Editors • About the Site • Comes vs. Microsoft • Using This Web Site • Site Archives • Credibility Index • OOXML • OpenDocument • Patents • Novell • News Digest • Site News • RSS

01.11.12

Links 11/1/2012: US Pressures Spain, SOPA Protests

Posted in News Roundup at 9:19 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Windows to Mac to Windows to Mac to… Linux? It doesn’t matter.

    I’m just as productive on Linux as I was on OS X, and there’s no reason you couldn’t be too

  • Server

    • AT&T Makes a Big Bet On Linux and Open Source in the Cloud

      While there are a number of open source solutions emerging for cloud computing, OpenStack remains one of the best backed platforms, with vendors ranging from Hewlett-Packard to Dell to Citrix supporting it. OpenStack got its early momentum from Rackspace and NASA, though, and late last year Rackspace announced Rackspace Cloud: Private Edition, which is an OpenStack-powered cloud platform featuring managed services and–most important of all–operational support. Now, AT&T has announced that it is delivering an open source cloud platform based on OpenStack, dubbed AT&T Cloud Architect. It signals a big bet on open source from a major telco.

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • Linux Desktop new goodies: Razor-Qt and Cinnamon

      While there’s no doubt that the leaders in the Linux desktop contest are GNOME and KDE, that does not mean they are catered for everyone. Different people have different needs and there were and still are voices in the community that criticize some of the choices the designers of the two desktops made. We, as always, prefer not to take sides, but we noticed that, as it often happens in Open Source, alternatives started to appear, addressing the aforementioned issues. Today we’ll talk about two of the alternatives, so you know you always have a choice. So, for GTK and/or Qt fans that know how to install software on their distro of choice, we give you Cinnamon, an alternative to Gnome3, and Razor-Qt, a lightweight alternative to KDE4.

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • Interview with Brian Alleyne, Sociologist Studying KDE

        A few months ago, the British journal Sociology published an article titled “Challenging Code: A Sociological Reading of the KDE Free Software Project”. Eager to find out what a ‘sociological reading’ of KDE entails, Dot editor Oriol Mirosa rushed to contact the article’s author, sociologist Brian Alleyne, who graciously and patiently agreed to be the subject of an interview. Read on to learn more about Brian, sociology, and the significance of KDE for the social sciences:

      • KDE Plasma Desktop Wallpapers

        KDE offers a very attractive desktop environment that is highly customizable. After installing KDE users will most likely want to configure their desktop wallpaper. With KDE you can easily select a different image to use as the desktop background, or you can use solid colors. Background images and be stretched, tiled, and centered as well for convenience. To access your desktop background settings you can simply right-click on your desktop background, then select the desktop settings option. The KDE Plasma desktop provides a fantastic interface for managing wallpapers, and thousands more are only one click away.

      • The Great Features of KDE Workspaces and Applications – Interlude

        Many of you have been asking for my color theme and my widget style that I’m using in the blogseries, so I finally decided to upload it :)

        The style itself is the nice shiny Oxygen, the default widget style that ships with KDE Workspaces. I just tuned the scrollbars a little and you can do that too – just open System Settings, go to ‘Application Appearance’, select ‘Style’ and right next to the widget style combobox is ‘Configure…’ button. Open that, switch to ‘Scrollbars’ tab and tweak it to your liking. I use 10px width and no top and bottom arrow buttons. All the rest is default.

      • Qt 4 moved to open governance

        Since we released Qt under open governance on qt-project.org, there was always one piece missing. The Qt 4 repository was so far still handled in the old system. This was done as a simple prioritization, to get the parts of Qt that we considered most relevant for the development community out first.

  • Distributions

    • Zorin OS 5.2 Lite released
    • BrowerLinux: A Linux Distro For The Sole Purpose Of Browsing The Web

      Apple has made famous the phrase “There is an app for that“. In the open source Linux world, you can apply the same saying too: “There is an distro for that“. Indeed, for whatever functions you want your OS to perform, there is a distro for that. Need a media center? Mythbuntu. Need a multimedia creation tool? UbuntuStudio. Need a distro for kids? DouDouLinux. Need a lightweight OS that runs in old computer? Lubuntu. Need a super lightweight distro that can fit into your USB drive? DamnSmallLinux. Need a distro for browsing the web? BrowserLinux.

    • New Releases

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

      • Happy New Mageia Year!

        Welcome back from the holidays! It seems like we’re all refreshed, we all had a great time and we’re all ready to dive into 2012 and make Mageia even better.

      • On disaster reports

        2012 started as a rather interesting year. Perhaps influenced by the so-called “Mayan Doomsday” prophecies, people today reported hearing strange rumbling noises coming from the Earth.

        Interestingly, the Linux world also has its own disaster predictions–you always listen that Linux is finished on the desktop, that the desktop computer itself is finished, and a myriad more.

        One of the predictions that I read is that 2012 will be the definite year of Mandriva’s disappearance. Since Mandriva was the distro that made me migrate to Linux, I must admit that I received the news with a grave heart.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat to Host Virtualization-Focused Virtual Event and Announcement
        on January 18

      • Fedora

        • Fedora 16 Times 3: One Month, Three Versions

          I was walking around Fry’s over the holidays. One of the numerous Linux magazines in the technical publications section had an interview with someone at Canonical, and the title on cover was something like “Unity is a Conversation We Must Win”. There was so much wrong with that sentence I wonder now if it read that Unity was a Conversion that they must win. It does not work for me personally either way.

        • Fedora 17 Has More Features: GIMP 2.8, GCC 4.7, oVirt, Etc

          Fedora 17 (a.k.a. the Beefy Miracle) already has an impressive list of new features coming, but several more features have been added to their planned list.

          The Beefy Miracle already has a beefy list of possible changes like maybe the Btrfs file-system by default, multi-touch advancements, GNOME Shell software rendering, and many other features, but now there’s even more.

    • Debian Family

      • Debian passes CentOS as most popular Linux for web servers

        Last year, Debian GNU/Linux and CentOS were the most popular Linux distributions on web servers. According to recent monthly figures from W3Techs, Debian has recently regained the top spot from CentOS and was running on 29.4 per cent of Linux-based web servers (9.6 per cent of all web sites). CentOS had held the lead by a few per cent during most of the last year; Debian moved ahead by a small margin at the end of the year.

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu TV brings Linux to television
          • Ubuntu TV eyes-on
          • Unity-based Ubuntu TV takes on Google TV
          • Canonical CEO: Ubuntu tablet OS will battle Android, iOS

            Jane Silber is on a mission to get the Ubuntu Linux distribution onto mobile devices and TVs, rather than be stuck on desktop PCs. The CEO of Canonical (which makes Ubuntu) took over from the previous CEO, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth, in March 2010, but has been with the company since shortly after its 2004 founding. Right after New Year’s Day, she paid a visit to InfoWorld offices in San Francisco to talk with InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill about Canonical’s ambitions in the mobile market as well as reflect on Canonical’s successes and what separates it from rivals.

            [ Also on InfoWorld: Canonical has been looking to attract mobile application developers to its platform. | Read InfoWorld's Mobile Edge blog for the latest perspectives on mobile technology. ]

            InfoWorld: What are Canonical’s goals for the client distro, the server distro, the smartphone distro, and tablet distro, and how will you measure success on these fronts?

            Silber: On the client side, it’s about moving from the desktop to other form factors. So tablet, TV, and at some point down in the future probably phone, but that’s a bit off. And success, there is commercial success in terms of device manufacturers wanting to ship Ubuntu and its user base, its user adoption. There is a real demand for an alternative platform. We believe Ubuntu has all the characteristics that are needed to become that platform.

            To continue reading, register here to become an Insider. You’ll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in.

            Jane Silber is on a mission to get the Ubuntu Linux distribution onto mobile devices and TVs, rather than be stuck on desktop PCs. The CEO of Canonical (which makes Ubuntu) took over from the previous CEO, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth, in March 2010, but has been with the company since shortly after its 2004 founding. Right after New Year’s Day, she paid a visit to InfoWorld offices in San Francisco to talk with InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill about Canonical’s ambitions in the mobile market as well as reflect on Canonical’s successes and what separates it from rivals.

          • Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 247
          • Checking Out The Ubuntu TV Prototype

            First of all, after seeing the working Ubuntu TV prototype at Canonical’s CES booth, I was impressed considering that it all came together in just about three months — since the Orlando 12.04 summit where Mark Shuttleworth shared his vision of bringing Ubuntu to TVs and smart-phones. Canonical isn’t ready with any Ubuntu smart-phone yet, which they hope to have ready by Ubuntu 14.04 in two years, but the TV work by them and the community is coming along quickly.

          • Unity 5.0 Arrives In Ubuntu 12.04

          • Flavours and Variants

            • HealthCheck: Linux Mint

              The success of Linux Mint is down to its usability – easy to set up and get running and then use. The latest development is a new user interface, Cinnamon. Richard Hillesley looks at the history of Mint, claimed to be the second most popular Linux distribution after Ubuntu, and considers whether Cinnamon marks a turning point for the distribution.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • British company looks to create cheap, open platforms

      A British community interest company, Rhombus Tech, is part of the way towards developing a micro-computer on a circuit board, much like the Raspberry Pi.

    • Raspberry Pi bids for success with classroom coders

      A test version of the Raspberry Pi computer has attracted bids of more than £3,000 in a fund-raising auction on eBay. With the machine about to start its first major production run, could it be the right tool to revitalise computer science in schools?

    • We’ve started manufacture!
    • The Raspberry Pi is being manufactured
    • Raspbery Pis are in the oven!

      Following the news that the Raspberry Pi foundation was auctioning 10 of the beta model B boards on eBay comes the news a lot of people have been waiting for: they’ve started manufacturing the production models! The Raspberry Pi blog has all the details.

    • Allwinner A10: A GPL-compliant computer for $15

      This is getting seriously ridiculous. Relative to the power and feature sets computers are getting cheaper and cheaper. But they don’t come much cheaper than the Raspberry Pi, a $25 computer designed specifically to encourage children to program. My colleague, Ryan Cartwright wrote about it right here on FSM.

      At $25 it has excited huge interest. But what if I told that it will be bested by an even cheaper computer. Do I hear $20? Do I hear $15? Yes, you heard that right (and it’s being sold in China for $7, for God’s sake). It is planned for educational purposes and as a retail product too. It’s being developed by Rhombus Tech.

    • Phones

      • Tizen Project Releases Preview of OS Source Code

        The Tizen project, which is developing an open-source operating system for devices like smartphones and tablets, is offering a download of the alpha release of the source code of the operating system.

      • Android

        • Polaroid Announces a Smart Camera Powered by Android!
        • Google TV powers Sony, Vizio Blu-ray players, media streamers

          Several companies have announced Blu-ray players and media streaming boxes for Google’s Android-based Google TV TV platform. Sony has its NSZ-GS7 Network Media Player and NSZ-GP9 Blu-ray disc player, Vizio tipped its VBR430 3D Blu-ray player and VAP430 Stream Player — as well as several Google TV-enabled R Series HDTVs — and E Fun will provide its Nextbox set-top.

        • FXI Demonstrated Ubuntu, Android Powered USB PC At CES 2012
        • FXI Technologies’ Cotton Candy: Android 4.0 and Ubuntu on the world’s smallest PC (hands-on)

          FXI Technologies showed off its Cotton Candy PC for us a few months ago, but since then the company has added Android 4.0 and Ubuntu with a Unity UI as supported OSs, along with the original Android 2.3. It still runs on a dual-core Cortex A9 processor and has quad-core Mali 400 graphics that’s purportedly powerful enough to play 3D games. The device itself can be booted via USB or HDMI, effectively turning any television set into a computer. It’s important to note that when using over HDMI, it still requires power over USB.

        • Nuance Announces Dragon Go! For Android, Throws Its Hat In As A Siri Competitor
        • Polaroid develops Android camera combo

          Polaroid clicked into gear at CES this week, launching an Android-powered smart-camera with built-in Wi-Fi capabilities and access to the Android Market.

        • Solar powered Kindle case revealed at CES

          I finally succomed to an ebook reader this Xmas. After having spent years of standing by the traditional “dead tree” format, I made the jump after reading over the shoulder of a fellow passenger on the train recently. I instantly took to e-ink and found its far more comfortable for long drawn out reading sessions than wrestling with a book.

          Despite what I consider as rather high prices for the new ebook titles (when you compare them to the “physical” paperback versions) I still think its a great method of reading and whilst I opted for Amazon’s product, there are a slew of alternatives out there, to which I believe most, if not all are Linux powered.

        • Eric Schmidt: Android Is Differentiated, Not Fragmented

          We’ve spent the better part of yesterday cruising around the Central Hall on a quest to highlight the coolest tech at CES, but Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt was on hand at CNET’s Next Big Thing panel to talk about the future of consumer electronics. While doing so, he (perhaps unsurprisingly) made it clear that he isn’t a fan of the word “fragmentation” when it comes to Google’s Android OS.

    • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

      • Pantech Announces LTE Tablet For AT&T

        Pantech making their second announcement for AT&T today this one is a Tablet. The Tablet will feature a 8 inch screen, and run on the LTE network. The tablet will be $299.99 with a two-year contract, with planned availability on January 22. The tablet runs android 3.2 and will be waterproof as well.

      • OLPC Unveils XO 3.0 Tablet for Kids in Developing Nations

        At the core of the XO3 is Marvell’s 1 GHz, single-core Armada 618 SoC, which we’ve seen in tablets such as Vizio’s $330 8-inch tablet. The SoC supports Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth 3, 3G cellular networks, USB 2 and HDMI interfaces, as well as a digital camera with up to 16MP resolution. Marvell says the 618 is capable of delivering 1080p video encoding and decoding at 30 fps.

      • Asus spins more Tegra 3 tablets, starting at just $249

        Not content with shipping the world first quad-core Android tablet, Asus is now showing two more Nvidia Tegra 3 models at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES). They’re the seven-inch Eee Pad MeMo ME370T — which will reportedly sell for just $250 — and the Eee Pad Transformer Prime TF700T, with enhanced wireless performance and a 10.1-inch display that packs an impressive 1920 x 1200 pixels.

Free Software/Open Source

  • FOSS and Names

    It started recently when I bumped into this Larry’s post.
    This persuaded me to think (one more time) about names of operating systems and applications in the world of Open Source.
    The post I linked above tells us that names are not always as good as they originally appear. And it gives at least 4 examples where developers needed to think twice before arriving at the current name.

  • Open Source PageMaker Alternative Scribus 1.4.0 Released With 2000 New Features

    After nearly two years since the last stable release and four years since development began, open source desktop publishing software Scribus has released version 1.4.0. Over 2000 new feature requests and bugs have been resolved in this release since the development started, making it the first major release in several years.

  • Google Release Source Code Of Google Body

    Google is one of the strongest proponents of open source. The company has released the source code of Google Body, a project that company retired last year along with many other such projects. The project has already found a ‘suiter’ body.

    Zygote Media Group has created a Zygote Body using this open source code. Zygote Body offers the same navigation, layering, and instant search as Google Body. Like Google Body, Zygote Body can be used in browsers that support WebGL, like Chrome and Firefox, without needing to install additional software.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla Gets Down to Business With Slow-Burn Firefox

        Six months ago, Mozilla’s Asa Dotzler — one of the original members of the team that built the Firefox browser — made it quite clear that the open source outfit wasn’t interested in helping businesses. Their only aim, he said, was serve individual web surfers. “Enterprise has never been (and I’ll argue, shouldn’t be) a focus of ours,” Dotzler said.

      • Delivering a Mozilla Firefox Extended Support Release

        We are pleased to announce that the proposal for an Extended Support Release (ESR) of Firefox is now a plan of action. The ESR version of Firefox is for use by enterprises, public institutions, universities and other organizations that centrally manage their Firefox deployments. Releases of the ESR will occur once a year, providing these organizations with a version of Firefox that receives security updates but does not make changes to the Web or Firefox Add-ons platform. We have worked with many organizations to ensure that the ESR balances their need for the latest security updates with the desire to have a lighter application certification burden.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • LibreOffice Firms Up, Drops Half Its Excess Weight

      “One of the unfortunate things that LibreOffice inherited, as part of the several decades worth of unpaid technical debt, is unused code that has been left lying around indefinitely,” wrote Michael Meeks, a Linux desktop architect at SUSE who coordinates LibreOffice development work, in a blog post on Monday.

    • Oracle releases new Big Data Appliance

      The appliance is an engineered system of hardware and software that incorporates Cloudera’s Distribution including Apache Hadoop with Cloudera Manager, plus an open source distribution of R.

  • CMS

    • Drupal conference keynote to focus on accessibility

      One of the major plus points about free and open source software is that it adheres to widely accepted standards. Rarely does any software of this genre seek to create its own standard in order to do what proprietary systems do – grab marketshare.

  • Education

    • “An Open-Source World”? Where’s The Open Source?

      If we are to believe the early signs, 2012 may well be the year that British schools finally start to address the continuing shame that is ICT teaching. As I and many others have noted, the current approach essentially consists of sitting people in front of Microsoft Word and Excel and making them learn a couple of commands on the menus. It seems that the message has finally got through to the powers-that-be:

      Imagine the dramatic change which could be possible in just a few years, once we remove the roadblock of the existing ICT curriculum. Instead of children bored out of their minds being taught how to use Word and Excel by bored teachers, we could have 11 year-olds able to write simple 2D computer animations using an MIT tool called Scratch. By 16, they could have an understanding of formal logic previously covered only in University courses and be writing their own Apps for smartphones.
      (Or they might just sit down and write a new operating system kernel as someone else did a few years ago.)

      Those words – amazingly – were pronounced earlier today by the UK Education Secretary Michael Gove as part of a long-awaited speech about the future of ICT teaching in the UK.

    • School ICT to be replaced by computer science programme

      The current programme of information and communications technology (ICT) study in England’s schools will be scrapped from September, the education secretary has announced.

      It will be replaced by an “open source” curriculum in computer science and programming designed with the help of universities and industry.

      Michael Gove called the current ICT curriculum “harmful and dull”.

      He will begin a consultation next week on the new computing curriculum.

      He said this would create young people “able to work at the forefront of technological change”.

      Speaking at the BETT show for educational technology in London, Mr Gove announced plans to free up schools to use curricula and teaching resources that properly equip pupils for the 21st Century.

      He said that resources, developed by experts, were already available online to help schools teach computer science and he wants universities and businesses to devise new courses and exams, particularly a new computing GCSE.

  • Public Services/Government

    • Does your local government promote meaningful citizen engagement?

      In a previous post I discussed how Faith Gordon requested the City Council in Lackawanna, NY to make available to the public copies of the entire Council meeting agenda not just a summary. Ms. Gordon requested that the entire City Council meeting agenda including resolutions, memos etc. be put on-line, so that the public can see what the Councilmembers see when voting at a meeting.

      The response Ms. Gordon received from one Councilmember was, “Why do we have to put it on the website? I don’t understand,” said 3rd Ward Councilman Francis J. Kulczyk. “Do we have to do it? Who else does it?”

  • Openness/Sharing

Leftovers

  • Ottawa prepares to launch anti-spam centre

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Rick Santorum Would Be Best President Health Insurers’ Money Could Buy

      I don’t expect that Rick Santorum will be our next president, despite his near-win in Iowa and a decent showing in the New Hampshire primary. I’m pretty certain that when more voters become
      aware of his views and voting record, Santorum will join Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty as former contenders for the GOP nomination.

      But if by some strange turn of events he is sworn in a little over a year from now as our 45th president, no one will be happier than the executives I used to work with in the health insurance industry. Santorum was without a doubt one of the most reliable go-to guys in the Senate when insurers needed a champion for one of their causes. That was certainly true in regard to the industry’s efforts to shift ever-increasing portions of the cost of medical care from them to us.

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Aggression

    • Spain’s Ley Sinde: New Revelations of U.S. Coercion

      While U.S. officials are scrambling to pass domestic Internet censorship legislation in the name of curbing copyright infringement, they’ve been much more effective in their efforts to export these laws abroad. Previously, we’ve examined US attempts to pressure the prior Spanish presidential administration to enact harsh copyright laws. A new letter reported by the Spanish newspaper, El Pais, reveals that the U.S. government didn’t miss a beat when they renewed their threat to put in place trade penalties toward Spain unless the new government enacted a copyright law in a timely manner. The US was dangerously close to getting their dream legislation in Spain last year, but were disappointed when the Spanish executive office deferred to fully enact the copyright law, Ley Sinde, due to its wide unpopularity. Digital activists and Internet rights lawyers internationally recognized that this Spanish law would overtly skirt due process, violate personal privacy, and limit freedom of expression.

    • US pressured Spain to implement online piracy law, leaked files shows

      The US ambassador in Madrid threatened Spain with “retaliation actions” if the country did not pass tough new internet piracy laws, according to leaked documents.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • ALEC and Westin/Starwood: Who is Your Hotel in Bed With While You’re in Bed at Your Hotel?

      Tucson-based civil rights attorney Stacy Scheff believes that Westin Kierland may have violated federal constitutional law when they threw a journalist (and paid guest) out into the dead of night–due to the simple fact that the journalist evicted had written critically of (and was not liked by) the organization hosting a conference at the hotel. (A new story about these events is available here).

    • Inside ALEC: Naked Contempt for the Press and Public in Scottsdale

      Scottsdale, Arizona–A suburb awash in money and golf courses, set against the backdrop of the jagged mountains surrounding Phoenix.

      I was sitting in a sports bar of the Westin Kierland Resort and Spa, swapping journalism stories with Olivia Ward of the Toronto Star on one of the bar’s overstuffed leather couches. Over the course of an hour, the bar filled with conventioneers from the American Legislative Exchange Council’s 2011 States and Nation Policy Summit (SNPS). (A new story on Westin’s connections to other ALEC corporations is available here.)

  • Censorship

    • Notice & Action: EU Commission Must Put Freedom of Expression First

      Following a consultation held in late 2010, the European Commission just announced an action plan on the role of Internet actors in the policing of online content1. One key issue is that of “notice and takedown” measures, which are today implemented in total opacity at the expense of users’ freedom of communication. As the global war on sharing rages, this announcement underlines the pressing need for citizen involvement in this crucial debate to better protect our freedoms online.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Help Preserve the Canadian Public Domain: Speak Out on the Trans Pacific Partnership Negotiations

        Canada celebrated New Year’s Day this year by welcoming the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Carl Jung into the public domain just as European countries were celebrating the arrival of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, 20 years after both entered the Canadian public domain. Canada’s term of copyright meets the international standard of life of the author plus 50 years, which has now become a competitive advantage when compared to the United States, Australia, and Europe, which have copyright terms that extend an additional 20 years (without any evidence of additional public benefits).

      • TPP Copyright Extension Would Keep Some of Canada’s Top Authors Out of Public Domain For Decades

        Last week I posted on the government’s consultation on joining the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations and its potential effect on Canada’s public domain. According to a leaked draft of the proposed intellectual property chapter, the TPP would require countries (such as Canada, New Zealand, and Japan – all current or potential TPP members) that meet the international copyright term standard of life of the author plus 50 years to add an additional 20 years to the term of protection. The extension in the term of copyright would mean no new works would enter the public domain in those countries until at least 2033 (assuming an agreement takes effect in 2013).

      • TPP’s Other Copyright Term Extension: Protection of Sound Recordings Would Nearly Double in Duration

        Europe has been embroiled in a controversy over the copyright term of sound recordings for the past few years. While the law provided protection for a 50 year term, major record labels argued for an extended term to generate more profits from older recordings. Proposals to extend the term in the UK and Europe were widely panned as independent studies found that benefiting a few record labels would come at an enormous public cost (see here or here). For example, the UK Gowers Review of Intellectual Property concluded:

      • Up On My SOPA Box…..

        By now, most people who pay attention to our government and have a pulse, are aware of the Twin Titans of Tech Terror, SOPA and PIPA.

        I am guessing those people comprise about 12 percent of America’s population. The rest are either in tears over Kim Kardashian’s divorce or are ticking off the days until the new season of Dancing with the Stars.

        I’ve often stated that if we were to take measure of the average US citizen’s IQ, based on their television viewing habits, they would place comfortably between a bag of hammers and….uh, Kim Kardashian.

      • Reddit’s anti-SOPA “Nuclear” protest is a good start

        Reddit, the popular link-sharing and social networking site with over 2 billion page-views and 35 million active users a month, is taking the nuclear option in protest about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP draft laws by shutting down on January 18th for 12 hours. During that time, Reddit will suspend its normal operations

        “Instead,” the Reddit administrators state, “of the normal glorious, user-curated chaos of reddit, we will be displaying a simple message about how the PIPA/SOPA legislation would shut down sites like reddit, link to resources to learn more, and suggest ways to take action. We will showcase the live video stream of the House hearing where Internet entrepreneurs and technical experts (including reddit co-founder Alexis ‘kn0thing’ Ohanian) will be testifying. We will also spotlight community initiatives like meet-ups to visit Congressional offices, campaigns to contact companies supporting PIPA/SOPA, and other tactics.”

      • Reddit’s Nuclear Attack On SOPA, The Anti-American Bill

        Reddit, one of the most popular social news site, has decided to go Nuclear to protest the dangerous SOPA, the anti-American bill. The site has threatened to blackout reddit on January 18th from 8am–8pm EST (1300–0100 UTC). Which means there will be no reddit for 12 hours.

        Wikipedia is also planning to block access to Wikipedia in the USA. Many other sites are planning similar protest. It is shameful that the US congress has ignored all the warning by the IT expert and are going ahead to push the bill. These congressmen are not working for the benefit of users or US citizens. They are working for the Hollywood and the corporations who are funding them to pass this bill.

01.10.12

Links 10/1/2012: Linux at the Consumer Electronics Show, Asus Reveals Tablet, Tizen Source Code Release

Posted in News Roundup at 6:33 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Linux Training for Your New Year’s Resolutions

    Immediately on the horizon is our LF331 Developing Linux Device Drivers class on January 16-20, 2012. LF331 introduces programmers to the Linux kernel and the different device drivers used in the Linux kernel space, while hands-on exercises and demos provide the necessary tools to learn how to develop device drivers for Linux. Register by 5pm PT on January 11th and get an early start on the New Year!

  • Linux News From The Consumer Electronics Show 2012

    It’s now CES (Consumer Electronics Show) week in Las Vegas… Phoronix will have you covered on important Linux hardware news.

    The 2012 Consumer Electronics Show doesn’t officially begin until tomorrow, but there’s already some media events, parties, and other meetings taking place.

  • Desktop

    • Happy New Year & Browser and OS stats for 2011

      Operating Systems
      Windows 52.68%
      Linux 38.55%
      Macintosh 6.99%

    • A snapshot of Linux on the desktop

      The Linux desktop landscape is a diverse place. As an open-source operating system, anyone can take the code, make whatever changes they want, and release it as their own custom distribution. A land of diversity, however, also has its pitfalls. Mandriva Linux seems like the most recent candidate to fall, with the company purportedly going under on January 16th if it doesn’t receive an infusion of funds. The funds are being blocked by a shareholder dispute, and it will be a sad story for the once-popular Linux distribution. How many Linux distributions have gone quietly into memory, and which have stayed? What makes Ubuntu so popular? Let’s take a quick look into the the history of Linux on the desktop.

  • Server

    • Server wars: Open-source Java vs Weblogic and WebSphere

      Open source is winning the Java application-server war in the age of the cloud, according to a new survey.

    • AT&T joins ‘Linux for cloud’, boosts HTML5 apps

      Free whitepaper – Unlocking the Enterprise Cloud: How the OpenStack project eliminates Cloud lock-in

      AT&T – one of America’s largest internet, phone and TV service providers – is throwing up an open-source cloud running OpenStack to court application developers.

      The giant has announced AT&T Cloud Architect, a planned service of elastic public, private and bare metal servers wrapped with different storage, network and monitoring options. AT&T Cloud Architect is a developer-centric service due in the “coming weeks”.

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • Relearning KDE

        KDE SC is great in many, many ways, but I have found that some of those ways are anything but obvious. Nothing specific to KDE, though, as it happens with all kinds of software and devices nowadays. Users want the quick route to do their thing, which most often results in them using a tiny portion of the application or device functionality… After all, who reads a darn manual, right?

  • Distributions

    • Freezy Linux – A Retro Distro

      Some people don’t like the way Ubuntu’s user interface has changed in recent versions, and a person from Rome, known as lucazade in the Ubuntu Forums, has done something about it. The Italian has produced a distro called FreezyLinux. It’s based on Ubuntu 11.10 and Gnome 3.2.

    • KahelOS 111111 review

      KahelOS is a desktop Linux distribution derived from Arch Linux. Unlike Chakra, another Arch Linux-based desktop distribution, which uses the K Desktop Environment, KahelOS uses the GNOME 3 desktop environment. It employs a rolling-release development model, and comes to use by way of the Republic of the Philippines.

    • New Releases

      • ExTiX 9 x64 LiveDVD :: The Ultimate Linux System

        ExTiX 9 x64 is a remaster of Ubuntu 11.10 released on 13 October 2011. The original system includes the Desktop Environment Unity with Gnome 3.2. After removing Unity I have installed Gnome Shell and Razor-qt so that everyone on the spot (during live operation) can compare the different Desktop Environments. I have also replaced the original kernel 3.0.0-14-generic with “my” kernel 3.1.6-extix. Kernel 3.1.6 is the latest available stable kernel, which can be downloaded from kernel.org. The system language is English.

    • Red Hat Family

      • CentOS upgrade from 6.0 to 6.1
      • Hats Off To Red Hat

        Red Hat delivered solid third-quarter revenue, which was up by 23% to $290 million due to robust license renewals. The company also benefited a lot on the operational front, as it saw operating margin expand further to 18.5% for the quarter. The company’s earnings also rose at a better-than-anticipated rate of 47% to $38.2 million as its margins continued to improve.

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Canonical outs Ubuntu TV: Brave or stupid?

            Last week we covered the news that Canonical would announce a new Ubuntu concept device at CES. At the time we believed it would be a smartphone or tablet, possibly made by LG. Everyone in the ET bunker was buzzing with the possibilities of such a device, especially when paired with — perhaps — an Ubuntu-based ultrabook. The smiles that had been pasted on our faces quickly melted away this morning, however, when it emerged that this “top secret” project is actually an Ubuntu TV — an ill-fated attempt to launch Canonical into the realm of commercial consumer electronics, and seemingly the product of delusions of grandeur.

          • Canonical Showcases Ubuntu TV and IVI at CES, Exclusive Images
          • Download the Official Ubuntu TV Wallpaper

            Despite all today’s news about Ubuntu’s latest extension into our lives (Ubuntu TV if you haven’t been paying attention) part of me is still left… wanting more.

          • [Video and Tech Specifications] Ubuntu TV Revealed at CES 2012
          • Linux Kernel 3.2 Officially Lands in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
          • Canonical’s Ubuntu TV Surfaces at CES 2012
          • Interactive TV News Round-Up (III): Ubuntu TV, ConnecTV, Civolution, Dijit
          • Ubuntu to move to rapid release Firefox for 10.04 and 10.10

            Ubuntu icon The Ubuntu developers have now decided to switch older versions of Ubuntu, specifically the 10.04 LTS and 10.10 releases, to current releases of Firefox. The new policy will come into place on 17 January when users of those two editions will see their Firefox updated to the current version. Canonical’s Micah Gersten, in announcing the change, points out that 10.04 LTS and 10.10 users have been receiving 3.6 point updates but not “benefiting from new features, support for new web technologies, security enhancements, and performance improvements.” Gersten says that they need to move users to the rapid release model “so that they will continue to receive security updates in a timely fashion.”

          • Flavours and Variants

            • DebEX-Mint 12 Special with KDE 4.7.4 and kernel 3.1.6

              DebEX-Mint 12 Special Live DVD is a remaster of Linux Mint 12 – codenamed “Lisa” released on 26 November 2011. The original system includes the Desktop Environments Gnome 3.2, Gnome Classic (Gnome 2.32) and Mate (a fork of the venerable GNOME 2 Desktop Environment). In DebEX-Mint 12 Special Edition, I have installed KDE 4.7.4 (latest stable version), as an alternative, so that everyone on the spot (during live operation) can compare the different Desktop Environments. I have replaced the original kernel 3.0.0-14-generic (the same kernel as in Ubuntu 11.10) with “my” kernel 3.1.6-debex. The system language is English.

            • Revamp Linux 12 Review

              There is a new light on the Ubuntu horizon, Revamp is a newly released distribution that aims to offer extremely rich graphical effects, and everything you would expect from a full featured desktop environment. Though this version of Revamp is still in the experimental stages I was very impressed by the stability, and the effects are mind-blowing. Revamp 12 is based on Ubuntu 11.10 and uses the full power of Compiz along with many plugins to add effects for even the smallest of desktop actions. Revamp is also running on Deuce-Visage or Two Face, which means that you can login to the Revamp-Compiz desktop, or Gnome Shell.

            • Where Will You Hide the Bodhi?

              I had a brief flirtation with Bodhi Linux this past week. I nuked my CrunchBang Linux install to give it a go. It seemed pretty solid, but after spending some quality time with the distro, I found the version of Network Manager loved to randomly disconnect me from wireless networks…as in, right in the middle of me transferring files, streaming music, and doing tha IRC thing. Very irritating.

              I did a full update to the most recent released version (released in the past few weeks) and found e17 randomly crashing which wasn’t the best addition to a randomly disconnecting wireless connection…and I know that crashes aren’t a problem in e17 since the handler can just restart all the modules and BOOM you’re back. Regardless, the Network Manager disconnection problem eventually irritated me enough to jump ship. I attempted connman, exalt, and wicd but I found myself lost. Since I haven’t used those tools before and the docs very scarce for uprooting Network Manager from Bodhi, it was a stopping point. No worries, it’s still a great distribution and e17 is VERY fast and looks very good on this 7 year old laptop. However, CrunchBang called me back.

            • Ubuntu variants to get 12.04 LTS releases

              The Ubuntu Technical Board has approved three separate proposals which will see Long Term Support (LTS) editions of the KDE-based Kubuntu, Xfce-based Xubuntu and education-oriented Edubuntu appear alongside Ubuntu 12.04 LTS when it is released in April.

            • Xubuntu, Kubuntu, and Edubuntu LTS

              I was delighted to read this morning that the Ubuntu Technical Board has approved Xubuntu and Kubuntu to be LTS versions, as well as Edubuntu based on some further discussion. You can read the meeting log here.

            • Linux Mint Touches All Time High On DistroWatch, Will Ubuntu Recover?

              There was some nasty mud-slinging when Linux Mint topped the DistroWatch ratings, beating Ubuntu. Those who understand how DistroWatch ratings work knew that higher rating did not mean more users. Ubuntu by far has much more users than Linux Mint. But the way Ubuntu fans attacked DistroWatch for being ‘useless’ and some Ubuntu developers coming out with suggestions to game DistroWatch and bring some unknown distro on top to show it is flawed was disgusting. If they believed in gaming the system so much, why they did not game the system and bring Ubuntu on top again?

            • Linux Mint Came To Ubuntu’s Rescue With Cinnamon

              Ubuntu was heavily criticized for Unity which took away a lot of functionality. Then came Linux Mint with the much needed customization. The rise of Linux Mint on DistroWatch is an evidence that Unity has become the reason users are looking at the alternatives of the much loved Ubuntu. Yes, one can say those figures doesn’t matter but that would be an ostrich approach where you put your head in the sand and say everything is fine.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Boxee Box screenshot tour

      This Boxee Box Screenshot Tour was created to accompany our detailed review of the D-Link Boxee Box equipped with updated firmware version 1.5. The tour below includes about 180 screenshots showcasing the Boxee Box’s menu system, extensive suite of multimedia apps, movies and shows selection process, Watch Later feature, and more.

    • An updated Boxee Box review

      Powered by Boxee’s popular media streaming software platform, D-Link’s Boxee Box delivers movies, show episodes, and other A/V content in numerous formats from Internet sites, LAN shares, and attached media to TVs and audio systems.

    • Altair unveils Embedded Linux SDK for LTE chipsets

    • Phones

      • Samsung: ‘We’ll nick Nokia’s global mobe crown this year’

        Samsung is feeling confident that it can ship more handsets than Nokia this year, making it pretty much the top mobile phone company in the world.

        The South Korean firm has already surpassed Apple as the world’s biggest smartphone maker, so if it can overtake Nokia in all handsets, it will take the lead in the competitive field.

      • Tizen’s Source Code Released

        The Linux Foundation hosted, Intel and Samsung backed Tizen project has released the source code of first alpha. Tizen was created when Nokia joined hands with Microsoft and started to kill its own open source initiatives, namely MeeGo. Tizen was created to replace MeeGo.

      • Tizen first release goes live

        The first release of the new Tizen device software has been launched by the Tizen Association. First announced in September 2011, the industry group was created by the LiMo Foundation and Linux Foundation. The Tizen Association started operations on 01 January and will work on industry engagement and in-market support for the Tizen software platform.

      • SDK offers early look at Meego successor Tizen

        The Tizen project, which was launched in September by the Linux Foundation, Intel and Samsung, has now announced the opening of source code repositories and the release of an SDK for the Tizen mobile operating system. Both are described as “very early previews” and are aimed at giving developers the opportunity to take a look at and give feedback on the heir to MeeGo and Limo.

      • Android

        • ATandT, Verizon, Sprint unleash 4G LTE Android phones, tablets

          AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint announced a bevy of Android smartphones — and a few tablets — on the first day of this week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Highlights include the Sony Xperia Ion phone at AT&T, the Motorola Droid 4 and Razr Maxx on Verizon, and Sprint’s first LTE phones: the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and LG Viper.

        • Lenovo Unwraps Android 4.0 ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ Smart TV

          Lenovo is bringing Ice Cream Sandwich to the big screen with a new take on home entertainment. The company is “allowing consumers to customize their TV experience both with the blending of the Web — but also by heightening that experience with Android applications,” said tech analyst Charles King. “It’s also talking about creating a highly integrated home. … You might call it the home cloud.”

        • Nyxio Smart TV featuring Android at CES2012

          A smart tv is good, but a smart tv with Android could be great. Nyxio Technologies is formally announcing the debut of their latest edition to the 2012 product line, The Nyxio Smart TV with Android OS. Ranging in sizes from 21″ to 65″, the whole line will come with HD/LED technology along with touchscreen capability. Nyxio believes this to be a one-of-a-kind Android product and with full access to the Android Market it sounds very interesting!

        • New Slacker app for Android Tablets comes complete with great new features

          Slacker, one of our favorite Android radio apps, is getting an overhaul today at CES. The new update has been optimized for tablets and features superior graphics and album art that’s been made for a 4G LTE network.

    • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

Free Software/Open Source

  • Winners and Losers in Business Open-Source Software

    We all know that Linux, Apache and Samba are vital for business data center servers, Web servers and file and print servers respectively in businesses both large and small. What you may not know though what’s trending below the top-tier of open-source software. That’s where OpenLogic, an enterprise open-source software provider and consultants comes in. In their recent study 2011 Open Source Adoption Trending Report, OpenLogic looks at the winners and losers in open-source software adoption.

  • Open Source: Not Just for Tech Anymore

    Politics is experiencing a growing presence and impact from open source software and ideas. Many of the central tenets of the Occupy movement parallel open source software, including transparency, openness and collaboration. “Occupy” has been described as a type of “open source brand.”

  • The UK Telegraph Diagnoses America’s Problem

    I’ll keep saying it and saying it… How can we effectively advocate Free and Open Source Software, open technology, and Internet freedom when we’re still dealing with people who think computers are magic, not science? And how can we teach computer science to a population that rejects science… period?

  • Nagios Wins Linux Journal Reader’s Choice Award For Best Monitoring Solution
  • How “Throwing One Away” Makes Open Source Better

    There’s a wonderful line in Fred Brooks’ book “The Mythical Man-Month”, where he says that when writing a program, plan to throw one way – you will anyway. But that’s a bit of a problem for conventional software development, because it’s not clear when the best time is to throw that one away.

    Doing it during development means delaying the public release, and that will cost you market share and possibly the entire market. First-mover advantage means that the really important thing is to get out there with something – however ropey – and hope to patch it up as you go along (think repairing aeroplanes as they fly….)

  • Events

    • Coming to FOSDEM?

      One of the most important events of the year for Europe’s open source software developers is the Free and Open Source Developers’ European Meeting – FOSDEM. It’s held annually at the start of February in Brussels, and this year’s instance is coming soon, on the first weekend in February.

  • W
    eb Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Firefox 9 Officially Lands in Ubuntu 11.10

        A few days ago, Canonical uploaded the final bits of the Mozilla Firefox 9.0 web browser on the official software repositories for the Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) operating system.

  • SaaS

  • Databases

    • Hadoop vs. an RDBMS: How much (less) would you pay?

      Many people associate open source data framework Hadoop with managing truly massive amounts of data. And with good reason: Hadoop storage is used by Facebook and Yahoo, which many people (rightly) associate with massive data. As you learned in Part 1 of this series, Yahoo, an early adopter and contributor to Hadoop, has implemented a 50,000-node Hadoop network; Facebook has a Hadoop system with more than 10,000 nodes in place.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Oracle’s latest Java moves frustrate users and vendors

      Oracle, which officially took on the big job of shepherding Java two years ago this month, is traveling bumpy roads lately, with its modularization and licensing plans for Java raising eyebrows and security concerns coming to the fore as well.

    • Oracle mounts Cloudera’s elephant for big data ride

      When Oracle co-founder and CEO Larry Ellison clambered onto his own Big Data elephant back in October as his company announced the Big Data Appliance, Oracle gave the impression that it would be rolling up its own implementation of the open-source Apache Hadoop data muncher. This turns out to be not true.

  • Business

    • FuseSource Emerges as a Leader in Professional Open Source in its First Year

    • Semi-Open Source

      • Spring Integration 2.1 now available

        Following more than a year of development, SpringSource, the open source Java division of VMWare, has announced the “general availability” of version 2.1.0 of Spring Integration. According to project lead Mark Fisher, the new release includes a number of new features and resolves “hundreds of issues” found in the previous version. Spring Integration is an extension of the Spring framework for building asynchronous, event-driven applications and supporting Enterprise Integration Patterns such as Channels, Adapters, Filters and Translators.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Project Releases

  • Programming

    • Open Source Development Focuses on Quality PHP Game Development Solutions

      With online gaming development solutions comes many custom game solutions perfect for you, at PHP game development Company game programmer possess the skill-set to meet the game development requirements (in developing basic word or arcade games to any other complicated games) on time without any compromise with quality.

    • A Little Bit is A Lot Better

      Buddy Burden explanation of taking over maintenance of CPAN distributions is important. It’s empowering. If you’ve ever thought “I should contribute something to Perl”, start there.

      You can do it.

      Sure, it’s easy for me to say that. I’ve written a few things about Perl a few people have read. I have a few patches in a few projects and a couple of modules on the CPAN myself. (You’re reading this, aren’t you? So I have at least one reader. Thank you for your time!)

    • Good and quick kernel configuration creation

      Using the make target “localmodconfig” saves time and effort when creating a configuration for a custom Linux kernel.

    • Singleton in a header only library
    • Standard JSON API for Java to be developed

      A new Java interface for processing data submitted in JSON format has been approved by the Java Community Process (JCP) as a Java Specification Request (JSR). With 10 yes votes and 6 abstentions, the Executive Committee voted in favour of JSR 353, which is primarily intended as a basis for the standardised development of further JSON APIs and will allow applications to be smaller and more portable by not having to bundle existing JSON libraries.

    • Code for America opens 2013 application period

      Does your city need to solve a big civic problem? Cities across the United States can now submit their Code for America applications for 2013. Boston, Philadelphia, and Seattle have just wrapped up their 2011 projects. We’re eager to see what happens in Austin, Detroit, Chicago, Honolulu, Macon, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Santa Cruz in 2012. The application process opened on January 9, and applicants have until the end of March to complete their submissions.

Leftovers

  • Margin

    On the other hand, Wintel is trying to sell “ultra”books at close to $1000 and OEMs are thinking they will sell a bunch at a few percent margin with Wintel raking in huge profits. What’s the consumer going to choose, something that can give the whole family and the in-laws a decent computing experience for a similar price or something that works for only one person and sits idling most of the time? Oh yes. There is a market for these low-end gadgets everywhere on the planet. They are not that “low” and end when it comes to performance. They definitely provide acceptable performance for many purposes with all the advantages of portability.

  • Dell Denies Data

    Michael Dell ignores reality when he claims PCs are selling better than tablets all the while tablets are seeing double-digit growth and shipments of Wintel PCs are down or flat depending on where you look. Of course, Dell makes a lot more money selling desktop/notebook PCs than tablets but Dell has missed a lot of revenue as others did better than Dell selling tablets. The key to selling tablets is of course to sell good performance at lower price than the competition. Others are doing that and growing at huge rates.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • The Public’s Last Chance to Comment on Fracking in New York

      The public has until Wednesday to comment on a plan to open up 85 percent of the state of New York to the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.” In 2010, a moratorium on this form of “natural” gas and oil extraction in the state was put in place, but a plan to lift it, advanced by Governor Andrew Cuomo, could change this.

    • For A Million BTU

      The price differential for a million btu is blowing out once again, between Global oil and North American natural gas. The extraordinary discount has persisted for some years. But today, with West Texas Intermediate (WTIC) oil above $100 and Brent oil above $110, the spread has reached new highs. The energy content of natural gas is trading at an 83% discount to WTIC Oil, and at an 85% discount to Brent oil. An economist might be persuaded to say: “That is a gap that must eventually close. Or, at the very least, which gives North American energy markets a huge, competitive advantage to source cheap, domestic btu compared to the rest of the world.” I would not disagree. However, the infrastructure problems associated with energy transition do not make such switching from expensive oil to cheap natural gas an easy, or rapid, endeavor. I address these issues continually, but a post of mine from last year, Vexed By Natural Gas, might be worth a read for those who want to ponder the situation further.

  • Finance

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Lobby firm tries to get ‘wife beater’ nickname for Stella wiped off Wikipedia entry for beer

      For years it used the slogan ‘reassuringly expensive’, a tag-line which reflected its big-budget marketing campaigns.

      But while it aims to entice the upmarket drinker, Stella Artois is still known to the world as ‘wife beater’ because of its high alcohol content and perceived popularity with football hooligans.

    • The Alcohol Industry’s Stealth “Joe Camel” Strategy

      A new study published in the January 2012 issue of the American Journal of Public Health examines the sophisticated PR and marketing strategies that alcoholic beverage companies have used to re-make the image of distilled spirits to appeal to underage drinkers. The article, Joe Camel in a Bottle: Diageo, the Smirnoff Brand, and the Transformation of the Youth Alcohol Market, by James Mosher, utilizes a case study of Diageo’s Smirnoff brand to illustrate the tactics.

  • Copyrights

Links 10/1/2012: Linux 3.3 Plans, More Desktops With GNU/Linux

Posted in News Roundup at 5:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Prof: Schools moving to OpenSim should pay for hosting
  • Google’s Open Source Video Player

    Perhaps Google isn’t all bad these days! A new open source HTML5 video player is yours for the download. As well as being a good showcase app it is also practically useful. It is the architectural core of the new 60 Minutes and RedBull.tv apps available in the Chrome Web Store.

  • Google open sources new HTML5 video tool

    Google chose the PR graveyard shift slot of 4:30 USA Pacific time on Friday afternoon last week to put out its latest communiqué to us, the consuming masses.

    The ‘search giant’ has pushed its latest HTML5 video tool to open source.

    The new Video Player Sample is built with open web technology and is designed to allow developers (and other users) to wrap video up in the required code to be able to release it as a web store application.

  • Rackspace open-sources Dreadnot for failure-free software deployment with Node.js
  • IBM Delivers Open Source Version of EGL Tools
  • Consolidation enables open source software strategy
  • AT&T Signs On With OpenStack Open-Source Cloud

    AT&T on Monday officially signed on with the OpenStack cloud, the Rackspace- and NASA-created open-source cloud computing project.

  • An Interactive eGuide: Open Source
  • ChannelEyes Social Media Cloud Built On Open Source
  • OSQA, the open source Q&A system

    OSQA is the free, open source Q&A system you’ve been waiting for. Your OSQA site is more than just an FAQ page, it is a full-featured Q&A community. Users earn points and badges for useful participation, and everyone in the community wins.

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • The new MPL

        Last week the Mozilla Foundation released version 2.0 of the Mozilla Public License. Immediately recognized as a free software license by the Free Software Foundation and approved as an Open Source license by the Open Source Initiative, MPL 2.0 is a well-crafted modern license that ought to be considered by any open source project desiring a weak copyleft licensing policy.

  • Databases

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Unused LibreOffice Code Expunged

      The more code an application accumulates, the heavier it gets and the slower it performs usually. It’s just basic physics of programming. Since years of neglect left lots of unused code in LibreOffice, contributors have been busy cleaning it up. The latest scan by Michael Meeks shows the efforts are really paying off.

  • Project Releases

    • LSU Releases First Open Source ParalleX Runtime Software System

      Louisiana State University’s Center for Computation & Technology (CCT) has delivered the first freely available open-source runtime system implementation of the ParalleX execution model. The HPX, or High Performance Parallex, runtime software package is a modular, feature-complete, and performance oriented representation of the ParalleX execution model targeted at conventional parallel computing architectures such as SMP nodes and commodity clusters.

  • Public Services/Government

    • NASA: Prize money a bargain for better software

      In October 2010, NASA and the Harvard Business School launched the NASA Tournament Lab, an online platform for contests between independent programmers who compete to create software and algorithms and solve computational problems.

  • Licensing

    • Mozilla Releases OSI-Approved MPLv2

      Last week saw a quiet landmark in the history of the open source movement with the formal release of version two of the Mozilla Public License (MPLv2) and its approval as an official open source license. While to many it may look like just another legal detail, it is significant both for the way it was conducted and for the intent with which it has been created. This is a license aimed at unity.

    • 2011: Top Ten FOSS Legal Developments

      This year, 2011, was one of the most active years in legal developments in FOSS. This activity reflects the increase in FOSS use: Laura Wurster of Gartner, noted in the Harvard Business Review blog that open source has hit a “strategic tipping point” this year with companies increasingly focused on using “open source” software for competitive rather than cost reasons http://lawandlifesiliconvalley.com/blog/?p=619.

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

    • Zend Updates PHP Server Stack for IBM i

      Zend Technologies has launched a major update to Zend Server for IBM i, its PHP server stack for the IBM i platform. Version 5.6 marks the general availability of the new XML Toolkit, which provides a new way for integrating RPG logic into PHP apps, and a new application deployment mechanism. DBi, the drop-in replacement for MySQL on the platform that was slated for release about this time, is not yet ready.

Leftovers

  • Finance

    • REO To Rental Fed Plan Would Do Little For Housing, Says Goldman Sachs

      The Federal Reserve’s foreclosure rental program would do little to lift the ailing housing market, Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a research paper released on Friday morning.

      The analysis, written in response to a Federal Reserve paper released earlier this week, calculates the nationwide effects of renting foreclosed properties as “positive but modest,” possibly fostering a 0.5 percent increase in home prices in the first year of program implementation, and a 1 percent increase in the second year. But those are Goldman’s maximum increases, and the researchers are quick to add that the “actual effect would likely be less.”

    • Goldman’s Infamous ‘Sh*tty Deal’ Turns Out Not To Have Been As Sh*tty As Others

      The infamous Abacus transaction that cost Goldman Sachs $550 million might have been designed to fail, but it turns out that it actually performed better than its peers, according to a new study co-authored by BlackRock and Columbia Business School.

      The Abacus CDOs’ performance, “while undoubtedly bad, was actually better than average among all bonds that had been similarly packaged.”

  • Copyrights

    • Copying the copyrighted is okay if it transforms: What’s that?

      Writing in the New York Times, Randy Kennedy reports on a court decision that would make it illegal to use most work of others still under copyright as the basis for new works which “transform” the original link here.

      “The decision, by Judge Deborah A. Batts, set off alarm bells throughout Chelsea and in museums across America that show contemporary art. At the heart of the case, which Mr. Prince is now appealing, is the principle called fair use, a kind of door in the bulwark of copyright protections. It gives artists (or anyone for that matter) the ability to use someone else’s material for certain purposes, especially if the result transforms the thing used or as Judge Pierre N. Leval described it in an influential 1990 law review article, if the new thing “adds value to the original” so that society as a whole is culturally enriched by it. In the most famous test of the principle, the Supreme Court in 1994 found a possibility of fair use by the group 2 Live Crew in its sampling of parts of Roy Orbison’s “Oh Pretty Woman” for the sake of one form of added value, parody.”

01.09.12

Links 9/1/2012: Ubuntu TV Unveiled, Qooq Runs Linux

Posted in News Roundup at 9:38 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Softpedia Linux Weekly, Issue 181
  • Download Linux From Your Desktop With Get Linux

    How do I download Linux? That’s a question that I hear fairly often. It usually leads to follow-up questions, like what is a distribution, which distribution should I download or how do I install Linux on my PC.

    While it is possible to download a Linux distribution from a project website or developer homepage right away, it is often more comfortable to download it from the desktop without having to search for the download links and homepage in the first place.

  • Desktop

    • A snapshot of Linux on the desktop

      The Linux desktop landscape is a diverse place. As an open-source operating system, anyone can take the code, make whatever changes they want, and release it as their own custom distribution. A land of diversity, however, also has its pitfalls. Mandriva Linux seems like the most recent candidate to fall, with the company purportedly going under on January 16th if it doesn’t receive an infusion of funds. The funds are being blocked by a shareholder dispute, and it will be a sad story for the once-popular Linux distribution. How many Linux distributions have gone quietly into memory, and which have stayed? What makes Ubuntu so popular? Let’s take a quick look into the the history of Linux on the desktop.

  • Kernel Space

    • FIOPS: A New Linux I/O Scheduler For Flash/SSDs

      Last week a new I/O scheduler was presented for the Linux kernel. This new scheduler, FIOPS, is designed around modern flash-based storage devices like solid-state drives.

      Shaohua Li presented FIOPS, the Fair IOPS scheduler, under an “RFC” state last week on the Linux kernel mailing list.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

  • Distributions

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Boxee Box gets a major facelift plus live TV support

      Boxee Box users who enjoy staying on the bleeding edge of features and functions can now download and install beta v1.5 firmware on their devices, by following a fairly straightforward procedure.

      Version 1.5.0.23422 implements quite a few new features and enhancements to the Boxee Box’s user interface. It also adds support for the soon-to-be-available Boxee Live TV adapter option.

    • Phones

      • Emerging markets push growth in handsets, mobile workers

        Smartphone manufacturers are increasingly focusing their efforts on emerging markets, says ABI Research, which forecasts the mobile handset market in general growing 8 percent in 2012, representing 1.67 million shipments. Meanwhile, IDC projects that by 2015, the world’s mobile worker population will reach 1.3 billion, representing 37.2 percent of the total workforce, with the greatest growth expected in emerging markets.

      • Samsung-backed open-source mobile OS Tizen leaks in new screenshots

        Tizen, a new open-source operating system backed by Intel, Samsung and a number of other smartphone manufacturers, has leaked in a number of new screenshots, providing a first look at the new platform that will power new smartphones, tablets, smart TVs and in-car devices.

      • Android

        • Android Powered 3D Goggles To Be Revealed At CES 2012
        • Android Powered 3D Goggles To Be Revealed At CES 2012
        • Wind River Solution Accelerators for Android Released

          Wind River, the maker of embedded and mobile software, has presented Wind River Solution Accelerators for Android, a series of software modules which the company claims can accelerate Android device development and reduce engineering time and cost to help developers turn around high quality devices faster.

        • From the Las Vegas Strip to your living room: Google TV partners at CES

          Last October, we launched an update to Google TV: a simpler interface, a new way to discover great web and TV content, a more TV-like YouTube experience, and Android Market. Since launching the update, we’ve seen our activation rates more than double. New features and new apps are coming to the living room via Google TV almost every day. We now have more than 150 apps which developers have specifically built for TV with thousands more Android apps from the mobile world available to deepen your living room TV experience. We’ve also been working with our hardware partners to bring new Google TV-powered devices to consumers.

        • Lenovo impresses at CES with Android

          The magic that is CES is starting a bit early, thanks to Lenovo. They’ve unveiled several new Android devices, and each is just as impressive as the next.

        • Lenovo outs Ice Cream Sarnie telly

          Lenovo has announced what it claims is the world’s first TV to sport Google’s latest OS, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It’s also the first set with a dual-core processor.

          Having already pitched its new ThinkPad laptop range for the Consumer Electronics Show 2012, the company turned attentions to the living room tech-head, introducing a smart TV, the K91.

    • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

      • OLPC News: The OLPC Tablet at CES?

        It seems that the upcoming OLPC XO 3 Tablet is getting some buzz right before its debut next week at CES. It is said to be an 8″ tablet that may come in a few models. Information about it is currently very sketchy but supposedly some will be revealed next week. I am NOT posting any of the early concept pictures because they are dated and I’m fairly sure the real thing looks quite different… since it is designed to be very rugged for children. Here are some external links to get you in the mood:

      • One Laptop per Child To Unveil XO 3.0 Tablet At CES

        The One Laptop Per Child program’s XO-3 tablet will be revealed next week at CES, according to the project’s founder, Nicholas Negroponte. The XO 3.0 features Marvell’s Armada PXA618 SOC processor and Avastar Wi-Fi SOC, with 512MB of RAM. It can run Android and other Linux operating systems like Fedora. The version that will be shown at the CES will be running Android.

      • Motorola’s Wi-Fi Only Xyboard Tablet Coming Soon!
      • Toshiba launches Excite X10 at CES, redefines the term “sexy tablet”

        Toshiba hasn’t been too involved in the Android tablet world, save for the launch of their Thrive last year. It looks as if they’re aiming to change that in 2012, and they’re starting it off with a bang. Meet the Toshiba Excite X10, the latest in gorgeous Android tablets. Once we get past the brushed aluminum back and incredibly thin (just 7.7mm) profile, the Excite is packing a TI OMAP 4430 dual-core 1.2GHz processor, Ice Cream Sandwich (although it appears to be running stock Honeycomb in the photos), a wide 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 Gorilla Glass display, a 5MP rear camera, 2MP front-facing shooter, stereo speakers, Micro HDMI and Micro SD card ports, and it clocks in at just 1.2 pounds. Impressive enough?

      • Archos G9 101 8GB Android tablet

        Over the years, Archos has pitched much of its kit at the impecunious rather than the technically demanding. However, some of its Android devices like the 43 media player have appealed to both camps. Now it’s trying to repeat the trick with the G9 series of Android 3.2 Honeycomb tablets.

      • Qooq: The French Linux-Based Tablet For Your Kitchen

        The Qooq runs on a 1 GHz Cortex A9 processor, a 10.1-inch display with 1024 x 600 resolution SD card slot, Ethernet port, USB port and a headphone jack under a protective cover. The Linux OS is a specially customised version by Qooq, which it’s it easy to set up and run. Users will be able to access digital cookbooks and other recipe and cooking-related apps and too

      • Qooq: The tomato-proof tablet

        Linux. Designed for the kitchen. The Qooq is one of the weirdest tablet computers we have seen in a while. It’s selling respectably well in France, we are told, and it’s coming to the United States soon.

      • Overcrowded Markets

        Chuckle. The Android/Linux market is only overcrowded to those who are trying to sell that other OS on x86… Newsflash: The world does not owe those who sell that other OS and x86 a living. Free markets work. Manufacturers are making Android/Linux on ARMed tablets and selling them. They make money doing that because there’s no “tax” from M$ and they are not paying twice for the CPU. They will see the same thing on the desktop/notebook markets as well. With a free market, these makers can minimize the cost of manufacture the way sane manufacturers in other industries do.

Free Software/Open Source

  • eyeOS 2.5 Open Source review – how the mighty have fallen

    If you can set up a Linux box with Apache, with a bit of fettling you can use eyeOS to create your own personalised cloud desktop. Michael Reed reviews eyeOS version 2.5…

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • GnuTLS 2.12.16
    • FSFE calls for an amendment of Slovak Copyright Act

      Free Software Foundation Europe calls for an amendment of the Slovak Copyright Act that would eventually enable Free Software and Creative Commons licenses for Slovak citizens. Currently, these licenses are considered to be void due to lack of their written form and problems with formation of the contract. Slovakia is thus one of a few countries where these popular licensing tools still struggle with rigid legislative framework. During the last week, FSFE therefore sent support letters to four members of Slovak Parliament that proposed this highly awaited amendment, but later faced its dismissal due to preliminary elections (See the sample letter below). If you also feel that also other 5 million Europeans should have this option, please support our action and write members of Slovak parliament (regardless of your residence). Explain them what is your experience with Free Software or just reuse our letter. Your support is important!.

  • Project Releases

  • Programming

Leftovers

  • Why The Verge Is Wrong, Acer Did Not Rip Apple’s iCloud

    Apple fans and fan sites keep reminding us they are still trapped in Steve Jobs’ RDF (reality distortion field) that keeps us from seeing the reality and think everyone else is ripping Apple. Paul Miller of The Verge has written an article “Acer’s AcerCloud unveil is a blatant iCloud ripoff”. He goes on to put images of Apple’s iCloud Slides next to AcerCloud slides. (Business Insider also did a similar story without doing any home work.)

  • Security

  • Censorship

    • Hackerspace Global Grid to make an Uncensorable internet in space?

      The wilder shores of the internet are awash with bizarre stories but the one I’m about to relate just has to be one of the most extraordinary things I have ever heard in relation to FOSS. You will have heard about SOPA and the reaction against it in the open source community including petitions, boycotts of GoDaddy etc. Look, that’s small potatoes. What these guys are plannng is out of this world. Literally. Read on.

      Every hacker, geek and commentator has their own solution to circumvent internet censorship but some people’s reaction has been ballistic. In the actual sense of the word. A bunch of open source enthusiasts, hackers and amateur scientists at the Hackerspace Global Grid project have decided that the only way to escape internet censorship is to, well, reach escape velocity and launch communication satellites into orbit. Ambitious is not the word. Better still, the software and the hardware will be free and open. To track and support satellites there will be a distributed network of ground tracking stations using FOSS.

    • 2011: The Coming of Gestalt Politics?

      If there’s anything 2011 will be remembered for, it’s probably going to be the wave of mass protests that reverberated around the world (and is still traveling). I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this. I think this is the leading edge of an on-going pattern that will continue for decades. What’s happened is that a kind of behavior common online has jumped a groove and found a place in the “real world”.

    • Copyrights

      • Creative Commons and FreeSound.org Phase Out Sampling Licenses, Choose More Freedom

        A few years ago, I discovered a site called “FreeSound.org” which sounded quite exciting, but turned out to be rather disappointing because the content was released under the Creative Commons “Sampling+” license, which is not a free license. This made all of the content incompatible with use on free software or free culture projects, and was very frustrating, especially given the name. Last month, though, Creative Commons decided to retire the Sampling+ licenses, and FreeSound.org is rolling out a new site with a license chooser that favors the “CC 0″ public domain declaration and the “CC By” attribution licenses — both compatible with free projects. This will be a big help for free-culture multimedia projects.

Links 9/1/2012: OLPC’s XO 3.0, Boot to Gecko (B2G)

Posted in News Roundup at 11:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Audiocasts/Shows

  • Kernel Space

    • Bufferbloat To Be Fought In Linux 3.3 With BQL

      Byte Queue Limits is reported to bring significant performance improvements across nearly all Linux package schedulers and AQMs. Byte Queue Limits is a way to limit a network controller’s hardware queues by number of bytes rather than number of packets, which can reduce buffer bloat. A much more detailed description of BQL can be found from the 2011 LPC page. This is merged into the Linux 3.3 kernel with the “net-next” pull.

    • Graphics Stack

      • Sprite Support For Wayland’s Weston

        There’s some RFC patches out this week from Intel’s Jesse Barnes that provides sprite support for the recently announced Weston Compositor for the Wayland Display Server.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • Introduction To The Enlightenment 17 Window Manager For X (Ubuntu 11.10)
    • Desktops for Netbooks – KDE, Unity, or Gnome

      Maximizing the use of screen space on netbook computers is critical, and it really helps when the desktop environment correctly size window to fit the screen. While writing about the KDE, Unity, and Gnome 3 desktops for my Basic Linux course, I made some interesting discoveries.

      For the KDE Project, I discovered the Plasma Netbook Workspace. For KDE SC 4.7, you just need to go to Configure Desktop -> Workspace Behavior -> Workspace and change the value from Desktop to Netbook. For the Plasma Netbook Workspace, the application launcher are on the Workspace, including Krunner, which is a great way to find applications. Windows open as maximized, and the task bar slide off the top of the screen. The title bar is part of the task bar, so the application window has the entire screen. To launch additional applications, or switch between applications, just press <Alt> and then tab the <Tab> key, and select the the workspace you want. With the Plasma Workspace, I have not found a window that does not size correctly to the screen. I knew I switched to openSUSE for a reason.

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • Answering a tricky question with the KStars desktop planetarium package

        In an earlier phase of my life, I worked as a professional astronomer, and I’ve loved space and astronomy since before I could pronounce the words. So naturally, I’ve gotten a lot of personal pleasure from the free software astronomy tools that are included in my Debian GNU/Linux system. But ironically, I haven’t written about them much. Recently, though, I was asked a question which I used KStars to answer, so this is a good chance to talk about how to use it.

      • Thoughts on KDE activities and workspaces

        The traditional desktop included menus, and icons for launching applications and various kinds of shortcuts. At times and in many environments widgets and things could also be added to it, along with task and window management, notifications, indicators, etc. These all came about separately with no cohesive vision, and as space became cluttered from all these things, virtual desktops were used to make it easier to help spread out all that clutter over multiple workspaces, at least for the single-headed users. This is perhaps best represented in very traditional desktops like gnome 2 and xfce4.

        Some looked at this as an awful mess and decided it was bad, but two very different visions came about from it. The first was in the KDE project, where it seems to me they thought about how all these different elements finally could be organized in a better way by the desktop itself to increase user productivity. From this we got plasma desktop and concepts like KDE activities. Those involved in GNOME, on the other hand, saw this as a question of how to remove all but what they believed are the bare minimal essentials. These two visions are I think almost polar opposites.

      • The Great Features of KDE Workspaces and Applications Part V – Gwenview

        After few super-busy weeks I finally have time to sit down and write another part of this blogseries. In this installment I’ll introduce Gwenview – the default KDE Application for viewing images.

      • Search this site:
        KDE Commit-Digest for 18th December 2011
      • Encryption in KDE SC
      • Active Settings: Modular, embeddable configuration

        Plasma Active‘s goal is develop an elegant, Free user experience for the device spectrum, for example touch-based tablets. Active Settings is a modular application hosting configuration user interfaces for apps and the system.

    • GNOME Desktop

  • Distributions

    • DreamLinux 5 Review

      DreamLinux is a distribution that is based on Debian “Wheezy” and using the latest desktop version of XFCE 4.8 on a Linux 3.1 Kernel.

      DreamLinux has just released this latest version after a long absence and we will see if it can make up for lost time.

    • An eye on simpleLinux GNU/Linux

    • Red Hat Family

      • Fedora

        • Why the Fedora ISV SIG never caught fire

          Once upon a time, it was part of my job to help these kinds of companies to work more closely with Fedora. We created the ISV SIG for this purpose. Karsten and I would go to trade shows and meet with various open source vendors, and we’d talk with them at length about the great benefit of leveraging the Fedora install base, and the power of “yum install YourCoolProduct”, and the general usefulness of building an ISV packaging community, and they’d nod and smile, and then we’d have a follow-up meeting or two to discuss the ins and outs of being in a distro. And then… well, nothing much would happen.

        • Geek Software of the Week: Dr. Bill’s Perfect Fedora 16 Build!

    • Debian Family

      • Second beta version of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze

        I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish the second beta version of Debian Edu / Skolelinux.

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • System Settings for Precise

            With Unity we have been trying to raise the bar innovating in the User Experience with new UI elements, such as Dash and Overlay Scrollbars. But this shouldn’t come at the cost of overlooking less exciting but essential core areas of the OS.

          • Launcher Reveal Prototype
          • 2012: The Year of Ubuntu

            At this time of year I like to read forward-thinking and philosophical writings. It’s one of the ways I try to “reboot” my thinking processes and clear the way for new ideas. In that quest today, I discovered an interesting and helpful research paper on Ubuntu written by Tom Bennett at the University of Cape Town entitled “Ubuntu: An African Equity.”

            Though written in the context of law several ideas presented resonated with what I’ve seen both online and in the “in-real-life” community.

          • ‘Ubuntu TV’ to be Revealed at CES

            An Ubuntu-powered internet TV is Canonical’s mystery ‘Ubuntu Concept Design’.

          • Cinnamon Desktop Gets First Custom Theme

            Canonical design team has revealed some more plans for the upcoming LTS release in a series of blog posts. Along with multi-monitor setup improvements, new changes have been proposed for system and sound settings.

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Linux Mint signs a partnership with Blue Systems

              Blue Systems is a German company sponsoring Free and Open Source projects such as Netrunner and KDE-projects like kcm-gtk-config.

              As part of the partnership, Linux Mint will share its knowledge and expertise with Netrunner and both distributions will work together on improving their respective KDE editions. Although Netrunner and Linux Mint KDE offer a different experience, they’re built on the same technology. This cooperation between the two distributions will have positive effects on both.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Cool little cheapo Linux device for 2012…

      Good news this start-of-year 2012 for some of us Linux DIY tinkerers:
      The little Raspberry Pi device is set to be released soon.
      The Raspberry Pi comes as a Printed Circuit Board with a processing System on a Chip (also known as a PCB with a SoC). Already eBay is auctioning off the first Beta releases of these boards, see Raspberry Pi – first 10 on eBay!

    • OLPC

      • OLPC’s XO 3.0 tablet hands-on (video)

        OLPC announced the XO 3.0 tablet yesterday, and today we had a chance to sit down with the company’s CTO, Ed McNierney and Marvell’s Chief Marketing Officer Tom Hayes, who gave us a tour of the new tablet. The XO 3.0 is powered by Marvell Armada PXA618 silicon, which lowers the power requirements of the tablet to a scant 2 watts. That chip, along with the custom charging circuitry developed by OLPC and Marvell means that the tablet can be charged by a hand crank at a 10:1 ratio (10 minutes of usage time for every minute spent cranking), or by the optional four watt solar panel cover at a 2:1 ratio on sunny days. Like other OLPC devices, the XO 3.0 is customizable to customer needs — so you can get the CPU clocked at 800Mhz or 1GHz, a 1500 – 1800 mAh battery, and your choice of a Pixel Qi or standard LCD display. The slate comes with 512MB of RAM, 4GB of NAND storage, USB and USB On-The-Go ports, plus the standard OLPC power and sensor input ports as well.

      • OLPC XO 3.0 Hands On: The $100 Wonder Tablet

        OLPC XO 3.0 Hands On: The $100 Wonder Tablet Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child initiative has historically been more about promise than fulfillment. But in the $100 XO 3.0 tablet, OLPC may have its first product that’s not just practical, capable, or cheap. It’s actually… good.

      • The Inside Story of India’s $50 Computer Tablet

        The annual gadget bacchanalia known as CES kicks off next Tuesday in Vegas, but as has been the case for the past decade, the most important new product in consumer electronics won’t be there.

      • San Francisco State University signs an MOU with OLPC

Free Software/Open Source

  • Many Eyes, Many Heads

    “Many eyes” does not mean FLOSS is perfect but that it can be made more perfect more rapidly and with greater certainty than closed software. “Many eyes” permitted the bugs to be found and corrections proposed. Otherwise, those bugs would have been found eventually by evildoers and we would have been victimized. This is one of the main reasons FLOSS is less targeted by malware. Many more bugs exist in closed software and few are motivated or able to fix them. That’s why the world wastes tens of $billions fighting malware in closed source software. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and it’s certainly less expensive.

  • What Minecraft Can Teach Us About Open Source Communities

    Along with the praises I’ve already heaped upon Minecraft and the fascination I’ve continued to have with it, I’ve been enthusiastic about it because of its very unique development pattern.

    Minecraft, you see, is developed a little bit like open source software evolves. The lead developer, Notch (Markus Persson and his company Mojang AB), has been plugged into online social media since day one. He tweets, he blogs, he responds to forums, he asks users what they want to see put in next. And also the game has a thriving mod community (even I’ve done a custom texture pack). What’s more, when a mod becomes particularly popular, Notch ends up incorporating it into the game, such as with the pistons mod. For another example, the game now includes ways to switch custom texture packs.

    Watching Minecraft “grow up” for two years has been a unique experience in studying how software and the community around it grows together. Here, we have an example of a developer who bends over backwards to make everybody as happy as he possibly, humanly can.

  • Super short review: Minix 3

    The world of the UNIX system is very wide.
    There are many different flavours. Linux is just one of them. Honestly, though, it is the most popular and the most widely used.

  • Web Browsers

Leftovers

  • Finance

    • MF Global Inquiry Turns to Its Primary Regulator

      Federal authorities investigating the collapse of MF Global have expanded their inquiry to include the actions of the CME Group, the operator of the main exchange where the commodities brokerage firm conducted business, according to people briefed on the matter.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Here Comes the National Internet

      I first heard about the concept of a national Internet over a decade ago while visiting the offices of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and discussing threats to the Internet. It was apparent then and it is apparent now that most countries, including the U.S., will eventually shut down the “World Wide” Web and instead use the technologies developed by the Internet community to cocoon itself. It solves endless political problems with the Web that plague almost every country.

  • Copyrights

    • Libre.fm: A music sharing site just for free-culture works

      You’ve probably heard of “Last FM”, a music playlist site that allows users to track their favorite bands and listen to music streamed over their mobile devices. But you may not have heard of Libre FM, a recent free software project and free culture web application intended to serve this purpose exclusively for free-licensed musical works.

      I discovered this site when I was looking for what happened to some of the bands that had left Jamendo, and it does serve some of the same purposes. I do have certain doubts about it as a reliable source as yet — it’s still very much in an “alpha” state, and the software is therefore fairly incomplete. It’s missing many of the features I’ve come to rely on with Jamendo (still the best site I know for this kind of search).

01.07.12

Links 7/1/2012: Red Hat HQ in Raleigh, Linux Mint 12 Reviews, New OLPC

Posted in News Roundup at 7:10 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Replacing Proprietary Windows Software with GNU/Linux

    I’ve written recently about main points on migrating from Windows to GNU/Linux. Those reasons included one which pertains to the software included with the GNU/Linux distributions, and replacing those proprietary products with those on GNU/Linux that you will never need to re-buy or pay upgrades for again in the future. But how is this done? With time and patience, which not everybody has. But if you do, it will pay off dearly over the years you stay on the open source road. One warning though, migrating is not for the timid, it IS a lot of work.

  • Desktop

  • Server

    • The 7 Best Servers for Linux

      System administrators who need a Linux system will often opt to purchase a bare-metal system and install Linux on the system their way. After all, Linux folks are a rogue, radical ilk. They think differently. They administer servers differently. And, they purchase systems differently. The CXO, purchasing agent or other money-responsible party, on the other hand, has the corporate trust to buy the best available technology at the best price he can negotiate. That’s a tremendous burden.

  • Kernel Space

    • Linux p-p-picks up power profiling for peripherals

      Linus Torvalds has signed off on the latest release of the Linux kernel, version 3.2, and it contains several additions aimed at power-management. The new code modules have been submitted over the past year by engineers working at Samsung and Texas Instruments, among others.

    • Weekend Project: Get to Know Btrfs

      The Butter/Better/B-tree Filesystem, Btrfs, is supposedly destined to become the default Linux filesystem. What makes it special, and what’s wrong with good old tried-and-true Ext2/3/4?

    • Graphics Stack

      • Intel SNA Architecture Is Constantly Evolving

        Intel’s experimental “Sandy Bridge New Acceleration” (SNA) acceleration architecture is a constant work-in-progress that even in the past two weeks over the holidays has received more than 100 changes. How though is this new 2D acceleration architecture fairing these days rather than the stock UXA configuration? In this article are our first Intel SNA benchmarks of 2012 when enabling this architecture.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

  • Distributions

    • New Releases

      • Linux privacy distribution Tails updated to version 0.10

        Version 0.10 of Tails, the live distribution of Linux that aims to protect privacy and anonymity, has been released. Tails is essentially a Debian Linux, combined with Tor and other privacy or anonymity respecting applications, which can be booted and used from either a USB stick or CD. All internet traffic is routed through the Tor network, which should make all communications anonymous. Tails, an acronym for “The Amnesic Incognito Live System”, was inspired by the now abandoned Incognito LiveCD.

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

      • Mandriva Linux Maker Could Face Bankruptcy in 10 Days

        “I regret to inform you that none of the recapitalization schemes that were proposed at the meeting of shareholders on December 5 was accepted,” wrote Mandriva CEO Dominic Loucougain in a letter to shareholders dated Dec. 23, 2011, and published on the Mandriva Forum on Friday.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat Moving Headquarters From NCSU To Downtown Raleigh

        The City of Raleigh announced today during a press conference hosted by Mayor Nancy McFarlane that Red Hat will move its global headquarters from NC State University’s Centennial Campus to the RBC Bank Tower in downtown Raleigh.

      • Red Hat recruiting open-source firms to Raleigh

        As Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT) prepares to move its headquarters to downtown Raleigh and expand its operations, the company is also trying to build an open-source community in the city.

        Chief Executive Jim Whitehurst said Friday that he has already persuaded another open-source software development company to open a 12-person office in Raleigh, but he declined to identify the firm.

      • City, Red Hat tout Raleigh as open-source leader

        Mayor Nancy McFarlane formally welcomed Red Hat to downtown, saying Friday that the software company’s presence will help Raleigh become a national hub for open-source technology.

      • Incentives Lure Red Hat Downtown: Are They Worth It?

        When Red Hat began a search to expand in fall 2009, reports indicated they were considering sites in other states as well as a site in the Tobacco District of Durham County. For the past several months, three governments have offered incentives to the open source giant Red Hat to retain its presence.

      • Red Hat picks Raleigh as global headquarters

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Canonical launches Ubuntu One Files iOS app
          • Revisiting Ubuntu Design

            In 2010 I wrote about the challenge Canonical faced in revamping the design of Ubuntu, and later looked at the tough road they had ahead of them with Unity and the Community. In the past few days I’ve revisited the operating system to see how far they had progressed, and while the default look of Unity is beautiful, the system still faces significant challenges.

          • Install MPlayer2 And SMPlayer2 In Ubuntu

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Mint is fun, client-focused Linux distro

              When Ubuntu decided last year to abruptly replace the familiar Gnome UI with its own Unity interface, many users were upset. And according to the latest numbers from DistroWatch, Linux Mint has been the major beneficiary, so we decided to test Linux Mint 12.

            • Linux Mint 12 Lisa Review

              Until the release of Ubuntu 11.04, Gnome 2.x seemed to have become the standard desktop interface for Linux. It was the default for Ubuntu, Fedora and Linux Mint, three of the biggest distributions, and many others relied on it too. Of course, lots of people use KDE, but since they released version 4, things seemed to have swung in Gnome’s favour.

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Mock commercial undermines new Vote 4 Energy oil advertisement

      Today, the American Petroleum Institute unveiled its 2012 Vote 4 Energy astroturf campaign, centered around a major election-linked CNN advertising package that PolluterWatch helped expose last month with audio recordings from inside the studio. Vote 4 Energy attempts to show ‘real Americans’ who are ‘energy voters,’ meaning they are committing to vote for whichever politicians support Big Oil’s dirty agenda in this election year. Typical. API also bought the back page of the A section of the Washington Post with a Vote 4 Energy ad, space that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to normal people.

  • Privacy

    • Private agency paid to monitor protest groups

      THE federal government has outsourced law enforcement surveillance of environmental and other protest groups, with a key monitoring service operating from an inconspicuous Melbourne apartment block.

  • Civil Rights

    • Michael Hastings on war journalists

      Rolling Stone‘s Michael Hastings — whose 2010 article on Gen. Stanley McChrystal ended the Afghanistan War commander’s career by accurately reporting numerous controversial statements made in a series of interviews — embodies the pure journalistic ethos. Some of the most celebrated establishment military reporters in America attacked Hastings for that article on the ground that it violated a sacred trust between Generals and war reporters (The New York Times‘ John Burns), and even baselessly insinuated that he fabricated the quotes and then went on to impugn his patriotism when compared to The Great General (CBS News’ Lara Logan).

      Even worse, The Washington Post, ABC News and others irresponsibly published totally anonymous military sources claiming with no basis that Hastings violated ground-rule agreements for the interviews.

01.06.12

Links 6/1/2012: Alpine Linux 2.3.3, Mandriva in Danger

Posted in News Roundup at 9:31 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • The Linux sex life – An illustrated story

  • Desktop

    • ThinkPad X1 Hybrid packs both x86 and ARM processors

      Lenovo has announced a 13.3-inch notebook computer that has both Intel and ARM processors. The ThinkPad X1 Hybrid combines an Core i3, i5, or i7 CPU with a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon, allowing users to toggle between Windows 7 and a Linux-based “Instant Media Mode” operating system whenever they want.

  • Audiocasts/Shows

  • Kernel Space

    • Razer BlackWidow, Other Products On Linux?

      The Razer BlackWidow is an incredibly well constructed mechanical keyboard, but how well does it work under Linux? Has the Razer product support at Linux improved at all recently?

      A few weeks ago I picked up the Razer BlackWidow keyboard for my main machine in the office. I didn’t pick-up this keyboard for any gaming, but rather having been a big fan of their mice, keyboards, and other peripherals over the years. Razer is obviously a gaming-focused company, but their many products I’ve either bought or received as samples have been wonderful. The build quality is great along with an impressive feature-set and being very reliable.

    • Did Your System Take A Dive With Linux 3.2?

      If you upgraded today to the just-released Linux 3.2 kernel and your Intel system is now having problems booting this new kernel release, you’re not alone, but here’s a possible workaround.

      A regression struck the Linux 3.2 kernel concerning IOMMU and is still present in the final release of Linux 3.2. The issue didn’t appear during the 3.2 merge window but later on in the cycle (if my memory serves me when I first struck the issue, it was around -rc2 or -rc3) and results in the kernel not successfully booting.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • Success of GNU/Linux on the Desktop

      GNU/Linux has been a success on the desktop with every distro I have tested since 2000: Caldera eDesktop, Mandrake, Slackware, K12LTSP, Fedora, Red Hat, Ubuntu, Debian GNU/Linux and a few others I forget (failure of my memory, not the distros). Government, education, business, individuals, OEMs all use it successfully. Consider what some might call a failure on the desktop, Dell and Ubuntu. Just because Dell.com looks like a GNU/Linux desert means nothing. That’s in the home country of M$, the Great Satan of operating systems. Dell is selling GNU/Linux like hotcakes in China. It’s a wild success. They have 220 bricks-and-mortar stores pushing the product.

    • GNOME Desktop

      • 3.3.3 Of GNOME Shell, Mutter Try To Fix Things Up

        Version 3.3.3 packages of GNOME Shell and Mutter were independently released today. These latest development snapshots in the road to GNOME 3.4 mainly try to address outstanding issues.

        There’s already been numerous advancements in the road to GNOME 3.4, but for the 3.3.3 release of the GNOME Shell and for the Mutter compositing window manager there isn’t too much to get excited about.

  • Distributions

    • Fedora, Mint, openSUSE, Ubuntu: Which Linux desktop is for you?

      There are more interesting Linux desktop distributions to choose from than ever before. However, if you’re looking for major distros with a great deal of support, you’ll want to look at the big four: Fedora, Mint, openSUSE, and Ubuntu.

      Each has its own outlook and methods. Thanks to Linux’s customizability, you could take any of them and completely revamp it, if you wish. But unless your idea of a good time is operating system hacking, chances are you’ll want a distribution that already meets your needs.

    • New Releases

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

      • Mandriva in danger of closing its doors

        Mandriva S.A. hasn’t had an easy time of it, even after emerging from bankruptcy in 2006. Formerly MandrakeSoft, the company merged with Brazilian Linux vendor and former UnitedLinux partner Connectiva in 2005.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat Introduces Storage Solutions Software for Enterprises

        Red Hat, Inc., the pioneer in Open Source solutions has unveiled its new integrated product for storage solutions, the “Red Hat Storage Software Appliance” for Enterprises. The software can be deployed on a list of compatible hardware through an ISO image file. It offers support for mission critical and latency-sensitive data. It is even POSIX complaint, hence easing the deployment. The software makes use of GlusterFS 3.2, which provides scale-out storage solutions, without having to use the monolithic platforms, which are costly. The software comes as a balm on the fear that Open Source software isn?t capable of providing storage solutions for huge chunks of data.

    • Debian Family

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

  • Geospatial services with FLOSS: Interview with Oslandia

    In this interview Olivier Courtin and Vincent Picavet, founders of geospatial service provider Oslandia, share with us their business story, some advice and how free and open source geospatial software plays a major role in their company. Enjoy the interview!

  • Why open source needs Simon Cowell

    With apologies for the sensationalist headline, Simon Brew wonders how to get a realistic debate going in the modern world…

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Can Mozilla Unify Open Source?

        This week saw a quiet landmark in the history of the open source movement with the formal release of version two of the Mozilla Public License (MPLv2) and its approval as an official open source license. While to many it may look like just another legal detail, it is significant both for the way it was conducted and for the intent with which it has been created. This is a license aimed at unity.

        Drafting and reviewing the license has been a very open process, for which Luis Villa deserves much credit. Conducted mostly on open forums, the discussion has led to many revisions of the text. Luis also approach the Open Source Initiative early, accepting input from the License Review group and obtaining the Board’s approval easily.

  • CMS

  • Project Releases

  • Public Services/Government

    • NASA Discovers Open Source Planet

      NASA, like many mega organisations uses Free Software or Open Source due to the uncountable advantes it has over the proprietary technologies. NASA has been a user of open source forever, but we did not see much code coming out. Which is totally fine. You don’t have to relase the code of the work that you use. But, if you do it will benefit everyone.

      In addition, if the code is of no use to the rest of the world, there is no point in releasing it either. However, a lot of what NASA does enhances the quality of life and software is no exception.

Links 6/1/2012: KDE SC 4.8 is Coming, Tails 0.10 Released

Posted in News Roundup at 8:36 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • “Is this even LEGAL?”

    Chuckle. That was the reaction of one person to discovering GNU/Linux after being disgusted by that other OS falling down. After hearing so much about restrictions on copying in that other OS and the cost of repairing it repeatedly, the thought of Free Software for $0 does seem strange. “How can this be?” is reasonable, but the answer is simple: The world needs software and can make its own. The world does not need to sell itself software that it makes for itself any more than you need to pay yourself for mowing your lawn or washing your dishes. You don’t charge visitors for their enjoyment of your lawn and eating from clean plates. It’s a chore that needs to be done in the modern world and millions of contributors can share the software by including a licence to use and copy with the software that you can download and run, install, share and even examine and modify.

  • Linux Will Eat Oracle’s Lunch in 2012, Says Analyst

    In 2012, a shocking number of enterprises will slink away from Oracle into the arms of competitors Red Hat and SUSE, new market research finds. This comes even though Oracle has its own flavor of Linux that is basically a copy of Red Hat’s.

  • How to Craft a Killer Cover Letter for Linux Jobs
  • Lenovo Delivers Hybrid Laptop, Switches Between Linux and Windows
  • It’s CES Early! Lenovo Trots Out ThinkPad Ultrabook, X1 Linux Hybrid

    The hybrid’s pictured up top, dubbed the X1 Hybrid, a 13.3-inch (1366 by 768 pixel LED display) Thinkpad wielding your choice of Intel core i3, i5 or i7 CPUs and up to 8GB of memory. It runs Windows, of course, but lets you switch over to Linux with the press of a button if you want to max out battery life, something Lenovo’s calling Instant Media Mode (IMM). IMM mode runs off a Qualcomm dual core processor and can access up to 16GB of memory. “To switch to IMM from Windows, users simply click on an icon on the laptop’s home screen,” says Lenovo. “With IMM, users can watch videos, view photos, listen to music, browse the web and even work on documents with double the battery life, up to 10 hours.” Look for all that in a 0.6-inch thin chassis with your choice of 320GB or 160GB solid state drive for storage. The price: About $1,599, says Lenovo, and it’ll be available in Q2 2012.

  • 2012 to be year of Linux domination

    Previously, I’ve called out years for non-desktop Linux in 2008, Linux in both the low and high-ends of the market in 2009, ‘hidden’ Linux in 2010 and last year, cloud computing in 2011. For 2012, I see continued growth, prevalence, innovation and impact from Linux, thus leading to a 2012 that is dominated by Linux.

  • Desktop

    • Going All-FOSS With a New Computer

      There are many different ways to define “free” software, noted Slashdot blogger Barbara Hudson. “Some software costs money, some costs more in terms of time. Some software has more restrictions attached to it. And just as previous generations wasted their time arguing about angels dancing on pin-heads, today’s pin-heads dance around shouting why their definition of ‘Free’ is the only one that matters.”

    • Switching off Apple and going back to my old Mutt

      I BOUGHT a Lenovo Thinkpad X220 today. After a few years’ foray into the world of Macs, I’m moving back to using Linux as my desktop.

  • Kernel Space

    • Linux 3.2 kernel released: What you need to know

      After a long delay due to kernel.org being hacked in August 2011, Linux 3.2 has finally been released. It’s a whopper of a release with optimizations and tweaks in nearly every facet of the OS; here’s the rundown of what’s new inside and why you want to upgrade to it.

    • What’s Coming For The Linux 3.3 Kernel DRM Pull

      Now that the Linux 3.2 kernel is released, the Linux 3.3 kernel merge window is open. Here’s a quick look at what should be queued up for the Linux 3.3 kernel when it comes to the DRM graphics area.

    • The kernel column with Jon Masters – a look back at 2011

      This month Jon Masters takes a break from looking at the very latest developments in the Linux kernel community, to bring two New Year special editions of his column. We start with a look back at 2011 with a look into the future to follow…

    • Linux Rings in the New Year with 3.2 Kernel
    • Fusion-io demos billion IOPS server config

      Start transforming your infrastructure today with HP

      Fusion-io has achieved a billion IOPS from eight servers in a demonstration at the DEMO Enterprise event in San Francisco.

      The cracking performance needed just eight HP DL370 G6 servers, running Linux 26.35.6-45 on two, 6-core Intel processors, 96GB RAM. Each server was fitted with eight 2.4TB ioDrive2 Duo PCIE flash drives; that’s 19.2TB of flash per server and 153.6TB of flash in total.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • KDE Makes Second 4.8 Release Candidate Available

        January 5, 2012. Today KDE released the second release candidate for its renewed Workspaces, Applications, and Development Platform. With API, dependency and feature freezes in place, the KDE team’s focus is now on fixing bugs and further polishing new and old functionality. Please give this release another good round of testing to help us release a rock-solid 4.8 later this month.

      • KDE SC 4.8 Will Be Released In Two Weeks

  • Distributions

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Raspberry Pi Lands eBay Bidding Up To $2,700 USD

      The Raspberry Pi beta boards that are currently auctioning on eBay are reaching bids of up to $2,700 USD. The retail version will sell for $25 and $35 USD.

    • Someone Is Paying $US3000 For This Tiny PC
    • Here’s A Good Sign That HP’s Decision To Open Source WebOS Will Pay Off

    • Phones

      • Taiwan market: Smartphones account for 55% of total handset sales in December

        Sales of smartphones in the Taiwan market totaled 450,000 units in December 2011, accounting for a 55% share of a total of 820,000 handsets sold in the month, according to data compiled by local channel operators.

      • Android

        • High Noon – Android/Linux v “8″ on ARM in 2012

          Is a monopoly any longer a monopoly when OEMs have a choice? Nope. Free Software trumps non-free when it comes to small cheap computers. ARM is not going away and in 2012 every consumer on the planet will have a chance to own an ARMed PC. By 2013 the competition to sell ARMed PCs will swamp the x86 shipments and Wintel will be out in the cold looking in at the warmth of the fire.

        • Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 Kernel Source Code Hits The Open Source Release Center

          While we’ve yet to actually see a release date for the Galaxy Tab 7.7 that Samsung debuted back in September, the company has now dropped the kernel source code for the device. In the past, this usually indicates an impending release, so we’re willing to bet that availability will be officially announced at CES next week.

        • Google TV switches to Marvell’s new dual-core ARM SoC
        • Making VoIP Calls With Your Android Phone
        • Should Android and Linux marry?

          There have been thoughts and speculation floating around the web recently of Android and Linux merging again. What gets me is that everybody seems to be speaking and thinking of Android as a separate operating system. It is not! Android is just as much Linux based as the Linux based distribution you are using right now.

          Admittedly it has the Linux internals locked away from the average Joe Citizen. However, any free shell program allows you to explore the Linux under the hood. Not only that, any of the many availiable rooting methods (hmmmm reminds me of a joke about a koala :P) will allow you to do anything on an Android device you can do on a major Linux distribution. The closest I can come to another example is MacOSx. The MacOSx is at it’s heart a BSD operating system. Which has had a pretty interface and api wrapped around it and marketed for mucho mula. Android is pretty much the same situation for mobile devices, only the mucho mula comes from the hardware sales :)

        • Motorola announces pair of new Androids for Europe, China, and other markets

          Motorola Mobility today announced a pair of new Android smartphones for Europe, China, and other markets. Running Android 2.3 Gingerbread, these two are designed to offer consumers affordable choices that best fit their unique personalities. On one hand we have the MOTOLUXE, a slim touch-only handset with a 4.0-inch display and on the other we have the DEFY MINI with its water-resistant and dustproof design. Both come in a variety of color options and will be on display at CES next week. We’ll be in Las Vegas and expect to get our hands on each model and will be happy to share our early impressions.

    • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

      • Google tablet PC believed to be targeting Kindle Fire

        As Google reportedly may launch an own-brand tablet PC to compete against Apple’s iPad, sources from Google’s upstream supply chain believe that Google, instead of Apple, may actually be targeting Amazon’s 7-inch Kindle Fire as its major competitor. However, Google Taiwan commented that the company has never heard about plan of launching own-brand tablet PC.

Free Software/Open Source

  • HBase, Node.js, nginx, Hadoop Make Big Enterprise Inroads

  • Web Browsers

    • QupZilla Browser: one web browser, three niche features

      Just how do you establish a niche in the browser market when it is already saturated with so many competitors? Well, you could use Webkit and QT, throw in a few neat features and see where that takes you. That’s exactly what the developers at QupZilla did. So, I decided to take a look at the substance behind that quirky name.

    • Chrome

    • Mozilla

      • Firefox 3.6 Support To end On April 24, 2012

        We all knew that the day would come eventually when Mozilla would pull the plug on Firefox 3.6. According to new information posted on the Firefox Extended Support page, that day will be April 24, 2012. This is directly connected to the announcement that Firefox 10 will be the company’s first Extended Support Release (ESR).

      • The Mozilla Public License version 2.0 is out—and GPL-compatible!

        Earlier this week, the Mozilla Foundation published the Mozilla Public License (MPL) version 2.0. This is a major update to their flagship license, which covers most of the Foundation’s own free software projects, as well as others’.

      • Firefox wants to be your business buddy Web browser again

        Mozilla, the group behind the Firefox Web browser, has finally gotten a clue that business users don’t like constant updates. On the Mozilla wiki page, Mozilla admits to what many of us have known for a long time: Firefox’s recent rapid-fire release schedule was way too fast for corporate and institutional users.

  • Databases

    • CouchDB creator distances self from Apache project

      Damian Katz, creator of CouchDB, has announced that he is moving on from Apache CouchDB development to focus his efforts on Couchbase. In a blog posting he calls the merger of the CouchDB and Membase technologies in Couchbase Server “a product and project with similar capabilities and goals, but more faster, more scalable, more customer and developer focused” adding “And definitely not part of Apache”.

    • CouchDB creator moves on, sparking debate over open source dev

      The future of CouchDB is Couchbase Server. That according to CouchDB founder Damien Katz, who took to his blog to explain why he and others on the CouchDB team are regrouping around a more commercially focused offering within Couchbase, the company created in early 2011 when NoSQL startup Membase bought Katz’s CouchDB-focused CouchOne. While the decision might make business sense, not everyone is happy about it.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • Funding

    • GrabCAD grabs $4M for open-source CAD

      GrabCAD, a specialist in open-source CAD software, has netted $4.2 million in new funding from its existing VC backers. Plus, David Skok, the general partner with one of those backers, Matrix Partners, has joined GrabCAD’s board. The news was outlined in a blog post on Thursday by GrabCAD president Hardi Meybaum. Skok has some CAD cred: He is on the board of Dassault Systemes’ SolidWorks, a maker of 3-D CAD (or computer-aided design) software. Engineers use this kind of software to design products on-screen.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Project Releases

    • XBMC 11 enters beta, final desktop version of Boxee 1.5 arrives

      As the XBMC developers release the first beta of version 11.0 of their open source media centre software, the Boxee developers announce that the newly released version 1.5 of their media centre software will also be the last open source version.

    • LibreCAD 1.0 released

      LibreCAD version 1.0 has been released. The free software 2D CAD program for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows is based on the open source community edition of RibbonSoft’s QCAD. LibreCAD is the result of a project which was started in order to add CAM capabilities to QCAD to drive a CNC router. That project, originally called CADuntu, set out to port the QCAD software so that it used Qt4 rather than the now outdated Qt3 before enhancing the software further. LibreCAD 1.0.0 now has a Qt4 user interface but is, for various reasons, not yet Qt3 free. An interface for plugins, autosaving and improved DXF file reading has also been added.

  • Public Services/Government

    • Five essential elements of an open government unconference

      Joining the open source (and CityCamp) movement has been one of the best experiences of my life. I’ve been involved with open source for over a decade, but I never got involved in a community project in any significant way–until I found CityCamp. I haven’t submitted a single line of code, but I’m able to bring my project management and community-building skills to the table. That’s important because it highlights the fact that there is more to open source contributions than writing code.

    • NASA launches open source web site

      NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the US, has launched code.nasa.gov, a web site that will serve as the central source of information about the agency’s open source projects. The site, which is still in early alpha, is intended to help unify and expand NASA’s open source activities.

    • NASA opens it Open-Source Code Doors

      Back in the 1980s, I was writing open-source programs for NASA. Oh, we didn’t call it open source then. Open source as a term wouldn’t exist until 1998. All the code we produced was “free software,” but we didn’t call it that either. We just made the best code we could and shared it with people. It was a different time. Many of these programs were made available under the COSMIC software project. Today, NASA is centralizing its open-source offerings at the Code NASA Web-site.

    • One small step: NASA launches open source portal, aims to open more code
    • NASA boldly goes deeper into open source with code.NASA

  • Programming

    • IDEs Are Dead. Long Live the IDE!

      How will developers’ favorite working environments evolve in a cloud-based, post-PC world?

    • SourceForge Embraces Mirror Projects

      SourceForge, the FOSS friendly site has expanded it’s nest with the new SourceForge Open Source Mirror Directory, whose job is to provide a directory that mirrors projects that are not hosted on their site. They are already busy adding non-Sourceforge Open Source software projects to the new directory. This will include a description of the product, links to their official website, and a mirror of their software releases.

    • SourceForge now mirroring external projects
    • Oracle Advances Open Source NetBeans

      Oracle is out with its first major open source IDE release of the year, updating NetBeans to version 7.1 The new NetBeans release builds on the Java SE 7 support first introduced in NetBeans 7.0 in April 2011.

      A key focus of the NetBeans 7.1 release is enhanced support for developers building user interfaces with JavaFX 2.0, CSS 3 and Swing.

      “For me, NetBeans 7.1 is all about the user’s interface,” Bill Pataky, vice president of Product Management for tools and frameworks, told InternetNews.com.

  • Standards/Consortia

    • Hungary: Open standards for documents

      The Hungarian government has decided that, from April 2012, public administrations in Hungary should only provide official documents in internationally recognised open standards-based document formats and must be able to accept and process such documents. Quoting Hungarian media, a report on the EU Joinup collaboration platform said that only the Ministry of Defence will have more time to switch to using open document formats.

Leftovers

  • Nokia: There will be NO smartphone division selloff to Microsoft

    Rumours that Nokia is about to sell its smartphone division to Microsoft and that CEO Stephen Elop will jump after closing the deal have been denied yet again by the Finnish phone-makers.

    The suggestion that Nokia will sell off their crown jewels to Redmond has been rebuffed before, and even had an impact on the markets last year, but despite the Finns repeated denials, the rumour simply won’t go away.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • A Punch to the Mouth – Food Price Volatility Hits the World

      2011 was an abysmal year for the global insurance industry, which had to cover yet another enormous increase in damages from natural disasters. Unknown to most casual observers is the fact that during the past few decades the frequency of weather-related disasters (floods, fires, storms) has been growing at a much faster pace than geological disasters (such as earthquakes). This spread between the two types of insurable losses has moved so strongly that it prompted Munich Re to note in a late 2010 letter that weather-related disasters due to wind have doubled and flooding events have tripled in frequency since 1980. The world now has to contend with a much higher degree of risk from weather and climate volatility, and this has broad-reaching implications.

  • Finance

    • Crowd-Sourcing the Revolving Door

      This chart of Venn Diagrams (New Year’s Day links) is a nifty visualization[1] that shows how many, many people, through the operations of Washington’s revolving door, have held high-level positions both in the Federal government and in major corporations. To take but one example, the set of all Treasury Secretaries includes Hank Paulson and Bob Rubin, which overlaps with the set of all Goldman Sachs COOs. The overlapping is pervasive. Political scientists and the rest of us have names for such cozy arrangements — oligarchy, corporatism, fascism, “crony capitalism” — but one name that doesn’t apply is democracy. On the flip, you’ll find a larger version of the chart (and a discussion of its provenance).

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

  • Censorship

    • Defending media pluralism in Hungary*

      Over recent weeks serious questions have been asked by the European Commission about 30 new laws in Hungary, including a major constitutional revision, and these concerns continue. These laws have passed against the backdrop of a media law adopted in late 2010, which was found by the European Commission to put fundamental rights at risk, and by the Hungarian courts to breach the Hungarian constitution.

  • Copyrights

    • It Is Time To Stop Pretending To Endorse The Copyright Monopoly

      There is a saying in the political discussion in Sweden: “Anything you say before but in a political statement doesn’t count.” We’ve seen a lot of that practice in recent years with increasingly horrendous cultural monopoly laws.
      People in corporate and political suits alike are climbing on top of one another to be the most statesmanlike in stating “We are fully committed to the copyright monopoly, but these proposed enforcement laws are just nuts,” worded in all the synonyms you can find in a thesaurus.

« Previous Page — « Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries » — Next Page »

RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channels: Come and chat with us in real time

New to This Site? Here Are Some Introductory Resources

No

Mono

ODF

Samba logo






We support

End software patents

GPLv3

GNU project

BLAG

EFF bloggers

Comcast is Blocktastic? SavetheInternet.com



Recent Posts