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Links 14/5/2012: Linux Kernel 3.3.5, Wine 1.5.4





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • AT4AM will become open source
    Some of my colleagues were keen on broader access to AT4AM, the amendment template software of the European Parliament. It is used by Members of the European parliament to draft amendments to legal text.


  • the age of pragmatists
    In the process of achieving world domination, the philosophizing was largely factored out of the community. I mentioned a few individuals in the "founding philosophers" entry, and I think it is interesting to examine what happened with them.


  • Free and Open-Source Software bring an Open-Community
    It’s often associated that open-source is referred to Linux and FOSS (Free and Open-Source Software). But as equally as important is the community. And what I want to touch base on is not only the open-source community, but how “open” the development community is as opposed to the development community of Microsoft Windows. And particularly at a corporate and managerial level.


  • Nepal and the impact of open source
    Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world with many gender, educational, and digital divides. Yet it is gradually being transformed by open source and digital technology. There's little question that as Nepal seeks to help its citizens become a part of the global digital economy, it faces a series of challenges: political instability, remote physical access, poor infrastructure, and rural poverty. In April 2012, the World Economic Forum released a report that identified Nepal as one of the least networked countries in the world, at the bottom of world rankings.


  • Open source makes you bolder
    I put on my open source hat and asked myself these question:

    1. Do I have the skills and know how to put on a good explanatory talk about Twitter? 2. Do I know how to record such a talk to video? 3. Do I know how to edit that video and upload it to the web?


  • Events



  • Web Browsers



    • Chrome

      • Is Google Burying Firefox With User Agent Strings?
        I’ve been using Google Chrome for Linux since it was first made available. I use Gmail, Google Docs (now Drive), Google Plus, Google Adsense, Google Analytics, Google Music, and many more. I am the original owner of an original CR-48 Chromebook, having received mine way back in Dec. 2010. I promote Google services at work and have worked hard to point my business’ compass towards their entire suite of offerings. I use a Samsung Nexus S with an official build of Android 4.04 and I’m only interested in official devices moving forward.




    • Mozilla

      • Getting snappy – performance optimizations in Firefox 13
        Back in the fall of 2011, we took a targeted look at Firefox responsiveness issues. We identified a number of short term projects that together could achieve significant responsiveness improvements in day-to-day Firefox usage. Project Snappy kicked off at the end of the year with the goal of improving Firefox responsiveness.






  • Databases



  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Busy weekend with Mageia, LibreOffice, and Liberté
      After an intense week, I decided to forget about work this weekend and have some time for my hobby, software testing. So, I downloaded Mageia 2 RC, LibreOffice 3.4.5, and a Linux distro that I had never heard of: Liberté 2012.1.




  • CMS



  • BSD

    • FreeBSD Achieved A Lot In Q1'2012
      For the first three months of the 2012 calendar year, the FreeBSD project achieved a lot when it came to advancing their open operating system. Here's some of the interesting highlights from their quarterly status report.

      The FreeBSD Q1'2012 quarterly status report can be read in full here, while below are some of the most interesting tid-bits.




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Picture-editing made easy
      Gimpshop is based on Gimp, but looks like Photoshop, and those who are used to working in Photoshop can use Gimpshop.

      I knew that though Gimp and Gimpshop were excellent free programs, there were some features he offered his customers that were not available in Gimpshop. He said he would change normal pictures to sepia or black and white or add vintage effects.


    • Richard M. Stallman, free software leader falls ill at conference




  • Project Releases



  • Public Services/Government

    • History of open source in government
      It is difficult to imagine the Federal government moving in one well-coordinated direction on any matter, and so it has been with the adoption of open source software. Some agencies were early adopters, especially the academic and research communities. As it did in universities, open source adoption in the US government originated in research settings, where sharing and collaboration were already part of the culture of pedagogy. In this way, the government had been using and creating open source software even before it was called "open source." Other agencies and departments have been more conservative, for a variety of reasons, and are only just now bringing open source software into their operations. With this in mind, the history of open source in the US government is best understood as a series of individual stories that have collectively led to the pervasive adoption of open source we see today.




  • Openness/Sharing

    • Kansas City explores open government, civic life, and innovation
      The exploration of open government and civic participation in Kansas City has already begun. This weekend, a new chapter begins. A chapter that will include open source, open data, citizen engagement, a Bike Walk hackathon, and more. In fact, it might materialize into several chapters that could start with rapid-fire lighting talks and end with dueling mayors who are innovating beyond borders. And what would a CityCamp be without an unconference? That's a whole chapter by itself.


    • Sharing the open source journey with Kansas City




  • Standards/Consortia

    • HTML5 for Audio Applications
      Recently, "cloud"-based music services, from big names like Amazon, Google and Apple, have been getting attention in the press. These services allow you to store your music on a corporate server and access it through your own Internet-connected device anytime you like. It's easy to see the appeal of these services. This is the kind of thing the Internet is for, right?






Leftovers





  • Finance

    • How Wall Street Killed Financial Reform
      Two years ago, when he signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, President Barack Obama bragged that he'd dealt a crushing blow to the extravagant financial corruption that had caused the global economic crash in 2008. "These reforms represent the strongest consumer financial protections in history," the president told an adoring crowd in downtown D.C. on July 21st, 2010. "In history."



    • Why Bank Equity Is Not Expensive
      Since the 2008 market crash, banking interests and economists have clashed over how much of their operations banks should fund with equity as opposed to debt. Bankers and others often say that, "equity is expensive." By contrast, a recent paper, coauthored by three faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, argues that this conventional wisdom is incorrect, and that, "Quite simply, bank equity is not expensive from a social perspective, and high leverage is not required in order for banks to perform all their socially valuable functions."




  • Privacy

    • FBI: We need wiretap-ready Web sites - now
      CNET learns the FBI is quietly pushing its plan to force surveillance backdoors on social networks, VoIP, and Web e-mail providers, and that the bureau is asking Internet companies not to oppose a law making those backdoors mandatory.




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights



      • ACTA

        • Velasco: ACTA only for WTO members
          During the recent Civil Liberties Committee meeting (8 may) Pedro Velasco-Martins (Commission DG Trade) claimed that ACTA only targets WTO members as participating nations. I do not read that from the text of the agreement where it says prospecting nations. I do not see any provision which says that only WTO members are eligible to join.










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