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Links 27/6/2015: Wine 1.7.46, SparkyLinux 4.0





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Coreboot Adds Intel Braswell SoC Support


  • OSI Welcomes Summer Interns
    Recognizing successful open source projects need a variety of "developers" to create everything from code to community, the OSI Internship Program seeks participants from across academic disciplines--Business, Communications, Sociology, Informatics, and of course Computer Science to name a few--the program seeks to provide real life experiences common across open source projects and the communities that support them, giving students first hand experiences as well as opportunities to work with some of the most influential projects and people in open source software and the technology sector.


  • Events



  • Web Browsers



  • SaaS/Big Data



    • BlueData Massages Data for Hadoop and Spark to Leverage
      BlueData Software Inc., an infrastructure startup focused on Big Data, is working on solutions to the problem. The company recently announced that it is adding support for Docker containers on its BlueData EPIC platform. BlueData was founded by VMware veterans, and is focused on making Hadoop and Spark easy to deploy in a lightweight container environment.




  • BSD



    • Open Source History: Why Didn't BSD Beat Out GNU and Linux?
      If you use a free and open source operating system, it's almost certainly based on the Linux kernel and GNU software. But these were not the first freely redistributable platforms, nor were they the most professional or widely commercialized. The Berkeley Software Distribution, or BSD, beat GNU/Linux on all of these counts. So why has BSD been consigned to the margins of the open source ecosystem, while GNU/Linux distributions rose to fantastic prominence? Read on for some historical perspective.


    • out with the old, in with the less
      Notes and thoughts on various OpenBSD replacements and reductions. Existing functionality and programs are frequently rewritten and replaced for the sake of simplicity or security or whatever it is that OpenBSD is all about. This process has been going on for some time, of course, but some recent activity is worth highlighting.




  • Project Releases



    • Oz 0.14.0 Release
      Oz is a program for doing automated installation of guest operating systems with limited input from the user.




  • Public Services/Government



    • Why the government needs to renew its public commitment to open source software
      The government has played an important role as champion of open source in the public sector and this has been essential to the great progress that has been made to date. As the new government lays out its strategy, it should publicly reaffirm its commitment to open source software. This will add impetus to those in the public sector considering open source if the government acknowledges its value in relation to its agile vision.


    • NRO jumps on open source bandwagon
      Given the growing need for advanced databases with multiple levels of security to store geospatial intelligence, NRO contractor Lockheed Martin along with partners like Red Hat and Crunchy Data Solutions rolled out an open source relational database at a geospatial intelligence symposium in Washington this week that is billed as supporting multilevel security.




  • Openness/Sharing



    • Open Hardware



      • Introducing Felfil: An Italian Open Source 3D Printing Filament Extruder
        It’s an open source project designed for home use, and Felfil is an extruder for plastic 3D printing filament, designed by a team of young makers from the Politecnico of Turin.

        They say the device was built in answer to a desire by users of 3D printers to produce their own plastic filament. It’s all about reducing the cost of printing, saving on materials, and being able to experience the potential of 3D printing.






  • Programming



    • Google creates cloud code cache
      With an uncharacteristic lack of fanfare, Google has decided to hang around the kitchen at the code repository party.


    • 6 time-consuming tasks you can automate with code
      Literacy used to be the domain of scribes and priests. Then the world became more complicated and demanded that everyone read and write. Computing is also a form of literacy, but having it only understood by a priesthood of programmers is not going to be enough for our complex, online world. "Learn to code" has become a mantra for education at all ages. But after clearing away the hype, why do people need to learn to code? What does it get us exactly?

      Not everyone needs to become a software engineer, but almost every office worker uses a laptop as a daily tool. Computers are such a huge productivity booster because they support a large market of programs and apps designed for these workers. But commercial and open source software have a "last mile" problem: that they don't automate every conceivable task. There are still computing chores that require a lot of repetitive (and fairly mindless) typing and clicking. Even if you have an intern to push these tasks on, they're tasks that require a human because there's no software to automate it. These tasks are too small-scale or specific to your organization's workflow for it to be economical for a software company to create a custom solution.


    • libnice is now mirrored on GitHub
      libnice, everyone’s favourite ICE networking library, is now mirrored on GitHub (and GitLab), to make contributing to it easier — just submit a pull request. The canonical git repository is still on freedesktop.org.






Leftovers



  • Security



  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression



    • Terror Attacks in France, Kuwait and Tunisia
      Friday’s attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait came at roughly the same time, and days after the Islamic State terror group called for such operations during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. But there was no immediate indication that they had been coordinated.




  • Privacy



    • Hated Care.data scheme now 'unachievable', howls UK.gov watchdog
      The hated Care.data programme is one of four government IT projects progressing so poorly its delivery has been deemed "unachievable", according to a government watchdog report.

      The scheme has been flagged with the highest "red" risk rating by the Major Projects Authority, along with the NHS choices website, the Health and Social Care Network, and the Ministry of Justice's National Offender Management Services ICT programme.

      The scheme has encountered serious delays, following an outcry from the public who largely objected to the idea of their personal information being shared with world+dog without their consent.

      So far, 700,000 individuals have requested to opt out of having their data shared with third parties. However, concerns have been raised that the Health and Social Care Information Centre has been unable to implement those objections.


    • Yet Another Leaker -- with the NSA's French Intercepts
      Wikileaks has published some NSA SIGINT documents describing intercepted French government communications. This seems not be from the Snowden documents. It could be one of the other NSA leakers, or it could be someone else entirely.

      As leaks go, this isn't much. As I've said before, spying on foreign leaders is the kind of thing we want the NSA to do. I'm sure French Intelligence does the same to us.




  • Internet/Net Neutrality



    • Europe: The Next Front in the Battle for Net Neutrality
      Americans won big on net neutrality in February, when the FCC voted to adopt new rules that would allow it to rein in the abusive and discriminatory practices of big telecommunications operators, such as blocking or throttling of Internet data, and charging content providers for access to an Internet “fast lane.”




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights



      • Freedom of panorama: what is going on at the EU level?
        It is the so called freedom of panorama, which of course has its roots in a beloved piece of EU legislation, the InfoSoc Directive, more specifically its Article 5(3(h). This provision allows Member States to introduce into their own national copyright laws an exception to the rights of reproduction, communication/making available to the public and distribution to allow "use of works, such as works of architecture or sculpture, made to be located permanently in public places".








Recent Techrights' Posts

Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part VIII
By Dr. Andy Farnell
GNU/Linux Reaches All-Time High in Europe (at 6%)
many in Europe chose to explore something else, something freedom-respecting
Techrights' Statement on Code of Censorship (CoC) and Kent Overstreet: This Was the Real Purpose of Censorship Agreements All Along
Bombing people is OK (if you sponsor the key organisations), opposing bombings is not (a CoC in a nutshell)
 
Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 24, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, November 24, 2024
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Patents Against Energy Sources That Reduce Pollution
this EV space (not just charging) is a patent mine field and it has long been that way
DARPA’s Information Innovation Office, Howard Shrobe, Values Compartmentalisation But Loses the Opportunity to Promote GNU/Linux and BSDs
All in all, he misses an opportunity
Wayland is an Alternative to X
the alternative to X (as in Twitter) isn't social control media but something like IRC
BetaNews, Desperate for Clicks, is Pushing Donald Trump Spam Created by LLMs (Slop)
Big clap to Brian Fagioli for stuffing a "tech" site with Trump spam (not the first time he uses LLMs to do this)
[Meme] Social Control Media Bliss
"My tree is bigger than yours"
Links 24/11/2024: More IMF Bailouts and Net Client Freedom
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Gemini Links 24/11/2024: Being a Student and Digital Downsizing
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[Meme] The Most Liberal Company
"Insurrection? What insurrection?"
apple.com Traffic Down Over 7%, Says One Spyware Firm; Apple's Liabilities Increased Over 6% to $308,030,000,000
Apple is also about 120 billion dollars in debt
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 23, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, November 23, 2024
[Meme] GAFAMfox
Mozilla Firefox in a state of extreme distress
Google Can Kill Mozilla Any Time It Wants
That gives Google far too much power over its rival... There are already many sites that refuse to work with Firefox or explicitly say Firefox isn't supported
Free (as in Freedom) Software Helps Tackle the Software Liability Issue, It Lets Users Exercise Greater Control Over Programs
Microsofters have been trying to ban or exclude Free software
In the US, Patent Laws Are Up for Sale
This problem is a lot bigger than just patents
ESET Finds Rootkits, Does Not Explain How They Get Installed, Media Says It Means "Previously Unknown Linux Backdoors" (Useful Distraction From CALEA and CALEA2)
FUD watch
Techdirt Loses Its Objectivity in Pursuit of Money
The more concerning aspects are coverage of GAFAM and Microsoft in particular
Links 23/11/2024: Press Sold to Vultures, New LLM Blunders
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Links 23/11/2024: "Relationship with Oneself" and Yretek.com is Back
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Links 23/11/2024: "Real World" Cracked and UK Online Safety Act is Law
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Links 23/11/2024: Celebrating Proprietary Bluesky (False Choice, Same Issues) and Software Patents Squashed
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Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, November 22, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, November 22, 2024
Gemini Links 23/11/2024: 150 Day Streak in Duolingo and ICBMs
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