Summary: In an effort to trip each other up and in order to become the ‘industry standard’, Canonical and Red Hat hurt each other and alienate the media (what’s left of it)

TECHRIGHTS, with the exception of the daily links, does not cover GNU/Linux matters all that often. Not anymore. There’s a reason for this and it’s not just the growing role of software patents in the destruction/elimination of software freedom.

I wouldn’t be the first person to state that the GNU/Linux world can be harsh and brutal. People have free speech, which is absolutely fine (I’m a big opposer of censorship and self-censorship). But what happens when people cross the line of common sense and begin to personally attack writers and pundits? What happens when they do this on behalf of big and wealthy corporations? A lot of the abuse I received from the Mono crowd over the years (unimaginable abuse, comparing me even to a criminal) is ever more fascinating now that those very same people are Microsoft employees.

“A lot of the abuse I received from the Mono crowd over the years (unimaginable abuse, comparing me even to a criminal) is ever more fascinating now that those very same people are Microsoft employees.”I recently encountered or was the eyewitness of truly shameful attacks on Phoronix, both from developers and from sites like Reddit, which effectively blacklisted Phoronix, calling it “blogspam”. Reddit is full of censorship for those who don’t know it yet (our daily links have many articles about its political censorship too), but it’s rather unbelievable if not cynical when they block the whole of Phoronix (recently the subject of renewed debate over there and maybe a reversal/overturning of the ban, for the first time in a very long time).

The point I am trying to get across here is that it’s not easy to cover GNU/Linux news because there’s always someone, somewhere who isn’t happy. Thick skin is required. I hardly cover GNU/Linux matters (compared to past years), though it’s not because I’m offended or put off by personal attacks; it’s because I don’t always feel appreciated for the investigative work which I do. I generally snub any PR person or company spokesperson. I don’t trust them. I try to come up with an independent point of view; so do some journalists like Sam Varghese, who have earned nothing for that other than scorn and abuse.

I am not alone in this. Not many people are willing to speak out about it, perhaps fearing backlash. Consider Canonical with their disgusting blacklists of journalists who are not sucking up to Canonical and swallowing every ounce of Kool-Aid from Canonical, as pointed out not just by yours truly but also other bloggers/journalists (both privately and publicly, with those who do so privately fearing that these blacklists would treat them even more maliciously if they dared to rant).

“I try to come up with an independent point of view; so do some journalists like Sam Varghese, who have earned nothing for that other than scorn and abuse.”Red Hat is not much better by the way. The giant Linux firm is alienating people who often/always write out of passion, not for profit (financial gain) or for glory. Red Hat has a massive PR operation now (publicly and behind the scenes) and it’s not something which is pleasant to see because it reminds me of how Microsoft games the media, often bordering the unethical. When companies hire patent lawyers they tend to bring a lot of their (the latter’s) self-serving anti-etiquette and the same thing happens when companies hire PR people. Mass-mailing people is just one of their professional ‘skills’ and — at risk of saying something politically-incorrect — these tend to be women, preferably attractive women (this gives more impact to their work, along various different aspects beyond the scope of this post).

The other day I noticed a certain flamewar brewing between Red Hat and Canonical. They try to keep it on ‘low fire’, but it’s impossible to ignore the bigger picture.

openSUSE’s Twitter account, for example, wrote: “Of course kudos also go to http://flatpak.org . But canonical at least trying to behave and collaborate deserves respect” (that’s a polite way of saying that Fedora/Red Hat does not collaborate or does not deserve respect). Prior to that openSUSE mentioned Swapnil Bhartiya and said: “Kudos to @Canonical for working with other distributions on a new method of packaging applications #linux #respect https://twitter.com/swapnilbhartiya/status/743555291535519744″

“I soon learned of Fedora employees bashing the media wherever they could because some sites wrote about Canonical’s Snap initiative being an actual competitor to their Flatpak universal binary package.”OpenSUSE is trying not to take sides. They first retweeted Swapnil’s tweet saying “Kudos to Canonical for working with other distributions.” And then they say “Also kudos to http://flatpak.org” (as if someone from Fedora got in touch). In another tweet or a bunch of them we see what indicates that there is strong rivalry between Canonical and Red Hat. It makes us bloggers/journalists feel like collateral damage (or ‘tools’), and unlike these people who push us around, we don’t receive huge salaries for our work. For me, reporting is a purely voluntary activity with no financial gain. I decided to ask around and find out what the heck was going on, having seen how Red Hat strong-armed some distributions into embracing the “Red Hat way” — to the point where Canonical had to abandon some of their own projects.

I soon learned of Fedora employees bashing the media wherever they could because some sites wrote about Canonical’s Snap initiative being an actual competitor to their Flatpak universal binary package.

As a reminder for those who are not paying close enough attention, Flatpak is loosely connected to Systemd, probably Red Hat’s most controversial ‘lock-in’ at the moment. On the other hand, Canonical is trying to push its own ‘standards’, which it can probably do given its dominant position on the desktop (and almost on the server as well).

“Red Hat was apparently so pissed off by the whole thing that one Fedora employee (i.e. Red Hat) started chastising reporters.”One interesting fact I have learned is that several days ago Canonical basically spoon-fed some sites a so-called ‘scoop’, in order to ‘generate’ some coverage for Snaps. Not so atypical or unexpected from Canonical, but there we go…

Red Hat was apparently so pissed off by the whole thing that one Fedora employee (i.e. Red Hat) started chastising reporters. That employee was James Hogarth. He baselessly started accusing Softpedia on the fedora-devel mailing list, claiming that Softpedia said, to quote, “Canonical state that they have been working with Fedora developers…” (this was not said at all). There’s this reply from Michael Catanzaro of the GNOME Project. At that time, he took James Hogarth’s words for granted, assuming that Softpedia claimed something it didn’t. Here is a later response from him:

Just for the record… the Softpedia article doesn’t actually say “Canonical state that they have been working with Fedora developers to make this the universal packaging format.” It does say they’ve been “working for some time with developers from various major GNU/Linux distributions” and that “the Snap package format is working natively on popular GNU/Linux operating systems like [...] Fedora [...],” so it’s clear why there was confusion, but it doesn’t say that they’ve been working with Fedora specifically.

Later on Hogarth cited his colleague, Adam Williamson, with a rather offensive piece (“Canonical propaganda department”), adding “AdamW responds to the Canonical Snappy PR piece.”

“But either way, accusing publications of saying something they did not say is unfair, and it reflects badly on the community as a whole.”Michael Hall from Canonical said on Reddit that they talked with some Fedora people at some point (Michael Hall’s statement here is equally informative). But either way, accusing publications of saying something they did not say is unfair, and it reflects badly on the community as a whole.

I have a personal grudge with Canonical over how they treat media, having witnessed online friends becoming victims of theirs, but I didn’t think Red Hat would stoop down to this level as well. What we are basically witnessing here is a bunch of Red Hat (‘Fedora’) employees attacking the media over Snap/Flatpak war. They want the media to take sides and get upset that the media isn’t telling the story the way they want it to.

This isn’t some kind of epic rant from me, just an observation of something that I noticed in the past. If Softpedia folks and Phoronix (Michael Larabel) can be treated like enemies because they attempt to amicably — without controversy — cover GNU/Linux news, then what hope is there for more outspoken bloggers like myself? It’s sad as it’s not just one case; the above is symptomatic of something that has been going on for years and that’s why I don’t cover Linux issues such as Systemd. It’s almost suicidal. It’s nothing but trouble. Self-censorship ensues.

“They’ll need to learn to respect the media or earn no respect in return.”Why do journalists need to be abused for attempting to cover the news, even when they cover it correctly? There’s also this on LWN (Jimbob0i0 is James Hogarth) where, again, it’s said that Softpedia claimed something it didn’t.

Red Hat needs to respect people’s views, even when these views are not correct (in this particular case these views are correct). They’ll need to learn to respect the media or earn no respect in return. They need to work better with the media or have no media at all, except that which they pay for, e.g. their opensource.com propaganda rag (it spends much of its time just peddling a book that helps pretend Red Hat is “open”, based on the CEO’s words).

The above scenario is corrosive and harmful to the relationship between Free software developers and media. Why are they all still wondering why the GNU/Linux ecosystem is not united? Why the fragmentation? Why some many hundreds of distros? That’s why. █

Article as ODF

Publicado en GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Novell, Rumour, Ubuntu at 6:48 am por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“Microsoft está coercionando a la gente a pagarle por patentes, pero no menciónan cuales. Si un tipo entra a una tienda y dice: “No es un barrio seguro, porque no me pagas 20 dólares y me aseguraré de que nada te pase,” eso es ilegal. Es chantaje.”

–Mark Shuttleworth

Summary: Teniendo en cuenta los últimos movimientos de Canonical, algunos expertos piensan que es posible que Shuttleworth elija el dinero a Microsoft sobre principios sino también inste para que esto ocurra
DESPUÉS de evitar a los medios de comunicación durante semanas o incluso meses (Googlebombing “Linux” en las noticias) y chantajeando compañías de Linux utilizando patentes de software (por paquetes, no sólo los pagos), mientras que cabildea por unas patentes de software más fuertes que crecen cada vez más preocupados en la fase del “abrazo” (como en EEE) continúa hacia la siguiente “extender”. Microsoft ya está pagando a Canonical (esperen que Shuttleworth no se atreve a decir nada negativo de Microsoft) y devore Ubuntu, al igual que lo hizo con Novell con Hyper-V (encerrándo a GNU/Linux en una cárcel de propiedad de Microsoft).

“Microsoft ya está pagando a Canonical (esperen que Shuttleworth no se atreve a decir nada negativo de Microsoft) y devore Ubuntu, al igual que lo hizo con Novell con Hyper-V (encerrándo a GNU/Linux en una cárcel de propiedad de Microsoft).”

A partir de esta semana, sacando a luz la gran mentira (“Microsoft ama Linux”), Janakiram MSV desde el 1% ‘media/boquilla (waripolera de Bill Gates) dice que “la estrategia de código abierto de Microsoft esta incompleta sin esta adquisición” (alude a Canónical).
“Para hacer el caso más fuerte, aquí están algunas de las razones por las que Microsoft debería considerar la adquisición de Canonical”, escribió. Como Susan Linton puso esta mañana: “Cuando la Microsoft y Canonical nueva relación amistosa todavía está en la mente de muchos, Janakiram MSV aseguró que” hoy la estrategia de código abierto de Microsoft es incompleta “sin ellos. Dijo Microsoft está tratando de cambiar su imagen lejos de ser sólo para Windows, sólo tiene sentido comprar Canonical. Ubuntu tiene millones de usuarios y “. Un ejército de desarrolladores y administradores de sistemas” Aparte de la gente, Canonical viene con LXD, Snappy Ubuntu Core y Juju – todas las cosas que podrían hacer más competitivo Microsoft en el Cloud y IT. Para Janakiram, no hay inconvenientes para Microsoft.”

“No es impensable que Microsoft por lo menos atente comprar a Canonical.”
Hace dos años hemos escuchado posts como “¿Por qué Microsoft debería comprar Canónical?” y el año pasado hubo rumores en ese sentido.
No es impensable que Microsoft podría al menos tratar de comprar Canonical. Ya intentó la contratar (caza furtiva) administrador de la comunidad de Canonical de Ubuntu (este, con coraje que saludamos se negó). Pero ¿el señor Shuttleworth vendería más de lo que ya lo ha hecho? Shuttleworth dejó algunos comentarios aquí en los días después de haber comprado licencias de códecs (por las patentes de software) de Microsoft. Eso fue hace 8 años.
“Eso es extorsión y deberíamos llamarlo como lo es. Decir, como Ballmer dijo, que hay un no publico balance de liabilidad, eso simplemente es extorsión y deberíamos rechazar dejar arrastrárnos a ese juego.”

–Mark Shuttleworth

–Mark Shuttleworth

Summary: Taking some of Canonical’s recent moves into account, some pundits not only think it’s possible for Shuttleworth to choose Microsoft money over principles but also urge for this to happen

AFTER gaming the media for weeks if not months (googlebombing “Linux” in the news) and blackmailing Linux companies using software patents (for bundling, not just payments) while lobbying for a stronger software patents impact we grow increasingly concerned that the “embrace” phase (as in E.E.E.) is moving forward to “extend”. Microsoft is already paying Canonical (expect Shuttleworth to dare not say anything negative about Microsoft) and devouring Ubuntu, just like Novell with Hyper-V (enclosing GNU/Linux in a proprietary jail of Microsoft).

“Microsoft is already paying Canonical (expect Shuttleworth to dare not say anything negative about Microsoft) and devouring Ubuntu, just like Novell with Hyper-V (enclosing GNU/Linux in a proprietary jail of Microsoft).”Starting this week, sporting the big lie (“Microsoft loves Linux”), Janakiram MSV from the 1%’s media/mouthpiece (Bill Gates’ cheerleader) says that “Microsoft’s Open Source Strategy Is Incomplete Without This Acquisition” (he alludes to Canonical).

“To make the case stronger, here are a few reasons why Microsoft should consider acquiring Canonical,” he wrote. As Susan Linton put it this morning: “With Microsoft and Canonical’s new chummy relationship still on the minds of many, Janakiram MSV today said “Microsoft’s Open Source strategy is incompletely” without them. He said with Microsoft trying to change their image away from being Windows-only, it only makes sense to buy Canonical. Ubuntu has millions of users and “an army of developers and system administrators.” Besides people, Canonical comes with LXD, Snappy Ubuntu Core, and Juju – all things that could make Microsoft more competitive in the cloud and IoT. To Janakiram, there are no downsides for Microsoft.”

“It’s not unthinkable that Microsoft would at least attempt to buy Canonical.”Two years ago we heard of posts like “Why Microsoft should buy Canonical” and last year there were rumours to that effect.

It’s not unthinkable that Microsoft would at least attempt to buy Canonical. It already tried hiring (poaching) Canonical’s community manager for Ubuntu (he declined). But would Mr. Shuttleworth sell out more than he already does? Mr. Shuttleworth left some comments here back in the days after he had bought codec licences (for software patents) from Microsoft. That was 8 years ago. █

“That’s extortion and we should call it what it is. To say, as Ballmer did, that there is undisclosed balance sheet liability, that’s just extortion and we should refuse to get drawn into that game.”

–Mark Shuttleworth

“I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense — I deserve it.”

–Be’s CEO Jean-Louis Gassée

Credit: unknown (Twitter)

Summary: An analysis of last week’s Microsoft media frenzy, which despite Microsoft’s persistence with and insistence on proprietary software (not to mention its perpetual war on GNU/Linux using software patents) truly succeeded and it looks a great deal like the media strategy championed by Donald Trump

HAVING studied Microsoft and its extensive network of external PR agencies for well over a decade, and having studied the latest PR charm offensive for a whole week (while patiently taking notes along the way), I now feel prepared (on a Sunday when it’s all said and done) to provide my explanation of what happened. In short, it’s a PR campaign. It’s not a new PR campaign; it’s continuation of an existing PR campaign, whose banner is typically “Microsoft loves Linux” (that’s the misleading motto). Those who have followed non-disclosure agreements probably know that Microsoft is still attacking Linux. It’s a demonstration of hatred, not love. The genius of this PR campaign is that it logically reverses what’s true. It’s like BP stating that it loves wind power, the Koch Brothers stating that they love Senator Sanders, and Clinton stating that she loves self-determination.

“The genius of this PR campaign is that it logically reverses what’s true.”At the moment, judging by the reaction of people to this PR campaign, I can see roughly three groups. There are those who are still distrusting Microsoft. There are those who are increasingly confused by what Microsoft is doing, not sure what they’re really up to. The third group is either people who are in the Microsoft camp (profiting from it) or those gullible enough to believe what Microsoft is saying, sometimes even repeating the “Microsoft loves Linux” lie.

In this article we shall break down last week’s ‘news’ into roughly three categories or strands. We are going to show the reality behind all this PR, which was emitted in big quantities (with help from lousy media) and in quick succession. Little time and space were left to respond to the PR.

Microsoft Hates Linux

Dozens of articles, some of which were very long, were published here in 2015 and in 2016 and therein we responded to the “Microsoft loves Linux” lie. We gave actual examples from the news (not old stories) which demonstrate Microsoft’s ongoing campaign of hatred towards GNU/Linux. Microsoft is, as usual (as per its notorious history), using its money in an effort to undermine the competition (GNU/Linux in this case), not just with/through SCO, which it supported financially before dunking money into Novell (Microsoft used Novell to start a campaign of patent litigation and extortion, finally sweeping up Novell’s own patents as a grand finale). We wrote about this a few days ago and also one month ago when media wrongly claimed that it was all over. Here is what FOSS Force has just had to say about it. Don’t be easily fooled. There are no coincidences there. Microsoft-funded Linux kernel lawsuit: 13 years and counting (better headline for this article from Condé Nast) because Microsoft just loves Linux…

“We are going to show the reality behind all this PR, which was emitted in big quantities (with help from lousy media) and in quick succession.”Microsoft hates Linux. It just needs people to believe otherwise whilst attacks go on. Microsoft tries to conceal its real intentions (in the minds of top management, not low-level developers).

Microsoft’s Media Strategy

Last week we explained how the "Tay" story (or non-story) got used as Microsoft opportunism, PR, a distraction, and propaganda. It was the Donald Trump kind of PR strategy. Just mention “Hitler” or something like that and the press will be all over you; and if there’s no such thing as “bad publicity” (as all such publicity can be spun positively given the skilled personnel), then you inevitably win hearts and minds.

“Tay” was not news at all… it was more of a PR stunt. Like the “Microsoft loves Linux” stunt, among other things, as we shall show in a moment. The more shocking the statement, the more press you are guaranteed to receive. Provocation or “rhetoric” is what some call this strategy (in relation to Trump in politics).

“It was the Donald Trump kind of PR strategy.”In a nutshell, all that happened last week was, the media got invited to play a role in a provocative media strategy that baits the reader (including misleading images with hearts in them), someone called Wim ended up being hired by Microsoft because he got offered a higher salary (so he moved from one evil proprietary software giant to another), and finally, as expected, Miguel de Icaza and his colleagues at Microsoft once again openwash .NET. That’s pretty much all that it boils down to. Not much to see here, so why not just move along?

No, Linux (or Ubuntu) Isn’t on Windows

There’s no news here ((2-19] below are headlines we didn’t include in our daily links because they added nothing new), except maybe Vista 10 promotion. It now rides the wave or enjoys the positive publicity of the Linux brand. Some people ‘reviewed’ this supposedly ‘new’ thing [20-24] and some rightly criticised it [25-26].

I personally used Cygwin when I started university more than 15 years ago (one partition of mine ran Windows 98, the last version I ever had). At work and at university I was using GNU/Linux exclusively, so sometimes I needed somewhat of a ‘bridge’.

“The more shocking the statement, the more press you are guaranteed to receive.”Microsoft now claims credit for Cygwin, or sort of claims to have innovated/invented it. What a shame. Did the media not research this properly? Early coverage regarding this came from 3 Microsoft boosters (the night before the actual announcement) and it was highly misleading, probably by design. As we wrote at the time, they’re probably being gamed or fed by Microsoft’s PR agents (if not directly). They published highly misleading ‘teasers’ that set the tone to many misleading articles the following day.

“WSL doesn’t really let you do very much that you couldn’t already do for many years via Cygwin,” one person explained [1] (a reasonably good journalist), so it was all hype and lies. Some comments said the same: “Does anyone understand how this works? I thought Cygwin worked the same way.”

Microsoft is not really offering anything new, just putting Microsoft’s name on old stuff. This quickly raised questions about GPL compatibility.

“Microsoft is not really offering anything new, just putting Microsoft’s name on old stuff.”As FOSS Force put it: “Then there was the twelve hour scare, when news was leaked that Canonical and its newfound buddy Microsoft were bringing Ubuntu to Windows. At first look, that turned out to be something of a non-story, as the Windows version of the Linux-distro-that-would-be-Windows comes without just about everything you might expect to find in a GNU/Linux distribution. What you get, basically, is access to Ubuntu’s implementation of the Bash shell, which we now might call MS-Linux-DOS.”

Many journalists ended up mischaracterising it as “Ubuntu on Windows 10″ (that’s from today!). It’s not Ubuntu on Windows 10. That’s just a gross oversimplification.

“Mister Linux” Nonsense

“Mister Linux” is Mr. Torvalds. Everyone knows Torvalds, more so than people know or recognise Mr. Stallman. How many people even heard the name Wim Coekaerts? Surely not many. Yet Microsoft propaganda sites now make Wim sound like some kind of a huge celebrity; “Mister Linux” is what some of them dub/call him. Yes, someone who worked for a proprietary software firm that attacks Linux/Android using patents is apparently “Mister Linux”. Poppycock! Judge the total of 7 articles about it [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] and notice how many of them came from Microsoft boosters and/or apologists. Why is it “news” when a company the size of Microsoft hires someone? He’s not even that famous. They make it seem like he is. How convenient. They try to bolster that “Microsoft loves Linux” narrative rather desperately now. They give feet to a myth. What really happened here? Most likely Microsoft offered this man a lot of money. As we noted here over the years, Microsoft offered huge lumps of money to FOSS luminaries, in order for them to join Microsoft. Simon Phipps openly complained about it. Jono Bacon, who managed the Ubuntu community, was among those whom Microsoft offered a lot of money in an effort to poach him. He declined.

Shame on Canonical? No, on Greed and Self Interest.

Canonical is now doing Microsoft’s E.E.E. (embrace, extend, extinguish) for Microsoft. It actively helped the E.E.E. The Canonical employee who did this said in his blog that Microsoft had even sponsored him. What does that tell us in light of the situation Bacon was in? OMG Ubuntu was dumb enough to call E.E.E. (not FOSS) “lovefest” (this reminds us of its Mono enthusiasm). A loaded headline, “Nothing To Worry About Microsoft Newly Found Love For Linux”, misleads the reader by reinforcing Microsoft lies amid E.E.E. There’s no love there. Microsoft has accelerated not only E.E.E. tactics. It also accelerated patent strikes against Linux and Android, but one (the former charm offensive) helps distract from the latter.

Microsoft’s Most Notorious Propagandists Come Out as ‘Experts’

“Speed and competition mean that a lot of so-called ‘journalists’ rush to write things based on hearsay and press releases, which typically means Microsoft and its confidants inside the media.”Mary Branscombe, whom we mentioned here recently , has spent many years acting like a Microsoft PR agent in ‘reporter’ clothing, habitually attacking FOSS and openwashing Microsoft. “New Microsoft, new attitude” says her latest puff piece and she is not alone. Well, it’s clear what the strategy (as in media strategy) is because we quickly saw several of Microsoft’s other anti-Linux actors coming out from the shadow, along with Mary. They’re really attacking by pressing on with E.E.E. agenda. Suddenly, for the first time in months if not years, Rob Enderle rears his head regarding FOSS (he is also femmewashing Microsoft, not just openwashing it this/last week) and so does Al Hilwa. For those who don’t know who he is, it’s a Microsoft mouthpiece, previously salaried by Microsoft [1, 2, 3]. Adrian Bridgwater cites and extensively quotes Hilwa without noting that he’s a person from Microsoft pretending to be an “analyst” now (Linux-hostile). Very disappointing level of journalism, that’s for sure. There’s even worse journalism out there, for example this article which is openwashing proprietary software from Microsoft. There’s no new FOSS, just E.E.E. of other people’s work. Some people may occasionally say, give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt. How can one do this while Microsoft is attacking (covertly) Linux behind the scenes every week? Selective vision works only because of media omission (e.g. of patent deals). Microsoft has managed to blur the gap between journalism and PR by paying large network to have writers who are de facto Microsoft PR people (we named some of them before) and they game the media by quoting people who are close to Microsoft, shifting the focus of news before it’s even announced, and so on and so forth. This post/article about Microsoft E.E.E. thus focuses not on technical issues but on how Microsoft manipulated the media. Speed and competition mean that a lot of so-called ‘journalists’ rush to write things based on hearsay and press releases, which typically means Microsoft and its confidants inside the media. Those who don’t research are bound to repeat their propaganda. We see a lot of the same stuff as it involves EPO PR people, who bombard journalists with their spin (or ‘prepared’ statements).

Developers, Developers, Developers, Use Our Proprietary Software!

Microsoft wants C++ developers (even those developing for GNU/Linux) to use proprietary software that does not run on GNU/Linux (Microsoft Visual Studio). Here is what Microsoft Gavin wrote about Microsoft’s latest proprietary software ‘gift’ (lock-in, E.E.E., and media manipulation). Watch this article and responses to it, e.g. in Reddit. Watch how Microsoft-friendly sites repeated Microsoft’s own words. It’s all proprietary as pointed out here, but now comes Miguel de Icaza with his misleading/distracting blog post. “Microsoft Mono seems to have chosen a license that allows the ongoing threat of software patents,” iophk told us, linking to this older page about licence choices.

“Going back to Xamarin, it’s mostly openwashing (that’s what Mono did) because Visual Studio remains proprietary and .NET is all promises but still no complete code one can compile from the ground up.”XFaCE, linking to an article about this topic from Wired mocks the use of words like “Delights” and “Freeing” (right there in the headline). “WIRED removed comments I’ve seen,” says XFaCE, so we know that comments that are hostile towards this spin got censored out of existence (standard routine at Condé Nast, which now owns Wired). MinceR was “guessing the koolaid must flow uninhibited,” based on what he wrote in IRC. Condé Nast already has an epidemic of comment censorship in Reddit, Ars Technica and apparently that extends to Wired. What you see there is thus HEAVILY sanitised. And in whose favour? So now we know that Condé Nast not only spreads Microsoft propaganda to aid E.E.E. against Linux but also deletes messages of resistors. Back in the days, before Condé Nast bought Wired magazine, this magazine had actually stood up to Microsoft. Now it has a DEDICATED Microsoft section (PR) and it helps Microsoft silence voices of opposition. Now, that is a media strategy, is it not? Some of Condé Nast’s Web sites, based on what we got told by their managers, were actually launched with Microsoft’s funding (Ars Technica UK for sure).

To give another example of poor reporting/journalism, AOL chose the headline “Xamarin CEO Nat Friedman on getting acquired by Microsoft” (don’t laugh, see our page about Xamarin).

Friedman actually CAME from Microsoft, so that’s like Microsoft buying Elop or an Elop-led Nokia). Speaking of Nokia, today we finally found news about Nokia launching an Android phone (5 years too late). How does Nokia feel (especially the rational people who left after 2011) now that Microsoft basically declares Windows ‘mobile’ dead (ish)? To quote this new article from IDG:

Microsoft puts Windows Phone on hold

[...]

Well, now we know why Microsoft’s Windows Phone didn’t appear at Microsoft’s Build keynote on Wednesday: it simply isn’t on Microsoft’s radar screen at the moment.

The question, of course, is whether it will ever be again.

“We’re going to do some cool things with phones, but this year phones are an important part of our family but not the tip of the spear,” Windows chief Terry Myerson told The Verge on Wednesday.

Phones, Myerson added, “is the wrong place for us to lead.”

Going back to Xamarin, it’s mostly openwashing (that’s what Mono did) because Visual Studio remains proprietary and .NET is all promises but still no complete code one can compile from the ground up. Microsoft loves proprietary SQL Server, proprietary Windows, proprietary Visual Studio etc. It wants GNU/Linux users to buy those. That’s how far the “love” goes. For its next act, Microsoft shall probably do something to paint Microsoft Office “open” even when it’s proprietary. Like bribing people in order for ISO to ‘bless’ OOXML.

“The reason “Linux” news get flooded/dominated by Microsoft (again) isn’t that Microsoft is loved or hip. It is just a lot more greased up on the marketing side.”Looking at the media for coverage about this ‘news’, we see that a lot of Microsoft’s boosters wrote about it, with some (few) exceptions [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. It’s Microsoft news, it’s not FOSS news. What’s even more laughable is that when a longtime Mono booster and inadvertent GNU/Linux basher (see the latest in [1, 2]) “joined” the latest .NET (i.e. Microsoft lock-in) advocacy the media made it sound like .NET was widely loved. Microsoft-dominated ‘media’, 1105 Media [1, 2], went even further and labelled the whole event “Spotlight on Open Source” (as if something actually got liberated rather than “embraced”, as in E.E.E.). The same media company (highly and tightly connected to Microsoft) said that “Microsoft Adds Support for Linux Bash Shell on Windows” (nothing to do with Ubuntu or Linux and not even news, as we noted above).

In Summary

The reason “Linux” news get flooded/dominated by Microsoft (again) isn’t that Microsoft is loved or hip. It is just a lot more greased up on the marketing side. Like Donald Trump, it knows how to pull the strings of the media/press — strings which are sometimes already in place (because of financial strings). █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Microsoft and Canonical Bring Ubuntu Linux Apps to Windows

   It’s also worth noting that WSL doesn’t really let you do very much that you couldn’t already do for many years via Cygwin, which allows a lot of GNU/Linux apps to run on Windows. Cygwin is not as seamless a solution as WSL, but the end result it provides is basically the same. For that reason, some GNU/Linux fans will probably be left wondering what WSL really changes.

2. Microsoft announces preview of Azure Batch for Linux virtual machines

3. Microsoft cozies up to Ubuntu as developers welcome cold day in hell

4. Ubuntu brings Linux Bash Shell to Windows 10

5. Microsoft joins hands with Canonical to bring Ubuntu to Windows 10

6. Cross Platform: You will be able to run Ubuntu on Windows 10 ; Microsoft Bolsters Canonical

7. Ubuntu for Windows brings ‘bash’ to Windows 10

8. Microsoft set to integrate Linux to its platform

9. Developers can run Bash Shell and user-mode Ubuntu Linux binaries on Windows 10

10. Bash on Windows. Repeat, Microsoft demos Bash on Windows

11. Ubuntu’s User-Space Ported To Run On Windows 10 By Canonical/Microsoft

12. Why Microsoft Making Linux Apps Run on Windows Isn’t Crazy

13. Ubuntu Goes to Microsoft’s Windows 10 Bash

14. Bringing Ubuntu to Windows is a step in the right direction for Microsoft

    Will Windows eventually work its way into computer science courses anytime soon? Probably not, considering a copy of Ubuntu is free.

15. The Odd Couple: Ubuntu is Coming to Windows

16. Native Ubuntu Bash command line coming to Windows 10 (for developers)

17. Windows 10 will soon let you run Ubuntu and access your workspace natively

18. Ubuntu on Windows — The Ubuntu Userspace for Windows Developers

19. Ubuntu brings Linux Bash Shell to Windows 10

20. Here’s how Windows 10′s Ubuntu-based Bash shell will actually work

21. Ubuntu Linux On Windows 10 — Here Are The First Pictures For You

22. Winbuntu review

23. Watch Microsoft show off the Linux command line on Windows 10 (video)

24. Windows 10 + Bash Preview

25. The devils spawn

    I just heard from several sources that Canonical and Microsoft are forming a partnership a marriage if you will between themselves. This unholy matrimony, this putrid partnership is not to bring windows to the Linux operating system, it is to bring ubuntu to the windows operating system.

26. How bad is the Windows command line really?

    Kevin Gallo just announced Bash support on Windows.

    If you have never had to interact with the Windows Batch language, this might not seem like such a big deal. Surely Batch could not be substantially worse than Bash, right?

    Bash: a language that was neither designed, nor evolved. An adequate solution to a problem that has since become orders of magnitude harder. As arcane as it is useful, as dangerous as it is ubiquitous, Bash: the language that asks how much we are willing to give up for convenience’s sake?

    Sure, Bash could be worse. But substantially worse? Bash had one value proposition: it was just good enough. It is difficult to imagine that it would have flourished as it has, if that had that not been true.

    But the truth is what it is. Batch is substantially worse. And how much worse sort of beggars belief.

Publicado en Deception, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Ubuntu at 8:00 am por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz

O como ´amigos´ como estos, ¿Quién necesita enemigos?

BP ama a puppies

Sumario: Creciente percepción de que Microsoft esta simplemente mintiéndo a todo el mundo mientras activamente ataca a GNU/Linux a puertas cerradas (arreglos secretos, sobornos, extorsión de patentes y lo demás)

Esta mañana hubieron muchas diátribas online acerca de lo que Canonical ha hecho con Microsfot para ayudarle a vender Vista 10 y poner Ubunto dentro de un hypervisor proprietario, completo con keyloger, puertas traseras, y lo deás. No deseamos pasar más tiempo hablando de las ramificaciones (hay algo de ellon en nuestras links diarias), pero mucha gente lo ha etiquetado/llamado E.E.E (y muy corréctamente). Escribimos acerca de ello anoche, también notando lo que Microsoft ha estado haciéndo en China y Romania (esto esta siendo discutido en Soylent News profundamente hoy).

“Está enamorado de Linux, así que esta tratándo de aplastar a Linux.”Un artículo particular, nos fue enviado esta mañana por un lector, dice: “Relaciones con el Estado Rojo han recorrido un largo camino desde los planes a ‘Dewindowsify’ fueron anunciadas en 2014, sugiriéndo que Microsoft sería echado de lado en favor de un sistema proprietario basado en Linux. Esto todavía continúa, and NeoKylin ya está siendo usado en algunos sistemas claves del gobierno.”

Correcto, pero Microsoft ama a Linux. Lo dice. Está enamorado de Linux, así que esta tratándo de aplastar a Linux. Basado en reportajes, Microsoft todavía trabaja activamente para socavar esta masiva migración. Si la clase gobernante se traga el cuento debido a la corrupción de algunos burócratas vendidos a Microsoft caerán de nuevo en manos de la CIA. Recuerden como fue saboteado el programa atómico de Iran, simplemente usaban Windows en sus centrales nucleáres. Rusos no sean cojudos! Si esta es la compañía que ¨ama a Linux¨, entonces ya perdimos vista de lo que es un enemigo. Incidentálmente, como fué señalado por este mismo lector, IDG, de nuevo esta difundiéndo propaganda para Microsoft, poco tiempo despues de haber atacado a GNU/Linux con informaciones falsas (mismo autor). Este ayayerismo se resume a, Microsoft ha perdido y no tiene oportunidad de recuperárse. He aquí ganó. ¿Es este periódismo? Ni siquiera comprueban los hechos. ¿Qué es lo próximo? ¿Otro artículo de Microsoft ¨ama a Linux¨? Ellos emiten esto cada dos días (aquí hay un ejemplo de la semana pasada). Es más una campaña de relaciónes públicas que periodismo. █

“Una estrategia que Microsoft ha empleado en el pasado es pagar por el silencio de personas y compañías. Charles Pancerzewski, antiguo jefe auditor de Microsoft, se enteró de esta práctica de Microsoft de pasar ganancias de un periódo contable al siguiente, conocida como ¨manejo de ganancias¨. Esta práctica alisa reportados fuentes de ingresos, aumenta el valor compartido y engaña a los empleados y accionistas. Además de ser no ético, es también ilegal bajo la Ley de Seguridades de los US y viola Prácticas Contables Aceptadas Generalmente (Fink).

–2002 Historia acerca de Charles Pancerzewski, Microsoft

Summary: Growing realisation that Microsoft is just lying to everyone while actively attacking GNU/Linux behind closed doors (secret deals, bribes, patent extortion and so on)

THIS morning there were many rants online about what Canonical had done with Microsoft in order to help sell Vista 10 and put Ubuntu inside a proprietary hypervisor, complete with keylogging, back doors, and so on. We don’t wish to spend any more time talking about the ramifications (there’s some of that in our latest daily links), but many people labeled it E.E.E. (and rightly so!). We wrote about it last night, also noting what Microsoft had been doing in China and Romania (this is being discussed further in Soylent News today)

“It has a crush on Linux, so it’s trying to crush Linux.”One particular article, sent to us this morning from a reader, says: “Relations with the Red State have come a long way since plans to ‘Dewindowsify’ were announced in 2014, suggesting that Microsoft would be turfed out in favour of a proprietary Linux-based system. This is still going on, and NeoKylin is already in use in some key government systems.”

Right, but Microsoft loves Linux. It says so. It has a crush on Linux, so it’s trying to crush Linux. Based on reports, Microsoft still actively works to undermine this massive migration. If this is a company that “loves Linux”, then we surely lost sight of what an enemy is. Incidentally, as pointing out by this same reader, IDG is pushing Microsoft propaganda again, shortly after attacking GNU/Linux with misinformation (same author). This spin boils down to, Microsoft lost and has no chance of recovery. Hence it won. This is journalism? Not even fact-checking. What next? Another “Microsoft loves Linux” article? They yank these out every other day (here is an example from last week). It’s more like a PR campaign than journalism. █

“One strategy that Microsoft has employed in the past is paying for the silence of people and companies. Charles Pancerzewski, formerly Microsoft’s chief auditor, became aware of Microsoft’s practice of carrying earnings from one accounting period into another, known as “managing earnings”. This practice smoothes reported revenue streams, increases share value, and misleads employees and shareholders. In addition to being unethical, it’s also illegal under U.S. Securities Law and violates Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (Fink).

–2002 story about Charles Pancerzewski, Microsoft

MANY PEOPLE’S FAVOURITE DISTRIBUTION UBUNTU (many do prefer it the most, or at least its derivatives, owing to alleged ease of use) has reportedly been used by Microsoft to advance the latest campaign of Visual Studio openwashing. Visual Studio is proprietary Microsoft lock-in, nothing to do with Free/Open Source, so this is very sneaky and crude. Nevertheless, some in the Free/Open Source world are easily fooled. “Microsoft seems to take a more friendly approach towards the Linux community,” said one journalist, “and now they’ve done something that might have seemed impossible a couple years back. They demoed an app running in a Linux distro at the BUILD 2015 developer conference that takes place in San Francisco, California.”

What is this app though? Microsoft either releases software that promotes its proprietary stack of its surveillance network (‘cloud’). Remember when Novell stood side by side with Microsoft while helping it infiltrate and divide Free/Open Source software with patents? This is what Canonical should keep in mind now that it’s jumping into Microsoft's 'cloud'.

According to [1,2], Microsoft is now copying Canonical’s ideas. Ubuntu does not need Visual Studio, but Microsoft truly needs developers, developers, developers, especially now that many are migrating to (or have already migrated to) Free/libre software that empowers them and emancipates them, as well as users. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Microsoft’s Continuum Looks Suspiciously like Canonical’s Ubuntu for Android

   Remember a couple years back when Canonical was showing us how you could transform your phone into a full-fledged Ubuntu PC? That was a more of a concept, but it’s 2015 and that hasn’t been made possible yet, at least not by Canonical. Microsoft just demoed the same thing with its Windows phone.

2. Windows 10 just beat Ubuntu to the smartphone-PC convergence punch

   Microsoft’s ploy to transform Windows Phones into full-blown Windows PCs when connected to an external monitor may seem revolutionary, but it’s nothing new. At least not in theory.

–Bruce Perens

Summary: Despite Microsoft’s continued assault on GNU/Linux, Canonical is foolish enough to give Microsoft control over many Ubuntu instances

MICROSOFT is fooling the GNU/Linux world when it says it “loves Linux”. Based on its actions in this past month alone [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], Microsoft very much hates GNU/Linux and fights it viciously. More than ten years ago Microsoft paid SCO and look how long-lasting the impact of this backing has become. Tom Harvey’s latest report (he is usually pro-SCO) overstates the chances of the lawsuit not being tossed out preemptively as every time in recent memory. Suing for huge sums does not equate to merit, but Harvey floats the claim of “damages of $5 billion” as if there’s a change that SCO will ever see any money at all. Quoting Harvey’s report:

Nearly 12 years after it was filed, a lawsuit against IBM Corp. that riled the open-source computer code community is back on the federal court docket in Utah.

The nearly defunct Utah company SCO Group Inc. and IBM filed a joint report to the U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City saying that legal issues remain in the case, which was initiated in 2003 with SCO claiming damages of $5 billion against the technology giant, based in Armonk, N.Y.

This received more attention than it deserved because of the headline, which reads: “It’s alive! Utah software company’s decade-old suit against IBM revived” (drama over substance).

Microsoft is now swapping money for power (which begets money) in its patent extortion strategy. Samsung has been a top “asset” (like a “high value target”) and Kyocera may be next. It’s all about control. Microsoft now has greater control over Samsung (and by extension over Android), owing to blackmail followed by settlement.

One way or another we should deduce from this that Microsoft’s nefarious attacks on Linux using patents and/or copyrights are not over. Nevertheless, Canonical decided to mimic Novell’s footsteps only in the sense that Canonical trusts Microsoft to prop it up a bit. As FOSS Force put it last week: “There’s little doubt that a few eyebrows were raised by the news on Friday, when Larry Cafiero reported on FOSS Force about Canonical’s partnership with Microsoft involving Microsoft’s OCS hardware and Ubuntu’s open source Metal-as-a-Service (MAAS) deployment product. Those with a little memory might wonder if this is a case of history repeating itself, as we’ve seen Microsoft court aspiring princess distros before, with SUSE, not long after the distro was purchased by Novell, a company with an uneven history.”

The author recalls that “In November, 2006, three years after acquiring SUSE, Novell received an eleventh hour bail out when it entered into a joint compatibility and patent agreement with Microsoft. In the pact, Microsoft agreed to pay SUSE $348 million up front and $46 million annually for five years, with return payment by Novell being mainly in the form of support subscriptions for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES).”

The conclusion is as follows: “So what does the old SUSE/Microsoft deal have to do with Ubuntu and Redmond’s new partnership arrangement? The quick answer: everything and nothing. Or, perhaps more appropriate for this stage of the game: It’s too soon to tell. One thing’s for sure, even if the deal turns out to be benign and never develops into anything as toxic as SUSE/Microsoft has been, this is sure to develop into something of a brouhaha in the FOSS user community. At the very least, this will become a hot topic on the forums.”

This was posted after Cafiero had written that “Canonical trumpets its partnership with Microsoft — yep, Microsoft — this week at the Open Compute Summit, where the Isle of Man reached across to Redmond to demonstrate how Canonical and Microsoft are working together to create scalable, OCP-compliant architecture.”

Here is Canonical’s original statement, some press coverage, and a blog post stating that “Canonical Deepens Partnership with Microsoft”.

Microsoft had used Novell not just for patent extortion. It later used it for Linux Foundation and events intrusion (like a free press or ticket), HyperV promotion, OOXML promotion, .NET promotion (through Mono), and Silverlight promotion (through Moonlight).

Canonical does not need Microsoft. “MS is reported to have only 10% share of the cloud,” writes Robert Pogson in response to Microsoft propagandist Tony Bradley, so what is Canonical thinking? Microsoft needs Canonical more than Canonical needs Microsoft. When Microsoft says it is changing, well… this is correct; unlike before, it is now embracing and extending (to extinguish) FOSS. It’s s strategic change. It is easy to envision how some time in the future Microsoft will offer ‘in-cloud’ conversions from Ubuntu to Windows. If Microsoft decided to patent the business method of embrace, extend and extinguish (EEE), it would probably not ‘license’ it to anyway. It is its secret weapon and Canonical should be smart enough to know this. █

Summary: Responding to the media blitz which paints GNU/Linux as insecure despite the fact that bugs were evidently found and fixed

THERE IS something to be said about the “top” news regarding GNU/Linux. It’s not really news. The so-called “GHOST” publicity stunt needn’t be repeated by FOSS sites. It is about a bug which was patched two years ago, but some sites overlook this important fact and stick lots of spooky logos, playing right into the hands of Qualys, an insecurity firm (making money from lack of security or perception of insecurity).

We have watches the ‘news’ unfolding over the past day and a half and now is a good time to explain what we deal with. The so-called “GHOST” (all capital letters!) bug is old. Qualys is going two years ago into bugfixes, giving a name to the bugfixes, then making plenty of noise (all over the news right now). Qualys does not look like a proxy of Microsoft or other GNU/Linux foes, but it is self-serving. Insecurity firms like Qualys probably learned that giving a name to a bug in GNU (SJVN mistakenly calls it “Linux”, but so do many others) would give more publicity and people will pay attention to brands and logos rather than to substance. Just before Christmas an insecurity firm tried to do that with "Grinch" and it turned out to be a farce. SJVN says that this old “vulnerability enables hackers to remotely take control of systems without even knowing any system IDs or passwords.”

Well, it was patched back in 2013. Use of names for marketing is what makes it “news”; the opportunists even prepared a PRESS RELEASE and pushed it into ‘big’ sites like CNN. It has marketing written all over it, just like “Heartbleed” that had strong Microsoft connections behind the disclosure. It is sad that Linux sites fall for this. Phoronix copies the press release as though it’s reliable rather than self-promotional. Michael Larabel writes: “The latest high-profile security vulnerability affecting Linux systems us within Glibc, the GNU C Library.”

It is not “latest”, it is 2 years old. Larabel says that “Qualys found that the bug had actually been patched with a minor bug fix released on May 21, 2013 between the releases of glibc-2.17 and glibc-2.18.”

OK, so it’s not news. FOSS Force cites SJVN to amplify the scare and other FOSS sites are playing along as though this is top news. It oughtn’t be. It is already widely patched (maybe requiring a reboot), so let’s patch and move on (unless it was already patched upstream/downstream years ago). IDG has already published at least three articles about it [1, 2], including one from Swapnil Bhartiya, who is not too alarmist to his credit. He noted that “there was a patch released back on May 21, 2013, between the releases of glibc-2.17 and glibc-2.18. However it was not considered to be a security risk and thus major Linux distributions that offer long term support and get security updates remained vulnerable, including Debian 7 (wheezy), Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 & 7, CentOS 6 & 7 and Ubuntu 12.04.”

It affects very specific versions, mostly long-term support releases that already have reliable patches available. It should be clear that some headlines such as this or that clarify the limited scope of impact (not bad reporting) unlike the alarmist trolls.

What Techrights generally found was that early coverage came from so-called ‘security’ sites or blogs of insecurity firms that try to sell their services (e.g. [1, 2, 3]). These set the tone for many.

The response to this bug is proportional to the perceived danger (e.g. due to media hype), not the severity of the bug. Some security news sites [1, 2] focus on names and logos while facts remain only a side issue. This so-called “ghost” nonsense (some lines of code basically) was fixed 2 years ago and as the blog post “long term support considered harmful” explains it: “In theory, somebody at glibc should have noticed that fixing a buffer flow in a function that parses network data has security implications. That doesn’t always happen, however, for many reasons. Sometimes the assessment isn’t made; sometimes the assessment fails to consider all possible exploit strategies. Security bugs are “silently” fixed frequently enough (without evil intentions) that we should consider them a fact of life and deal with them accordingly.”

Some of the worst kind of coverage we found came from The Register with its flamebait headlines (scary headlines for maximum effect) and the troll Brian Fagioli. They are only some among many who are using the name to come up with puns and FUD. Jim Finkle is back to his GNU/Linux-hostile ‘reporting’, bringing this to the corporate media (there is some in the UK also) and LWN quickly cited the GNU/Linux-hostile Dan Goodin. He called “Highly critical” a bug that was patched two years ago.

Debunking some of the latest security FUD we had Fedora Magazine which stated “don’t be [worried], on supported Fedora versions.”

For unsupported version there is a lot more than this one bug that one needs to worry about.

Apple fans were quick to take advantage of the news, despite the fact that Apple is leaving systems vulnerable for many months, knowingly (like Microsoft does, until Google steps in).

See, with proprietary systems one knows for a fact that there is no security. With GNU/Linux is an open question and it depends on what measures one takes to keep it secure. For Apple and Microsoft security is not at all the goal; back doors and unpatched flaws are not really as “interesting” and important for them to patch as helping spying agencies. Google is not at fault here, Google just saw that Apple and Microsoft had no plans to plug serious holes — a patch evidently wasn’t going to be made ready before the public finds out about it, owing to Google. Apple chooses to blame Google; same as Microsoft. They should only blame themselves both for the bugs and for negligence after the bugs were highlighted to them. There is no room here for properly comparing GNU/Linux (Free/libre) to OS X or Windows (proprietary) because evidence clearly shows that the latter are not interested in security and not pursuing security when it is trivially possible.

What we find curious amid the latest FUD campaign is that Apple back/bug doors are not as widely publicised as a GNU bug that was patched 2 years ago and mostly affects LTS systems (which already have patches available). “Nothing I can think of,” said a reader of ours about this media hype, “but the LTS model followed by RHEL and Ubuntu have different goals and purposes than the short, fast development cycle like OpenBSD.”

Nobody is forced to use an LTS release and those who choose it must be aware of the potential risk.

Regarding the other FUD that flooded the press in recent weeks, targeting for the most part Google and Android, our reader XFaCE wrote the following:

I assume you want to write about that new Android vulnerability. Basically I can see the narrative being pushed through three points

- Microsoft supported Windows XP/7/etc. for years, why doesn’t Google support old Android versions

- Google told Microsoft about a very old bug in their software, so they are hypocritical

- Heartbleed bug was fixed way back for 4.1.1

For the last point, it’s a bullshit comparison because

a) 4.1.1 was one point release where upgrading to 4.1.2 fixed the issue (it was already fixed back when 4.1.2 was released)

b) The fix was one file, as evident by XDA members patched it themselves on phones manufacturers refused to upgrade to 4.1.2 SOURCE: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2712916

c) As shown by the link, a lot of manufacturers DIDN’T update certain 4.1.1 devices to 4.1.2, hence proving Google’s point. The fix there was SIMPLE, but the OEMs didn’t bother to do it

With Webview, not only is webview involved, but so is the webkit rendering engine, so the fix for all those previously releases is much more complicated

As for the second point, Google did catch it, with KitKat, and furthermore made KitKat supported on more low-end devices so theoretically older 512mb or less devices could be updated

For example, HTC said (when Jelly Bean 4.1 came out) that they would not update any device with 512 mb of RAM (SOURCE: http://www.cnet.com/news/htc-one-v-and-desire-c-will-never-get-jelly-bean/ ), so naturally when KitKat came out, they updated those devices because the OS officially was designed for such low ram devices

oh wait

http://www.androidpit.com/android-4-4-kitkat-update-plans

“Later this year, the entry-level smartphone the HTC Desire 500, should also be seeing the KitKat update. However, the One X, One X+, One S, and One V will be left in the dust and will be receiving no more official updates from HTC.”

So the OEMs are at fault for not upgrading the devices, not Google, which leads to point 1 – Google doesn’t control the Android OEMs like Microsoft does OEM pay Microsoft for the support whereby Microsoft controls all updates, Google doesn’t get paid or have the agreemeent in that way

OEMs like HTC could easily fix this by porting Kitkat to those devices, but they won’t cause they want you to buy a new HTC phone or whatever phone brand

Techrights did not cover that (except in daily links) because it should be self-evident that free-of-charge Android upgrades make it inhernetly different from proprietary software and keeping up to data typically ensures security. A lot of the analogies (Android and Windows) were inherently flawed and the FUD rather shallow. █

IN the spirit of tackling FUD we thought it would be worthwhile to tackle spin regarding the news of Ubuntu Core (news that already appears in our daily links).

Microsoft boosters such as Microsoft Gavin try to frame it as Microsoft news, saying: “A smartphone-inspired version of Ubuntu Server for Docker minimalists has been revealed with initial backing from Microsoft.” The headline is even worse. It’s deceiving for the sake of drama.

The news is not about Microsoft. This is what is called bias by omission or selection — similar to this lousy piece from Lance Whitney, former staff of Microsoft media whose latest propaganda is now omitting an old disclosure saying that he is Microsoft’s ‘former’ staff and uses US-only spin to make Android look bad (the US is not the whole world and economic advantage favours overpriced phones).

Several readers have told us that the article “Canonical restructures Ubuntu in mobile mode; Microsoft is first partner” had been removed (we searched the site to verify this) before it was reinstated. How odd. No explanation was given and while it was gone we made a copy from the Google cache of the article, very shortly after it had been deleted, then created permanent archive of the removed version. We wrote publicly at around noon yesterday about how this article vanished after it had been posted (just shortly before we made copies from Google cache and also used archive.is). We later compared the version we had archived with what was reinstated and found no obvious differences in the text. Well, maybe the problem was purely technical, but the content of the article from Paul Gillin was curious, not just the angle. A reader of ours explained: “Below is the text of an article which just disappeared. It was online for only a few hours but contains some very incriminating statements. More might show up later, but for now this is all I have. It sure explains why the Ubuntu forums moderators/staff have been slamming RMS and censoring critique of Microsoft and His Billness – in any context.”

“The situation is bad,” explained our reader. “The previous article was not a mistake” because there is other coverage although it does not provide the Microsoft spin, including phrases such as those highlighted in Diaspora. The factual part is this:

Ubuntu Core is now available on Microsoft’s Azure cloud.

This, however, is not the main news. A lot of effort was put into injecting some pro-Microsoft angle. Here is where promotional spin got injected (apart from the headline):

“Ubuntu Core is the smallest, leanest Ubuntu ever, perfect for ultra-dense computing in cloud container farms,” the company said in a press release. In a twist that’s sure to prompt a double-take from many industry veterans, Canonical chose the Azure cloud from longtime Linux foe Microsoft as its first deployment platform. “Microsoft loves Linux,” said Bob Kelly, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, in a prepared statement.

“Microsoft has been a terrific steward of Ubuntu,” said Dustin Kirkland, product manager for Ubuntu Core, in an interview. “We have a very tight relationship.” The deal with Microsoft is exclusive for ”a couple of weeks,” after which Ubuntu Core is expected to be available on all public clouds that currently support the operating system.

So ‘“Microsoft loves Linux,” said Bob Kelly, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft, in a prepared statement.’

This is part of the new lie which we wrote about in articles such as:

• Microsoft ‘Loving’ GNU/Linux and Other Corporate Media Fiction
• Claiming That Microsoft ‘Loves’ Linux While Windows Update Bricks Devices With Linux
• Microsoft Openwashing and Hatred of GNU/Linux
• The Terrible Joke Which is Microsoft ‘Loving’ Linux: Nightmares With UEFI ‘Secure’ Boot (i.e. Windows Monopoly Imposed) Continue to Affect GNU/Linux Users
• Microsoft is Bricking Devices With Linux (Yet Again!), So a Microsoft Booster Spins/Paints Linux Devices as ‘Fakes’

The problem with articles like the above is the pursuit for talking points to lull the victim into passivity, pretending that Microsoft is now like a “best friend” of GNU/Linux. All that Microsoft does with Ubuntu Core is put it under surveillance and back door control. That’s what Azure is about, as NSA leaks serve to demonstrate.

We could of course tackle some other propaganda if we had more time for writing (I am working full time myself). Consider this new UBM spin which pretends TrueCrypt is FOSS (it’s definitely not) and cites one bug (in OpenSSL) to pretend FOSS as a whole is less secure than proprietary software blobs. There is another ugly story making the rounds about a so-called attack on GNU/Linux machines (attributing it to a government, possibly Russia’s); all the stories we have found (over a dozen so far) neglect to say that the victim must install the rogue code himself or herself, it cannot really propagate except by the user’s stupidity or recklessness. Finally, there is another batch of stories about DCOS, which is backed by a Microsoft thug who boasted about “tilting into a death spiral” competitors of Microsoft and bankrolled Microsoft proxies. DCOS — like Azure — is attempting to control GNU/Linux guests at a higher level. IDG called it a “data center OS” that “allows single-source command for Linux servers”, potentially providing a back door. I have personally seen companies that manage hundreds of GNU/Linux servers from VSphere (proprietary from EMC, which is connected to RSA and hence NSA back doors) on top of Microsoft Windows (also back doors). Can EMC be trusted to not allow intrusion? Can Microsoft? These are rhetorical questions.

Anyone who is reckless enough to put a Ubuntu machine under Microsoft hosting sure has not been keeping up with news. Canonical too would be reckless to recommend such a thing, but perhaps it has short-term thinking, pursuing Microsoft dollars at the expense of customers’ security. █

CANONICAL is on a roll. The company is improving its stance on privacy not just by cutting some Amazon links (Amazon works very closely with the CIA now) but also by fighting against ACPI (which NSA likes to exploit for back doors) and now dropping Fog Computing. Ubuntu servers can still be set up to power Fog Computing services, but users of Ubuntu will not be pushed to upload their personal files to remote servers, and that’s a fantastic development!

A few days ago FOSS Force appropriately wrote [1] that “Richard Stallman has been trying to warn us for years that when it come to “free” online services such as cloud hosted email accounts, we’re not customers. From the moment we signup we become inventory.”

More people should have listened to Stallman. He just got some much-deserved credit in [2] and Snowden’s leaks (for which Stallman is thankful) proved him correct rather than “paranoid”. Perhaps more people will stop using ‘customer’-hostile hosted E-mail services such as GMail, Yahoo, and Hotmail, which on the face of it does not even support Windows users anymore [3] (not so well anyway). It’s all just a datagrab and people should reject it. The business model is based on privacy infringement.

So, the latest news says that Ubuntu One will soon be history [4-16]. Users should immediately get their files out of there and we strongly urge nobody to use DropBox or other such ‘alternatives’ (don’t spread personal files to yet more servers). DropBox wasn’t just on the PRISM timeline; it also changed its terms and conditions recently, supposedly to rid itself from liability for snooping. We shared dozens of links about it earlier this year and last year. A lot of the corporate press did not pay attention or even cover these serious matters, which had mostly gone under the radar while people clicked “I agree” without reviewing the changes. We don’t need an “alternative” to Ubuntu One just as we don’t need an “alternative” to Facebook. These are fundamentally bad ideas. Media hype (propaganda by repetition) somehow convinced people — even some rational people — that Fog Computing (surveillance-friendly) is a good idea and those who reject it are “Luddites”. Now we know better and we have leaked documents to prove it.

Canonical is a British company, which means that it shares space with GCHQ (the NSA’s other big brother, which helps the NSA spy on US citizens and even Europeans). It’s nothing to do with terrorism! Data on Ubuntu One should never have been assumed “private” or “secure”. Based on one of Snowden’s most recent leaks, the NSA systematically goes through files of sysadmins (news links were posted here last month), looking to harvest their passwords which they sometimes store outside work (in plain text) in order to crack networks in many countries. It’s about espionage. Many Ubuntu users are technical people who are also sysadmins, so hopefully they never got lured into Ubuntu One.

Store locally, encrypt, use only Free software, and avoid all blobs (including drivers) where possible. That’s the only way to stay secure these days. If you are a sysadmin, then you are already an “enemy” because in the NSA’s mind you help ‘guard’ the “Bad Guys” (people like Merkel) on your network. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. ATMs Might Go Linux, MS DOS Source Released & More…

   Remember, Richard Stallman has been trying to warn us for years that when it come to “free” online services such as cloud hosted email accounts, we’re not customers. From the moment we signup we become inventory.

2. Widows XP DOA on Apr 8th: FREE THIS ORPHAN !!!!

   Richard Stallman is the guru of computing freedom –and a great source. He started the “hack” movement as an outsider inside MIT during the Vietnam protesting era, and founded both the GNU software movement and the Free S/W Foundation.

3. The Hotmail Runaround

   People who complain that “there’s no tech support for Linux” should discover that there’s even less support for Microsoft products.

4. Shutting down Ubuntu One file services

5. Canonical kills Ubuntu One cloud file storage service

6. Canonical to close Ubuntu One file services, says competing in ‘free storage wars’ was unsustainable

7. Canonical shutters Ubuntu One cloud services

8. Canonical: we can’t afford to keep Ubuntu One

9. Canonical Shuts Down Cloud Storage Service Ubuntu One

10. Canonical admits failure — shuttering Ubuntu One cloud services

11. Canonical closes down Ubuntu One cloud file services

12. Canonical to close Ubuntu One cloud-storage service

13. Canonical Shutters Ubuntu One

14. Canonical shutting down Ubuntu One file services

15. Canonical to Shut Down Ubuntu One, Start Saving Your Data Now

16. Ubuntu to shut down Dropbox competitor Ubuntu One as storage wars heat up

    Aside from being a distraction, Canonical says the service is being shut down because “free storage wars aren’t a sustainable place for us to be, particularly with other services now regularly offering 25GB – 50GB free storage.” Interestingly, this departure also marks Canonical’s departure from music streaming services; One offered a music streaming feature for songs stored on the service.

Summary: Canonical did the right thing by removing a controversial behaviour which was facilitating remote user profiling by Amazon, demonstrating yet again that users’ feedback counts

Our coverage regarding Ubuntu's departure from Amazon search in Dash (by default, in future versions) was followed by a lot of articles in general news sites [1] and a lot of blogs or GNU/Linux-oriented news sites which say “it seems that the online search paradigm in Unity is about to end.” Actually, this is pretty much confirmed now. Back in the days when Ubuntu had Mono (we lobbied hard to remove it, by default) and Ubuntu was about to have a Yahoo (Microsoft) search bar we found that Canonical does listen to its users; it’s just that when it takes action accordingly (corrective action) it never admits that it is due to users’ pressure. The bottom line though, Canonical listens. Just before Christmas of 2012 I contacted Stallman and asked him to address the issue of Amazon spyware, whereupon he wrote an article and started to tackle this issue (in his public talks too). He called it “malware”, but I advised him to call it “spyware” instead. 16 months later Canonical took action and a lot of people are exceedingly happy about it. Pressure from users acted as a moral compass, or a regulator. This is the power of Free software. We no longer rely on derivatives of Ubuntu (none of which had this behaviour) to give Canonical a run for the money.

I can happily install Ubuntu again. The weak attempts [2] to describe the end of Windows XP support as a “Bad for Linux and Open Source” [3] don’t quite correspond to what I am seeing. At this moment, after setting up Puppet to mass-remove Amazon from search in Dash (upon request), I know of a company (client at work) that is right now moving hundreds of desktops from Windows XP to Ubuntu (due to XP EOL). Let’s hope this is one example of many. Let’s also hope that Canonical keeps taking users’ needs seriously. It is apparent that even large companies did not like Amazon search in Dash; it’s not just to do with a bunch of opinionated Free software proponents. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Ubuntu to ditch Amazon product suggestions from its search results

2. Death of XP Bad for Linux? Nope.

   Christopher Tozzi wrote, “The sad reality is that everybody needs to run a Windows app now and then” in an article about the increasing difficulty of virtualizing that other OS on a GNU/Linux system. He’s right about the RAM/CPU/storage burdens of that other OS increasing but he’s wrong that this is bad for GNU/Linux and FLOSS.

3. Why Windows XP’s Demise Is Bad for Linux and Open Source

Summary: Future versions of Ubuntu omit linkage to Amazon are are illegal to host in AWS, as per Mark Shuttleworth’s new vision

“WE have lost confidence in Amazon,” said Mark Shuttleworth at a press conference in London this morning. “Not only is its owner now running the Washington Post to cleanse the reputation of the CIA but Amazon is also the CIA’s partner of choice.

“We cannot maintain a relationship by which Amazon is harvesting the IP addresses of Ubuntu users and what they are searching for, let alone host their data and playlists on Amazon’s servers. Effective immediately, we break up with Amazon and we will no longer enable Amazon to host Ubuntu virtual machines, to which they have back door access inside the datacentres.”

“Putting Ubuntu in virtual machines hosted by Microsoft makes as much sense as putting Huawei routers inside the Pentagon.”
      –Mark ShuttleworthMark Shuttleworth recently experienced or at least witnessed what it's to be abused and witch-hunted by secret services and police and he then made the first step towards the goal of abolishing Amazon, but these latest moves sure are likely to cause controversy, for fears that Mr. Shuttleworth is becoming radical and Amazon-hostile like Richard Stallman.

Bloggers, however, have welcomed Shuttleworth’s policy, noting that “the controversial ‘search everything’ home scope is gone which was sending data to Canonical servers and instead it will become the ‘Application scope’ which will show applications. It will show installed apps as well as apps available for download – makes perfect sense.”

In other news, Shuttleworth is beginning to consider removing all Ubuntu instances from Azure by rewriting software licences. “PRISM,” he said, “has shown us that Microsoft is not just complying with the NSA; Microsoft is leading the NSA towards a state of mass surveillance. Putting Ubuntu in virtual machines hosted by Microsoft makes as much sense as putting Huawei routers inside the Pentagon.” █

Happy April First news.

BASED on this thread which started from yesterday's article, Canonical has removed the controversial behaviour that the EFF and the FSF criticised (to the point where Richard Stallman advised people not to recommend or use Ubuntu). This is great news. Perhaps we are indeed seeing a reformed/reforming Canonical. Let’s hope for more of the same. █

Summary: Ubuntu’s founder Mark Shuttleworth explains that his beard is grown as a political statement while he orders the elimination of ACPI, which is favoured by the world’s biggest back doors proponent, the NSA (and GCHQ)

Mark Shuttleworth is a fascinating and charismatic man. At a very young age, equipped with Free software, he was able to make his dreams come true and he is still very good at business [1]. In recent years many tried to portray him as a greedy exploiter — a narrative we rejected and fought back against. As a man who grew up in South Africa, he is aware of discrimination (sometimes to the extreme) and now that he lives in the UK he must be seeing some of the same symptoms, which is why he is growing a beard [2] (to make a statement).

“If Shuttleworth rejects ACPI, then he should also reject UEFI and Amazon (especially the Fog Computing aspect of it).”To be politically expressive sometimes contradicts and interferes with business. Just look at what’s being done to Mozilla right now. We are not going to entertain the politics of intimidation and blackmail (into conformity, by threatening one’s job and free speech), but a lot of readers may already know what we refer to. Either way, earlier this month, in response to NSA revelations, Mark Shuttleworth made it quite apparent that surveillance software like Skype won’t return into Ubuntu’s front page (in the Web site) any time soon. Shuttleworth seems to be grasping the fact that we are moving in a bad direction in technology, where surveillance and back doors are becoming somewhat of a norm. Earlier today a reader send us this news link [3] about US legislators wanting to require back doors not just in phones but also desktops/laptops (call it “Back Doors by Law”). This is seriously messed up!

Now, taking into account monopoly abuser‘s promotion of UEFI, which enables remote destruction of computers (the NSA helps validate this) we should definitely avoid it. Given what Amazon does with the CIA, we should avoid it too, not put Amazon spyware inside Ubuntu (in my job I was writing puppet config files to remove this spyware from hundreds of federated desktops). On the bright side of things, despite Canonical supporting Amazon and UEFI, Mr. Shuttleworth now declares war on ACPI [4], which is deemed a proprietary security threat (possible hijacking or remote bricking, like UEFI). There was press generated to that effect thanks to Mr. Shuttleworth [5-7], raising awareness among many.

Shuttleworth is not typically techno-political, except perhaps when it comes to software freedom. So his stance on ACPI is hopefully the start of more such stance changes. If Shuttleworth rejects ACPI, then he should also reject UEFI and Amazon (especially the Fog Computing aspect of it). █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Vendors “looking seriously” at Ubuntu – Shuttleworth

   Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, said that he is “very confident that large manufacturers are looking seriously at Ubuntu as the new open platform of choice”, following the recent announcement that it is working with two small players – bq and Meizu – to bring the first smartphones using the platform to market.

2. Here’s why Mark Shuttleworth is growing beard

   “There is a slightly serious angle to beard. One of my colleagues was stopped and held by transport police in UK. He was questioned for hours. There was no justification to it and so while he was leaving, he asked them the reason and they said it was the beard. This is disgusting. A society should be civilised enough to not judge people on the basis of how they look.”

3. Feds want an expanded ability to hack criminal suspects’ computers

   The United States Department of Justice wants to broaden its ability to hack criminal suspects’ computers according to a new legal proposal that was first published by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

   If passed as currently drafted, federal authorities would gain an expanded ability to conduct “remote access” under a warrant against a target computer whose location is unknown or outside of a given judicial district. It would also apply in cases where that computer is part of a larger network of computers spread across multiple judicial districts. In the United States, federal warrants are issued by judges who serve one of the 94 federal judicial districts and are typically only valid for that particular jurisdiction.

4. ACPI, firmware and your security

   If you read the catalogue of spy tools and digital weaponry provided to us by Edward Snowden, you’ll see that firmware on your device is the NSA’s best friend. Your biggest mistake might be to assume that the NSA is the only institution abusing this position of trust – in fact, it’s reasonable to assume that all firmware is a cesspool of insecurity courtesy of incompetence of the worst degree from manufacturers, and competence of the highest degree from a very wide range of such agencies.

5. Linux Bugs but Proprietary the Threat Says Shuttleworth

6. Mark Shuttleworth Calls For An End To ACPI

7. Proprietary firmware poses a security threat, Ubuntu founder says

WHILE we may not agree with Canonical on everything, the company does have a positive effect on GNU/Linux adoption and many distributions are derived from it. When Canonical tried to kickstart the “Edge” we defended Canonical and criticised negative coverage which called “Edge” vapourware (a self-fulfilling prophecy). Well, now we know, based on the words of Canonical’s founder [1], that Apple played a role in making it hard to get screens for the “Edge”. CNET/CBS did not cover it properly (it seems more like Apple marketing), but it’s a serious issue which is at least being put out there right now.

Canonical and Ubuntu have not been making headlines for a while (except when Canonical was left with not much choice but to abandon its project, Upstart [2-5], as well as some non-news about Ubuntu Touch [6-8], Ubuntu desktop [9,10], convergence of those two [11-13], and servers [14]), so we were delighted to see a press release [15] followed by aggressive marketing by Canonical staff like Jono Bacon [16-17] really flooding the news/Internet with articles that mention (GNU/)Linux and the role it has in phones. This is not only good for Ubuntu; it’s probably good for Free software as a whole. It wasn’t just covered in FOSS sites or even technology sites; even general news sites covered it [18-55], bringing the message to a lot of people all around the world, even in poorer nations like the Philippines [56,57].

Well done, Canonical. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Apple ‘snapped up’ sapphire displays, says Canonical founder

   “Apple just snapped up three year’s worth of the supply of sapphire screens from the company that we had engaged to make the screens for the Edge,” he said (at roughly the 30:45 mark linked to above). The report about the sapphire display comments first appeared at Gigaom.

2. Ubuntu Will Switch To Systemd Abandoning Their Own init System Upstart

3. Systemd dominates and Debian, Ubuntu, Git updates – Linux Snippets

4. Linux init-system shocker: Mark Shuttleworth announces that Ubuntu will follow Debian and adopt systemd

5. Canonical Drops Upstart for systemd in Ubuntu Linux

6. Ubuntu Touch x86 emulator improves security, OpenGL

7. Canonical Confirms Arrival Of VLC, Spinlet, Mapbox & Other Third Party Apps For Ubuntu Touch

8. Canonical gets support from major app developers for Ubuntu Touch

   Canonical has announced that the company has got support from major app developers for Ubuntu Touch—the mobile version of the Ubuntu operating system.

9. Ubuntu 14.04 brings back menus in application windows

   Ubuntu users, I tell you this: good things come to those who wait. For all of you cheerful Ubuntu users, come 14.04, you’ll be able to choose whether or not you wish your application menus to appear globally or locally. With Locally Integrated Menus (coined by Unity Desktop member JohnLea), that will become possible.

10. Mesa 10.1 Should Make It Into Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

    Mesa 10.1 brings many new OpenGL features, new hardware support, and as with most Mesa updates is a very worthwhile upgrade for users of the open-source Linux graphics stack. There’s been many articles about Mesa 10.1 on Phoronix while there’s also the Mesa 10.1 feature overview. Mesa 10.1 itself is in a release candidate stage but should be officially released later this month on 28 February.

11. No Mobile Support for Ubuntu store apps until version 14.04

    Running an app simultaneously on your PC, tablet and mobile is the apex of technology nirvana, right? If you are a user of Ubuntu and into the news, you must have heard that there is a thing called “Karma app” into the market, which has been marketed up by Ubuntu Community Manager Jono Bacon this week showed off Karma Machine, a reddit client built by a third-party developer using the Ubuntu SDK. What Karma does is that it allows you to enjoy the apps both on your PC, tablet and mobile but, strangely enough, it does not support Ubuntu Center in it. You ask why? Because there won’t be any cross platform support until Ubuntu 14.4.

12. Jono Bacon demos Ubuntu complete convergence with Karma Machine

    Canonical aims to unite the code base for all of their operating systems–for desktop, mobile, TV, and server–somewhere between the releases of Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 15.04. And the developers are pretty close to achieving this complete convergence.

13. This is what Ubuntu convergence is all about – a single app running across different devices

14. Joyent Partners with Canonical on Customized Ubuntu as a Cloud Service

    Joyent, well-known on the cloud computing scene and a growing player in Big Data analytics, announced a partnership with Canonical today to provide customers with optimized and supported Ubuntu server images in the Joyent Cloud. Effectively, users will be able to leverage a Canonical-customized Ubuntu in the cloud. The two companies also want to enable developers and enterprises to create mobile, big data and high-performance applications on Ubuntu and Joyent’s OS-Virtualized cloud platform.

15. Canonical Announces First Partners to Ship Ubuntu Phones Around the Globe

16. You’ll NEVER guess who’s building the first Ubuntu phones in 2014

    The first smartphones running Ubuntu will ship this year, Canonical now says – although the Linux vendor’s hardware partners are hardly the first companies you might guess.

17. Today’s Ubuntu News

    I am sure that you have all seen the exciting news about the first partners to ship Ubuntu smart-phones.

18. Two Ubuntu phones to hit market this year

    The wait is over, Ubuntu phones are coming. Canonical today announced that Meizu of China, and BQ of Spain, will start selling Ubuntu powered phones by the year end. While the company claims that these devices will be made available globally, it seems that the phones will be targeted at the local market of the two players as Ubuntu doesn’t hold enough weight to break the dominance of Android and iOS in stronger economies like EU and the US. Mozilla knows the reality and despite being much bigger than Canonical chose to focus on emerging markets for the same reason.

19. Ubuntu Touch gets grip on its first phone makers

20. Canonical, Partners Promise First Ubuntu Phones This Year

21. Is there still room for Ubuntu smartphones on the market?

22. Canonical announces first partners to ship Ubuntu phones around the globe

23. Daily Roundup: Ubuntu’s first phones, Lumia Icon review and more!

24. Ubuntu phones arriving in 2014 from Meizu and BQ Readers

25. First Ubuntu smartphones to debut in 2014

26. Canonical confirms partners for first Ubuntu phones

27. Canonical announces manufacturers of Ubuntu phones

28. Video: Did this Ubuntu superphone concept inspire the upcoming iPhone 6?

29. Canonical names first Ubuntu Touch smartphone makers

30. Ubuntu Phones from Meizu and bq Coming This Year

31. Ubuntu Touch Finally Has Hardware Partners

32. Ubuntu-based Smartphones Available In 2014

33. Ubuntu desktop moving application menus back into application windows

34. Linux Extends Its Mobile Empire With Ubuntu Phones

    Today, Canonical — the company that develops Ubuntu — announced partnerships with Spanish hardware designer bq and the Chinese mobile device company Meizu, saying that both would introduce phones over the next 10 months. The news is part of wider movement towards Linux phones across the world and particularly in Asia, where the open source OS can feed the enormous market for inexpensive devices.

35. Meizu And BQ To Roll Out Ubuntu Smartphones

36. Canonical announces BQ and Meizu as first Ubuntu phone partners

37. Meizu, bq to sell Ubuntu phones in 2014, platform a ‘credible alternative’ to Android

38. Two small manufacturers will release Ubuntu phones this year, Canonical says

39. Canonical announces Ubuntu phones for release in 2014

40. First Ubuntu phones coming this year from China’s Meizu and Spain’s Bq

41. First Ubuntu phones to launch in 2014

42. Canonical To Ship Ubuntu Smartphones From bq And Meizu Later This Year

43. Ubuntu phones from Meizu and bq in 2014 Canonical promises

44. Canonical announces first Ubuntu smartphone manufacturers

45. First Ubuntu phones to launch in 2014

46. Ubuntu smartphones coming later this year, Canonical reveals

47. Ubuntu phones to ship this year from two manufacturers

48. Meizu, bq to launch Ubuntu smartphones in 2014

49. First Ubuntu phones on track for 2014 as handset makers jump on board

50. Canonical details first Ubuntu smartphone partners, devices due to arrive later this year

51. Meizu and BQ Readers will ship Ubuntu phones this year

52. First Ubuntu Phone manufacturers announced

53. Canonical announces first Ubuntu smartphone manufacturers

54. Two Ubuntu phones with top apps in 2014

55. Ubuntu phones arriving in 2014 from Meizu and BQ Readers

    Canonical is finally poised to enter the mobile market. After years of teases, promises and demos, the company has locked up the first two manufacturers of Ubuntu phones. Meizu and BQ Readers will be releasing handsets with the Linux-based OS installed on them sometime in 2014. Details about release date, price and specs are still to be determined, but we were told to expect more info at Mobile World Congress (which kicks off this weekend). The list of supporting carriers also remains a mystery, but at least we know that there will be consumer-ready Ubuntu phones on the market before the end of the year. Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical’s founder, is keeping things close to his chest, but he did say that two more manufacturers with “household names” should be coming on board in 2015.

56. PHL among countries to get first crack at Ubuntu smartphones

    Filipinos may be among the first to get a first crack at using smartphones powered by the Linux-based Ubuntu operating system.

    Canonical said Smart Philippines will be among its first partners to ship Ubuntu smartphones manufactured by China-based Meizu.

57. Smart joins telco global leaders supporting Ubuntu

Summary: The Far East is gradually moving to Debian-derived distributions of GNU/Linux, creating its own localised versions

ACCORDING TO numerous reports, China is moving to GNU/Linux and its home-bred GNU/Linux distribution, Linux Deepin (recently reviewed in [1,2]), is sort of replacing an old one which was based on Red Hat. Linux Deepin is based on Ubuntu and it represents Canonical’s special partnership and new major source of income (as Canonical recently reported it). Linux Deepin may one day outpace the growth of Ubuntu because China has a vast population and it is the largest base of Internet surfers.

One report says [3] that “China switches on to Ubuntu in hunt for Windows XP successor”, but a lot of media focuses on the demise of Red Flag Linux [4-7], which is basically a loss to Red Hat. It seems like the Debian camp is starting to gain more ground in China (same in North Korea and South Korea) — a promising trend which will probably be debated in the media for a long time to come. China also has COS in he making (Linux-based but focused on mobile).

Debian 7.4 was recently released [8] and despite some hostilities [9,10] (nothing new to Debian) related to the Systemd debate [11,12] there are signs of strength and leadership in the GNU/Linux world. As for Ubuntu, it is following Debian for the most part [13] (although Debian follows Red Hat in this case) and with reduced interest from developers [14] due to controversies [15] such as Canonical’s demand for licence-signing by derivatives (noted the other day and covered here months ago) it will have to work hard on restoring confidence [16], not just by letting the “community” use an SDK [17] or vote on wallpapers [18] but also by opening up the development process, as Debian does. When Ubuntu turned to mobile it notoriously shunned community participation, not just when it comes to development but also voting/steering.

Ubuntu is gaining elsewhere in east Asia [19], so let’s hope it will improve privacy policies. In some Asian countries surveillance by the government can lead to imprisonment and even death. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Linux Deepin is a fringe Linux distribution that could steal your heart

   Jack Wallen digs into Linux Deepin and comes out impressed. See what this fringe Linux distribution has to offer, and discover if its your next platform.

2. Linux Deepin, Ubuntu systemd and Licensing, and Red Flag Scuttled

3. China switches on to Ubuntu in hunt for Windows XP successor

4. Chinese software pioneer Red Flag bites the dust

5. Chinese Linux Distributor Red Flag Software Disappears Overnight

6. China shutters Windows ‘rival’ Red Flag Linux

7. Linux distributor Red Flag Software disappears overnight

8. Debian 7.4 Rounds Up Stable Updates

9. Debian Tech Committee Falling Further Into Disarray

   While it was clear that systemd overtook Upstart in this weekend’s Debian init system voting by the Debian technical committee, some fits are still being had over the results. Some committee members are now calling for resignations.

10. Fake Debian Developers Try To Get Free Linux Games

11. Debian inches towards new init system decision amid fallout

12. An Exploit In GNOME Shell With Systemd?

    It looks like there might be a big bug in systemd-using GNOME Shell Linux systems.

13. Shuttleworth says Ubuntu will switch to systemd

    The head of Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu GNU/Linux distribution and the creator of the upstart init system, has announced that it will switch its init system to the Red Hat-developed systemd.

14. Ubuntu Is Short On Developer Membership Board Nominations

15. Ubuntu and Privacy and how it really works now.

    Firstly the Amazon lens is nothing special, and it is perhaps the internet connected lens I am least worried about. I trust Amazon to do what I expect them to do, I am a customer so they know what I bought, sending them random strings like “calcul” and “gedi” and “eclip” does not give them valuable data. It is junk. I am much more concerned about stuff like the Europeana, jstor, grooveshark lenses which do exactly the same thing but I have no idea who those organisations are or what they do. Even things like openweathermap, sounds good, but are they really a trusted organisation?

16. Why do you need license from Canonical to create derivatives?

17. Ubuntu Planning For HTML5, SDK Improvements

    Jono Bacon of Canonical has shared some new details after a developer sprint was held last week in Florida for the platform, SDK, and security teams along with desktop and design stakeholders. Those developers focusing upon Ubuntu’s next-generation platform can find all of the details in full via Jono’s blog post but some of the key takeaways include:

18. Everybody Can Submit Wallpapers For The Trusty Tahr Wallpaper Submision Contest

    The wallpaper contest for Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr is taking part right now, everybody being able to submit their photos until the 5th of March 2014.

19. After Vodafone, Smart Communications Has Also Joined The Ubuntu’s Carrier Advisory Group (CAG)

    Recently, Smart Communications, a mobile carrier from Philippines, has joined Ubuntu’s Carrier Advisory Group (CAG), in order to support Ubuntu Touch, the mobile version and Ubuntu, and sell phones with Ubuntu for phones pre-installed.

Debian

• Updated Debian 7: 7.4 released

  The Debian project is pleased to announce the fourth update of its stable distribution Debian 7 (codename “wheezy”). This update mainly adds corrections for security problems to the stable release, along with a few adjustments for serious problems. Security advisories were already published separately and are referenced where available. Please note that this update does not constitute a new version of Debian 7 but only updates some of the packages included. There is no need to throw away old “wheezy” CDs or DVDs but only to update via an up-to-date Debian mirror after an installation, to cause any out of date packages to be updated.

Systemd in Debian

• Systemd Is The Future Of Debian

  Since this weekend we have known that systemd was winning the Debian init system battle, but now it’s official: systemd has prevailed over Upstart in Debian.

  After a very heated fight between the Debian technical committee and also Debian stakeholders, Bdale Garbee as the chairman of the tech committee has announced systemd will be used in Debian 8.0 Jessie.

• Finally, Debian chose* systemd as default init systemd, bye bye upstart

  systemd already has a wide adoption withing the GNU/Linux distribution with all major distros including openSUSE, Fedora, Arch Linux, etc using it as their default init system. Upstart was either way not getting much support from the free software community due to the restrictive CLAs Canonical requires which is often criticized by the community. With Debian going* for systemd, it will get even more developer power whereas Canonical will be left alone to deal with Upstart along with many more project that it’s trying to do on its own – including the recently discussed File Manager which may replace Nautilus (Files).

Systemd in Ubuntu

• Debian init decision further isolates Ubuntu

  Going forward, systemd will be Debian’s default init system for Linux distributions, an init system soon to be used by every other major Linux distribution other than Ubuntu.

• Losing graciously

• After Linux civil war, Ubuntu to adopt systemd

• Ubuntu to ditch Upstart and switch to systemd

  With this move Canonical has slowed the alienation of Ubuntu from the rest of the Linux community. It also shows that Canonical also understand that it can’t fork it’s path too much from the mainstream Linux community, especially from mommy Debian. In a nutshell it’s a wise and welcome decision by Ubuntu leadership and will help them focus on more pressing issues which will help make Ubuntu better.

Systemd

• Broken by design: systemd

  My view is that this idea is wrong: systemd is broken by design, and despite offering highly enticing improvements over legacy init systems, it also brings major regressions in terms of many of the areas Linux is expected to excel: security, stability, and not having to reboot to upgrade your system.

• systemd analysis: a personal perspective

  As usual in these cases, not just Lennart, but many of those who supported him, also those who sponsored these efforts, has suffered all kind of attacks. Sadly not just for technical, I mean ATTACKS. Even journalists have been involved. Yes, Free Software is also mature enough to have “yellow (technical) press” associated, political and business interests and people in different communities willing to use them against anybody who threaten the current status quo.

Mobile

• Ubuntu delays its planned PC mobile convergence

• Ubuntu mobile takes two steps forward, one step backward

  Vodafone joined Ubuntu’s Carrier Advisory Group, as Ubuntu demoed progress on a unified desktop/mobile UI, but a Debian decision may further isolate Ubuntu.

• An Ubuntu Phone/Mobile Announcement Is Coming Next Week

• Ubuntu store apps won’t work across mobile and desktop in 14.04

  One of Canonical’s main goals in bringing Ubuntu to mobile devices is to create a converged platform across smartphones, tablets, and PCs. As such, a developer should be able to write an app that has a single code base yet runs on all three types of devices, presenting a different interface to the user on each form factor.

Licence Agreement

• Canonical Explains Why Linux Mint and All Other Distros Must Sign a License Agreement

  Canonical has issued an official explanation for the reason why Linux Mint developers have to sign a license agreement in order to continue to distribute the package straight from the Ubuntu repos.

Valve

• Valve Is Now Giving Away Their Games To Ubuntu Developers

• Fake DDs Steal Games, Linux on Laptop, and Candy Hearts

LTS

• Early Benchmarks Of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS vs. 14.04 LTS

  After this weekend sharing benchmarks of the recent Ubuntu 12.04 LTS point releases, here’s some complementary tests that offer a look at the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS “Precise Pangolin” performance against the current state of the “Trusty Tahr”, a.k.a. Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

• Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS released

  The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS
  (Long-Term Support) for its Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products,
  as well as other flavours of Ubuntu with long-term support.

• Ubuntu 14.04 (Trusty Tahr) – Alpha 1 Released ! Time to Upgrade !

Development

• Forward Momentum in the Ubuntu App Developer Platform

  Last week I was in Orlando sprinting with my team as well as the platform, SDK, and security teams and some desktop and design folks. As usual after a sprint, I have been slammed catching up with email, but I wanted to provide a summary of some work going that you can expect to see soon in the Ubuntu app developer platform.

• The Next Ubuntu Developer Summit: 11-13 March 2014

  The Ubuntu Developer Summit is the primary place where we discuss, debate, and plan the future of Ubuntu. The entire event takes place online, is open and accessible to all, and every session is recorded so everyone can see how decisions are made. It is a useful, fun, and rewarding event to join.

Ubuntu Variants

• Ubuntu 14.04 Derivatives Do Their Alpha 2 Release

  Various flavors of Ubuntu 14.04 have come out today with their Trusty Tahr Alpha 2 spins.

Bodhi Linux

• Interview: Jeff Hoogland Talks About Bodhi Linux

  We are huge fans of Jeff Hoogland’s work as a Software Developer and his efforts with Bodhi Linux. So we invited Jeff for a quick chat with Unixmen Australia. We were privileged when Jeff accepted our invitation. Here is what he had to say.

Linux Mint

• Why Did Linux Mint Ax mintConstructor?

  It’s no great secret that our organization Reglue uses Linux Mint on many of our outgoing computers. I run Mint on one of my work computers and at home as well. Linux Mint has given us the opportunity to create a respin for educational purposes within our non profit, largely due to an app named mintConstructor. It provides a fairly simple method of making custom systems using Linux Mint as the base.

• Revisited: Linux Mint 16 “Petra” KDE + Xfce

12.04.4

• Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS (Precise Pangolin) Officially Released by Canonical

  Canonical has just announced that Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS (Precise Pangolin) has been officially released for its Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products.

• Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS Performance Benchmarks

  The benchmarks in this article are some straightforward tests done on the same HP EliteBook (Intel Core i5 2520M, 4GB RAM, Intel 160GB SSD, HD Graphics 3000) when comparing clean installs of Ubuntu 12.04.2, 12.04.3, and 12.04.4. Unfortunately the mirrors of the original Ubuntu 12.04 LTS release and the first point release have vanished, so the testing was limited to these three past point releases for the Linux distribution that originally shipped in 2012 and will be maintained through 2017.

Mobile

• After Tizen, Vodafone puts a foot in the Ubuntu camp

  Ubuntu Touch devices might be some time away yet, but its parent company Canonical is gradually building carrier support with Vodafone becoming its latest addition supporter.

• Vodafone signs as Ubuntu backer

  Vodafone Group became the latest member of the Ubuntu Carrier Advisor Group, although there has been no further detail on when smartphones powered by the platform will reach the market.

  According to a statement from Ubuntu: “Vodafone Group will join national and multi-national carriers in decisions that influence the development of Ubuntu for smartphones.

• Vodafone is the latest carrier to support Ubuntu

• Vodafone backs Ubuntu – but no sign of smartphone yet

  Canonical’s carrier advisory group allows operators to have a say in Ubuntu’s development on mobile.

• Expect something Ubuntu flavoured at Mobile World Congress

  Mark Shuttleworth’s Canonical has confirmed that they will be at the annual Mobile World Congress (MWC) event in Barcelona at the end of next month to show off the Ubuntu OS in all its glory. Last year Canonical used MWC as a springboard to launch Ubuntu for tablets and smartphones so they’re no stranger to announcing big things at the event.

Tips

• Six must-have Ubuntu Unity tweaks

• 10 Useful Ubuntu Tips For Linux Users!

• Pro tip: Remove product suggestions from Ubuntu Unity search results

• 5 Ways In Which You Can Try Out Ubuntu On Your Computer ‘Hassle-Free’

• Still on Windows XP? Give Ubuntu Linux a go.

  With Windows XP – arguably the longest-lasting Microsoft operating system in widespread use – running out of support in April 2014 it is definitely time for business and home users alike to consider what they will transition to.

  Windows XP was well-received when it launched, despite some initial concerns over its changed graphical style from predecessors Windows 95, 98 and 2000. XP enjoyed a stay of execution with Windows Vista turning many users off upgrading, and being an operating system Microsoft perhaps would prefer forgotten – along with Windows ME.

File Manager

• Ubuntu’s convergence plan starts with File Manager

  For the past year, Ubuntu and Canonical’s founder, Mark Shuttleworth has been talking about full convergence i.e., the same OS and its applications can be run on desktops, servers and mobile devices. Canonical plans to start the converge from its Ubuntu 14.10 release cycle. However, no activity has been seen on the development front, until now.

• Ubuntu Could Get a New File Manager as Development Model Shifts

• Ubuntu Developers Planning To Develop Their Own File-Manager For Ubuntu 14.10

  Ubuntu is planning to develop its own file manager which will be introduced with their QT5 powered Unity8 desktop environment from Ubuntu 14.10 onwards. Ubuntu is currently using Nautilus File manager (also known as ‘Files’), developed by GNOME developers.Ubuntu users & developers are growing increasingly unhappy with the direction at which Nautilus file manager is leading. There are many necessary features which are missing in latest Nautilus, forcing users to replace Nautilus with their favourite file manager like feature-rich nautilus fork, Nemo or the popular Thunar – which is inarguably one of the best file managers.

• Ubuntu Developers to Drop Nautilus Soon and Replace It with Their Own File Manager – Update

  “With the planned switch to unity8 in 14.10 it is most likely that we will also start using the converged QML apps that are developed today. With all the complaints and unhappiness about Nautilus upstream ripping out things like dual pane and other beloved and helpful features I expect we can do better,” said Ubuntu developer, Oliver Grawert.

• Ubuntu Planning To Develop Its Own File Manager

  The latest piece of the desktop Linux stack that Ubuntu developers are planning to replace with their own home grown solution is a file manager.

CLA

• Not all CLAs are equal

  Contributor License Agreements (“CLAs”) are a mechanism for an upstream software developer to insist that contributors grant the upstream developer some additional set of rights. These range in extent – some CLAs require that the contributor reassign their copyright over the contribution to the upstream developer, some merely provide the upstream developer with a grant of rights that aren’t explicit in the software license (such as an explicit patent grant for a contribution licensed under a BSD-style license).

Decoupling

• Vacant Developer Membership Board seats: Second call for nominations

• Canonical Seeks Even More Independence for Ubuntu Linux

  Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux already does many things differently from other leading open source operating systems. And it may soon diverge in yet another respect, with Ubuntu developers in the midst of discussions over replacing Nautilus—the file browser that has long been a core part of many Linux distributions—with something home-grown.

• An Exciting Future

  We are growing a world-class community and app developer eco-system, fuelled by Open Source and open collaboration. We are putting the core pieces in place and I am delighted to be working with such a wonderful team:

• New Kernel Vulnerability Affects Ubuntu 13.10

  On January 30, Canonical announced in a security notice that a new Linux kernel update was available for its Ubuntu 13.10 (Saucy Salamander) operating system, fixing a security issue found recently in the Linux kernel packages.

• On Planet Ubuntu

  I think the gist of Stuart’s view is that the personal stories on Planet Ubuntu is a wonderful part of being in a community. Ubuntu is not just about Ubuntu, it is about the stories and the lives of the people who contribute to our community. I agree with Stuart here too.

• Ubuntu’s Juju Wins the Best Cloud Automation Solution Award

• 7 Things We Expect from Ubuntu in 2014

  2013 was a milestone year for Canonical. Not only did Ubuntu expand its wings to other arenas like tablets and smartphones, it also propelled itself into the world of gaming. With major milestones like Steam, Ubuntu Edge, and Ubuntu Touch under its belt, Ubuntu has its eyes set on convergence in 2014. That said, you won’t get to see a convergent desktop this year. 2014 is just a setting stage for Shuttleworth’s ambitious plans to spread the reach of Ubuntu to every device.

• Ubuntu 13.04 Is No Longer Supported, Upgrade to Ubuntu 13.10 Now

  As we reported at the beginning of the month, the Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring Ringtail) Linux operating system was supposed to reach end of life (EOL) today, January 27, 2014.

• Unity To Have Anti-Aliased Corners, Full GTK3 Theming

  Unity 7 in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS will be picking up some new features even though Canonical’s major focus is on Unity 8 that will come past this next Long-Term Support release.

• Latest Unity7 Update in Ubuntu 14.04 Features Anti-aliased Windows & Full GTK3+ Theming Support.

  Currently the default Ubuntu desktop is shipped with Unity7, even though Canonical developers are working on upcoming major iteration Unity8 (a.k.a Unity Next) which is based on Mir display server targeting convergence, there is clear announcement that Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr LTS will be shipped with Unity7 & not Unity8. Recently, unity7 stacks were upgraded in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with including features of full GTK3+ theming support & windows with anti-aliased corners.

• Sable Complete All-in-one Ubuntu Linux Pre-installed PC Released By System76.

  System76, the computer manufacturer well-known and highly appreciated for their support of opensource software has released new Sable Complete All-in-one PC with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed. The U.S based company, in last few months has already released several models of Laptops & Desktop-PCs based on latest fourth generation ‘Haswell’ Intel core processors & with other hardware which is capable of offering best possible support to Ubuntu.

• Yet Another Ubuntu Powered Supercomputer: System76′s Sable Complete All-In-One Computer

  Hello Linux Geeksters. As you may know, System76 is computer manufacturer, creating Ubuntu computers, laptops and servers. They choose wise the hardware components, in order to have full support on the Ubuntu Linux systems. In November 2013, the System76 Sable Touch, All-in-One Touchscreen computer has been announced.

• 3 Reasons Why Ubuntu Smartphone Will Succeed