Bukvic and L€²Ork have fostered musical progress since 2009. Using relatively cheap but innovative tools, the group built the world’s first Linux-based laptop orchestra.
Windows users have long been jealous of workspaces—also called virtual desktops or multiple desktops—on Linux. But many Linux desktops have hidden this feature by default in recent years. Soon, Windows users will have multiple desktop workspaces enabled by default—and many Linux users won’t.
That’s crazy! Virtual desktops have long been one of the standout features of the Linux desktop, and it shouldn’t be lost. Here’s how you can get started with workspaces on Ubuntu’s Unity or another desktop environment today.
Whatever the time of illumination, the results are clear. GNU/Linux works for people in any country.
I love Linux. In fact, if I could reliably get my Windows games to run on them, I'd drop Windows like a bad habit.
This month, as we do every March, we reported on the Who Writes Linux report from the Linux Foundation. Usually, this is a fairly rote affair: Red Hat and Intel contribute tons of code, Greg Kroah-Hartman does a ton of the work, and we learn about some small firm somewhere that’s cranking out kernel code disproportionate to its size.
It's that time again! Issue 4 of Linux Voice is now nine months old, so we're releasing it under the Creative Commons BY-SA license. You can share and modify all content from the magazine (apart from adverts), even for commercial purposes, providing you credit Linux Voice as the original source and retain the same license.
Over the years I've found that a significant hurdle to getting family and friends to switch to Linux comes from its lack of familiarity. This is especially true when it comes to troubleshooting any issues. Obviously, when a malfunction occurs it's not always possible to be there in person.
However thanks to the wonders of broadband Internet and advanced software, we're now able to do the next best thing. In this article, I'll share some recommended remote desktop software for Linux. I'll explore both open source and closed source solutions.
You know those awful romantic comedies where two would-be suitors accidently bump into each other and form an instant mutual dislike before eventually realising that, gosh, they actually have a huge amount in common?
When I first decided that I wanted to use text to speech on a daily basis, I began researching and testing the available applications. The Mint/Ubuntu repositories showed much promise. The first thing I did was become acquainted with the KDE app Jovie. It’s appeal was that it’s built to work right in KDE, but right out of the gate I ran into a such a high level of complexity and gaping holes in usability that I just shut it down and began searching for other solutions. Apparently, Jovie depends on other voice “synthesisers” to get working.
As you know, when someone offers free stuff, we give it a few weeks in order to give each group, organization or individual in need a chance to respond. That’s what we’ll do with Mary Greenfield’s generous offer to donate free fabric, so give it another week and then we’ll forward responses to her.
One of the most rewarding aspects of writing this column is realizing that it generates discussion, and here’s a response to that question about updates for an older computer running Windows ME...
Docker, Inc., the corporate sponsor of the open platform for container-based applications, today announced the acquisition of software-defined networking (SDN) startup SocketPlane. SocketPlane was founded in Q4, 2014 with a vision of delivering Docker-native networking, and it has been an active participant in shaping the initial efforts around Docker’s open API for networking. "The explicit focus of the SocketPlane team within Docker will be on collaborating with the partner community to complete a rich set of networking APIs that addresses the needs of application developers and network and system administrators alike," reports Docker.
The orchestration tools include Docker Machine, Docker Swarm and Docker Compose. Designed to help system administrators deploy and manage apps running inside Docker containers, the tools provide host provisioning (Machine), clustering support (Swarm) and support for distributed applications that span multiple containers (Compose).
So rc2 missed the usual Sunday afternoon timing, because I spent most of the weekend debugging an issue that happened on an old Mac Mini I have around, and I hate making even early -rc releases with problems on machines that I have direct access to. Even if it only affected old machines that actual developers are unlikely to have or at least use.
Today I got the patch from Daniel Vetter to fix it, so instead of doing a Sunday evening rc2, it's a Tuesday morning one. Go get it. It works better for the delay.
Other than that little one-liner i915 fix? Not much, actually. It's been a very quiet week, for being this early in the release process. Sure, 3.19-rc2 was even smaller, so it continues a trend, but that was the xmas week. I hope this low volume is just because the 4.0 merge window itself was somewhat calmer than most recent releases. But I suspect the real reason is that the driver and networking trees from GregKH and davem are pending, and didn't make rc2.
We'll see.
Anyway, the shortlog is appended, and testing is appreciated,
Linus
Last week, 60 kernel developers signed off on a small patch called the Code of Conflict that provides guidelines for discourse in the kernel community and outlines a path for mediation if someone feels abused or threatened. The code was written by kernel maintainer Greg K-H, supported by many of the most prolific maintainers and developers of the kernel community and accepted into the kernel by Linus Torvalds himself.
On Monday, the Linux Foundation kinda sorta slapped him on the wrist when they issued a new "Code of Conflict" policy that declared "personal insults or abuse are not welcome."
Big Switch Networks to Contribute ONL to Accelerate Adoption of Open, Standards-Based Software Platform, Speed Pace of Innovation in Switch Hardware
Big Switch Networks announced that the Open Compute Project (OCP) has formally accepted Big Switch's contribution of Open Network Linux (ONL) as its reference Network Operating System (NOS). ONL is a Linux-based open source network operating system for bare-metal and branded white-box ("brite box") switches.
Last summer Google gathered a bunch of leet security researchers as its Project Zero team and instructed them to find unusual zero-day flaws. They've had plenty of success on the software front – but on Monday announced a hardware hack that's a real doozy.
The technique, dubbed "rowhammer", rapidly writes and rewrites memory to force capacitor errors in DRAM, which can be exploited to gain control of the system. By repeatedly recharging one line of RAM cells, bits in an adjacent line can be altered, thus corrupting the data stored.
The Linux development community now has an organized way to deal with the eternal problem of developer conflict.
THE LINUX FOUNDATION has finally twigged that being mean isn't nice. Up to now, the attitude towards conflict between developers has been very much one of dealing with it, and if you can't take the flack, take a hike.
For those of use working in the Linux kernel, it would be nice to have a verification tool that operated directly on C source code. And there are tools that do just that, for example, the C Bounded Model Checker (cbmc). This tool, which is included in a number of Linux distributions, converts a C-language input file into a (possibly quite large) logic expression. This expression is constructed so that if any combination of variables causes the logic expression to evaluate to true, then (and only then) one of the assertions can be triggered. This logic expression is then passed to a SAT solver, and if this SAT solver finds a solution, then there is a set of inputs that can trigger the assertion. The cbmc tool is also capable of checking for array-bounds errors and some classes of pointer misuse.
BPF continues marching forward as a universal, in-kernel virtual machine for the Linux kernel. The Berkeley Packet Filter was originally designed for network packet filtering but has since been extended as eBPF to support other non-network subsystems via the bpf syscall. Here's some more details on this in-kernel virtual machine.
Alexei Starovoitov presented at last month's Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit in Santa Rosa about BPF as an in-kernel virtual machine. The slides have been published for those wishing to learn more about its state and capabilities.
Complicating matters is that everyone else in his bioinformatics program is using Linux – on Windows he doesn't have anyone to troubleshoot issues with when he runs into problems.
According to the Linux Foundation and tech job company Dice, in the 2015 Linux Jobs Report, "Nearly all hiring managers are looking to recruit Linux professionals." While programmers and Linux system administrators are in high demand, your chances of landing a great job are greater if you have cloud, security, and/or software defined networking (SDN) skills.
In particular, "42 percent of hiring managers say experience with or knowledge of OpenStack and CloudStack are having a big impact on their Linux hiring decisions" while "49 percent of Linux professionals believe open cloud will be the biggest growth area for Linux in 2015."
The dominant position of Intel in the server processor market is likely helped by the company's consistent strong support for Linux. Based on the W3Techs chart below, Linux is almost as popular as Windows-based servers are.
Valve has developed its own Intel Vulkan GPU graphics driver for Linux that they intend to open-source. The Vulkan API is still being argued about and will not be finalised until later this year, but Valve has been developing their own Intel GPU reference driver for Vulkan to help early adopters boot-strap their code.
Writebox is a simple text editor that provides almost no features. Despite this, it's one of the simplest and most trustworthy WYSIWYG text editors around if you just want something simple for writing.
My earlier reports about my interest and use of emacs had mostly focused on editing code or text, mostly CSS, html and org files. I had considered using emacs for email reading and processing, and I had backed away from it although I wanted to give myself the time to consider more options and get even more acquainted with the various tools and modes available for the famous text editor. Today, I’d like to share with you my latest progress and how my choices to invest more on Emacs shape the way I will be using my desktop in the near future.
Chromebooks are pretty darn handy. Even some hardcore Windows users now acknowledge that a Chromebook might be just what you need for work. But, as great as Chromebooks are, and as much progress as Google has made in getting "Web-only" apps such as Google Docs to work offline, there are still times that you want an application that's only available off-line such as the LibreOffice office suite or the GIMP photo editor. For those times, it's darn handy to be able to run a Linux desktop on a Chromebook.
Prey is a cross-platform (Android, Linux, iOS, Mac OS X, and Windows desktop) anti-theft tracking software that, when installed and activated on a supported device, makes it possible to remotely locate, lock, wipe and recover it, if it’s stolen or missing.
The number of Linux games has just passed the 1000 milestone and there is no sign that it's slowing down. If anything, the rhythm of porting is getting faster.
Entroware haven’t been around for long, in fact they only surfaced early last year, so I have been keen to see what their products are like since our communication started.
Dutch developer Triumph has announced a second major expansion for fantasy strategy game Age of Wonders 3, called Eternal Lords.
The latest Steam Hardware & Software Survey for February 2015 shows a swift and noticeable decline in the number of Linux users, which somehow contrary to the general trend from the past few months.
A big part of the games featured on the sale are titles that are already on Linux, such as the Aspyr ports Borderlands 2 and Civilization V and indies like Ziggurat and Kerbal Space Program, but as much as we love those games the announcement has something even bigger. Games that apparently are getting ported but have so far been unannounced.
Magicka is a very popular action/adventure game that is set to have a sequel soon, and the likelihood of Magicka 2 coming to Linux just went up.
We announced last year that Epic Games planned to release a new iteration of its acclaimed Unreal Tournament first-person shooter (FPS) video game built with Unreal Engine 4 for GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows, and Mac OS X computer operating systems.
...a massive Steam sale and revealed that a number of important games are heading for the Linux platform.
Valve has started showing off the Steam Controller and the many different Steam Machines within the Steam Store.
Following Valve's Steam Machine reveal in 2013, the PC games giant retreated for a year and, at GDC this week, returned to the stage with a robust and detailed line-up of 15 systems.
This collection of a dozen living-room PCs--each now with their finalised specs, prices and release dates--together encapsulate Valve's vision for Steam Machines: Scalable, modifiable, attractive units that aren't the typical desktop setup.
I have been asked on a number of occasions to take a look at LXLE.
I downloaded LXLE 14.04.1 a long time ago and for one reason or another it has taken until now to finally sit down and get to grips with it.
LXLE stands for Lubuntu Extra Life Extension. The purpose of LXLE is to take the base Lubuntu distribution and enhance it so that all the features the average person requires is available from the outset.
Evolution, not revolution, to match users’ needs: That is what’s behind the process the Xfce team uses in developing their desktop environment. So, despite what some consider a long time between releases, Xfce released version 4.12 last week, a new stable version that supersedes Xfce 4.10.
PhotoQt is a simple image viewer written in Qt that tries to do things a little bit differently. It succeeds for the most part, but the user also needs to adapt to a new way of doing things. If that is a good thing remains to be determined by the users.
Today KDE releases a bugfix update to Plasma 5, versioned 5.2.1. Plasma 5.2 was released in January with many feature refinements and new modules to complete the desktop experience.
KDE Applications 14.12 has been released by its makers, and it’s a regular maintenance update. It comes with a ton of bug fixes and will be soon available in various repositories.
The GNOME Music app, the default audio playback software of the controversial GNOME desktop environment, has been updated for GNOME 3.16, due for release in March 25. GNOME Music 3.16 Beta 2 is a bug fix release that addresses a number of issues discovered in the previous Beta version of the software.
Those who're new to Linux want the best distro out there for new users, which means simple things like ease of use, productivity, speed, and security. But which distros are the best for new users? Actually, there is probably no "best," but there are many distros that are designed keeping the needs of the inexperienced Linux user in mind.
Some of them, like Linux Mint, are tried and true - a solid operating system that has proven its mettle over time. Others, such as Elementary OS, provide a beautiful interface which impresses many users. Still, other Linux distributions include Zorin OS, which is designed to look like Windows. So let's take a look at five of the best Linux distros for new users.
This initial release leaves much to be added. If the developer remains true to the simplistic design shown so far, the menus and application windows will offer a clean and light look that reminds me of earlier versions of Android. The question at hand is whether a later release will 'evolve' enough to include a fully functional desktop interface that is easy to use.
Pearl OS is a revival of the discontinued Pear OS distro. Pearl picks up where Pear left off in early 2014.
Pearl OS has two desktop versions: XFCE and MATE. Both are based on Ubuntu Linux distro version 14.04 Mini release. The two flavors of Pearl OS are customized to look and act like the OS X operating system.
But Pearl is Linux and not OS X. This distro runs Debian-based Linux applications. It does not run OS X software or have actual OS X functions.
A brand-new ISO image of the lightweight, highly customizable and powerful Arch Linux computer operating system has been released today, March 1, 2015, for those who want to deploy the acclaimed distribution on new computers.
From a new version perspective, Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Real-Time is, as the name says, our Red Hat's new real-time computing offering. Red Hat had been shipping a real-time kernel version of RHEL as part of its MRG product since 2007.
The open source Docker initiative, which allows applications to be run in containers, offers leaps and bounds in flexibility and mobility. However, security could be the rub. RHEL 7 Atomic Host goes a long way toward addressing security concerns. It "appears to address a number of concerns with broad strokes, and should be very well received," said tech analyst Rob Enderle.
Red Hat (RHT) entered the cloud consultation and support services market in a major way this week with the launch of its Cloud Innovation Practice, which introduces cloud setup and architecting solutions that go far beyond those provided with the open source giant's software products.
Tejun Heo is a Linux kernel developer and a principal software engineer at Red Hat. In this video he takes us on a tour of his home office and answers a few questions about his work as a kernel subsystem maintainer.
Not much over a year ago, few people knew about containers, and fewer still knew about Docker. Since then, the idea of building server and applications out of container-based micro-servers, has exploded in popularity. Red Hat has been watching this and now with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 Atomic Host (RHELAH) the company has its own operating system/container pairing to offer the business world.
Red Hat was proud to announce earlier today, March 5, the availability of the first maintenance release of its Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 operating system for computers, used in numerous enterprises worldwide. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.1 contains a great amount of bug fixes and improvements over the previous release, as well as various new features.
Reacting to the surging popularity of the Docker virtualization technology, Red Hat has customized a version of its Linux distribution to run Docker containers.
RED HAT has announced the launch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 (RHEL7) Atomic Host, which it describes as a "purpose-built container host for secure and reliable containerised applications across the open hybrid cloud."
The newsfeeds were a virtual cornucopia today with several exciting headlines. First up, Fedora 22 Alpha was announced today and word has it it's in "great shape." Ubuntu switched to systemd and made their community wallpaper choices. Jim Lynch reviewed Bodhi 3.0 and Christine Hall spoke with Jeff Hoogland about the release. Justin Pot identified seven signs you may be ready to switch to Linux and Paul Venezia demonstrated how cool Bash still is.
The next version of Fedora is well underway. Fedora 22 has reached the alpha stage, and you can download it to give it a test in a virtual machine.
The Fedora Project proudly announced a few minutes ago the immediate availability of the Alpha version of its upcoming Fedora 22 (Twenty Two) Linux operating system for personal computers and servers, due for release on May 19, 2015.
My install went quite well, I had no problems and the install itself was relatively speedy. Bear in mind, however, that I have used the Anaconda installer often in the past. So I’m quite familiar with how it is laid out and what it has to offer. Use the Fedora install guide for Anaconda I linked to above if you’re new to it as it might save you some time when installing Korora 21.
For decades after Linux's early '90s debut, even the hardest of hardcore boosters for the open source operating system had to admit that it couldn't really compete in one important area of software: gaming. "Back in around 2010 you only had two choices for gaming on Linux," Che Dean, editor of Linux gaming news site Rootgamer recalls. "Play the few open source titles, Super Tux Kart and so on, or use WINE to play your Windows titles."
The mobile ecosystem is dominated by Android and iOS, with several other operating systems fighting for scraps. The battle for third place might already have Microsoft as a winner, but there are plenty of others that could become interesting mobile OS alternatives.
Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet Community Wallpaper available to download. Every new release of Ubuntu are also have new wallpaper by default. The default wallpaper are chosen through a contest in which any user can participate by sending its own wallpaper but it should be according to the various guidelines required by the developer of the Canonical Design team.
Ubuntu 15.04 flavors have a first beta version, it now available to download and install for testing. In this release, There are only available images for Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu Gnome, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu MATE, Xubuntu and ubuntu cloud.
We've seen some interesting devices coming out of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and the small Ubuntu-powered Qbo robot is just one them.
Linux fans already kind of knew what to expected to see in Barcelona. Many Ubuntu fans were looking to check out the first Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition phone and their curiosity was satisfied, but now we have something that it's equally interesting, and that is a small robot.
Buying a Linux-based PC usually means purchasing a Windows machine and replacing the OS with your favorite distro. While there is nothing terribly wrong with this practice, you are arguably paying for a Windows license that you will never use. In other words, the manufacturer is including the Windows fee into the overall cost. Not to mention, many Linux fans do not like Microsoft, and would prefer to not support the company. I am a Linux fan, but I like Microsoft products too.
At long last, the first Ubuntu phones are here. It's been more than two years since Canonical first showed off its Linux-based mobile platform, and fans have been clamoring for consumer devices ever since. The Ubuntu Edge never made its ambitious $32 million crowdfunding target, and the first handsets from BQ and Meizu were delayed last year. But finally, it's all starting to come together. BQ has started selling its "Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition" in Europe and Meizu shouldn't be too far behind with its modified MX4.
Everyone loves clouds these days. But telecomm companies are understandably cautious about entrusting their technology to the cloud. Wouldn't you be if a failure mean dropping phone or data services to millions of customers? Still, Juniper Networks and Canonical, Ubuntu Linux's parent company are certain they can devise a carrier-grade OpenStack cloud for virtualizing core networks and network functions.
The first thing you’ll see when your desktop loads is a browser window that pops up with the Bodhi Linux Quick Start Guide loaded in it. Don’t just close this window if you are new to Bodhi, take a moment to look at what’s listed there as it covers some important things such as how to use the Enlightenment window manager, and how to install software. There are also links to an FAQ and other helpful resources.
After two years of development, the stable version of the latest and greatest version of Bodhi Linux, 3.0.0, was released last month. There’s little doubt that loyal users breathed a sigh of relief with the release, as there had been some question about whether the distro would continue after project founder Jeff Hoogland briefly resigned in September, saying he no longer had the time required by his duties to the project. The good news was that he continued to work with the development team, and in January returned in his old role as lead developer. The long awaited new Bodhi was released less than a month later.
“Whenever I am done working with development hardware I picked up for Bodhi Linux, instead of letting it rot in the corner of my basement I would prefer to give it back to our users,” Hoogland writes in a post on the Bodhi website describing the giveaway. “Last year we gave away an ARM powered Samsung Chromebook and this year I find myself with a spare Acer C720 Chromebook after recently upgrading to the i3 based version.”
TI launched a kit for its Sitara AM437x SoC, focused on multi-protocol industrial communication and motor feedback. with dual PRU-linked Ethernet ports.
MYIR’s Linux-supported, open-spec “Z-turn Board” uses the hybrid Cortex-A9/FPGA Xilinx Zynq-7010 SoC, and offers sensors, and FPGA expansion connectors.
GE’s rugged, Linux-ready COM Express Type 6 Basic module integrates AMD’s dual- or quad-core R-Series SoCs at up to 3.6GHz, and offers -40 to 85€°C support.
The Linux-ready, Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC is part of a major “UltraScale+” overhaul of Xilinx’s Kintex and Virtex FPGA product line, featuring a cutting edge, TSMC 16nm 3D FinFet process. This is much same process that will be used with the new ARM Cortex-A72 processors. Like the all-FPGA UltraScale+ FPGAs, the Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC (Multi-Processing System on Chip) also features new memory block and interconnect technology, among other features. All the UltraScale+ processors, including the Zynq, will begin sampling by year’s end, with volume production in 2016.
Seco is prepping a Linux-friendly COM Express Type 6 Compact module with a quad-core, 2.3GHz Tegra K1 SoC and optional extended temperature support.
When we covered the Nvidia Jetson TK1 single board computer last March, we didn’t realize the manufacturer was Seco. In addition to the Jetson TK1 (Seco product page here), Seco is now adding a COM Express Type 6 Compact computer-on-module called the SECOMExp-TK1, which similarly runs Linux on an Nvidia Tegra K1 SoC.
We’ve had some cheap and simple kits in at Linux User over the past few months, each with varying levels of success. Some have been just cheaply made, others using a simple selection of components that allow for expansion at a later date when you feel more comfortable with the robotics behind it. The Ryanteck budget kit takes a slightly different approach to the cheap kit.
The MagPi is now the official Raspberry Pi magazine. It offers the latest news, reviews, features and tutorials dedicated to the world’s favourite credit card-sized PC.
We’ve had some cheap and simple kits in at Linux User over the past few months, each with varying levels of success. Some have been just cheaply made, others using a simple selection of components that allow for expansion at a later date when you feel more comfortable with the robotics behind it. The Ryanteck budget kit takes a slightly different approach to the cheap kit.
EMAC's "SoM-A5D36" COM runs Linux on a Cortex-A5-based Atmel SAMA5D3 SoC, and offers up to 4GB flash, industrial temperature, and an optional carrier board.
Nvidia’s $199 STB version of Nvidia Shield runs Android TV on a Tegra X1, and boasts 4K video, 50 optimized games, and game streaming from a “Grid” service.
The 2015 set-top box version of the Nvidia Shield follows two earlier models, including 2013’s original handheld Shield game console, now called the Nvidia Shield Portable, which was based on the Nvidia Tegra 4 system-on-chip. Last year, the chip designer-cum-hardware developer released an Nvidia Shield Tablet built around a more powerful Tegra K1 SoC with Kepler graphics, and featuring new stylus and WiFi Direct gaming controller.
OnePlus One is a handset running CyanogenMod 11S, which was most readily adopted by developers around the globe.
So it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that the handset was spotted running Jolla’s own Sailfish OS.
The photograph showing that the porting was achieved has been shared by Jolla’s own Martin Brook on Twitter.
I earlier wrote about how Linux invaded CES 2015. The domination continues at Mobile World Congress, which kicked off this week in Barcelona. Here are some of the major announcements from MWC that show that Linux has become an unstoppable force.
The guys over at Fleksy have been working hard for a while on getting the Fleksy keyboard available and running on the Samsung Gear S and have now silently released it whilst we have been distracted by Mobile World Congress.
A new version of the Tizen development tools has been released, version 15.01, and it is available on download.tizen.org, including the following:
GBS 0.23.2 MIC 0.24.4 REPA 0.3 BMAP-TOOLS 3.3
Some time ago, since I have good skills on object oriented programming and java, I started to study a bit of Android development in order to improve my own culture as developer.
That days, I enjoyed myself writing some little applications for my old Android 2.3 smartphone focusing on learning how to write little basic applications and publishing on my Google Play account.
What the figures really show is that Apple is price-gouging its customers, extracting unreasonable levels of profit by virtue of its monopoly. In the world of Android, by contrast, the fierce competition that exists between fungible manufacturers has driven down profit margins to razor-thin levels. Open source, and the level playing field that it creates, is a great way for maximising the benefits to customers, rather than companies.
A new anti-theft feature will make stolen phones less valuable
Mobile Safety Accessories unveiled an Android 4.2 rear-view mirror touchscreen with WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, backup and DVR cameras, and Google Play support.
18F is not interested in replacing proprietary software throughout the federal government with open source alternatives. Instead, the new unit zeroes in on the process of developing its own open source software.
Segregating ourselves into developer and user silos is a cultural hold-over from proprietary software. It's a mistake to attempt imparting that culture in the world of free and open source software. The community of people working with and on a particular tool is as much of a valuable feature as any of the ones that are coded.
Technology wars are predictable. Every new wave of gadgetry brings a fight over who will be the next king of the software hill. The next big battle is brewing over control of the Internet of Things marketplace.
The IoT is quietly gaining momentum as companies develop software to connect all sorts of consumer products to the Internet. Consumers see only convenience and extensions to their always-on mobile devices. Product makers see a pathway to streaming data that can be monetized from buyers' connections.
Could history be ripe for repeating itself as open source begins to take on the current, yet unsustainable, walled-garden core of the IoT? Based on the victories in some early skirmishes, innovations developed by open source start-ups may be the David in the here-again fight against proprietary Goliaths.
It’s a rare thing when I double down on a previous week’s article. Most of the time that second effort is perceived as defensive or argumentative. This is neither. It’s just a rare thing.
The Lawrence Public Library will host the first Kansas Linux Fest this month.
But wait, there’s more. If Mozilla is really backpedaling on dumping Thunderbird, it needs to do much more than this timid come-back. It needs to do something about Groupware. It needs to port Thunderbird (or develop an email client) for Android. Or Firefox OS. In comparison of the kind of investments Mozilla does in other areas (Firefox OS, Webmaker…) Thunderbird cannot possibly be that demanding. Instead of witnessing this -or am I too impatient?- we still have to deal with the constant half-hearted, nose-blocked attempt at maintaining Thunderbird. I wish we could go beyond this. I wish Mozilla could be clearer. Very few FOSS projects have the knowledge and expertise to derive a product out of their code: Mozilla did this Firefox, and is doing it with Firefox OS, both of them brilliantly. Why it won’t do this with Thunderbird is mind-boggling. But enough wasting everybody’s time with my rant: I’ll go back tinkering with my mails on Emacs.
Tomorrow at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Mozilla will release an open beta of the Webmaker app: a free, independent web publishing tool. This is an important next step in Mozilla’s effort to dramatically increase digital literacy around the world.
Monohm unveiled a disk-shaped “Runcible” smartphone running Firefox OS. The camera-equipped device is notable for its chilled-out UI and modular construction.
Open Source NoSQL database startups like MongoDB Inc. face “a long, hard slog” to achieving success despite the strong interest in these companies in the financial community, writes Wikibon Big Data Analyst Jeff Kelly. In January, MongoDB announced a successful seventh funding round, raising $80 million, which company CEO Dev Ittycheria said was three times its original target.
The LibreOffice project relies almost entirely on volunteers to work, from running our infrastructure to developing our software suite. It is faire to say we take -or try to take – our community very seriously. If I needed any more proof of this, the first months as a member of the Membership Committee of the Document Foundation offered me the opportunity to review membership applications and try to understand both how people contribute and why they are attracted to LibreOffice, even when they’re not contributors.
The open-source VirtualBox virtualization project is out with its 4.3.24 update today providing a number of important updates and bug fixes.
Five of those security and security-related features were announced today and are on track to be included in the next edition, which should be PC-BSD 10.1.2. They are
PersonaCrypt – a command line utility to backup a user’s home directory to an encrypted external media Tor Mode in System Updater Tray Stealth Mode in PersonaCrypt Ports now use LibreSSL by default instead of OpenSSL Support for encrypted backups in Life-Preserver utility
After 10 years, GNU GNATS has finally released a new version 4.2.0, thanks in large part to the recent efforts of Alexandros Manoussakis at Juniper Networks.
GCC facilitated the portability of Linux and other free operating
Open source tools used by ACES Sintra include content management system Wordpress, combined with the usual LAMP stack: the MySQL database management system, the Apache web server, Linux for the server host and the PHP web development scripting language. The combination is used for the public website, but also for several internal Intranet project and team sites. The organisation implements Wiki websites, mainly for the IT department but also to maintain a list of frequently asked questions and their answers.
Governments must have policies that increase their use of free and open source software solutions, says Professor Dr Wolfgang Finke from the Ernst-Abbe University of Applied Sciences in Jena (Germany). In many countries, the use of proprietary software might be unsustainable in the long-term, he says, "either from a technical or from a financial point of view."
Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Communities, continues to release as open source its ICT solutions. To date, Eurostat has shared 102 solutions on the European Commission's Joinup platform.
The statistical office has been using and sharing open source for more than a decade. Already in 2004 Eurostat's ICT policy stipulated to consider open source software for all new projects.
The Dutch government has made available as open source a catalogue of data and concepts used in the country's 'System of Basic Registrations'. The aim is to provide users and suppliers a comprehensive view of the system, and to make it available for reuse.
This lightweight system, developed at the University Hospital of Liège, helps hospitals to facilitate the exchange between clinical departments, specialists and hospitals. The software allows them to archive and retrieve images, while offering scalability and flexibility.
"The number and the size of medical images are exploding", says Sébastien Jodogne, the main developer of Orthanc, who works for the University Hospital of Liège. "Belgian hospitals are now creating over 20 million images per year." He says that each of these files roughly takes about half a gigabyte.
Managing all of this data is increasing causing interoperability problems. And that is one of the reasons that the university hospital in 2011 started to work on a robust yet lightweight solution.
Jodogne describes Orthanc as a robust tool that brings technological independence to clinical departments. Orthanc allows users to automate their own, very specific imaging flows, including across proprietary system and the Internet. It is also lightweight and standalone, he says. This keeps installation straightforward. The only requirement is a basic computer.
The MARKOS project is aimed to realize the prototype of a service and an interactive application providing an integrated view on the Open Source projects available the on web, focusing on functional, structural and licenses aspects of software code (see the MARKOS Factsheet and the MARKOS Brochure).
The Software Freedom Conservancy alleges that VMware is using GPL-licensed code in its proprietary products
The Software Freedom Conservancy today announced that Christoph Hellwig, a member of its GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers, has sued virtualization software maker VMware for copyright infringement in the district court of Hamburg, Germany. Till Jaeger, a lawyer with an excellent track record in cases enforcing free and open source software licenses, is representing Hellwig. (Disclosure: Software Freedom Conservancy is a client of my firm, but I am not involved in this case.)
Software Freedom Conservancy announces today Christoph Hellwig's lawsuit against VMware in the district court of Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany. This is the regretful but necessary next step in both Hellwig and Conservancy's ongoing effort to convince VMware to comply properly with the terms of the GPLv2, the license of Linux and many other Open Source and Free Software included in VMware's ESXi products.
Years of negotiation have failed. WMWare would not even discuss a settlement without signature of an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), for Pity’s sake. They weren’t negotiating seriously and now this goes to court where even more time, money and energy will be wasted in a case VMWare cannot win. They will be forced to cease distribution or rip out their code in some way. They may well have to pay for years of violation and profits in violation of others’ rights. If they did not want to distribute under GPLv2 they should not have used Linux. They got great value from using Linux. It’s the right way to do IT to use Linux so they should comply. They should have complied from Day One but did not. In spite of many of their loyal customers being placed in violation of GPLv2 by their action and pleading from those customers, VMWare stubbornly refused to comply. What were they thinking? They are offending their major suppliers and their major sources of revenue. That’s just not sustainable.
This month, Hungary and the Netherlands published their first progress reports on the implementation of their respective Open Government Partnership (OGP) action plans. These drafts are open for comment, part of which will be worked into the final reports.
It's that commercial re-use that seems to stick in the craw of some. People have problems with seeing their work re-used for profit. Of course, exactly the same concerns were raised in the early years of commercial use of free software released under the GNU GPL: some people were unhappy at the thought of their code being adapted and sold by companies that gave little or nothing back to the community. And yet today, we practically never hear that argument at all. So what happened?
At the Open Compute Summit in San Jose, Facebook introduced its "Yosemite" open source, modular chassis for high-powered microservers.
The idea was that others could use Facebook’s designs to build their own online operations, create a broad market for the gear, and reduce Facebook’s costs even further. But the skeptics saw it as little more a PR stunt: Facebook showing the word how “open” it was. After all, how many others were the size of a Google or a Facebook? How many others would want this gear enough to change the way they’ve always done things? And even if they did, how could it possibly help Facebook?
When it comes to managing revision to source code, Git has quickly become the most prominent tool organizations are using. But the Git command line tool itself is only part of the picture.
Whether Apple's watch fails or not — and that is a relative question — it matters not one whit to the company. This is just another device which will help to boost the company's data gathering.
The Apple Watch may be pretty... but you are going to need up to 8 of them to make it through a full day. While Tim Cook proclaimed 18 hours of "all-day battery-life" - itself not particularly impressive compared to competing products, hidden deep in Apple Watch's product page is a little admission that battery life (in use) could be as low as 3 hours...
Using new device that costs up to €£12,000 for phone conversations means it will die after three hours, Apple admits in post buried deep on its product page
Gigaom, the influential technology website founded by Om Malik nearly a decade ago, is no more. Although Monday saw a lot of new content on the site, including a flood of news and analysis from Apple's event, the site's management ended the day at 5.57PM PT by posting a message notifying readers that "all operations have ceased" as a result of the company becoming unable to pay its creditors.
One of the oldest and most prominent technology blogs Gigaom has shut down after running out of money.
If you want to imagine how the world will look in just a few years, once our cell phones become the keepers of both our money and identity, skip Silicon Valley and book a ticket to Orlando. Go to Disney World. Then, reserve a meal at a restaurant called Be Our Guest, using the Disney World app to order your food in advance.
NOAM CHOMSKY: I’m a very private person. I’ve never talked about my own life much. But, you know, I’ve—personally, I’ve been very fortunate in my life, with—there have been tragedies. There have been wonderful things. And Valeria’s sudden appearance is one of those wonderful things.
AARON MATÃâ°: You said, after your first wife, Carol, died, that life without love is empty—something along those lines. Can you talk about that?
NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, I could produce some clichés, which have the merit of being true. Life without love is a pretty empty affair.
AARON MATÃâ°: And your own tireless schedule, keeping up with your lectures, writing extensive articles, and still tirelessly answering the emails, from correspondence from people around the world—when I was in college, I remember I wrote you several times and got back these long, detailed answers on complex questions. And there’s people across the globe who could attest to a similar experience. Do you feel a certain obligation to respond to people? Because nobody would fault you, at the age of 86 now, if you took more time for yourself.
NOAM CHOMSKY: I don’t know if it’s an obligation exactly. It’s a privilege, really. These are the important people in the world. I remember a wonderful comment by Howard Zinn about the countless number of unknown people who are the driving force in history and in progress. And that’s people like—I didn’t know you, but people like you writing from college. These are people that deserve respect, encouragement. They’re the hope for the future. They’re an inspiration for me personally.
Modern UEFI firmware is a closed-source, proprietary blob of software baked into your PC’s hardware. This binary blob even includes remote management and monitoring features, which make it a potential security and privacy threat.
Replacing the proprietary BIOS firmware on most computers is a process that often can be frustrating. It's possible that your computer could be rendered unuseable in the process. Back in 2010 I managed to get coreboot working on the Gigabyte GA-6BCX motherboard and although the process went fairly smoothly it did consume a fair bit of time. Fortunately we now have an inexpensive way of obtaining a ready to go coreboot computer.
Auditing your registry can turn up telltale signs on malware infection. Here's how to monitor the registry keys that matter using Microsoft's Sysinternals Autoruns
While getting up to speed with node, I ran into a minor build issue requiring a two line patch. Good news! An important part of this project is getting changes pushed upstream. We could for a short while keep a pile of patches in the OpenBSD ports tree, but such patches inevitably decay and cease applying after their expiration date. Getting to submit a small fix and gauge upstream’s response is probably better than unloading a more intrusive W^X on them. Alas, I was the not the first to discover this bug, but actually the fifth. I’ll be watching this bug and a duplicate. One question answered, anyway.
OpenSSL, arguably the world's most important Web security library with its support for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) in such popular Web servers as Apache and Nginx, has had real trouble. First, there was HeartBleed and more recently there is FREAK. It's been one serious security problem after another. Now, the NCC Group, a well-regarded security company, will be auditing OpenSSL's code to catch errors before they appear in the wild.
Specifically, the group, which calls itself SMACK, for State Machine AttCKS, discovered that support for the weaker "export-grade" encryption was still baked in to numerous Web servers, browsers and other SSL implementations. Among the millions of sites that were, or still are, vulnerable to "FREAK" (Factoring attack on RSA-EXPORT Keys) attacks are American Express, Whitehouse.gov, FBI.gov, and -- oh the irony! -- the NSA Website.
President Nicolas Maduro said the country’s National Assembly elections must go on “whether the empire wants it or not.”
The Venezuelan National Asembly passed the enabling law that allows the country's president to act to protect the peace against recent threats made by the United States government of Barack Obama.
The bill, which received 99 percent of votes from the Great Patriotic Pole alliance – the largest voting bloc in the assembly, will now move to a second reading for final approval. The move follows a statement by the United States government Monday that declared Venezuela a “threat to the national security” and calling a national emergency.
During my four stints in U.S. federal prisons, I’ve witnessed long-term inmates’ unconquerably humane response when a newcomer arrives. An unscripted choreography occurs and the new prisoner finds that other women will help her through the trauma of adjustment to being locked up for many months or years. Halfway through a three-month sentence myself, I’m saddened to realize that I’ll very likely adapt to an outside world for which these women, and prisoners throughout the U.S. prison system, are often completely invisible.
“The Associated Press filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the State Department to force the release of email correspondence and government documents from Hillary Rodham Clinton's tenure as secretary of state.”
Good for the AP. If only more news organizations would do more of this.
“The legal action comes after repeated requests filed under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act have gone unfulfilled. They include one request AP made five years ago and others pending since the summer of 2013.’
In late April 2015, the “trade secrets” directive will be discussed in the European Parliament. Having already given in to the pressure of journalists to remove the article on trade secrets in the French Macron Bill, La Quadrature du Net, Pila and a number of other organisations now call on president François Hollande and European representatives to defend whistleblowers, to define and protect their status and to ensure the necessary means are provided for judiciary follow-up on the crimes and offences that are revealed. The situation of whistleblowers, such as Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning, is often dramatic and they must be protected and their safety guaranteed in order to safeguard fundamental freedoms.
Oil glut: US running out of room to store crude; prices for oil and gasoline could plunge
ALEC has been described as a conduit for corporate interests to access and influence state legislators. ALEC is a way for global corporations to push their preferred policies on the state level, away from public view.
Eduard Hellvig, currently a conservative MEP who has been chosen by President Klaus Iohannis to be the next chief of the Romanian foreign intelligence service, has published an article in which he warns of the “threat for the EU” from the rapprochement of Hungary with Moscow.
The Intercept has a new story on the CIA's -- yes, the CIA, not the NSA -- efforts to break encryption. These are from the Snowden documents, and talk about a conference called the Trusted Computing Base Jamboree. There are some interesting documents associated with the article, but not a lot of hard information.
A Quebec man charged with obstructing border officials by refusing to give up his smartphone password says he will fight the charge.
The case has raised a new legal question in Canada, a law professor says.
Alain Philippon, 38, of Ste-Anne-des-Plaines, Que., refused to divulge his cellphone password to Canada Border Services Agency during a customs search Monday night at Halifax Stanfield International Airport.
That’s one of the conclusions American citizens might draw from two stories that broke this week: that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had conducted official State Department business using emails run through her own server, and that former CIA Director David Petraeus had kept 8 notebooks of unbelievably sensitive secrets in a rucksack in his home and, when she asked, had shared them with his mistress, Paula Broadwell.
Canada’s electronic surveillance agency is covertly monitoring vast amounts of Canadians’ emails as part of a sweeping domestic cybersecurity operation, according to top-secret documents.
Late last week, the Inspector General (IG) for the Justice Department sent a letter to Congress complaining of the FBI’s refusal to set a timeline for turning over documents related to an IG investigation of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s use of subpoenas to gain access to and use certain bulk data collections.
Man, at some point Congress is going to have to declare the FBI legally contemptuous and throw them in jail.
They continue to refuse to cooperate with DOJ’s Inspector General, as they have been for basically 5 years. But in Michael Horowitz’ latest complaint to Congress, he adds a new spin: FBI is not only obstructing his investigation of the FBI’s management impaired surveillance, now FBI is obstructing his investigation of DEA’s management impaired surveillance.
Back in the summer of 2013 as the various "Five Eyes" countries were still reeling from the initial Snowden disclosures, New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key promised to resign if it was ever proven that the GCSB (New Zealand's equivalent to the NSA) had engaged in mass surveillance of New Zealanders -- but with some caveats. He later said that he meant if it was proven that there was illegal surveillance going on. But of course, what's legal can vary based on who's in charge. Either way, late last year there were Snowden documents that proved GCSB regularly scooped up data on New Zealanders, and Key reacted to it by calling Glenn Greenwald "a loser." Not quite the resignation you might have expected.
The documents revealed today show how New Zealand's spy agencies hacked into government-linked mobile phones in Asia to install malicious software to route data to the NSA.
The disclosure shows how an "Asean target", or member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, was targeted by the GCSB in March 2013.
Just months after U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said he wants to ban encryption and online anonymity, the country's parliament today released a briefing saying that the such an act is neither acceptable nor technically feasible.
The briefing, issued by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, specifically referenced the Tor anonymity network and its notorious ability to slide right around such censorship schemes.
The De-Mail initiative dates back to 2011, when the German government decided to push for trusted email both as an e-government tool and as a way to cut down on official and corporate paper mail. De-Mail addresses are provided by the likes of Deutsche Telekom and United Internet’s Web.de, and those signing up for them need to show a form of official identification to do so. Receiving emails on a De-Mail address is free but sending them costs money.
Wikipedia co-founder and influential technology entrepreneur Jimmy Wales has slammed the federal government's plan to make telcos store the metadata of every phone and internet user as a "human rights violation" and is considering the launch of his new mobile service in Australia.
Something that doesn't really get aired very often is that dragnet surveillance can - and should - be flagged as a social issue, with serious implications for social mobility. The tools that are available to circumvent this kind of surveillance are overwhelmingly out of reach of poor, marginalised groups; the ability to buy in to specialist encryption like PGP is, sadly, still overwhelmingly out of reach for many people. Reliable encryption remains firmly in the realm of the IT savvy: people with a certain level of education, money and, to use a hot-button word: privilege (sorry).
The lawsuit argues that this broad surveillance, revealed in documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, violates the First Amendment by chilling speech and the open exchange of information, and that it also runs up against Fourth Amendment privacy protections.
The CIA led sophisticated intelligence agency efforts to undermine the encryption used in Apple phones, as well as insert secret surveillance back doors into apps, top-secret documents published by the Intercept online news site have revealed.
Most sentient people rationally accept that the U.S. media routinely disseminates misleading stories and outright falsehoods in the most authoritative tones. But it’s nonetheless valuable to examine particularly egregious case studies to see how that works. In that spirit, let’s take yesterday’s numerous, breathless reports trumpeting the “BREAKING” news that “Edward Snowden now wants to come home!” and is “now negotiating the terms of his return!”
Ever since Snowden revealed himself to the public 20 months ago, he has repeatedly said the same exact thing when asked about his returning to the U.S.: I would love to come home, and would do so if I could get a fair trial, but right now, I can’t.
His primary rationale for this argument has long been that under the Espionage Act, the 1917 statute under which he has been charged, he would be barred by U.S. courts from even raising his key defense: that the information he revealed to journalists should never have been concealed in the first place and he was thus justified in disclosing it to journalists. In other words, when U.S. political and media figures say Snowden should “man up,” come home and argue to a court that he did nothing wrong, they are deceiving the public, since they have made certain that whistleblowers charged with “espionage” are legally barred from even raising that defense.
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CNN’s “expert” is apparently unaware that the DOJ very frequently — almost always, in fact — negotiates with people charged with very serious felonies over plea agreements. He’s also apparently unaware of this thing called “asylum,” which the U.S. routinely grants to people charged by other countries with crimes on the ground that they’d be persecuted with imprisonment if they returned home.
A Canadian team has created a searchable database of all the publicly released classified documents leaked by former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in hopes it'll help citizens better understand the complex files trickling out around the world.
The Canadian Journalists for Free Expression and the Politics of Surveillance Project at University of Toronto's faculty of information revealed the archive on Wednesday before hosting a live Q&A with Snowden, the U.S. whistleblower and subject of the Oscar-winning documentary Citizenfour.
"What we're hoping this database can do is start to piece together the bigger picture," said Laura Tribe, CJFE's national and digital programs lead.
A coalition of 63 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from around the world are calling on national governments to support the establishment of a special rapporteur on the right to privacy within the United Nations.
That makes no sense at all. Defending the state from lawsuits should never involve sending reporters subpoenas demanding all of their notes. It's a clear intimidation technique that violates all basic concepts of a free and open press.
Pornography, though prevalent in the modern world, still isn't the sort of thing one expects to see while waiting in traffic behind a cop car. That's especially true at the busiest downtown intersection of a wealthy Chicago suburb like Wheaton, Illinois, best known for being the home of an evangelical Christian college once attended by Billy Graham.
But pornography is exactly what an irate Wheaton resident named Robin said he witnessed. On the morning of September 18, 2013, while sitting in his conversion van and waiting for a stoplight to change, Robin found himself directly behind Wheaton Police squad car 359. The height of his seat gave him a perfect view through the rear windshield of the squad car, and he could see the car's mobile data computer displaying "scrolling pictures of completely naked women."
Attorney General Bill Schuette's office ordered and then withdrew three subpoenas of journalists reporting on a juvenile prisoner abuse lawsuit against the state, including one seeking a reporter's notes from interviewing inmates inside two state prisons.
Michigan’s Attorney General’s office has decided to withdraw subpoenas it served on news media outlets, including Michigan Radio.
A follower of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster claims he was discriminated against when he was told he may no longer wear a colander on his head in a driver's licence photo.
Last year, Preshalin Moodley, 20, was issued a provisional driver's licence by staff at Service NSW Parramatta, in Sydney's west.
He was photographed for the licence wearing the spaghetti strainer on his head after asking staff whether it was OK to wear a religious symbol.
In my father’s capitalism, employees were nurtured by their company and encouraged to learn new skills. Today’s major corporations hire disposable temp workers to do the work of a full-time employee, without the obligation of providing benefits. Temp workers are familiar with dead ends: They are hired with a predetermined exit date. The moment they feel comfortable in a role, the contract expires and it’s on to the next job.
Soon after becoming governor in 2011, Scott Walker eliminated funding for the state's first program to track and remedy Wisconsin's worst-in-the-country rate of racial disparities. The program, aimed at monitoring racial profiling during traffic stops, had only taken effect one month earlier, and Walker declared that the repeal "allows law enforcement agencies to focus on doing their jobs."
A newspaper editor was handed startling evidence that Britain’s top law enforcement official knew there was a VIP pedophile network in Westminster, at the heart of the British government. What happened next in the summer of 1984 helps to explain how shocking allegations of rape and murder against some of the country’s most powerful men went unchecked for decades.
The group American Atheists addressed the controversy surrounding its billboards in Nashville, Tennessee by pointing out that it’s hypocritical of the company to censor the group’s advertising when Christian groups routinely promote antigay, pro-religion messages in their own publicity materials.
In an interview with Raw Story, American Atheists’ Danielle Muscato said, “This is just absurd. It’s just because we’re atheists. It’s discriminatory.”
Summer of 2012. A 32-year-old African-American was cooling off in his car after a basketball game in a public park.
What comes next is a series of civil rights violations described in the Justice Department report that resulted in the man losing his job as a federal contractor.
A Ferguson police officer demands the man's Social Security number and identification before accusing him of being a pedophile and ordering the man out of his car.
When the officer asked to search the man's car, the 32-year-old refused, invoking his constitutional right.
The response? The officer arrested the man at gunpoint, slapped him with eight charges, including for not wearing a seat belt, despite the fact that he was sitting in a parked car. The officer also cited him for "making a false declaration" because he gave his name as 'Mike' instead of 'Michael.'
It's a good day for proponents of an open internet: The Federal Communications Commission just approved its long-awaited network neutrality plan, which reclassifies broadband internet as a Title II public utility and gives the agency more regulatory power in the process. And unlike the FCC's last stab at net neutrality in 2010, today's new rules also apply to mobile broadband. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler laid out the basic gist of the plan earlier this month -- it'll ban things like paid prioritization, a tactic some ISPs used to get additional fees from bandwidth-heavy companies like Netflix, as well as the slowdown of "lawful content." But now Wheeler's vision is more than just rhetoric; it's something the FCC can actively enforce.
Net neutrality has won at the FCC. In a 3-to-2 vote, the Federal Communications Commission today established a new Open Internet Order that implements strict net neutrality rules, including prohibitions on site and app blocking, speed throttling, and paid fast lanes.
Net neutrality is the principle of making sure that your internet service provider doesn’t make it easier for you to access one service over another – the Guardian over the Telegraph, say – or otherwise distorting your use of internet services just because someone dropped a few extra quid in their pocket.
As we noted recently, one of the most worrying aspects of corporate sovereignty chapters in trade agreements is the chilling effect that they can have on future legislation. That's something that the supporters of this investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism never talk about. What they do say, though, is that corporate sovereignty cannot force governments to change existing laws.
Just as the Julia Reda report (GREEN/EFA - DE MEP) on copyright reform was being discussed this week in the European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI), another report was examined today by the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT). The latter concerns the reinforcement of the “Intellectual Property” rights, and contains a number of disturbing points regarding repression and enforcement that bring back to mind highly contested provisions from the ACTA agreement, and encourages an extra-legislative approach to fighting “commercial scale counterfeiting”. Citizens should get ready to mobilise on a large scale, both to support the positive evolutions of the Reda report, and to denounce the dangerous proposals pushed by the European Commission and some Member States, among which France.