Summary: Michael Glasser, Tim, and Roy have a discussion about GNU/Linux and Mac OS X
TODAY’s show touches on a few bits of news but mostly focuses on comparisons between Apple’s operating systems and Linux-based operating systems. The guest in this episode is the Prescott Computer Guy, Michael Glasser, who advocates Apple products. Update: the show notes are now out.
Except for the theme song at the end, the show includes the self-named track by Takashi Kamide and “When You Are Near” by Warren Hood. We hope you will join us for future shows and consider subscribing to the show via the RSS feed. You can also visit our archives for past shows. If you have an Identi.ca account, consider subscribing to TechBytes in order to keep up to date. █
For six months I longed for the Motorola Atrix Android smartphone first announced in January. That was, until I got one and reality fell short of my utopian vision. Now I must beseech Motorola, telcos and Linux hackers alike to bring my dream to fruition.
Linux users who were invited to the Google Music Beta program back when it first launched quickly realized that the service offered little value to them. Why? Because, at the time, there was no native way to upload music. Today, after two-and-a-half-months, Google finally released an uploader designed just for Linux.
The uploader essentially works just like the Windows version, with one small tweak: OGG support. OGG files will automatically be transcoded to 320kbps MP3 files, which will inevitably make the already painfully slow uploading process last even longer — but hey, at least you can finally use that beta invite, right?
So you’ve gotten started with Linux, but you’re looking for a new flavour besides Ubuntu to try out. Instead of installing a bunch of them from scratch, web site Virtualboxes provides a bunch of free Virtualbox images for you to test out, no installation required.
Slackware Linux is one of the most powerful distributions available. But its power comes at a price. It’s far less user-friendly than many other distributions. In fact, only Gentoo tops Slackware for difficulty. But if you avoid Slackware for those reasons, you’ll miss out in a number of ways. Here are 10 of them.
This page of screenshots accompanies DeviceGuru’s initial review of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet. The list below provides a handy index of the tour’s 200+ screenshots, which are grouped by function or application. Watch for the publication of our detailed Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Review in the next week or so, for the complete story behind these pictures.
The toolbar offers a variety of services, including a search box, a way to use bookmarks stored on a server, and a measurement of a Web site’s PageRank–a score Google gives that measures its influence in Google search results. But Google has chosen to do in the Firefox version.
It’s curious how the recent OpenOffice saga has been downplayed by much of the media covering technology, but it seems pretty important to me. OpenOffice and LibreOffice are the two primary office suites available today that are both free and complete. There are others, too, but OpenOffice is the dominant suite, and LibreOffice is a fork of the OpenOffice code.
The fork, which is a common phenomenon in open-source projects, was expected by many to supersede OpenOffice, but two things happened. First Oracle, who owned OpenOffice as part of the Sun takeover, wasn’t interested in maintaining what is essentially a labor of love, so it gave the whole thing to the Apache Foundation. Then this week IBM decided it wanted OpenOffice to stick around, so it handed over its entire Lotus Symphony Suite to the group and told them to use whatever they wanted.
Bernhard is founder and Executive Director of Intevation GmbH, a company with exclusively Free Software products and services since 1999. He played a crucial role in the establishment of FSFE as one of its founders, and architect of the original German team. Beside that he participated in setting up three important Free Software organisations: FreeGIS.org, FFII, and FossGIS.
Since the first pilot in 2009, the FTA programme [5] has expanded from 3 to 13 course modules, including subjects such as “The concepts of Free Software and Open Standards”, “GNU/Linux systems”, “Economic Aspects of Free Software”, “Software Architecture” and many others. According to the spirit of the Free Software movement, all FTA learning materials [6] are released under copyleft licenses.
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz said there should be a national data breach notification standard Thursday but declined to take a position on the SAFE Data Act that passed a House subcommittee Wednesday.
Currently, 47 states have laws that require companies to notify consumers if their private data is breached, but there is no national standard.
“You don’t want a crazy quilt patchwork of statutes even if most of them, or the vast majority of them, are reasonable,” Leibowitz said at a forum on privacy at the Brookings Institution on Thursday.
Google is clearly making some execution mistakes in implementing this policy, such as deleting the accounts of people with single-word legal names that merely look like handles. I agree these mistakes need correction and that Google needs to have a more responsive appeals process, but I think over-focusing on mistakes and edge cases obscures the most interesting question: is Google right? Will a no-handles policy produce a social network with higher value to more users than a network with handles?
The CRTC’s usage based billing oral hearing concluded yesterday with a final decision expected some time in the fall. This long post focuses on the shift in CRTC thinking on the state of broadband competition in Canada but wonders whether it comes too late to make a difference. For many years, the CRTC has steadfastly maintained that the Canadian ISP market is competitive. For example, in the net neutrality decision from October 2009 it stated:
Consistent with the current regulatory approach, under which the Commission has granted forbearance for retail Internet services, primary ISPs may continue to apply ITMPs to retail Internet services as they consider appropriate, with no requirement for prior Commission approval. This approach remains valid due in part to the large number of existing ISPs. A change in the approach would amount to interference with market forces and would result in inefficient regulation, which is contrary to the Policy Direction.
Over the past few weeks, a growing number of Canadian universities have announced plans to opt-out of the Access Copyright interim tariff effective September 1, 2011 (the University of Calgary’s Gauntlet has an excellent article on the issue). Those universities join many others that opted-out from the start of the year. While many universities are moving on to alternative licensing approaches, the universities and Access Copyright continue to battle over the prospect of transactional (or pay-per-use) licensing which the universities want and Access Copyright refuses to grant. The AUCC filed its response on the issue earlier this week, which included some notable correspondence between Access Copyright and academic publishers.
Act on ACTA refers to a European Parliament Trade Committee commissioned study on ACTA (pdf). The study highlights problematic aspects of ACTA and makes recommendations (see below). According to the study, “unconditional consent would be an inappropriate response”, and “There does not therefore appear to be any immediate benefit from ACTA for EU citizens”. The study confirms ACTA goes beyond current EU legislation. It recommends asking the European Court of Justice an opinion on ACTA.
Resumen: El cartel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartel] formando en contra de Linux y otros nuevos actores perturbadores está siendo notado y muchas más patentes de software están muriendo en los EE.UU.
“Buen punto de partida para evitar que las cosas del diablo”, nos dice un lector que se enteró de la caída de las patentes de software, al menos la manera como son percibidas. Para aquellos que no han seguido las noticias en este sector, Charles de The Guardian escribió un artículo muy influyente que ayudó a cambiar la actitud del público hacia las patentes de software (más sobre esto más adelante cuando la situación empeora en los EE.UU. [1[http://www.hardwarezone.com/tech-news/view/194982], 2[http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/36677/Mobile-developers-shunning-US-market-in-fear-of-lawsuits]]). Se trata de los daños de las patentes de software a la economía de los EE.UU.. Lodsys ataques adicionales (ahora en contra de Best Buy y Adidas[http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20070645-264/lodsys-patent-attack-now-targets-best-buy-adidas/]) más motivan a este sentimiento y “Las Patentes de Software: La Muerte del Sueño Americano[http://www.muktware.com/hacksheet/1909]” es un título que se explica por sí mismo.
“Los desarrolladores remueven sus aplicaciones de las tiendas de EE.UU., por temor a demandas por patentes[http://www.loopinsight.com/2011/07/18/developers-remove-apps-from-us-store-fearing-patent-lawsuits/]“, dice otro titular e incluso la terminología se ha vuelto loca cuando el grupo de O’Reilly dice que “La propiedad intelectual se ha vuelto loca[http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/07/intellectual-property-patent-trolls.html]“. Se trata de las patentes:
Las patentes y los derechos de autor en los EE.UU. se derivan de la Constitución, y es para un propósito específico: “Promover el progreso de la ciencia y las artes útiles” (artículo I, sección 8). Si los desarrolladores de aplicaciones están siendo expulsados del mercado de los EE.UU. por el control de las patentes, la ley de patentes no está cumpliendo con su objetivo constitucional, de hecho, se está obligando a “la ciencia y las artes útiles” tengán lugar en otra parte. Ese es un problema que debe abordarse, sobre todo en un momento en la industria del software es una de las pocas áreas prósperas de la economía de los EE.UU., y cuando nuevas empresas (y en mi libro, que incluye a los desarrolladores independientes) en coche la mayor parte de las posibilidades de empleo crecimiento de la economía.
No veo ningún alivio proveniente del sistema de patentes tal como existe actualmente. La gran pregunta es si el software debe ser patentable en absoluto. Como Nat Torkington (@mosquito) ha informado, el Parlamento de Nueva Zelanda tiene un proyecto de ley de que prohibirá de las patentes de software, a pesar de la presión de los gigantes del software en los EE.UU. y en otros lugares. Sin embargo, en este punto, cambios significativos en EE.UU. la ley de patentes pertenecen al reino de la agradable fantasía. Por mucho que me gustaría ver que suceda, no me puedo imaginar el Congreso de pie a una avalancha de grupos de presión pagado por algunas de las corporaciones más grandes en los EE.UU.
Sin duda, se hace evidente que los EE.UU. se está perjudicando a sí mismo por estar de acuerdo con leyes tan absurdas.
“El mercado de las patentes de software no está muerto. En efecto, como se muestra en transacciones recientes, incluyendo la principesca suma ($ 4,5 millones) la oferta de la cartera de Nortel por parte de Microsoft, Apple, y otros, es actuando de manera muy saludable. Pero podría ser viniendo abajo con algo serio. “Manténgase en sintonía”, escribe Rob Tiller en relación con otras noticias [http://opensource.com/law/11/7/bilskis-growing-and-smacking-down-some-bad-software-patents]. Para citar a:
Cuando la Corte Suprema se negó a hablar de las patentes de software en el caso Bilski, hubo llanto y crujir de dientes en el mundo del software libre. La nueva prueba de Bilski de la materia patentable parecía en un principio como el status quo de la patentabilidad del software. Pero, siendo el tipo de persona que intenta proteger a las nubes un rayo de luz posible, señaló la posibilidad de que los tribunales y la Junta de Apelaciones e Interferencias de Patentes sería leer la prueba de invalidar algunas patentes de software. Luego note que había una serie de decisiones tempranas encontrando software unpatentable.
Esta tendencia continúa en la dirección correcta. Un nuevo estudio del primer año completo de las decisiones de aplicación de software Bilski confirma que la dirección de la jurisprudencia es hacia la búsqueda de que el software no es materia patentable. El estudio realizado por Robert Greene estrellas y Michelle K. Holoubek se titula El lado práctico de la § 101: Un año después de Bilski: ¿Cómo se toma la decisión de ser interpretado por el BPAI, Juzgados de Distrito y de Circuito Federal. [PDF] que contiene un breve resumen de las decisiones 182 de la BPAI, 6 decisiones corte del distrito federal, y 3 del Circuito Federal. La mayoría de los software y el distrito judicial BPAI preocupación las decisiones. Y muchas de esas decisiones software se aplican Bilski al ver que el tema es demasiado abstracto para ser patentado.
Ya hemos cubierto que las patentes de software pierden la vida por fallos Bilski (a varios niveles), incluso hace años [http://techrights.org/2009/07/11/in-re-bilski-vs-software-patent/]. Es bueno saber que esto está todavía en curso. Desde Tiller mencionó el cártel formado en torno a la cartera de Nortel vale la pena tomar nota de lo que el profesor Webbink tenía que decir:
Hace dos semanas, preguntamos por qué la venta de patentes de Nortel con Microsoft, Apple, y otros no estaba recibiendo el escrutinio de la Comisión Federal de Comercio y/o el Departamento de Justicia (véase, Nortel Venta de Patentes – ¿Por qué no lo tiene el esscrutinio de la FTC/DOJ) . Bueno, no tenemos que hacer esa pregunta nunca más. Y la preocupación del gobierno no es sólo en los EE.UU., Canadá también está investigando la venta.
Como hemos señalado este mes, los canadienses [http://techrights.org/2011/07/07/christian-paradis-on-nortel-sale/] y los reguladores de EE.UU. [http://techrights.org/2011/07/07/christian-paradis-on-nortel-sale/] analizaron la oferta y los informes acerca de que sea aprobado [http://techrights.org/2011/07/15/liaising-vs-all-software-patents_es/] no es del todo buena. Tal vez la oposición a la oferta proviene de múltiples niveles. Los reguladores están todavía al acecho [http://www.mobiledia.com/news/97774.html]. “Tiene que haber informado al Federal CIO que debe haber investigaciones en el sistema de patentes y deben ser informados acerca de los problemas de las empresas que está demandando sobre las patentes y las patentes de software tan pronto como sea posible debe ser detenido y este tipo puede ayudar”, dice una persona. Un saliente CIO Federal por su parte advierte de “un cartel de TI[http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9218466/Outgoing_federal_CIO_warns_of_an_IT_cartel_?taxonomyId=13]“, sobre la base de este artículo en relación con un problema similar:
En un amplio debate del viernes con asesores científico del presidente Barack Obama, Vivek Kundra CIO Federal advirtió de los peligros del acceso de datos abierta y se quejó de “un cartel de TI” de los vendedores.
También cree que los EE.UU. puede operar con un solo pocos centros de datos.
Kundra, quien deja su puesto de trabajo a mediados de agosto, ofrece una visión caleidoscópica de sus preocupaciones sobre los programas federales de TI en una comparecencia ante el Presidente del Consejo de Asesores en Ciencia y Tecnología.
En particular, Kundra está preocupado por el “efecto de mosaico,” la consecuencia involuntaria de gobierno el intercambio de datos, donde los conjuntos de datos se combinan en forma de capas que pueden eliminar la privacidad y plantean amenazas a la seguridad.
¿Por qué no ir primero tras los cárteles de patentes? Estos sin duda existen. ¿Y por qué el gobernantes, mientras que esta en él gobierno, parece que no puede perseguir a Microsoft por su evasión de impuestos? Incluso el gobierno indio ha hecho algo al respecto y un lector nos dio algunos enlaces sobre el tema [1[http://www.taxindiaonline.com/RC2/inside2.php3?filename=bnews_detail.php3&newsid=7095], 2[http://www.nishithdesai.com/New_Hotline/Tax/TAX%20HOTLINE_Nov1210.htm]], y agregó: “¿Cómo se evita Microsoft India a través de los impuestos” Gracemac “: Tribunal goo.gl/upsbD y lo toma nota de que: goo.gl/NRn3t ”
Hemos escrito sobre la evasión de impuestos por Microsoft muchas veces antes[http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Microsoft_-_Tax].
Echa un vistazo a este nuevo artículo[http://kluwercopyrightblog.com/2011/07/12/an-american-perspective-on-the-sas-v-wpl-case/], que dice: Los idiomas son la programación, la funcionalidad del programa, y las interfaces de los datos objeto de protección merecen el derecho de autor o no? Estas preguntas fueron muy polémicos en los Estados Unidos durante la década de 1980 a mediados de 1990. Los demandantes en varios casos, argumentarón que debido a que estos eran parte de la “estructura, secuencia y la organización” (SSO) de los programas, deben estar dentro del alcance de la protección de los derechos de autor otorga a los programas como “obras literarias.” La UE está ahora frente a estos mismas preguntas en el caso de SAS Institute v. Mundo de Programación Ltd., que está pendiente ante el Tribunal de Justicia Europeo (TJE). ”
Gracias a Carlo Piana [http://twitter.com/carlopiana/status/92953248205516800] por detectar esto y señalando: “Pensar que #swpats son una pesadilla? Si SAS/World Progr. se vuelve peor, tendremos SWpats sin a pre-examen. http://ur1.ca/4qarq ACT NOW: RT “!
La amenaza no sólo se va, ¿verdad? Pero poco a poco vamos ganando esta lucha. Más sobre este tema en el próximo post … █
The – we suppose we have to say “smartbook”, the moniker once given to ARM-based netbooks but sadly much out of favour in these tablet-centric times – will run Android 3.2 Honeycomb, according to company chairman JT Wang, speaking this week in Asia, Digitimes reports.
It’s rather obvious that GNU/Linux is not that other OS but people seem to feel an OS that is not that other OS is somehow faulty. He wrote that it took him a year to get his system working as he wanted. It took me installation time. I think I installed five machines from scratch in two evenings. It was my first installation and the machines were ancient Pentium Pros. In 2000, they were slow, but I did not notice any of the problems the authour felt were important:
* NO CRASHES – Amen. We both loved that. That’s what drove me to GNU/Linux and it was like entering the Garden of Eden. This feature alone justified the bit of adjustment required and returned blessing many-fold.
* graphics – mine worked immediately with two lines changed in X11F86.conf (or something like that). His was faulty on a newer motherboard.
* fonts – that other OS was using 800×600. GNU/Linux could do 1024×768 if I recall. He thought the fonts were “ugly”. I have no idea what he meant. Mine were fine.
It will be very interesting to see the Chrome browser and the Lion OS march forward together, partly because Lion incorporates a number of ideas built into Google’s Chrome OS, which features the Chrome browser as its desktop interface. We covered this mimicry effort from Apple, where Lion allows for Chrome OS-like cloud-based treatment of data and applications here.
As Google officials noted when announcing Chrome OS: “In Chrome OS, every application is a web application. Users don’t have to install applications. All data in Chrome OS is in the cloud.”
IBM to contribute Symphony, we look at changes in Ubuntu 11.10, Zuckerberg closes off Google+ account so he can’t be tracked and Fab reviews the Motorola Xoom tablet.
As part of the HID (Human Interface Device) pull for the mainline 3.1 kernel is a Nintendo Wii Remote driver that makes it possible to use the Wiimote as an input device “out of the box” on future versions of Linux. There’s also been additions to the sysfs interface for setting and reading the four LED states of the Wiimote, which can be used for other purposes.
After not being updated for a few mainline kernel release cycles, the real-time (RT) Linux kernel has been updated against the Linux 3.0 kernel release.
Thomas Gleixner announced the Linux 3.0-rt1 kernel on the kernel mailing list yesterday, which integrates the RT patch-set atop the vanilla kernel.
One thing I like about these open source program is that they don’t try to do everything. For example nowadays with Photoshop you can actually do pretty much all your design and illustration in there. But why is that? I personally prefer tools that does one thing, and one thing well. I guess that was the idea behind all the tools of the Adobe creative suite but the goal got lost in translation and now every tools try to do everything.
The gimp is a great example of a tool that does what it does, and well! It’s a really solid image retouching and photo editing software. It a really mature open source project with a huge community of users and developer. It’s intelligently built and can be extended with Scheme or python script!
The game features 54 tracks in 8 sceneries, 7 cars and a Track Editor.
It focuses on closed rally tracks with possible stunt elements (jumps, loops, pipes).
The game and editor both run on Windows and Linux. The Windows installer has all tracks included.
Ahead of the Berlin Desktop Summit, several GNOME and KDE developers have begun a mailing list battle…over a name. In particular, that with GNOME 3.0 their control panel areas is called “System Settings”, which is precisely what the KDE developers call their system control area too.
Breakin is a distribution to run diagnostics on systems to find hardware issues or component failures. Put together by Advanced Clustering Technologies, Breakin is a Linux-based live CD that tests memory, the CPU, hard drives, (supported) temperature sensors, and looks for any Machine Check Exception (MCE) errors generated during the tests.
Last week I found out some interesting information when I took an initial look at two of the most popular RHEL-based Linux distributions, CentOS and Scientific Linux (SL). The next obvious step is to install the two, side by side, and continue this comparison. To be clear, I’m not running benchmarks of any sort on the two operating systems. I have no doubt that they will perform consistently enough to make that exercise un-interesting. What I’m looking for is what makes these distributions different, and anything that would make me particularly like or dislike one of these distributions.
Sergey “Shnatsel” Davidoff posted today that Alpha testing has just been revolutionized. Sounds exciting, huh? It really is. Glimpse allows users to test new or unstable updates without risk of breaking their current installs.
I believe that if we want an open society based around principles of equality of opportunity, social justice and free expression, we need to build it on technologies which are themselves ‘open’, and that this is the only way to encourage a diverse online culture that allows all voices to be heard.
But even if you agree with me, deciding what we mean by ‘open’ is far from straightforward:
Does it mean an internet built around the end-to-end principle, where any connected computer can exchange data with any other computer and the network itself is unaware of the ‘meaning’ of the bits exchanged?
I’m happy to announce the succesful GNU Health Academia at the United Nations University, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, during the last week of June. Digg this article
A steady stream of almost identical bills — bills to defund unions, require Photo ID’s make it harder for democratic constituencies to vote, bills to privatize schools and public assets, bills to enshrine corporate tax loopholes while crippling the government’s ability to raise revenue, bills to round up immigrants — were introduced and passed. An almost identical set of corporations benefited from these measures.
These corrupt state governments typically favor Microsoft and unregulated telco monopolies.
This [Eisenhower and Kennedy administration] “Keynesian Consensus” never questioned the fairness of the initial capital/labor split, but it at least offered workers a share of the fruits of future economic growth. … The upward redistribution has remained as hidden as possible. The forms it has taken [bonuses, bloated salaries, stock options, consulting fees, sumptuous conferences, palatial offices, original artwork, retinues of superfluous support staff, hunting lodges, private corporate dining rooms, golden parachute retirements] – defy exact categorization. Some would appear as profit, some as interest, some as dividends, realized capital gains, gigantic pension programs, retained earnings, or owners’ income, with the remainder deeply buried as “costs of doing business.”
[IV] and the other patent trolls (and burnt-out companies like Microsoft that are becoming a new kind of patent troll by default) have realised that it is not actual, on-the-ground, expensive innovation that counts, but the piece of paper from the USPTO assigning nominal “ownership” of that innovation. He and his company have learned how to game the system
There’s good evidence that Microsoft has used patents in the past to keep others out of markets.
“Aaron Swartz has been charged with many federal crimes for downloading many articles from JSTOR. The only wrongdoers here are JSTOR and the journals it hosts. They ought to make the articles available to the general public, with freedom to redistribute. And if they don’t do this voluntarily, society should impose it.”
[Aaron's intentions are unclear] Some folks, including the FBI, have made the claim he was planning to redistribute the data. Others have pointed to his past research analyzing influence in academic writing. … There are many, many research applications, including mine, that are still not possible with approved means of accessing data. This essentially means that if you want to understand the collaborative nature of a specific field or follow the trajectory of and idea across disciplines, a reference librarian can’t help you. Instead, you have to become a felon.
It is because of a wave of severe copyright enforcement legislation like ACTA, HADOPI, the Digital Economy Act, La Ley Sinde and the US PROTECT IP legislation that hackers are angry. Not just because the proposals are in themselves unjust and unfair, but because of the way that they are being brought in. … drawn up at secret meetings of key politicians and representatives of powerful industries.
That’s funny but the Aaron Swartz case and various attacks on network and software freedom show that real publishers are willing to eliminate freedom of speech and put opponents in jail to maintain their position. Scientists should only do peer review for strictly open access journals which allow free redistribution of articles by the public.
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