Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 3/4/2013: MATE 1.6, US Justice Department Versus Online News





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Avetti.com Launches Enterprise Open Source E-Commerce Software
    Avetti's enterprise e-commerce software used in many high volume online stores now has a Community Edition available under the OSL v3 Open Source License. A key feature is integration with the Open Ice Cat product database, which provides images, descriptions and specifications permitting merchants to create professional stores faster.


  • How Netcore Built Rs 50 Crore Biz With Open Source
    The Mumbai-based solutions provider, which focuses on email, messaging and e-marketing solutions, has saved $2 million on licensing costs with free and open source software (FOSS)


  • New marketplace connects open source contractors with clients
    In any field, a major challenge can be finding the right talent. For open source projects looking for contractors, it's hard to organize possible candidates from all over the web. Flossmarket hopes to fill that void.

    A platform for connecting contractors and businesses/individuals, Flossmarket allows each party to search for and find like-minded partners faster for their projects. Contractors build a profile and are able to advertise their services on their page. And, anyone who needs contract open source work done can review candidates based on criteria they set in their search.


  • Crossing the Chasm
    Are you winning if you own ninety-nine percent of a moribund market ? I don't think so. Linux and Open Source/Free Software has crossed the chasm now. It has become the mainstream. Every Android tablet or phone out there is a Linux and Open Source/Free Software platform, and in the next few years I fully expect this to become the most common form of computing for most people worldwide (disclaimer, I do work for Google so please take such predictions with the pinch of salt they deserve).

    For Free Software advocates like myself this is a tremendously positive change. The dirty secret of Samba, my own Free Software project, is that for a while the developers only ever run Windows ourselves in order to test Samba (which is an interoperability solution). Mostly everyone uses a different variety of Free Software desktops and servers (with the odd Mac or Solaris/Illumos user thrown into the mix). The default at least for us has become Free Software.

    So have we won ? Should we just pack up the advocacy tent and go home ? Unfortunately not. Most of the applications running on these devices are still proprietary. Most people using mobile devices, although they might be running a Free Software operating system underneath, still don't realize why Free Software is important.


  • BBC sharing its TV application layer as open source
    Britain's public service broadcasting corporation BBC is making available as open source the code for building HTML-based TV software solutions, called TAL. "Sharing the TV Application Layer should make building applications on TV easier for others, helping to drive the uptake of this nascent technology", the organisation explains.


  • BBC Almost “Gets” FLOSS…
    Nothing in FLOSS restricts use of FLOSS in commercial products. You can charge money for services instead of charging for licences and GPL, for instance, permits charging per copy or whatever. Much FLOSS is commercial, like Linux, the kernel, worth $billions, FireFox, the web browser, worth $hundreds of millions and RedHat makes a $billion in revenue on FLOSS annually.



  • Web Browsers



    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla Celebrates 15 Years with Firefox 20
        Mozilla captured many a headline today as Mitchell Baker blogged about 15 years of "a better web." Mozilla began life as Netscape's Open Source branch of development in 1998 and has since changed the Web many times, if sometimes by accident. But as Mozilla celebrates this milestone, Firefox 20 is already making the rounds.

        Baker said, "Looking back, Mozilla’s plan was as radical as the Web itself: use open source and community to simultaneously create great software and build openness into the key technologies of the Internet itself. This was something commercial vendors weren’t doing and could not do. A non-profit, community-driven organization like Mozilla was needed to step up to the challenge."


      • Firefox 20.0: Find out what is new
        Mozilla will upgrade the stable channel of its desktop browser to Firefox 20.0 today. The front page at the time of writing is still linking to a download of version 19.0.2, but you can use this link to download the new version of the browser right away. Make sure you change its url if you need a different localized version, this one downloads the US version of Firefox.


      • Celebrating 15 Years of a Better Web


      • Firefox 20 Drops In New Private, Download Features
        Mozilla has announced Firefox 20 with several prominent new features to the open-source web-browser.

        As shared on the Mozilla blog, prominent features of Firefox 20 include:

        - Support for starting private browsing in a new tab of an already existing web-browser session. Firefox for Android also now supports private browsing on a per-tab basis.


      • Mozilla and Samsung Collaborate on Next Generation Web Browser Engine






  • Education



  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



  • Openness/Sharing



    • Open Data

      • On Data Science with Open Data
        In a previous blog post I offered up two interpretations of the term 'data science'. These amounted to 1) 'the science of data' and 2) 'doing science with data'. If you read the earlier post you'll probably detect my mild irritation with the term when coupled with the second of these interpretations. Perhaps it's the redundancy, or maybe the implication that plain 'science' is somehow devoid of data. It may be both.




    • Open Access/Content







Leftovers

  • The Meme Hustler
    Tim O’Reilly’s crazy talk


  • Science



  • Hardware

    • Pie-in-the-sky or Real Growth in PC Shipments?
      Wait a bit… New hardware is something that might drive unit shipments and M$’s cutting of licensing fees might help if people actually wanted to buy M$’s OS, but M$ is cutting the prices because people don’t want to buy M$’s OS, so this is wishful thinking. Manufacturers should be shipping GNU/Linux if they want sales to pop. People are desperate to escape the clutches of M$ and the consumers who are a big piece of the pie cannot unless they find GNU/Linux on retail shelves.




  • Security



    • Exclusive: Ongoing malware attack targeting Apache hijacks 20,000 sites


    • EU data-protection authorities launch joint action against Google
      Data-protection authorities of Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the Netherlands have launched a joint action against the Google for violating the European Union privacy rules.

      The joint action is the first co-ordinated and formal procedure by EU member countries against a single company on privacy.

      Currently, the European authorities can impose only fines below €1m. However, the new EU privacy rules, expected to be approved by the end of 2013, could allow the authorities to inflict on companies penalties up to 2 per cent of their global annual turnover.




  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression



    • Greek Nazi link group 'set up here'
      A Greek political party with links to neo-Nazis say they have established themselves in Melbourne, but have no interest in Australian politics.

      Golden Dawn, which was founded by a Holocaust denier and whose members have been linked to dozens of violent protests in Greece, claims to have set up a group in Melbourne filled with Greek-Australians who will ''fight and defend both of our countries with pride and honour''.

      The group sent an email to Fairfax Media criticising the ''lies'' of reporters, politicians and Greek community leaders since controversial Golden Dawn MP Ilias Kasidiaris announced plans for a Melbourne office and a visit from MPs on a Melbourne radio station in February.


    • German Pastor Faces Trial Over Anti-Nazi Protest
      A German pastor due to stand trial for allegedly inciting violence at an anti-Nazi demonstration said Tuesday that authorities risk deterring people from standing up to right-wing extremists if he is convicted.



    • Is The Aryan Brotherhood of Texas about to Launch a Neo-Nazi Counter-Revolution?


    • Capitol Hill hawks object stripping CIA of drones


    • Symbols of Bush-era Lawlessness Flourish Under Obama
      Guantanamo Bay prison plans expansion, while CIA official linked to torture cover-up gets promoted


    • ‘Americans’ taps creator’s work at CIA
      When he was training to be a case officer for the CIA in the early 1990s, Joseph Weisberg soon learned that deception was a crucial skill — one that involved lying to his family regularly.



    • The Shift in the Drone Debate
      When a forum as hawkish at The Washington Post‘s editorial page starts running pieces arguing the drone war is creating more enemies than it is eliminating, you know the dialogue is beginning to shift.


    • An Urgent Proposal to Protect People From Domestic Drones


    • Drones: Secrets in our skies
      Hundreds of unmanned aerial vehicles - known as drones - are aloft in our skies, many owned and built by recreational users. But safety and security issues alarm the CAA, which oversees our aviation system.


    • Officials want 'drones' buzzing over Utah


    • North Korea: Not Crazy but Very Misunderstoods
      It seems scary, even crazy: talk of a “sea of fire” and an “arc of destruction,” nuclear missiles slamming into distant shores. North Korea, an “isolated state,” as we’re constantly told by media reports, hurls invective at the world while its people, abused, hungry and cold, are led by an apparently well-fed young man, Kim Jong-un, who sits in front of shabby-looking computers running nuclear programs that are going, literally, ballistic.

      But is it all true?

      “Public discourse about the North in most of our enlightened world is crippled, condescending, irrelevant, and, like heartburn, episodic,” says James Church, the pseudonymous author of a series of novels about the country, in an article titled: “NK and Pluto.” He insists on anonymity because of the nature of his past intelligence work.

      As the rhetoric ratchets up again on the Korean peninsula with talk of mobilization, attack and counterattack, Mr. Church’s view is deeply counterintuitive and very valuable. His authorial name is a pseudonym for a former Western intelligence officer who has been in the country dozens of times and now, retired from government, writes about it through the eyes of a fictional North Korean policeman called Inspector O. (Full disclosure – I have met Mr. Church and he is definitely real.) In fact, the novels offer a superb demonstration of the idea that fiction tells the truth better than fact.




  • Cablegate



  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • 350.org Calls for Public Comment on Keystone XL Pipeline
      After the recent tar sands pipeline spill in Arkansas, where thousands of gallons of toxic oil ran through the streets of a small community, the climate change organization 350.org is asking Americans to join in the public commenting process for the Keystone XL pipeline.

      The U.S. State Department is reviewing applications for permits needed for the international pipeline to advance. The State Department is soliciting public comment on the issue until April 22.






  • Finance

    • Taking back City College from the corporations – by any means necessary
      Like the Monsanto Protection Act, the support for all of this corporate destruction of our communities’ schools...


    • When America Came 'This Close' to Establishing a 30-Hour Workweek
      The April 15, 1933 issue of Newsweek, one of the first in the magazine’s history, contains a remarkable cover headline: Bill cutting work week to 30 hours startles the nation. Indeed only nine days earlier, on April 6th, the Black-Connery Bill had passed in the United States Senate by a wide margin. The bill fixed the official American work week at five days and 30 hours, with severe penalties for overtime work.


    • Pope to review Vatican bureaucracy, bank scandal
      ...bank which has regularly damaged the Vatican's image over three decades...


    • Food stamps and the database state…
      The latest proposal for ‘food stamps’ has aroused a good deal of anger. It’s a policy that is divisive, depressing and hideous in many ways – Suzanne Moore’s article in the Guardian is one of the many excellent pieces written about it. She hits at the heart of the problem: ‘Repeat after me: austerity removes autonomy’.



    • The Great British class calculator
      People in the UK now fit into seven social classes, a major survey conducted by the BBC suggests.


    • Bitcoin price goes on wild ride
      The price of the virtual currency bitcoin, already volatile in recent weeks, went through wild swings in overnight trading Tuesday and Wednesday.

      According to prices quoted on Mt.Gox, the main trading exchange for bitcoins, the value of one bitcoin ricocheted from $106 to as high as $147, then back down to $125, then to $141. They were trading around $139 per bitcoin in afternoon trading Wednesday.


    • Paulson Applies for Lawsuit Dismissal - Analyst Blog
      Paulson & Co applied for dismissal of a lawsuit made by ACA Financial Guaranty related to Abacus - a collateralized debt obligation (CDO). The plaintiffs accused the company of joining banking major The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. ( GS ) to obtain guaranteed payments from bond insurers on risky investments.

      In 2011, ACA Financial filed a $120 million lawsuit against Goldman and later in January, added Paulson & Co along with its hedge fund unit - Paulson Credit Opportunities Master II Ltd as the accused. The modified lawsuit claimed that Goldman and Paulson tricked ACA Financial into believing that Paulson was investing in the CDO. However, Paulson had taken a short position on it.




  • Privacy

    • NSA Chief Wants Companies to Share More Info With the Government
      Speaking at a conference at Georgia Tech, Director of the U.S. National Security Agency General Keith Alexander pressed Congress last week pass legislation creating a more effective information-sharing regime between government and businesses to help protect the nation’s security. Just as past legislative efforts such as the proposed Cyber Intelligence Protection Act (CISPA) have faced widespread backlash for imposing high regulatory costs on businesses while risking infringing basic rights, the fear remains that Alexander’s proposals simply suggest more of the same.


    • California Law Would Require Companies To Disclose All Consumer Data Collected




  • Civil Rights



  • DRM



    • Safe-harbor compliance for FOSS projects
      "DMCA" is a four-letter word among free and open source software developers, and for good reason: the 1998 act criminalized an entire category of programs and has been grossly misused in numerous cases. It's in the news yet again this week, as activists are fighting to make it legal to carrier-unlock cellphones despite the Librarian of Congress's decision not to exempt unlocking from the DMCA's anti-circumvention rules.

      But the anti-circumvention rules are only one part of the DMCA—it also put in place the safe harbors that protect online services from liability for their users' activity. These too have been the subject of some controversy, as large content owners have routinely abused the notice-and-takedown process to censor materials protected by fair use. But they've also done a lot of good. Before, it was difficult for service providers dealing with user-uploaded content to predict their potential liability for the infringing activity of their users. The safe harbors provide clear rules for avoiding secondary liability related to user content.




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights

      • Opinion: Rethinking the Internet
        Sharing knowledge, growing inclusion, increasing participation. The other benefits, economic and social will flow from these principles. Now that sounds like a good place to start to me.








Recent Techrights' Posts

Traf-O-Data, the Company That Jeffrey Epstein's BFF (Bill Gates) (Co)Founded 53 Years and Went Out of Business Due to Heavy Losses
Who will die first, Bill or Microsoft?
A Note on SimilarWeb
Or why SimilarWeb is meaningless for more than 99% of the sites on the Web
IBM Said to be Shutting Down Offices or Sites in the United States
the press can no longer avoid admitting that IBM moves many jobs to India
LLM Slop as Attack Vector on the Reputation of Linux
The attacks on Linux have escalated to information warfare
 
Links 04/04/2025: Fury in South Korea, Flight MH370 Remains Mystery
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Anger and Raspberry Pi CM4
Links for the day
Links 04/04/2025: LLM Slop Bubble Bursting and Korea Music Copyright Association Bans Slop 'Music'
Links for the day
Why Microsoft's Shares Sank Almost 20% in Recent Months (the Bubble is Imploding)
verified press reports from the past 24 hours
GNU/Linux Rises to Almost 5% in Algeria While Windows Sinks to All-Time Low
GNU/Linux grew tenfold
Where to Get More Gags
A valued reader recommended that to us
Links 04/04/2025: Tech Stock (Inc. GAFAM) Fall, Google Pretends to Do End-to-End Encrypted Emails (With Google in Control)
Links for the day
To Participate in Fedora Diversity You Must Use Proprietary Software
Not for the first time either
Yandex About to Be Three Times Bigger Than Microsoft (Bing) in Asia
That's about 60% of the world's population
Gemini Links 04/04/2025: Decoupling Updates, Elaho as Gemini Client
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 03, 2025
Microsoft's Trouble in Africa and Asia
A new all-time high for GNU/Linux
Brett Wilson LLP Reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
The saddest thing in all this is that law firms can maintain high standards shall they wish to
Links 03/04/2025: Tariff Pains and C.D.C. Cuts
Links for the day
StatCounter: Microsoft is Masking a Disaster, It's Way Behind DeepSeek Already and Interest in LLMs Has Waned
it turns out the money "raised" for "Open" "AI" may not even exist at all
Links 03/04/2025: SoftBank Money for Microsoft "Open" "AI" Probably Doesn't Even Exist, Wikimedia Foundation Blasts LLM Nuisance While Microsoft Admits Demand Has Shrunk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/04/2025: Patch Panel and Pictures
Links for the day
Islamic Republic of Iran: GNU/Linux at All-time High This Month, Windows Falls to 12%
Vista 10 is up this month despite being "end of life" (EoL) soon
Indonesia: All-Time Highs for GNU/Linux
What's noteworthy right now is the growth of GNU/Linux
statCounter Says GNU/Linux Usage is Up Again (Internationally)
some preliminary April data
Only on April 1st Can the Free Software Foundation Associate With Microsoft's Open Source Initiative (OSI)
We saw some pranks that day linking the FSF to Microsoft (e.g. "endorsing" Windows)
Confirmed in the Mainstream Media: A Lot of Microsoft "Workloads" Were Just LLM Slop (Helping to Fake Growth for Years, as Microsoft Had Paid "Open" "AI" to Become a "Client") and Demand is Rapidly Waning, Datacentres Canceled and/or Shut Down
Anything to facilitate further accounting fraud
Taiwan's Media Covers Closure of Microsoft's "AI" Lab, It's Time to Talk About the Gradual Death of Windows and Implosion of the "AI" Bubble
Earlier this week we showed that mostly Asian media had the 'nerve' to mention Microsoft silently shutting down its 'AI' lab
IBM Gets Rid of Kelly Chambliss as Mass Layoffs Reported in IBM Consulting, IBM Loses Key Contracts/Graft
IBM Consulting has been in disarray lately
More Gains for GNU/Linux, Based on Web Surveys
the Steam site shows rapid growth for "Linux" this month
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles, Not Even Written by Humans
Why aren't Web sites more vocal about this problem?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 02, 2025
Links 03/04/2025: Apple Fined Over Secret Surveillance, "Elegant Writer For A More Civilized Age"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: Books and Cold Tea
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: More Layoffs, Nokia Again Takes Advantage of Illegal and Unconstitutional Patent Court With Nokia Staff as 'Judges'
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: Seizures and Returns to Windows of 24 Years Ago
Links for the day
LLM Slop Helps Obscure and Distort News About Layoffs (IBM, GAFAM)
It's hard to find accurate information
Links 02/04/2025: Microsoft Developers Are Threatening to Go on Strike, World Backup Day Noted
Links for the day
Gemini Protocol Has Growing Appeal (the Web Got Too Bloated and Full of LLM Slop)
For any "data plan" with bandwidth limits or "tiers" it would be cheaper to use/browse Geminispace
The Web Can Survive LLM Slop, But Only If We Collectively Shun and Discourage Serial Sloppers
Doing nothing ought not be a possibility
Amid Secret Shut-downs and Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (4 Waves of Layoffs in 3 Months of 2025) Some Microsoft Staff Expected to Go On Strike
workers going on strike
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: No more on Mastodon and Gemini Mention Script in Go
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 01, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 01, 2025
My Motion Disbarring or “Striking Off” Brett Wilson LLP for Enabling Violent Americans Who Try to Crush Microsoft Critics in the United Kingdom by Multiple SLAPPs
"Guns for hire" (for Microsoft people who received Microsoft salaries)
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Hijacked Again by Patent Litigation Industry, as President Cheeto Prioritises Aggressors
The "mafia" has taken over the "industry" and the Federal system (justice and constitutions trampled upon)
Ubuntu Slop and FUD Manufactured With LLMs and Funded (by Oneself) 'Studies'
Slop and FUD are ruining the Web