Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 1/4/2012: Munich Enjoys GNU/Linux, Gentoo 12.1 LiveDVD is Out





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Ask Stack: How can I find a good open source project to join?
    This Q&A is part of a biweekly series of posts highlighting common questions encountered by technophiles and answered by users at Stack Exchange, a free, community-powered network of 80+ Q&A sites.

    Lord Torgamus asks: I want to join an open source project for the same reasons as anyone else: I want to help create something useful and become a better coder.


  • Gorilla Free Software Marketing, Chapter 8: Community Metrics
    Revolutionary movements require revolutionary progress. However, at the start of a Movement, such progress may not be immediately evident to those whose views of progress have been tainted by commercial software, where progress is measured by feature enhancements, quality improvements and user satisfaction. These are false idols and the shallow view of progress they support are irrelevant for true free software.

    Rejecting the repressive capitalist view of progress-as-production and production-as-consumption, and the doctrinaire emphasis on results-oriented metrics, we instead adopt the dialectic of progress-as-being and being-as-becoming, with metrics illustrating not what is produced, but what is willed. Rather than galley slaves, prodded by whip lashes to “row harder!”, our motto shall be: “row louder!”


  • TACC Releases Open Source Display Tiling Package
    AUSTIN, TX, March 28 -- The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin has released a new open-source software package called DisplayCluster that is used to drive large-scale tiled displays and allows scientists to interact and view high-resolution imagery and video up to gigapixels in size.


  • ☆ OSI Affiliate Scheme Grows
    It’s been an open secret all month, but two new members have joined the Affiliate scheme at OSI – Spain’s CENATIC (the national open source competency centre that’s been so important to the government adoption of open source in Spain’s regions) and the venerable Debian Project. Both bring a much-needed international flavour to OSI, along with a wealth of hard-won experience.


  • Web Browsers



  • Education

    • You Can Acquire Open Source Companies, But You Can't Buy Open Source Community
      Blackboard has just announced its acquisition of Moodlerooms and Netspot, two companies that help provide support and deployment services for schools that use the open-source LMS Moodle.

      "Wait. What?" is an acceptable, albeit mild response.

      This is, after all, the LMS giant -- one that once claimed the patent on e-learning technology and sued other companies who provided competing software. Blackboard now says it is embracing open source -- "Ours is no mere dalliance with open source, but a very committed plunge into the pool," says the company's Ray Henderson. To that end, Blackboard has also announced it's creating an Open Source Services Group that will help institutions manage their open source LMSes, including Moodle and Sakai.




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Ruby Creator Wins Free Software Award


    • GNU Telephony and cross platform development
      With cross platform development comes some important questions of software freedom. There would be no true software freedom if we said we would permit our software to compile and run only on specific platforms, that is after all what proprietary software vendors often do. However in GNU Telephony we do principally develop and test our software on GNU systems specifically and do not have expertise in or interest in supporting proprietary ones.

      If people wish to work on or support other platforms also, they are certainly free to do so. As one of our goals in GNU Telephony is ubiquity, this is essential. However, unlike some groups who choose such goals, or distributions who choose “popularity” as their essential goal, we will never do so if it means also compromising the freedom of our contributors and users. Given this, if people want to submit patches for building and running on other platforms, we are happy to take such patches in, so long as they do not break features or functionality on free software platforms, and do not impose any additional restrictions on how we convey software to others.


    • GNUtrition 0.31.1 Released
      GNUtrition is a diet and nutrition analysis program for the GNU Operating System. The US Department of Agriculture Nutrient Database of Standard Reference is used as the source of food nutrient information.


    • FSFE celebrates Document Freedom Day by sending handcuffs to policymakers
      The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is celebrating open standards today in an annual event called Document Freedom Day. The event, which was first held in 2008, is observed on the last Wednesday of March. The purpose of the celebration is to raise awareness of the critical role unencumbered interoperability and open standards play in protecting data from vendor lock-in.

      According to the FSFE, 34 organizations are hosting 48 events in 17 countries to honor the occasion. The FSFE's list of Document Freedom Day partners includes The Document Foundation, the KDE eV, the Pirate Party of Baden-Württemberg, and many regional Linux user groups.




  • Public Services/Government



  • Open Hardware



  • Programming





Leftovers

  • World Backup Day
    Thanks to our friends the Millers, I learn that yesterday was World Backup Day. I don't know why it was especially important to be backed up on March 31st, unless because of worries that Anonymous was going to carry out their threat to bring down the Internet. If that had happened, and you use the "cloud," you'd want a local copy.


  • Hardware

    • World's slowest Linux computer, says 'Hello Wor...' (video)
      Evidently tired of smooth running graphics, lightning fast processing and bags and bags of available memory, programmer Dmitry Grinberg decided to go back to computing basics. And then some. As Linux was developed on a 32-bit machine with 1MB of RAM, this has always been considered the minimum system requirements to run the open source OS.






  • Finance

    • Goldman, Landesbank argue CDOs in US appeals court
      A U.S. appeals court was asked on Friday to decide whether Goldman Sachs Group Inc and TCW Asset Management Co should have foreseen the housing market implosion that caused a $37 million loss for German state-owned Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg.

      A three-judge panel on Friday did not make an immediate ruling on a trial judge's decision last September to dismiss the German bank's lawsuit claiming fraud against Goldman and TCW, an investment advisor.




  • Privacy

    • Ex-Googler Fears Google's Greed, So He Launched A Company To Protect People From It


    • Snooping law – Why be concerned? Its the UK Government!
      So now we start getting some of the actual facts and not the bold headlines or the wishy-washy text from the BBC. So it appears, no, your actual data activity will not be monitored in real time, just your affiliations whilst in cyberspace. So the requirement of a warrant still is in place for anything more and I’d suggest that if an intelligence agency has a level of interest in you which would have your affiliates logged, then there would be a warrant on the cards anyway. A lot of fuss from the average user about nothing and a good way for the UK to look as if its not completely lost on its tech vision. Remember “digital Britain”? And how about your digital contract with your ISP? If I interpret mine correctly, I’ve already agreed for them to give my particulars away to any law enforcement agency if so requested – without warrant. In respect of my ISP, no new law or even warrant is required to get this information. More likely this is a good chance for the UK Government to pretend they are doing something. In the UK we’ve seen the expertise the courts and the criminal/civil justice system operate under – dealing with a chap who recorded a movie on his phone in a cinema in order to post it on the net for nothing but having an “image”, blundering through a circus like the ACS:Law case, where in the end, it was the law firm itself (not the alleged File-sharers) that ended up with big problems.






Recent Techrights' Posts

Linux is Already Dominant (Android), Let's Make GNU/Linux Dominant in Desktops/Laptops as Well
"Dr. Stallman recently warned everybody about Microsoft."
 
Our Case is a Very Easy Win, the SLAPPs From Microsofters Were a Grave Error, and Censoring Information Won't Work (It'll Only Ever Backfire)
Censoring is what people do when they lose the argument
Say the Truth, the Rest Will Follow
There's no guarantee that writing the truth will result in an audience (or readership), but over time - in the long run - people generally gravitate towards what they know or feel to be crude truth, not just what's comforting (albeit false or self-deluding, usually groupthink dictated from above)
How to Expose High-Level Corruption Without Getting in (Too Much) Trouble
Democracy depends on free press and freedom of the press depends on being able to safely publish (and keep available) material that bad people don't want to be known to anybody
In-Depth EPO Coverage at Techrights Turns Eleven
11 years is a very long time
Windows Measured Below 10% in Afghanistan, GNU/Linux Gaining a Lot
about 80% are Android (Linux) users, compared to only about 10% for Windows
Poland's Political Predicament and Social Control Media
Democracy and fake "tech" don't mix well; the latter tends to interfere with the former and that's why we get more "Putins" out there
EPO: Taking Away From the Staff to Give More to the Rich
The Central Staff Committee (CSC) wrote to EPO staff earlier this week
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 03, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 03, 2025
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part I: It's a Lot Like the EPO
we can commence a series soon
Gemini Links 04/06/2025: Inescapable Questions and Quitting All "Oligarch Tech"
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Linux FUD From Slopfarms, Blaming Linux for Microsoft Issues; Even WebProNews Has Become a Slopfarm (Googlebombing "Linux" With Slop Images and Fake/Plagiarised Text)
The Web is really getting bad; it's also overwhelmed by fake material or plagiarised material, wherein the plagiarism gets disguised/hidden by LLM sausage factories
Links 03/06/2025: Tiananmen Square Massacre Censorship and Growing Military Activities Around Taiwan
Links for the day
The Loyalty to Microsoft and the Salaries From Microsoft (Funding SLAPPs Against Techrights and Tux Machines)
Garrett always knows better. He knows everything best.
Windows Falls in Italy as GNU/Linux Jumps to 5%
Italy knows a thing or two about digital autonomy
Nigeria is All Android and Google
Windows down to almost nothing in Africa's largest population
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Second Wave) Not Limited to Redmond
"More layoffs at Microsoft as axe falls in Washington and California"
Gemini Links 03/06/2025: Forth System and "Common Lisp is a Dumpster"
Links for the day
The Leaks Were Right: Mass Layoffs at Microsoft in May, Then Another Wave in June
Just as we've been saying for over a month
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 02, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 02, 2025
Last Article From Australia's Sam Varghese Was a Year Ago and It Covered the Release of Julian Assange, Who Will Apparently Come Back as 'Politician'
It'll soon be exactly 12 months
Hungary Seems Hungry for Linux
Windows down by a lot
Like in Europe, Bad News for Microsoft in US and Canada
If it loses those "regions", then what's left?
About 8 Waves of Mass Layoffs at Microsoft in 2025 (in Less Than 5 Months), Now Vista 11 "Market Share" Decreases
Really bad news for shareholders of Microsoft
statCounter Sees Bing "Share" Falling Over 0.5% in One Month, Now Lower Than Before the ChatGPT/Bing Chat Hype
Bing has been part of the mass layoffs for quite some time
After Microsoft's Bankruptcy in Russia Android (Linux) Will Dominate Asia Completely
Windows probably peaked in "XP" or "2000"
Microsoft's Demise is a Global Phenomenon
mass layoffs justified using mindless buzzwords
All-Time Highs for GNU/Linux in EU and the UK, All-Time Lows for Microsoft
Combining ChromeOS and GNU/Linux, it adds up to and almost reaches 6%
India: Windows Falls to 50% in Desktops/Laptops and 8% Overall
laptops/desktops fell to 16% of the whole
statCounter: GNU/Linux Up to 4.7% "Market Share" This Month
30,000 Microsoft jobs may be eliminated by year's end
Microsoft is in Trouble and Microsofters Know It
"I've been happy on Win 3.11 for years."
[Video] New Introduction to Richard Stallman's Contributions Including GNU Emacs, GNU/Linux, and Software Freedom
from the channel previously bullied for supporting RMS
Links 02/06/2025: South Korea to Vote, Russia Blitzed From Within
Links for the day
Links 02/06/2025: Political Leftovers, DRM, and Patents
Links for the day
Links 02/06/2025: Microsoft Spins Layoffs as "Slop", Frontier Settles Lawsuit
Links for the day
When You Publicly Boast About Wanting to Violently Attack People (Even Colleagues) Finding a Job Will Prove Difficult
there's a lesson to be learned here
The Web We Lost, the Information Lost Due to Microsoft's Attacks on Companies Like Yahoo! (Before the LLM Slop Frenzy)
When it comes to news sites, what can we say?
Covering Corruption in Poland, Including a War on Science (Due to Bad Politicians)
What we're about to show is that skilled and experienced scientists in Poland are besieged by bureaucrats
Gemini Links 02/06/2025: "Star Wars Day" and "Security Day"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 01, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 01, 2025