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03.28.12

Press Covers Software Patents Amid Their Possible Elimination

Posted in Australia, Patents at 4:18 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Keep clean

Summary: A roundup of press coverage on the subject of software patents and reasons for optimism

THE software patents backlash surely will increase as we see more and more patent trolls doing what they do best: sue en masse.

According to this article, entire cities are now the target of some patent trolls with software patents (there is a proven correlation between the two):

The crisis that is the American software patent system has reached a tipping point. It’s no longer just established companies who are being hit with frivolous lawsuits, it’s startups as well. And in a new twist, American cities that are already strapped for cash are getting the shakedown from patent trolls.

Another writer explains why software patents are problematic. To quote:

YAHOO has recently gone to court. Its case: a software patent claim against Facebook, a distinctly profitable social network on the cusp of floatation and at the very centre of the social web. Yahoo was once the Internet’s most profitable search engine, an original dotcom boomer from a time when people said “cyberspace” and meant it. Hard times have lead them to pursue a claim that Facebook have been abusing Yahoo’s techniques for serving targeted advertising to users.

Software patents have been at the centre of some heavyweight industrial disputes over the last few months, though the patents themselves can seem rather insignificant. Apple is currently locked in battle with Motorola, Samsung and other phone manufacturers, with one recently settled case being to do with code for zooming in to photos. Samsung is suing Apple right back, claiming they infringe a patent that deals with displaying text messages.

To be granted a patent, you must have a concrete invention, not an idea. Is a computer program an idea or a patentable process? Does our patent apply to the description of the process, the code written by a human, or the low-level instructions generated by the machine? Can we enforce a patented procedure across programming languages, across computers with fundamentally different modes of operation? Questions like these highlight the inherent difficulties in patenting pure information.

We still find it disheartening that patent trolls are being whitewashed by the media. Here is a new example of Australian press propaganda, where a patent troll gets called “innovator” instead of “troll”. They put it like a fairy tale, which it’s not, even if Microsoft is the defendant in this case [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]. The Australian patent maximalists also do this in other sites, Here is the new article titled “LBT Innovations: international patent applications to bolster commercial prospects”. Contrariwise, another site says that “sharing patents encourages innovation” (although the notion of “sharing” monopolies is odd). To quote the analysis:

Instead of preventing competitors from infringing on their patents with costly litigation, business researchers now say that patent holders can often profit even more by free-licensing their patents to competitors.

The reality tends to upset patent lawyers, such as Lundberg. To them, all that matters is their own interests. As this new piece puts it, “patent lawyers are clueless about the software industry.” The outspoken promoter of software patents (a patent lawyer, Lundberg) is having his message debunked:

A major reason for the recent explosion of patent litigation is that it’s hard for software firms to figure out which patents they’re in danger of infringing. There are hundreds of thousands of software patents in existence, with more than 40,000 new ones issued each year. Indeed, in a recent paper, Christina Mulligan and I estimated that it’s effectively impossible for all software-producing firms to do the legal research, known as a “freedom-to-operate” (FTO) search, required to avoid infringing software patents–there simply aren’t enough patent attorneys to do the work. That’s a major reason why most software firms simply ignore the patent system.

[...]

So why is Lundberg so oblivious to the realities of the software industry? Julian wrote on Wednesday about peoples’ tendency to extrapolate from their own experiences. Lundberg’s post is not an accurate description of the software industry as a whole, but it probably is an accurate description of the parts of the software industry he sees on a regular basis. By definition, Lundberg’s clients are drawn disproportionately from the minority of software firms with the resources and infrastructure to effectively navigate the patent system. This means he rarely interacts with the vast majority of software-producing firms who only deal with the patent system when they are forced to do so by an unexpected cease-and-desist letter.
Consider, for example, the patent troll Lodsys, which began extorting money from small app developers last year. For the small firms targeted by Lodsys, the rational thing to do is to pay the money Lodsys demands whether or not the target believes he’s actually guilty. That’s because the legal costs of defending against a patent lawsuit is likely to vastly exceed the amount of money Lodsys is demanding. But because many targets of frivolous patent threats settle their cases quickly, guys like Lundberg rarely interact with them. In other words, Lundberg works with the patent system’s winners on a daily basis, but he rarely interacts with the system’s losers, even though there are many more of them.

As a result, there’s a deep and persistent rift between the community of computer programmers, who are overwhelmingly hostile to software patents, and patent lawyers who seem mystified by all the outrage. The job of a patent lawyer gives him a systematically skewed understanding of how the patent system affects the software industry.

This debate was never about reason, not when it’s dominated or monopolised by panels of lawyers. We previously mentioned how even Google was getting occupied by lawyers, especially in light of cases like this one. Google might not be doing evil, but why can it not do good? Why can it not help end software patents? Right now there is a legal case that can help eliminate software patents in the US and while Red Hat addresses the subject, Google does not. Google is too busy indexing patents, which only helps the very same system that harms Android. Groklaw brings us the latest from this important case:

As Dennis Crouch of Patently O earlier predicted, the world-changing Mayo v. Prometheus decision by the US Supreme Court is already impacting the other case regarding gene patents, Myriad Genetics. Today, the Supreme Court vacated and remanded [PDF] the case back to the Federal Circuit, telling it to take another look and come up with a ruling in harmony with their Mayo decision:

ASSN. FOR MOLECULAR PATHOLOGY V. MYRIAD GENETICS, ET AL.

The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for further consideration in light of Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, Inc., 566 U.S. ___ (2012)

Techrights will keep track of this case because the #1 priority right now is to eliminate software patents, which can in turn guarantee the triumph or at very least safety of Free software. █

Irony: No LibreOffice in Important Version of OpenSUSE

Posted in Novell, Office Suites, OpenDocument, OpenSUSE at 3:39 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Novell Santa

Summary: Despite Novell involvement in Go-OO (and later LibreOffice), the rolling release of OpenSUSE does not have it

OPENSUSE’S rolling release gets the latest KDE while the mainline release shows almost no signs of real progress. Greg K-H, who recently left SUSE, writes about the subject and notes that LibreOffice cannot be included:

From there the report states that Linux kernel 3.3 is in Tumbleweed and Greg K-H said it seems to be working well. Also in Tumbleweed is KDE 4.8, which was released by the KDE project on January 25. Because of the KDE 4.8 update, Greg K-H explained that LibreOffice had to be dropped because it won’t build with current packages in Tumbleweed or Factory. A bug report has been filed and hopefully will be addressed soon.

It seems as though Greg cares about SUSE even after leaving the company. Since a lot of the community jumped ship there is not much that can be done. █

Links 28/3/2012: GTK+ 3.4.0, ACTA Spin

Posted in News Roundup at 3:14 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Skype Open-Source Back In Action, Breaks v5.5

    After a several month hiatus, the individual(s) working to reverse-engineer Skype’s binary client have successfully “deobfuscated” the Skype 5.5 release.

    “We got deobfuscated skype v5.5!!! I can’t belive in this. But its fucking true. Great thanks and congratulations going to Vilko,” begins a new post on the skype-open-source blog.

  • Roll Your Own Wiki With Open Source MoinMoin
  • WalmartLabs is building big data tools — and will then open source them
  • The benefits of open source

    Free and open source software has touched all our lives whether we know it or not. Often misunderstood and treated with suspicion, many businesses take advantage of the benefits of it without acknowledging the community that powers it.

  • Sirius CTO: UK businesses must start tapping SME talent

    The time has come for small and medium businesses to get the recognition they deserve, according to Andrew Savory, newly-appointed Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at open source systems integrator Sirius, with a new generation of smart British technology companies proving that they can deliver services just as well, sometimes cheaper, and sometimes better than their large entrenched counterparts.

    Savory, an active member of The Apache Software Foundation, joins Sirius from the LiMo Foundation, a non-profit technology consortium dedicated to creating the first Linux-based mobile operating system for smartphone devices. Coming from an open source, small business background himself, Savory is excited to see a step-change in the way that SMEs are being viewed, thanks to initiatives like the government’s G-Cloud.

  • The Peek Email Device Goes Open Source

    f at first you don’t succeed, open source the sucker. Peek has released an open source version of their Peek Mobile operating system, allowing hackers to use the all-but-obsolete little email device as a hacker platform. The Linux release is available the PeekLinux wiki and hackers are already adding new apps and functionality to the tiny device.

  • Building a GSM network with open source

    Over the last few years open source technology has enabled mobile phone networks to be set up on a shoestring budget at hacker conferences, on a tiny Pacific island and at a festival in the Nevada desert. Andrew Back takes a look at how this has been made possible and at what’s involved in building a GSM network using OpenBTS and OpenBSC.

  • Events

    • Sydneysider to give keynote at Wikimania

      Gardiner is a long-time member of the Sydney Linux User Group, an office-bearer of Linux Australia, and a regular member of the technical panel that chooses talks for the annual Australian national Linux conference.

      Last year Gardiner, along with Linux kernel developer Valerie Aurora, set up The Ada Initiative, a project to help increase the participation of women in technology. The project was born after several incidents of sexist behaviour towards women at FOSS events.

    • High-tech titans coming to Columbia

      Next week’s Palmetto Open Source Software Conference — or POSSCON — is starting to bring some serious high-tech street cred to Columbia.

      The conference – which grew substantially in each of its past four years — focuses on the communal development of software like Open Office and Firefox that developers share with the world, often for free.

  • Web Browsers

    • Chrome

    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla at Work on Mobile Do Not Track

        You can opt out of being tracked online by using a Web browser with support for Do Not Track, a privacy feature that lets you tell supporting websites that you don’t want to be tracked by third parties (advertisers, marketing firms, and the like). It’s like putting yourself on an online version of the Do Not Call list.

        Now Mozilla is developing an open-source operating system for smartphones and tablets that supports Do Not Track from the ground up. Code-named Boot to Gecko (B2G), this Linux-based mobile OS is designed to bring the (comparatively) rigorous privacy standards of the World Wide Web to smartphones and tablets.

      • Mozilla launches multiplayer browser adventure to showcase HTML5 gaming

        Mozilla has teamed up with Web design studio Little Workshop to develop a Web-based multiplayer adventure game called BrowserQuest. The game is built with standards-based Web technologies and is designed to be played within a Web browser.

        With the technical capabilities offered by the latest standards, Web developers no longer have to rely on plugins to create interactive multimedia experiences and application-like user interfaces. As we reported earlier this month, modern standards are making the Web an increasingly viable platform for game development.

      • Asa Dotzler Recommends Opera For Firefox 3.6 Users Who Don’t Want To Upgrade

        If you are a Firefox 3.6 user you know by now that support for that branch of the web browser will end on April 24, 2012. As it stands now, Firefox 3.6.28, released on March 14, is likely the last version of Firefox 3.6. Mozilla will not update the version of the browser again unless a major security or stability issue forces them to.

        With Firefox 3.6 out of the picture, Firefox users still using the branch are asked by Mozilla to either update to the current stable version of the browser, which is Firefox 11 at the time of writing, or the Firefox Extended Support Release. The latter has been specifically designed for organizations as a way to lessen the impact of Mozilla’s new rapid release process on the company’s IT department.

      • Firefox 3.6.x approaches end of life
      • Mozilla BrowserQuest The Future of Open Source HTML5 Gaming?
      • Jeff Klein, I hate you ;-)

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • LibreOffice developers demo collaborative editing prototype

      A group of LibreOffice developers have added experimental collaborative editing capabilities to the open source office suite. The feature allows multiple users to work on the same document simultaneously over the Internet. The collaborative editing functionality was implemented by grafting Telepathy to LibreOffice.

  • CMS

  • Business

  • Funding

    • Kickstarter to fund development of Arduino-based, browser-controlled open source hardware automated gardening dome
    • Google Summer of Code: Contribute to Open Source, Make Money

      If you’re a post-secondary student, 18 years or older, you have a golden opportunity this Summer. Contribute to an open source project that you care about, and get paid to do it. Once again, it’s Google Summer of Code (GSoC) time, and open source organizations are beating the bushes to find the best ideas and applicants.

      The GSoC has been an annual tradition since 2005. Google partners with mentoring organizations and offers students stipends for successful completion of open source projects. Students get a stipend of $5,000 USD and the mentoring organization receives $500. Students get a $500 stipend after coding begins on May 1st, a $2,250 payment after a successful mid-term evaluation, and $2,250 after the final program evaluation. Oh, and don’t forget the t-shirt.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Project Releases

  • Public Services/Government

  • Openness/Sharing

    • How open is too open?

      Last month, we posted a survey asking, “If you could open one of the following data sets tomorrow, which one would you open and why?” We got a great response–279 people voted and there were several comments.

  • Programming

  • Standards/Consortia

    • Tizen pops up as HTML5 winner

      No one has seen the Tizen mobile platform in action yet, but whatever browser the in-development platform is using has blown away the competition for HTML5 performance.

      Listed only as “Tizen 1″ on The HTML5 Test (THT) site, the development version of the Tizen browser scored 387 points out of a possible total of 475 points within the mobile phone browser category.

    • 1&1 Internet AG receives German Document Freedom Award

      1&1, GMX and WEB.DE receive the German Document Freedom Award for the use of Open Standards. The prize is awarded by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure e.V. (FFII). 1&1 is awarded for automatically adding XMPP for all customers of their mail services. The Document Freedom Award is awarded annually on the occasion of Document Freedom Day – the international day for Open Standards. Last years winners include tagesschau.de, Deutschland Radio, and the German Foreign Office.

Leftovers

  • Security

  • Finance

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Shocker! FOX asks Tough Questions and Paul Ryan Flubs

      In an uncharacteristic move for a Fox News anchor, Wallace asks some tough questions of the Chair of the House Budget Committee. Since the Ryan plan would lose 10 trillion dollars of revenue over ten years, Wallace asked exactly which tax loopholes would be closed to raise the revenue that would be lost from reducing the tax rate. But Ryan could not name specific loopholes that he would close as part of his plan because “that’s not the job of the budget committee.”

    • The Corporations Bankrolling ALEC, which Has Promoted “Stand Your Ground” as a “Model” Bill

      The gun lobby has come under the spotlight for its role in the so-called “Stand Your Ground” or “Shoot First” law that may protect the man who shot and killed seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida –- but many other special interests, including household names like Kraft Foods and Wal-Mart, also helped facilitate the spread of these and other laws by funding the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

  • ACTA

    • Spinning ACTA “prolongation” strategies – noise in the cable

      LQDN demonstrates that their voting expectations do not depend upon the ECJ rerferral but their procedural input is quite a bit confusing. I had some strange artefacts in my DSL connection and then found out the ethernet cable between the router and the splitter was broken. You could argue that LQDN add some fog of war and inserted confusion in the process. I just wonder if MEPs would switch to a different cable. If you dismiss the current proposed procedures of the rapporteur David Martin as “delay” tactics what’s the actual alternative for Parliament?

    • EU Parliament Will Vote on ACTA Without Delay!

      The EU Parliament has refused to freeze the ACTA debate, and will not refer the agreement to the EU Court of Justice. In a 21 to 5 vote, the Parliament decided to stick to its calendar and will vote on ACTA in June, as originally planned. The Commission’s technocratic manoeuvres have not stopped the Parliament, and the door remains open to a swift rejection of ACTA.

03.27.12

Links 27/3/2012: Pear Linux Comice OS 4, XBMC 11.0

Posted in News Roundup at 2:01 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Does VMware have a real future?

    Though VMware provides its low-end offerings for free, it can’t stay in the game by relying on those alone; it makes its money exclusively from selling high-end virtualization and virtualization management software. Unlike its competitors, VMware doesn’t have much of a revenue stream from operating systems and other products. And when it attempted to overcome that weakness, it was blindsided. More on that in a bit.

  • Dr. Jill Stein: Green Party Candidate for President

    Jill Stein, a doctor and activist from Massachusetts, is running for the Green Party nomination for President of the United States. Stein is the frontrunner for the party’s nomination, running against comedian Roseanne Barr and veteran Green Party activists Kent Mesplay and Harley Mikkelson. Stein’s campaign, headed up by Wisconsin native Ben Manski, is focusing on getting enough delegates in each state to win the party’s nomination at the July 2012 Green Party convention in Baltimore and on securing November ballot lines in all 50 states.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Death by Delay: Obama Team Stalls on Chemical Regulation

      The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has drafted a “chemicals of concern” list to restrict the use of certain chemicals and alert the public to their possible dangers. But the list remains secret and dormant because it’s stuck at the Obama administration’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for review.

  • DRM

    • Lib-Ray Video Standard: Moving to SDHC Flash Media

      In Spring 2011, I started a project to attempt to create a free-culture compatible / non-DRM alternative to Blu-Ray for high-definition video releases on fixed-media, and after about a year hiatus, I’m getting back to it with some new ideas. The first is that I’ve concluded that optical discs are a bust for this kind of application, and that the time has come to move on to Flash media, specifically SDHC/SDXC as the hardware medium. This is a more expensive choice of medium, and still not perfect, but it has enough advantages to make it a clear choice now.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • ACTA

        • ACTA: The EU Parliament Must Face Its Political Responsibility

          Brussels, March 26th 2012 – Today is the beginning of a decisive week for the future of the ACTA procedure in the EU Parliament. Tomorrow, Members of the EU Parliament (MEPs) may decide whether to vote on ACTA in the next few months as originally planned, or to follow the rapporteur David Martin in buying time and defusing the ongoing debate through technocratic manoeuvres. Citizens must call their MEPs now and urge them to face their political responsibility by rejecting ACTA.

03.26.12

Apple: When Branding is More important Than Quality

Posted in Apple at 10:21 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Headphones

Summary: The latest example of Apple ‘quality’

LAST week my best friend purchased an android phone which is technically better than the latest iPhone. I watched it in action, too. At present, those who want what’s best in the market choose Linux, not Apple.

Apple increasingly seems suitable for those who settle for less than the best and tablets too show this trend. It’s not just overheating anymore:

Batterygate? Apple’s iPad “Fibbing” battery charger

Dr. Raymond Soneira, president of DisplayMate, the world’s leading display and display tuning company, is best known for his graphics expertise, but he also knows his way around electrical engineering and physics. During his extensive testing of the iPad 3’s display Soneira also found “that the batteries do not actually reach full charge when 100% is shown and need up to an extra hour before the charging actually stops. So what’s up with that?

Another product rushed out the door? Lawsuits an embargoes don’t pass muster fast enough? █

While Software Patents Are on the Line, Linux and the Public Continue to Suffer

Posted in Google, Oracle, Patents at 10:15 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Java logo

Summary: Patent news of interest to the FOSS community

AN article in Groklaw reveals that the case which challenges software patents in the United States (albeit indirectly) leads to response from the USPTO. As another site (run by our reader Wayne Borean) puts it:

American Patent law is a mess. When a small section of law ends up being appealed to the United States Supreme Court so often, it is an indication that:

1. The law is badly written
2. Powerful interest groups are trying to bend the law
3. There is a lot of money at stake

This is the seventeenth patent case the court has ruled on since 2005. The Supreme Court has broad powers to choose which cases that it takes. It selects cases that it believes will have a significant impact on the law in the United States. That it has taken so many patent cases implies that the Supreme Court sees problems with the Patent System.

Thus far, the Supreme Court has failed to fix the system and it already harms Android, which relates closely to Linux. Pogson says that:

The issue of patents is similarly embarrasing as the abundance of patents in suit and claims of violation has withered to a couple of items of tiny value if anything. Is it worth 8 weeks of trial to calculate whether zero times a bunch of factors amounts to anything? The Court is thinking ~$100 million tops, with all factors being 1. The result will almost certainly be much less if greater than zero. Oracle might save money by dropping all claims and firing the people who got them into this mess.

Those costs are of course to be passes to buyers. The patent system is a real sham that harms the public and does not stimulate innovation. To strike the problem at the root we must eliminate software patents in the US. █

Microsoft Censorship of The Pirate Bay

Posted in Microsoft at 10:05 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Not just Bing censors information, applications do too

Mussolini says Bing

Summary: Microsoft becomes copyright police by censoring Web sites

THE monopolist from Redmond is no stranger to censorship, as we showed here before.

The latest example of Microsoft censorship was brought up by Ryan from the IRC channels. He writes that Microsoft would make any tyrant dictator proud:

When the user enters a link and it’s to a site that Microsoft doesn’t like, Microsoft’s new approach is to block it at their server and report back to the user that the site is “dangerous”.

So far they seem to do it with The Pirate Bay, which probably hosts and serves less malware and spyware than Microsoft itself (source source source) or sites that aren’t being blocked by them, such as CNET Download.com which delivers crapware bundles with legitimate software.

Since the censorship of links is done at the server level, it means that (not shockingly), Microsoft is monitoring, logging, and spying on everything you say or do while connected to their chat service. It also means that users of alternative messenger software which doesn’t come bundled with the ability to display malicious advertisements like Microsoft’s official client does will not escape the Microsoft server spying on them and kicking back any links that Microsoft doesn’t like. If Microsoft can’t keep their own software and websites from installing malicious software onto Windows PCs, they shouldn’t be blocking anyone else under that excuse.

“You should post that in your links,” Ryan suggested, “the Windows Live Messenger censorship” [original article] and to quote:

Those who try to paste a Pirate Bay link to their friends through Windows Live Messenger will notice that it never reaches its destination.

Instead, Microsoft alerts the sender that The Pirate Bay is unsafe. Apparently, the company is actively monitoring people’s communications to prevent them from linking to sites they deem to be a threat.

Will Microsoft ‘fix’ this ‘bug’ after the backlash? The Pirate Bay helps people download perfectly legitimate GNU/Linux distributions. █

Links 25/3/2012: Bodhi Linux 1.4.0, Many Vivaldi Orders

Posted in News Roundup at 3:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Exploring the Free world of numerical computation tools

    Numerical computation tools that run on GNU/Linux platform such as Ubuntu, Debian or Fedora are a huge blessing for all mathematical computation ‘freaks’, be it students or researchers. The expensive proprietary utility, Matlab, may be a leader in terms of introducing newer applications, but the Free (as in ‘freedom’) Software alternatives available are not lagging in any way.

  • Web Browsers

    • Chrome

      • Google Chromebook May Get Cheaper, To Run On ARM Chips

        Tweet

        One of the major gripes about Google’s ambitious Chromebooks is its price. It is quite expensive given the limitations it has. If reports are to be believed Chromebook may become extremely cheap.

      • Sony Also Gets On Chromebook Bandwagon, VAIO Chromebook Coming

        One may wonder what future holds for Google’s Gentoo Linux based ChromeOS. The initial sales of Samsung and Acer Chromebook was not impressive. There were many reasons for the slow sales of the Chromebooks, but the future is bright as we move towards cloud-based computing.

        The ChromesOS is gaining popularity among hardware players, after Samsung and Acer now Sony is also joining the elite Chromebook club. Sony has reportedly submitted a filing for its first Chromebook to FCC. FCC E-filing is showing a Sony device which fits the bill of a Chromebook. Any doubt over it being a Chromebook is removed on the ‘manual’ page which specifically points at ChromOS:

      • Chrome OS Makes it Mainstream
      • Sony to launch the first ARM Powered Chromebook?

        According to some FCC leak and rumoring, it looks like Sony is about to release a new Chromebook and the FCC info may point towards it running on an ARM Processor! T25 is the leaked processor info, that sound like the Tegra 250 T25. I think the thinking was T25 is intermediary between T20 and T30, in between Tegra2 and Tegra3. Basically, I think, the hope should be that if it’s a Tegra2, that it has a new faster memory bandwidth and a higher clock speed compared to the “first generation” Tegra2 devices that were released back since the end of 2010!

  • SaaS

    • OpenStack vs. Amazon and Eucalyptus Clouds

      When Amazon and Eucalyptus finally announced plans to partner on cloud computing, the big winners were cloud integrators seeking to move workloads between on-premise IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) and Amazon Web Services. But ultimately, Talkin’ Cloud believes Amazon and Eucalyptus were reacting to OpenStack — which is available as both an on-premise or public cloud platform.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • CMS

  • BSD

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Project Releases

  • Openness/Sharing

Leftovers

  • Finance

    • The Shadow Bailout: How Big Banks Bilk US Towns and Taxpayers

      The “toxic culture of greed” on Wall Street was highlighted again last week, when Greg Smith went public with his resignation from Goldman Sachs in a scathing oped published in the New York Times. In other recent eyebrow-raisers, LIBOR rates—the benchmark interest rates involved in interest rate swaps—were shown to be manipulated by the banks that would have to pay up; and the objectivity of the ISDA (International Swaps and Derivatives Association) was called into question, when a 50% haircut for creditors was not declared a “default” requiring counterparties to pay on credit default swaps on Greek sovereign debt.

    • TBTF Sheriff Bill Black on MF Global cover-up
    • Food Stamp Use in L.A. Pauses At the Million Mark, Awaiting Oil’s Next Move

      For the first time in several years, the rate of growth in Los Angeles County food stamp use has slowed. That’s little consolation however given that total participation zoomed from just above 600,000 to over 1,000,000 people since the onset of the financial crisis. As longtime readers know, I’ve tracked the series as a backdoor view on rising energy costs–and in the case of LA County–gasoline costs in particular. | see: Los Angeles County SNAP Users vs. Price of Oil 2007-2012.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • CMD Asks Wisconsin Ethics Board to Examine Corporate-Funded Gifts to ALEC Legislators

      The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) filed a complaint today with the Government Accountability Board (GAB) based on newly discovered documents revealing that numerous Wisconsin legislators have received corporate-funded gifts through their connections to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Although ALEC describes itself as the largest membership group for legislators, over 98% of its $7 million budget is from corporations and sources other than legislative dues. Documents obtained via Wisconsin open records law and other sources show that ALEC corporations are funding lawmakers’ out-of-state travel expenses to posh resorts for ALEC meetings with corporate lobbyists, in addition to gifts of entertainment and exclusive parties.

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