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09.10.10

01 Communique Uses Software Patents Against Dell, LogMeIn; IBM Still a Mockery of the USPTO Its Employee Runs

Posted in Dell, FSF, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Patents at 5:34 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

01 Communique headline

Summary: The headache which is software patents continues to ruin US-based businesses; the FSF has another opportunity to ask IBM to end software patents rather than promote them

ANOTHER day, another attack on innovation. Rather than hear about a new (“innovative”) product we learn about legal action against Dell and LogMeIn, which achieves the very opposite of innovation. The press release from Toronto may remind outside observers of the i4i case because, just like i4i, 01 Communique uses a US patent to attack American commerce from Canada. This helps show how software patents put the United States in a position of disadvantage, just as Richard Stallman warned more than half a decade ago.

Here is some more coverage about this new case [1, 2, 3].

Already a headache for Citrix Systems Inc. (CTXS), 01 Communique Laboratory Inc. (OCQLF, ONE.T) could soon be a full-blown migraine for numerous other companies that provide remote access to personal computers.

[...]

While no royalty has been set, average royalty rates for software patents are among the highest in the technology industry at about 11.5%, according to data compiled by AUS Consulting Inc., a financial consulting firm based in Mount Laurel, N.J.

That latter part helps explains the harms of software patents in particular.

The USPTO, now run by a former IBM employee (IBM is in favour of software patents), continues to look like more of a joke thanks to IBM’s patent/monopoly obsession. “IBM Patents Guessing How Many Kids Are On A School Bus,” says this headlines from TechDirt which explains the details in simple term:

theodp writes “Self-described patent reformer IBM was awarded a patent Tuesday for Utilizing Gross Vehicle Weight to Determine Passenger Numbers. And yes, the ‘invention’ of five IBMers is what you think it is – from the Abstract: ‘A total weight of passengers on the vehicle is divided by an estimated weight of each of the passengers to estimate how many passengers are on the vehicle.’ First-graders everywhere will no doubt rejoice to learn that the elusive how-many-kids-are-on-the-school-bus problem has finally been solved!”

What is IBM thinking? It previously withdrew an outrageous patent, but only after it had received a lot of public backlash in Slashdot and elsewhere. Right now it’s Oracle that gets a lot of backlash, fueled by a new statement from the FSF. Many other sources are backing that official statement of the FSF or parsing it a little further [1, 2, 3, 4]. Oracle and IBM are the two major funding sources of the FSF and maybe it’s time for the FSF to also denounce IBM for its lobbying for software patents. Oracle actually has a history of opposing software patents. Neither IBM not Oracle is exactly helpful to the FSF when it comes to patent policy. █

Microsoft is Open Like a Bear Trap, Partners Worry

Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Windows at 5:28 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Penguin Pete cartoon

Original MBR cartoon from Penguin Pete’s highly recommended series

Summary: Windows continues to show that Microsoft is far from “open” and actually very hostile towards anything that’s near Windows

JUST OVER A WEEK AGO we wrote about Windows applications harmfully messing about with GNU/Linux partitions, just like Windows does (Microsoft does nothing to resolve this). Very recently we also heard some new lies from Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] and the cartoon above captures it perfectly by poking fun at Microsoft’s lies about having changed its attitude. “Slowly the Rift Between Microsoft and “Partners” Widens,” claims Pogson right now. They too have grown tired of relying on Windows. “[Acer's] Shih clearly sees the value of openness and M$ and its OS is the least open part of the IT landscape,” the short post explains. █

“Steve [Ballmer], I’m sure you’re aware of this. Our call lines are being overrun. [by Windows Vista complaints]“

–Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Mark Hurd

GNU/Linux Desktop Market Share in the United States Not the Global Share

Posted in FUD, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 5:03 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Linux heat map
According to this leaked Microsoft chart, in 2003 “Linux % of PC installed base” in “Enterprise” was 0.27% in the US, 3.20% in Germany, 3.30% in France, and 4.20% in Russia (read more)

Summary: A quick response to operating system surveys which are predominantly US-oriented

SO FAR this week we’ve abstained from becoming part of the “market share” debate, which was reignited quite characteristically by US-oriented surveys from private firms like the Apple- and Microsoft-sponsored Net Applications. The discussion really started to spread when Miss Martin wrote a good rebuttal. We addressed this issue many times in the past, so there is no point doing it again, not in a detailed fashion anyway. We posted new links about this almost every day this week.

IDG’s pseudo-open source blog [1, 2, 3]* touches this subject at the moment. Novell’s former employee says: “I’d love to endorse Martin’s conclusion of 10%, but it doesn’t seem realistic at all to say that Linux has 10% of the desktop market. I take many stats with a huge grain of salt, but the Wikimedia stats that sample traffic hitting Wikipedia in June of this year show Linux with less than 2%. I trust that Wikipedia has no reason to game the numbers. Wikipedia and its sister sites are pretty popular across a broad demographic, so I don’t really think that the site is hugely out of whack with the rest of the population.”

“Remember this: the market share of Microsoft in search in the United States is estimated to be triple (or quadruple) that of its global market share in search.”Wikipedia numbers are not accurate as a global indicator and there are other shortcomings to these numbers. I have just had conversations about it with David Gerard (famous Wikipedia person), who may write an article for us about the subject of GNU/Linux market share.

Wikipedia figures — just like many others that are readily available in the West — are mentioning/including just English-speaking sites and rarely German or Brazilian sites, for instance (where GNU/Linux traffic is known to be rather amazing, not just sales of GNU/Linux, even in preinstalled form). Unless Wikipedia is used equally by all nations (distributed equally to account for bandwidth and normalise for population size), it too is tilted in favour English-speaking nations. There is no assurance that regional subsites/other languages represent and embody the correct international demography at hand as Wikipedia is far more extensive in the English language (while more people/nations speak Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic). Hints can be given about statistical bias when one investigates the market share of Apple operating systems. Apple is just a niche product in some of the world’s richest nations. Within a global context or scope, Mac/hypeOS share should be minute.

Remember this: the market share of Microsoft in search in the United States is estimated to be triple (or quadruple) that of its global market share in search. It’s not a coincidence; it’s population bias and citizens of the United States are only about 5% of the world (yet they dominate the English-speaking world, impacting information flow). █
_____
* Speaking of this blog, don’t miss Black Duck‘s new post there where its executive uses the blog to spread fear and sell its products. They are selling advice through means of uncertainty (the headline, for example, says that “recent court ruling makes it more important than ever to understand the GPL”).

“What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?” –George Eliot

Apple is Still Attacking GNU Linux and the GPL

Posted in Antitrust, Apple, GNU/Linux, GPL at 3:57 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Apple is said to be “blocking contributions to GCC” (which is GPL-licensed unlike LLVM and Clang); antitrust pressure on Apple causes change

GIVEN THAT Apple is suing Linux (via HTC) and merely exploiting Free software, no wonder people in the Free software world — developers in particular — dislike Apple. This company’s mistreatment of developers and other groups has already given Apple some antitrust issues. Very recently we learned that Apple was retaliating against partners for developing with Linux and also quite recently concerns were expressed about X Server stewardship from Apple.

Phoronix now alleges that “Apple [May Be] Blocking Contributions To GCC”:

Yesterday on the mailing list for GCC is was brought up if Apple’s Objective-C 2.0 patches for the GNU Compiler Collection could be merged back into the upstream GCC code-base as maintained by the Free Software Foundation. Even though Apple’s modified GCC sources still reflect the FSF as the copyright holder and are licensed under the GNU GPLv2+, it doesn’t look like Apple wants their compiler work going back upstream any longer.

Chris Lattner, who is Apple’s chief architect of their compiler group and also the lead developer of LLVM and Clang, came out to say that whatever Apple pushes to their GCC branch on the Free Software Foundation’s servers they should be able to pull upstream, but not code that’s found within the open-source GCC hosted by Apple on OpenDarwin or anywhere else. Or GCC code that’s found within LLVM-GCC.

Apple is not much of a development company and it is allergic to the GPL [1, 2], too (Apple is used to just taking code). That’s why Steve Jobs reportedly rejected his engineers’ advice that the company should use Linux to build the hypePhone (which later introduced hypeOS for the bigger phone, hypePad). The following new report says that Jobs “dodges antitrust action” when deciding to actually relax some restrictions in hypeOS; it’s about antitrust, not about being rational or kind.

But from our point of view, Apple’s hand was forced. By lifting its code ban, Apple removes the spectre of an antitrust inquiry by the Federal Trade Commission or the Department of Justice. By removing the AdMob barriers, Apple does much the same with the possibility of FTC or DoJ action on that allegedly anti-competitive front.

And so Apple’s one-two punch both loosens and tightens restrictions on developers. Its lifting of the code ban and advertising strictures, although likely prompted by fear of legal action, allows a broader range of developer tools and — as Hamoui puts it — “provide[s] immediate clarification about the status of mobile advertising on the iPhone [that] will benefit users, developers, and advertisers.”

On the other hand, by tightening content restrictions on developers with its “my way or the highway” App Store Review Guidelines — or, at minium, by explicitly spelling out what was implicit in its seemingly arbitrary App Store police’s actions — Jobs & Co have shored up the fortifications of the walled garden that is the iOS ecosystem.

Apple does deserve a lot of scrutiny, even though there are those who excuse Apple too much [1, 2]. █

“FSF did some anti-Apple campaigns too. Personally I worry more about Apple because they have user loyalty; Microsoft doesn’t.”

–Bradley M. Kuhn (SFLC)

Quote of the Day: “Microsoft-sponsored Lobbyists and Lawyers Forming Groups to Initiate a Variety of Cases Against Google”

Posted in Antitrust, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Quote, SCO, SUN at 3:11 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Football huddle

Summary: Words of value from someone who was relatively close to regulators and a word about SCO against Linux

Simon Phipps, formerly an executive of Sun Microsystems, has this to say about the seemingly Microsoft-funded legal attacks on Google [1, 2, 3, 4]:

The conspiracy theories Pamela espouses are well-based. At the start of last year as I was working on other technology policy issues with colleagues in Brussels, there were constant stories of indirectly-but-identifiably Microsoft-sponsored lobbyists and lawyers forming groups to initiate a variety of cases against Google over there, on the premise that “anti-trust has changed us and now Google are the new monopoly”. I heard the same from colleagues in DC too. So, as Pamela says: “Is this perhaps more abuse of the legal and administrative systems for anticompetitive purposes? If so, could somebody investigate *that*?”

Microsoft has already admitted being behind legal complaints against Google in Europe.

In other news from Groklaw, the Microsoft-funded lawsuit against Linux still refuses to die.

A new trial. Of course. There can never be too many trials for SCO, as it would like to actually win one and would prefer to keep trying until it does so. Apparently money is no object to a company that is in bankruptcy, has paid none of its creditors, and is now trying to sell off essentially all its assets but the litigation on which it long ago set all its hopes and dreams. And you can’t say it’s impossible to get an empathetic hearing from this court of appeals. It bent over backwards for SCO last time, granting it this 2nd trial that SCO then lost. So who knows? My grandchildren may someday be writing about the next SCO v. Novell retrial, as this crazed monomania seems to have no closing chapter.

Where/who does SCO continue to get money from? █

“…Microsoft wished to promote SCO and its pending lawsuit against IBM and the Linux operating system. But Microsoft did not want to be seen as attacking IBM or Linux.”

–Larry Goldfarb, BayStar, key investor in SCO approached by Microsoft

Links 10/9/2010: APLcomp Joins The Linux Foundation, Invitation-only Linux Summit Planned

Posted in News Roundup at 2:45 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • What’s It Like To Be A Linux Journal Blogger?

    Well, first of all, it’s fun, or I wouldn’t be doing it. I work with some intelligent, talented people, like Carlie Fairchild, publisher at LJ, and Katherine Druckman, our Webmistress. My job description as one of the LJ bloggers is to “write about whatever you want, as long as it is Linux related”. That’s pretty much the ideal job description for somebody like me who has been doing Linux full-time since shortly after Slackware first came out in 1993. I feel lucky to be writing for Linux Journal, which is currently celebrating its 16th year of publication, and is the original magazine of the global Linux community.

  • Why the Linux Myths Continue

    Smart marketing could make a difference too. Just consider the huge impact that one television ad–the one in 1984 from Apple where the female athlete threw the sledgehammer toward a Borg-like figure resembling Big Blue–had for Apple. For Linux, the myths propogate and continue because there is no unified message designed to challenge the myths, no coordinated spending on such messaging. The myths don’t propogate because of shortcomings in Linux itself.

  • Server

    • TurnKey Linux brings speedy, small-scale migration to the cloud

      TurnKey Linux has unveiled a system-level backup and restore system called TurnKey Linux Backup and Migration (TKLBAM) that aims to add a level of flexibility to cloud computing. Powered by the Amazon S3 storage cloud, the system brings speed, smarts, and automation to backups, restores, and migration in the cloud — at least on a limited scale.

  • Kernel Space

    • Broadcom makes its Wi-Fi chipsets more Linux friendly

      According to Henry Ptasinski, a principal scientist in the wireless connectivity group at Broadcom, Broadcom has released the source code for the “initial release of a fully-open Linux driver for it’s latest generation of 11n chipsets. The driver, while still a work in progress, is released as full source and uses the native mac80211 stack. It supports multiple current chips (BCM4313, BCM43224, BCM43225) as well as providing a framework for supporting additional chips in the future, including mac80211-aware embedded chips.

    • New Linux Benchmarks Of SilverStone’s HDDBOOST

      The purpose of the HDDBOOST is to increase the disk performance by enabling SSD speeds on the host hard drive while reducing write times to the SSD. From our Linux tests in that article we had a hard time getting this small device to provide any measurable performance gains, but in fact it caused some performance losses.

    • The Linux Foundation Announces Program for 2010 End User Summit

      The Linux Foundation, the non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced the speaker lineup and details for The Linux Foundation End User Summit. The Summit is a unique opportunity for the most advanced enterprise users to collaborate with leaders from within the Linux community, including the highest-level maintainers and developers.

    • Invitation-only Linux summit announces speakers
    • Linux Foundation’s Jim Zemlin Offers Sneak Peek at 2010 End User Summit
    • Linux Foundation details 2010 End User Summit programme

      Confirmed keynote speakers include British Telecom’s Chief Scientist JP Rangaswami, who will be giving a talk entitled “Purple Haze to Purple Rain: Why the Cloud Rocks”, and Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin, who will be discussing the next-generation enterprise computing. NASDAQ OMX Vice President Bob Evans will detail what he feels is working today with Linux and what he believes would work in his environment. Other various panels and sessions will cover topics ranging from “What’s next in Linux file systems & Storage”, to virtualisation and tracing.

    • APLcomp Joins The Linux Foundation

      APLcomp is an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software vendor that primarily serves the financial services industry. An increasing number of its customers are deploying applications in the cloud and are recognizing the advantages of using an open operating system to support this infrastructure.

    • The Last Barrier to Wireless in Linux Falls

      This advance could be in Ubuntu as early as 10.10 but most others will see it in 2011 as the FLOSS code for the drivers will be merged with Linux 2.6.37. Debian GNU/Linux Squeeze is now up to 2.6.32. We Debianistas may have to build from source for a while yet.

    • Graphics Stack

      • ATI Evergreen 3D Code May Soon Go Into Gallium3D

        AMD finally pushed out open-source 2D/3D acceleration code for Evergreen (a.k.a. the ATI Radeon HD 5000 series graphics cards) last month, but since then these drivers haven’t received too much attention. AMD’s few open-source developers are beginning to turn their attention to supporting the Radeon HD 6000 series more promptly in the open-source world while the community developers seem to still have their attention on the Gallium3D driver for the ATI Radeon HD 2000/3000/4000 (R600/R700) hardware.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • PyQt comes to OpenSolaris

        For the past month I’ve been honing my PyQt skills and greatly enjoyed it. I’ve been saying to people at conferences — for years already — that Python (or some other scripting language) is the Right Approach ™ to a great many end-user applications for its speed on development and ease of prototyping. Now I finally spent a month testing the truth of that statement.

    • GNOME Desktop

      • Interviews from GUADEC, Part 4

        Stormy Peters is the Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation, and when Jeremy Allison from the Google Open Source Programs Office ran into her at GUADEC, he was eager to talk to her about the direction that GNOME is heading. In the video above, Stormy and Jeremy discuss release schedules, GNOME 3, and hackfests. Enjoy!

  • Distributions

    • Friday’s security updates

    • Red Hat Family

    • Debian Family

      • Debian GNU/kFreeBSD Becomes More Interesting

        Since last year we have been talking about Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, one of the official ports for Debian 6.0 “Squeeze” that will bring a 32-bit and 64-bit FreeBSD kernel as an option to using the Linux kernel. Debain GNU/kFreeBSD still has the Debian user-land complete with its massive package repository and apt-get support, but the FreeBSD kernel is running underneath instead of Linux. Debian GNU/kFreeBSD has matured a lot over the past year and most recently it has switched to using the FreeBSD 8.1 kernel by default and also now supports ZFS file-systems.

        In January of this year was our first time benchmarking Debian GNU/kFreeBSD when it was using the FreeBSD 7.2 kernel. With that initial testing, in 18 of our 27 benchmarks Debian GNU/Linux was still faster than Debian GNU/kFreeBSD. We delivered a much larger comparison a week later when comparing the Debian variant to Fedora, FreeBSD 7.2/8.0, OpenBSD, and OpenSolaris. Debian GNU/kFreeBSD performed about average.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • This week in design – 10 September 2010

        • Flavours and Variants

          • Linux Mint Releases Debian Edition
          • Edubuntu gets a new installer

            One of our goals for the Maverick development was to enhance our installation process.

            Previously in 10.04 we introduced a way to test LTSP straight from the Live DVD and then install it or the Netbook-Edition interface at the end of the install.

            It worked great but we then received reports from users telling us they didn’t see a way to install either LTSP or the Netbook interface during the install.

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

  • Open-Xchange 6.18 integrates data from social networks

    Nuremberg-based collaboration software specialist Open-Xchange has released an update, version 6.18, to its email and groupware solution. The company says that the most important of the 100 improvements in the release concern the integration of data from social networks and the option of managing, within Open-Xchange, email from external providers.

  • Web Browsers

  • Databases

    • Version 2.0 of NoSQL database Redis released

      Version 2.0 of the NoSQL database Redis database has been released with new features including virtual memory support, a hash datatype and publish/subscribe messaing. Development of Redis is assisted by VMware who sponsor Salvatore Sanfillippo and Pieter Noordhuis, lead developers of the project. Sanfillipo was hired by VMware in March.

      Redis is a BSD licensed, key/value store which is written in ANSI C and runs on POSIX systems like Linux, BSD, Mac OS X, Solaris and others. Libraries to access the store are available for Ruby, Python, PHP, Erlang, Java, Scala, C#, C, Clojure and JavaScript.

  • Project Releases

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Data

      • USA Today Latest Media Co. to Realize Open is Better

        USA Today is the latest media company to open up its data via an API, the software interface that makes it easy for outside developers to use another company’s data in their applications. The newspaper — which said that it will launch its open API project later this month — joins a small but growing group that includes The Guardian, the New York Times and National Public Radio. The newspaper says it plans to start releasing APIs for specific sections first, including a sports API that provides access to the paper’s database of salaries for players in Major League Baseball, the NBA, the NHL and other sports franchises.

    • Open Access/Content

      • Connexions is going mobile!

        Just think about the possibilities! No longer are you tied to your computer, reading modules online or in PDF format. No longer are you forced to carry around printouts of your materials. Instead you can access Connexions materials at any time, any place.

  • Programming

    • InfoWorld review: Nine fine Python development tools

      Object-oriented and dynamic, Python encourages rapid, iterative, and almost exploratory development. But good Python development starts with a good Python IDE. In this roundup, I examine nine Python development environments, many open source, but some commercial. They are Boa Constructor, Eric, ActiveState’s Komodo, Oracle’s NetBeans, Aptana’s Pydev, PyScripter, SPE, Spyder, and WingWare’s Wing IDE.

Leftovers

Clip of the Day

Fully replace traditional “gnome-panel” with much more revolutionize “Avant-Window-Navigator” dock


Credit: TinyOgg

Links 10/9/2010: Linux 2.6.36, Google Caffeine Moves System Further Onto BigTable

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

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • KDE 3 appears in ‘The Social Network’ movie?

    Below is a still image from the film’s official trailer, in it you can see what appears to be an old version of the KDE Desktop Environment. This particular still image is from a scene in the movie taking place in 2003, so KDE 3 would be an accurate version for the year.

  • From Vista and 7, to Ubuntu and Jolicloud without a Mac deviation

    Oh-My-God! Not just an OMG, this needed spelling out. The OS was free, and installable (and uninstallable) directly from Windows. It gave the previously snail-speed netbook a new spark, and came with a catalogue of software that you could click and download. Google applications, OpenOffice, Gimp, and what I guess was around 100 open-source applications with which most professionals and private persons could do whatever they want.

  • Server

    • Turnkey Linux Intros Amazon S3 Powered Backup

      TurnKey Linux Wednesday released a smart, fully automated open source-based backup and restore facility powered by the Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) cloud.

      TurnKey Linux Backup and Migration (TKLBAM) is based on Ubuntu 8.04.3, was designed to add flexibility to cloud computing, and requires no configuration, according to the Tel Aviv-based developer. The solution delivers speed, intelligence, and automation to migration in the cloud, as well as backup and restore functions, said Liraz Siri, company co-founder.

  • Google

    • Google Chrome OS is for Netbooks, Android for Smartphones & Tablets

      We all know that Google is in the operating system business these days. What hasn’t been clear is exactly what Google has planned for its Chrome operating system. We all know that Android is Google’s Android Linux smartphone and tablet answer. But where does Chrome, a Linux and Web browser-based operating system fit in?

      It hasn’t been an easy question to answer. After all, you can use Android as a desktop operating system and you can use Chrome as a tablet operating system. So, what’s what here? Now, we’re beginning to get come clear answers.

      In a TechRadar interview with Google Chrome senior product manager Anders Sandholm, Sandholm said, “What we are focusing on [in Chrome] is netbooks in terms of form-factor and providing a really good experience for that.”

    • Google: ‘Android not optimised for tablets’

      Google has stated that it currently isn’t using Android on any tablets, hinting that it will have a tablet-centric OS soon.

      Although Gingerbread and Honeycomb have been strongly tipped to be tablet-friendly versions of Android, this is the first time Google has confirmed Froyo isn’t a platform for iPad rivals.

  • ARM

    • Understanding Smartphone processors

      The next generation of smartphones are set to get dual-core processors with improved graphics. We take a look at just what makes a smartphone processor

    • Stronger ARM on the Horizon

      This is an example of the problem ARM has which turns out to be a solution too. The ARM cores are going to be so small it is hard to connect them to the real world. They can connect with other ARM cores properly, however. That makes multiple-core ARM CPUs scale much better than x86. x86 cores are huge. Even Moore’s Law cannot make 16 fit in a tiny cool package. The vast majority of desktop PCs will have everything they need in such a chip and nothing they don’t: fans, PSU, case size and mass. It will be a better way to do IT and it runs GNU/Linux.

    • ARM Unveils Cortex-A15 MPCore Processor

      ARM has pulled the wraps off a new mobile processor called the Coretex-A15. This processor can be had with four cores and is aimed at mobile devices and high-end digital home gear.

  • Kernel Space

    • Matthew Garrett files case with US Customs against Fusion Garage

      Kernel hacker Matthew Garrett has been looking into GPL compliance on various consumer devices, and has evidently gotten fed up with responses from the Joojoo tablet maker. In the comments on the blog posting, someone purportedly from Fusion Garage asked Garrett to contact them, so maybe it will all get resolved soon.

    • Graphics Stack

      • Kernel Log: Coming in 2.6.36 (Part 1) – Graphics

        The Kernel Log thus can now already offer a comprehensive overview of the major changes in the new kernel version scheduled for release in late October. To keep the material palatable, Kernel Log will, as ever, divide this information up into a series of articles which will look at different areas of the kernel. The ‘Coming in 2.6.36′ series kicks off below with a description of changes in the area of graphics hardware support. Articles on network support, storage hardware, file systems, architecture code, drivers and other areas will be published over the next few weeks.

  • Applications

  • Distributions

    • Lubuntu 10.10 Beta Available for Download

      Julian Lavergne announced a few days ago, the immediate availability for download of the first Beta release of the upcoming Lubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) operating system.

    • Softpedia Linux Weekly, Issue 113

      · Announced Distro: openSUSE 11.4 Milestone 1
      · Announced Distro: Ubuntu 10.10 Beta

      [...]

    • New Final Releases

      • UHU-Linux 2.2 (Nerd)
      • MoLinux 6.0 (Netbook)
      • Untangle 7.4.1
      • Super OS 10.04
      • Super OS 10.04 Is Now Available for Download

        Super OS 10.04 has been released. The Ubuntu derivative sticks pretty close to the original, but aims to make it a bit more user friendly, mostly by including more multimedia codecs and more default packages.

      • Salix LXDE edition 13.1.1 is ready!

        Here’s an update to our LXDE edition! The main selection of software has stayed the same as in the previous LXDE release: Midori is used as the default web browser, claws-mail is the default email client, abiword, gnumeric and epdfview are there for your office needs and exaile, brasero and whaaw! media player are included in the multimedia application section, all running in the same lightweight LXDE desktop. Following the changes in the standard XFCE release, several things have been updated though.

      • Parsix GNU/Linux 3.6 Released

        Earlier today, September 7th, Alan Baghumian proudly announced the immediate availability for download of the Parsix GNU/Linux 3.6 operating system. Dubbed “Vinnie,” the new version brings lots of updated applications, new artwork, new features and many bugs fixed.

    • Red Hat Family

      • A 52 Week High for Red Hat, will it Hold?

        New York, September 9th (TradersHuddle.com) – Shares of Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT) booked a new 52 week high today by trading above $37.53, traders are definitely monitoring Red Hat’s price action to see if this move attracts further buying into the stock.

    • Debian Family

      • Paradigm Shift

        I had my first day of classes for this school year. The grade nine class made my day. There were a lot of students and I introduced the course with a bit of the history of the PC, nomenclature, care and feeding, and installing an OS. We started installing Debian GNU/Linux over XP at 13:50 and were mostly done by 14:08. It was a network installation and some files were not in the cache so things dragged a bit. The only thing left after class was agreeing to installation of the bootloader.

      • Debian alert DSA-2098-2 (typo3-src)

        The update for TYPO3 in DSA 2098 introduced a regression which could make the backend functionality unusable. This update corrects the problem. For reference the original advisory below.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Booting Ubuntu 10.10 In 8.6 Seconds [Video]

          Ubuntu 10.10 has only entered the Beta. However, it looks like it is doing extremely well in cutting down the boot time.

          James Ward posted a video showing Ubuntu 10.10 in a mere 8.6 seconds. That is the total time it takes from GRUB to get to a usable desktop. According to Ward, he did not do anything special, like disable the drivers etc., to reduce the boot time. But of course, he uses a SSD.

        • Top reasons to install Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Linux)

          Ever since its release back in October of 2004, Ubuntu has quickly become one of the most used Linux distributions available. Focusing on user-friendliness and usability, Ubuntu is highly stable and easy to install for those those just want a great operating system without being chained down by Microsoft.

        • The Commodore 64 Lives Again – as a Modern PC Running Ubuntu

          Some of you may remember the now-infamous Carpet Cleaner Computer that’s Personal (CCCP), an old Bissell carpet washer that I converted to a PC because, well, just because. The fun continues with another entertaining waste of time and money, converting a Commodore 64 to a genuine contemporary PC. Yes, it can be done, again with a little custom engineering and an unusual circuit board.

        • Third update to the Ubuntu Light Themes

Free Software/Open Source

  • Yiy, a song with music video done in Blender

    Phetogo Tshepo Mahasha writes us he made “this music video “ for a prominent indie musician “Muhsinah” with Blender, GIMP and Photoshop.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • First Look: Firefox 4 JaegerMonkey

        Mozilla has published the first Firefox build that integrates a new JavaScript engine that aims to match the performance in IE9 and reduces the gap to Safari, Opera and Chrome.

  • Databases

    • NoSQL takes a seat on Android with new mobile version of CouchDB

      A new mobile version of the CouchDB database system, called CouchOne Mobile, is available for Google’s Android operating system. The mobile version is still at a relatively early stage of development, but it will allow developers to take advantage of CouchDB’s sophisticated replication functionality to synchronize data between desktop and mobile applications.

      CouchDB is a schema-less document-based database that uses JSON as a storage format and JavaScript as a query language. It is popular in the so-called NoSQL community and is increasingly seeing deployment in high-profile business and scientific computing environments.

  • Oracle

    • Oracle VM VirtualBox

      Virtualization is a big word that means, more or less, running one computer system inside another system. You could, for example, have a complete virtual Linux system running in a window inside your Windows 7 computer, or you might have a complete Windows XP system running in a window inside a Linux or OS X or Windows 7 system.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • RMS to speak in Melbourne

      Free Software Foundation founder Richard M. Stallman will be visiting Melbourne next week and is scheduled to give two talks at educational institutions.

  • Standards/Consortia

    • Open Sesame

      What happens in open standards?
      All technology/software used for e-governance becomes inter-operable. In other words, any technology platform or software should be able to read government documents, maps, images and datasheets.

      Who gains?

      * Government: Will not have to spend crores on a proprietary standard. Various offices would be able to access data without having same technology/software.
      * Consumers: Will not have to buy proprietary software to access government documents

      Who loses?
      Big proprietary software companies and licensed technology platforms

      E-governance market in India

      * Size: $10 billion
      * Proprietary tech/software 95%
      * Open Source 5%

Leftovers

  • eBay stake in Craigslist restored but no board seat

    A judge on Thursday reinstated eBay Inc’s 28.4 percent stake in Craigslist, but allowed the classifieds site to keep eBay off its board.

  • Welcome to the Nerd Blog

    Today we are introducing our Nerd Blog, a place to talk about what programmer-journalists at ProPublica are working on, announce newly-launched news applications, and to hear from technically-minded readers, as well as our fellow nerdy journalists. We’re going to be writing about each of our projects as we release them, and flagging open source tools we’ve found useful.

  • Google search index splits with MapReduce

    Google Caffeine — the remodeled search infrastructure rolled out across Google’s worldwide data center network earlier this year — is not based on MapReduce, the distributed number-crunching platform that famously underpins the company’s previous indexing system. As the likes of Yahoo!, Facebook, and Microsoft work to duplicate MapReduce through the open source Hadoop project, Google is moving on.

    According to Eisar Lipkovitz, a senior director of engineering at Google, Caffeine moves Google’s back-end indexing system away from MapReduce and onto BigTable, the company’s distributed database platform.

  • Security/Aggression

  • Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM

    • PSJailbreak: how the Playstation 3 was hacked
    • Business lobbies slam net neutrality

      Leaders of the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the US Chamber of Commerce gathered at a press conference yesterday to whinge about the impending horrors of Internet regulation.

      The business groups wanted to hear from FCC chairman Julius Genachowski about how proposed net neutrality regulation won’t choke off innovation. Their concern is that they are uncertain about what net neutrality regulations will bring. The TIA and NAM also argued that it could also impede the roll out of broadband in rural areas, a seemingly not so veiled threat to stall and obstruct that unless they get their way and are able to block or subvert net neutrality through lobbying.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Swiss supreme court orders company to stop snooping on illegal file-sharing suspects

        The Swiss supreme court has ordered a company to stop snooping on suspected illegal file sharers, saying the practice breaches their right to privacy.

        The Lausanne-based Federal Tribunal says Logistep AG collected personal information on users of file-sharing networks and sold it to film and music companies seeking to protect their intellectual property.

      • Are Swedish Police Violating Copyright Law In Creating Shoe Database?

        The police claim that the law lets them ignore copyright in solving crimes, but an intellectual property professor quoted in the article notes that such an exemption only applies in the direct police investigation of a specific crime — not for the sake of building up a general database. The professor suggests that this appears to be a clear violation of Swedish copyright laws.

      • Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra coming to AMERICA!! (kinda)

        Technically, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra ARE coming to America, but it’s not exactly like you think. To celebrate the 21 years or so of Tokyo Ska, TSPO have set up a little fan event thing in Hawaii for the week of October 1st. Fans will get to tour Hawaii with TSPO, meet and speak with the band members, and enjoy a special acoustic session on an evening cruise on the beautiful island of O’ahu, Hawaii! All for 194,000¥ (roughly $2,200).

      • USTR’s February 10, 2009 memo on Transparency Soup

        On September 3, 2010, we received a letter dated August 30, 2010, with a very incomplete response to that FOIA request. The most interesting document included in the preliminary response was an email with 3 pages of attachments sent by Stan McCoy, the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Intellectual Property and Innovation, on February 10, 2010. (McCoy joined USTR under the Bush Administration).

      • Copyright Debates Fire Up Popkomm

        “The truth is digital technology has driven a panzer division through copyright law,” Smith said, with perhaps not the most sensitive choice of metaphor given the location. “If 70% of the population are ignoring a law, it’s no longer a law – we have to figure out a new way of working with copyright.”

      • ACTA

Clip of the Day

Spot Soluzioni Business con Linux – IBM – 2002


Credit: TinyOgg

Links 10/9/2010: Source Code for Linux-based Dell Streak Released, $35 Indian Linux Tablets Claimed Imminent

Posted in News Roundup at 6:34 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • How Linux Land Got Better Since Last Summer

    “My favourite change in the world of GNU/Linux this year is that GNU/Linux is being accepted by more people as a better way to do IT on the desktop as well as the server,” said blogger and educator Robert Pogson. “All the advantages of stability, efficiency, security, low cost, etc., that benefit us who use GNU/Linux on the server also apply to those using GNU/Linux on the desktop.”

  • Fact or Fiction? Top 8 Linux Myths Debunked

    In fact, the ranks of businesses and government organizations using Linux grows every day, and for good reason: it’s simply a good business choice. Let’s take a look, then, at some of the top anxiety-causing myths and dispel them once and for all.

  • Project Canvas Will be *Linux* Based

    It’s pretty amazing to read this panegyric to Linux: it shows just how far Linux has come, and how it is taking over the embedded world.

    Even though content will be “protected” – from you, the user, that is – which means the platform can’t really be regarded as totally open, the Project Canvas designers and managers still deserve kudos for opting for Linux, and for publicly extolling its virtues in this way.

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • KDE and the Expansion of the Desktop

        KDE developers do not seem to have articulated their purposes so succinctly, but those are the general tendencies in KDE 4. The goal seems to be to add features without straying too far from the basic metaphor of the desktop and making radical changes.

        Desktop icons are intended to put applications within easy reach of users. However, in most desktops on any operating system, one of two problems arises: either you settle on a general set of icons that works reasonably well when you are doing most tasks, but is not perfectly suited to any specific task, or else you add so many that finding the ones you need becomes difficult. In either case, you lose the convenience of desktop icons.

        You can, of course, rely entirely on the menu — and many do — but that can add substantially to the number of clicks needed to start an application. A Favorites menu can help, but, like a desktop covered with icons, it loses efficiency when more than about nine items are placed in it.

  • Distributions

    • Reviews

      • Absolute, Dream

        A couple of years ago, one of my first distro-hopping experiences was to tinker with DreamLinux, which (if I remember right) was one of the earliest distros to include Compiz and accelerated graphics by default.

    • Debian Family

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Daily dose of Scribus trunk

          We’ll be using Scribus for much of the DTP internal to Canonical. Our templates etc will be published in Scribus, so folks who need to knock up a flyer or brochure have the pieces they need ready to hand. However, there’s a problem, in that the stable Scribus package is really quite old.

          The Scribus team is making good progress on the next version of Scribus, but I couldn’t find an easy way to test their trunk. So I thought to make a PPA with a daily build. Whenever I’m testing or evaluating a new app I like to check out trunk, just to get a feel for the pace of activity and quality of the work. A crisp, clean, stable trunk is a sign of good quality work, which will likely mean good quality elsewhere like documentation and project governance. Chaos on trunk means… chaos generally, as a rule.

        • No need to complicate your life…

          For some reason people always think that having seperate / and /home partitions is necessary to having a healthy Ubuntu system.

        • New features and changes in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick!

          Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) BETA has been published a few days ago and quite a few brave souls has already upgraded to it. The Beta release gives general idea of what final release will look like when it is due in October 2010.

        • Dell Vostro 3300 and Ubuntu 10.4

          I decided to purchase a Dell Vostro 3300 recently. I took the decision based on the cost, spec and the fact that it is Ubuntu certified (list of certified hardware for each release). I was interested on checking out 10.4 so I looked at what was available with Dell.

        • First Impressions: Ubuntu 10.10 Beta

          So, that concluded my rapid-fire trial of Ubuntu 10.10 beta. There’s a lot to like, and a lot to keep an eye on for bug fixes apparently. I didn’t see anything earth-shattering enough to convince me to replace my LTS release any time soon. Perhaps over the next month of polish and bug-squashing a star will emerge. If it does, you’ll certainly hear about it.

        • Whither with Ubuntu?

          Over the 6 years of life that Ubuntu has had so far, it has changed drastically. At first, it was just a quick and convenient way for me to install Debian. It started becoming more and more popular, and then was like a tidal wave through the Linux community. Today, it is the world’s third most popular operating system. Windows, OSX, Ubuntu, then everything else. There is, however, an untold story.

        • Flavours and Variants

          • [Reviews]: Linux Mint 9 Fluxbox Review ” Isadora “

            I have been using Linux Mint since Linux Mint 5 Elyssa always was interesting in Linux Mint Fluxbox editions because it does not require high hardware specifications using a really lightweight window manager Fluxbox based on Blacbox. First installation for Linux Mint 5 on my Laptop with hardware specifications 1GHz and 256 MB of RAM, so Linux Mint 9 Fluxbox edition is a good choice if you don’t have a good hardware specifications.

          • Linux Mint 9 Xfce or LXDE?

            Another round in the battle between Xfce and LXDE. This time the distro is Linux Mint 9. So far, the Xfce desktop has lost two rounds in a matches with LXDE on the same distro. It has lost both the free memory battle and the quality of distribution battle. On this last round, who is going to be the winner?

            Both installs were from a Live/Install CD for each desktop. No problem with either install, and both use GRUB2. While GRUB2 may have its problems, I like the fact that it automatically finds and correctly boots other Linux distros. To avoid installing GRUB2 on the MBR, you need to click the “Advanced” button on the Ready to Install screen (Step 8 of 8). This screen allows you to select the boot partition.

          • SuperOS 10.04 Screenshots

            SuperOS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution that makes Ubuntu more usable while remaining compatible with it. This is done by implementing several beginner-friendly tools and features. Along with over 200 updates from Ubuntu 10.04, SuperOS 10.04 also includes important enhancements like out-of-the-box support for DVD-playback, QuickTime video, Windows Media Video, Flash Video and many others. Other features include portable applications with RUNZ, programs are easier to run with App Runner, WUBI is in place, access the live USB creator cd2usb from the DVD menu, and many other enhancements.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Phones

      • Android

        • Source code for Dell Streak unveiled

          Thanks to Android’s open-source agreements handsets are having their source codes released left and right. If you’re similar to me, I get quite excited that they released the source code, download the file, and realize… I have no idea what I am doing. Although I am still eager about what our developers will come up with to take advantage of this large screen. Hopefully all the manufactures will follow suit and continue this early release of source codes so that our developers can quickly get up custom ROMS and themes.

    • Sub-notebooks

    • Tablets

      • Sakshat, the Laughed-At $35 Indian Tablet, Reportedly Set for Early 2011 Launch

        Defying skeptics everywhere, the gadget with the funny name and an absurdly low price will reportedly arrive in India this January. Rumors concerning the Sakshat — a minimally priced, government-endorsed Indian Android tablet — have circulated for more than a year. The device, which was designed for students and folks typically unable to afford a computer, reportedly has a manufacturer, a price, a release date and detailed specs.

Free Software/Open Source

  • Open Source Community Types

    When I am with business people, I often find I need to distinguish between the different kinds of community that are layered around various Free software commons. It’s common to characterise community members as either “developers” (the “open source” worldview often emphasises this) or “users” (the “Free software” worldview often emphasises this). More than that, using the term “community” to apply to every style of gathering leads to confusion, especially regarding motivations for participating.

    As I’ve watched various community engagements by various companies and individuals, and discussed this with various people, it seems to me that there are four different development-related community types, in two bands. These aren’t absolute classifications with hard-and-fast boundaries, and most communities span two of the types, but the distinction is helpful when discussing communities.

  • Oracle

    • FSF Lashes Out at Oracle for its Patent Lawsuit Against Google Android

      FSF finally responds to the whole Google vs Oracle legal tangle and the threat posed by software patents. FSF lashed out at Oracle for suing Google over various Java patents, even calls the actions by Oracle as ‘unjustifiable.’ FSF also adds that, “nobody deserves to be the victim of software patent aggression, and Oracle is wrong to use its patents to attack Android”.

  • CMS

    • For-Profit Automattic Gives WordPress Trademark To Non-Profit Foundation

      “It’s not often you see a for-profit company donate one of their most valuable core assets and give up control,” Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg writes today in a post announcing that the WordPress trademark has been transfered from his company to the WordPress Foundation. “This is a really big deal,” he continues.

    • Something is Drupally in the State of Denmark

      It seems that while many technology conferences are suffering a bit with their attendance, there is no stopping the Drupal community. With almost 1200 attendees, the Copenhagen conference was the most well-attended European DrupalCon yet, likely due in no small part to the promise of a custom-brewed beer and our own bar to drink it in. Suffice it to say that Drupalers work and play hard.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Data

      • Introducing OpenCharities: Opening up the Charities Register

        A couple of weeks ago I needed a list of all the charities in the UK and their registration numbers so that I could try to match them up to the local council spending data OpenlyLocal is aggregating and trying to make sense of. A fairly simple request, you’d think, especially in this new world of transparency and open data, and for a dataset that’s uncontentious.

Leftovers

  • Commodore Threatens Blogger For Being Skeptical About Its Amiga Plans

    Slashdot recently pointed us to the fact that OSNews received a legal threat from Commodore USA for publishing an article that was highly skeptical of Commodore’s Amiga plans. Slashdot focuses on the fact that the legal nastygram is obviously copied from ChillingEffects.org, including odd formatting and references. While that part is amusing, I don’t think it’s that interesting. While there’s been some discussion about copyright on legal documents, in general, lawyers copy others’ legal language all the time, and it’s (mostly) considered to be okay.

  • Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Daily Variety Refuses To Back Down On Vandals Lawsuit

      Where this gets even more interesting (or potentially dangerous, depending on your opinion), is that the band’s bassist, Joe Escalante, is a former entertainment lawyer who is representing the band in the case. Despite not being a litigator, he’s been learning about litigation and even got himself admitted to practice law in Delaware, where the lawsuit was filed (the band is trying to get the case moved to LA). Escalante has been publicizing all of the aspects of the case, and the band is even holding a “fundraising” concert to fund the legal defense.

    • Copyrights

      • Free Comics! Slightly Scanned.

        For comic fans, history fans, and comics history fans, the Digital Comics Museum is offering downloads and scans of public domain comic books from the 1940s and ’50s. There are a massive amount of titles and issues available, from Captain Science to Sherlock Holmes to Frisky Fairy Tales to the chaste Sweet Sixteen Magazine, and many, many more. You can also find the very same horror comics that led to the creation of the Comics Code Authority.

      • 2010 Catalyst Grant Recipients Announced!

        It’s with great pleasure that we announce the recipients of the first CC Catalyst Grants Program. Out of a grant pool consisting of more than 130 applications, seven projects have been selected for awards up to $10,000 each, to catalyze projects that contribute to the commons.

        Thanks to your generous support during the Catalyst Grants campaign, we raised almost $50,000, 100% of which will directly fuel the grant awards.

Clip of the Day

ARM Cortex™-A15 MPcore processor


Credit: TinyOgg

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