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Links 7/10/2012: Linux 3.7, GIMP 3 Discussed





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Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Open source equals software freedom, not free software


  • An Open Source Dyslexic Font
    Programmers seem to be prone to dyslexia, or is it that dyslexics are prone to programming? Whatever the cause, an open source dyslexic font is welcome news.

    Yes reader, I am dyslexic and I am a programmer - and yes it makes things difficult, especially when I get an attack in the middle of a published article, and variable names are often more variable than they are supposed to be.


  • Graduate students in Finland solve real problems beyond the classroom
    The School of Business and Information Management at Oulu University of Applied Sciences (OUAS) created an open source project management software named OpixProject. The objective was not to create something that would compete with the current project management software, but to place students in realistic problem-solving environments in order to reduce the gap between the concepts covered in the classroom and real-world experiences.


  • Copenhagen Suborbitals Release Snowmix, an Open Source Video Mixer


  • Juju Has Charms Included
    So how many of you ever thought of installing/configuring an application like Wordpress/Drupal and compact Big Data mammoth like Hadoop in less than few clicks?

    I am sure everyone of you. A system admin loves automating his work and getting his/her most of the deployments done with some magic scripts. We all are living in the cloud world, its not a buzzword anymore, people are leveraging on it. So I will ask again how will you automate/autoscale/load-balance your entire application ?


  • Open source release for Google reranking technology
    Google has released a general purpose framework for reranking problems, ReFr (Reranker Framework), as open source. Reranking is a technique that is used when there is a model that can offer several scored hypothesised outputs; rerankers can reorder the ranked outputs based on information not available to the original model.


  • Web Browsers



    • Mozilla

      • Firefox Is Back on Top of Chrome
        Looks like we weren't the only Internet users that got fed up with Chrome's constant crashes, as the latest numbers show its popularity has been waning a smidge. The chart above shows worldwide mobile browser market share over the last 12 months. Back in May Chrome's adoption numbers just about matched Firefox's. And, at the end of last year, after a year of huge growth, different numbers found the Google made browser surpassed Firefox as the number two most popular browser, just behind Internet Explorer. But since then—perhaps because of the constant flash crashes, or that hip Internet Explorer campaign—Firefox has regained the No. 2 spot, according to numbers from Net Marketshare. Another way to spin the numbers is that Firefox's sped up six-week new release schedule attracted more users.


      • Mozilla Firefox OS Features And Expectations
        Mozilla, the organization behind one of the most popular browsers in the world, is busy developing a new mobile operating system of its own. Competing head-on with biggies like Android and iOS, the fledgling smartphone OS attempts to create its own niche by seamlessly blending the power of the web and the mobility of smartphones together. Codenamed Boot to Gecko (or B2G), the open-source project will include applications that will be written in HTML5. These apps can then use the device's API to run natively with the help of JavaScript.


      • Firefox 19: new tab strip design incoming
        Australis is the name of the new default Firefox theme that Mozilla has been working on for quite some time. The decision was made to release the update gradually, with some updates already in the browser, while others still waiting to be delivered to it. One of the next Australis-related updates comes in Firefox 19. You may have already seen how the new tab bar will look like in mock-ups that Mozilla designer Stephen Horlander released a while ago.


      • Firefox quit warning message bug






  • SaaS



  • Databases



  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Open-source development: The history of OpenOffice shows why licensing matters
      The course of open-source software does not always run smoothly, especially when the development of software becomes entangled with broader corporate strategies.


    • NetBeans 7.3's HTML5 App Dev features go into beta
      Java developers are not left out though, with improvements such as a new-style breadcrumb navigation bar, new member and hierarchy views, updated hints and refactorings, filtering for "Find Usages" and an "effective" POM editor tab for pom.xml files. Java EE developers will find a JPQL testing tool and enhancements to the REST service development features. FXML and the SceneBuilder are better supported in 7.3 Beta's JavaFX handling, which is also compatible with JDK 7u6 on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.




  • CMS

    • Open Source CMS MODX Launches Cloud Service
      Today open source content management company MODX is launching a hosted cloud service to commercialize the product, much as Acquia and WordPress.com have done for Drupal and WordPress.




  • BSD

    • An Easy Way To Try Out FreeBSD 10
      If you have been wanting to try out the FreeBSD 10-CURRENT operating system that's presently under development, there's now an easier way.

      Rather than needing to install a current FreeBSD release and then upgrade to the "-CURRENT" packages from there, a FreeBSD developer has finally started offering snapshot images of the FreeBSD 10-CURRENT and 9-STABLE versions. Yes, finally ISO snapshots to make it easier to try out the current development state from a clean install.




  • Project Releases



  • Public Services/Government



  • Openness/Sharing



    • Open Data



    • Open Access/Content

      • California passes groundbreaking open textbook legislation
        It’s official. In California, Governor Jerry Brown has signed two bills (SB 1052 and SB 1053) that will provide for the creation of free, openly licensed digital textbooks for the 50 most popular lower-division college courses offered by California colleges. The legislation was introduced by Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and passed by the California Senate and Assembly in late August.




    • Open Hardware

      • The Open Hardware Summit: The Future of Manufacturing is Sharing


      • HexBright, the Programmable Open Source Flashlight


      • Arduino Uno open-source prototyping board comes to market
        A starter kit for the Arduino Uno open-source prototyping board which can be used by professional embedded system engineers and students is available from RS Components, writes Richard Wilson.

        The kit contains the components required to start programming with the Arduino Uno board along with a guidebook featuring 15 different projects. There is a definite mechatronics flavour to the kit which includes a motor, servomotor and driver.


      • Open Hardware Summit open to hybrid models
        If there was an overarching message from the speakers at last week's Open Hardware Summit, particularly those in the first morning block, it's that openness isn't that critical. It sounds strange coming from a conference whose name starts with "open," but speaker after speaker talked about hybrids and doing whatever worked, not just doing what was open.

        That's not to say they don't believe in the power of openness. The first words of Wired magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson's opening keynote were the very foundation of open source: "Everything I've learned as I built my own business is because people shared what they knew."






  • Programming





Leftovers



  • Health/Nutrition

    • Superweeds, Superpests: The Legacy of Pesticides
      The rapid adoption of a single weed-killer for the vast majority of crops harvested in the United States has given rise to superweeds and greater pesticide use, a new study suggests. And while crops engineered to manufacture an insect-killing toxin have reduced the use of pesticides in those fields, the emergence of newly resistant insects now threatens to reverse that trend.

      Farmers spray the herbicide glyphosate, widely sold under the Monsanto brand Roundup, on fields planted with seeds that are genetically engineered to tolerate the chemical. Found in 1.37 billion acres of corn, soybeans, and cotton planted from 1996 through 2011, this “Roundup Ready” gene was supposed to reduce or eliminate the need to till fields or apply harsher chemicals, making weed control simple, flexible, cheap, and less environmentally taxing.






  • Finance

    • 2nd Circuit remakes MBS class action rules in Goldman ruling
      Now they tell us? More than four years after investors in mortgage-backed securities began filing class actions accusing MBS issuers of deceiving them in offering documents -- and at least three years after federal judges began tossing class claims because name plaintiffs didn't have the requisite standing -- the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals has redefined standing in MBS class actions. In a 38-page opinion that revives a class action against Goldman Sachs, the appeals court rejected what had been conventional wisdom, finding that a union healthcare fund represented by Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd isn't limited to claims based on specific offerings it invested in. Instead, wrote Judge Barrington Parker for a panel that also included judges Reena Raggi and Raymond Lohier, the union fund has standing to assert claims related to every certificate backed by mortgages originated by the same lenders that originated the loans backing the notes purchased by the fund.


    • The War Between Credit and Resources
      Such a policy, which received wider attention during Ben Bernanke’s Congressional questioning last year and was also highlighted this year in a paper delivered at the Jackson Hole conference (Woodford, opens to PDF), has not caught any visible traction with Washington policy makers possibly because it’s seen as either too radical, or simply too new.






Recent Techrights' Posts

European Patent Office Illegally Gutting and Outsourcing Its Functions, Acting Like an Above-the-Law Commercial Business (It Won't Stop at Formalities Officers (FOs) and Classification Slop at the EPO)
breaking/violating laws and conventions
Links 19/09/2025: Lobbyist of American GAFAM Becomes Data Protection Commissioner in Europe
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The Right to Punch People (Apparently)
At Brett Wilson, Brett's job title is "Head of Crime" and Wilson normalises calls for violence
Brett Wilson LLP Seem to Have Had Only One Litigation Client in 2025, He Was Previously Charged, Just Like the Serial Strangler From Microsoft (Whom They Now Represent)
Karma is superstition, regulators are not
Project 2030 to Cover How "Project 2025"-Styled Anti-Media Zealots From America Targeted Techrights and Tux Machines
The common denominator is also their attacks on women
Brett Wilson LLP Failed to Meet Deadlines Set by Judge 7 Months Earlier, Tried to Ruin Our Holiday, Then Had the Audacity to Ask Us for Over 3,000 Pounds for Its Own Lateness
As a matter of principle we will never respond to assassin while we are on holiday
 
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Offloading to the Sister Site
In the interest of not overwhelming readers
Links 19/09/2025: Coffee Club and "SpellBinding is Now Absurdly Fast"
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Links 19/09/2025: Media Freedom Ceases to Exist in US, "Consider Dropping Twitter/X"
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Gemini Links 19/09/2025: Thinking and Insect Bites
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Microsoft now makes Git dependent on Rust, or making Git dependent on GitHub, which is proprietary
Slop or Fake Articles Have Turned Linux Journal From a Pioneering/Trailblazing "Linux" Magazine Into a Nuisance
some sites with former reputation - good reputation - turn into cesspools
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GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 18, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, September 18, 2025
On Claims That After Bluewashing Red Hat Will Increasingly Become an Indian Company
Discussed this week (long and detailed)
Americans Attacking British Sites Only Months After They Leave America
We find it kind of funny if not ironic that this site, originally an American site, got legal harassment only from Americans and only months after it had moved to the UK
Despite Losing Over a Quarter Million Dollars a Year Software in the Public Interest (SPI) Gives Helping Hand to Libreboot
SPI's financial state depends a lot on its public image or its reputation
Slopwatch: Google Helps Plagiarism and Sends Traffic to Ripoff Artists
That Google as a company helps spamfarms is noteworthy
If You Want to Know the Future, Listen to the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and Andy Farnell
We're sure the FSF will have plenty of its own output
Links 18/09/2025: A Taliban Ban on Internet Access and Troubled US Job Market
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Gemini Links 18/09/2025: Computer Literacy and Accessing Alhena's Database
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Links 18/09/2025: US War on Media (Truth Banned, Cancel Culture by the Hard Right), NYT Chief Executive Warns Cheeto is Deploying ‘Anti-press Playbook'
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Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 17, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 17, 2025
Slopwatch: Fake Articles, Fake Text, Fake Images, Negative Slant on "Linux"
Google News has lost its value; the signal-to-noise ratio has fallen off a cliff
Gemini Links 17/09/2025: Relax-and-Recover on Proxmox and New Smolweb File Transfer Service
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Microsoft Lunduke - as usual - finds a way to make it about abortions
Pacing Publication Up a Bit
The news cycles have gotten rather light and slow
Links 17/09/2025: Power Outages, Digital Controls, and Attacks on the Mainstream Media (by Insecure and Corrupt Dictators)
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Gemini Links 17/09/2025: Flashing LineageOS and ROOPHLOCH
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Links 17/09/2025: Long COVID Study, "Exposing Pegasus", and Chatbots Exposing Sensitive Data
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Links 17/09/2025: Secret Settlement for Internet Archive and Google’s LLM Slop Summaries Attracting Lawsuits
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The True Cost of 'Generative Models'
Funded and promoted by the companies that profit from the waste
'Big Slop' Attacks Contemporary Information/Knowledge and Creative Works, 'Big Copyright' (Cartel) Attacks the Old
Someone at IA will hopefully "blow the whistle" on what they actually agreed
Why We Find It Difficult to Trust Rust
A comparison between C/C++ and Rust
Slop Nihilism is Funded by Big Oil
Eventually human civilisation will destroy itself
Watching the OSI: Our Series Will Carry on Irrespective of the Chief's 'Resignation'
the OSI isn't even the real guardian of the term "Open Source"
Professor Eben Moglen Recovering From Open Heart Surgery
From his public pages (this is not secret)
Just What LibreOffice Needs? Another Language? (Rust)
what's all this concern about memory safety?
Many Microsoft Managers Are Leaving
"Hey hi" chaff or chaff about "hey hi" cannot eternally distract from the difficulties inside the company
There Are Red Hat (IBM) Layoffs, But Google News is Infested With Slopfarms
It contributes a lot to misinformation and it encourages plagiarism
Tomorrow, Microsoft's Tim Anderson's 'The Register MS' Offshoot Will Have Been Inactive for 2 Months (There's Also a Slop Problem)
We've already caught The Register MS using LLM slop for articles
Microsoft's Chief Legal Officer Leaves Microsoft After Nearly 30 Years
And not retiring
Even Windows Users Are Having Problems With "Secure Boot"
When it comes to security - Microsoft strives for the very opposite
Another Competition Crime of Microsoft, Long Facilitated and Advocated by a Bad Actor, Who is Funded by a Third Party to Commit Extortion Against People Who Have Correctly and Repeatedly Warned About It for Over 13 Year
We must always go back to the core issues
3 More Reasons to Replace Mozilla Firefox With LibreWolf
Thankfully there are de-enshittified versions of Firefox
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In America, as in the US, the attacks seem more enhanced or advanced these days
Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC logs for Tuesday, September 16, 2025
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Gemini Links 17/09/2025: Reclaiming Things in a Digital Age and Moon Phases in CGI
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