Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 1/3/2012: Raspberry Pi and Cotton Candy, EU Censorship Plans





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



  • Desktop

    • Penguins Seen Over California
      California shifted from 1.5% to 18%. What’s with that? Google has only 10K employees in Mountain View, not enough to change the share in California that much.






  • Kernel Space



  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments



  • Distributions

    • Of Fanboys and Distribution Menageries
      Opening the word processor is a rare thing for me. I usually make do with LaTeX. But it is needed sometimes, like when you have a desire to write for your blog, and the writing will end up copied and pasted anyway, and you want a completely unrelated way to start your post. That done, let’s start:

      Our first topic of discussion is distribution menageries. Some people, with a drive I confess I cannot even begin to understand, install distributions. I am not talking about building a stable desktop for yourself with Scientific Linux and putting a Fedora or Arch next to it to play with latest innovations and software, I am talking about those people who install (and I took this list from an anonymous from Ubuntu Forums) Ubuntu 10.04, openSUSE 12.1, Ubuntu 11.10, Xubuntu 11.10, Mint Linux 12, Windows 7 and the last Kubuntu. Agreed, not everyone goes that extreme, but it is common to see people who installed 2 or 3 spins on same Ubuntu and something like a nonworking BSD. They speak of this on public forums without embarrassment; and as it happens, there is no embarrassment to be felt as all they get are pats on the back. This gives me, so conveniently, a way to introduce our next topic of discussion: Fanboys or fanbots, whichever you prefer. People who write window$, M$ (winzort is popular here) and claim that Microsoft is out to conquer the world. This last world conquering part is what really angers me; after all, world domination should be goal of every self respecting nerd; do not discriminate against Linux people, please.


    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat to Webcast Results for Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2012


      • ClearOS Community 6.2.0 Beta 3 Released
        ClearOS Community 6.2.0 Beta 3 has arrived! Along with the usual round of bug fixes and enhancements, Beta 3 includes the following new apps: Content Filter, Flexshare, Samba, Remote Server Backup, Print Server, Password Policies, and Network Visualizer. New apps in the Professional Edition include: Google Apps Synchronization, Active Directory Connector, and Central Management. This will be the last beta as we head toward a final release. We will soon be able to put those Duke Nukem jabs behind us ;-)


      • CentOS, RHEL and Scientific Linux 4 reach their End of Life
        The CentOS and Scientific Linux projects have stopped maintaining the series 4 versions of their Linux distributions. According to the "End of Life" (EOL) notifications by CentOS and Scientific Linux, there will be no further security fixes for the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 4-based distributions. Users will, therefore, need to switch to other versions.


      • Fedora





    • Debian Family





  • Devices/Embedded





Free Software/Open Source



  • Open source software brings benefits to Katikati Computers
    When Michael Pavletich and Glynn Smith found themselves running identical businesses six years ago, they decided they better join forces. Their operations in Katikati had the same business approach and philosophy and they also shared a love of motorcycling.

    However, though the partnership works well, Pavletich admits running a small business like Katikati Computers can be trying when one of them is away. Early in January, for example, Pavletich was effectively tied to the shop, while Smith was on holiday. Foot traffic and phone calls come and go, creating peaks in work that can only be overcome by coming in early and taking some work home.


  • SaaS

    • The Wild West of Big Data
      It is very easy to compare the atmosphere of this year's Strata Conference and the big data ecosystem to the atmosphere of the Linux and open source ecosystem around the turn of the century.

      (And yes, I get a little trill in my fingers when I get to type "turn of the century.")

      The comparison is not literal: I made this observation to someone I met at here at Strata this week and he dug into me a bit on how his company's offerings were not related to open source technologies.




  • CMS



  • Healthcare

    • Regina Holliday advocates patient engagement at HIMSS12


      Patient care has always been vital to healthcare. At the same time, patient engagement has always been frighteningly low. Patients have been passive players in their own care, depending on and assuming that 'doctor knows best.'

      Today’s patients, however, are becoming consumers of healthcare. They are more informed about their options and with more information at their disposal they are becoming more vocal than ever about their expectations for care.

      In the past, gaining access to medical records was difficult at best. Now, as paper records are being replaced with electronic data, patients will have an opportunity to take greater control of their healthcare records.




  • Business



  • Funding

    • Unreleased Elliott Smith, Deerhunter on Kickstarter Comp for Open Source Project CASH Music
      CASH Music is a not-for-profit open software project based in Portland, Oregon that will offer musicians and labels free, open source tools necessary for independently marketing their music. ("What Wordpress did for bloggers, we're doing for musicians," they say.) The organization, led by Maggie Vail (formerly of Kill Rock Stars) and Jesse von Doom, is currently raising funds on Kickstarter.




  • Project Releases



  • Public Services/Government

    • Eurogreens: Dear Mr. President, where is our Info?


    • Code for America Meets Austin
      It's hard to believe my team has been in Austin for nearly four weeks already. As part of the 2012 Code for America Fellowship program, we're nearing the end of our residency: five weeks of interviews, meetings, events and information gathering. Code for America is a non-profit based in San Francisco that partners teams of developers and designer with cities around the country to encourage innovation in government and civic engagement.




  • Openness/Sharing



    • Open Data



    • Open Access/Content

      • California State Senate bill seeks to create open source textbook library
        College students may find relief from high textbook prices in a California State Senate bill that would create a free open source textbook library.

        State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, introduced a bill Feb. 8 that would fund a library containing open source textbooks for the 50 most popular lower division courses at the state’s colleges and universities. Students could download the textbooks for free or pay about $20 for a hard copy.

        On March 3, the bill — which asks for $25 million in state funding to create the open source textbooks — will be eligible for discussion in committee hearings. But that funding request can change as the bill moves through the hearings, according to Steinberg spokesperson Alicia Trost.




    • Open Hardware

      • An open-source robo-surgeon
        RAVENS have a bad reputation. Medieval monks, who liked to give names to everything (even things that did not need them), came up with “an unkindness” as the collective noun for these corvids. Blake Hannaford and his colleagues at the University of Washington, in Seattle, however, hope to change the impression engendered by the word. They are about to release a flock of medical robots with wing-like arms, called Ravens, in the hope of stimulating innovation in the nascent field of robotic surgery.






  • Standards/Consortia





Leftovers





  • Finance



  • Censorship

    • EU Censorship Plan With A Cheesy Name: The Clean IT Project
      Those last two sentences are particularly ominous. First, because they show no awareness that any attempt to "clean" the Internet inevitably affects everyone else's online freedom. Given that there are no hard and fast rules about what is terrorism, the past teaches us that there is always collateral damage in the form of over-reaction -- not least because people understandably err on the side of caution in this area.




  • Privacy

    • Privacy commissioner has concerns with Google's new privacy policy
      Canada's privacy commissioner has expressed concerns with Google's new privacy policy, asking the Internet giant to clearly explain how it plans to use personal information it collects from users.

      In a letter to the company sent Thursday, but released publicly Friday, Jennifer Stoddart said Google's new policy appears to have loopholes where users may unwillingly have their personal information used in ways that make them uncomfortable.




  • Civil Rights

    • Lawful Access Signals Canada Is Open to 'Big Brother Inc.'
      Privacy International, one of the world's leading privacy organizations, last year released the results of a multi-year investigation into the shadowy world of the commercial surveillance industry. Dubbed "Big Brother Inc.," the investigation placed the spotlight on dozens of companies that specialize in covert surveillance technologies that are typically sold directly to governments and law enforcement agencies.




  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Kickstarter Expects To Provide More Funding To The Arts Than NEA


    • Organic Farmers' Preemptive Lawsuit Against Monsanto Patents Tossed Out For Being A Bit Too Preemptive
      Monsanto has quite a track record of going after farmers for making use of its "patented" seeds, even in a case that involve seeds that blew onto a farm from a neighboring farm. So, it wasn't entirely surprising to see a group of organic farmers preemptively sue Monsanto last year, asking for a declaratory judgment that they did not infringe. However, the judge in the case has now dismissed the case, noting that for a declaratory judgment, there has to be a real conflict, and Monsanto keeps insisting that it won't sue these farmers. From a legal standpoint, this argument makes sense (and the declaratory judgment standard can be pretty high in some cases -- especially if no direct threat has been issued). But, it still seems unfortunate. Given Monsanto's past actions in other cases, even if it says it won't sue now, plenty of farmers are reasonably scared about what will happen down the road. But, for now, they just have to wait and hope that Monsanto seeds don't show up on their farms...



    • Business Software Alliance’s latest weird argument for stronger IP laws
      The Business Software Alliance has found a newly imagined detriment of Canada’s supposedly sub-par intellectual property laws – make sure you’re sitting down for this shocker – it’s slowing down the advancement of cloud computing.

      It’s the latest of many poxes that have stricken Canada as a result of our outdated IP enforcement and copyright protection regime, all of which have been fastidiously documented by this interest group representing the world’s largest software companies.


    • Copyrights

      • Would You Rather Be 'Right' Or Realistic?


      • Artist Sues Sony Over Background Used in Music Video (Exclusive)


      • Company That Issued Bogus Takedown Says It Was All A Mistake, Apologizes
        ote about how a totally bogus DMCA takedown notice, coming from an "anti-piracy" firm called Armovore, deleted a key Techdirt blog post about SOPA/PIPA from Google's search results. That post apparently got some attention within Google, who kicked off an expedited review and reinstated our site and a few others. Soon after that, we got a couple emails from folks at Armovore, and they also posted some comments to the site, in which they apologized, and said that it was an "early" version of the technology. To their credit, they "accept full responsibility for the mistake" and insist that while that takedown was an automated keyword-based effort, they now only do manual takedowns. They even apologized that multiple people reached out to apologize.


      • ‘Towards Flexible Copyright?’


      • ACTA

        • David Martin and the straw man about boarder searches in ACTA
          In fact, I never read these article about iPod searches at the customs or heard an advocacy group in Europe to make that consumer case. I only heard about the straw man of the ACTA defenders that there were these “misconceptions” of critics, even at times when ACTA was yet in a preparatory phase. Actually, as you see from the text, it wouldn’t even be even a misconception though it is a side topic. A distraction.


        • Karel De Gucht's Fake ACTA Debate


          Last week, the Trade Commissioner De Gucht, the same who recently declared he was “not afraid of the anti-ACTA demonstrations”, went on to explain why, considering the wave of criticism on ACTA, he is now turning to the European Court of Justice to assess whether ACTA would be detrimental to fundamental rights1.











Recent Techrights' Posts

"Many Applications Labelled as "Cybersecurity" and Given a Veneer of Legitimacy Are Really "Weaponised" and Abusive Code"
New from Dr. Andy Farnell
Security Advisory: Debian falls for social engineering hacks
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The High Cost of Making Scepticism of Proprietary Voting Machines a "Trump" and "Conspiracy Theory" Territory
Time to get back to paper? Or read an old paper?
 
Donald Trump as Censor in Chief Can Now Leverage Censorship Companies and Fake Protection Disguised as 'Security'
Centralised CAs were trouble all along
Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part VI
By Dr. Andy Farnell
A Death of a News Industry
A theme we explored thrice today
Deciphering Centralised CAs and Why Their Demise Should be a Goal
Encryption in transmission is good; but who controls the key exchange and certification/authentication/validation?
Links 08/11/2024: Strikes, Recessions, and Slowdowns
Links for the day
[Teaster] [Meme] New Ways of Wrecking (NWoW)
The EPO
Gateway for News and Blogs
In the long run, this site and its sister site (less overlap between them now) should hopefully become a popular destination for people who look for information, not chaff
Going Even Faster
We hope the site will be faster soon
Psychopaths Who Reaffirm Our Work's Value
Psychopaths and sociopaths lack empathy, so they're willing to go very far and stoop as low as they deem necessary
[Meme] How Low Can You Go at the European Patent Office?
Not just in terms of patent quality
More Cuts/End to Benefits for EPO Workers (Europe's Working Conditions Incompatible With the European Patent Convention)
"The Office is now reviving it but plans to introduce new cuts on benefits"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 07, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, November 07, 2024
Gemini Links 08/11/2024: US Election, RetroChallenge 2024, and More
Links for the day
[Meme] Questioning Proprietary Software? Not OK...
A disaster long in the making
Links 07/11/2024: HTTP/3, Health Research, and Punditry
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/11/2024: On Writing Publicly and Record Player Table
Links for the day
Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) Hosted SOSS as Microsoft Propaganda Platform With Microsoft Front Group OSI
They essentially promote what they're attacking under false pretences [...] OSI is deeply corrupt. It's more toxic than arsenic.
Anti-Linux FUD, Now in LLM Form, Thanks to Brittany Day
They attack Linux with chatbots
[Meme] When You Discredit People Who Discredit Secret Code
proprietary systems with hundreds of millions of transistors (and hundreds of millions of lines of code)
Links 07/11/2024: Online Manipulation in Social Control Media, Election Deniers, and More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/11/2024: emacs-guix and File Hoarding
Links for the day
[Meme] Election Day at the European Patent Office
Less than 60 minutes left to cast your vote
Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO) Election Ending Today
In one hour
[Meme] When the Patent Office Does Illegal Things and Staff Speaks Out
many leaks received today
Today We Got an Early Birthday Gift
Exciting times
[Meme] Going Too Far to the Left Can Breed Militant Ideology
Some people can never be appeased because they prefer not to be appeased
Apple's Debt Has Skyrocketed While Gimmicks Like Vision Pro Failed
In Apple's case, the debt is almost double the "Cash on Hand", which isn't even cash
FSF Expressed No Preference Regarding Presidential Candidates (Its Founder Did)
Because he is a principled person, he does not prioritise loyalty to customers or employers (money)
A President Trump is Excellent News to Microsoft
His racist policies gave lots of contracts to Microsoft
Who Next on the Linux Foundation's 'Kill List'?
Remember that only about 2% of the "Linux" Foundation's budget goes to Linux
Links 07/11/2024: Facebook Scams, Journalists on Strike
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 06, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 06, 2024
Microsoft-Connected Publishers Want Us to Think That Linux is Some Sort of a Virus and a "Backdoor"
"The problem is with windows and the attack vector is via Windows"
We've Made it to 18! Here's to Another 18!
Going on for another 18 years means until some time at the end of 2042
Links 07/11/2024: Political Angst and Laptop Issues
Links for the day
Even LKML Subjected to Slop/SPAM by Guardian Digital, Inc (linuxsecurity.com)
They're really awful
Links 06/11/2024: BPF in RFC 9669, More Facebook Fines for Privacy Abuses
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/11/2024: Political Shock and Hermaic Encouragement
Links for the day
Planet Debian Allows Politics (But It Depends on Your Opinions and Debian's Big Sponsors)
Planet Debian is OK with politics... as long as all your political opinions are the "correct" ones and you add cute animals
What Makes RMS Such an Attractive Target ('Discreditisation' Campaigns)
Don't be so easily fooled
The Biggest OEMs or Vendors of GNU/Linux Stopped Competing With Microsoft (Which Pays Them to Promote Windows, Too)
Where are the competition authorities (or regulators for that matter)?
Let's Encrypt Falls to a New Low of Only 0.6% of Gemini Capsules Known to Lupa
In Gemini Protocol, certificates for encryption are required, but centralised Certificate Authorities (CAs) aren't needed
Computer-Generator Crap Flooding the Web, the Latest Example About "Linux"
Here's today's example
Links 06/11/2024: Election Disinformation and Legal Actions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/11/2024: Stargazing and Death on Hallowe'en
Links for the day
Would You Trust a Liar?
Why lie about the authorship?
Mass Layoffs at Mozilla Announced During US Elections
Maybe nobody will notice?
[Meme] Announcing "Results" Before Everyone Even "Played"
There is a "tech" angle to otherwise political news
US Polls Close in One Minute (Social Control Media Does Not Care, Will Not Wait)
US election results will be known in about 2 days
Concentration and Centralisation Versus Aggregation or Syndication
KDE has a history of burying old sites
Social Control Media, Even Hours Before Polls Have Closed
Has social control media controlled by CPC (TikTok) and the Trumpmobile guy (Musk's "X") done enough to convince people not to even vote (based on presumptive "results", presented a long time before all polls have closed)?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 05, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 05, 2024
Wayland Pains in Community-Led Distros of GNU/Linux
Few people and companies use Wayland; there's hardly any technical or practical reason to choose it
IBM Still Conflating Microsoft With 'Security'
As a meme
Sanctions Cause Fragmentation in Software
some Chinese Linux developers are already subjected to restrictions similar to Russians'
Web Failing With Slop, Even in 'Linux' Sites (LLM Spam)
Add SEO prompting to the mix and the Web becomes a pool of slop, not knowledge
[Meme] State of the World Wide Web and Online Journalism
Technically a failure (DRM) and cannot even get basic things right
Trump's signature policy, building a wall, copied from Irish-Australian student politician
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Linus Torvalds' self-deprecating LKML CoC mail linked to Hitler's first writing: Gemlich letter
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] Turning 18 in One Day
just one more day