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06.23.10

Links 23/6/2010: Mandriva Receives Investments, Red Hat Surges

Posted in News Roundup at 5:36 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • The application of Linux simplification

    Recently, a new client called with a Quickbooks issue. I should probably mention that I do a lot of Quickbooks (POS and Financials) troubleshooting. Most generally this work is done in Windows.

    Sometimes, however, we get a call about a Quickbooks Linux server. That was the case this time. What was going on was the client’s machines were all losing connectivity to the server. So they called me in. I gained remote access to the server and started poking around.

  • Michael Trebilcock wants Sony to pay $800 after PlayStation 3 software change

    The feature allowed PlayStation users to replace the standard PS3 operating system with a different one, such as Linux – a popular free alternative to Windows available for download on the internet – allowing them to use the device as a personal computer as well as a video games console.

  • Tripp Lite launches first power management software solution to offer USB communication protocols for Linux
  • Events

    • LinuxCon 2010: full schedule now announced

      The full schedule for LinuxCon North America 2010 has now been announced. LinuxCon organised by the Linux Foundation will take place from the 10th to the 12th of August at the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel.

    • LinuxCon Preview: Virgin America Runs Massive Workloads on Linux, Shares Best Practices

      Virgin America’s Ravi Simhambhatla is delivering a keynote at this year’s LinuxCon North America. He will be giving us the CIO view on how to sell the value of open source internally when cost isn’t the only driving factor. Mr. Simhambhatla took a few minutes to answer some of our questions as we prepare to see him speak in Boston on August 12, 2010.

  • Desktop

    • Windows XP Linux: Free Download

      While Windows XP coated Ubuntu make users feel familiar with the Gnu/Linux systems, it also takes away many benefits that native Gnu/Linux Desktops environments like Gnome and KDE offer. However, YlmF OS seems to be a good efforts to introduce people to Gnu/Linux and remove their doubts about the system.

    • Computer drive recycles old computers for disadvantaged

      The second annual “Linux Against Poverty” computer drive collected more than 200 used computers from Austin homes and businesses Saturday.

  • Ballnux

  • Applications

  • K Desktop Environment (KDE SC)

    • Introducing Your KDE Software Labels

      A while ago, the KDE promo team organized a competition to choose a design for labels that producers of software within our community can use to show that they are part of KDE.

  • Distributions

    • New Releases

      • Scientific Linux Fermi 5.5 is released

        Scientific Linux Fermi 5.5 has been released for both i386 and x86_64 architecture.

      • Fermi 5.5
      • Scientific Linux 5.5 Live CD and DVD (32bit and 64bit)
      • Scientific Linux release 5.5 has been released for i386 and x86_64.
      • GParted 0.6.0-1
      • SystemRescueCd 1.5.6 includes new version of GParted

        The SystemRescueCd developers have issued the sixth update to the 1.5.x branch of their Linux distribution. Based on the Gentoo LiveCD, the SystemRescueCd is configured as a tool kit for administering or repairing an operating system and recovering data after a system crash. Supported file systems include Ext2, Ext3 and Ext4, ReiserFS, XFS, JFS, VFAT, NTFS, ISO9660 and Btrfs.

      • Softpedia Linux Weekly, Issue 102

        · Announced Distro: Parted Magic 4.11
        · Announced Distro: openSUSE 11.3 RC1
        · Announced Distro: Sabayon SpinBase and CoreCDX 5.3
        · Announced Distro: SystemRescueCd 1.5.6

      • Linux-based “Child-Friendly” OS, Kiddix, Being Offered on Pay-What-You-Want Basis

        Kiddix OS, a family-friendly operating system built on Linux, is being offered on a pay-what-you-want basis through the end of this month. According to the Kiddix website, the OS contains “child-friendly” web browser, word processor, calendar, e-mail, paint, multimedia player and calculator applications in addition to educational games, extensive parental controls and two regular games (“Frozen Bubble” and “Planet Penguin Racer”).

      • Zenwalk Core 6.4 is ready !

        Zenwalk Core is a one of a kind complete 300MB base Zenwalk system designed to build high-performance / high-security non-GUI Linux servers, or to be used as the base of your own custom light-speed Desktop System. You’ll be amazed how it can be installed in just 10 minutes using the auto-install setup option on a dedicated disk : then you’re ready to query the Netpkg repository to install your desktop of choice, or any network servers like Apache, Postfix, … in case you’re a network administrator. Feel free to check our repository for availability of any application, you’ll notice it’s fairly complete (you can also use Slackware packages as Zenwalk 6.4 is Slackware compatible).

      • SMS version 1.5.2 Released!

        Superb Mini Server version 1.5.2 released (Linux kernel 2.6.33.5)

      • Greenie 7L Galadriel
    • PCLinuxOS/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

      • Mandriva Saved By New Investors

        After weeks of concern about the “catastrophic state of it’s finances” and an indefinite delay in the release of version 2010.1, the French website LeMagIT is reporting that Mandriva has been saved by new investors. The article quotes Mandriva Director General Arnaud Laprévote: “Today the company found investors who decided to invest in the company, in order to give balance to the organization and to find a good economic model.” He added that “the community and users no longer need be concerned.” Due to regulations regarding confidentiality the identity of the new investors was not disclosed. Laprévote went on to explain: “we were aware that the existence of Mandriva was threatened, and today that is no longer the case.”

    • Red Hat Family

    • Canonical/Ubuntu

      • Open Season : Maverick

        We’ve noticed that a lot of the Papercut patches are being submitted by new community members! The bugs are trivially fixable and all it takes is for one person to show interest and fix the bug. We’re getting new members involved and willing to help Ubuntu. We were wondering , how can we keep up this energy and momentum?

      • The Unbuntu SEO Experiment
      • Ubuntu Light demoed on a new Dell 14R

        Ubuntu Light was announced a few months back and is intended as a ‘fast boot version’ of Ubuntu for quick access to basic internet features such a a web browser, Skype & Empathy..

        The new ‘Unity’ interface Ubuntu Light is intended to be fast, responsive and quick – in the video below Ubuntu Light goes from off to Yahoo! in less than 20 seconds on one of Dell’s newly announced i-core series of laptops/netbooks.

      • Dell 14R Dual-Boot Ubuntu Light/Windows 7 Laptop Demo

        Many in the Ubuntu community are looking forward to the release of Ubuntu 10.10 this October. One reason, as you’ll see here on a new Dell 14R, is the introduction of Ubuntu Light, which Canonical is working with OEMs to get pre-installed as a dual-boot option on Windows laptops — with the benefit being they can access popular productivity and communication programs like Google Chrome/Chromium, Skype, Totem Media Player, IM, etc. in about 7 seconds.

      • Dell thinking about shipping Google’s Chrome OS on netbooks

        A Dell executive has revealed that the company is in talks with Google and is exploring the possibility of shipping netbooks with Chrome OS, the search giant’s cloud-centric Linux-based mobile operating system. The news reflects Dell’s interest in experimenting with new platforms.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • CodeSourcery to Support Freescale’s Newest QorIQ™ Processors
    • Tilera to stuff 200 cores onto single chip

      The service providers that Tilera and Quanta are hoping to sell the Tile-based servers to are not afraid to recompile a Linux software stack on a new architecture if it gives them an edge, any more than they care about using various Unix and Linux systems for specific jobs today.

    • E-Readers

      • Six Ways of Looking at the Nook

        Firefox was of course an open-source software development project, versus Microsoft’s proprietary IE. The Nook is meant to break two closed systems. One is Amazon’s proprietary Kindle format for e-reading books, versus the Nook’s open ePub format.

      • Amazon and Barnes & Noble slash e-reader prices

        The Android-based Nook is currently 3G only, while Amazon’s Linux platform is based around Wi-Fi. However, Barnes & Noble is to introduce a Wi-Fi Nook priced at $149 (£101), putting more pressure on Amazon.

    • Phones

      • HTC HD2 Linux Port Full Details

        With some minor patches we got the HD2 Linux kernel to boot on different windows mobile qsd8250 based devices like Acer s200 or Toshiba tsunagi tg01. It will be interesting to see if the same problem will be observed on these devices.

      • Nokia/MeeGo

        • Nokia seen making 9-inch tablet with ARM, MeeGo

          Nokia’s rumored tablet had some of its details firmed up today in one analyst note. The device would use MeeGo, the mobile OS designed with Intel, but would use an ARM processor and not the Atom Z600 Intel would prefer. Digitimes Research claimed in the note that it would have either a seven- or nine-inch screen and would be assembled by Foxconn for the fall.

        • Nokia to launch a tablet later this year?

          It’s likely that the new tablet will run MeeGo, a new Linux-based operating system that was formed by the merger of the Maemo and Moblin projects. Maemo was largely a Nokia-backed project, and the company has already released several smartphones and small internet devices running the Linux-based operating system.

      • Android

        • MyTouch 3G Slide Rooted!
        • Google risks OEM wrath for unified Android UI plan

          Citing “multiple sources close to Google”, bloggers at TechCrunch report that the top priority for the next Android update, codenamed Gingerbread, is to homogenize the user experience and address criticisms of fragmentation. This could severely curtail the freedom of licensees to create their own user interface overlays – most famously, Motorola’s Motoblur and HTC’s Sense.

        • Toshiba

        • Chrome OS

          • Google’s Missed Oportunity – Opinion

            Despite all these possibilities it is arguable that Google missed the mark by imposing hardware restrictions which meant that OEM’s could only use more expensive hardware such as SSD’s. Google’s further insistence that Chrome OS devices have to boast HD capable screens and powerful graphics solutions has meant that the price of the envisaged Chrome OS device is sure to shoot through the roof.

Free Software/Open Source

  • IBM plans to open source EGL

    According to a report by InforWorld, IBM is going to open source the EGL language, compiler, generators for Java and JavaScript, as well as tools. By open-sourcing EGL, IBM looks to expand its reach.

    This would also enable development of Eclipse based tools, added the report.

  • Mobile applications lay bare the IT/telephony divide

    Open source telephony solutions are not new. However, for enterprise telephony buyers, the risk of any downtime is too great to consider open source alternatives to Cisco, Avaya, Siemens, and other well-established telephony vendors.

  • Lists

  • Cloudera

  • Databases

    • Meet CUBRID: One of Korea’s Top Open Source Projects

      I participate at the MySQL Conference in Silicon Valley every year and look forward to the diversity of ideas, projects and companies that represent the ever-growing open source database landscape. This year, CUBRID, an open source database project backed by a company from South Korea, caught my eye. What was most impressive to me was the team’s enthusiasm about open source software and its belief that an open source model can work for developing good software and, at the same time, for building a healthy services business in Asia as well as globally.

  • Oracle

  • CMS

    • WordPress 3.0: proof open source kicks butt

      WordPress is one of the most popular open-source content management systems in use on the internet. But despite WordPress’ popularity, one knock against it has been the fact that it’s always been more a ‘blogging engine’ than ‘true’ CMS.

    • WordPress 3 Jazzes Up Open Source Content Management

      WordPress is available as an open source download that anyone can setup and install on their own server as well as on a hosted platform at WordPress.com. According to Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), WordPress.com is the 12th most visited site in the world, with 120 million unique visitors in April.

  • Education

    • Becta money goes to free schools project

      The grant in question was a mechanism of Becta, the government agency that was in charge of IT in education until it was scrapped in May. At the time, the Coalition said it would save £80m by getting rid of Becta and cutting back on other Department for Education quangos.

  • Business

    • ZenCart Helps You Build Your Own Store Online

      The product I’m examining this week, ZenCart, does have basic shopping cart functionality, but through a series of add-on modules, it gives businesspeople many more capabilities. The major thing that sets ZenCart apart from the competition is the fact that it is open-source software. Open source means the source code is made freely available to the user community.

    • Monitoring

      • Zenoss Finds Open Source of $4.8M – cbl

        Zenoss, Inc. raised $4.83 million in convertible preferred stock of a targeted $5.2 million offering, according to an SEC filing.

      • Zenoss nabs $4.83M of $5.2M round for open source IT managment
      • Time to Open Up the Network-Management Stack?

        Hustace: Most OpenNMS users find that our XML-based configuration options give them all the flexibility they need to set up OpenNMS for their monitoring needs. But the fact that we’re an open source project offers a lot of value for enterprises who really require one or more modifications to the product as we ship it. And if the modifications make sense as enhancements for the product, they often find their way into a future release that provides benefit to the entire community, but most importantly, doesn’t leave the implementer’s OpenNMS installation forked — with custom source code that must be maintained separately from the project and re-introduced whenever the project is upgraded.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Nasuni Demonstrates Cloud Storage Security With Bold Challenge

      After 30 days, Nasuni will donate the unwon $5,000 to the Free Software Foundation as a thank-you for the Gnu Project — specifically GnuPG, a Free Software implementation of the OpenPGP standard. Said Rodriguez, “The Gnu Project continues to inspire technical excellence among the best and brightest minds. They are the real heroes.”

  • Project Releases

    • Open source Jspresso serves multi-channel RIA

      After more than a year of development the open source Jspresso project has released version 3.5 which promises to streamline rich Internet application development for Flash, Ajax and Swing interfaces

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Drafting Definitions for Cultural Liberty

      Although I’m still focussed on 1p2U.com, some time later this year I hope to set up the website culturalliberty.org – a site dedicated to the restoration of everyone’s cultural liberty, especially from its constraint by anachronistic privileges such as copyright and patent (which should have been abolished along with slavery).

    • Future of Health: Map Kibera Creates An Infrastructure For Health Care

      Map Kibera is an open-source project started in 2009 in response to the lack of information available for the Kibera district of Nairobi, Kenya – one of the world’s largest slums.

    • A lesson in how to profit from the free for the film industry

      The winners in the new Digital Economy will be those who master the free by offering enough to make you want to pay for more, like the open source software company who got me to pay $80 for some extra binary that I didn’t need really need (and certainly could have avoided paying for).

    • Grant will help UI fund open-source textbook initiative

      The Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs has been awarded a $150,000 grant to establish an initiative that provides open-source textbook access for Illinois students.

    • Government pushes for open-standard data releases

      Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has said that public releases of data will use open standards when possible.

      Answering a parliamentary written question from Labour MP Tom Watson, Maude said the government will use open data standards for future releases of public data, based on the advice of the Public Sector Transparency Board. “Where possible we will use recognised open standards including Linked Data standards,” he said.

    • NatureWorks provides open-source access for injection molding bioresin

      To spur innovation and drive biopolymers more widely into injection molding applications, NatureWorks LLC is borrowing a page from the computer industry and making details for its new, high-heat, high-impact bioresin, Ingeo™ 3801X available by providing open source access to both formulation and compounding procedure.

    • Open government data in Russia

      The following guest post is from Ivan Begtin, who is a member of the Open Knowledge Foundation’s Working Group on Open Government Data.

      I would like to give a brief overview of a few projects I have been working on related to open government data in Russia.

    • Open Hardware

      • Robot taught to play pool (without cheating!)

        A robot has been trained to play pool to a decent standard in the space of approximately one week by some of the ”open source robot” guys over at Willow Garage. The best part is that this machine plays by the rules.

      • Open Source DIY Tablet Kit Promises Versatility

        Last but not least is the BeagleJuice. As the main source of power, it’s fitting that the power switch is located on this 2600 mAh power pack. It outputs up to 1.5 amps, promising a max battery life of 6.5 hours for the BeagleBoard (no info on how the BeagleTouch’s operation affects this). Charging is accomplished through one or both type-B USB ports.

  • Standards/Consortia

Leftovers

  • Security/Aggression

    • CCTV in tower blocks

      The prospect of CCTV in tower blocks reared its ugly head in the media last week after Harriet Harman raised the issue at Prime Minister’s Question Time.

      Back in 2009 No CCTV commented on proposals to put CCTV in several tower blocks in Oxford following a trial of cameras in one block, ‘Foresters Tower’ in 2008.

    • CCTV cameras weren’t working during Digbeth club shooting

      Security cameras were not working properly when four people were shot at a Birmingham music event, it has emerged.

      An emergency meeting of city licensing chiefs agreed to a police request for an immediate ban on future events at a room in the Custard Factory, Digbeth.

    • £4m spent to protect police

      West Midlands Police has increased its security budget by 25 per cent in the past three years, figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal.

    • Another Marylander Arrested for Recording the Police

      The city of Annapolis, Maryland recently received a Homeland Security grant for 20 new surveillance cameras in the downtown area. The city of Baltimore already has nearly 500. According to the watchdog site PhotoEnforced, the state of Maryland has at least 375 red light cameras and 80 speed cameras. Your government is watching you, Marylanders. But don’t think for a second that it’s going to tolerate you watching back.

      On Saturday, Yvonne Nicole Shaw, 27, was arrested by sheriff’s deputies in Lexington Park, Maryland. According to the Southern Maryland News, Shaw was cuffed and booked for recording deputies who had come to an apartment complex in response to a noise complaint. Sheriff’s Cpl. Patrick Handy’s report explained that Shaw was standing about 12 feet from him, and that Shaw “did admit to recording our encounter on her cell phone for the purpose of trying to show the police are harassing people.”

    • Security co-operation might be a good thing says ICANN

      THINK SAFETY FIRST along with stability for the sake of the Domain Name System (DNS), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) chief executive has told the organisation’s Brussels meeting.

  • Environment

    • Petition calls for whaling moratorium to remain

      Campaigners have unveiled a petition signed by more than a million people calling for maintenance of the global moratorium on commercial whaling.

      It was presented to Australian minister Peter Garrett outside the International Whaling Commission meeting in Morocco.

    • Oil Eating Bacteria

      In a recent conversation about the safety and ethics of synthetic biology in the wake of the announcement of the synthetic genome, many of the professors I was chatting with commented on how they hoped new synthetic biology technology would lead to bacteria that could eat the oil spilling into the gulf of mexico even as I type this right now. Of course, the “technology” for oil eating bacteria already exists and have already been used for clean up in previous oil spills–many naturally occurring species of bacteria can already break down the hydrocarbons in crude oil. The natural oil eaters end up competing with each other, however, leading to decreased efficiency in an already slow clean-up process (these are bacteria after all, not oil-phiranas). Genetic engineering and directed evolution technology has led to the design of improved strains of oil eating bacteria that can proceed more quickly and more stably than the natural strains, and has already been patented–in 1971.

  • Finance

    • An End to Spending Excess

      One of the reasons the federal budget is chronically in the red is that most people, historically, couldn’t care less. The national debt is an unfathomable abstraction that doesn’t show up on your 1040 or your monthly bills. Over the last few decades, very few people lost sleep worrying if the budget would ever be in balance.

      Keynesian economics, as well as political incentives, argued for ignoring the issue. When times were good, we could afford to indulge. When times were bad, deficit spending was the accepted formula to stimulate the economy.

    • Steele: Don’t “Demagogue,” “Demonize” Wall Street

      RNC chair Michael Steele defended Wall Street as the creators of wealth in a combative interview today while urging the Obama admin not to “demonize” and “demagogue” against a system that plunged the economy into recession.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Major Labels Begin Major Astroturfing Campaign To Get 3 Strikes In The US

      So, it looks like the industry is going to plan B: which is going back to trying to ram through legislation that will require ISPs to take the draconian step of protecting one industry’s broken business model. And to get this going, it looks like the industry has set up a neat little set of astroturfing groups and “consumer” campaigns that try to hide the specifics, but clearly are designed to get similar three strikes legislation (similar to the Digital Economy Act in the UK) put in place in the US.

  • Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

    • Blog libel suit thrown out because potential damage was so small

      A libel suit against a website has been thrown out of court because the potential damage to the reputation of the person making the claim was so small.

      Johanna Kaschke sued blogger David Osler after he published an article about Kaschke’s arrest in Germany in the 1970s in connection with a link to an extremist political group that was never proved.

    • Man Charged With Using Open WiFi To Send Death Threats To VP Biden

      Creative. Apparently, the guy who did this, one Barry Ardolf, was trying to frame his neighbor. Around the same time, he apparently also sent child pornography to his neighbor’s co-workers, using a fake email address pretending to be the neighbor. If the “open WiFi” haters were correct, he would have been able to do this without any way to catch him. But, of course, that’s ridiculous. With a little effort, the FBI was able to trace the origin right back to Ardolf — and he’s now been arrested for threats to the VP and for identity fraud.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM

    • Former government officials hired to lobby as Congress looks to rewrite telecom law

      As leaders in Congress announced a series of hearings this June to tackle huge telecommunications issues with a focus on the Internet, the top phone and cable organizations that control the majority of the access to the Internet have hired 276 former government officials to lobby both the Congress and the executive branch.

      According to data obtained from lobbyist disclosure forms and the Center for Responsive Politics, seventy-two percent of the lobbyists hired by AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association and the US Telecom Association have previous government experience. These organizations combined to spend $20.6 million lobbying the federal government in the first quarter of 2010.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Helpless Mainstreamers Grappling with Intellectual Property

      A recent CNET video on “Intellectual property rights vs. journalism” shows a Stanford University’s Innovation Journalism conference on June 7, with a panel discussion by various mainstreamers discussing the quesion “Is intellectual property protection a threat to journalism?” The lack of libertarian principle and sound economics has these commentators floundering as they discuss various cases where IP infringes free speech and freedom of the press.

    • Intellectual Property: Political Excesses – Or: Let Schumpeter’s Creative Destruction Do Its Work

      It is a well-known fact that in particular numerous newspaper publishing companies are currently suffering from an increasing downturn of their classic paper-based business model.Their long-established but obviously now depreciated business model had been centered around the exploitation of the relative scarcity of news contents. Paying buyers of paper copies who can also be fed with advertising material were attracted, creating a handsome stream of revenues both from buyers of paper copies as well as from advertisers.

    • 6 Takeaways from ‘TechDirt Saves Journalism’ Event at Google

      That was one of the few areas of consensus at a gathering convened at Google headquarters Wednesday night. Some 60 business people, coders, journalists, attorneys and others attended the fancifully named Techdirt Saves Journalism, a powwow whose goal was to spark a few ideas that might prove useful to enterprising newcomers, as well as those who write journalists’ paychecks today.

    • NY Times Becomes A Trademark Bully Over A Logo For A Newspaper That Hasn’t Existed In 40+ Years

      It first threatened to sue over the use of the logo, but Neighborhoodies didn’t fold. They, properly, realized that trademarks only cover use in commerce and for products that the mark actually covers. Seeing that the New York Herald Tribune has not operated since 1966 (and the NY Times only owned the brand after that), it’s difficult to see how the NYTimes has a legitimate trademark request.

    • Copyrights

      • Is BPI Trying To Setup Google For Copyright Infringement Lawsuit?

        To expedite DMCA claims, Google specifically requests sufficient information “to permit Google to notify the owner/administrator of the allegedly infringing webpage or other content (email address is preferred).” But BPI does not do that. It only lists out the above webpages.

      • Is it legal to sue thousands of alleged movie pirates in one lawsuit?

        The lawyers targeting thousands of people who allegedly pirated “The Hurt Locker” and other films on BitTorrent are fighting to keep the litigation on track.

      • First RIAA File Sharing Trial Morphs Into Groundhog Day

        In a bid to avoid a third trial — after two mistrials — the Minnesota federal judge presiding over the 4-year-old Jammie Thomas-Rasset case wants the Recording Industry Association of American and the defendant to negotiate a settlement.

      • James Boyle speaking at ORGCon: The Incredible Shrinking Public Domain

        We’re holding the UK’s first ever dedicated digital rights conference on Saturday 24 July.

        Our keynote speaker for ORGCon is Professor James Boyle, the world’s most influential copyright scholar. Boyle will address the question of why we are locking up our cultural heritage when technology offers new and exciting ways to engage with creative works:

        The Incredible Shrinking Public Domain: A Paradox

      • Terrible News: Court Says It’s Okay To Remove Content From The Public Domain And Put It Back Under Copyright

        All in all this is an incredibly frustrating ruling. It feels like the court didn’t actually want to address the admittedly difficult question of how the First Amendment and copyright law come into conflict, so it just punted and said “well Congress knows best, so it’s okay.” The case will almost certainly be appealed, potentially for an en banc (full appeals court review) or directly to the Supreme Court. So this most certainly is not over yet. But after a reasonable ruling last year to this year’s reversal, it’s definitely a step backwards for anyone who believes in the importance and sanctity of the public domain.

      • Biden to file sharers: ‘Piracy is theft’

        Biden spoke to the media alongside Victoria Espinel, the U.S. intellectual property enforcement coordinator, to introduce the government’s strategy on protecting the country’s intellectual property.

        “We used to have a problem in this town saying this,” Biden told reporters Thursday at a press conference in Washington, D.C. “But piracy is theft. Clean and simple. It’s smash and grab. It ain’t no different than smashing a window at Tiffany’s and grabbing [merchandise].”

      • US unveils strategy to fight piracy of intellectual property
      • U.S. Sets Coordinated Response To Intellectual-Property Threats

        Vice President Joe Biden announced the multipronged plan to stem the loss of billions of dollars a year generated from innovation, which he described as “perhaps our greatest export.”

      • DOJ, FBI to Monitor Foreign Web Sites for IP Piracy

        Espinel joined Attorney General Eric Holder, Vice President Joe Biden, and other top administration officials at the White House today to introduce the plan. It is intended to help coordinate the various agencies working on IP as well as ensure the products available on the U.S. market are safe, Espinel wrote in a blog post.

      • White House’s IP Strategic Plan Not Nearly As Bad As Expected; But Not Great Either

        As expected, it looks like Victoria Espinel, the White House’s IP “Czar” has released the official “Joint Strategic Plan to Combat Intellectual Property Theft,” as required by the ProIP Act. Given the history so far, we had expected the report to be quite one-sided in favor of the industry, and the initial announcements about the report suggested that was to be the case. Specifically, in announcing the report, Hollywood’s best friend, Joe Biden, made some typical uninformed comments about how infringement was no different than “theft.”

      • Obama IP czarina to movie, music cartels
      • Obama is the new MAFIAA Don-in-Chief

        The “Imaginary Property Czarina”, Victoria Espinel, is actually a vestige of the Bush years. Her position was created under a law he signed, but Obama got to appoint the first person to her position. Unfortunately, the Obama/Biden team has been given bribes by the Imaginary Property cartels to prop up their ailing business model of artificial scarcity that kept them alive back when media was more defective than it is now and copies were hard to make.

      • IFPI Sends DMCA Notice To Google Demanding It Stop Linking To The Pirate Bay… Entirely

        We just wrote about a DMCA takedown notice from BPI to Google that appeared to be setting Google up for a future lawsuit, and now it looks like the IFPI, of which BPI is a part, is going even further. TorrentFreak, following up on our post about BPI, noticed an even more direct takedown notice from the IFPI demanding that Google block any link to The Pirate Bay.

      • Private copying levy must be linked to copyright use, says top court advisor

        A copyright-compensation levy on blank digital media and devices should only be charged when they are likely to be used to make private copies of copyrighted works, an adviser to the EU’s top court has said.

        Many European countries allow citizens to make private copies of copyrighted works but charge a levy on blank CDs, digital media players and DVDs and use the money generated to compensate copyright holders for the unlicensed use of their work.

Clip of the Day

CLUG Talk 30 June 2009 – Shell Environment Tweaks (2009)


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    A potpourri of reports about some of the world’s worst patent trolls and their highly damaging enablers/facilitators, including Microsoft which claims that it “loves Linux” whilst attacking it with patents by proxy



  4. Mark Summerfield: “US Supreme Court Decision in Alice Looks to Have Eliminated About 75% of New Business Method Patents.”

    Some of the patent microcosm, or those who profit from the bureaucracy associated with patents, responds to claims made by Techrights (that software patents are a dying breed in the US)



  5. Eight Wireless Patents Have Just Been Invalidated Under Section 101 (Alice), But Don't Expect the Patent Microcosm to Cover This News

    Firms that are profiting from patents (without actually producing or inventing anything) want us to obsess over and think about the rare and few cases (some very old) where judges deny Alice and honour patents on software



  6. 2017: Latest Year That the Unitary Patent (UPC) is Still Stuck in a Limbo

    The issues associated with the UPC, especially in light of ongoing negotiations of Britain's exit from the EU, remain too big a barrier to any implementation this year (and probably future years too)



  7. Links 7/1/2017: Linux 4.9.1, Wine 2.0 RC4

    Links for the day



  8. India Keeps Rejecting Software Patents in Spite of Pressure From Large Foreign Multinationals

    India's resilience in the face of incredible pressure to allow software patents is essential for the success of India's growing software industry and more effort is needed to thwart corporate colonisation through patents in India itself



  9. Links 6/1/2017: Irssi 1.0.0, KaOS 2017.01 Released

    Links for the day



  10. Watchtroll a Fake News Site in Lobbying Mode and Attack Mode Against Those Who Don't Agree (Even PTAB and Judges)

    A look at some of the latest spin and the latest shaming courtesy of the patent microcosm, which behaves so poorly that one has to wonder if its objective is to alienate everyone



  11. The Productivity Commission Warns Against Patent Maximalism, Which is Where China (SIPO) is Heading Along With EPO

    In defiance of common sense and everything that public officials or academics keep saying (European, Australian, American), China's SIPO and Europe's EPO want us to believe that when it comes to patents it's "the more, the merrier"



  12. Technical Failure of the European Patent Office (EPO) a Growing Cause for Concern

    The problem associated with Battistelli's strategy of increasing so-called 'production' by granting in haste everything on the shelf is quickly being grasped by patent professionals (outside EPO), not just patent examiners (inside EPO)



  13. Links 5/1/2017: Inkscape 0.92, GNU Sed 4.3

    Links for the day



  14. Links 4/1/2017: Cutelyst 1.2.0 and Lumina 1.2 Desktop Released

    Links for the day



  15. Financial Giants Will Attempt to Dominate or Control Bitcoin, Blockchain and Other Disruptive Free Software Using Software Patents

    Free/Open Source software in the currency and trading world promised to emancipate us from the yoke of banking conglomerates, but a gold rush for software patents threatens to jeopardise any meaningful change or progress



  16. New Article From Heise Explains Erosion of Patent Quality at the European Patent Office (EPO)

    To nobody's surprise, the past half a decade saw accelerating demise in quality of European Patents (EPs) and it is the fault of Battistelli's notorious policies



  17. Insensitivity at the EPO’s Management – Part V: Suspension of Salary and Unfair Trials

    One of the lesser-publicised cases of EPO witch-hunting, wherein a member of staff is denied a salary "without any notification"



  18. Links 3/1/2017: Microsoft Imposing TPM2 on Linux, ASUS Bringing Out Android Phones

    Links for the day



  19. Links 2/1/2017: Neptune 4.5.3 Release, Netrunner Desktop 17.01 Released

    Links for the day



  20. Teaser: Corruption Indictments Brought Against Vice-President of the European Patent Office (EPO)

    New trouble for Željko Topić in Strasbourg, making it yet another EPO Vice-President who is on shaky grounds and paving the way to managerial collapse/avalanche at the EPO



  21. 365 Days Later, German Justice Minister Heiko Maas Remains Silent and Thus Complicit in EPO Abuses on German Soil

    The utter lack of participation, involvement or even intervention by German authorities serve to confirm that the government of Germany is very much complicit in the EPO's abuses, by refusing to do anything to stop them



  22. Battistelli's Idea of 'Independent' 'External' 'Social' 'Study' is Something to BUY From Notorious Firm PwC

    The sham which is the so-called 'social' 'study' as explained by the Central Staff Committee last year, well before the results came out



  23. Europe Should Listen to SMEs Regarding the UPC, as Battistelli, Team UPC and the Select Committee Lie About It

    Another example of UPC promotion from within the EPO (a committee dedicated to UPC promotion), in spite of everything we know about opposition to the UPC from small businesses (not the imaginary ones which Team UPC claims to speak 'on behalf' of)



  24. Video: French State Secretary for Digital Economy Speaks Out Against Benoît Battistelli at Battistelli's PR Event

    Uploaded by SUEPO earlier today was the above video, which shows how last year's party (actually 2015) was spoiled for Battistelli by the French State Secretary for Digital Economy, Axelle Lemaire, echoing the French government's concern about union busting etc. at the EPO (only to be rudely censored by Battistelli's 'media partner')



  25. When EPO Vice-President, Who Will Resign Soon, Made a Mockery of the EPO

    Leaked letter from Willy Minnoye/management to the people who are supposed to oversee EPO management



  26. No Separation of Powers or Justice at the EPO: Reign of Terror by Battistelli Explained in Letter to the Administrative Council

    In violation of international labour laws, Team Battistelli marches on and engages in a union-busting race against the clock, relying on immunity to keep this gravy train rolling before an inevitable crash



  27. FFPE-EPO is a Zombie (if Not Dead) Yellow Union Whose Only de Facto Purpose Has Been Attacking the EPO's Staff Union

    A new year's reminder that the EPO has only one legitimate union, the Staff Union of the EPO (SUEPO), whereas FFPE-EPO serves virtually no purpose other than to attack SUEPO, more so after signing a deal with the devil (Battistelli)



  28. EPO Select Committee is Wrong About the Unitary Patent (UPC)

    The UPC is neither desirable nor practical, especially now that the EPO lowers patent quality; but does the Select Committee understand that?



  29. Links 1/1/2017: KDE Plasma 5.9 Coming, PelicanHPC 4.1

    Links for the day



  30. 2016: The Year EPO Staff Went on Strike, Possibly “Biggest Ever Strike in the History of the EPO.”

    A look back at a key event inside the EPO, which marked somewhat of a breaking point for Team Battistelli


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