the collected data back to the OSM website. Once the hard work is done we celebrate the free open source map of the neighbourhood!






  • Programming





Leftovers



  • Censorship

    • Has Apple gone too far?
      Apparently, Apple not only claims the right to censor what's available for download onto your iOS devices, but they also reserve the ability to pull it totally off of your device if it slips past their reviewers in the first place. This means no more Quickpick in the Appstore, on iCloud, or on your iPhone. I'll let that sink in for a minute...




  • Civil Rights





Recent Techrights' Posts

Obscene Contradiction in Microsoft's Layoffs Tally ("Official" Numbers Do Not Add Up)
Notice how they treat "LinkedIn" as separate
Confirmed: Microsoft Layoffs Come in Two Waves, Just Like Last Summer
To us, what stands out is the admission from Microsoft that there are two (or more) waves
Links 06/07/2026: Artists Reject Slop (or Even de Facto Bribes to Market/Endorse Slop)
Links for the day
 
The Media Talks a Lot About XBox Layoffs, a Closer Look at the Data Shows Microsoft 'Bloodbath'
'Bloodbath' is the term insiders use
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 06, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, July 06, 2026
Links 07/07/2026: Kernelized Secure Operating System (KSOS) and "Exploiting Thoughtcrime in LLMs"
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 130 Out of 200: Jealousy, Envy, Hubris
This site is primarily about Free software
Gemini Links 06/07/2026: Still Mostly Dry, GoToSocial, and More
Links for the day
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Effective Dispute Resolution… But Not For EPO Staff
Slovenia fielded one of the few Administrative Council delegations which managed to maintain its own independent line against the tyrannical EPOnian "Sun King"
Community Sites Need Genuine Collaboration and True Autonomy
People who want to communicate, federate and organise for effective change need to evolve
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Covers Quibble, Free Software for Secure Communications, in the FSF Summer Bulletin
The Georgia Tech folks are bringing Free software education and contributions to one of the better known Computer Science hubs in the US
Microsoft Layoffs Include Windows, Bing, Slop (CoPilot etc.) and There Will More More Rounds (or Waves) to Come
"43% of Xbox laid off"
Preserving Comments About the Real IBM Before They Get Deleted
IBM in the 1980s is not what it is right now
Cybershow on "Escaping Prisons For Your Mind"
"THE CYBER SHOW: Stealing technofascism's boots, and stomping on its own face with them."
Links 06/07/2026: At Least 20% Staff Reduction in XBox (Microsoft), Taiwan Sees Uptick in Chinese Aggression/Provocation, Senator Rodante Marcoleta Arrested
Links for the day
In Praise of the UK's Stance on Free Speech (but Some Reservations)
At the moment there is a healthy discussion going on with the objective of disrupting attacks on British press
Exposing Corruption at the European Patent Office (EPO), a Call for More Whistleblowers
We predict that, provided enough whistleblowers speak out, António "the unready" won't even finish his current term
Leaving Our Pets for Several Days
This week our pets will be worried that "mommy and daddy" are away
Dating Trees and Dating 'Apps'
several high-profile stories in the news about scandals in "dating apps"
DW Documentary About Julian Assange Turns 2
It was released just days after Assange had turned 53 and about two weeks after he had left the UK
Independent Media is the Only Form of Legitimate Media
Independent media is, indeed, what we need to demand more of
The Story of the European Patent Office (EPO) Wagging the Dog (EU)
The aim of the series is to properly inform the world - not just Europeans - how Europe's second-largest institution is run [...] How did a corporate hub of monopolies become so detached from the Rule of Law?
GNU/Linux Up to New High in Libya, Windows Down to All-Time Low
GNU/Linux touches 5% there, based on statCounter
SLAPP Censorship - Part 129 Out of 200: Iranian Tactics
Hunger for revenge compels people to do overzealous, irrational things
Quiet Week
Many in the US are still enjoying an extended weekend
The Media Needs to Speak of Slop as a Climate Issue Like It Did With Bitcoin
But the slop industry keeps paying the media to play along with the hype
IBM's Fall
IBM's fate is closely connected to that of the Free software movement because of the salaries
Social Dialogue at the European Patent Office (EPO) is Dead, the Strikes and Work Stoppage-Like Actions Carry on
What next for the EPO?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 05, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, July 05, 2026
Links 05/07/2026: Shadows of the Upper Peninsula and 2026 Old Computer Challenge
Links for the day
Not Everything Should be Electric
technology has become detrimental to society
Gemini Links 05/07/2026: Eye of the Beholder and Baldur’s Gate 3 and Alhena 5.6.5
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Market Share is Already High
GNU/Linux has fast become and is still becoming mainstream in recent years
The 9-Step IBM Algorithm: Gaming Wall Street While Shedding Off Staff and Bribing the Mainstream Media to Play Along
Any time IBM preaches manners (e.g. CoC) to the community remember that IBM works closely with and flatters the dictator
XBox is Practically 'Dead Man Walking' at This Point
writings on the wall
They Could Never Kill the Ideas of Richard Stallman (RMS), But They Are Still Trying
Killing an idea is harder than killing a person and killing a person is illegal
Only Germany Objected to Salary Adjustment (Reduction) Procedure of "Team Campinos"
"flash report on the Administrative Council of 30 June and 1 July 2026"
A "Never Slop" Policy in Quibble
"every change in the repository must be made by a human"
Series on GNU/Linux in Japan
This series can last a week or longer
75% of All the Patents Last Year Were Software
The corporate media has more or less ceased to discuss this matter
At Microsoft "the Morale of Developers is at an All-time Low"
Numerous reports today say that after at least 5 studios got marked for shutdown (mothballing) by Microsoft there are rumours about Obsidian as well
Links 05/07/2026: Data Breaches, Heat Waves, and Weinstein Rape Conviction Upheld
Links for the day
Confidentiality at Risk With Slop 'Coding'
People who continue to cheer for slop aren't just misguided fanbis and fangurls
False Narratives of Slop "Efficiency" as Debt Climbs
false stories about slop
July 8 as "D-Day" for Microsoft, Mass Layoffs Planned
Microsoft's grip on the market has slipped for a long time
GNU/Linux Leaps to 6% in Thailand
Can we expect 10% by year's end?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 128 Out of 200: Making Laws Work for Britain, Not Oversensitive Americans Looking for 'Revenge' by Lawfare
The SLAPPs are intended to protect corporations (employers like Microsoft)
EC Looking for Input on Digital Networks Act Until Next Month
New initiative
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 04, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, July 04, 2026
Gemini Links 05/07/2026: Ragebaited and Removing Lines in Emacs
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2026: "Tesla Slams Into Crowded Cafe" and "ChatGPT [Turned] Into a Sociopath"
Links for the day