04.11.12

Patent Threats to Linux

Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Patents at 12:21 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Moon

Summary: A quick look at patents that threaten Linux in servers and in mobile

SOMETIMES we write Amazon’s patents because they have become a real problem (and Amazon pays Microsoft for Linux).

Amazon’s S3 patent is a patent on distributed storage system with web services client interface and it can be found here, potentially to affect many Linux-based services. Does anyone find that benign? Oracle is meanwhile threatening mobile Linux, packaged in the form of Android. Groklaw writes about the jury:

First, it’s going to require an incredibly large jury pool. We know that because Judge Alsup previously told the parties to the dispute to limit their entourages during the jury selection process as the jury pool would require half the seating in the courtroom. From this pool the parties and the Court will select between six and 12 individuals (civil trials do not require a jury of 12).

Pamela Jones has some other details from this trial, including transcripts. Remember that Amazon can ‘pull an Oracle’ one day. Just because Amazon uses GNU/Linux (so does Oracle) doesn’t mean it’s harmless. Many former Microsoft managers work in Amazon now. █

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Microsoft Misdirection From Germany Amid AOL Patents Snatch

Posted in Deception, Microsoft, Patents at 12:11 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

From a football club in Spain to a convicted monopolist from Redmond

Summary: How Microsoft uses some certain Germans to serve the Microsoft propaganda machine

THE Microsoft version of GNU/Linux is developed in Germany now (SUSE, not Novell). It claims to have just turned 20, but we have already explained why that’s technically not the case. It’s a bit of a deception. Generally speaking, SUSE’s purpose is now to help Microsoft tax GNU/Linux, especially in servers; that’s what Microsoft keeps SUSE going for. It deceives the public and traps ignorant managers.

There is another thing going on in Germany and it acts as a Microsoft proxy. Some journalists are citing a Microsoft lobbyist in articles about Microsoft (reports on patents quote a Microsoft patents lobbyist without disclosure). They don’t seem to understand that Florian Müller is paid directly by Microsoft to produce spin. Right now that AOL (filled with former Microsoft managers [1, 2, 3, 4]) gives its patents to Microsoft, IDG quotes the lobbyist:

Marking the latest escalation in the technology industry’s intellectual-property arms race, Microsoft is paying AOL a shade over $1 billion for 800 patents, the cream of which AOL CEO Tim Armstrong has described as “beachfront property in East Hampton.”

And the corporate press also quotes the Microsoft lobbyist, calling him “blogger”. Here is CNN:

AOL walks away with some much-needed cash for patents it was no longer using. Microsoft gets to take home some of the first social networking patents ever granted, and Facebook — a Microsoft partner — is insulated from the legal attacks those patents could have aided had they ended up in enemy hands.

The system enables passing patents around like weapons, to be used for litigation and deterrence. It is indicative of an inherently broken system. Fernando Cassia says:

How many FOSS/Linux projs will be at risk w Microsoft acquiring t entire AOL patent portfolio? (remember AOL incl Netscape)

I used to work for them, too (back while I was doing my Ph.D.). Soon I might be moving to London, but the days of AOL/Netscape are remembered fondly, going back to times when the company was not just a Microsoft puppet of sorts. It still had a Web browser back then. The news about AOL is not shocking because we wrote about AOL’s Microsoft leanings before. It seemed like entryism, too. █

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SEC Versus Microsoft Financial Claims

Posted in Finance, Microsoft at 11:52 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: A recollection of the SEC’s correspondence with Microsoft regarding lack of clarity

THE MONOPOLIST from Redmond is not properly disclosing its money management schemes and practices of tax dodging. Some time ago the SEC contacted Microsoft. As Pogson sarcastically puts it:

That should inspire confidence in shareholders. Depending on the outcome of an appeals process to prop up the bottom line is not good business. If the taxation contingency is $7billion for the audit of 2006, what could be the size of the contingency for all those other years?

We covered this at the time. The CFO left the company and was paid to keep quiet. Just what exactly is going on at Microsoft and why is it taking loans? Much of the money might be stashed abroad, but how much really? Microsoft is shrinking and living on some borrowings. █

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The Economist Throws FUD at OLPC Again

Posted in FUD, GNU/Linux, OLPC at 11:44 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“Fat operating systems spend most of their energy supporting their own fat.”

–Nicholas Negroponte, MIT Media Lab, rediff.com, Apr 2006

Picture from Wikipedia

Summary: Another news item that describes a seemingly successful project as a “failure”

THERE is something quite rotten at The Economist and it’s not just fallacies-filled GNU/Linux-hostile articles (we mostly ignore them so as to not feed the provocatuers).

The OLPC, which runs Fedora, has been under continuous attacks, being the trailblazer that — just like Munich — Microsoft and its comrades must mock.

In The Economist, OLPC Is being called a “failure” in Peru — under the assumption that part of the problem is that students learn faster than many of their teachers. Here is a person from Fedora addressing the article:

OLPC a “failure” in Peru

According to the Economist. Ah, but here’s the rub. From the article:

Part of the problem is that students learn faster than many of their teachers, according to Lily Miranda, who runs a computer lab at a state school in San Borja, a middle-class area of Lima. Sandro Marcone, who is in charge of educational technologies at the ministry, agrees. “If teachers are telling kids to turn on computers and copy what is being written on the blackboard, then we have invested in expensive notebooks,” he said. It certainly looks like that.

Here is another rebuttal, this one from HP.com:

So, instead of a “disappointing return,” or “not accomplish[ing] anything in particular,” IDB did actually find a measurable benefit.
Could it be that the disparity between test scores and actual measured achievement means that it’s the tests that are lacking, rather than the laptops? It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that academic testing was shown to be seriously wanting.
And is it too much to ask for The Economist’s journalists and fact-checkers to actually get as far as the sixth sentence in the report’s abstract, before writing the story? I know that many of today’s workers exhibit short attention-spans, but really!

There seems to be a reporting failure, not an OLPC failure. If they start with the premise that everything is failing, then they can collect claims that support the hypothesis and disregard the rest. █

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Microsoft Uses Marketing Tricks to Create Illusion of Windows (WP7) Demand

Posted in Microsoft, Windows at 11:28 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Dance

Summary: Another attempt by Microsoft to fake fanfare

THE MONOPOLIST from Redmond has already tried AstroTurfing to shore up sales of WP7. Here is one example we wrote about.

Having failed to gain even a respectable share, Microsoft then decided to game some numbers and now it gives little bribes. TechBytes’ host Tim writes:

“…Let’s face facts, Microsoft has gotten it’s hand into everything. Once there, they consistently become the 900lb gorilla in the room with a bad attitude that kills competition and is bad for consumers…. ”

Microsoft is gaming the ranks by offering little bribes or virtually no-cost presales — all just to create fake hype. We discussed this in the IRC channels when examples were given. Due to my connection being far worse than useless at the moment I may not be able to blog as usual (will keep everything short). █

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04.10.12

Links – New and Old Censorship, Anti-trust, Privacy Violations and Pollution.

Posted in Site News at 12:55 am by Guest Editorial Team

Reader’s Picks

Bootstrapped Startup Saves Over $100K By Dropping IE

Everything about Microsoft is an expensive time suck like IE and should be abandoned.

Hardware

The smartphone Wars: Finally, Android breaks 50%

Health/Nutrition

Exercise makes you think.
FDA to Consumers: We’re still thinking about it. Sorry you’re still eating it

FDA is kicking the BPA-lined can further down the road in an announcement today that the Agency plans to keep studying this issue while consumers continue to be exposed. Specifically, the Agency’s response to NRDC’s petition is: “FDA has determined, as a matter of science and regulatory policy, that the best course of action at this time is to continue our review and study of emerging data on BPA.”
The 9 nastiest things in your supermarket

Security

FBI: Smart Meter Hacks Likely to Spread

Defence/Police/Aggression

Student’s Science Project Shuts Down Dallas Airport

An amateur video posted on YouTube shows several people being led away from the scene in handcuffs
The spread of “Suspicious Activity Reporting”

“They’ve created this expensive, and resource-intensive system that has a huge impact on innocent people’s privacy,” said German. “And yet there is no science showing that this is an effective way of going about law enforcement or intelligence gathering.”

LAPD’s infamous Special Order 1 and “iWatch” are war on the different
PREAL: The “Torture Textbook” That Took CIA Interrogators to the Dark Side

The CIA substituted their own controls; learned helplessness had become the goal.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

Gulf’s dolphins pay heavy price for Deepwater oil spil

New studies show impact of BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster on dolphins and other marine wildlife may be far worse than feared
Mississippi residents find death along oily Gulf shores

Storms continue to stir up oil which kills sea life and poisons people.
Deadly Bacteria Found In Gulf Coast Tar Balls
The Fracking Frenzy’s Impact on Women

Radium, toluene, benzine and other nasties lead to abortions, birth defects and breast cancer around fracking rigs. Abusive oil company culture also promotes crime.
Japan reopens parts of Fukushima evacuation zone

Parts of each town will remain off-limits because of higher exposure levels. Eight other towns in the same low-contamination category have not yet decided which areas should be reopened.
2C of warming is a pipe dream
Evaluating a 1981 temperature projectionEvaluating a 1981 temperature projection

Obviously climate science was a mature field even then: the concepts and conclusions have not changed all that much. Hansen et al clearly indicate what was well known (all of which still stands today) and what was uncertain. … It is also a nice example of a statement based on theory that could be falsified and up to now has withstood the test.

Finance

Anti-Trust

Pay TV piracy hits News

The actions are documented in an archive of 14,400 emails held by former Metropolitan Police commander Ray Adams who was European chief for Operational Security between 1996 and 2002. The Financial Review is publishing thousands of the emails on its website at URL afr.com.

The emails show that Murdoch used “piracy” as a competitive weapon, helping people to break the digital handcuffs of rival’s pay TV boxes. The loss of face and revenue helped Murdoch to consolidate his media empire.
Microsoft all but buys Netscape with AOL patent acqusition

This Microsoft friendly news source uses gloats over this superposed “end of the browser wars” and uses the term “intellectual property” while glorifying and validating software patents.

Censorship

The reason I’m helping Chris Hedges’ lawsuit against the NDAA

the Homeland Battlefield Bill has already a chilling effect upon my ability to investigate and document matters of national controversy that would ordinarily be subject to my professional inquiry. It has therefore prevented my readers from receiving the full spectrum of truthful reporting which, in a functioning democracy, they have a right to expect.
Iraq’s internet on the brink

A year since the Arab Spring, the internet in the region is facing significant threats from governments trying to gain more control over it.
Media companies & ISPs outline plan to stop piracy

Not so voluntary censorship is set to roll out on people in the US. Appealing accusations of sharing will cost people $35.
World Without Web

… we underestimate the alarming degree of contingency lurking behind ‘inevitable’ developments. … The divergence point for this history is in 1983-1984, when the leadership of DARPA lied through its teeth to Congress about who was being allowed access to the Internet. … what if DARPA had been caught in that lie, funding for its network research scaled back, and a serious effort made to kick randoms off the early net?
CISPA – The Sneaky Son Of SOPA

A good collection of links about a nasty law against sharing.

Civil Rights

Chris Hedges on the NDAA: Totalitarian Systems Always Begin by Rewriting the Law
Scott Walker Quietly Repeals Wisconsin Equal Pay Law

Privacy

Apple holds the master decryption key when it comes to iCloud security, privacy
Supreme Court Ruling Allows Strip-Searches for Any Arrest

The procedures endorsed by the majority are forbidden by statute in at least 10 states and are at odds with the policies of federal authorities. According to a supporting brief filed by the American Bar Association, international human rights treaties also ban the procedures.

Humilliation is not just for the airport.
Facebook to Help Third Parties Use Location-related Data

In the concert venue example, a ticket seller could inform someone if any of their Facebook friends were going to a given concert, Williams said. That could give them the chance to meet up or let the vendor persuade the consumer to buy a ticket, he said. … [PJ: This is creepy. Does you pretty teenage daughter actually know all her so-called "friends" on Facebook? ...]
How The Bing Toolbar May Accidentally Submit Private Pages & Ads

The way they spied on what users typed into the Google Toolbar was no accident and I doubt this is either. Non free software always demands the ability to spy.

Education Watch

Eye Opener: Turkish Charter Schools Sweep Across America Funded By Walmart Family

the United States is the only country where Gülen has been able to fully fund schools with taxpayer money. In all other nations, Gülen schools are what one would expect they would be: private religious schools.
‘A Test You Need to Fail’: A Teacher’s Open Letter to Her 8th Grade Students

DRM

How Adobe DRM Requires People to Pirate Library Books

Open standards make sense. What makes no sense is that large companies in the field still do not understand this. … It turns out that a majority of the 6,495 titles available at my local library were accessible only through a locked .acsm file format. …you can think of a .acsm file as being very much like a .torrent file. If you use Windows or Mac, you can (theoretically) download and install Adobe Digital Editions (ADE). This software reads the .acsm file and then it will download the actual .epub book, complete with DRM. … there is no legal way to access the content without breaking the law if you are using free (libre) software.

Tell your local librarian to never use a system like this!

Intellectual Monopolies

Another Patent Attack on Google with More Wild $$ Predictions ~pj

Nokia and Microsoft. Partners at law, so to speak. Is this another Microsoft/Nokia outsourced production? Remember when Barnes & Noble told us that it views Microsoft and Nokia’s patent campaign as an antitrust violation, a deliberate campaign to destroy Android and maintain Microsoft’s monopoly on the desktop and extend it to smartphones, with Nokia piggybacking with its patents for weapons and MOSAID being brought in to do some of the dirty work?
So when you read the scare headlines, remember this: Google is awesome at patent litigation. It tends to prevail. I told you that when Oracle first sued Google
Oracle’s Position is Worse Than I Thought
USPTO Issues Interim Mayo Guidance ~pj

“…the claimed product or process amounts to significantly more than a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea with conventional steps specified at a high level of generality appended thereto.” Why *wouldn’t* that apply to software?
Mayo Decision Impacts Myriad Genetics – Judgment Vacated, Remanded ~pj

Things are looking up in PatentLand
Prometheus bound: An important precedent for the next software patent case

Plainly, this was not a dispute about software patents, but the Court’s unanimous opinion will guide it and lower courts as they analyze future software patent cases.
Copyrights
- Judge rules file sharing is not a “conspiracy”
  
  The litigators are trying to get around the fact that judges aren’t happy with allowing mass lawsuits, so what they are doing is taking one internet user to court but using that lawsuit as a pretext to subpoena other defendants who had participated in the same BitTorrent swarm. … James Holderman of the Northern District of Illinois raised his eyebrow in disgust at this trick, saying that it was trying to get around the “stiffening judicial headwind.”
- 5000+ Artists Line Up For a Pirate Bay Promotion
  
  “We’re one of the worlds top 60 sites in the Internet. This brings us a responsibility to use the site to do something good. When I think about it, it’s insane that all the other top 100 sites only blast ads and self-centered stuff on their front pages. We do this for fun and for the love of culture, so we’re everything the major labels are not.”
- 3 Major Publishers Sue Open-Education Textbook Start-Up
  
  See also this excllent summary
  
  To gain access to the digital alternatives, students select the traditional books assigned in their classes, and Boundless pulls content from an array of open-education sources to knit together a text that the company claims is as good as the designated book. The company calls this mapping of printed book to open material “alignment”—a tactic the complaint said creates a finished product that violates the publishers’ copyrights.
- DRM is crushing indie booksellers online
- MPAA Lines Up With Porn Studio in Steamy Copyright Dispute
  
  A video site that published movies as urls is surprised that people would download those movies. They also found a judge that agrees enough to shut down a website where users share the urls, sometimes as embedded movies.

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04.08.12

Links 8/4/2012: LF Collab 2012, OpenStack Essex

Posted in News Roundup at 10:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux
- Distributions
- Devices/Embedded
Free Software/Open Source
Leftovers

GNU/Linux

Server
- IBM Power Systems Server Buying Guide
Kernel Space
- UEFI On Linux Is Like A Pathogen
  
  Red Hat’s Matthew Garrett talked this week again about the troubles in supporting UEFI under Linux.
  
  With Linux support for PCI Express ASPM having been corrected to address the notorious Linux kernel power regression of last year, Matthew Garrett’s latest topic and focus of work has been on UEFI for Linux.
  
  Matthew’s commonly talking about the UEFI problems with Linux, especially when it comes to the Secure Boot functionality. Some past examples (and some reading for reference) include UEFI Secure Boot Still A Big Problem For Linux, Going Over The Good & Bad For UEFI On Linux, and Myths About Secure Boot: Security, Microsoft, Etc.
- A Linux Driver For USB-Based Projectors
  
  There’s a new Linux graphics driver for allowing mini/pico/compact/handheld USB-interfacing display projectors to work under your favorite distribution.
  
  Earlier this week an email hit the Phoronix news inbox from Antonio Ospite, who has been working on this new driver support along with a Reto Schneider. While some of these small projectors have a VGA/HDMI interface (in which case no special Linux graphics driver is needed under Linux), a growing number of them are USB-based where only a Microsoft Windows driver is available. (If you’re not familiar with these types of mini/handheld projectors, see the Texas Instruments projector demo from X@FOSDEM.)
- LF Collab 2012: Killing Blobs, Wayland, DTrace, Etc
  
  The 6th annual Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit concluding this week in San Francisco. In case you missed out on any coverage of the interesting sessions from the event, here’s a run-down of the worthwhile information that was shared and discussed, plus a few other extra tid-bits from the invite-only event.
- Linux Kernel Developers Detail Top Gripes
- Graphics Stack
  - Unigine Pushes Engine Changes; More Mesa Friendly
    
    Unigine Corp has announced a set of improvements to their cross-platform and visually-stunning Unigine Engine. With the Source Engine on Linux finally looking to be imminent for entering the public spotlight, new improvements to Unigine couldn’t come at a better time.
  - The Wayland Redux From This Week
Applications
- The Best FTP App for Linux
- TermSaver: Pretty Cool Text-Based Screensaver, Try it in Ubuntu 12.04
  
  TermSaver is a pretty cool screensaver that can run from the command-line interface or terminal in Ubuntu/Linux. TermSaver isn’t supposed replace other screensavers that come with your desktop such as GnomeShell, Unity,KDE, or other Desktop Environment. And it also might not be able to carry out the actual purpose of a screesaver since it lacks a lot of pixel movements (screen animations), which otherwise helps to prevent “screen burns” on display devices
- 7 Essential Linux Classroom Tools
- mutt-kz – A fork of Mutt mail client has been released
- Weekend Project: Bug Out with Entomologist
- Instructionals/Technical
- Wine
  - Fallout Free Today, Supported By PlayOnLinux
- Games
  - Shadowrun Returns Raises $500k, Linux Version Planned
    
    Kickstarter is doing lots of good to Linux gaming as more and more developers are adding Linux support.
  - Trine 2 – Preview
  - Wasteland 2 Hits $2 Million On Kickstarter
  - Casual game “Pudding Panic” now available for LINUX via Desura
Desktop Environments
- K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt
  - KDE Commit-Digest for 1st April 2012
- GNOME Desktop
  - Gloobus Preview Update Brings GTK3 And Ubuntu 12.04 Support, More
    
    Gloobus Preview is an quick file previewer which supports images, documents (pdf, odf, ods, etc.), source files, audio (mp3, wav, ogg and more), video (avi, ogg, mkv, flv, etc.), folders, archives, fonts, plain text files and more.
    
    Gloobus Preview was recently fixed so it now works with Ubuntu 12.04 too. Besides the Ubuntu 12.04 fix, the latest Gloobus Preview from BZR comes with GTK3 support, support for password-protected documents, a rewritten documents plugin, WebM support, fixed ttf, pdf and video plugins and other fixes.
Distributions
- Revisited: Linux Mint (KDE), Chakra, Fuduntu
  
  I had tried out all these distributions again last week (during spring break) and this week, but I didn’t think that each of them warranted their own posts (and this is also why there were no posts last week), so I have decided to combine them all into a short summary of my experiences. I’m doing this because I’m seriously trying to figure out what I should start using after Linux Mint 9 LTS “Isadora” GNOME. I tested the 64-bit (because my computer has 64-bit hardware) live USB sessions of all of these using MultiSystem. Follow the jump to see what each is like.
- Red Hat Family
  - Report: Red Hat and IBM Joining OpenStack Cloud Effort
    
    It’s certainly been an interesting week on the open source cloud platform front. GigaOm reports that IBM and Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) are planning to announce their respective support for OpenStack, perhaps as early as next week. Neither company was commenting on the deal, but it sounds like a fait accompli, albeit one that hasn’t been announced yet.
    
    If not next week, we may wait for the announcement until the OpenStack Design Summit starting April 16 in San Francisco.
  - Video: OFA Code in Linux Distributions
  - Fedora
    - Fedora 17 schedule slips
- Debian Family
  - Derivatives
    - Canonical/Ubuntu
      - This Wild Visionary Wants To Turn His Linux Company Into The Next Apple
        
        Sure Red Hat just crested the $1 billion-revenue mark with almost $150 million in profit while Canonical, maker of Ubuntu Linux, still isn’t profitable after seven years in business.
      - Ubuntu used in a video about viruses?
        
        I was bored yesterday and this Yahoo! feature got my attention. It is about how tell if your “PC has a virus”.
        
        I might be mistaken, but the image they used to illustrate the first symptom of those annoying virus infections that plague Windows users seems to have come from… a computer running Ubuntu!
      - Meet Ubuntu 12.10: Queer Quagga
      - Why the Juju Charm Store Will Change the Way You Use Ubuntu Server
        
        For the past 6 months we’ve been travelling around conferences talking about juju and charms. We’ve had charm schools and training events, but it’s been difficult to explain to people the differences between service orchestration and configuration management, especially with a tool that wasn’t so complete. Thanks to the work for some volunteers though, we’ve managed to have 58 charms available in Ubuntu so far.
      - Translation Help Needed! How To Translate Ubuntu Accomplishments
      - Canonical Takes a Closer Look at the Ubuntu Linux User Base
        
        Midsize businesses that are considering the transition from Windows to Linux might want to take a look at the results of a recent user survey from Canonical.
        
        Canonical, responsible for products such as Ubuntu and Launchpad, polled over 15,000 English speakers (as well as more than 1,800 Spanish speakers and 1,700 Portuguese speakers) in an effort to better understand its user base. But the answers the company received might not be what some would expect.
      - Who uses Ubuntu Linux, and why? Survey offers new insight.
      - Ubuntu in South African Schools
        
        South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth has spent many years and huge sums of money producing the Ubuntu operating system. It’s the third most popular desktop operating system in the world and not only because it’s free, but also because it is extremely competitive and improving constantly.
Devices/Embedded
- [Raspberry Pi] Testing’s done!
  
  Good news! We just received confirmation that the Raspberry Pi has passed EMC testing without requiring any hardware modifications.
- Will Google Glasses will be the Greatest Linux Device Ever?
  
  Google Glass is Google’s effort at wearable technology, a display that projects contextual information and communication information onto glass that you wear (like a pair of regular glasses kinda/sorta). Little is known at this point about the actual hardware/software technology and to be honest at first, I thought this was an April 1st joke — but it’s not.
- Google Begins Testing Its Augmented-Reality Glasses
- Raspberry Pi sails through CE tests, ready for sale
- Phones
  - Android
    - Samsung expects profits to double from smartphone boost
      
      Samsung Electronics has said it expects its profit for the first three months of the year to almost double as its smartphone sales continue to grow.
    - TLWIR 35: Open Versus Closed Mobility – The Nokia N900 Versus The Nokia Lumia 900
    - Sprint: Android 4.0 arrives for Nexus S 4G
    - Android Espresso Cup Jump-Starts Your Personal Operating System
- Sub-notebooks/Tablets
  - Google’s rumored Nexus tablet reportedly delayed until July

Free Software/Open Source

Orphaned areas help call
Open-source data mapping tool CartoDB provides customizable views
The Growing Number Of Open-Source Projects
Insecure open source software libraries?

This is a valuable report, because it points out a general problem not specific to OSS.
Facebook Open-Sources Ringmark Mobile Test Suite
New York Times Adapts Open Source Mini-Game For Some Meta-Journalism
OmniOS: Open source OS for the Solaris community

OmniTI announced OmniOS, an open source operating system for application developers in the Solaris community looking for data-intensive application deployment.

OmniOS is a continuation of the OpenSolaris legacy and aims to address the longstanding issues that occurred when Oracle decided to discontinue open development of the operating system. OmniOS builds on Illumos to make a complete OS.
Events
- Five favorite Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit sessions
- That’s a Wrap: 2012 Linux Foundation Collab Summit Pictures
SaaS
- OpenStack Cloud Consulting: Mirantis Leading the Way?
- Owncloud Takes Open Source Storage Sharing to the Enterprise
- OpenStack Essex Delivers Cloud Dashboard
- CloudStack, OpenStack and the Significance of Support
  
  In the wake of Citrix’s decision to cut its support for the open source OpenStack cloud computing platform and move full steam ahead with the next phase of its CloudStack strategy, it still seems clear to most observers that OpenStack and CloudStack are headed for fierce competition. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. All the way back in 2009, open source platforms were emerging as the best way for IT departments to guarantee flexibility in their cloud deployments. But what many people are still missing is that support is going to be the key differentiator between OpenStack and CloudStack, and other cloud platforms.
CMS
- Getting Started with the Drupal CMS
- Joomla Open-Source CMS Marks 30M Downloads
  
  The community supporting the popular Joomla open-source content management system announced that it has been downloaded more than 30 million times.
  
  The community attributes the continued growth in the number of individuals, companies and organizations using the CMS to an aggressive development road map that included the release of Joomla 1.7 in July 2011. The CMS also began adhering to a six-month release cycle meaning more product enhancements being introduced more often. New features in the latest version included multi-database support, one-click version updating, predefined search options and language-specific font settings.
- Open Source Development Provides CMS Development Services
BSD
- Review: DragonFlyBSD 3.0.1 — the longest DragonFlyBSD review ever — Part 4: Exploring DragonFlyBSD and its GUI issues
FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
- The Good Stuff Out Of GCC 4.7, C++11
  
  Another one of the interesting presentations from the LF Collaboration Summit this week in San Francisco was covering the improvements made to GCC 4.7, which is the latest GNU compiler update with several new features for developers.
  
  At this week’s invite-only event Qualcomm was highlighting LLVM and Clang as a great compiler infrastructure and shared their ambitions to build the mainline Linux kernel for ARM with LLVM/Clang, while Oracle’s Paolo Carlini was covering GNU Compiler Collection 4.7 and C++11.
Public Services/Government
- How One Non-Profit Aims to Create Open-Source Government
  
  As a non-partisan, non-profit organization, the Sunlight Foundation is taking the ethos found among the open-source software movement and applying it to government. It’s one goal is to publish the government’s public data in an easy-to-access location, at no cost to users.
Licensing
- Why we need the GPL more than ever
  
  The latest “why we don’t need the GPL” argument comes from one Donnie Berkholz of an analyst firm called RedMonk. It begins with a falsehood: “In the early days of the GPL and copyleft software, it played an important role in forcibly training companies how free/open-source development worked.” No, it did not. The GPL, being a free software licence, had nothing to do with open source at all; it was about ensuring freedom for users, freedom of the political kind.

Leftovers

7 Mobile Operating Systems You Might Never Use
Finance
- Big Repairs Still Needed To Fix the American Jobs Picture
  
  No doubt, a few economists and some business leaders will be inclined to argue that the trend is not entirely negative. Fair enough. Perhaps it indicates flexibility in US labor markets, especially as the economy tries to recover through the formation of small business. Also, it makes sense that an economy trying to recover would first add back part-time work in equal amounts to full time work, before stepping up to the array of benefits extended to the full time worker. But therein lies the problem: American workers desperately need health-care coverage, which is not typically offered to part-time workers. Meanwhile, deleveraging of household balance sheets since the high debt levels of 2007 has been mild. The result is yet another way to see how deeply consumer demand is restrained: there’s not enough work to both pay down debt, and restart consumption.
- Fed may fine firms not part of foreclosure deal
- Kaplan, community members discuss city’s bond debt deal with Goldman Sachs
  
  Rebecca Kaplan was once a rabbinical student, and the Oakland City Councilmember still knows her scripture well. On Wednesday afternoon, Kaplan quoted the books of Isaiah, Leviticus and Exodus while speaking during a teach-in about the city’s bond debt with Goldman Sachs at Allen Temple Baptist Church in East Oakland.
  
  In 1997, Oakland and the investment bank Goldman Sachs agreed to a rate-swap deal relating to $187 million in city debt. The deal allowed the city to convert floating interest rates on the debt into a fixed rate of 5.6 percent. But what appeared to be a good deal at the time has proved costly in the long run, after the market collapsed in 2008 and interest rates dropped to below 2 percent. The city has come out on the short end of the deal, and has already paid out $26 million more than it owed and is currently paying $5 million annually.
PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
- BREAKING: Intuit Out of ALEC; Coke, Kraft, Pepsi, too, while Koch Stands Ground
Privacy
- Dr Richard Stallman Says – Stop Using Facebook