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Links 4/7/2012: Blizzard's Linux PR Crisis, Fuduntu 2012.3 Released





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Why We Still Need the Open Source VLC Media Player
    The Monday Version 2.0.2 release of the free open source VLC media player points out a surprising hole in the age of the Internet video - there is still no universal standard for video formats and players.

    Fortunately, VLC is there to fill in the gaps among proprietary formats and competing ecosystems, playing just about every video in use.


  • .FREE, .OPEN gTLDs may not be open to public
    The applications for new gTLD domains offered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) have been made public, and although the .LINUX registry has been unclaimed, other potentially FLOSS-related gTLDs are being vied for in this big Internet land grab that could leave some domains out of public reach and in the hands of corporations.


  • Anubex Successfully Migrates BEZEQ to Open Platform


  • Web Browsers



  • SaaS



  • CMS



  • Education



  • BSD

    • Dru Lavigne talks about FreeBSD | Interview
      IT happens to be my third career. I started out as an entrepreneur (co-owner of an independent moving company). Once the company was established, I took a second job as a municipal government worker. After a few years it became obvious that the glass ceiling at that agency was far too short for my liking, so I went back to school to learn telecommunications, networking, and system administration.


    • The State Of Gentoo FreeBSD: Gentoo Sans Linux
      To some surprise, Gentoo FreeBSD -- the port of Gentoo running with the FreeBSD kernel rather than the Linux kernel -- is progressing.




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Glibc 2.16 supports the x32 ABI - Update
      Among the new features of the GNU C Library (Glibc) 2.16, which was released on Saturday, is support for the x32 ABI (Application Binary Interface); the Linux kernel has offered support for the interface since version 3.4. Programs that are compiled for the x32 ABI can now access the 64-bit registers and data paths of 64-bit x86 processors while only using 32-bit pointers and data fields. In general terms, programs that are compiled for the x32 ABI avoid the overhead that comes with full 64-bit operation while making use of some of the most important advantages of x86-64 processors; this is thought to be of particular relevance for low-specification systems in the embedded and mobile markets.




  • Project Releases

    • Computer vision library ccv reaches 0.1 milestone
      After two years in development, ccv 0.1, "a modern computer vision library", has been released. Ccv began development in 2010 when author Liu Liu, frustrated by problems with image preprocessing for a gesture recognition demonstration, decided to work on a different approach.




  • Openness/Sharing



    • Open Data

      • 'Governments that embrace open data will also switch to open source'
        Public administrations that grasp the benefits of making publicly available their data will also increase their use of free and open source, experts on open data agree. Open data and open source face comparable threats: initial lack of support and a fear for the impact on the organisation.




    • Open Access/Content

      • Free, open ebook offers ideas for rebooting American government
        Rebooting America: Ideas for Redesigning American Democracy for the Internet Age collects the wide-ranging, provocative, and often blunt responses this question generated. But the book's title is somewhat misleading. The writers it features aren't interested in merely rebooting American government — interrupting its core processes, taking it momentarily offline, then restoring it to an earlier, somehow simpler, state. They're hacking on its principal architectures — its frameworks and principles — sketching mock-ups for a government that embraces open technologies and values to become more transparent, nimble, responsive, and accountable than previous iterations.




    • Open Hardware

      • How Open Source Hardware Is Driving the 3D-Printing Industry
        The potential of 3D printing to transform the way we get things - the market is predicted to hit $3.1 billion in the next four years - gets a lot of press. But not much of that attention has focused on the unique role of open source hardware in enabling 3D printing to realize its promise.

        Open source software has been a key player in all kinds of disruptive technologies - from the Web to big data. Now the nascent and growing open source hardware movement is helping to power its own disruptive revolution.






  • Programming

    • PCC: Portable C Compiler Isn't Quick To Advance
      The Portable C Compiler 1.0 was released in April of 2011, but since then there hasn't been many updates out of this open-source compiler that was originally spawned in the late 1970's.

      The PCC web-site remains rather basic with not much information and the latest news is last year's 1.0 release. The only information since that I've been able to find is that they do have limited C++ support going into PCC for the past few months, but the support is still very limited. The main language for the Portable C Compiler is C99. At the project's current development pace, don't expect C11 or C++11 coverage any time soon. And for supporting all of the latest instruction set extensions on the latest ARM and Intel CPUs, guess again.






Leftovers



  • Security



    • Security vulnerability found in Cyberoam DPI devices
      Last week, a user in Jordan reported seeing a fake certificate for torproject.org. The user did not report any errors when browsing to sites such as Gmail, Facebook, and Twitter, which suggests that this was a targeted attack. The certificate was issued by a US company called Cyberoam. We first believed that this incident was similar to that of Comodo and DigiNotar, and that Cyberoam had been tricked to issue a fake certificate for our website.






  • Finance

    • MMT: A Doubly Retrospective Analysis
      *We’re going to take a break from the regularly-scheduled MMP this week. In its place, I’m posting the keynote talk I gave at Bill Mitchell’s annual Coffee conference in Newcastle. As most of you know, Coffee is the sister center to UMKC’s CFEPS. Some of the participants asked for copies of my talk and I figured some of you might also enjoy it, so am posting it here. It has some of the history of the development of MMT—although it is based on my faulty memory so should not be taken too seriously!


    • Wall Street banks angling for Dodd-Frank loophole
      While all eyes were on the Supreme Court and Obamacare, a quieter battle was being waged against the president's other major initiative, the Dodd-Frank financial reform act. Wall Street has already watered down or delayed most of Dodd-Frank. Now it wants to create a giant loophole, exempting its foreign branches from the law.

      ‌

      Yet the overseas branches of Wall Street banks are where the banks have done some of their wilder betting. Four years ago, bad bets by American International Group's London office nearly unraveled the U.S. financial system.

      One advantage of being a huge Wall Street bank is you get bailed out by the federal government when you make dumb bets. Another is you've been able to choose where around the world to make the dumb bets, thereby dodging U.S. regulations. It's a win-win. Wall Street wants to keep it that way.




  • Civil Rights

    • US Government Wants Access To Your Data
      US is becoming one of the most restrictive and invasive countries in the world. The recent Twitter transparency report, inspired by Google, shows that US government is topping the chart with maximum number of request to gain access to user data.




  • Copyrights

    • Kim Dotcom: Joe Biden Ordered the Megaupload Shutdown
      Kim Dotcom says he knows who ordered the shutdown of his company and related sites. The Megaupload founder informs TorrentFreak that he has insider information which reveals that none other than Vice President Joe Biden directed attorney Neil MacBride to target the site. Biden is known to be one of the best friends of former Senator Chris Dodd, who’s now heading the MPAA.


    • ACTA

      • ACTA Is DEAD After European Parliament Vote
        The battleground wasn’t some administrative office, but the representatives of the people – the European Parliament – which decided in the end to do its job beautifully, and represent the people against special interests.








Recent Techrights' Posts

Protecting Whistleblowers Requires Technical Knowledge/Skills
even the highest media judges aren't aware of how to protect sources
Report/Benchmark Says 'Vibe Coding' Results in Security Holes
There are risks they don't like talking about
Record Traffic in Geminispace or Over Gemini Protocol
it's never too late to join
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part III - Europe's Second-Largest Organisation on Strike, Protests, Other Industrial Actions to Come Impacting Over 95% of the Workforce
The EPO's management is highly evasive, weak, and vulnerable
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part II - Breakout of Discontent This Winter in Europe's Second-Largest Organisation
So far we've caused a lot of panic and stress inside Team Campinos
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part I - An Introduction to the Mafia Governing the EPO
Are some people 'evacuating' themselves to save face?
At Microsoft, "Firing People is a "Cheat Code" to Pump the Stock Short-term But They Are Literally Destroying the Company's Soul Long-term."
They frame layoffs as a "success story"
Google News Poisons Its Own Index With More Slopfarms (Including "filmogaz")
Naming and shaming lazy slobs who rip off other people using LLMs can work, eventually
Naming Culprits in Switzerland
Switzerland is highly secretive about white-collar crime
Sanitised Plagiarism as "AI" (How Oligarchy Plots to Use Slop to Hide or Distract From Its Abuses, or Cause People Not to Trust Anything They See/Read Online)
This isn't innovation but repression
Recent Layoffs at Red Hat (2026 the Year of Ultimate Bluewashing)
I found it amusing that Red Hat's CEO has just chosen to wear all blue, as if to make a point
 
Accounts or Devices (e.g. Phones) That Get 'Burnt' Have Many Pitfalls
Embassies and consulates habitually fail at this
Avoiding the Spooks (Nobody Watches the Watchers, They're Practically Unaccountable)
If more people adopt encryption, it'll be easier for us to deal with whistleblowers
At Least 5 Women Quit Brett Wilson LLP in Recent Months. It's the Firm That Attacked My Wife and I on Behalf of Americans (One of Them Strangled Women).
It seems like good news that the women escape this workplace
Slop About Slop and Slop About "Linux"
In short, avoid slopfarms
EPO Abuses Covered in Spanish
Knowing what we know (and heard/saw), the sinister silence of the media is perceived by some to be complicity of the lower order.
Richard Stallman Encourages "ICE Out For Good" Protests, His Opponents Do Not (Passive and Uncaring About Human Rights)
He has done a lot philosophically, politically, and so on
Claim That IBM Marked 15% of its Workforce for Potential Layoffs
No wonder we keep hearing from Red Hat people who say they hate IBM
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 16, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, January 16, 2026
Great Reset at IBM, the Company That Pulps Red Hat
In 2026 many workers are RTO'ed, PIP'ed, and at Red Hat many have effectively 'left the company' and now start afresh as "IBM" staff
J.H.M. Ray Dassen & Debian, Red Hat, GNOME unexplained deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 16/01/2026: "Porting My Main Website Over to Gemini" and Seeed Studio DevBoard
Links for the day
IBM Stacked and Ranked Badly, Maladministration Dooms the Company
Now they stack people up for PIPs and layoffs ("RAs")
Links 16/01/2026: UK Royal Family's "Legal Team Accused of Dishonesty, Fraud and Misconduct", OSI Still Controlled by Microsoft (the OSI's Spokesperson is on Microsoft's Payroll, Not Interim Executive Director, Deborah Bryant)
Links for the day
Writing About Corruption
Fraud is everywhere
The B in IBM is Brown-nosing and Buzzwords (or Both)
International Buzzwords Machines
IBM's 'Scientific-Sounding' Tech-Porn Won't Help IBM Survive (or Be Bailed Out)
Who's next in the pipeline?
IBM Was Never the Good Guy
its original products were used for large-scale surveillance, not scientific endeavours
The Bluewashing is Making Red Hat Extinct (They All Become "IBM", Little by Little)
IBM does not care what's legal
Slopfarms Push Fake News About Microsoft Shutdown, 30,000+ Microsoft Layoffs Last Year Spun as Only "15,000"
The Web is seriously ill
Countries Take Action Against Social Control Media and 'Smart' 'Phones', Not Slop (Plagiarised Information Synthesis Systems or P.I.S.S.)
None of this is unprecedented except the scale and speed of sharing
Sites That Expose Corruption Under Attack, Journalism Not Tolerated Anymore (the Super-Rich Abuse Their Wealth and Political Power)
Sometimes, albeit not always, the harder people try to hide something, the more effective and important it is for the general public
Links 16/01/2026: Social Control Media Curbs in Australia Underway, MElon Still Profiting by Sexualising Kids 'as a Service'
Links for the day
More People Nowadays Say "GNU/Linux"
We still see many distros and even journalists that say "GNU/Linux"
LLM Slop on the Web is Waning, But Linuxiac Has Become a Slopfarm
I gave Linuxiac a chance to deny this or explain this; Linuxiac did not
More Signs of Financial Troubles at Microsoft, Europe Puts Microsoft Under Investigation
The end of the library is part of the cuts
Team Campinos Talks About SAP Days Before EPO Industrial Actions and a Day Before the "Alicante Mafia" Series (About Team Campinos Doing Cocaine)
EPO staff that isn't morally feeble will insist on objecting to illegal instructions
Pedophilia-Enabling Microsoft Co-founder Cuts Staff
Compensating by sleeping with young girls does not make one younger
Microsoft Shuts Down Campus Library, Resorts to Storytelling About "AI" to Spin the Seriousness of It
Microsoft is in pain
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Back to Advertising the Talks of Richard Stallman
A pleasant surprise
Stack(ed) Rankings and Ongoing Layoffs at Red Hat and IBM (Failure to Keep Staff Acquired by IBM)
IBM is mismanaged and its sole aim is to game the stock market (by faking a lot of things)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 15, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, January 15, 2026
Gemini Links 16/01/2026: House Flood and Pragmatic Retrocomputing Dogfooding
Links for the day
Links 15/01/2026: Starlink Weaponised for Regime Change (by Man Who Boasted About Annexing South American Countries for Tesla's Mining), Corruption in Switzerland Uncovered by JuristGate
Links for the day
Linuxiac May Have Reverted Back to LLM Slop (Updated Same Day)
Is he back off the wagon?
GAFAM and IBM Layoffs Outline
a lot of the layoffs happen in secrecy and involve convincing people to resign, retire, relocate etc.
Links 15/01/2026: Internet Blackouts, Jackboots Society in US
Links for the day
Coming Soon: Impact With EPO Cocainegate
Will Campinos survive 2026?
The Last 'Dilberts' or Some of the Last Salvaged (Comic Strips Which Disappeared Shortly After They Had Been Published)
Around the time the creator of Dilbert went silent he published some strips mocking TikTok and usage of it
The Creator of Git Probably Doesn't Know How to Install and Deploy Git
Nobody disputes this: Mr. Torvalds created Git
Slop is a Liability
Slopfarms too will become extinct because people aren't interested in them
GAFAM is a National and International Threat to Everybody
GAFAM is just a tentacle in service of imperialism
EPO People Power - Part XXXVI - In Conclusion and Taking Things Up Another Notch
They often say that the law won't deter or stop criminals because it's hard to enforce laws against people who reject the law
Running Techrights is Fun, Rewarding, and Gratifying
In Geminispace we are already quite dominant
Red Hat is Connected to the Military, Its Chief Comes From Military Family (From Both Sides)
The founder of Red Hat's parent company literally saluted Hitler himself (yes, a Nazi salute)
Don't Cry for Gaslighting Media in a Country Which Loathes the Press
my wife and I received threats for merely writing about Americans
Red Hat (IBM) is Driving Away Remaining Fedora Users
I've not used Fedora since Moonshine
Robert X. Cringely Has Already Explained IBM's Bullying Culture (Towards Its Own Staff)
IBM is a fairly nasty company
Proton Mail compromise, Hannah Natanson (Washington Post) police raid & Debian
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, January 14, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, January 14, 2026
Gemini Links 15/01/2026: "Ode to elinks", envs.net Pubnix and Downtime at geminiprotocol.net
Links for the day