• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Case Study: How Small Business PrintedArt Uses Linux and Open Source

Desktop

• Google plays the long game with ChromeOS

  Google is betting that slow and steady will prove a winning strategy for its ChromeOS platform, and is reporting some successes for the system in the education sector.

  It has been a little over a year since Google first showed off ChromeOS, and around six months since the first commercial systems were released for sale by Samsung and Acer. There’s new hardware scheduled for later this year, but the operating system – indeed the very notion of a browser-based operating system – appears to have found little traction in the wider industry.

Server

• Two VARs: We Dropped Microsoft And Never Looked Back

  Page 1 of 2

  It’s not an easy decision for a solution provider to give up a vendor well established in its clients’ environments, but when that vendor is Microsoft and the application is their e-mail, the decision may be even harder.

  Yet for Ray Lund and Nick Hoague, who each run solution provider businesses outside Denver, the time had come.

  For Lund, owner of Lund Computer Services, Northglenn, Colo., the decision was made when he walked into a client’s site for the fourth time in a month after its Exchange server had gone down again.

Kernel Space

• Going Over The Good & Bad For UEFI On Linux

  Another one of the interesting talks that was recorded from Linux.Conf.Au in Ballarat, Australia last week was the presentation by Matthew Garrett. He went over the good and bad of UEFI support under Linux.

  Of the Linux.Conf.Au 2012 presentations already covered on Phoronix have been that of the XFS file-system and Ubuntu’s plans for ARM, but the Phoronix-recommended presentation to watch today is the UEFI talk by Matthew Garrett.

• NVMe Work Group Releases NVMe Windows and Linux PCIe SSD Drivers

  The NVM Express working group has announced the release of Windows and Linux PCIe SSD drivers based on the NVM Express standard.

• Graphics Stack

  • VIA Shows Us Next-Gen Hardware Results, Info

    The S3 Chrome 600 series / VIA VT3456 (VX11) still hasn’t been officially announced, but here are some benchmarks of the forthcoming chipset from a VIA Nano quad-core system.

    These leaked results are coming in the same manner as the months-early AMD Interlagos numbers, the yet-to-be-out Trinity, early Ivy Bridge numbers, and other pre-production benchmark results from engineering samples… An engineer — either unintentionally or willingly (it may have been very well intentional this time seeing as it was just days after I was ranting about the poor Chrome driver support) — within VIA China pushing out some early results when validating a system under Linux using the Phoronix Test Suite. While nearly every major IHV/ISV is using the Phoronix Test Suite (and/or related components like OpenBenchmarking.org and Phoromatic), it seems a select few companies/engineers always enjoy using it to spread early performance results to the world by uploading their Phoronix Test Suite benchmark results to the collaborative OpenBenchmarking.org platform, which is another Phoronix product.

  • NVIDIA Talks Of Optimus Possibilities For Linux

    A NVIDIA Linux engineer is trying to work on code that could lead to official Optimus support under Linux, but there’s a catch… And it falls outside of NVIDIA Corp as the fate of this multi-GPU notebook feature could now fall with the Linux kernel developers.

    While there’s been some rudimentary Optimus hacks for Linux to use notebooks that offer an integrated graphics processor and a discrete GPU (to offer maximum performance when needed but to fall-back to only powering the IGP when in a low-power mode), NVIDIA Corp hasn’t provided any official Optimus support under Linux. Now there’s talk of possible support, but it’s potentially to be blocked by Linux kernel developers.

  • AMD Releases Catalyst 12.1 Driver For Linux

    AMD has unleashed the first Catalyst Linux binary driver update of 2012, but does Catalyst 12.1 bring anything interesting or just more breakage?

    The AMD Catalyst 12.1 discussion has already begun today within the forums when apt readers realized the binary drivers for Windows and Linux surfaced on AMD’s website.

Applications

• Explore large files with Rowscope

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Troubleshooting faulty network connectivity, part 2: Essential network commands

  • Using Plop Boot Manager for USB Boot

  • With Clonezilla, Install Once and Clone Forever

• Games

  • Oil Rush gone gold

    Today, videogame publisher Iceberg Interactive and UNIGINE Corp., are pleased to announce that the naval strategy game ‘Oil Rush’ for PC, Mac and Linux, has gone gold. The game will be available for digital download starting today on various portals throughout the world. Iceberg Interactive will release the boxed retail version of Oil Rush on 24 February 2012 in the UK, Benelux and Scandinavia, with German speaking territories to follow with a fully localized version on 23 March 2012.

Desktop Environments

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

  • KDE Plasma Workspaces, Applications and Platform 4.8 Improve User Experience

    KDE is delighted to announce its latest set of releases, providing major updates to KDE Plasma Workspaces, KDE Applications, and the KDE Platform. Version 4.8 provides many new features, and improved stability and performance.

  • KDE 4.8 Released With Many Improvements

  • KDE SC 4.8 arrives with enhanced power management

    As expected, the KDE developers have published version 4.8.0 of the KDE Software Compilation (KDE SC). The major update to the open source K Desktop Environment includes changes to the KDE Platform itself as well as the KDE Applications and Plasma Workspaces.

  • KDE 4.8 Released, New Features And Improvements

• GNOME Desktop

  • Linux Mint releases Cinnamon, GNOME 2.x style desktop

    Clement Lefebvre, lead developer of Linux Mint, has announced the first “fully stable” version of its new GNOME 2.x-like “Cinnamon 1.2″ fork of the GNOME 3.x desktop environment is now available for not only Mint, but for Ubuntu 11.10, Fedora 16, OpenSUSE 12.1, Arch Linux, and Gentoo.

  • Cinnamon 1.2 released

Distributions

• Red Hat Family

  • Red Hat Updates Messaging, Realtime and Grid Platform

    Red Hat Enterprise MRG is a next-generation IT infrastructure incorporating Messaging, Realtime and Grid functionality that offers increased performance, reliability, interoperability and faster computing for enterprise customers. In June 2011, Red Hat announced the release of Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2.0, which featured advances in performance, scalability and management. The 2.0 update added support for the latest version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 available at release with 6.1 and also extended the cloud readiness of the product.

  • Why is Red hat happy with slowing economy

    Not everyone is unhappy about the slump in global economy. Red Hat, an enterprise Linux company, is hoping that the slowdown in the US and the crisis in Europe will help it to gain greater traction with corporates who are struggling with cuts in discretionary spending.

  • rpm -V and prelinked binaries

  • Fedora

    • Announcing DocsGlue

      Many Fedora Docs project contributors enjoy writing on the wiki using the WYSIWYG editor that is provided by MediaWiki. This is great for contributors but not so much when we are trying to pull all this information into DocBook for formal release. The solution was simple: Ian had to fix mw-render.

• Debian Family

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Ubuntu 12.04 replaces application menus with ‘heads up display’

      • The Latest Ubuntu Interface: We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Menus!

        Umm, I’m not completely sure I want an “intenterface.”

      • Ubuntu swaps application menus for HUD control system

Devices/Embedded

• Pandora handheld approaches full production next month, never gave up hope

  Remember the Pandora? Back when the likes of the PS Vita and the Nintendo 3DS remained conceptual sketches in top secret bunkers, this open-source handheld paired up a clamshell form factor with analogue game controls, a QWERTY keyboard and a dream.

• Open source Pandora handheld gaming console finally up for pre-order

• Pandora Open-Source Netbook/Console Arrives Next Month

• Low-Cost Raspberry Pi Board Runs XBMC And AirPlay, Doubles As A $35 1080p HTPC

• TI ships Linux-ready DLP eval module for pico projectors

  Texas Instruments announced a Linux-based evaluation module featuring the digital light processing technology from its DLP Pico Projectors. The DLP LightCrafter combines an ARM9-based, 300MHz DaVinci TMS320DM365 processor, a 20-lumen RGB LED light engine and projector, as well as TI’s 0.3-inch, WVGA DLP chipset, enabling up to 4000 binary patterns per second, says TI.

• Coverity code analyzer to integrate with Wind River Linux embedded tools

  Coverity is readying an evaluation edition of a security analysis package pre-configured for Wind River Workbench and Wind River Linux. Coverity Static Analysis for Wind River Workbench integrates security within the embedded development process, identifying vulnerabilities as code is written, according to Wind River.

• Phones

  • Hewlett-Packard To Introduce Open-Source Software Tools “Enyo 2.0″ (HPQ,GOOG,AAPL)

  • HP: Open webOS 1.0 arriving in September, Enyo 2.0 framework free to developers today

  • HP Plans September Open-source Release for WebOS

  • Open webOS announced as HP’s open source mobile OS power move

  • HP Releases More Details on the Open Sourcing of webOS

    This morning, HP gave further details of its contribution of the webOs platform to the open source community. I find these details and the timeline associated with the release to be positive developments, both for Linux and for the wider mobile markets.

    The WebOS stack represents a rich set of components that combined together create a comprehensive platform for mobile devices. The highlight of today’s announcement has to be the open sourcing of Enyo, the application framework for webOS. This is a powerful framework that app developers can use to build applications that will work across different platforms including iOS, Android, webOS and so on.

  • Android

    • Mobile App Developers Beginning to Favor Android Over iOS

    • IBM and HTC partner to lure the enterprise market to Android

    • Samsung Galaxy S III rumored to be released in April: HD screen, quad-core processor, 12-megapixel camera, running ICS

    • 50 Android Apps to Customize Your Smartphone

JavaScript dashboard framework jSlate open sourced

Rasmus Berg Palm has released his JavaScript dashboard framework jSlate as GPLv3 licensed open source. jSlate allows users to create dashboards which retrieve their data from any web-accessible service. The system, which runs as a service on the jslate.com web site, allows users to create dashboard visualisations based on Highcharts JS interactive JavaScript charts and D3 data-driven documents. Each dashboard element is represented as a window which contains the visualisation and behind each is a JavaScript script which can be edited by the user to completely customise the chart to their needs.

Be lazy, be fast

At its best Open Source software is about accelerating the pace of innovation by enabling unconnected groups to collaborate across organisational borders. It is a software development process that allows people to freely share ideas and implementations among a community of peers while still focusing on their own local needs and business drivers

Interview with Ivan Idris author of NumPy 1.5 Beginner’s Guide

Today’s interview is with Ivan Idris, author of NumPy 1.5 Beginner’s Guide a book for developers or scientists with a little Python experience and wanting to test NumPy’s capabilities. We talk about the book, how it came to be and the experience writing it. Enjoy!

Events

• OSI Reform At FOSDEM

• Failure Is An Option

  Failure is a word that, understandably, carries a negative connotation. Nobody wants to fail, really. But failure, if you’re doing anything worthwhile, is inevitable. What’s important is to plan for failure, learn from it, try to avoid damage and do your best to recover gracefully. That was the topic of Selena Deckelmann’s keynote, “Mistakes Were Made,” Sunday morning at the Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE).

• Canberra to host 2013 Linux conference

  The conference will be held from January 28 to February 2, which includes the Australia Day public holiday. This is not unusual as it happened in Brisbane in 2011 too.

Web Browsers

• Chrome

  • Google Patches Five Chrome Bugs, Pays $6000 in Bounties

    Google earlier this week updated the Chrome Stable channel to 16.0.912.77 for Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome Frame, patching four privately reported vulnerabilities in its browser. How come only four, you ask, when the headline clearly mentions five? Actually the fifth was patched a couple of weeks back, but Google mistakenly failed to include it in the release notes.

• Mozilla

  • JSRuntime is now officially single-threaded

    A single SpiderMonkey runtime (that is, instance of JSRuntime) — and all the objects, strings and contexts associated with it — may only be accessed by a single thread at any given time. However, a SpiderMonkey embedding may create multiple runtimes in the same process (each of which may be accessed by a different thread).

BSD

• GhostBSD 2.5 available with GNOME or LXDE

  Following several months of development, the GhostBSD project has announced the release of version 2.5 of its BSD distribution. According to its developers, this update to GhostBSD is the result of many parts of the system being “updated, tweaked and fine-tuned”.

Project Releases

• [ALSA} Changes v1.0.24 v1.0.25

Public Services/Government

• Committee Passes “Open Source City” Resolution

  A Raleigh City Council committee gave its stamp of approval to a resolution that could make public city data easier to access and change the way the city buys software.

  The Technology and Communications Committee, a new group of city councilors created late last year, approved the Open Source Government resolution Tuesday night. It will go to the full council next week.

Openness/Sharing

• Webinar – Learn How Open Source Software Benefits a Successful GIS Business

Programming

• Contest Highlights R Language’s Big Data Analysis Power

  Revolution Analytics, a commercial provider of software, services and support for the open source R language, awarded $20,000 to contestants in an event designed to highlight the business usefulness of R.

  Hadoop is an open source software framework that enables organizations to process huge amounts of data, huge as in petabytes. R is an open source software programming language popular with statisticians who have long used it for data mining and creating predictive models.

Google’s SPDY Incorporated Into Next-Gen HTML, Offers TCP Enhancements

Google’s efforts to improve Internet efficiency through the development of the SPDY (pronounced “speedy”) protocol got a major boost today when the chairman of the HTTP Working Group (HTTPbis), Mark Nottingham, called for it to be included in the HTTP 2.0 standard. SPDY is a protocol that’s already used to a certain degree online; formal incorporation into the next-generation standard would improve its chances of being generally adopted.

Security

• Windows security breaches on the rise

  It seems like every year, near the closing of the year, Windows viruses and malware seem to creep up from nowhere. Late 2011 was no exception. Beginning in November, Windows viruses and malware started to appear and we experienced a few get through on Windows 7 64-bit with full Symantec Endpoint Protection running, with users running Internet Explorer. Yep, they slipped right on through multiple layers of protection. Meanwhile others mentioned an increase of other popups and strange behaviour with fake “Windows repair” utilities and such. Needless to say, for those supporting Windows, it made for an ever increasing need for extra time to put out these fires. Things seem to have settled down after the new year.

Finance

• Romney Parks Millions in Cayman Islands

  Although it is not apparent on his financial disclosure form, Mitt Romney has millions of dollars of his personal wealth in investment funds set up in the Cayman Islands, a notorious Caribbean tax haven.

  A spokesperson for the Romney campaign says Romney follows all tax laws and he would pay the same in taxes regardless of where the funds are based.

• Sorry, Mr. Speaker, Credit Unions are Not GSEs

  For the second time in a recent presidential debate where he seeks to answer his opponents’ charges about his firm’s years of quite profitable (and, according to most sources, completely legal although an issue he has found tough to defend in today’s “bubble burst” real estate market) consulting engagements with Freddie Mac, former Speaker Newt Gingrich has now twice misstated facts about credit unions so severely in his attempt to deal with these GSE-oriented questions that it has to be either an intentional effort to mislead or he does not understand what credit unions are.

  Either is troublesome for credit unions. And, now that he has done it two times in two separate debates, it cannot be a mere oversight on his part. One of those problems, lack of candor or lack of comprehension, must be the case. And the record must be set straight.

  Sorry, Mr. Speaker, credit unions are not GSEs. Period.

• David Stockman on Crony Capitalism

Privacy

• Facebook is Mass Surveillance, Says Free Software Founder

  Richard Stallman, founder of the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation, remains the most outspoken public personality against “non-free” software and recently lashed out against commercial software services that restrict “freedom”.

Internet/Net Neutrality

• Stop throttling video games, CRTC tells Rogers

  Rogers Communications is breaking the law by deliberately slowing down certain types of Internet traffic, says Canada’s telecom regulator.

  In a letter made public Jan. 20, the CRTC gives Rogers two weeks to show it’s complying with the rules.

DRM

• Apple’s ebook sales restrictions: the newest reason to use free software

  Last week, Apple announced ebook authoring software called iBooks Author. As you would expect from Apple, the software is completely proprietary—but the license includes some terms that are so restrictive, they shock even Apple’s fans.

Intellectual Monopolies

• Copyrights

  • Would a SOPA Version of the Canadian Copyright Bill Target Youtube?

    My post this week on the behind-the-scenes demands to make Bill C-11, the current copyright bill, more like SOPA has attracted considerable attention with mainstream (National Post, La Presse) and online media (Mashable, Wire Report) covering the story. The music industry alone is seeking over a dozen changes to the bill, including website blocking, Internet termination for alleged repeat infringers, and an expansion of the “enabler” provision that is supposedly designed to target pirate sites. Meanwhile, the Entertainment Software Association of Canada also wants an expansion of the enabler provision along with further tightening of the already-restrictive digital lock rules.

  • Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales: MPAA chairman Christopher Dodd should be fired

    Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales had fighting words for Motion Picture Association of America chairman Christopher Dodd, calling the former Senator and current lobbyist out on his recent threats and pronouncing that the MPAA should fire its chief.

    “Candidly, those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake,” Dodd said to Fox News recently. “Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake.”

  • EMI VP Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA; Says The Answer To Piracy Is Providing A Better Service

    Over the years, I’ve definitely found that there are plenty of folks working inside the major record labels (and big studios) who really do get what’s going on. The problem is often that their voices are drowned out by others (usually the older guard) who are pretty stubborn in their anti-innovation, anti-consumer ways. It’s always nice, however, when someone from the inside pops up and says something sensible in public, and those folks deserve kudos. The latest is Craig Davis, EMI’s VP of Urban Promotions.

  • My thoughts on S.O.P.A.

    IN THE former Soviet Union, in the late 1950s and 60s, many books that questioned the political system began to be circulated privately in mimeographed form. Their authors never earned a penny in royalties. On the contrary, they were persecuted, denounced in the official press, and sent into exile in the notorious Siberian gulags. Yet they continued to write.

  • Hollywood Astroturf Group Releases Ad Saying It Needs SOPA To Shut Down Megaupload… Five Days After Megaupload Is Shut Down

  • Free Press Action Fund Calls on Congress to Return MPAA’s Dirty Money

    WASHINGTON — On Tuesday, the Free Press Action Fund called on Congress to return campaign donations from the Motion Picture Association of America.

    In an interview last week, MPAA President Chris Dodd, a former U.S. senator, threatened to cut off campaign donations to members of Congress who vote against legislation the MPAA supports.

  • The Tech Industry Has Already Given Hollywood The Answer To Piracy; If Only It Would Listen

    While many in the press have really enjoyed claiming that the SOPA/PIPA fight has been about Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley, we’ve been pointing out for a while just how silly that is. Months ago, we pointed out that it’s a strange “fight” when one side (Silicon Valley) appears to give the other side all the weapons it needs to succeed (only to watch Hollywood then aim those weapons at its own feet). It’s been pointed out time and time again that Hollywood has a habit of looking a gift horse in the mouth… and accusing it of piracy, when it later turns out to be the answer to Hollywood’s prayers.

  • ACTA

    • New Petition Asks White House To Submit ACTA To The Senate For Ratification

      As we noted in our post about people just discovering ACTA this week, some had put together an odd White House petition, asking the White House to “end ACTA.” The oddity was over the fact that the President just signed ACTA a few months ago. What struck us as a more interesting question was the serious constitutional questions of whether or not Obama is even allowed to sign ACTA.

      In case you haven’t been following this or don’t spend your life dealing in Constitutional minutiae, the debate is over the nature of the agreement. A treaty between the US and other nations requires Senate approval. However, there’s a “simpler” form of an international agreement, known as an “executive agreement,” which allows the President to sign the agreement without getting approval. In theory, this also limits the ability of the agreement to bind Congress. In practice… however, international agreements are international agreements. Some legal scholars have suggested that the only real difference between a treaty and an executive agreement is the fact that… the president calls any treaty an “executive agreement” if he’s unsure if the Senate would approve it. Another words, the difference is basically in how the President presents it.

• Distributions
• Devices/Embedded

Linux Australia: preaching to the converted isn’t enough

Last year, Linux Australia released the raw data from a survey which has been set in train by James Turnbull, who held the position of president for the first half of 2010 before he stepped down to take up a job in the US.

Linux.conf.au 2012 photos

Desktop

• Spain’s Extremadura Moves 40,000 PCs to Linux

  Teodomiro Cayetano López, Extremadura’s CIO (Chief Information Officer), confirmed on January 23rd that the administration of Spain’s autonomous region will move all their desktop PCs to Debian Linux.

• On the Topics of Software, Average Users and User Friendliness

  The term “average user” is something you hear thrown around a lot with regards to software. Pro-Linux, on the desktop, people often make claims on why it Linux ready for this “average user” (shoot even I’ve done it on occasion). There are also those who feel Linux should be pigeon-holed into a server room and on to mobile devices, they will make the exact opposite claim. They say Linux on the desktop isn’t ready for this “average user”.

• */Linux PCs for Consumers

  Some examples:

  * Qooq – A PC for cooks, not geeks. It’s hardened for the kitchen and is a tablet that’s goop-proof and with a stand for zero/one-hand operation. It runs Linux on ARM and is loaded with content for cooks: recipes, techniques.
  * Dell is selling GNU/Linux PCs in over 100 stores in China.
  * Acer sells them (Walmart, and Amazon)
  * HP sells them and they have retailers for them.
  * Lenovo is selling millions of them for schools and students (Classmate PCs).

Server

• Infiniserv launches Linux-based UK cloud

  Infiniserv has launched a cloud for UK businesses based around the open-source KVM hypervisor.

Kernel Space

• 4Linux, Erlang Solutions and Linux Professional Institute Join The Linux Foundation

Applications

• Fotowall Has a Sharp Eye for Sweet Collages

  Fotowall features a simple and fun interface for creating photo and image collages. Fotowall lets you design from scratch a montage of photos and word blocks. You can add special visual effects to individual photos as well as the entire canvas. The ease of using Fotowall stems from its real-time design canvas window. You place photos and text directly where you want them, then bring in the effects.

• Proprietary

  • Untethered Jailbreak iPhone 4S and iPad 2 Under Linux

    The Chronic Dev Team has just released a few minutes ago the a new version of their Absinthe jailbreak tool for iPhone 4S and iPad 2 devices, bringing support for the Linux platform.

• Instructionals/Technical

  • Addendum to second installment: a TeX/LaTeX template for outlines

• Games

  • Hack, Slash, Loot – A New Roguelike/Dungeon Crawler Released for Linux

    Hack, Slash, Loot is a single-player turn-based dungeon crawler Linux. You take control of a lone hero and explore sprawling dungeons, fight dangerous monsters and plunder valuable treasures.

  • OilRush Gold!

  • Unigine OilRush Officially Ships Today For Linux

    Unigine Corp met their latest deadline and will officially be shipping the gold version of their Unigine OilRush real-time strategy game today for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows gamers.

  • Steam rumors are flying again, but Desura beat them to open source

    The Desura game client is not only available for open-source-loving players, but also now for developers. They’ve released the client on Github as Desurium under GPL v3.

    Desura is similar to the Steam gaming platform in that they both are a way for gamers to buy downloadable copies of a lot of really great games, often for equally great prices. Desura adds the option for developers to include Desura-only functionality in their games.

Desktop Environments

• GNOME Desktop

  • ‘Cinnamon’ GNOME 3 fork now ‘fully stable’ with version 1.2

    The Linux Mint team announced the first “fully stable” version of its new GNOME 2.x-like “Cinnamon” fork of the GNOME 3.x desktop environment. Available for several major Linux distros, Cinnamon 1.2 is more customizable than GNOME 3.x, restores much of the GNOME 2.x interface, and adds features such as new desktop effects and layouts, a configuration tool, and five new “applets.”

Distributions

• A Short Trip Down Memory Lane

  About a year after my first install of Ubuntu, I posted THIS at Scot’s Newsletter Forums, a site which has since become my second home. Some of my opinions have changed since then. For instance, I don’t use KDE anymore (not since 3.5). I also don’t care for Google too much these days, not since they’ve started showing their greedy fangs… “Do no evil” Pffffft! Yeah, right. Anywho…

• Red Hat Family

  • Red Hat joins Ubuntu in patching Linux kernel exploit

    Red Hat and Canonical have released patches for a vulnerability in Linux kernels 2.6.39 and above that enables attackers to gain root access on a system. Proof-of-concept exploit code was posted last week after “CVE-2012-0056″ was exposed — thanks to Linus Torvalds announcing a kernel patch before Linux distro projects had had time to apply it.

  • Red Hat Encourages Open Collaboration by Establishing Independent Board for Open Source Project GlusterFS

    The creation of an independent board is expected to foster more contributions and participation from third-party sysadmins, developers and independent software vendors (ISVs). With meetings scheduled on a quarterly basis, the GlusterFS Advisory Board includes open source experts from a number of large companies making their mark in the industry.

  • Fedora

    • A Rolling-Release Version Of Fedora Is Discussed

      A discussion erupted this morning among Fedora developers about having a version of Fedora Linux that operates on a rolling-release model similar to Arch Linux, Gentoo, and openSUSE Tumbleweed.

• Debian Family

  • Derivatives

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Ubuntu rips up drop-down menus

      • Ubuntu’s HUD

      • Moving Away from Menus: Is Ubuntu’s HUD Change We Can Believe In?

      • Ubuntu Linux dumps menus, replaces them with a search box

      • Ubuntu re-invents PC menu systems with new HUD interface

      • Heads up, Linux fans, Ubuntu’s ditching menus

      • Ubuntu 12.04 HUD Supports Voice-Based Menu Commands

      • HUD’s up! Ubuntu creates menu-free GUI

      • HUD to replace menus in Ubuntu 12.04 – a further kick to the hornet’s nest?

      • HUD: Ubuntu`s New Smart Menus, Announced By Mark Shuttleworth

      • Status of Ubuntu for ARM Laptops and Servers

        David Mandala, Manager of the ARM Team at Canonical talks about the status of Ubuntu Linux on ARM Laptops and Servers, and about their plans for Ubuntu on ARM until 2014 and beyond. Who wouldn’t want to buy an awesome $199 ARM Powered Ultrabook, 13.3″ screen, ARM Cortex-A9 1.5Ghz TI OMAP4460 or 1.8Ghz TI OMAP4470, thinner, lighter than Intel Ultrabooks, 2x longer battery life on a smaller thinner battery (10x with the sunlight readable Pixel Qi), 1GB or 2GB RAM for full speed Chrome and Firefox web browser speeds?

Devices/Embedded

• Is a $35 PC the Future of Computing?

  As the economy continues to recover, many companies are seeking ways to streamline efficiency without spending a fortune. One area of efficiency that has seen a significant boost recently is low cost computing.

• Sub-notebooks/Tablets

  • US tablet ownership almost doubles over the holidays

  • Barnes & Noble to Offer Nook Discount to Subscribers of 2 Publications

    Barnes & Noble, in a move to increase sales of its Nook devices, will offer deep discounts on them to customers who also buy subscriptions to the Nook editions of People magazine or The New York Times, the retailer is expected to announce on Monday.

    The promotion, which will run through March 9, is also intended to have readers associate Nook devices not just with e-books, but with magazines and newspapers as well. Publishers of magazines, especially titles aimed at women, say that they have sold a surprisingly high number of subscriptions for magazines available on the Nook Color.

Open source Malwr analysis launched

A free web-based malware analysis tool powered by Shadowsever has launched this week that aims to shake-up vendor-controlled and proprietary systems.

The tool, dubbed Malwr, is designed to provide security professionals with a free and customisable open source malware analysis tool.

Free open source application developed for study of fluid dynamics

“In engineering circles, the discipline is known as computational fluid dynamics,” noted research associate Francisco Palacios, who led the team. “Creating custom software applications to accurately model the interactions of an object in flight can take months, even years, to write and perfect. And yet, when the student graduates, the software is often forgotten.

Google’s Android App Inventor Goes Open Source

Google, along with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has decided to open source the Android App Inventor code

The developers at MIT stated that for the time being the App Inventor will not accept any contribution made to the code, however, it will definitely do so in the near future. Also, there will be periodic updates to the system to keep it at par with what’s running on experimental MIT Systems.

Open source ‘Malwr’ analysis tool launched

A free web-based malware analysis tool powered by Shadowserver aims to shake up vendor-controlled and proprietary systems.

The Malwr tool is designed to provide security professionals with a free and customisable, open-source tool.

Web Browsers

• Chrome

  • 6 Google Chrome remixes worth trying

    Once upon a time there was a browser named Firefox — an open source project that many people happily picked up and spun off into their own versions with names like Iceweasel and Pale Moon. Now the same thing has happened with Google Chrome. Its open source incarnation, Chromium, has become the basis for a slew of spinoffs, remixes, and alternative versions.

• Mozilla

  • Firefox in 2012

    The first public version of the browser called “Firefox” — a 0.8 release, came out 8 years ago. With that release and the 1.0 release later that same year, we showed the world that browsers mattered.

    Innovative new features like tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, spell-checking, integrated search, and browser add-ons, re-invigorated not just the browser market, but the entire Web. We put users in control of that mess of windows, and the horrible pop-ups from advertisers and malware makers. We made it simple for users to customize their experience and to find what they were looking for without jumping through a bunch of hoops.

Business

• yaSSL Marks Growth of Embedded SSL in Findings from 2011 Annual Report

  yaSSL, the open-source embedded SSL provider, celebrates the increased demand for its device encryption technology.

Openness/Sharing

• Crowdsourcing the State of the Union

• State of the Union address to get crowdsourced captioning online

Programming

• make

Nielsen’s report and Video on the Web

In the United States, Nielsen has long been the main source of data for evaluating television shows and stations for advertisers. It’s considered a very reliable source. So their inclusion of data on web video watching habits in their 2011 report on the “The U.S. Media Universe” is a real boon to anyone planning to enter this field. It’s interesting to ask what are the consequences to free culture productions and the free software used for creation and consumption of video arts.

Censorship

• Georgia Lawmaker Looking To Make Photoshopping Heads On Naked Bodies Illegal

  Well, the Uptons are in luck. Sort of. The Agitator informs us that Georgia State Representative Pam Dickerson is looking to close this legal loophole by making it illegal to “intentionally cause an unknowing person wrongfully to be identified as the person in an obscene depiction in such a manner that a reasonable person would conclude that the image depicted was that of the person so wrongfully identified.” This would include using a person’s name, telephone number, address or email address.

• The Day the Internet Fought Back

  Last week’s Wikipedia-led blackout in protest of U.S. copyright legislation called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is being hailed by some as the Internet Spring, the day that millions fought back against restrictive legislative proposals that posed a serious threat to an open Internet. The protests were derided by critics as a gimmick, but my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes it is hard to see how the SOPA protest can be fairly characterized as anything other than a stunning success. Wikipedia reports that 162 million people viewed its blackout page during the 24-hour protest period. By comparison, the most-watched television program of 2011, the Super Bowl, attracted 111 million viewers.

• Mobilizing the Public Against Censorship, 1765 and 2012

  Last week’s protests against two bills aiming to curb copyright infringement and piracy on the Internet were jarringly familiar to scholars of the American Revolution. After all, we’ve seen this narrative before. In seeking to solve a problem, legislators propose a bill that directly affects the flow of information. Those whose businesses would bear the brunt of the laws see it as a direct assault and mobilize in opposition. The public responds to the rhetoric, rallying behind the call to prevent censorship and protect the free exchange of information. The government backs down in the face of the outcry, but promises to revisit the underlying issues. That description of the Internet protests of 2012 echoes in unnerving detail the Stamp Act crisis of 1765, the moment when dissent against imperial control morphed into a Revolutionary movement.

• Kingdom relieved after US internet law fails to pass

  The postponement of two US internet piracy bills last week was met with relief by human rights and media experts in Cambodia, who say the overreaching grasp of the proposed legislation would hinder the internet’s progress and growth in the Kingdom.

  The US House of Representative’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate’s PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) had aimed to require that internet providers block access to websites accused of piracy and would criminalise the unlawful streaming of copyrighted material by domestic or foreign websites.

Civil Rights

• Judge: Americans can be forced to decrypt their laptops

Intellectual Monopolies

• Copyrights

  • New Market Research: Music Streaming Services Halve Illegal Downloads

    For a long time, the copyright industries have taken the position that they won’t launch new digital music services until piracy is “solved” – or at least punished. The inevitable consequence of that position is obvious to everyone outside the copyright industries – people turn to other, unauthorized sources to satisfy their musical needs. Fortunately, a few startups have launched pioneering digital music offerings and some, like Spotify, look like they might succeed.

  • MPAA Directly & Publicly Threatens Politicians Who Aren’t Corrupt Enough To Stay Bought

    Wow. Chris Dodd is not only an asshole, he’s a stupid, tone deaf asshole. And so are all the asshole Democrats who are on the wrong side of this issue because they want money from Hollywood. Guess what, Democrats? You’re finally starting to reclaim the populist mantle that could help you win back congress and keep the White House. You may want to, you know, get on the right side of public opinion you idiots.

  • Wil Wheaton Says Chris Dodd Is Lying About Lost Jobs; Says MPAA Accounting Creates More Losses Than Piracy

  • Do Pirate Sites Really Make That Much Money? Um… No

    One of the key refrains from the supporters of PIPA and SOPA in pushing for those bills was about how “foreign pirates” were profiting off of American industry. However, as we’ve suggested plenty of times in the past, there’s little evidence that there’s really that much money to be made running such sites. Even more amusing, of course, is that the MPAA/RIAA folks have to both argue that “people just want stuff for free,” and that these sites are raking in money from subscription fees at the same time — an internal contradiction they never explain. I’ve asked MPAA officials directly (including on stage at the Filmmaker’s Forum event last year) that if these lockers are really making so much money, why doesn’t Hollywood just set up their own and rake in all that cash. The only answer they give, which doesn’t actually answer the question, is that it’s cheaper for cyberlockers since they don’t pay royalties. But that’s got nothing to do with why the Hollywood studios don’t get this money for themselves. Of course, the real reason — somewhat implicit from the MPAA’s comments — is that it knows these sites don’t make that much money.

  • MPAA’s Chris Dodd & NATO’s John Fithian Face Sundance Wrath Over SOPA/PIPA

    The panel’s moderator called the MPAA and NATO to task for the legislation’s effective defeat: “You got your butt kicked.” It follows heavyweights like Google, Wikipedia, and thousands of websites joining forces and protesting what they claimed was a move to suppress free speech.

  • Senator Leahy Hands Republicans A Gift By Giving Them Credit For Delaying Vote On PIPA/SOPA

    We’ve noted how intellectual property issues are historically non-partisan. Sometimes, that’s good, because it means that debates on the issues don’t fall into typical brain dead partisan arguments. Sometimes, it’s bad, in that it basically means both Republicans and Democrats are generally really bad on IP issues… happy to give industries greater and greater monopoly rights for no good reason. However, we noted an interesting thing happening on the way to the collapse of PIPA and SOPA: the Republicans were first to come together as a party and decide to speak out against these bills, recognizing the groundswell of public interest. That resulted in Republican leadership coming out against the bills, and Republican Presidential candidates all rejecting the approach in the bill. The Democrats, who have traditionally been considered more “internet friendly,” simply couldn’t bring themselves to go against Hollywood and unions — two regular allies.

  • ACTA

    • What Is ACTA And Why Is It A Problem?

      Yesterday I noted that the anti-SOPA/PIPA crowd seemed to have just discovered ACTA. And while I’m pleased that they’re taking interest in something as problematic as ACTA, there was a lot of misinformation flowing around, so I figured that, similar to my “definitive” explainer posts on why SOPA/PIPA were bad bills (and the followup for the amended versions), I thought I’d do a short post on ACTA to hopefully clarify some of what’s been floating around.

      [...]

      In the meantime, for folks who are just getting up to speed on ACTA, you really should turn your attention to the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP), which is basically ACTA on steroids. It’s being kept even more secret than ACTA, and appears to have provisions that are significantly worse than ACTA — in some cases, with ridiculous, purely protectionist ideas, that are quite dangerous.

    • Poles Protest ACTA Online and on the Streets

      Hundreds of people waged a street protest in Warsaw on Tuesday to protest the government’s plan to sign an international copyright treaty, while several popular websites also shut down for an hour over the issue.

      Poland’s support for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, has sparked days of protest, including attacks on government sites, by groups who fear it could lead to online censorship.