Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 18/8/2013: Free/Open Source Software News



  • OSv: The Open Source Cloud Operating System That is Not Linux
    For most tech professionals, the words “open source operating system” naturally translate to Linux. And so it's understandable that those same tech pros would be a bit confused by startup Cloudius Systems' announcement in September of a new open source operating system for the cloud, OSv.
  • 25 Open Source Alternatives For Costly Applications


  • Inspiring words from a Citrix open source exec, using GitHub for beehive building, and other interesting news
  • Inside the OpenMIND: Open Source Social Media Datamining and "Predictive" Policing
    Records obtained by DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy (DBA/CMD) shed new light on a technology, OpenMIND, utilized by law enforcement/counter-terrorism fusion center personnel in gathering and analyzing mass amounts of "open source intelligence" derived from the online lives of Americans.
  • SourceForge responds to GIMP grump with crowdsourcing caper
  • Andy Hunt: What are you going to invent next?
    Andy’s first point began with an astute observation. Open source software is often discussed in terms of being a "stack" (LAMP, for instance). It is no longer a stack, however, but a tower. A tower that spans software and hardware. With the source or schematics being available, not only can we stand on the shoulders of the giants of our field but on the shoulders of everyone who contributes. It’s an embarrassment of riches.


  • How to Run Your Small Business With Free Open Source Software
    From simple bookkeeping packages to full-blown ERP systems, open source software can provide free options for small businesses that don't have the budget for big-ticket enterprise applications.

  • GIMP leaves SourceForge, EFF Tackles NSA & More…


  • Then, now, and the future of open source fonts
    In August, the Fedora Project held its first Flock conference, a replacement for the North American and European FUDCon (Fedora Users and Developers Conference) events. Flock was a four-day, planned conference with talks, workshops, and hackfests, in contrast to FUDCon's barcamp model. In the interest of reaching beyond the community and reminding everyone that Fedora is so much broader than just a Linux project, the invited keynote speakers were from open source areas outside of the Fedora Project. One of those keynotes was by Dave Crossland, creator of the open font Cantarell and an active part of the free font movement.
  • Open Source: A Platform for Innovation
    The hobbies that inspired the scientific curiosity of my generation were Erector Sets, Science Fair Electronic Kits from Radio Shack and model rockets with balsa wood fins that we meticulously assembled and painted. While these toys piqued our curiosity in science and engineering our ability to share our discoveries were limited by geography. These fascinating distractions were often purpose-built and confined our creativity within their intended purpose.


  • A developer’s story about passion for Open Source and Security
    This story is definitely a first for me. Not just because every story is unique in itself, but that it’s one of personal matter. The thing is, I quit my well-paid job, just to spend time on the things I’m very passionate about: open source development and information security. Not only was quitting my job a serious step, also the decision to share my personal story after 10+ years of working with open source software and security. Well, here you go. It’s my hope to intrigue others, find their passion in life and also go for it!


  • Salsa: an open source syllabus creator for educators
    Who wants to tackle the complex problem of helping educators create learning service agreements? I don’t see too many hands. How about you there, reading this article? Wait, you weren’t aware that this is an issue that impacts the education system? Well, here's an open source project that solves this problem and needs more collaborators.


  • Facebook Open Compute Project picks switch specs


  • Facebook’s hardware VP says we’re very close to open source switches


  • Cisco-threatening open switch coming from Facebook, Intel, and Broadcom


  • This 23-year-old’s open-source project, a server running on Raspberry Pi, gives the middle finger to Google
    For most of us, Google shutting down Reader was annoying. For Jacob Cook, it was a call to arms.

    He’s now building an operating system that anyone can use to replace all of the services that Google provides — or any other cloud company, for that matter. Email, chat, file sharing, web hosting: With Cook’s arkOS, you’ll be able to run all of those essential services on a secure, private server in your own home that’s about the size of a credit card.
  • HHVM Going On A Big Performance, Feature Push
    Facebook's HipHop Virtual Machine (HHVM) open-source project that's been seeking to implement a high-performance PHP, is in the middle of a lock-down and for three weeks they are focusing on nothing bot boosting the performance of their PHP implementation and seeking to hit feature parity.


  • Matt Dugan Makes Case for Enterprise Open Source
    There was nothing new in what Matt Dugan said. There were no ground breaking revelations. He just methodically made his case, point by point, explaining why open source was usually, if not always, the best solution for business.

    To me, this was just what the doctor ordered. I’d just sat through a forty-five minute lecture in that very same room from an open core guy that had left me fearing that enterprise open source companies were just as greedy and potentially as unethical as the proprietary guys. Dugan fixed that and quickly reaffirmed my faith in the notion that open source is where the good guys live.


  • Machine Learning with Apache Mahout: Refining the Recommender
    Mahout components implement popular algorithms and can be unplugged easily when no longer needed.
  • MediaCore CE renamed to MediaDrop
    MediaCore CE is the community edition of MediaCore, a Web application that powers a multimedia hosted platform targeted towards the educational market and run by MediaCore, Inc. It is a Python application built atop the Django Web framework.

    Published under the GNU General Public License version 3, MediaDrop is free to download and use. However, because it is a Django application, installing it is a little bit more involved than the point-and-click process commonly associated with PHP applications.
  • OpenWFD Aims to Bring Wireless Display Streaming to Tablets, Phones
    Wireless connectivity between devices and display monitors remains mostly fantasy today, Google's Chromecast notwithstanding. But it could become a big deal for tablets, smartphones and even traditional PCs in the future. And it may even work on Linux, if the nascent OpenWFD project succeeds—which would be very good news for open source hardware vendors.
  • Open-Source HTML5 Terminal Emulator To Support X11
    The Gate One HTML5-powered terminal emulator and SSH client that goes without needing any browser plug-ins and supports many SSH/terminal features is working on bringing X11 support to the web-browser. The developer claims that this X11 support in the browser written in HTML5 will be fast enough to support video playback and he's made a video demo as proof.


  • 5 Open Source Platforms That Will Define 2014
    Linux and MySQL are old news. Partners must now open their minds to NoSQL, Hadoop, KVM, OpenStack and OpenDaylight




Recent Techrights' Posts

Gnome Foundation Inc is in Trouble
the agenda is set GAFAM and IBM rather than donors
SLAPP Censorship - Part 22 Out of 200: When You Complain People Impersonate You in IRC (But You Yourself Impersonate People in IRC and Lock Them Out of Their IRC Handles)
We'll cover this with direct evidence some time soon
 
Links 25/03/2026: Nations Return to Russian Oil and Burning Wood
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/03/2026: Resisting Authoritarianism and Why Slop Needs to Go Away
Links for the day
Fedora Maintainer-ship Using Slop (Mistakes) Would Make Fedora Less Reliable
It won't produce reliable code or stable systems one can rely upon
IBM's "Legacy Employees" (Experienced Workers, IBM Management Dubs Them 'Dinobabies')
This notion of "legacy employees" seems like something overlapping with "expensive" (well paid) staff, even if not entirely equivalent
EPO's "Current Industrial Actions Are Likely to Intensify Further."
There is another strike in 5 days
This Morning The Register MS Published Slop Promotion With the Term "AI" 15 Times In It. The Register MS Was (As Usual) Paid to Do This
This is not a serious publisher
SLAPP Censorship - Part 23 Out of 200: We Were Right All Along (for 2 Years) About Third Party Funding and Willingness to 'Break the Bank' in Pursuit of "Revenge"
How much damage can a person do to oneself in pursuit of cover-up of legitimate technical concerns?
Links 25/03/2026: Airports Further Militarised, "Slopification and Its Discontents", Microsoft 'Open' 'Hey Hi' Shutting Things Down
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/03/2026: Blogging Fright and Absolutely Useless 'Apps' Made by Slop Machines
Links for the day
Rise in Energy Prices Will Significantly Accelerate the Death of So-called "AI Companies"
It should be noted that fake news about Microsoft OpenAI doubling workforce (mere words, not actions) can serve as a nice distraction from the death of Sora due to divestment
It's Always a Question of Trust
There's a widespread stigma of lawyers being manipulative and chronically dishonest
Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Must More Carefully Investigate or Assess the Financial State of Law Firms in the UK
We'll cover this in depth in the future
GAFAM Mozilla Removes Theora Support, Now GNU Needs to Re-encode Videos
Mozilla used to mean something to Free software advocates
An Open Admission Profits Depend on Addiction
Proprietary software tends to be like this
IBM Americas President Ayman Antoun Comes to OpenText, Weeks Ahead the Mass Layoffs Begin
Is that what IBM will be good at?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 24, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 24, 2026
Gemini Links 24/03/2026: Junk Drawer Time Capsule and Building Outside Alire
Links for the day
Not Much LLM Slop About "Linux" Lately, It Only Ever Comes From the Same Few Sites
As long as only few such sites use LLM slop we can skip and avoid them
Links 24/03/2026: "Epic Lays Off Over 1000 Employees" and US in Financial Trouble According to the Fed
Links for the day
The "Media" Does Not Only 'Miss' Mass Layoffs
"The Treasury just declared the U.S. insolvent. The media missed it"
The Empty Suits of IBM Managers (NIH or "Nothing Invented Here")
IBM's management adopted the business model of parasites
2012: 'Secure' (Microsoft-Controlled) Boot Has Not (Yet) Been Made Obligatory. 2026: systemd Has Not Implemented Age Verification
should we stop calling "nazi" everyone we don't agree with?
More Threats (Including Physical Threats) Against Us Are a Dumb Move
It's like a "hit list" (targets list) and I shall keep the police duly informed
New Example of Pentagon in "Feminist" Clothing Inside Fake News of Publishers Paid to Promote Outsourcing to US ("Clown Computing") and American Slop
Google now pays money to promote Google as a friend of women
Hating Techrights is a Career
but is it good for civil society?
Dr. Stallman’s Work Will Never be Considered 'Mainstream' Because He Rejects and Works Against the So-called 'Mainstream'
Try to be more like Stallman
The New Layoffs: 'Silent Layoffs', 'Secret Layoffs', 'Quiet Layoffs', 'Passive Layoffs' 'Stealth Layoffs', and Unannounced Layoffs Disguised as Return-to-Office (RTO Mandates)
The US needs to revisit and fix the WARN Act
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part IX - Cocaine Addicts in Charge of the EPO Attacking Families of EPO Staff
Things like being high-profile and being a serious drug addict aren't opposites
What Feminism in Science Means (Codes of Conduct Don't Tackle the Real Issues)
Universality matters, more so in a project or community that's said to build the "universal operating system" (Debian)
SLAPP Censorship - Part 21 Out of 200: It's About Behaviour Online, Not How Much Money From Shadowy Third Parties Gets Spent on Lawyers and Two Barristers
75+ KG of legal papers, 2 cases, 2 barristers (one hiding in the metadata) and maybe two law firms (also hiding in the metadata) against two modest people in Manchester seems disproportionate and vindicative
Links 24/03/2026: "Airports on ICE" and "Have You Paid Your “Intuit Tax”?"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/03/2026: Slop Interview and Why Slop Makes Lousy Code
Links for the day
Richard Stallman to Give Public Talk This Thursday at the University of Bologna (Italy)
Hardly the first time he speaks in Bologna
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 23, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, March 23, 2026
Gemini Links 23/03/2026: "Mandatory" Bad Things and Dangers of Perfection Aspirations
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 20 Out of 200: All Roads Lead to Rome and to GAFAM Funding
Now about 10% into this series
Last Week's EPO Strike Was the Biggest (Highest Participation Rate), Hours Ago General Assembly Discussed Next (Growing) Intensity of Strikes
Well done and well attended
Mass Layoffs at HashiCorp, IBM Hid Them
The media did not mention those layoffs
Microsoft Downgraded on Concerns (Lack of Growth) Amid Silent Layoffs in 2026
The press isn't functioning anymore
Links 23/03/2026: Gulf Water at Risk, Heatwave in Malaysia
Links for the day
Slop Means False, New Article by Cybershow
"We are living in a world that is rapidly divesting from reality."
Debianism election 2026 community poll created, everybody can vote
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/03/2026: "Shocking Peter Thiel Antichrist Lectures", Robert Mueller Remembered
Links for the day
The Scandal Bigger Than IBM/Red Hat Layoffs is the de Facto "Media Blackout" About Those Layoffs
So we have a media crisis, aside from the economic crises
Gemini Links 23/03/2026: Geminispace/Elpher Enhancement and the Cerberus Cinco
Links for the day
Fear is Not a Legitimate Factor
Smart people know that trying to prevent moral people from doing the "Right Thing" will backfire
Fuel Autonomy and What It Teaches Us About Software Autonomy (or Software Freedom)
Need we wait until a "software Pearl Harbor" or protect ourselves proactively by weaning ourselves off of GAFAMware?
Scheduled Maintenance This Coming Wednesday
Other than that, all is the same and we carry on as usual
Most Press Articles About IBM Are LLM Slop, Sometimes With Slop Images
IBM basically laid off almost 1,000 people last week [...] At the moment about 75% of the 'articles' we see about IBM (in recent days) are some kind of slop
Links 23/03/2026: Security Breaches, Energy Shortages, Another SRA Scandal, and Patents on Nature
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 22, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, March 22, 2026