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06.03.12

Links 3/6/2012: Linux Advocacy and More

Posted in News Roundup at 11:28 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Finance

  • Privacy

    • IBM bans employees from using Siri over privacy fears

      The reason? Siri ships everything you say to her to a big data center in Maiden, North Carolina. And the story of what really happens to all of your Siri-launched searches, e-mail messages and inappropriate jokes is a bit of a black box.

  • Copyrights

    • Google dealt blow in book scanning lawsuit

      The coalition of authors suing to stop Google Book Search scored a key victory on Thursday as the judge overseeing the case ruled that three individual authors and the Author’s Guild could represent the class of all authors whose works had been scanned by Google. Google had sought the opposite result, arguing that including all authors in a single lawsuit would make the case too complex, and that most authors actually supported the scanning project.

      Judge Denny Chin, who rejected a controversial settlement of the case last year, ruled on two distinct legal issues. The first was over whether the Author’s Guild was entitled to serve as a representative of its members. Google had argued that only individual authors could be plaintiffs because the case will require the participation of those individual plaintiffs to consider issues such as fair use.

    • Tides Turn for Kim Dotcom?

      Mr. Dotcom, founder of the online storage site Megaupload.com, was arrested in New Zealand in January on charges including criminal copyright infringement and conspiracy to commit racketeering. The Federal Bureau of Investigation shut down Mr. Dotcom’s website, which it claims was used to pirate half a billion dollars worth of entertainment content.

06.02.12

Links 2/6/2012: SolusOS 1.1 Released, Fedora 17 Reviews

Posted in News Roundup at 11:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • New Zealand judge orders US to hand over Megaupload documents

        Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and his co-defendants scored a significant victory on Tuesday when a New Zealand judge ordered the United States government to hand over evidence the defense will need to prepare for an upcoming extradition hearing. He rejected the government’s argument that the defendants should make do with the information about its case the government itself chose to introduce in court.

06.01.12

Links 1/6/2012: Tiny Linux-Powered PCs, LibreOffice 3.5.4

Posted in News Roundup at 4:58 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • mintBox runs on a Linux variant operating system

    It seems that the folks behind the hugely popular Linux Mint operating system have come up with an announcement that you will soon be able to pick up a Mint-branded computer that is aptly known as the mintBox, where it is more or less a Compulab fit-PC3 that has the Mint brand name on it. Not only that, Compulab intends to share a part of the proceeds with the Mint team in order to further assist their efforts in developing the operating system in order to bring it to greater heights. Right now, Compulab offers its fair share of small form factor PCs under the fit-PC range, with the latest models being hugely line diminutive at a mere 6.3″ x 6.3″ x 1″, and will rely on low power AMD processors as well as Radeon HD graphics to get the job done.

  • Invasion of the Tiny, Linux-Powered PCs
  • Miniature Linux Computers Are Emerging As 2012 Highlights

    As we head toward the mid-point of 2012, it’s clear that one of the biggest open source stories of all is the proliferation of diminutive, inexpensive Linux-based computers at some of the smallest form factors ever seen. The tiny $25 Linux computer dubbed Raspberry Pi (shown here) has grabbed many headlines on this front, and Google Chairman Eric Schmidt recently pledged to give some of the units to U.K. schools along with training for teachers who can pass on Linux knowledge to kids. But the Raspberry Pi is only one of many tiny LInux computers being heralded as part of a new “Linux punk ethic.”

  • Command Line and User Friendliness
  • As a power user, I want to punch you every time I change a setting

  • Desktop

    • Google Chromebox: Better Than Windows PC?

      In my opinion Chromebox and Chromebook are a major threat to Microsoft’s core market — businesses. The desktop as we know it is almost dead and with Microsoft’s switch to Metro will further put a nail in the traditional desktop market. Desktop is being used only by those who either create content and use it for editing audio, video and images. Applications which need massive processing power to handle the workload. The desktop is also used for gaming (though the consoles are picking up).

    • ZaReason Upgrades Open Source PC Line

      If you’re in the market for a Linux-ready PC, May 2012 has been a good month. First eRacks launched a new line of high-end desktops. Then System76 introduced high-power laptop. Now ZaReason, one of the few other big open source OEMs, has both released new hardware and upgraded a popular existing model. Read on for details.

    • Samsung refreshes ChromeOS hardware with first desktop system

      Google and Samsung have launched fresh hardware aimed at reviving interest in its ChromeOS platform, with a laptop for end users and a desktop box system.

  • Kernel Space

    • XFS, Btrfs, EXT4 Battle It Out On Linux 3.4

      Following the Linux 3.4 kernel benchmarks from last week, available now are the results from a three-way file-system comparison using the Linux 3.4 kernel as well as the Linux 3.2 and 3.3 kernels for reference. The three file-systems being pitted against each other are Btrfs, EXT4, and XFS.

    • The Linux Foundation Announces New Tool for Tracking Free and Open Source Software Components

      The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced the availability of The Linux Foundation FOSS Bar Code Tracker.

      Released as an open source project under the MIT license, the new software tool aims to simplify the way open source components are tracked and reported by using an auto-generated, custom QR code for each product. The QR code contains important information on the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) stack contained in a product, such as component names, version numbers, license information and links to download the source code, among other details.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • Is Xfce a GNOME and Unity Replacement?

      Xfce’s first release in sixteen months comes at a critical time. After years of being a distant third among Linux desktops, in the last year Xfce has found a new popularity among those looking for alternatives to GNOME 3 and Ubuntu’s Unity.

      In fact, according to one survey, Xfce is now the second most popular desktop, and starting to crowd KDE — at least among experienced users.

      Under these circumstances, Xfce 4.10 might have been an ambitious release, full of new features and extras designed to attract new users. Instead, like earlier releases, the latest version of Xfce consists of a modest set of visible changes — specifically, a few miscellaneous new features, some improvements to the panel, and some new configuration options — that improve the desktop without visibly altering it to any great extent.

    • Linux Desktop Environments

      A full desktop environment is the lazy man’s approach to Linux. Most popular Linux distributions today employ a full desktop environment, while hand selecting each component for specific purposes.

  • Distributions

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

      • Mageia 2 Review

        Mageia began as a fork of Mandriva Linux in September 2010 by the former employees and contributors of Mandriva because they were not happy with the governance of the project.

      • Mageia 2 Review – Pure Magic

        Mageia has been pretty popular ever since its original release last year. While all Linux distributions give you more choice than any other operating system, Mageia was one of the few distros that has a lot of these choices upfront. This is partly due to it being an offshoot of Mandriva, however the team at Mageia have taken it noticeably further.

      • Charles-H. Schulz Joins Mandriva’s Recovery Team

        Today Charles-H. Schulz posted a short message on Mandriva’s official blog stating that he will be joining the Mandriva team to help them come back to life. Charles-H. Schulz is a very active member of the Open Source community and is probably best known for his invaluable contributions to OpenOffice.org, The Document Foundation, and LibreOffice.

      • Mageia desktop background causes foreground headache

        The Mageia developers are replacing the background image in Mageia 2 after discovering that they did not have permission to include it. Mageia 2 was released just over a week ago. The current background image, which won the Mageia 2 artwork contest, was submitted by a user who had derived it from an original work by pr09studio. The Mageia community were made aware of the use of the Domination wallpaper early on the morning on 31 May and, after confirming that it was derivative, set about remedying the problem.

      • Mandriva

        I usually avoid to talk much about my day job and what my company is working on, but I will make an exception for this one. Starting today, I will be assisting Mandriva in its Open Source strategy and its relations with the community.

        Mandriva has had rough times lately, but things have improved recently and a few important decisions have been made concerning the overall corporate strategy of Mandriva and its role with respect to the Mandriva Linux distribution and its standing within the broader community. Specifically, the conversation on the future of Mandriva Linux as a distribution, the goals and expectations of its community needs to start. In many ways, it is a discussion that has been delayed, but a conversation that is worth having.

    • Gentoo Family

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat to support Korean financial firms’ migration to open-source platforms

        When people generally think of open-source platforms in Korea, Google’s Android immediately comes to mind due to the wide use of smartphones and tablet PCs in the business-to-consumer space.

        But in the business-to-business world, U.S.-headquartered Red Hat provides the world’s leading open-source operating systems for enterprises’ data-processing servers.

      • Red Hat To Present Cloud Technology Update Via Live Webcast On June 6

      • Fedora

        • Fedora 17 KDE and GNOME 3 preview

          Fedora 17, code-named Beefy Miracle, was released yesterday for all to download and use. Aside for the main edition, which uses the GNOME 3 desktop environments, installation images for three main Spins were also released. These are for KDE, LXDE and Xfce.

          Specialized Spins for Security, Scientific-KDE, Design-suite, SoaS, Games, Electronic-lab and Robotics were also released. It is very unlikely that I will review these, but there will be reviews of the main edition and KDE Spin. While the reviews are still being baked, here are a few screen shots from test installations of the main edition and KDE Spin for your viewing pleasure.

        • Fedora 17: Mm.. this stew of beefy source tastes just right

          That’s a bold claim for a package with such a ridiculous name. While this is a solid update with significant enhancements under the hood and the latest version of the GNOME desktop, there’s nothing particularly miraculous about it – just as we concluded in the review of the beta build.

          A miraculous Fedora 17 would have included full support for Btrfs – the kernel at least supports the filing system – but that’s going to require a major rewrite of the Anaconda installer interface and has been postponed until at least Fedora 18.

        • Fedora 17 Boot Optimization (from 15 to 2.5 seconds)
        • What’s a Beefy Miracle anyway? The story of the Fedora 17 release name

          Last October, I received a message via Twitter from a hot dog. This hot dog, calling itself The Beefy Miracle, informed me that the latest version of the Fedora operating system, Fedora 17, was going to be named after it. The voting was close, but Beefy Miracle ended up winning by almost 150 votes, and it was released yesterday.

        • Why Doesn’t Fedora 17 Linux Have a Beefy Miracle Theme?

          For the most part, Fedora Linux releases have had names that weren’t particularly controversial. For instance, Fedora 16 was named Verne and the default desktop wallpaper had a submarine type theme (an hommage to 20,000 Leagues under the Sea). With Fedora 17, which was officially released on Tuesday the codename is Beefy Miracle. It’s a theme that has its own mascot and it’s a fun one.

          Yet despite that, the default Fedora 17 desktop has no Beefy Miracle.

        • Fedora 17 boasts OpenStack, JBoss, oVirt support
        • When An Ubuntu User Revisits Fedora 17

          I wrote about an Ubuntu user’s experience with Fedora last year when Fedora 16 came out. It was pretty impressed with Fedora 16, and now Fedora 17 is out so I wanted to share my experience about F17. But, I also realized that how different is it going to be from the previous review. One of my friends helped me out. He threw a challenge at me that what if he takes my Ubuntu box away from and leaves me with Fedora 17, will I survive? Sounds interesting so I took up the challenge.

    • Debian Family

      • First Knoppix 7.0 update arrives

        Later than originally planned, Knoppix creator Klaus Knopper has released an update to version 7.0 of his popular Live Linux distribution. The first point update to Knoppix 7.0, which was a special “CeBIT Edition” from March, includes a number of improvements and package upgrades, while removing proprietary packages, such as Adobe Reader.

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • New Ubuntu Phone Concept
          • Ubuntu Demotes Its Migration Assistant

            Ubuntu developers have decided to remove the migration-assistant package from the stock Ubuntu installer. This software package was supposed to make it easy for transferring files and settings to Ubuntu Linux from Windows.

          • Measuring Incoming Contributions
          • 10 things you should know about Ubuntu Unity

            Now that Ubuntu 12.04 has arrived, a number of questions have bubbled up from the curious minds of those wondering about the state of Ubuntu. When 11.04 hit, faithful Ubuntu users were up in arms about how bad Ubuntu Unity was. It was buggy, it was far from user friendly, and it seemed a slap in the face to those who had worked so hard and so long on the previous default desktop: GNOME.

          • Flavours and Variants

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Phones

      • Android

        • Report: Google Will Aim for a Merger of Android and Chrome OS

          This week, Google introduced a new Chromebook and a new Chromebox–both systems designed around the company’s Chrome OS. The moves, along with recent comments from Google leaders, illustrate that Google is not throwing in the towel on Chrome OS, despite a lukewarm market reaction to it. Other comments from Google leaders pointed toward an event that many people have scoffed at for years: the eventual merger of the Android mobile OS and Chrome OS.

        • 5 reasons everyone will be using Chrome OS in 3 years

          The new Chromebooks and Chromeboxes may not have gotten much attention outside of tech circles, but Chrome OS will be everywhere…and soon.

        • Sony Updates Its Android Powered SmartWatch

          You might have seen people wearing a nifty iPod Nano as the watch. As an Android user you may wonder if there are similar watches running Android. The answer is yes. There are many Android powered watches which are more than just watches. Sony SmartWatch is one such watch, but it does much more than just telling the time.

        • HTC One X Used As Hammer, iPhone Nailed

          It seems like Android powered HTC One X is the Hummer of smartphones. A YouTube video is showing an Asian HTC One X user putting two nails in a wood with is HTX One X phone. You can clearly see in the video below that he was using the screen to hit the nail. At the price of $577.49 on Amazon.com, HTC One X earns the reputation of the most expensive hammer. HTC One X uses the Corning Gorilla Glass for protection of its display.

Free Software/Open Source

  • Open source still feared within Whitehall, says IT architect

    The government is missing opportunities to make significant savings by dismissing open source software when procuring products, Tariq Rashid, lead architect at the Home Office, has said.

    Rashid, whose role covers information, applications, infrastructure, open standards, and open source, told the Open Gov Summit in London that he has had “lots of battles internally” with the IT security team at the Home Office around open source.

  • Why do I contribute to open source?

    People tend to ask me why do I do work for free, while I have a company that provides similar services to those I’m giving away to open source. I must say that I don’t completely agree with their way of perceiving contributions to open source. While it superficially looks like working for free, there are a lot of benefits to gather from it, both concrete and abstract.

  • EMC, Puppet launch Razor project for hardware provisioning

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

  • SaaS

    • How cloud can give back to open source

      There’s been a lot of talk about open source and the cloud, which makes sense given the proliferation of open source technologies that actually comprise cloud computing.

      But what about open source in the cloud? Can cloud computing and storage provide open source projects less expensive access to computing resources?

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • LibreOffice 3.5.4 Released, Faster Than Ever Before

      The Document Foundation (TDF) has announced the relase of LibreOffice 3.5.4, the fifth version of the free office suite’s 3.5 family.

    • LibreOffice 3.5.4 Released, w/ 100% Better Performance

      Today The Document Foundation released the latest version of their Open Source office productivity suite. This release comes with lots of bug fixes and something everybody loves: improved performance. In fact, the release announcement claims that one could experience as much as 100% better performance.

  • Project Releases

  • Public Services/Government

    • Well over two hundred French assembly candidates sign free software pact

      A campaign for free software has garnered the support of 267 candidates running for France’s National Assembly in next months’ elections. Most supporters (149 signatures) are Europe Ecology–The Greens candidates. The Pirate Party comes second, with 54 signatures.

    • Number 10 shuts wallet on closed-source IT projects

      Government IT projects that don’t explore alternatives to closed and proprietary software are getting kicked back and denied funding.

      The civil servant running open source, open standards and information management under No 10’s digital change agenda called such spending controls a “key gateway” in complying with new IT procurement rules.

  • Licensing

    • Conservancy’s Coordinated Compliance Efforts

      Conservancy announced today its new coordinated Free Software license compliance effort. As you might guess, in between getting things together for Conservancy conferences, making sure developers get reimbursed on time, and all the other primary work of Conservancy that I’m up to each day, I’ve been spending what hours that I can coordinating this new effort.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • ideas to build content stores on

      Freedom doesn’t begin and end with software, though. We are big fans of Free culture in general. There are a few reasons for this. First, we like sharing stuff with people and really enjoy experiencing the creative efforts of others. It’s thrilling and enjoyable and highlights how “Make” and “Play” fit together so well.

Leftovers

  • Dedoimedo: I don’t believe in being idle or wasting time

  • Finance

    • Randy Wray: MMT Without the JG?

      I had made the analogy between disease and unemployment: would any reasonable person who understands the cause of a disease oppose a cure? If you knew that a vaccination can prevent smallpox, would you oppose providing vaccinations (at least to those who want them—I do not want to get into a debate about forcing vaccinations as we have never advocating forcing jobs on those who do not want to work)?

      Now I do realize this is not quite a fair comparison because it is possible that there are many cures for the disease of unemployment. MMTers advocate the Jobs Guarante (JG) cure. I am open to alternative cures. I just do not hear any coming from the critics.

    • Goldman Sachs Exec Serves As Trusted Advisor To Romney

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • EU Telecom Regulators’ Wake Up Call on Net Neutrality

      In the first official assessement of the Internet access restrictions imposed by Internet access providers, EU telecom regulators depict a very alarming situation. The Internet as we know it is very much at threat, and the EU Commission’s reluctance to take any resolute action on the matter is irresponsible. Like in the Netherlands where the Dutch Parliament adopted a Net Neutrality law earlier this month, Net Neutrality must be enacted into European law.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • ACTA

        • Important victories on ACTA! Moving on to Final Steps

          Votes were cast in three of the four parliamentary committees preparing the EU Parliament’s final decision on ACTA. Citizens’ concerns, as well as Internet innovators & start-ups’ interests have been upheld in “Civil Liberties” (LIBE) and the “Industry” (ITRE) committees. Even the “Legal affairs” (JURI) committee, usually very conservative and keen to support repression on copyright issues, rejected Marielle Gallo’s pro-ACTA opinion. Citizens should rejoice but keep up the pressure for the upcoming steps, up until the final vote scheduled for early July. A massive rejection of ACTA would create a political symbol of global scale.

05.30.12

Links 30/5/2012: Red Hat Releases Fedora 17; GPL Compliance Advanced

Posted in News Roundup at 8:00 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Microsoft Delivers a Blow to Open Source with Visual Studio 11

    Microsoft has already ruffled more than a few feathers with the exclusionary potential of its forthcoming Windows 8 operating system, and this past week the open source community has been up in arms again.

  • Databases

  • CMS

    • Open Source WordPress Turns Nine as 3.4 Release Nears

      The open source WordPress blogging platform turned Nine years old on Sunday (first WordPress release was May 27, 2003). It’s hard to believe that it has been that long isn’t it? (I’ve been a user for the last 8).

      WordPress started out as a ‘simple’ blogging platform that valued the user interface and ease-of-use over fancy knobs and deep features.

      The focus on usability and adherence to standards has been the hallmark of WordPress in every release since. It’s a focus that has propelled WordPress to become one of the most widely used open source projects on the web today, powered over 10 percent of all websites.

  • Education

    • Coders and CompScis

      I don’t think it’s enough just to teach children how an e-mail client works without also explaining what’s happening behind the screen. I don’t think it’s enough just to show children how to assign variables or manipulate lists without providing some way for them to think about these rather than just using them. It’s just this sort of understanding which we’ve come to label as computational thinking: there’s a strong case for this providing a unique way of looking at the world, with wide applications across (and beyond) the curriculum:

      With scientific method, we took things apart to see how they work. Now with computers we can put things back together to see how they work, by modelling complex, interrelated processes, even life itself. This is a new age of discovery, and ICT is the gateway.
      –Douglas Adams, 1999

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Project Releases

    • What’s New in Nmap 6
    • Apache JMeter 2.7 measured up

      Version 2.7 of Apache JMeter has arrived, adding new system sampling for operating system processes, improved JMS, WebService and Test samplers, and improved graphs and reports. JMeter is a desktop application designed to load test applications and measure performance; it can test web, SOAP, JDBC, LDAP, JMS, Mail or native commands using its multi-threaded framework to concurrently sample many different operations.

  • Licensing

    • Linux kernel devs, Samba join GPL compliance effort

      GPL enforcement within the free software community has just stepped up its game.

      Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) has announced a coordinated effort among several of its member projects to ensure compliance with their Free Software licenses.

    • GPL policing efforts expand to include Linux and Samba

      The Software Freedom Conservancy has announced that it is heading up a “unified effort” among a number of its member projects to ensure compliance with the free software licences they are distributed under. The conservancy is also launching the GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers, which will see Linux kernel contributors request that the Conservancy pursue GPL violators over the Linux kernel.

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

    • Being Exceptional

      Apparently, in Python, it is easier to ask for forgiveness rather than seek permission. That is to say, the normal approach when writing Python code is to assume that what you are trying to do will work properly. If something exceptional happens and the code doesn’t work the way you were hoping, then the Python interpreter will tell you of the error so that you can handle that exceptional circumstance. This general approach, of trying to do something, then cleaning up if something goes wrong is acronymically called EAFP (“easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

    • Ozone Widget Framework to be on GitHub by Sept. 30
    • A look inside Code for America

Leftovers

  • Defence/Police/Aggression

    • Syrian Citizen Journalists Risk All to Bring Stories from the Frontlines

      Since the uprising in Syria began last year, Syrian citizen journalists have risked their lives to fill a media void and bring the news of the oppressive government crackdown to a global audience. This has been done often with little recognition for the activists who have laid their lives on the line to report on the government’s assault on an unarmed civilian population.

      In March 2011, the arrest of 15 students who had written anti-government slogans on walls enraged the population of Deraa and sparked the first mass protests against the Assad regime. President Bashar al-Assad, who inherited Syria’s harsh dictatorship from his father, launched a series of crackdowns on protestors across the country, sending tanks into cities and opening fire on demonstrators. The violence has only escalated. This week, the country saw the deadlist attack since the protests began — at least 90 people were killed in the town of Houla. Video of rows of dead children lying in a mosque in their bloody shorts and T-shirts shocked the world. A local activist reached by Skype told the Associated Press that pro-regime fighters known as shabiha stormed the village, raiding homes and shooting civilians. The United Nations estimates that the conflict has left more than 9,000 dead and thousands more displaced.

  • Finance

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Next steps on Net Neutrality – making sure you get champagne service if that’s what you’re paying for

      When it comes to the issue of “net neutrality” I want to ensure that Internet users can always choose full Internet access – that is, access to a robust, best-efforts Internet with all the applications you wish.

      But I don’t like to intervene in competitive markets unless I am sure this is the only way to help either consumers or companies. Preferably both. In particular because a badly designed remedy may be worse than the disease – producing unforeseen harmful effects long into the future. So I wanted better data before acting on net neutrality.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

05.29.12

Links 29/5/2012: Fedora 17 is Coming, Linux Mint 13 Reviews

Posted in News Roundup at 6:17 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Want Freedom from Vendor Lock-in? Survey Says: Choose Open Source

    It’s no secret that open source software is playing an increasingly prominent role in businesses around the globe, but a recent survey has uncovered a few surprising findings about adopters’ motivations for choosing it.

  • Freedom from vendor lock-in drives adoption of open source

    According to a report by the 451 Group, many companies are now identifying freedom from vendor lock-in as an important reason for switching to open source software. In a recent survey by the group, 60% of respondents said that the top factor that made open source software “attractive” was the absence of the dependency on one particular vendor. The second most quoted factor was lower acquisition and maintenance costs (51%) followed by better code quality (43%) and the ability to look at the source code (42%).

  • Apache Wookie Delivers Open Source Widgets

    As all geeks know, today is the 35th anniversary of the release of Star Wars (and it’s also Towel Day too). What you may not have known is that today also marks the release of Apache Wookie 0.10.0.

  • Interview with the Sage Mathematics Software Project
  • Living With Open Source
  • Open source and the National Security Agency, together again

    The Open Source Software Institute, a non-profit group that supports open-source adoption and the National Security Agency (NSA), the organization in charge of all out of country eavesdropping, will co-host an Open Source Software Industry Day on Wednesday, May 30, 2012. The unclassified, one-day event will be held at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory’s Kossiakoff Conference Center near Fort Meade, MD, which is where the NSA is based. Alas, pre-registration is already over.

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Crazy Geckos: Nitot on Mozilla’s post-Firefox mobile crusade

        First came the BlackBerry, bringing the smartphones for suits perfected by RIM to consumers. Next came the iPhone, which quickly hoovered up 23 per cent of the market. But the iPhone came at a price: the freedom of users and coders. It is tightly controlled by Apple, as Adobe quickly found to its cost with Flash.

        Next up was Android. In just four years, Android exploited consumers’ desire to poke and stroke their phones to become the world’s most popular smartphone OS – burying the iPhone – with 59 per cent of the market.

        Android had a plus: freedom of choice for both coder and consumer thanks to an open-source code base.

  • BSD

  • Project Releases

  • Public Services/Government

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open access and open source in the context of scholarly publishing

      Scholarly publishing in the English-speaking world has been in turmoil since the reduction in higher education funding in the 1970s affected university presses and libraries. Scholarly publishing is not about money, at least not directly, but about personal reputation, research dissemination, impact and the advancement of knowledge. Open publishing accounts for a relatively small proportion of scholarly publishing, though its impact is growing and affecting the commercial publishing models. Agata Mrva-Montoya

Leftovers

  • Skip Internet Explorer for Web Dev. Save $100,000

    Even better is the fact that the company got few complaints — meaning that IE support isn’t a big deal anymore.

    This is fantastic news for Linux users (who can’t run IE) and good news overall that the hegemony of IE is now a thing of the past. Reality of course is that today, desktop users run multiple browsers and developers go mobile first (WebKit/iOS/Android) first in many instances.

    It’s also interesting to see how much more it costs to build an IE website. It’s shocking that it could cost $100,000 more isn’t it?

  • Security

  • Copyrights

    • Microsoft take-down requests – needs its own house in order first?

      Some Microsoft Advocates often refer to Linux/FOSS users with the derogatory term “freetard” and even if we look past at the apparent double standards Bing employs in comparison with requests made of Google and we ignore the millions of Windows users using the uTorrent client and downloading copyrighted material, we need only look to Microsoft themselves and a very interesting article by torrent freak, who, after researching a few Microsoft IP addresses, find that records show, their machines have been very busy downloading copyrighted material for free too. Hypocricy? Would we expect anything less from a company that employs a man someone like Steve Ballmer?

05.28.12

Links 28/5/2012: Android 4.0 Spreads, VirtualBox 4.1 Released

Posted in News Roundup at 5:02 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • The Galician Autonomous Region of Spain has a Plan 2012 to use Free Software

    Years ago it was Extremadura switching to GNU/Linux over a weekend, more recently Andalucia switched. Now Galicia is investing nearly €1 million in promotion of FLOSS for business and government. They have already saved €2.5 million last year.

  • Puppet Partners with EMC on Open Source Razor

    The open source Puppet configuration management system is widely used to get software onto servers. Now the developers behind Puppet are going a step further, taking aim at bare metal provisioning in an open source effort with EMC called Razor.

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • VirtualBox 4.1 update brings Linux 3.4 fixes

      The eighth update to the 4.1.x branch of VirtualBox has been published with compile fixes for the recently released Linux 3.4 kernel. The new version, 4.1.16, of the open source desktop virtualisation application improves the overall stability of the software by rectifying various regressions, including some that could lead to crashes, and a problem that caused some rpm-based packages to have an incorrect help file path on Linux hosts.

    • Java creator unhappy with Oracle trial outcome

      Most observers are applauding Google its successes in the Oracle v. Google case… but not everyone is thrilled about it.

      The jury for the Oracle vs. Google trial delivered their verdict for the second phase of the case–the patent phase–and as you probably know by know, found absolutely no patent infringement on the part of Google.

      With no patent infringement found, and only minor infringement found in the earlier copyright phase of the trial, Judge William Alsup dismissed the jurors early, since the planned damages phase was pretty much rendered moot by yesterday’s decision.

      The trial is not over, of course: Alsup will probably rule on damages himself, and there’s still his ruling on the copyrightability of application programming interfaces to come sometime next week. That API ruling is now arguably the most important remaining part of the case.

  • Funding

    • Help create a new free standard, by funding a great Kickstarter project!

      As part of a project to create a non-DRM fixed media standard for high-definition video releases, Terry Hancock has launched a Kickstarter campaign which will produce two Lib-Ray video titles and player software to support them (“Sita Sings the Blues” and the “Blender Open Movie Collection”).

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Flarf and the prospect of open source poetry

      From the beginnings of human literature, there has been an instinct to identify with the community, the collective, more than with any individual author. Many of our most valuable texts have been created by social groups and belong to those groups. Multiple, anonymous authorship brought China its cherished Classic of Poetry, gave England Beowulf, and even accounts for parts of the Christian Bible, such as the book of Hebrews—author unknown. The Bible, by the way, tells not one definitive account of the story of Christ, but four that contain conflicting details. So despite the current celebrity mystique surrounding the individual, named author, it’s safe to say that at the core of human civilization lie values of collaboration, shared experience, and shared ownership. And certain movements in literature today remind us of those values.

  • Programming

    • Libc++ Has Landed

      As I reported on Phoronix earlier this month and was widely-carried by other news outlets after that, FreeBSD 10 will using the LLVM/Clang compiler and deprecate GCC. The BSD camp wants to get rid of the GPL-licensed compiler from the Free Software Foundation and replace it with the younger but promising Apple-sponsored and BSD-style-licensed LLVM and Clang; see the earlier Phoronix articles on the topic for greater detail.

Leftovers

  • Microsoft corrects itself: ‘We expect fewer people to use Windows 8′

    Microsoft doesn’t really expect that 500 million “users” will have Windows 8 next year, but it’s still juggling the numbers.

    The company has said reported comments by chief executive Steve Ballmer on Windows 8 uptake in 2013 are a “restatement of data” by a company employee in December 2011, and that these stats relate to Windows 7 licence upgrades.

    Ballmer was reported by the AFP to have told the Seoul Digital Forum in South Korea this week: “500 million users will have Windows 8 next year.”

  • Finance

  • Copyrights

    • Analysis of the Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012

      There are some welcome provisions in the Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012, and some worrisome provisions. Pranesh Prakash examines five positive changes, four negative ones, and notes the several missed opportunities. The larger concern, though, is that many important issues have not been addressed by these amendments, and how copyright policy is made without evidence and often out of touch with contemporary realities of the digital era.

      There are some welcome provisions in the Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012, and some worrisome provisions. Pranesh Prakash examines five positive changes, four negative ones, and notes the several missed opportunities. The larger concern, though, is that many important issues have not been addressed by these amendments, and how copyright policy is made without evidence and often out of touch with contemporary realities of the digital era.

      The Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012 has been passed by both Houses of Parliament, and will become law as soon as the President gives her assent and it is published in the Gazette of India. While we celebrate the passage of some progressive amendments to the Copyright Act, 1957 — including an excellent exception for persons with disabilities — we must keep in mind that there are some regressive amendments as well. In this blog post, I will try to highlight those provisions of the amendment that have not received much public attention (unlike the issue of lyricists’ and composers’ ‘right to royalty’).

    • ACTA

05.25.12

Links 25/5/2012: Linux Mint 13, LLVM 3.1

Posted in News Roundup at 2:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • 61% of the top 10k sites on the web are served by open source projects Apache and nginx

    Uptime monitoring service Pingdom analyzed the top 10,000 websites on the web and unsurprisingly found out that 74.6% of them are served on web servers run by open source software.

  • Simon Phipps is the new OSI President
  • Open Source: Why Are You Still Waiting?

    You see, since 2003 open source has been intertwined with Brazil’s government, which claims to have realized hundreds of millions of dollars in cost savings. Critics with something to lose–notably Microsoft–claim that government workers immediately load up their Linux workstations with Windows, making the open-source desktop an illusion. Besides, Microsoft says, its software offers “better value” when the benefits are weighed against the costs.

  • Hughski ColorHug field report, or “test”, or “review”

    When Richard Hughes, founder of Hughski Limited announced an “open source” colorimeter with full GPL source code and even Linux support late last year, he offered a developers’ discount for testers and early adopters. So I was quick to give him a nod on that one. A few weeks ago I was informed that now I could have one if I still wanted it, and I did. And two days ago my ColorHug arrived, and here it is:

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

  • SaaS

  • Databases

    • 451 Research delivers market sizing estimates for NoSQL, NewSQL and MySQL ecosystem

      NoSQL and NewSQL database technologies pose a long-term competitive threat to MySQL’s position as the default database for Web applications, according to a new report published by 451 Research.

      The report, MySQL vs. NoSQL and NewSQL: 2011-2015, examines the competitive dynamic between MySQL and the emerging NoSQL non-relational, and NewSQL relational database technologies.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Greek municipality of Pilea-Hortiatis migrating to LibreOffice

      The Greek municipality of Pilea-Hortiatis, just east of Thessaloniki, is migrating all of its PCs to the free and open source suite LibreOffice, with the help of the Greek Linux User Group. Greeklug explains in a statement published on 27 March that it has finished the migration from a proprietary office suite on 91 PCs. Still to be migrated are 45 PCs.

    • VirtualBox 4.1.16 Has Support for Linux Kernel 3.4

      Oracle announced a few minutes ago, May 22nd, the immediate availability for download of the popular VirtualBox 4.1.16 virtualization software.

  • Education

    • On the purpose of education

      This is something that has mattered to me for all my teaching career. When training, I took Terry McLoughlin’s optional philosophy of education module; this was the best bit of the course, certainly the one that had the most lasting effect on me as an educator. After three years of a maths degree to sit in seminars where students took responsibility for introducing each week’s topics seemed revolutionary then. We talked and thought about what education was for, something we find a little time for now in my own lectures at Roehampton. The idea that captivated me then, and remains the touchstone for me still, is that of rational autonomy.

  • Business

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Project Releases

    • Nmap now fully ready for IPv6

      Nearly three years after the last major release of Nmap, version 6.0 of the open source network scanner has been released. Nmap is a popular utility for scanning and mapping network ranges to extract information about the systems attached to the network and the network’s topology. In version 6.0, the developers have added full IPv6 support while enhancing Nmap’s scripting engine, web scanning, mapping GUI and scanning performance, while also introducing a new tool called Nping.

    • LLVM 3.1 Officially Released
    • LLVM 3.1 Compiler Infrastructure released

  • Public Services/Government

    • First Open Government Summit to debate Open Source in the Public Sector

      The first Open Government Summit will take place on May 30th in Central Hall Westminster, London and will examine how the open source model allows public sector organisations to be more efficient, save money, meet mission-critical IT demands and improve their services.

      Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, said: “The advantages of open source for government IT are well documented and will lead to efficiencies and savings in the delivery of public services. How to implement open source solutions most effectively is an important matter, and I am pleased that the summit is devoting time to discussing it.”

    • Government reneges on open source promise for Cloudstore 2.0

      The UK government has finally unveiled the second iteration of its Cloudstore after a number of delays, and has reneged on its pledge to make version 2.0 open source.

    • Crisis does not foster Greek open source adoption

      Greek public administrations in practice use almost no open source, in spite of a law approved by the Greek parliament in 2011 that promotes the development of open source. European funded initiatives like Open-Source for European Public Administrations (Osepa) could change that, those involved say.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • ArduPilot Mega 2.0 Does Drone Autopilot on the Cheap

      This one is for all those autonomous vehicle makers out there who need a cheap autopilot system to make it go. Among the bits of awesome seen at the 2012 Bay Area Maker Faire, was the ArduPilot Mega 2.0 (APM2) from 3D Robotics, a complete open source autopilot system.

    • Open Data

      • What is open data?

        Open data is the idea that certain data should be freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control.

        The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other “Open” movements such as open source, open content, and open access. The philosophy behind open data has been long established, but the term “open data” itself is recent, gaining popularity with the rise of the Internet and World Wide Web and, especially, with the launch of open-data government initiatives such as Data.gov.

    • Open Access/Content

      • Protests demonstrate growing demand for open access to research

        Last week, Winston Hide committed what he called “a toxic career move.” Hide, an associate professor of bioinformatics and computational biology at the Harvard School of Public Health, publicly resigned from the editorial board of Genomics, an influential journal in his field.

        “No longer can I work for a system that provides solid profits for the publisher while effectively denying colleagues in developing countries access to research findings,” he wrote in a piece for the Guardian. “I cannot stand by any longer while access to scientific resources is restricted.”

    • Open Hardware

      • Open source hardware: Fast and malleable

        SparkFun is not like BMW. We will never be the company to produce the luxury market version of breakout boards and development tools. I believe the only way SparkFun will survive this quickly changing world is to be malleable. We have to be ready to change.

  • Programming

    • Open Django Builds Open Source Web Democracy

      Developers “more interested” in framework’s data models than operating system or GUI

    • Python modules you should know: PyGPGME
    • GCC Explorer – an interactive take on compilation

      One of the things I spend a fair amount of time doing at work is compiling my C/C++ code and looking at the disassembly output. Call me old-fashioned, but I think sometimes the only way to really grok your code is to see what the processor will actually execute. Particularly with some of the newer features of C++11 — lambdas, move constructors, threading primitives etc — it’s nice to be able to see how your elegant code becomes beautiful (and maybe even fairly optimal) machine code.

  • Standards/Consortia

Leftovers

  • Hardware

  • Finance

    • Goldman blames hedge fund victim in Hudson CDO fraud case

      Remember the case over Goldman Sachs’s Hudson CDOs, in which U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero wrote a scalding opinion in March? Marrero refused to dismiss fraud claims against the bank, in a ruling that detailed Goldman Sachs’s alleged scheme to shed exposure to subprime mortgages by dumping toxic collateralized debt obligations on an unsuspecting public. This week Goldman had a little something to say about the case, and — surprise! — it’s not an apology.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • The Internet Puts Up A Billboard In Front Of Lamar Smith’s Office: Don’t Mess With The Internet

      You may recall that, back in March, on a whim based on a discussion at SXSW, Alexis Ohanian and Erik Martin (from Reddit) teamed up with Holmes Wilson (from Fight for the Future) to crowdfund a billboard to go up in Lamar Smith’s district in Austin. It turns out that you internet people don’t mind paying after all, and helped fund two billboards which have now gone up in Smith’s district, including one across the street from his office in San Antonio, and a second one on “Lamar Blvd” in Austin

    • FCC boss backs usage-based pricing for cable Internet access

      The head of the Federal Communications Commission said he supports cable companies’ charging for Internet based on how much a subscriber uses the service, and also welcomed a cable industry initiative to share Wi-Fi hotspots around the country.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

05.23.12

Links 23/5/2012: printerd, Mageia 2 Released

Posted in News Roundup at 3:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Desktop

    • ownCloud 4 improves ease of use, enhances flexibility for end users

      Earlier this month, at a conference dedicated to Ubuntu, Google developer Thomas Bushnell — who works under CIO Ben Fried — detailed the company’s use of Goobuntu, which has long been an open secret but was rarely discussed in public. According to Bushnell, Goobuntu is based on the LTS (long-term support) releases of Ubuntu, with modifications made to improve security and stability. Fried confirms that Google is currently using the “Lucid Lynx” version of Ubuntu (10.04), but that the company is moving to the “Precise Pangolin” release (12.04).

    • World’s ‘simplest’ Linux laptop reaches the UK

      Back to basics computing the Ordissimo way offers users a simple range of applications that have, the company claims, been hugely simplified to reduce the number of mouse clicks necessary to perform basic tasks.

    • 2 Drivers To Dell’s Earnings And $25 Fair Value

      Dell’s PC division constitutes 20% of its stock by our estimates. Looking ahead, another potential source for sales is the open-source Linux based Ultrabook, which is aimed at capturing the web and mobile design market share dominated by Macbook. For this earnings report, we however expect a slight fall in PC sales due to seasonality, but guidance on ultrabook trends could spark investor interest.

  • Kernel Space

    • printerd aims to be a modern print spooler for Linux

      Red Hat developers Tim Waugh and Richard Hughes have announced what they call a “modern print spooler” for the Linux desktop. The printerd daemon is PolicyKit-enabled and uses D-Bus to communicate with other applications. Waugh points out, that as a design decision, printerd will only accept PDF files as input.

    • Announcing printerd
    • New Linux Kernel Adds X32 ABI, Btrfs Updates

      It’s been a “calm” release cycle, according to Linus Torvalds, but the 3.4 Linux kernel released on Sunday still has plenty of interesting new features. Top of the bill? A X32 application binary interface (ABI) that will help provide better performance for applications that don’t really need huge chunks of memory or 64-bit variables.

    • Graphics Stack

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • Announcing the Make Play Live Partner Network

        In the wake of the announcement of the first ever KDE powered tablet, quite a few interesting things are happening in the background. One of them is the formation of a professional Partner Network for devices such as the Vivaldi tablet. Let’s look at this Partner Network in more detail.

  • Distributions

    • KISS simplicity: Arch Linux
    • Fire up your creativity with the latest Dream Studio release!

      Rock musician and software developer Dick MacInnis, announced a few days ago the availability of the new Dream Studio release which is based on Ubuntu 12.04.

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

      • Mandriva To Use Mageia For Their Business Servers

        Mandriva, the company behind the GNU/Linux based distribution with same name, recently announced that they are giving the control of the distribution to the community. CEO of Mandriva SA, Jean-Manuel Croset, wrote, “After reviewing all your messages, suggestions, ideas and comments, Mandriva SA took the decision to transfer the responsibility of the Mandriva Linux distribution to an independent entity.”

        The development raised questions about the role Mandriva fork Mageia will play in this community controlled Mandriva. Mandriva clarifies that there will be active collaboration between the two teams. For their server product, Mandriva will collaborate with the Mageia community.

      • Our baby’s growing up: Mageia 2 is here

        We’re the Mageia community, and we are very happy to announce the release of Mageia 2!

      • Mageia 2 Released

        The Mageia team has announced the release of Mageia 2, the community-driven fork of Mandriva.

      • Open Source: Mageia 1 to Mageia 2 Upgrade

        I am jumping the gun a bit and upgrading my Mageia 1 installation on my personal / business SOHO desktop PC tonight, May 21st, to Mageia 2. Officially Mageia 2 is not due to release until May 22nd. But the online repository for Mageia 2 is in place at my preferred mirror and I know that it is basically ready to go right now. So, I am upgrading. Ironically, I am starting this article from my soon-to-be-retired Mandriva 2011 install on the SOHO router / Bacula backup server. I have X and fluxbox installed on here just for occasions such as this where my main PC is being serviced. I am publishing this and will update as I go, so any of you that follow this site via RSS can make comments if you wish while this is being written.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat CEO: The nuts and bolts of open source

        While the so-called Information Age has been touted since the public opening of the Internet nearly 20 years ago, the real dawn of the Information Age is just about to start.

        That was the central theme of this morning’s Open Source Business Conference keynote from Jim Whitehurst, President & CEO Red Hat, who also told the audience that open source is setting off the explosion of new innovation.

    • Debian Family

      • How Debian has grown: Stefano Zacchiroli speaks

        Last month, Stefano Zacchiroli was re-elected as leader of the Debian GNU/Linux project for a third term, the first leader to earn such a mandate. Only the founder, Ian Murdock, has headed the project for anything approaching three years.

        Debian is the biggest volunteer project of all distributions, has the most ports and provides, arguably, the best distribution; its package management tools are the stuff of legend. It serves as the basis for some of the better known and more widely used distributions, like Ubuntu and Knoppix, and also functions as some kind of conscience of the FOSS movement.

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu 12.04: Parentally Precise

            My mother in law, Sue, has what can be best described as a dog-earred mess of a laptop. A reasonably modern Lenovo Thinkpad with Windows Vista, it was painfully slow to use, crammed with all manner of bloatware and pre-installed rubbish that came with the machine and the applications she installed, and likely hiding some spyware, viruses and other uglyness.

            Now, I am not a fan of Windows at the best of times, but this was beyond software preferences: the machine was barely usable. Sue though, being the trooper she is, gritted her teeth and just got on with it, going about her business as usual.

          • Flavours and Variants

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Raspberry Pi team teases camera add-on

      The Raspberry Pi $35 Linux computer, which is equipped with a 700MHz processor, 256MB of RAM, an SD card slot, two USB ports, an Ethernet jack and both HDMI and RCA outputs, will soon feature support for a camera add-on. The current prototype features a 14-megapixel camera that can be connected directly to the Rapsberry Pi through its CSI pins.

    • Raspberry Pi foundation demos 14MP camera module for $35 computer

      A blog post published by the Raspberry Pi foundation offers the first look at an experimental camera module that is designed to plug into the organization’s popular $35 Linux computer. The camera component, which will likely be available for purchase later this year, is relatively small. The foundation says that it is “ideal for some robotics and home automation applications people have been wanting to build.”

    • VIA Launches its Banana PC, i.e. The $49 Android PC

      Couple of days ago, WonderMedia (subsidiary of VIA Technologies, which in turn is a subsidiary of Formosa Plastics) announced its latest SoC processors, the 800MHz WM8950 and the faster 1.2GHz WM8850. We’re not sure why exactly the higher number part is the lower-performing one, but we’ll leave that one to you to figure out.

    • Phones

      • Samsung And HTC Working On Tizen OS-Powered Smarphones, Acer And ASUS Netbooks Will Follow

        After we have seen Tizen OS in action on a Samsung slate a few days ago, today we are bringing fresh news about this fresh platform. As probably know, Intel, Linux Foundation, Samsung, Sprint and many other big names of the telecom industry are involved in the Tizen Project.

      • Open Source Won the Mobile Platform Wars, Industry Executive Claims

        At the Open Source Business Conference 2012, the president of mobile data synchronization software company Funambol explained how open source software, such as Google Android, came to dominate the mobile space.

      • Android

        • Google Acquires Motorola Mobility
        • Page: Motorola Mobility acquisition is key to Google’s future

          Google announces completion of its deal to buy Motorola Mobility and enter the hardware market. The marriage will likely bolster Google’s Android-based smartphone business and Xoom tablet business but maybe not its OEM business. The extent of its success will also be determined by its support in the greater open source community, especially among open source developers, in the Software-as-a-Service era.

        • Why China Stuck Its Foot in Android’s Door

          Google has cleared the final hurdle standing in its way of acquiring Motorola Mobility. The government of China has given the pair its blessing, but one of the conditions regulators set was that the Android OS must remain open for at least the next five years. Google will have to file a report with China’s Commerce Department every six months.

        • Promising words of Google 5-year free & open source plan

          Some readers may remember that back in February we discussed the planned Google acquisition of Motorola Mobility and concerns over the possibility that Google’s Android might not remain an open-source platform. The promising news today for Android enthusiasts is that as part of the recent agreement for China to approve the giant search company’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, Google has said it will maintain a 5-year free and open source plan.

        • Motorola Acquired By Google, Sanjay Jha Steps Down As CEO

          With the final nod from China, Google has closed the acquisition of Motorola Mobility this morning. Motorola will be run as a separate company, just the way YouTube is run as a separate company. So, there is no fear of Motorola getting an edge over competitors. On the contrary Google recently announced that they will give partners early access to Android to be able to bring products to the market in time. Motorola will remain a licencee just like other Android partners.

        • Why AT&T’s CEO is flat-out wrong about Android

          Randall, Randall, Randall. AT&T’s CEO has a habit of getting himself in hot water when he talks about his company’s network, and with his latest remarks about Android, he’s managed to make himself look like a fool yet again.

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Hardware

    • The Only One

      Confused, mentally ill or just failing in facility due to advancing age, M$ is clearly not adapting to a new reality but trying to create a comfortable hallucination in which it alone can save mankind from ARM… Reality is that mankind must be saved from M$ by real innovation and unfettered imagination stimulated by FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software).

  • Security

  • Finance

    • Goldman Sachs made billions by pushing AIG to bankruptcy

      An investigative report published Sunday by the New York Times provides a glimpse of the predatory practices of major Wall Street banks that played a central role in the financial meltdown and global economic crisis.

      The article, headlined “Testy Conflict With Goldman Helped Push AIG to Precipice,” documents the role of Goldman Sachs, the biggest and most profitable US investment bank, in pushing the insurance giant American International Group (AIG) to the brink of bankruptcy.

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