12.09.15
Links 9/12/2015: Linux Foundation Endorses PRISM, End for Firefox OS
Contents
GNU/Linux
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Benefits of Linux Distro Packaging
Recently, I have been adding a lot of patches to the version of Eclipse (Mars.1) that is packaged in Fedora Linux. This post attempts to explain why.
In my opinion, one of the chief benefits to packaging your software for a Linux distribution is the ability of the distribution to carry patches. These patches generally come in two flavours.
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Kernel Space
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Microsoft partners with The Linux Foundation for ‘Linux on Azure’ certification
Linux is not only the future, but the present too. Even if you do not directly use an operating system based on the kernel, there is a good chance that it impacts you every day. Much of your precious internet traffic is routed through servers that run Linux. Many set-top boxes and devices are powered by the kernel and you may not even know it. Of course, Android is one such Linux-based operating system that millions upon millions of people use daily.
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Microsoft to offer a Linux-based cert for Azure admins
Microsoft’s newfound embrace of open-source software continues with the news today that the company will now offer a Linux on Azure certificate through its Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate program.
Those who pass both Microsoft’s 70-533 exam and the Linux Foundation’s Certified System Administrator exam will receive the Linux on Azure cert from the MCSA program. The cert is available as of today, according to a joint announcement.
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Open Container Initiative Drives Forward With Governance Model
The Linux Foundation collaborative project formalizes its governance structure for standardizing containers, though it doesn’t answer all questions about container interoperability.
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Linux Foundation Self-Paced Course Expands Open Source Cloud Training
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Microchip Applauds Linux Foundation’s Vision of How Open-Source Collaboration is Transforming the Automotive Industry
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Linux Foundation and Microsoft: A Great Start to a Great Partnership
From participating in Node.js, the Core Infrastructure Initiative and other Collaborative Projects at Linux Foundation to its recent partnerships with Red Hat and SUSE, Microsoft is demonstrating a sincere, smart and practical approach to how it builds new technologies and supports its vast customer base. Microsoft open sourced .NET; it open sourced key parts of its web browser; and it uses Linux for its Azure Cloud Switch. The Linux Foundation and Microsoft share a common, strategic approach to technology development: balance internal R&D with external R&D to create the most important technologies of our time.
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Not a typo: Microsoft is offering a Linux certification
Right after Microsoft releasing MS-Linux, a few years ago I would have said the next most unlikely thing for Microsoft to do would be to offer a Linux certification. Guess what? They are.
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Microsoft wants to train you to use rival operating system, Linux
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Challenging, Rewarding, and Fulfilling: A Q&A with Shuah Khan on Linux Kernel Development
Shuah Khan was the very first engineer to join Samsung’s North American Open Source Group shortly after it was founded in 2013. Since then, she has been extremely valuable to the company through her contributions to the Linux Kernel. She was recently elected to the Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board, presenting her with a wonderful opportunity to help direct the Linux Kernel community from the highest technical level.
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BUS1: A New Linux Kernel IPC Bus Being Made By Systemd Developers
While KDBUS has yet to be mainlined as it was sent back to the drawing board, at least some of the systemd developers are working on a new kernel bus implementation called BUS1.
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Linux Foundation and Microsoft offer new Azure certification program
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Microsoft announces Azure certification program for Linux
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Microsoft brings Linux certification to Azure cloud
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Microsoft offers new certification for Linux on Azure
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Microsoft to offer a Linux-based cert for Azure admins
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Microsoft continues embracing Linux with new Azure certification
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Microsoft further embraces open source, partnering with Linux Foundation on Linux on Azure certification
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Graphics Stack
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R600 Gallium3D Lands Another OpenGL 4.3 Extension (Copy Image)
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Recapping The Intel Graphics Changes Of Linux 4.4
Daniel Vetter of Intel’s Open-Source Technology Center has done his usual recap of the i915 DRM graphics driver changes to be found in Linux 4.4.
There is a lot of code being converted over to the new atomic interfaces, Panel Self Refresh fixes (PSR), frame-buffer compression fixes (FBC), 48-bit GPU address space support with GEM for Broadwell and newer, GuC-based command submission, XenGT virtualized GPU support for Broadwell, and a variety of other changes.
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Support For DRI1 Might Be Stripped From The X.Org Server
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Multi-Screen Support For Wayland’s Weston IVI Shell
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Threaded Input Is Back To Being Worked On For The X.Org Server
The design is to move the input event code off to its own thread rather than running on the same main thread as the X.Org Server. Keith Packard cleaned up the threaded input code and patches it for the xf86 and KDrive/FBDEV areas. As part of this work, Keith is proposing that SIGIO support be dropped from the X.Org Server, which will break DRI1 support. This patch series is part of the reason why DRI1 support was proposed to be killed off yesterday in the X.Org Server.
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L3 Atomics Support Land In Intel’s Mesa Driver
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Benchmarks
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Applications
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NetworkManager Now Supports Creating MAC VLANs
As of this morning in NetworkManager is support for creating MAC VLAN and MAC VTAP devices.
MAC VLAN is like a reverse VLAN where a single network connection creates multiple virtual connections with different MAC addresses. MacVTap meanwhile is a new driver to simplify virtualized bridged networking. MacVTap is described in more detail here.
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Git 2.6.4 Open Source Distributed Version Control System Has Many Improvements and Fixes
The Git developers have announced the release and immediate availability for download of the fourth maintenance build for the stable Git 2.6 branch of the world’s most popular distributed version control system.
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Gammu 1.36.8
This time the focus was mostly on fixing problems introduced in 1.36.7.
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Announcing QSoas, a powerful y=f(x) data analysis software
I’m a researcher at the interface between physics, chemistry and biology, and in our team, we pride ourselves on making the most of the data we acquire, especially through quantitative analysis and modelling. In fact, we spend a lot of time doing fitting simple formulas or complex differential equations to our data. As we were not really satisfied with the data fitting capacities of the software available, we’ve had our custom data processing/fitting tool, SOAS, for ages. However, that tool was hard to maintain (Fortran + Fortran libraries interfacing with X11 with ABI changing every once in a while without notice), impossible to port to non-X11 platforms, not very user-friendly, and not easy to extend at all. So, when I got my permanent position, a rewrote a completely new version from scratch, called QSoas using C++, Qt, Ruby and the GNU Scientific Library. The result is incomparably more powerful, more easy to maintain, more user-friendly, and more portable (I build it for Linux, Mac and Windows).
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Proprietary
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SoftMaker brings its Office 2016 suite to Linux
Unsurprisingly called SoftMaker Office 2016, the company, which won an INQUIRER Tech Hero award earlier this year, claims it’s the fastest office suite for Linux, being five quicker than Microsoft Office. It also offers more than 400 new features including vastly improved compatibility with Microsoft Office.
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SoftMaker Office 2016 now available for Linux users
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BeyondTrust Adds Sudo Authentication Management for Unix and Linux
BeyondTrust says it is making life easier for Linux and Unix systems administrators who use sudo for security and authentication. The company has a new product, PowerBroker for Sudo, that simplifies sudo file and log management.
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Instructionals/Technical
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How To Setup Remote Git Repository Server On openSUSE 42.1
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Setting up a local caching proxy for Fedora YUM repositories
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libvirt Networking Handbook v1.0.0
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HA for Tripleo
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Running ansible’s integration tests
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Fixing Mistakes in Git
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How to change sys.path or PYTHONPATH in Python
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How to install an Opensource VPN Server on Linux
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How To Backup And Restore LVM On openSUSE 42.1
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systemd: Template unit files
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Linux / Unix Desktop Fun: Christmas Tree For Your Terminal
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Install Habari on a CentOS 7 VPS
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Deploy CiviCRM in conjunction with Drupal on an Ubuntu 14.04 VPS
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Wine or Emulation
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CrossOver 15.0 Is Based on Wine 1.8 and Has Thousands of Improvements
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Direct3D 11 Support In Wine/CrossOver Is Still A Number Of Months Away
Back during E3 in June, CodeWeavers was talking about “support for DirectX 11 [in the coming months].” It’s been nearly six months and it looks like we’re still a ways out from seeing support in Wine.
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CodeWeavers has released CrossOver 15 for Linux and Mac
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Games
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User Submitted Editorial: Current Linux gaming situation
First of all it was a great year. The number of Linux titles that we received is good, but shouldn’t it be better? Personally I think it should. And I hope it still can be.
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Lucius II, wreak havoc as the bad guy on SteamOS & Linux
Lucius II is a game we sadly overlooked, once again due to it not showing up in Steam’s new releases section due to adding the Linux version later. I really wish Valve would fix that, as it comes up quite often.
I tested it, and while it could be interesting it doesn’t play very well with the Steam Controller, during a tutorial it told me to throw an item, but it didn’t pick up the right trigger at all.
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Race Online, a fun little 2D racer has test builds available for Linux
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Sunken, an impressive looking action RPG with roguelike elements planned for Linux
I’ve been sent Sunken by a user, and I have to say it looks like quite a good addition to the action RPG genre, the good news is the developer is already planning a Linux version.
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The Mean Greens – Plastic Warfare, a beautiful Unreal Engine toy soldier game looking for Linux testers
The Mean Greens – Plastic Warfare is a pretty damn good looking action game about plastic toy soldiers, reminds me of a game I played like it years ago. The developers are interested in a Linux version, and want testers.
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The Last NightMary – A Lenda do Cabeca de Cuia, a point and click survival game now on Linux
The Last NightMary – A Lenda do Cabeça de Cuia is an interesting hybrid of a point and click game with survival elements, has nice artwork too.
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A chat with a Unity developer about Unity’s new OpenGL system for Linux games
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Techland show how hilarious it is when a Linux port has no quality control with Dying Light
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Unity 5.3 Game Engine Moves to OpenGL 4.x Core
The Unity game engine has been upgraded to version 5.3, and its developers have made a series of very important improvements to it.
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Unity 5.3 Released With Big Renderer Improvements
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Unity 5.3 released, hello modern OpenGL system for Linux gaming
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HTC Vive VR Retail Launch Delayed Until April 2016
When the HTC Vive launched there was hopes of it launching in November along with the Steam Machines, Steam Controller, and Steam Link. As time went on we heard by the “holidays 2015″ for a limited release and full availability in Q1’2016. HTC has now announced their new retail target, which slightly misses the old window. The new expectation is for the retail launch of HTC Vive in April 2016.
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Humble NEOGEO 25th Anniversary Bundle, almost all games available for Linux
Well this was a surprise, the Humble NEOGEO 25th Anniversary Bundle has been released, and it features plenty of games nearly all of which are available on Linux. Right now Linux is leading the pack with the highest average payment too.
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Massive Starbound update released, tons of new stuff
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Dying Light: Enhanced Edition announced, sounds excellent
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Major update to Albion Online, the fun MMORPG on Linux
I’m a pretty big fan of Albion Online, as we had a big drought of MMORPG games on Linux. Albion Online is in closed beta (you can buy in anytime) and it just had a juicy update.
The new update is named Aurelius, and it comes with a ton of fixes, new abilities for weapons, and more! The new dungeons to fight PvE sounds like a well needed addition for the game.
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Hatred, the controversial shooter is now being tested for a Linux port
Hatred, that weird shooter about killing anyone and everyone is now in testing for Linux the developer has confirmed, and SteamDB shows it too.
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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Linux Gaming
The wildly popular game Rocket League is expected to be playable on GNU/Linux soon. Rocket League is a multiplayer physics based Soccer game played with fast booster, rigged vehicles in place of athletes, and is the sequel to Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars! Since its release last year for Playstation 4 and Windows, Rocket League has gathered a huge following, which has only increased the demand for a Linux version.
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Desktop Environments/WMs
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K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt
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Calligra 2.9.10 Released
We are happy to announce the release of the Calligra Suite, and Calligra Active 2.9.10. It is recommended update for the 2.9 series of the applications and underlying development frameworks.
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Krita 2.9.10 Digital Painting Software Released with More Photoshop PSD Improvements
Krita 2.9.10 has been released today as part of the Calligra 2.9.10 open-source office suite, for which we will publish a separate article later today, when an official announcement is made available.
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A closer look to Ark 15.12
Ark 15.08 was the first Ark release after the port to KF5, so there wasn’t much room for new features.
With the upcoming 15.12 release the situation is quite different, as there are a significant number of changes that are worth of a blog post.
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GNOME Desktop/GTK
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GNOME’s Epiphany Web Browser Finally Enables WebGL + WebAudio By Default
GNOME’s Epiphany web-browser is under heavy development for the GNOME 3.20 cycle. Epiphany 3.19.1 was just released and it’s packing a lot of new features.
First off, WebGL and WebAudio support are finally enabled in this browser by default while most tier-one browsers have long exposed these web APIs.
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Content apps hackfest
Last week I attended the Content Apps Hackfest in Madrid. A group of about 12 us met for three days to work on GNOME’s content apps: Documents, Files, Music, Photos and Videos. The goal for the hackfest was to make as much progress with these apps as possible, although we also ended up talking about other apps, due to who was in attendance.
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Distributions
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New Releases
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Chakra GNU/Linux Gets Linux Kernel 4.2.6, Firefox 42.0, Wireshark 2.0, and 0 A.D. 0.0.19
Neofytos Kolokotronis from the Chakra GNU/Linux project has had the pleasure of announcing the general availability of new updates for the latest stable release of the Chakra GNU/Linux computer operating system.
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Ballnux/SUSE
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Syncing and publishing SUSE repositories with Pulp
I was recently looking into Pulp’s ability to sync and publish SUSE repositories, including those from openSUSE, SLES 11, and (after a little bit of work) SLES 12.
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SUSE Embraces Open Source NFV for Software-Defined Data Center Offerings
SUSE® has joined the Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV) project, a carrier-grade, integrated open source platform that is accelerating the introduction of new products and services using network functions virtualization (NFV). The addition of NFV capabilities enhances SUSE’s software-defined data center offerings, including OpenStack-based cloud infrastructure and Ceph-based software-defined storage.
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Red Hat Family
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Red Hat Inc (NYSE:RHT) Receives $83.09 Average Price Target from Analysts
Red Hat Inc (NYSE:RHT) has earned an average recommendation of “Buy” from the thirty-five ratings firms that are currently covering the company, Market Beat.com reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have issued a hold rating and twenty-five have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 12-month target price among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $83.26.
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Red Hat Inc 12.5% Potential Upside Now Implied by RBC Capital Mkts
Red Hat Inc has had its stock rating noted as ‘Reiterated’ with the recommendation being set at ‘OUTPERFORM’ today by analysts at RBC Capital Mkts. Red Hat Inc are listed in the Technology sector within NYSE. RBC Capital Mkts have set a target price of 90 USD on its stock. This is indicating the analyst believes there is a potential upside of 12.5% from the opening price of 80.02 USD.
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Red Hat helps eMedlab share supercomputer in the cloud
A cloud of bioinformatics intelligence has been harmonised by Red Hat to create ‘virtual supercomputers’ that can be shared by the eMedlab collective of research institutes.
The upshot is that researchers at institutes such as the Wellcome Trust Sanger, UCL and King’s College London can carry out much more powerful data analysis when researching cancers, cardio-vascular conditions and rare diseases.
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Amazon Started At Buy; Visa, Red Hat PTs Raised
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Red Hat pursues Java-Node.js connection
The company is using the Node package manager to develop connectors linking Node.js to ActiveMQ, the Java messaging service, said Rich Marples, senior director for product management at the Red Hat app platforms business group.
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ValueLabs Announces Collaboration with Red Hat to Deliver Business Process Management Solutions
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Trader shows support for Red Hat
optionMONSTER’s monitoring systems detected the sale of 3,300 January 72.50 puts in one print for $0.85 this morning. Volume was more than 7 times the open interest in the strike, which indicates that this is a new position.
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Red Hat’s (RHT) Buy Rating Reaffirmed at RBC Capital
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RBC Capital Reiterates a Buy Rating on Red Hat
In a report released today, Matthew Hedberg from RBC Capital reiterated a Buy rating on Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), with a price target of $90. The company’s shares closed yesterday at $80.52, close to its 52-week high of $83.
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Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT) – Large Cap Morning Report
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Fedora
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Chapeau 23 “Armstrong” Is a Beautifully Crafted Linux Distro Based on Fedora 23 [Ed: corrected link. Wrong one used the other day.]
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Chapeau 23 Screenshot Tour
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Dan Mossor: How do you Fedora?
He first started using Linux in 1996 when he installed Slackware on an 80386-based computer. That attempt was not successful, so he tried Red Hat Linux, which worked. At the time, he was a data systems technician for the United States Navy and was responsible for a wide array of systems running everything from HPUX, SunOS, Solaris, and Windows NT. While the Navy was not running Linux at the time, Dan saw its potential and has been running at least one Linux system at home since that first install. It has been an integral part of his job for nearly fifteen years.
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Mailing List Migrations: Hyperkitty, Mailman3
The Fedora Hosted lists will be migrated on November 16th, and the Fedora Project lists later in the week. After migration you should be able to use the new Hyperkitty UI to post and read the lists if you choose or continue to get emails in the traditional way.
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bucardo in EPEL 7?
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Debian Family
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Derivatives
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Canonical/Ubuntu
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Meet the World’s First Commercial Remotely Controlled Drones, Powered by Ubuntu
UAVIA, a French company that develops inspection and surveillance drones controlled remotely without human intervention on the ground, has announced the availability of the first commercial 100% remotely operable drones powered by Ubuntu.
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MeegoPad T02 Ubuntu PC stick giveaway
The MeegoPad T02 is a PC-on-a-stick with an Intel Atom Bay Trail processor, 2GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage. Plug it into the HDMI port of your TV or monitor and you’ve basically got a low-power desktop computer.
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Linux Kernel 4.3 Lands in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, Linux Kernel 4.4 LTS Tracking Continues
Canonical’s Joseph Salisbury has announced the availability of this week’s Ubuntu Kernel Team Newsletter, published on Tuesday, December 8, 2015, on the Ubuntu Wiki.
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Ubuntu Touch OTA-8.5 Is in Testing, OTA-9 Gets New Telephony and Messaging
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Ubuntu Touch Mobile OS to Support the s390x Hardware Architecture for Landings
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Podbird Podcast App for Ubuntu Phones Updated with New Splash Screen and Icon
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Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Is Getting a Big Plymouth Boot Splash Upgrade After 7 Years
The Ubuntu developers have finally merged the Plymouth package from Debian, and they are preparing for some important changes.
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Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Temporarily Rebases To Linux 4.3
Ubuntu’s kernel team has temporarily moved up to the Linux 4.3 kernel in the archive, but it will be short-lived.
Ubuntu 16.04 LTS will end up using the Linux 4.4 kernel but while that version is still weeks away from release and being fixed up, Ubuntu “Xenial Xerus” users have the Linux 4.3 kernel upgrade, as confirmed by this week’s kernel team news.
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Flavours and Variants
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Linux Mint 17.3 ‘Rosa’ offers Linux Mint’s most polished desktop experience yet
While other operating systems dabble with mobile or push the bleeding edge, Mint’s shaping up to be the Old Faithful of the Linux desktop world.
Linux Mint 17.3 “Rosa” continues a series of stable releases built on the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS code. Rather than hacking away on experimental features or adding all the latest low-level software, Mint’s developers have been spending their time polishing the Cinnamon and MATE desktops. “Rosa” is yet another solid release that will please fans of Mint and anyone who misses the more traditional Linux desktop.
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Devices/Embedded
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Raspberry Pi SSD shield tosses in WiFi, USB ports, and power
Pi2Design has won Kickstarter funding for a $49 multifunction SSD shield for the Raspberry Pi 2 with an mSATA socket, WiFi, dual USBs, and an 8-25V supply.
Pi2Design, a Rhode Island based startup focused on Raspberry Pi shields and other Pi-based projects, has surpassed its modest, $15,000 Kickstarter goal for a “CSB502SSD” multifunction storage shield for the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B. The device is designed and manufactured by Cogent Computer Systems, makers of embedded modules and boards such as the Marvell Armada XP-based CSB1726 module. Pi2Design handles marketing, sales, and distribution.
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Raspberry Pi: New releases of Raspbian and NOOBS
The day before the announcement of the Raspberry Pi Zero, a new version of Raspbian Linux very quietly appeared in the Raspberry Pi Downloads, along with a new NOOBS archive that included it.
As there was no release announcement made at that time, and then there was so much excitement about the Raspberry Pi Zero the next day, the Raspbian release slipped past almost entirely unnoticed.
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Securi-Pi: Using the Raspberry Pi as a Secure Landing Point
Like many LJ readers these days, I’ve been leading a bit of a techno-nomadic lifestyle as of the past few years—jumping from network to network, access point to access point, as I bounce around the real world while maintaining my connection to the Internet and other networks I use on a daily basis. As of late, I’ve found that more and more networks are starting to block outbound ports like SMTP (port 25), SSH (port 22) and others. It becomes really frustrating when you drop into a local coffee house expecting to be able to fire up your SSH client and get a few things done, and you can’t, because the network’s blocking you.
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Raspberry Pi VC4 Gallium3D Support Continues Marching Along
Beyond all the recent kernel work with landing the initial Raspberry Pi KMS driver for the Linux 4.4 kernel, Eric Anholt at Broadcom has remained busy in user-space too with more improvements to the VC4 Gallium3D driver.
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Industrial focused Mini-ITX board packs Skylake punch
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Rugged fanless box-PC features triple GbE, optional wireless
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Phones
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Linux smartphones took a serious step back in 2015
Where will 2016 take us? Will we see Ubuntu Touch get some broader distribution and hardware support? Will Jolla survive as a company? Will some other company or organization come along and surprise us all with the Linux mobile OS of the future?
No, really. I’m asking. Does anyone know? Because I have absolutely no idea. I just hope 2016 is a bit better than 2015 for mobile Linux.
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Android
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Up close: Pixel C and Google’s return to a tablet-optimized Android UI
The Pixel C marks several firsts for Google and Android: It’s the first tablet Google has designed and manufactured on its own. It’s the first device other than the Chromebook Pixel to bear the “Pixel” name (and thus also the first Android device to use that moniker). And it’s the first time Google has actively pursued a convertible gadget that attempts to straddle the worlds of both touch-centric computing and keyboard-based input.
Beyond all that surface-level stuff, though, the Pixel C holds an interesting extra surprise: It’s the first time since 2011′s short-lived Honeycomb era that Google is moving back toward the idea of providing a tablet-optimized interface for large-screened devices.
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HTC Perfume With Android 6.1, Sense 8.0 UI Tipped as Next Flagship
The previously rumoured flagship smartphone codenamed HTC O2 has reportedly been abandoned by HTC. The company instead might launch a new handset, with codename HTC Perfume.
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It’s official: Mobile means only iOS and Android
The tech industry loves to watch platforms and products duke it out, and the competition can produce truly useful innovation that betters us all. It can also lead to lots of wasted effort and shattered dreams once the actual war is over but people keep trying to pretend it’s still on.
That’s certainly the case in mobile, where for years it’s been clear that only two operating system mattered: iOS and Android. Yet there were always a bunch of hopefuls that the tech industry cheered on, for sport if nothing else.
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Android 6.0 Marshmallow now rolling out for Moto X Pure, soak tests for X Play and X Force
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Google seems more determined than ever to take control of Android
The open-source nature of Google’s Android is both a curse and a blessing. Google conquered the post-PC world by making sure its mobile OS is the dominant platform in the smartphone business. Over 1.4 billion smartphone users have an Android device that can be used to browse the web and bring in some ad-based cash to Google – though many reports still say that iPhone owners are even more profitable for Google when it comes to ad money.
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Motorola finally confirms Android 6.0 Marshmallow update for the 2nd-gen Moto E (2015)
Back in early October, Motorola published a preliminary list of its smartphones that are scheduled to receive the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update. At the time, many Motorola fans have been disappointed to find out that the 2nd-gen Motorola Moto E, a handset that the manufacturer launched earlier this year, was not included among the Moto smartphone models scheduled to be updated to the latest Android version.
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Google Releases Android 6.0.1 With Updated Emojis and More
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Google’s Pixel C Android Tablet Uses The Nouveau Kernel Driver
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Pixel C review—New hardware ignores an Android tablet’s core problem: software
Google is back with yet another Android tablet. The latest hardware effort, the Pixel C, comes from an odd place inside Google: the Pixel team. Usually a “Pixel” is the latest, fancy high-end Chromebook, but with the Pixel C, the traditionally Chrome OS-centric team decided to make an Android tablet. It’s not just a tablet, though, there’s also a clip-on keyboard base making it a Surface-style convertible.
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HTC Perfume with Android 6.1 and Sense 8.0 tipped to be the company’s next flagship
HTC’s next flagship smartphone will be called Perfume, and it will come loaded with the yet-to-be-announced Android 6.1 OS, according to the usually reliable leakster @LlabTooFeR, who made the revelation in a tweet. He also said that the device will run version 8.0 of the company’s Sense UI.
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Instagram brings 3D Touch features to Android
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Google patches critical media processing and rooting vulnerabilities in Android
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Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Receives Android 6.0 Marshmallow Update In Europe
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Android TV’s Leanback Launcher Now Lets You Reorder Your Apps In Version 1.1.4 [APK Download]
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Chrome for Android blocks access to malware and scam websites
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Four Billion Swipes Later, Bumble Comes To Android
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The best features in the latest version of Android 6 Marshmallow
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Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo gets updated to Android 5.1.1 in Russia
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Google’s Authenticator security app comes to Android smartwatches
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Android Has LGBT Emoji Now Thanks To The 6.0.1 Update, And Here’s Why That Matters
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Facebook’s Security Check comes to Android
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Best Free Android Apps
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Android Returns to Growth in Europe’s Big Five Markets
The latest smartphone sales data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech for the three months ending in October 2015 shows Android returning to growth in Europe’s big five markets (“EU5”), after a decline that began in October 2014. Meanwhile, iOS registered a small decline in the EU5 for the three months ending in October 2015, the first such decline since the three-month period ending in August 2014.
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Android’s Third Age
The first age of Android saw Google’s OS attain popularity on smartphones in its early days. The second age took that approach to the next level, with a coherent design language and a move into tablets. Now, as we approach the end of 2015, it is the dawn of the third age of Android.
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Google is done selling the Nexus 6
Google has said a quiet goodbye to the Nexus 6: as of today, you’re no longer able to buy it from the Play Store. The decision appears to mark the end of the road for the 6-inch handset now that both the Nexus 5X and its successor, the Nexus 6P, are up for sale. If you’re still itching to get your hands on one — though we can’t think of a reason you’d want to — Amazon is still selling a 32GB version for $349.99. Google was not immediately available for comment on whether the phone has been permanently discontinued.
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Free Software/Open Source
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Container powers reach technical governance agreement
The Linux Foundation brought the container powers, including CoreOS, Docker, and Google, together to form the Open Container Initiative (OIC). Its job? To create a vendor-neutral, portable and open specification and runtime for container-based solutions.
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6 motivations for consuming or publishing open source software
Open source is in your best interest, whether you’re an individual, a corporation, a small business, a non-profit, or a government agency.
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Should Poker Players Look to Open Source Poker Software to Compete With PokerStars?
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5 essential skills for open source development jobs
List: These skills are the foundations for a strong career in open source development.
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Hashcat password cracker goes open source
The Hashcat password recovery tool and cracker is now available to developers under an open source license, sending the Github community into meltdown with the news.
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Head of Research Says R3 Open Source Blockchain Will Start Operating Within A Year
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Python-based open source eye tracking tool
A few of weeks ago I got a email from a friend who was attending an education technology conference. In the note he referenced PyGaze, an open source project I might be interested in.
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Open Source… Windows?
There’s a lot to be said for open source software. The ability to change code to suit one’s needs, the fact that security vulnerabilities can be easier to find, and the overall transparency are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the strengths of using open source software. And, while Microsoft is no Apple when it comes to locking down their source code, their operating system is still, unfortunately, closed.
Don’t despair, though! There is a project out there that aims to change this. No, they’re not stealing anything or breaking into any computers to obtain Microsoft’s code. They’re writing their own version of Windows called ReactOS that aims to be binary-compatible with Windows. The software has been in development for over a decade, but they’re ready to release version 0.4 which will bring USB, sound, networking, wireless, SATA, and many more features to the operating system.
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A Popular European Cable Modem Is Now Open-Source
A popular European cable modem has seen its software open-sourced by Technicolor in order to comply with the GPL.
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The very different economics of running open-source software
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Hashcat Is Now Open-Source
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Marist College Latest to Join Open Source Initiative Affiliate Program
In the Summer of 2015 the Open Source Initiative® (OSI) announced the extension of its Affiliate Member Program to include institutions of higher education, and shortly after announced admission of our first member from the higher education community, the University of Southern Queensland. Today the OSI announces Marist College has joined as well. Marist College is an important supporter and contributor to not only the advancement of open source software within colleges and universities, but also as a community member of another OSI Affiliate, the Apereo Foundation. Marist College’s experiences in open source software adoption, community development and policy advocacy within the higher education landscape will inform the OSI’s work throughout the education sector and help shape the Affiliate Member Program to best serve institutions of higher education exploring, using and producing open source software.
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Events
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FOSDEM 2016 Distro Devroom: Call for Participation
The FOSDEM Distro Devroom will take place 30 & 31 January, 2016 at FOSDEM, in room K.4.201 at Université Libre de Bruxelles, in Brussels, Belgium.
As Linux distributions converge on similar tools, the problem space overlapping different distributions is growing. This standardization across the distributions presents an opportunity to develop generic solutions to the problems of aggregating, building, and maintaining the pieces that go into a distribution.
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Google Code-in 2015 has started!
In this year’s edition of Google Code-in, students can choose from tasks provided by the following organizations / projects: Apertium, Copyleft Games, Drupal, FOSSASIA, Haiku, KDE, MetaBrainz, OpenMRS, RTEMS, SCoRe, Sugar Labs, Systers, Ubuntu, and Wikimedia.
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Web Browsers
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Mozilla
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Mozilla’s Focus by Firefox Brings Content Blocking to Apple iOS
With Mozilla’s recent Firefox 42 Web browser release, a new tracking protection feature became available to Mozilla’s users. Now Mozilla is extending its protections even further with the new Focus by Firefox app, which is available now in the Apple App Store as a free content blocker for iOS 9 users running the Safari Web browser.
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Mozilla Will Stop Developing And Selling Firefox OS Smartphones
Farewell Firefox OS smartphones. Mozilla today announced an end to its smartphone experiment, and said that it would stop developing and selling Firefox OS smartphones. It will continue to experiment on how it might work on other connected devices and Internet of Things networks.
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Mozilla Exits Firefox OS Smartphone Business
I first started writing about FirefoxOS when it was called Boot2Gecko. The idea was sound, a mobile operating system that uses the web to deliver the web and web applications.
Unfortunately good ideas don’t always turn into good business. Mozilla was not able to push FirefoxOS through the crowded mobile landscape dominated by IOS and Android at the top end. Smaller efforts like Blackberry, Windows mobile, Tizen and even Ubuntu Phone have all been trying to gain share against the Android and IOS too, but little movement occurs.
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Mozilla confirms its Firefox OS phones are dead
Mozilla announced at the Mozlando developer conference in Florida that it has officially abandoned attempts to get a foothold in the smartphone market with its Firefox OS system.
“We are proud of the benefits Firefox OS added to the Web platform and will continue to experiment with the user experience across connected devices. We will build everything we do as a genuine open source project, focused on user experience first and build tools to enable the ecosystem to grow,” said Ari Jaaksi, SVP of Connected Devices at Mozilla in a statement to El Reg.
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Mozilla Puts An End To Firefox OS
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Firefox To Ship Rust & Servo Components Next Year
Mozilla made the announcement earlier today that they are ending Firefox OS. However, there is some unrelated bright news today for Firefox fans.
Mozilla has announced that in 2016 they will begin shipping components of Rust and Servo in Firefox! It’s been confirmed by the official @RustLang, the account for this programming language backed by Mozilla.
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Focus by Firefox – Content Blocking for the Open Web
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Poll: You Think Mozilla Should Keep Thunderbird — Maybe
The results of our latest poll have been tallied and FOSS Force readers evidently think that Mozilla should keep Thunderbird instead of helping the project find a new home. Mozilla executive chairperson, Mitchell Baker, announced on November 30 that the foundation intended to eventually separate itself from the popular desktop email client it first released in 2004.
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SaaS/Big Data
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MapR’s John Schroeder on Big Data Trends for 2016
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Asking Me Questions about Keystone
As many of you have found out, I am relatively willing to help people out with Keystone related questions. Here are a couple guidelines.
Don’t ask me support questions here on the blog. I’ll lie or make something up and you will never know it. Instead, ask in #openstack-keystone if you can find me on IRC or on the #openstack or #oepnstack-dev mailing list with [keystone] in the title. I might not answer, but someone that knows will. Or someone that doesn’t know, will answer, and I’ll correct the answer, and then someone else will correct my correction.
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CMS
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WordPress 4.4 “Clifford”
Version 4.4 of WordPress, named “Clifford” in honor of jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown, is available for download or update in your WordPress dashboard. New features in 4.4 make your site more connected and responsive. Clifford also introduces a new default theme, Twenty Sixteen.
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WordPress Plugin Tutorial — How To Install WordPress Plugins
today I’ll show you how you can make your website more useful for your readers by installing more plugins to your WordPress site. In this article you will know how to install WordPress plugins.
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Responsive WordPress Themes — How Important Responsive Themes Are For Your WordPress Sites?
In this article you will know more about responsive WordPress themes and also how important these themes are for your site ranking in the search engines. So let’s dive in and discuss responsive WordPress themes.
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5 handy Drupal modules
More than 3,000 people contribute to the core Drupal codebase that provides a base level of functionality with a modular architecture. Over 10,000 developers contribute and maintain more than 25,000 contributed open source modules that modify and extend the core capabilities, changing behavior, adding new features, and integrating Drupal with other systems. Users can add their own modules, as well as third-party PHP libraries, and leverage a lot of existing functionality, so they can focus on their unique needs, branding and design, and business logic to get up and running quickly.
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Education
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FOSS & Education: It’s Deeper than Ones and Zeros
I stared at a blinking cursor when confronted with the question, “Your profession and position?”
It can be difficult to define the entire spectrum of my role at Reglue. Yeah, I am founder and executive director, but outside of that, in the real world where people are identified by their professional roles, how do I answer such a question?
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Pseudo-/Semi-Open Source (Openwashing)
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Pydio Brings Its Open Source File Sharing Service to Enterprise
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EMC open sources more storage software [Ed: only mere components; also recall the back doors fiasco of RSA, owned by EMC]
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We’re not in ordinary servers anymore: EMC readies open sorcery spells
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EMC launches new open source tech for the software defined datacentre
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EMC open-sources RackHD server automation platform
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Tuesdays with Corey: Debian GNU/Linux and Azure Container Service [Ed: pretend they’ve changed while still suing Linux with patents]
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Microsoft to Open Source Chakra JavaScript Engine [Ed: openwashing of a very proprietary browser]
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Microsoft open-sources Live Writer, beloved but abandoned blogging tool [Ed: Many years late, Microsoft openwashing using abandonware]
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Here’s what open source critics are missing in their Apple-bashing [Ed: Mac Asay is still devoted to Apple]
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After One Week as Open Source, Swift Is the Most Popular Programming Language on Github [Ed: the effect of media hype]
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Happy Hour Podcast 044 | Mailbox’s demise + why open source Swift matters [Ed: Apple site]
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Apple releases OS X 10.11 El Capitan Open Source Darwin code [Ed: does anyone other than Apple use this?]
Apple’s open source release of OS X (aka Darwin) has been around since 2000 and usually arrives in the weeks following the public release of OS X.
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Apple publishes open-source code for OS X El Capitan
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Apple makes OS X 10.11 El Capitan Darwin code open source
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Apple releases OS X 10.11 El Capitan open source code
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FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
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FSF Events: Flyering – Ethical-tech advocacy and socializing (Somerville, MA)
We’ve put together a gorgeous 2015 Giving Guide to encourage people to shop ethically for tech gifts, just as they might for other kinds of gifts. Now it’s time to get it into the hands of holiday shoppers! In what is now an FSF tradition, we’ll be in elf and gnu costumes at Davis Square, handing out print copies of the Giving Guide to people buying their loved ones presents for Christmas, Hanukkah, and everything else.
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Licensing
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TPP Trade Act Threatens Open Source on IoT and beyond, EFF Says
Should governments be able to force source code to be open? Arguably, yes. But the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement prevents authorities from requiring that, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation warned recently. As a result, the TPP places severe restrictions on open source software.
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Openness/Sharing
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Open Data
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Dutch National Open Data Agenda to facilitate open data publication
Last week, the Dutch Minister of the Interior, Ronald Plasterk sent the government’s National Open Data Agenda (NODA) in a letter to the Dutch parliament. The agenda aims to make as many high-value datasets as possible available for re-use. It will provide tools to keep track of progress and quality, and support for data managers in opening up their datasets.
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Open Hardware
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Open source HomeBridge links 3rd-party smart home devices like Nest to Apple’s HomeKit
Users looking to connect their existing smart home setup to Apple’s HomeKit ecosystem can turn to Homebridge, an open-source tool that brings voice control to popular devices from Nest, Sonos and others.
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Programming
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Django Girls Brno
It was a 1 day workshop the day before PyCon and it took place in Fit Vut (Faculty of Information Technology). There were several reasons I applied for it:
it’s free;
it’s for women;
you don’t have to be an experienced programmer. In fact the only requirement was to have a laptop;
it’s an amazing opportunity to learn some code and get guidance;
you can meet many great people from open source community.
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Standards/Consortia
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Italy works to increase interoperability of public services and data in EU
The Italian government agency Agenzia per Italia Digital (agID) has been asked by the European Commission to preside over a working group to address the interoperability of public data and public services, the agency said on its blog. The work of the agency was presented during a Share-PSI workshop in Berlin on November 25 and 26. The main topic of this workshop was “maximising interoperability — core vocabularies, location-aware data and more”.
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Leftovers
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Hardware
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Samsung produces the First 128 Gigabyte DDR4
Samsung has always been at the forefront of technology, making advances which are well out of reach of most companies. Their latest is 128GB DDR4 Ram.
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Security
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Security advisories for Wednesday
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IDG Survey Shows Strength in the Cloud, But Security Isn’t Locked Down
IDG Enterprise’s latest cloud computing study is out, and it points to robust trends in the cloud market for next year. The study summary is found here, and you can view a related infographic. Today, according to study findings, 72% of organizations have at least one application in the cloud or a portion of their computing infrastructure in the cloud, and they are not stopping there. Here are more details.
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Security updates for Tuesday
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Getting a Linux box corralled into a DDoS botnet is easier than many think [Ed: Dan Goodin blames “Linux” for applications that are not being patched]
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Researchers find Linux malware that can download from C&C servers
The malware uses a configuration file encrypted through the XOR algorithm to make it difficult for security firms to detect Rekoobe. According to a blog post on the Dr. Web website, “Once the file is read, the Trojan periodically refers to the C&C server to receive commands.”
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Penetration testing: Social Engineer’s Toolkit
It doesn’t matter how good your computer security systems are if your users just let attackers know how to log in. Social engineering is the black art of persuading victims to tell you everything you need to know to break into their computers. Sometimes this can mean persuading them to hand over usernames or passwords, sometimes it can mean granting you physical access to their computer, and sometimes it can mean deleting any incriminating evidence. In truth, the skilled social engineer can persuade victims to bypass all sorts of computer security that would be hard to compromise using just technical means.
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Adobe’s final patch update this year: 78 bugs squashed
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Adobe Releases Massive Security Update for Linux Flash Player
Adobe abandoned active development for the Flash Player on Linux a while back and is now only releasing security upgrades. The company just released a massive security update, and it looks like the Linux platform is covered as well.
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Open source encryption? Now Netherlands votes to help fund security projects
In what some might see as swimming against the political mainstream, the Netherlands parliament has just decided to back open-source web security with hard cash.
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Netherlands votes to splash cash on encryption projects
The Netherlands’ Lower House has thrown its weight behind a plan to improve key open source security solutions, and has voted €500,000 towards a range of projects.
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Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression
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Saudi Arabia ‘funding Islamic extremism in the West’, German vice-chancellor Sigmar Gabriel claims
Germany’s vice-chancellor has publicly accused Saudi Arabia of financing terrorists in the West.
Sigmar Gabriel claimed the country was funding mosques linked to extremism, which he said were becoming a threat to public security.
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Friedman Goes After Trump: Hey, Massive Bombing Was MY Idea!
Where could Trump have gotten the idea that his “infantile threats of massive bombing” would be taken seriously as foreign policy proposals? Well, as a resident of New York City, maybe he reads the New York Times…
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Environment/Energy/Wildlife
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Major Electric Utility Dumps ALEC over Clean Power Plan
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has suffered the loss of another major corporate sponsor, the Guardian reported Tuesday, with the electric utility American Electric Power (AEP) announcing it will no longer provide the climate change denial group with funding from 2016.
AEP becomes the 107th identified corporation to have withdrawn funding since the Center for Media and Democracy launched the ALEC Exposed project in 2011, joining others such as Shell, BP, Google, Microsoft and Facebook.
The loss of AEP will be particularly troubling for ALEC. AEP lobbyist Paul Loeffelman is still listed on the ALEC website as the private sector chairman for the group’s Energy, Environment and Agriculture task force. This task force is the arm of ALEC promoting climate change denial to state legislators and driving its anti-environmental agenda, which includes working to block President Obama’s Clean Power Plan and oppose the development of renewable energy in the United States.
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‘We’re overrunning the Planet’: Sir David Attenborough’s fears over what the swelling population is doing to his favourite holiday destination – The Great Barrier Reef
But Sir David has warned that future generations of holidaymakers could soon be unable to enjoy the same experience because of the damage global warming is doing to the reef.
Speaking at a screening of his new documentary on the reef at Australia House in London last week, he said: ‘The real danger is the rising temperatures and acidity and the effect that has – if the acidity grows to a certain limit it will damage the coral itself.
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Finance
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This Australian Says He and His Dead Friend Invented Bitcoin
A monthlong Gizmodo investigation has uncovered compelling and perplexing new evidence in the search for Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin. According to a cache of documents provided to Gizmodo which were corroborated in interviews, Craig Steven Wright, an Australian businessman based in Sydney, and Dave Kleiman, an American computer forensics expert who died in 2013, were involved in the development of the digital currency.
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Bitcoin’s Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Is Probably This Unknown Australian Genius
Even as his face towered 10 feet above the crowd at the Bitcoin Investor’s Conference in Las Vegas, Craig Steven Wright was, to most of the audience of crypto and finance geeks, a nobody.
The 44-year-old Australian, Skyping into the D Hotel ballroom’s screen, wore the bitcoin enthusiast’s equivalent of camouflage: a black blazer and a tieless, rumpled shirt, his brown hair neatly parted. His name hadn’t made the conference’s list of “featured speakers.” Even the panel’s moderator, a bitcoin blogger named Michele Seven, seemed concerned the audience wouldn’t know why he was there. Wright had hardly begun to introduce himself as a “former academic who does research that no one ever hears about,” when she interrupted him.
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Reported bitcoin ‘founder’ Craig Wright’s home raided by Australian police
Police have raided the home of an Australian tech entrepreneur identified by two US publications as one of the early developers of the digital currency bitcoin.
On Wednesday afternoon, police gained entry to a home belonging to Craig Wright, who had hours earlier been identified in investigations by Gizmodo and Wired, based on leaked transcripts of legal interviews and files. Both publications have indicated that they believe Wright to have been involved in the creation of the cryptocurrency.
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UK TTIP Debate Tomorrow: Please Contact MPs Today
It seems that there will be a rare UK debate about TTIP tomorrow. This is a great opportunity to contact your MPs and let them know what you think. Here’s what I’ve just sent – you can use WritetoThem to make things easier.
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PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
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Trump Is Devouring The GOP, And Fox News Fed It To Him
Back on September 17, as Donald Trump basked in the post-Labor Day glow of being the Republican Party’s undisputed frontrunner, he spoke to a boisterous crowd in New Hampshire and took a question from an especially boisterous fan. “We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims. We know our current president is one. You know he’s not even an American,” said the Trump t-shirt-wearing man. “We have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That’s my question: When can we get rid of them?”
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Privacy
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Final Text Of CISA Apparently Removed What Little Privacy Protections Had Been In There
Back in October, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to approve CISA, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, which has nothing to with cybersecurity at all, and is almost entirely a surveillance bill in disguise. Want to know the proof: many of the most vocal supporters of CISA, who talked up how important “cybersecurity” is these days are the very same people now looking to undermine encryption.
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Save Crypto: Tell the White House We Can’t Sacrifice Security
The Obama administration just responded to the 104,109 people who asked the president to stand up for strong encryption. The response—penned by Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer Ed Felton [sic] and Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator Michael Daniel—acknowledged the importance of the conversation but offered no conclusions. Instead, they asked us to share our thoughts on encryption.
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Should Facebook turn in ISIS supporters?
On Friday the FBI classified the mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, as “an act of terrorism”. Tashfeen Malik and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, don’t seem to have been in direct contact with ISIS, but the extremist militant group called the couple “supporters” on Saturday.
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No phone, no problem: NSA will target the cloud instead
As of last week, the National Security Agency can no longer cull through Americans’ phone records, but it can continue to eavesdrop on our emails, video chats, and documents. The NSA can keep metadata already collected until Feb. 29, 2016, and your phone data will continue to be collected by telecom companies.
But the fact that phone records can no longer be easily searched is nearly meaningless to the world of cloud computing. If the data is still up for grabs — and it is — then we’re likely to have the same concerns we did before the USA Freedom Act that curtailed some of the NSA’s activities last week.
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“Yeah, we ditched Google.”
After we gave it some more thought, we realized we were hypocrites. Since inception, SpiderOak has been an advocate for online privacy. Unlike many others in our market, we strive to be very clear about how our product design truly delivers Zero Knowledge privacy for our users. We tell potential supporters, what matters most is who has the keys and how they are stored. But you can read more about how we solved those problems from our many other posts our site.
For the past five years, we had been using Google Analytics for monitoring our web traffic. Innocent enough decision, right? Then we asked ourselves, “are we contributing to the mass surveillance of the web by using a feature-rich, yet free service that tracks web visitors?” Sadly. we didn’t like the answer to that question. “Yes, by using Google Analytics, we are furthering the erosion of privacy on the web.”
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The NSA might be spying on Tor users
Privacy and encryption have been two very hot topics for the last few years. The Tor browser can help protect your privacy while online, but it may come at the cost of being spied on by the NSA.
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If You Do This, the NSA Will Spy on You
Worried about the NSA monitoring you? If you take certain steps to mask your identity online, such as using the encryption service TOR, or even investigating an alternative to the buggy Windows operating system, you’re all but asking for “deep” monitoring by the NSA.
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Civil Rights
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Henry Jackson Society as Bad as Donald Trump
The Henry Jackson Society seconds staff to the Quilliam Foundation. This extraordinary organisation is a career vehicle for “reformed jihadists” to milk huge salaries and luxury lifestyles from government money, in return for fronting an organisation run by the security services. Quilliam specialises in denouncement of Muslim organisations and talking up the Jihadi threat, offering “expert advice” on the government’s anti-free speech strategy. At the same time, it seeks to maximise the income of its directors. One interesting collaboration to make money was its collaboration with the current head of Pergida UK, and former head of the English Defence League, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (Alias Tommy Robinson).
Quilliam have received millions from the taxpayer for their dubious “work”. But their application for Home Office funding to split with Yaxley-Lennon remains an episode beyond belief. Several of Quilliam’s staff are “lent” by the CIA-funded Henry Jackson Society.
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Jacob Appelbaum at Aaron Swartz Day 2015
Jacob Appelbaum read a powerful statement at this year’s Aaron Swartz Day Celebration. I’m still processing everything he revealed to us that night.
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How the TPP Will Affect You and Your Digital Rights
The Internet is a diverse ecosystem of private and public stakeholders. By excluding a large sector of communities—like security researchers, artists, libraries, and user rights groups—trade negotiators skewed the priorities of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) towards major tech companies and copyright industries that have a strong interest in maintaining and expanding their monopolies of digital services and content. Negotiated in secret for several years with overwhelming influence from powerful multinational corporate interests, it’s no wonder that its provisions do little to nothing to protect our rights online or our autonomy over our own devices. For example, everything in the TPP that increases corporate rights and interests is binding, whereas every provision that is meant to protect the public interest is non-binding and is susceptible to get bulldozed by efforts to protect corporations.
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Carmichael: An Extraordinary Lack of Humility
Despite al this, I would not be tremendously concerned about the result if Alistair had the decency to be a bit chastened by it. It is only because of our ridiculously undemocratic electoral system that representation is so skewed. You didn’t ought to get over 95% of the seats on 52% of the votes, and I am not sure what is gained by magnifying that other wrong. But any mixed feelings I have on those grounds are dispelled by the utterly inappropriate triumphalism the Lib Dems are displaying, as though to be found a blatant liar by a court is something to be proud of. The brass neck of it all is sickening.
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CNN’s Don Lemon Blasts Frank Gaffney And The Poll Trump Cited To Legitimize His Ban On Muslims Entering The US
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After Trump Proposes Ban On Muslims, Rupert Murdoch Calls For “Refugee Pause”
News Corporation and 21st Century Fox executive co-chairman Rupert Murdoch cited “radical Muslim dangers” to endorse a “complete refugee pause” one day after Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump called for a total ban on Muslims immigrating to or visiting the United States.
On December 7, Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United states until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” citing a flawed poll from an Islamophobic organization to claim that Muslims are a danger to America.
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Internet/Net Neutrality
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Our ISPs Are Using Our Insatiable Need for Streaming Video Against Us
All of our YouTube party playlists and Netlix-and-chill date nights are starting to add up: streaming video now accounts for 70 percent of broadband usage, according to data newly released by broadband services company Sandvine.
This statistic might look pretty innocuous and simple on its face, but our dependence on massive amounts of data for our daily use has some dangerous implications. Because cable providers would rather you be watching actual cable programming versus streaming shows from Hulu and Netflix, they impose arbitrary data caps on your Internet usage, like the ones Comcast has been quietly implementing in markets across the country. You end up shelling out for something that costs the providers next to nothing.
[...]
And T-Mobile isn’t the only culprit: on the broadband side, Comcast is launching its own streaming service that—you guessed it—won’t count toward your household’s data cap. This practice, called “zero-rating,” is as much a threat to net neutrality as anything else has been, directing consumers to certain data channels and making the free market less free.
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Intellectual Monopolies
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Copyrights
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Copyright in Europe: Minimal Reform to Avoid Crucial Questions
Today, the European Commission has presented its proposal to reform copyright law in the European Union. This package includes a proposal for a regulation on portability of online services, as well as a communication to announcing future reforms to follow in 2016. The European Commission has thus confirmed that it does not wish to reopen the file on the InfoSoc directive 1, reflecting its reluctance and lack of ambition on this issue.
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EU Commission unveils next steps for copyright reform, including draft content portability regulation
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Copyfail: Why WIPO Can’t Fix Copyright
It has been obvious for decades that copyright law is ill-matched for the opportunities and challenges created by the Internet. It’s been equally obvious, however, that sensible copyright policies face huge practical barriers, in large part because few are willing to challenge the default assumption of copyright law that every time a copy is made the rightsholder’s permission is required. That assumption makes no sense in the digital age, but it’s hugely difficult to dislodge, especially at the international stage.
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Anti-Piracy Lawyer Milked Copyright Holders For Millions
Leaks from a confidential auditor report into the activities of bankrupt anti-piracy law firm Johan Schlüter suggest that the company defrauded its entertainment industry clients out of $25m. One lawyer was singled out for most criticism after enriching both herself and family members.
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Used eBook Sellers Receive Threats of Jail Time
People selling unwanted eBooks online have been warned that their activities could result in six months imprisonment. However, anti-piracy group BREIN, the alleged sender of the threats, says it is not responsible. Nevertheless, given a legal case to be heard next week, the timing is certainly curious.
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BitTorrent Still Dominates Internet’s Upstream Traffic
New data published by Canadian broadband management company Sandvine reveals that BitTorrent can be credited for a quarter of all upstream Internet traffic in North America, more than any other traffic source. With heavy competition from Netflix and other real-time entertainment, BitTorrent’s overall traffic share is falling.
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