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Links 10/6/2015: New Krita/Calligra and Clonezilla





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Blockstream to Release First Open Source Code for Sidechains
    Blockstream has announced it will release an open source codebase and testing environment for its signature sidechains project.


  • Huawei Certified to Offer Apache Spark Open Source Big Data Processing Framework
    Huawei, this week announced that it has become the first global ICT vendor to obtain certification by Databricks for distribution of the Apache Spark open source big data processing framework. Databricks, a company founded by the creators of Spark, has developed the “Certified Spark Distribution” program to highlight and recognize third party vendors distributing Spark. Leveraging the high-performance big data computing architecture and the complete ecosystem of Spark, the Huawei-Spark platform is designed to help customers realize the full potential of data assets to drive agile operation and business innovation.


  • Teradata to Advance Big Data Analytics with Support for Presto Open Source SQL Query Engine
    To help users extract insights from data lakes,Teradata has made a multi-year commitment to contribute to Presto’s open source development. Based on a three-part roadmap, Teradata’s says its contributions will be 100% open source under the Apache license and will advance Presto’s code base, scalability, iterative querying, and ability to query multiple data repositories.


  • Why an open web is important for India
    Priyanka Nag is a technical writer for Red Hat and Mozilla Rep from India. Priyanka has been contributing to open source projects for the past four years. She started by editing Wikipedia pages, and then was introduced to Mozilla during an event at her college. She says that Mozilla was love at first sight, and soon after she became a Mozillian, she was hooked on the project. Now Priyanka is also a regular speaker at community events in India. I recently caught up with Priyanka to learn more about her work in the Mozilla Community and her thoughts on the importance of the open web in India.


  • What TODO means for open source community
    Open source software is not just meant for still-struggling start-ups that can't afford to pay the licensing fees for proprietary software, and budget-conscious, modest small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMEs) hoping to cut down on IT costs. This was proven in late September when several major companies – running the gamut from technology, right through to retail and media – came together to form the TODO project.


  • 8 excellent open source data visualization tools
    Data visualization is the mechanism of taking tabular or spatial data and conveying it in a human-friendly and visual way. There are several open source tools that can help you create useful, informative graphs. In this post we will take a look at eight open source, data visualization tools.


  • Wine Will Migrate Away from SourceForge
    If you're reading the news lately, you might know that the SourceForge project hosting website has been accused of hijacking open-source software that have been abandoned by their maintainers or did not have some activity for an extended period of time.


  • The Cloud vs. Open Source
    For years, Linux and free software were perceived as threatened by cloud computing, the online storage of data. However, over the last few years, something ironic happened -- free software became a major player in cloud computing.


  • Events



    • Graphics Microconference Accepted into 2015 Linux Plumbers Conference
      Although the Year of the Linux Desktop has yet to arrive, a surprising number of Linux users nevertheless need graphics support. This is because there have been a number of years of the Linux smartphone, the Linux television, the Linux digital sign/display/billboard, the Linux automobile, and more. This microconference will cover a number of topics including atomic modesetting in KMS, buffer allocation, verified-secure graphics pipelines, fencing and synchronisation, Wayland, and more.




  • Web Browsers



    • Mozilla



      • Mozilla responds to Firefox user backlash over Pocket integration
        Pocket is a service for managing a reading list of online articles (it allows you to save stories, videos, and websites to check out later). Pocket is already offered as a Firefox add-on, and although Mozilla was developing a homegrown Reading List feature for the browser, the company decided to simply integrate Pocket directly into Firefox.






  • SaaS/Big Data



    • Cisco, IBM Bet Big on OpenStack
      Cisco and IBM are doubling down on OpenStack, hoping "the result lets them develop a solution that will scale. Neither company is yet willing to abandon OpenStack, and both feel there's still a solution in it someplace," said tech analyst Rob Enderle. By acquiring Piston Cloud Computing and Blue Box Cloud, they "may correct some of the problems with OpenStack, which should improve penetration."




  • Business



  • Funding



    • Rancher Labs is the Latest to Cash in on Container Technology
      Container technology remains red hot and VC money is flowing toward it. Rancher Labs, a startup developing Docker infrastructure software, has announced $10 million in Series A funding from Mayfield and Nexus Venture Partners. "With the rapid adoption of container technology, the company’s open source software has grown in popularity by allowing organizations to run containers in production, across any cloud," Rancher Labs' leaders have stated.




  • Public Services/Government



    • Dutch government agency switches core services to open source
      Public administrations that switch to open source regain financial scalability, says Jan-Taeke Schuilenga, IT architect at DUO, the Dutch government agency managing the financing of the country’s educational institutions. “We had reached the limit of proprietary licence possibilities. Switching to open source gave us freedom of choice.”




  • Openness/Sharing



  • Standards/Consortia



    • Licensing Standards that Include Code: Heads or Tails?
      Once upon a time, standards were standards and open source software was open source software (OSS), and the only thing people worried about was whether the copyright and patent rules relating to the standards would prevent them from being implemented in OSS. Actually, that was complicated enough, but it seems simple in comparison now that OSS is being included in the standards themselves. Now what?

      If this sounds unusual and exotic, it isn’t. In fact, code has been creeping into standards for years, often without the keepers of the intellectual property rights (IPR) Policies governing the standards even being aware of it.






Leftovers



  • Security



  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife





  • Finance



    • Republicans Trashed Democracy in Michigan. Now They Want To Trash It in Your State, Too.
      One city neglected to inform its residents that its water supply was laced with cancerous chemicals. Another dissolved its public school district and replaced it with a charter school system, only to witness the for-profit management company it hired flee the scene after determining it couldn't turn a profit. Numerous cities and school districts in the state are now run by single, state-appointed technocrats, as permitted under an emergency financial manager law pushed through by Rick Snyder, Michigan's austerity-promoting governor. This legislation not only strips residents of their local voting rights, but gives Snyder's appointee the power to do just about anything, including dissolving the city itself—all (no matter how disastrous) in the name of "fiscal responsibility."


    • 5 Ways Powerful People Trick You Into Hating Protesters
      Let's say that tomorrow you are elected Secret Ruler of the USA, a position that gives you total power over the government, economy, and the culture at large -- everything that hippies refer to as "the system." Now, your first job is to not get beheaded by rioting peasants, which means your first job is really to maintain "stability" (i.e., "keeping things mostly the way they are").

      Immediately you'll find that you're facing a never-ending stream of protests from disgruntled groups who say they're being treated unfairly or otherwise getting left out -- this group over here is upset that somebody got abused by the police; this other bunch is demanding better wages or something. How do you handle it? Sure, you could crush their movements with an iron fist, using violence to kill, intimidate or arrest their most vocal members. But that can backfire, often turning them into martyrs and proving them right in the process -- you've seen Star Wars; somebody always finds the exhaust port.




  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying



  • Censorship



  • Privacy



    • Why Did It Take the Pentagon a Month to Figure Out Its Files Were Compromised?
      Edward Snowden’s leaks exposed a federal government unable to protect its most sensitive secrets.


    • Feds Must Encrypt Government Websites by Dec. 2016
      The White House now requires all publicly accessible federal websites and services to use a secure HTTPS connection.

      Government agencies have until Dec. 31, 2016 to comply with the new HTTPS-Only Standard directive.

      Unencrypted HTTP connections "create a vulnerability and expose potentially sensitive information about users," U.S. Chief Information Officer Tony Scott said in this week's announcement. That includes data like browser identity, website content, search terms, and other user-submitted details.


    • Obama lawyers asked secret court to ignore public court's decision on spying
      The Obama administration has asked a secret surveillance court to ignore a federal court that found bulk surveillance illegal and to once again grant the National Security Agency the power to collect the phone records of millions of Americans for six months.

      The legal request, filed nearly four hours after Barack Obama vowed to sign a new law banning precisely the bulk collection he asks the secret court to approve, also suggests that the administration may not necessarily comply with any potential court order demanding that the collection stop.


    • French Surveillance Bill: Public Liberties Abandoned as Senators Cast Disastrous Vote
      The Surveillance Bill was adopted today by the French Senate with 251 votes for, 68 against and 26 abstentions. This bill was fast tracked and discussed under the pressure of a government wielding the argument of an extreme terrorist risk to impose massive spying of the French population with expansive purposes. It will put France under a surveillance all at once diffuse, intrusive, indiscriminate and without effective control. La Quadrature du Net bitterly regrets the blindness of the French Parliamentarians and calls on citizens not to give up on their liberties.




  • Civil Rights



    • Six lies they told me about the anti-Israel boycott
      The bulk of recent incidents concerning the anti-Israel boycott, which are mainly symbolic for now, could have served as a warning sign. But a mixture of nationalistic and false statements is blinding the Israeli public and preventing a real discussion of the issue. Here are a few examples.


    • British tourist Eleanor Hawkins arrested for naked photo on top of Malaysian mountain
      A British woman arrested in Malaysia for posing naked on top of a sacred mountain has been named as Eleanor Hawkins.

      The 24-year-old Southampton University graduate from Derby was detained on Tuesday at Tawau airport, as she was flying out from the island of Borneo to the capital, Kuala Lumpur.


    • Theresa May Condemns Majid Ali and Defies Scotland
      Despite numerous representations and an Early Day Motion signed by the large majority of Scotland’s MPs, Theresa May has ordered that Majid Ali, a Glasgow City College student, be deported back to almost certain torture and probable death in Pakistan in just twenty minutes from now. I attended the demonstration on his behalf yesterday at the Scottish Office.

      Majid is a member of the much persecuted Baloch minority. Two of his immediate family have been “disappeared” by the Pakistani military since his asylum application was submitted. There is no doubt that given the numerous MP’s who have raised his case, and the well-supported early day motion, civil servants will have put the decision to May personally. She was however not even prepared to grant a delay for a look at the evidence. May is very likely not merely pandering to the racist UKIP voting electorate – she is on the far right of politics herself. The callous sacrifice of Majid Ali is proof, if any more were needed, that this Conservative administration is nothing to do with Cameron’s purported “compassionate conservatism.” They are the nasty party indeed.




  • Internet/Net Neutrality



    • EU Commission Tries to Rip Citizens Off Net Neutrality
      The European Commission attacks Net Neutrality again, by introducing a “compromise document” that refuses to enshrine a definition of this crucial principle into the law. A strong coalition including the EU Council, the European Commission and a handful of MEPs is working against the general interest by including loopholes that will be used by the telecom lobby to circumvent the proposed protections against discrimination, thereby undermining fundamental rights and innovation.


    • EU digi-chief to meet ministers and sort out the net neutrality thing
      Gaffe-prone Gunther H-dot, Europe’s digital chief, has waded into the net neutrality debate once again, but has vowed to sort everything out in a meeting with national ministers next Friday.




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights



      • EU vice-president: Copyright legislation is “pushing people to steal”
        Andrus Ansip, the European Commission's Vice-President for the Digital Single Market, has admitted that EU copyright law is "pushing people to steal," because they seek out illegal copies of works that are not available to them legally because of the widespread use of geoblocking in Europe.


      • Elsevier Cracks Down on Pirated Scientific Articles


        Academic publishing company Elsevier has filed a complaint at a New York District Court, hoping to shut down the Library Genesis project and the SciHub.org search engine. The sites, which are particularly popular in developing nations where access to academic works is relatively expensive, are accused of pirating millions of scientific articles.


      • Kim Dotcom’s MegaNet Preps Jan 2016 Crowdfunding Campaign


        Kim Dotcom's dream of a people-powered, censorship-resistant Internet will rely on the goodwill of supporters to get off the ground. In an announcement this morning, the entrepreneur confirmed that his MegaNet project will seek equity via a crowd-funding campaign set to launch on the January 2016 anniversary of the raid on Megaupload.








Recent Techrights' Posts

Start of September 2026 'Voluntary' Mass Layoffs at IBM, Start of October Red Hat Employees Forced Into the 'Bloodbath' (After Collapse of IBM's Shares)
Red Hat is in trouble
A Data Centres Hub Puts Everyone at Risk, Especially People Who Live Near Them at Times of War/s
Spoiler: Datacentres are military targets, they attract missiles, some with nuclear warheads
GAFAM Mass Layoffs and Mountains (Trillions of Dollars in 'Secret' or 'Off-the-Ledger') Debt
GAFAM is having layoffs this month
analytics.usa.gov Says 7% of Sessions Come From GNU/Linux and ChromeOS. If ~40% (Mobile) Get Omitted, It's More Like 11%.
In desktops and in laptops GNU/Linux has become a big player
IBM Cannot Survive for Much Longer, There Are Limits to RAs and Offshoring, IBM Now Asks Workers to Quit
IBM is in very serious trouble
Debian losses in Switzerland hidden until after DPL election debate
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
 
Links 06/08/2026: Billboard Chart Contaminated by Slop Plagiarists, Sheinbaum Blasts Social Control Media
Links for the day
A Long Break and What's Coming Next Year
Some time next year we definitely plan to show how the EFF failed women, failed bloggers, and basically prioritised GAFAM
Daniel Pocock on a "metre-long ballot paper"
The Debian "cult" (as he calls them collectively) is simply jealous of him
Links 06/08/2026: Disney and Fentanylware (TikTok) Deal, "Hearing Aids Shenanigans"
Links for the day
IBM Mass Layoffs Began Yesterday, They're Sold as "Voluntary", the "Offer" Runs for Two Weeks (Last Day August 19th 2026)
IBM will self-detonate while using contractual agreements to force people to smile
Many GNU/Linux PCs Are Not Connected to the Net or Don't Use the Web
Saying GNU/Linux user-agents are just "bots" (Microsoft Lunduke and other Microsofters say this) is like asserting that the Twin Towers fell not because of two giant planes but because of explosives
They Call Occupations "Professions" Because the "Pro" Means Something
If you want to find tech news online
New Conference Paper (Science of Cyber Security) Credits RMS With Delaying Passwords
When it comes to passwords, RMS was "right"
Removing Gender Barriers in Computer Science
It is not that "women aren't good at maths"
In Brunei, GNU/Linux Approaches International Average of 8.5%
a sharp rise from 0% to about 7.5% happened in a few years
15% of IBM Staff Marked for Layoffs ("RAs"), the Workers' Objective is to Find Another Employer and Leave
"That's not a workforce, that's a waiting room."
Maintenance to be Completed Tonight (IPv6)
Notice how, after 25+ years, we're still not fully adopting IPv6, we're only about 50% there
August 2026 Microsoft Layoffs Confirmed by Staff This Week
It's hard to assess how many are impacted but signed an NDA, preventing them from speaking about what really happened
SLAPP Censorship - Part 141 Out of 200: Brett Wilson LLP Failed to Learn From the Mistakes of the European Patent Office (EPO)
my solicitor, David Allen Green, put them in their place
Texts of the Claims From Balabhadra (Alex) Graveley and Matthew J. Garrett Almost Identical, I am Suing for Abuse of Process
Half a decade ago Balabhadra (Alex) Graveley from Microsoft and GNOME was arrested for strangulation in Texas
Gemini Links 06/08/2026: "Eat That Frog", Mutt Terminal Email Guide, and BASICODE
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 05, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 05, 2026
Big Announcement Tomorrow
Stay tuned...
GNU/Linux Seen Exceeding 10% in Antigua and Barbuda
In Antigua And Barbuda, what's seen this month is not far from the average
Gemini Links 05/08/2026: Family Room, Smoke, and Alarm clocks
Links for the day
The Establishment, Oxford, Google & Debian artificial intelligence conspiracies
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
SLAPP Censorship - Part 140 Out of 200: You Become What You Eat, Your Clients Become You
In 2024 Brett Wilson LLP failed to heed a decade-old warning
Links 05/08/2026: Microsoft's (XBox's) "Devastating July" and "Never Write With" Slop, Says New York Times
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/08/2026: No to Slop, Dangers of Clown Computing, and Reducing Internet Usage
Links for the day
The Register MS Takes Money From NVIDIA and HP to Promote Their Ponzi Scheme, "AI", in a Fake 'Article' That Says "AI" 42 Times
"The media"... selling us scams for profit
Fertility app privacy, Britain's teenage pregnancies & faith based schooling
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
In Chile, GNU/Linux Approaches 4%
Let's see if it can exceed 5% by year's end
No Room for Misogyny and Incels in Free Software
How can we ever trust men whose own family and their own partners cannot trust?
How to Dehumanise a Triple National
Don't be easily incited against those who sacrifice a lot to inform the public of suppressed topics
In El Salvador, ChromeOS and GNU/Linux Now Measured at Around 12%
signs of gradual and steady adoption of GNU/Linux
Software in the Public Interest (SPI) Starts Spending Big Money in an Effort to Resist Lawsuit From Daniel Pocock
They've lost over half a million dollars in the latest 3 years
The Establishment, Cambridge, Steve McIntyre & Debian suicide cluster
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 05/08/2026: Internet Archive Harmed by Slop Bot, "EBay And Former Execs Agree to Pay $56 Million For Trying to ‘Crush’ a Journalist"
Links for the day
Luxembourg and Software Freedom
Luxembourg's adoption of GNU/Linux has quite consistently been higher than the European average
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Web Site is Online, GNU's Site Having Issues (Ongoing Issues)
We hope they can rectify the issues with the GNU Web site
Freedom Includes the Liberty to Disagree (and be Listened to, Not Censored)
Freedom is our collective strength
Tanzania: GNU/Linux Now Seen on 8% on Desktops/Laptops (User Clients)
numbers have more than doubled
IBM CEO Says IBM Won't be Bankrupt by 2028 or 2029 (When He Reaches Retirement Age)
IBM has no path to survival
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 04, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 04, 2026
Gemini Links 05/08/2026: Being Good, Tildeverse and Tilde.pink, Games
Links for the day
Links 04/08/2026: GAFAM Expressing Concerns About Dangerous Disinformation by Slop, Bill Epsteingate-Connected Litigation Firm Salivating Over Europe
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/08/2026: Root Shell and "Duty of Care"
Links for the day
Alternate Data (Not IBM's Headcount) to Show Mass Layoffs' Effect at IBM (Despite Many Acquired Workers Via M&A)
mass layoffs at Hashicorp and at Confluent this year (media did not cover either).
Big Blue's Quiet Axe - Poem Regarding IBM "RAs"
No idea who posted this, but it is profound
Growing Proportion of Linux Commits Being Made by LLMs Not a Sign of LLMs Working, It's a Sign of Linux Development Being Shifted From Community to GAFAM and Other Slop Pushers
antagonist became apologist
Worse Than "Taking Your Job", the Slop Pyramid Scheme Will "Take Your Pension"
This will not end well
Abundance of Fake (Sometimes Paid-for) 'News' About IBM Will Discredit the Media as a Whole
In 'the news' today
Microsoft is Trying Vapourware Again (to Keep Developers and Gamers From Fleeing)
For XBox, the main thing over the horizon is additional layoffs
statCounter Reckons 12.33% of Web Traffic in Gambia Can be Attributed to GNU/Linux, Even 15% If Adding ChromeOS
Will this be sustainable?
Reminder: The Pedophilia Problem Comes From the Accusers
Attacks on Richard Stallman are a distraction; his accusers are themselves the culprits
SLAPP Censorship - Part 139 Out of 200: Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Needs More Public Scrutiny (New Management Changed Nothing, It's Costing a Lot of Taxpayers' Money)
millions or maybe billions of pounds wasted
Rumours of Further IBM Shutdowns
IBM is going out of existence
Brigading Against Women - Part II - Threatening Women Using the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) and Then False Threats Miscarrying the Name of a Court
In this series we intend to show the threats, the outcomes of those threats, the response to those threats
Collapse of MElon Companies a Taste of What's to Come for Slop Bubble and GAFAM (Trillions in Debt, Justified as Slop "Investments")
One good example of this was SpaceX
The 'Hyperinflation' in Hardware Dooms Video Hosting (Very Large Files)
a terabyte of video files would be expensive
Rumours of Silent Layoffs in Microsoft This Month (August 2026), PIPs and Global Voluntary Separation Agreement (GVSA), aka "Buyouts"
Will any investigative journalism follow or just shallow puff pieces and LLM trash from slopfarms?
Links 04/08/2026: "Framework for Musician Burnout" and Alexa+ "is a Buggy Embarrassment"
Links for the day
Signs That XBox as a Console is Coming to an End, Windows Gaming Will be Called "XBox"
"XBox" is the next "Surface"
Microsoft's Share in Search Falls Sharply in Europe
The layoffs at Microsoft's Bing will carry on
Romania: GNU/Linux Reaches 4% (Less Than EU Average)
We expect this same upward trend to carry on
Microsoft Sites or Sites Sponsored by Microsoft Angry That GNU/Linux is Gaining
The Microsofters cannot easily dismiss reports of GNU/Linux growth as "bots" or just allege that statCounter alone is wrong
Ableism in the Free Software Movement Typically Comes From GAFAM Operatives and Proprietary Software Apologists
And their hired guns
Afghanistan: GNU/Linux Steadily Rises to 9%
Windows is steadily declining
IBM Innovation: It Has Invented New Methods of Silent Layoffs or Secret RAs
How IBM disguises mass layoffs now
Many Anniversaries
Many anniversaries in quick succession
LLM Slop Won't Replace People and Jobs (in the Long Run)
At the end of the day, people who know their job offer more useful information, whereas LLMs waste people's time (typically an 'externality' to the entity deploying chatbots)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 03, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, August 03, 2026
Over 3,500 Known Gemini Capsules Accessible and Active According to Lupa
It finally happened this morning
Gemini Links 04/08/2026: Library Cards, Dead Ends in Software Development, and DOS on USB Key
Links for the day