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10.15.11

Links 15/10/2011: Puppy Linux 5.2, Government of Paraguay Wants Software Freedom

Posted in News Roundup at 7:02 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • “Open Source Gives Me High-Quality Solutions”

    Robert Lemke, lead developer of TYPO3 Phoenix, speaks on how open source has gradually come at par with commercial solutions, won over both government and private organisations and what problems it simultaneously needs to address. He also tells Linux For You, about introducing new techniques ‘Aspect-Oriented Programming’ and FLOW3 at the OSI Days in November.

  • SaaS

    • Cloud, open source, and new network models: Part 1

      What is the network’s role in cloud computing? What are the best practices for defining and delivering network architectures to meet the needs of a variety of cloud workloads? Is there a standard model for networking in the cloud?

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • CMS

  • Business

    • Diaspora Prepares to Launch Open Source Social Network

      Diaspora is most famous — that is, in the geeky contingents where it is known — for the promise it holds as a distributed, open source social network that allows users to control their own data. But 18 months after it began as a project on Kickstarter that attracted donors like Mark Zuckerberg, it has also won a reputation for more promise than delivery.

      After Diaspora emailed its users to ask them to donate this week, having published an expense report that showed its $200,000 in Kickstarter money had all been spent, some assumed the end was near.

    • eWEEK Readers Trust Open Source

      Two out of three readers use open source, but some of you don’t trust it. Next: choose a tablet for business!

    • Semi-Open Source

  • Public Services/Government

  • Programming

    • “Open Source Gives Me High-Quality Solutions”

      The Apache Subversion (SVN) open source version control system is out with its 1.7 release today. The new SVN 1.7 release adds new features such as HTTPv2 and WC-NG that improve performance and make version control more efficient for developers.

    • Key Milestones Over 10 Years of Eclipse

      As we get ready to celebrate 10 years of Eclipse, I thought it would be interesting to look back on the major milestones in the Eclipse community, ie. what were the major events that have helped shape and drive the Eclipse community. Here is my list but please feel free to add your own in the comments. We have also created a slide show of these milestones available at the end of the post.

  • Standards/Consortia

    • Gate One brings open source SSH to HTML5 browsers

      Version 0.9 of Gate One, an open source terminal emulator for HTML5 web browsers, has been released. This is a beta level build – the first public release as the developer works towards a stable 1.0 version. The software makes use of WebSockets to connect a server backend written in Python and a frontend written for modern browsers in JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS. The frontend doesn’t require any browser plug-ins to be installed.

    • New ODF 1.2 format

      The latest Open Document Format, ODF 1.2, was finally approved by the OASIS committee. It is a major milestone, as the previous version (1.1) dates back to 2006. ODF is also a standard under the ISO committee, but in its even older 1.0 instantiation.

Leftovers

  • Google Kills Open Source Code Search, Plus Kills Buzz

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Children Gardening in Sewage Sludge: Los Angeles Schools Alerted

      This week, CMD’s new Food Rights Network sent letters to thirteen schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) that have “organic” school gardens adopted by Hollywood’s Environmental Media Association (EMA). As we reported in May, EMA teamed up with sludge-marketing corporation Kellogg Garden Products, which sells products made from Los Angeles area industrial and human sewage sludge with the label “quality organics” and which used the gardens for photo ops with sludge products.

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Aggression

  • Finance

    • Protesters plan to ‘Occupy’ London, Rome, Auckland

      That’s the word going out on the Web to rally street protests on Saturday around the globe from New Zealand to London, Frankfurt and, of course, New York.

      Protesters got started early in Italy, where students managed to break into the hall of the Goldman Sachs building in the heart of Milan’s financial district, a few steps away from La Scala opera house, police said. The protesters were quickly dispersed.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • ALEC Politicians Spin Special “Interest” Bill to Protect Corporate Wrongdoers as “Job Creation”

      For years, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), has been itching to protect big corporations from high interest rates charged in cases where corporations have killed or injured Americans. Now, Wisconsin politicians serving on key ALEC task forces are pushing a bill embracing this idea as part of ALEC alumnus Scott Walker’s latest effort to force the ALEC agenda into law based on claims that doing so will help “job creators.”

    • Progressive Group Pressures Major League Baseball To Drop Glenn Beck

      The progressive group Americans United for Change is launching a campaign against Major League Baseball (MLB), pressuring the group to cut its ties to right-wing pundit Glenn Beck due to his history of controversial statements.

      Beck recently left his high-profile spot as a host on Fox News to launch his own online network, GBTV. This spring, MLB Advanced Media, the interactive arm of the MLB, teamed up with Beck and agreed to provide him with a streaming video platform. Along with Beck’s show, MLB Advanced Media streams more traditional sports fare, such as baseball games and March Madness.

  • Civil Rights

    • The conference on Technological Surveillance and Free Software

      Yesterday I attended a conference titled “Technological Surveillance and Free Software”, which was organized by the School of Information Technologies of the university where I work. This activity was part of the actions to start the migration to FLOSS in the university.

      The speaker showed a clip from one newspaper displaying the headline “State institutions using more free software everyday”. This piece of news was published yesterday, too. That was something I did not expect!

  • ACTA

Links 15/10/2011: Fifteen Year Anniversary for KDE, Apache Reassures Commitment to OpenOffice.org

Posted in News Roundup at 11:40 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Events

  • SaaS

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Oracle v. Google – Google Gets Significant Win on Mitchell Report
    • Oracle v. Google – You Can’t Make This Stuff Up (or maybe you can)

      If it weren’t for the potentially serious economic and technological ramifications of this case, some of the filings would be worth their weight in gold with respect to their entertainment value. Such is the case when reading Google’s response (519 [PDF; text below]) to Oracle’s precis letter seeking leave to file a Daubert motion regarding the Google damage expert reports of Drs. Leonard and Cox (See document 511). As I said yesterday, we only read Oracle’s side of the story, and I expected Google’s to be quite different. It is.

      Oracle complained that Drs. Cox and Leonard have no technical background and, instead, relied upon Google employees for technical interpretations. As Google points out, this is the same thing Oracle has done. Pot, meet kettle.1 Google further points out that it intends to make all of those Google employees upon which Drs. Leonard and Cox relied available for questioning at trial before putting either of the doctors on the stand. So Oracle will have ample opportunity to question the merits of the technical observations.

    • Oracle v. Google – Google Continuing To Press Hard On Its Positions

      Google is continuing to press Oracle with further motion filings. This time Google attacks Oracle’s claim for past patent damages as outside the scope of the law. (521 [PDF; text below]) Oracle has asserted a claim for patent damages from the year 2007. Oracle, however, did not give notice of infringement to Google until much later, perhaps as late as July 2010. If Google is successful in obtaining leave to file its motion and is successful on the motion, it could preclude virtually all damage claims for past patent infringement. Damages would then only be due from the date of notice going forward, if at all.

    • LibreOffice Conference Announcements
    • The Apache Software Foundation Statement on Apache OpenOffice.org

      On 1 June 2011, Oracle Corporation submitted the OpenOffice.org code base to The Apache Software Foundation. That submission was accepted, and the project is now being developed as a podling in the Apache Incubator under the ASF’s meritocratic process informally dubbed “The Apache Way”.

      OpenOffice.org is now officially part of the Apache family.

      The project is known as Apache OpenOffice.org (incubating).

      Over its 12-year history, the ASF has welcomed contributions from individuals and organizations alike, but, as a policy, does not solicit code donations. The OpenOffice.org code base was not pursued by the ASF prior to its acceptance into the Apache Incubator.

    • Apache Asserts OpenOffice Stewardship

      Despite the growing momentum of the LibreOffice fork of OpenOffice, the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is urging the community of volunteer developers to rally around the OpenOffice code base as the canonical version of the open source software suite.

    • The Document Foundation Thinking Beyond Desktop

      During the LibreOffice Conference in Paris yesterday, The Document Foundation made several interesting announcements. Among them, a new online version of LibreOffice and a port for smartphones are planned for next year or 2013.

      LibreOffice Online appears to be an online application of LibreOffice in the ilk of Microsoft 365 or Google Docs. The new browser-based app, developed by openSUSE’s Michael Meeks, “is based on GTK+ framework and HTML5′s canvas.” There isn’t a lot more detail available right now, but a demo video is available here (requires WebM support).

    • Apache vows to develop, protect OpenOffice

      Citing its success with other donated projects, the Apache Software Foundation vowed to protect OpenOffice.org and prevent fragmentation.

      In a lengthy statement issued to naysayers and concerned parties today, the ASF rejected claims that OpenOffice would be neglected and pointed to its success with other adopted open source projects such as SpamAssassin as proof that the “Apache Way” will grow and develop OpenOffice.

      The ASF also noted that the project would be known under the name Apache OpenOffice.org and is officially in incubation status.

    • LibreOffice gaining momentum, heading to Android, iOS, and the Web

  • CMS

  • Business

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Project Releases

  • Public Services/Government

Leftovers

  • X11
  • Time zone database back online

    The time zone reference database used by all versions of Unix and Linux is back online in an updated version, reports Java developer Stephen Colebourne in his blog. Last week, the tz database was taken offline because of a copyright problem. Now, the data is available for downloadDirect download from a new server. Robert Elz will be maintaining the time zone information. The tz database will eventually be posted at the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), where the mailing list for the presentation and discussion of relevant information is already kept.

  • The computer is dead, long live the computer

    After six years of loyal service, I have retired my oldest desktop. Save for an occasional vacation and an unlucky power outage once a year or so, the machine worked 24/7, without any big problems or hiccups. But six years of age for a computer is like three million for a person, so all good things must end and better things come in their stead.

  • Finance

    • Delaware judge dismisses Goldman Sachs pay claims

      The New York investment bank Goldman Sachs is known for, among other things, paying its executives pretty well. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, for example, was awarded a $67.9 million bonus in 2007, the same year the firm set a Wall Street pay record.

    • Goldman Sachs Investor Lawsuit Over Pay Plan Dismissed

      Goldman Sachs Group Inc. persuaded a judge to throw out shareholders’ claims that the investment bank’s compensation system improperly rewarded employees for taking risks that hurt the firm’s stock price.

      Delaware Chancery Court Judge Sam Glasscock concluded yesterday that Goldman Sachs’s board acted properly in setting up a pay plan for the fifth-biggest U.S. bank. The judge dismissed a consolidated investor lawsuit claiming the plan wrongly awarded billions of dollars in bonuses to executives and employees, including Chairman Lloyd Blankfein, even as the firm’s market value declined by $50 billion since 1999.

  • ACTA

10.14.11

Links 14/10/2011: Fedora Web of Trust, Ubuntu Reviews

Posted in News Roundup at 6:07 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Has IBM kicked OpenOffice.org to the curb?

      Hey, here’s one for you: would somebody explain to me why we’re at the point where statements like “OpenOffice.org can’t be allowed to die!” are being made?

      Those are the words of Stefan Taxhet, CEO of Team OpenOffice.org e.V., the German non-profit responsible for managing the fundraising for the Apache OpenOffice.org project. Taxhet made this statement in a press release Tuesday that announced new fundraising efforts for the project, which is apparently in need of a cash infusion.

Leftovers

  • Dennis Ritchie

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • No Privacy Without Net Neutrality

      In a ground-breaking opinion on Net neutrality, the European Data Protection Supervisor stresses that restrictions to Internet access inevitably harm privacy. As the European Parliament enters in the final stage of the negotiations on its resolution on Net neutrality, this opinion underlines that the EU Commission’s “wait and see” approach is bound to fail and is unjustifiable. Members of the EU Parliament – who will soon hold a crucial vote on the matter – must preserve citizens’ privacy by requiring strong regulatory measures to ban discrimination of online communications.

  • Copyrights

    • Evidence please

      The Government now has a chance to set out clear strategies for assessing the impact of infringement and the effectiveness of different enforcement strategies. Doing so is stage one in finding a way to bring the voices in this debate – be it rights holders, artists, or civil society – closer together to discuss practical, effective and proportionate policy.

    • Minute Meme “Credit is Due” Distinguishes Plagiarism from Copyright Infringement

      One of the most irritating myths promulgated by the entertainment industry is the idea that copyright is an ethical imperative because it’s bad to “steal other people’s ideas”. This is frequently combined with an illustrative story of plagiarism — in other words, a situation in which someone fraudulently claims credit for someone else’s work. Of course, this is nonsense. Plagiarism and copyright infringement are two completely different things. Although they sometimes occur together, there are many examples of either without the other. And if your eyes just glazed over — no problem: Nina Paley has made it easy with her new Minute Meme for QuestionCopyright.org, called “Credit is Due”.

    • ACTA

      • FFII urges EP Civil Liberties Committee to formulate opinion on ACTA

        ACTA is a multilateral agreement which proposes international standards for enforcement of intellectual property rights. According to the FFII, research has shown serious fundamental rights issues.

        A group of prominent European academics published an opinion on ACTA. They conclude that certain ACTA provisions are not entirely compatible with EU law and will directly or indirectly require additional action on the EU level. They invite “the European institutions, in particular the European Parliament, and the national legislators and governments, to carefully consider the above mentioned points and, as long as significant deviations from the EU acquis or serious concerns on fundamental rights, data protection, and a fair balance of interests are not properly addressed, to withhold consent.”

10.13.11

Links 13/10/2011: Humble Synapse Bundle Shows Linux Generosity, Ubuntu 11.10 Out

Posted in News Roundup at 7:39 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • It Only Took Sixteen Years

      It only took GNU RCS (gnu.org) 16 years to go from version 5.7 to version 5.8. GNU RCS 5.8 is now available in Portage thanks to the hard work of Mr. Ian ”idella4″ Delaney.

  • Public Services/Government

    • PL: Classes on and employing FLOSS introduced to schools

      The project SWOI has started classes on and employing Free and Open Source Software (FLOSS) in middle and upper secondary schools in Poland, it was announced on 4 October 2011.

      SWOI is the ‘Implementation strategy for the use of open and free software as an innovative model for supporting the development of pupils and students’ key competences in the field of ICT’. The first group of students’ work began in the ‘Circles of Interest’ activity. Under the supervision of ‘Guardians’, the participants explore the secrets of free and open source software.

  • Licensing

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

    • In Search of Minimum Viable Utility
    • Do Volunteer Programmers Produce Better Code?

      Those of us who love Linux and other free and open source software are already well-acquainted with the many benefits of FOSS: flexibility, security, customizability and freedom from vendor lock-in, to name just a few.

      Quality, of course, is another big one, at least in part because there are typically so many people around the globe constantly improving the code.

      There may also be another reason behind that superior quality, however. Specifically, it was recently suggested that volunteer programmers actually write better code than paid ones do.

    • Subversion 1.7 Released with Some Git-esque Merging

      The Apache Subversion (SVN) open source version control system is out with its 1.7 release today. The new SVN 1.7 release adds new features such as HTTPv2 and WC-NG that improve performance and make version control more efficient for developers.

      The SVN 1.7 release comes at a time when the open source Git version control system is gaining in popularity. Git’s popularity is something that SVN backers are aware of and taking steps to bring some popular capabilities of Git into SVN.

      “Subversion is no longer the disruptive upstart that it was in 2005. It is now deployed in the largest and most traditional organizations, and it’s now in the mainstream,” David Richards, President and CEO of WANdisco told InternetNews.com

    • Happy 10th Anniversary to the Eclipse Project

      With 3 projects back in 2001, the Eclipse Project has grown to become an awesome, can’t-do-without IDE for developers of almost all programming languages. Currently, it has 273 projects, more than 50 million lines of code and committers from almost all continents and more than $800 million in R&D.

  • Standards/Consortia

Leftovers

  • Dennis Ritchie: A Tribute to a Great Man

    Richie was jointly honoured with several awards during his lifetime, along with Ken Thompson, including the Turing Award in 1983, the Hamming Medal in 1990, the (US) National Medal of Technology in 1999 and, most recently, the Japan Prize for Information and Communications in 2011.

  • Dennis Ritchie, Creator Of C Programming Language & UNIX Dies

  • Hardware

    • AMD Releases FX-Series Bulldozer Desktop CPUs

      AMD’s most impressive FX CPU that launched this morning is the FX-8150, which is an eight-core CPU with a base frequency of 3.6GHz, a 3.9GHz base Turbo frequency, and 4.2GHz for its maximum Turbo frequency. Yes, a Bulldozer 8-core CPU that can operate naturally above 4GHz. These CPUs also come unlocked for those wanting to push the hardware even further. The AMD FX-8150 has 8MB of L2 cache and a TDP of 125 Watts. What makes this top-end CPU interesting as well is the price tag, which is only $245 USD.

  • Security

    • Microsoft on Browser Security – an Oxymoron

      What a farce. Microsoft has put up a web page which purports to “evaluate your browser security”. In fact what it does it look at what specific browser you are using, and then take a few cheap shots at Firefox and Chrome. For an early morning laugh, I just tried it on Opera and got “We can’t give you a score for your browser”. Translated, that means “this don’t know squat about browser security, this is not a ‘security test’ it is a browser identification string scan”.

  • Finance

  • Civil Rights

    • Legal (?) Malware

      It has been discovered that German police are using malware to spy on suspects’ computers. The particular case in question involves a suspect whose computer was deliberately infected as he passed through an airport. It was a trojan for that other OS.

Links 13/10/2011: Sabayon 7, Enron Whistleblower Defends WikiLeaks

Posted in News Roundup at 9:17 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Samba now accepts corporate-copyrighted code
  • Samba makes change to enlist corporate developer support

    The Samba project is making changes to encourage company participation while keeping corporate legal departments at bay.

    The project has announced the creation of the Samba Developer’s Certificate of Origin 1.0, which enables employees to retain personal copyrights on code developed and contributed to Samba.

    “What this does is allows employees who contribute to Samba on a workday to contribute this code to Samba whilst still allowing the corporation to keep copyright on the code, ” said Allison, in a statement posted on ZDNet today. “It should make it a lot easier for corporate legal departments to sign-off on contributing their changes back to the main Samba code base, as they don’t need to assign copyright to the engineer anymore.”

  • Russian Government Will Migrate To Linux By 2015
  • “Linux Is A Disruptive Force”

    OSI Days speaker, Mishi Choudhary is the executive director of International Practice at Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) in New York. In this interview, she tells Linux For You, how she became a part of team open source, her fervent desire to see more Indian developers and about the Freedom Box Project while giving a sneak preview into the key topics of her upcoming session at the OSI Days. Also, as a technological and legal expert, she combines the expertise of the two to dole out invaluable knowledge to a law abiding society that consists of more than just tech-savvy citizens!

  • Kernel Space

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • Integrating NetworkManager into KDE while keeping the Gnome out

      I think that I am not wrong when I say that Networkmanager is the de-facto way of network configuration management in Linux. Most Linux distributions have implemented it. Slackware on the other hand, traditionally encourages the use of “vi” for network configuration management (by editing “/etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf“)… but in recent times, the WICD daemon has been added to the “/extra” directory of Slackware, and that includes a graphical network configuration utility. A lot of (particularly mobile) users like WICD, and so do I.

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • Active building blocks: Nepomuk

        As said by the title of my last post, one of the things that we are trying to do with Active is “humanizing electrons”… make devices behave how people think instead of making people think like the implementation details behave.

        To do that, it is necessary to phase out or better, demote and have in a less prominent way some of the concepts that always been with us, but not because they were good, because for tone technical reason or another 20 years ago we were forced to do this way.

      • KDE: All Grown Up!

        So, in the not too distant future KDE will turn 15 years old. This is normally a time when I will go back and reflect on lessons that can be learned from past activities in the SCM. This year is no different.

        After my last blog post I was asked about the history of how many people had committed to KDE. So, for your viewing pleasure:

      • Show Photos on Google Earth and Google Maps with digiKam

        digiKam offers several ways to showcase your photos. You can view images as a slideshow, push them to a photo sharing service of your choice, and even export them as a static HTML gallery. But that’s not all; digiKam can output selected photos as a KML bundle, so you can view your snaps on the Google Maps service and the Google Earth application.

    • GNOME Desktop

  • Distributions

    • Gentoo Family

    • Red Hat Family

      • ClearOS

        All-in-one Linux-based network servers aren’t a new concept. Distributions like Clark Connect have been around for many years and fit their niche quite well. Lately, however, there seems to be a new batch of all-in-one solutions that offer a similar business model.

        A couple months ago, we reviewed Untangle, which is a commercial distribution offering a feature-limited free version. Recently, one of our readers, Tracy Holz, pointed me to a similar project, ClearOS. Although Untangle is largely a firewall and network services system, ClearOS attempts to do more. Using a combination of open-source and commercial tools, it can be a one-stop server platform for many networks.

      • .ae Domain Administration Builds Stable and Highly Available IT Infrastructure With Red Hat Enterprise Solutions – Press Release

        Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that .ae Domain Administration (.aeDA), the regulatory body and registry operator for the .ae domain name, has standardized its registry infrastructure on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 operating system with support from Red Hat Network Satellite.

      • New Red Hat Solutions Enable Customers to Become Intelligent, Integrated Enterprises
      • Red Hat Affirms Commitment to AMQP as Company’s Strategic Open Messaging Protocol
      • Buy Recommendations From Analysts: (TI), (SD), (RHT), (MJN), (CF)

        Red Hat, Inc (RHT): has a consensus rating of 2.2. This indicates that analysts have a buy recommendation on the stock. The latest rating action was on Mar 24, 2011 when Robert W. Baird upgraded the company from Neutral to Outperform. The result of 22 opinions makes for a mean price target on the stock of $48.73 ranging from as low as $32.0 to as high as $61.0. This month there are 7 strong buys, 10 buys, 5 holds, 1 underperforms, and 2 sells. Shares of Red Hat, Inc traded higher by 1.83% or $0.81/share to $44.98.

      • Red Hat And Nuance Set Sights On Buy Points
      • Red Hat Pledges Commitment to AMQP Open Messaging

        Red Hat has affirmed its commitment to the open-source Advanced Message Queuing Protocol as the company’s strategic messaging protocol going forward.

      • Fedora

        • Fourth Fedora Design Bounty Ninja identified!

          The Fedora Design Team Bounty is a type of blog post where we’ll outline a quick-and-easy design project that needs doing for the Fedora Community, outlining all the tools, files, and other resources you’ll need to complete the project. If you’re a designer and are interested in getting involved in the free and open source community, this is a good opportunity to get your feet wet!

        • Fedora 16 beta

          Fedora 16 features the new 3.1.0 kernel. In spite of the dramatic number change, there are no dramatic feature changes.

    • Debian Family

      • Debian KDE: Performance, Comfort and Stability

        Instead, I’ll ask you what Desktop Environment does Debian have? The most likely answer here would be GNOME. That is because GNOME comes as default for Debian. But of course such a Universal Operating System like Debian cannot have only one Desktop Environment available. If you look at Download page, you’ll find other options there: KDE, LXDE and XFCE. Last two are actually shipped on same CD image. But the KDE one is most interesting for me because it was on the 4th place of users poll for best KDE distro, ahead of such KDE-centric distros like Pardus or Aptosid.

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Thanks to HP and Canonical Simple Scan team

            I’d just like to say a huge thanks to HP and the folks at Canonical who work on Simple Scan – at long last, HP fixed up the ADF support for my 1212nf multifunction printer in hplip, and Simple Scan has completely awesome multiple document scanning / saving capabilities.

          • Nick Barcet: Ubuntu, the only web server OS showing growth?

            According to W3Techs, Ubuntu is the only web server OS showing a continuous growth rate for (at least) the last year. After passing Suse and Fedora last year, we passed in front of RHEL usage in July. CentOS and Debian are still ahead though.

          • 15 Things I Did After Installing New Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot

            Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot is scheduled to arrive on Oct 13, 2011. A lot of things have changed with Ubuntu in the mean time. This Ubuntu 11.10 screenshot tour will give you a quick preview of important changes in the upcoming Ubuntu Oneiric release. I have been using Ubuntu 11.10 as my netbook’s primary OS ever since the second alpha release of Ubuntu 11.10 happened. Here is a quick list of things to do after installing Ubuntu 11.10.

          • Ubuntu Upgrade a Mixed Bag at Best

            As a die-hard Ubuntu 10.10 user, I was less than blown away by the newest version, Ubuntu 11.10. The addition of the new Gnome 3 shell in Ubuntu 11.10 forces a paradigm shift in your computing habits. That does not mean that nothing good is included in the newest Ubuntu release, though. File-sharing and personal cloud storage just got a whole lot more convenient.

          • The Buzz On the New Ubuntu

            As noted here, the official release of Ubuntu 11.10, Oneiric Ocelot, is due this week. In addition, many people are already using the beta releases, and, at ThisisTheCountdown.com you can track the minutes and seconds leading up to the next major release of Ubuntu, and get QR codes and URL strips. Version 11.10 has already generated a lot of discussion, including both praise and criticism. Here are some of the early reports.

          • Ubuntu Ocelot Debuts as Kernel.org Returns
          • Ubuntu 11.10 Will Be Released Today

            The title says it all! Canonical will unleash the highly anticipated Ubuntu 11.10 operating system somewhere around 10:00 AM GTM tomorrow, October 13th.

          • Ubuntu Cloud: The Reseller Opportunity
          • Ubuntu 11.10 Available For Pre-Order

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Vinux | Ubuntu Linux for the visually impaired

              Have you heard about Vinux? Vinux is a GNU/Linux distribution specially targetted for Visually impaired computer users. It has a host of tools for making the tech lifes of people with vision disorders a lot better. Vinux is based on Ubuntu Linux. Read on to find out more.

            • Mint, Linux Mint

              On Google+ recently, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols brought back a May 2011 item he posted on Linux Mint because “[w]ith all the chatter on one of my posts about Linux desktops, perhaps it’s time for me to drag out this review of my current favourite Linux desktop.”

              It may seem trivial to some, but Steven calls Linux Mint “Mint” throughout the review, and in the back and forth on the comments, that seems to be OK with some. Correction: It seems to be OK with everyone but me. In my opinion, calling it just “Mint” is wrong — especially since the screen shot featured in the article says “Linux Mint” and the symbol is an “LM” — and I find it a little grating to do so, like someone calling me by my last name (Note: Unless you’re a drill sergeant, don’t do that).

              So who’s right? Is it “Mint” or “Linux Mint”?

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Mentor Graphics and Freescale team up on Cortex-A9-based vehicle tech

      Mentor Graphics announced it is bringing its Genivi-compliant Mentor Embedded Linux In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) Base Platform platform to Freescale Semiconductor’s ARM Cortex A9-based i.MX6 system on chips (SoCs). Meanwhile, the Linux Foundation announced the first Automotive Linux Summit (ALS), to be held Nov. 28 in Yokohama, Japan.

    • $50 Roku box offers 720p Netflix, Hulu, and new HBO GO

      Roku announced its lowest-cost streaming media player yet, also adding a new HBO GO service to its service line-up. The $50 Roku LT offers the same Linux-based operating system, Netflix support, 720p video playback quality, and support for 300 channels as the $60 Roku 2 HD, but jettisons the microSD port and Bluetooth connections, according to the company.

    • Linux-based CUE system to debut on 2012 Cadillacs

      Cadillac announced a Linux-based in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) and navigation system that will debut in the 2012 Cadillac XTS. The Cadillac User Experience (CUE) system’s triple-core ARM11 processor controls both an eight-inch capacitive multitouch main touchscreen and an optional 12.3-inch cluster display, and features proximity sensing, haptic feedback, natural language voice recognition, and an open app development platform.

    • Virtual target eases software development

      The SOC FPGA virtual target is a PC-based functional simulation of an Altera SOC FPGA development board and is a binary- and register-compatible, functional equivalent of the SOC FPGA board.

    • Phones

      • Android

        • Top 5 Alternative Music Players for Android

          Many audiophiles who use an Android phone as their mp3 player are a bit unsatisfied with default music application. For them, the stock application misses out on a lot of features that a modern music player should provide. If you’re one of them, then read on as we list the best alternatives for Android’s default music player.

        • Cyanogenmod 7.1 now available for ultimate Android customization

          Open source projects follow a pretty standard pattern in my experience. If the project becomes popular, it grows at a breakneck pace. New features, bug fixes, and more are suggested and submitted daily. Eventually, you have to say no to a couple of things. Once enough things are said no to, those who come up with those ideas move on to the next logical thing, which is to take your ideals and your creativity and make your own version of that project. Soon, you’ve got a hundred flavors of Linux and a few hundred thousand people with their own opinions as to why theirs is better than yours.

        • Motorola Spyder and Xoom 2 turn up in more leaked shots

          As you can see above, the Spyder also has what appears to be a slightly more tactile back, which could well be the Kevlar coating that’s been rumored for the phone. Interestingly, our tipster also says that the processor in this particular Spyder is clocked at 1.5GHz, although the final version will apparently indeed be 1.2GHz, as the earlier leaks have suggested. Check out the gallery below for a closer look at both devices.

        • Motorola Announces LAPDOCK 100 for Webtop-enabled Smartphones

          Late last night Motorola Mobility formally introduced their newest accessory/companion for webtop-enabled smartphone such as the Droid Bionic and Atrix 4G. Called the LAPDOCK 100, it arrives at AT&T (online) on October 17th and later this quarter through Verizon and Sprint.

        • Quad-core Asus Eee Pad Transformer 2 tablet may be set for November 7th launch

          Asus’s followup to the popular Eee Pad Transformer tablet maybe be set for a launch early next month. The LambdaTek Component Shop currently lists the Asus Eee Pad Transformer 2, referred to as model number TF201-1I020A, for £537.85 including VAT. Other details on the retailer’s site are limited, though the Transformer 2 listing mentions a quad-core Tegra 3 processor from NVIDIA, 32GB of storage, 1GB of RAM, a 10.1-inch display and Android 3 Honeycomb.

        • LG Doubleplay for T-Mobile: First Press Shots

Free Software/Open Source

  • “Open Source Is Powering Pretty Much Everything”

    I began to use Linux as my main OS more than five years ago and started programming in open source languages more than seven years ago. In spite of the fact that I struggled to find a reason to use Linux instead of MacOS, I still kept using Linux every day. PHP was one of the first open source languages I started using and I continue to use it even after so many years. A couple of years ago, I took the initiative of working on open source projects and contributing to other projects like Doctrine ORM and Zend Framework. I ultimately ended up basing my whole business on creating open source projects and technologies.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Which Browser Has Your Back? That Would Be Firefox

        Hard on the heels of recent reports that Google’s Chrome browser may overtake Firefox by year’s end, Mozilla on Monday released its annual “State of Mozilla” report including rosy financial results and a discussion of its efforts moving forward.

      • Will Google Continue Subsidizing Mozilla?

        For several months now, Google’s Chrome browser has been posting larger market share gains, by percentage growth, than open source rivals. In fact, many analysts predict that its market share will overtake Mozilla Firefox’s next year. The successful rise of Mozilla’s Firefox browser is a legendary story in the open source community, but many people don’t realize that Mozilla gets most of its revenues from Google. In fact, nearly all of Mozilla’s revenues come from deals that involve feeding users into search/ad ecosystems. In November of this year, though, Mozilla’s deal with Google is up for renewal. Is there a chance that it could go away?

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Open source office suites: LibreOffice takes on OpenOffice

      It has now been one year since The Document Foundation (TDF) announced the LibreOffice project, and by all counts, the open source software suite is flourishing. After just one year, TDF estimates that there are now 25 million LibreOffice users worldwide.

    • Java Reloaded

      What a difference a year makes! Twelve months ago, the world of Java was beset by fear and uncertainty. There was grave concern about Oracle’s takeover of the language via its acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Many people wondered how committed the company was to the forward progress of the language. And given the Oracle’s initial ham-fisted handling of several developer communities (such as Open Solaris and the Hudson project), there was a pervasive feeling that the company could easily ruin the language through either neglect or, more likely, by pursuing its own agenda so aggressively that it would destroy the existing Java community. The then-recent lawsuit against Google only furthered these concerns.

  • CMS

    • WordPress 3.3 Beta 1 gets new media uploader

      The first beta of WordPress version 3.3 has been announced by lead developer Ryan Boren. Among the improvements are a new HTML5 media uploader. In previous WordPress releases the uploader used a standard file selection dialog for selecting files to be uploaded, whereas this latest version uses Plupload, an open source upload handler that includes drag and drop functionality. Image resizing is available within the browser. Plupload has fallback methods including Flash and HTML4 for browsers that don’t support HTML5.

  • Education

    • Universities foster the next big tech innovation through open source

      While many technical innovations are produced by massive teams of developers at industry giants such as Google and Microsoft, a number of game-changing technologies are sprouting from grass roots efforts at universities. Through the advent of open source software, multiple developers at colleges around the globe are able to contribute code and innovate new developments without a penny of commercial investment. Tech leaders and investors alike are surprised to learn how the next big breakthrough in technology may not come from their own development teams, but from groups of students and educators collaborating through the Internet.

  • Funding

    • The State of Diaspora and Fundraising Round Two

      Today the project posted a plea for $25, or whatever you can spare, to “keep building Diaspora.”

      How much are they trying to raise? At least enough to open their own office and provide resources to implement their “larger vision” of “a safer, more secure, and more private social Web.”

      Diaspora core member Maxwell Salzberg says “we are trying to obtain ongoing community support. We want to maintain Diaspora as a community-financed project, so the core product can remain non-commercial.”

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • There’s a New GNU fdisk in Town

      GNU fdisk is one of those utilities we don’t think about much. It’s been around for ages, it does its job, and it really doesn’t noticed often. But don’t tell the GNU fdisk folks that–they’ve been busy re-writing fdisk to modernize it a bit.

  • Open Hardware

    • Open Source Project redefines the traditional coffee shop

      Inside the Open Source Project café, the scent of brewing coffee is identical to every other coffee shop — but the similarities stop there.

      Since it opened in May, the Open Source Project has been attracting customers for its coffee, but it keeps them around for its relaxed atmosphere and eclectic mix of an art gallery, music venue and café rolled into one.

Leftovers

  • Dennis Ritchie, 1941-2011: Computer scientist, Unix co-creator, C programming language designer
  • Time wasted with buggy software

    Yesterday, I was troubleshooting an issue with Microsoft Exchange 2010. There was a resource mailbox (a room mailbox) that all of a sudden stopped showing its free/busy data to the users in the company in the Scheduling Assistant and in OWA. However, the users could open the resource mailbox calendar in Outlook 2010, and view the contents of the calendar just fine. So, they appeared to have permissions to the calendar folder in one view, but not another view. The first tool I grabbed was “ExFolders.exe” which is an Exchange binary, located in the “bin” folder on the Exchange 2010 server. This tool is supposed to allow the administrator to connect to a mailbox and adjust permissions. Unfortunately in my case, it did not work as advertised. I used the tool and viewed the permissions on the “Calendar” folder in the resource mailbox which appeared correct. I removed the permissions and re-added them with the ExFolders.exe tool, double checked that they set by closing ExFolders.exe and opening it up again. But Outlook and OWA would continue to show “you do not have permissions to view free/busy data” for the resource mailbox. I went in circles for about 2 hours, trying to figure out why permissions looked correct in ExFolders.exe, yet users could not access its free/busy data, even though they could view the Calendar contents just fine (which puzzled me even more).

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Wisconsin GOP Pushes ALEC Anti-Consumer Bill to Protect Drug Makers

      In the name of “job creation,” Wisconsin GOP legislators are taking another page from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) playbook and pushing a bill that gives huge corporations that manufacture drugs and medical devices immunity from lawsuits when their products injure or kill.

    • ALEC and Coca-Cola: A “Classic” Collaboration

      What is Coca-Cola doing behind closed doors with Koch Industries and other multinational corporations in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)? Coca-Cola Refreshments’ Director of Public Affairs and Communications, Gene Rackley, represents Coke on ALEC’s “Private Enterprise” Board, along with Koch Industries’ Michael Morgan.

      Coke and ALEC have a lot in common. Both love free trade and have been big boosters of free trade agreements, such as the Korea, Panama and Columbia agreements facing votes this week in Congress. Both are dubious about recycling, especially taxes applied to industry to pay for mandatory recycling. But in one area, ALEC policy benefits Coke and other sweet drink makers directly.

  • Security

    • Internet Explorer is the safest Web browser!? Ha!
    • There Will Be No Virus For Internet Explorer 9

      So, Microsoft is supposedly using some flawed *technology* to conclude their browser is the best. It’s more like telling my dog barks the loudest.

      [..]

      Our brand name is the reason the attacks on IE9 are non-existent. Every cracker knows that our products are insecure and the first thing a user does is install either Google Chrome or Firefox, leaving IE9 to rot. Since no one is using IE9, what’s the point of writing virus for it.

  • Cablegate

    • Enron whistle-blower praises rise of WikiLeaks

      Sherron Watkins, who tried to get her bosses to stop the fraud that brought down Enron Corp. a decade ago, thinks websites like WikiLeaks will strengthen the hand of future corporate whistle-blowers.

  • Finance

    • Foes of South Korea Free Trade Deal Struggle to Be Heard
    • EU speeds up capital rules for big banks

      Europe’s biggest banks must raise billions of euros in capital to better withstand market turmoil, the European Commission proposed Wednesday, as it embarked on a major push to contain the continent’s escalating debt troubles and avert a second recession.

    • Whose Jobs Are at Risk in Free Trade

      With Congress expected on Wednesday to take up trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama as well as a benefits package for workers who lose their jobs to foreign competition, the Joint Economic Committee of Congress has released a report showing that the workers most likely to be hurt by free trade are the same groups that will have the most difficult time getting new jobs.

    • Iran’s top leader says Wall Street protests will topple capitalism in America

      Iran’s top leader said Wednesday that the wave of protests spreading from New York’s Wall Street to other U.S. cities reflects a serious crisis that will ultimately topple capitalism in America.

    • Swiss bank confirms staff indicted in US tax case

      One current and one former employee at the Swiss private bank Julius Baer have been indicted in the United States in a $600 million tax evasion case.

      A Julius Baer AG spokesman, Martin Somogyi, said the Zurich-based bank was cooperating with U.S. authorities in their investigation. He provided no further details.

    • Banking Industry Revamp Moves Step Closer to Law

      Wall Street is bracing for major changes from a new rule that would overhaul how the banking industry conducts its trading.

      The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation unanimously approved on Tuesday an initial version of the regulation, known as the Volcker Rule. Two other regulators followed suit, and the Securities and Exchange Commission is scheduled to vote on Wednesday.

    • Wall Street Protests Inspire Ire Over Bank Recruiting

      As protesters affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement continue to camp out in lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park, students at some of the nation’s top colleges are also taking up the banner of antibank activism, beginning with their schools’ on-campus recruiting programs.

    • Wall Street protests draw overseas attention

      The Occupy Wall Street movement, which has spawned grass-roots activities around the U.S. and prompted comments from President Barack Obama, is now drawing political remarks from overseas.

    • Chicago to Wall Street: Pay US Back!

      While the Occupy Wall Street movement is sweeping the country and peaceful arrests are mounting, Chicagoans took to the streets this week to hold the big banks accountable for crashing the economy and to demand city, state and federal policies that work for working families.

      For many, the goal was stopping the foreclosure mill and telling the big banks it was time to Pay US Back! for the $4.7 trillion bailout. For others, the demands focused on the fallout from the financial crisis including contentious contract negotiations with the administration of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel.

  • Privacy

    • Google Engineer disses Google+

      Steve Yegge, a Google engineer, stuck his foot in his mouth in what was meant to be a Google-insiders only rant about Google+, but behind the flames there were some valid points.

    • Google Fine With Steve’s Rant, Apple Fired Engineer For Showing iPad To Steve!

      Google’s Steve Yegge posted a Google Plus post which was intented for internal sharing. Mistakenly, it was published as public. In his post he rants about Google’s half hearted attempts. But, it tells us something about Google which is not mentioned in the post. It tells us that openness is in the DNA of Google and employees can share their thoughts openly. Yet another browny point for Google.

      On the contrary Steve Jobs fired an engineer only because he showed the iPad to none other than Steve Woznaik, the co-founder of Apple.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • ISPs “exaggerate the cost of data”

      Both fixed and mobile providers have claimed that increased internet traffic has resulted in “ballooning” costs for networks. Some ISPs have argued that content providers should pay them to help meet the cost of supplying bandwidth-intensive services such as the BBC iPlayer.

  • ACTA

    • Just Say ‘No’ to ACTA

      The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which has already been signed by eight countries, poses a dangerous threat to the inherent freedom and openess of the Internet. Under ACTA, ISPs and websites will be given more power to track what we do online, while forcing them to turn over our information and reporting our activity to the authorities — all in the name of copyright protection! This controversial intellectual property accord, which was negotiated in secret, violates our fundamental rights to free speech and access to our culture.

    • Wyden to President: Isn’t Congress Supposed to Approve International Trade Agreements?

10.12.11

Links 12/10/2011: Nokia’s New Linux Team, NGINX Gets Dosh

Posted in News Roundup at 8:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • NGINX Goes Open Core
  • Apache and IIS’ Web server rival NGINX is growing fast

    It used to be easy for Web server administrators. If you ran a Windows shop, you used Internet Information Server (IIS), if you didn’t, you used Apache. Now, though, you have more Web server choices and one of the leading alternatives, the open-source NGINX Web server, is gaining fast.

    According to Netcraft, the leading Web server analytics company, NGINX, with its over 40-million Web domains and 8.5% of all Web domains, is catching up with the big two. Indeed Netcraft analysts believe that “If current trends continue NGINX will soon overtake Microsoft to have the second largest number of active sites.”

  • Open Source Web Server NGINX Receives $3 Million Investment
  • Nginx open source web server gets Dell backing
  • Open Source Web Server Leader NGINX Closes U.S. $3 Million Series A Funding Round.
  • NGINX Go Commercial, a Promising Open Source Business Case
  • FIIB Delhi faculty’s study on ERP reported in reputed journal

    The paper analyzes business models of open source ERP, emphasizing the importance of software licensing and partner networks.

  • Open source hypervisors on VMware shops’ radars

    Hypervisors based on open source code will get new consideration from users in the next 12 months, according to the results of SearchServerVirtualization.com’s 2011 Virtualization Decisions survey.

  • Open Source. What is it Good For?

    I’ve written about open source hardware (OSHW) a few times before. Like this and this. I’ve understood open source software for quite some time and over the last few years have been starting to get what open source hardware is all about. It is different than open source software.

    With software, your tangible product is essentially intangible. Your acquisition and distribution of an open source project can be virtually free. Not so with hardware. Someone has to physically build something, which costs time and money in parts and labor. Really though, all that means is the proliferation of an open source hardware product just takes a little longer. If you look at it as the design being open source more than the actual product, then it gets to be more and more similar to software.

  • French Model Specialist Modeliosoft Goes Open Source
  • Top five drawbacks of open source (Ed: SD Times, the usual)

    While open source has seen tremendous uptake in companies large and small, there are still plenty of problems you can encounter when building on top of an open stack of software. Here are the top five.

  • Churches and Technology. Open Source and the Church

    Open source software is computer software that has been produced and is licensed in such a way that the software is allowed to be downloaded and accessed by anybody, free of charge.

    Open source in many cases is built by people that care about software as something they love to produce and something that they want to build. The developers care about how things are done, and the quality of the end result rather than the money that they can get from selling the software itself.

  • Antepedia is the largest Knowledge Base of Open Source components

  • Web Browsers

  • SaaS

    • Forget iCloud, Create Your ownCloud

      ownCloud team has announced the release of version 2 of ownCloud, the free and open source cloud computing. The latest version comes after a huge gap of one and a half year. But, this release is promising.

    • ownCloud 2 released

      ownCloud 2 has just been released. ownCloud is a web-based storage application similar to Google Docs, Dropbox or Ubuntu One with a big difference—your data is under your control. With version 2, the ownCloud team has improved the basic service and added valuable features:

      * Access your files on the web or integrate ownCloud with desktop file managers.
      * Share files securely.
      * Access music and personal information directly or connect through applications.
      * Synchronize with other web applications that use the remoteStorage protocol.
      * More user support, demos and community interaction.

    • Linux Labs to Launch New SaaS Platform in 1Q 2012

      Currently, the company is in alpha and testing with a limited number of clients. Linux has been deploying FDS cluster computer solutions for clients such as ARUP since a decade. As per the new strategy, Linux will provide an FDS SaaS solution that would provide efficiencies and cost savings for future clients, from industries such as Engineering, Educational institutions, Gas, Chemical and Government agencies like FEMA.

    • The OpenStack juggernaut

      The OpenStack collaborative industry effort to build an open source cloud platform is to be applauded for the remarkable gains it has achieved in a short amount of time. Founded by Rackspace Hosting and NASA in July last year, the organization is now backed by 120 companies, including the likes of HP, Dell, Intel and Cisco, and has already issued four major code releases, the last of which, Diablo, just came out last month and has already been downloaded 50,000 times.

  • Databases

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • More proof of Oracle’s disinterest in open source

      But as kernel developer Dave Jones notes, “The number of bug reports we get from people with VirtualBox loaded are truly astonishing. It’s GPL, but sadly that doesn’t mean it’s good. Nearly all of these bugs look like random corruption. (corrupt linked lists, corrupt page tables, and just plain ‘weird’ crashes).”

      Hence Jones has added a patch to list the driver as tainted. Doing so, means that “automatic bug filing tools can opt out of automatically filing kernel bugs, and inform the user to file bugs somewhere more appropriate.”

      There are many third-party drivers which are present on GNU/Linux systems. They are maintained by outsiders and if the code meets the high standards of the kernel then they often get merged with the mainline kernel. Oracle is the owner of VirtualBox and given that it is a widely used platform should, by rights, be maintaining the driver.

    • Hard-up OpenOffice whips out begging-cap website

      Hamburg-based open-source project OpenOffice will embark upon a major fundraising campaign this week to defend itself against a looming shutdown.

    • Oracle Previews Upcoming Solaris 11 and Oracle Linux Changes

      Almost lost within the fanfare of last week’s Oracle OpenWorld were several sneak peeks at where the company is heading with its Solaris and Oracle Linux operating systems (OS) in the near future. For the upcoming release of Solaris 11, the company announced features to make it more user friendly, more virtualized and more scalable. On the Linux side, Oracle revealed it is releasing a second version of its Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for Linux. The big news here is that it can be patched without any downtime.

  • Education

    • Open source science

      In 2009, mathematician Timothy Gowers posed this question to the blogosphere: “Is massively collaborative mathematics possible?” He described an unsolved math problem and asked for help figuring it out. Over the next few hours and days, commenters began to pick at the problem together. They brought up incomplete ideas, which were expanded and incorporated into other peoples’ ideas, until Gowers posted 37 days later that the problem had (probably) been solved.

  • Funding

    • Spree Raises $1.5 Million From True Ventures, Aol For Open Source eCommerce Platform

      Spree Commerce, the open source, Ruby on Rails-based eCommerce solution, announced today that it has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by True Ventures. Also participating in the round were Aol Ventures, and angels like Sean Glass. Spree has also brought on some notable advisors, including Dries Buytaert (Creator of Drupal), Luke Kanies (Creator of Puppet), Tom Preston-Werner (Co-founder of Github), and James Lindenbaum (Co-founder of Heroku).

    • Open Source Ecommerce Solution Raises $1.5M in Seed Funding

      Popular open source ecommerce solution, Spree, announced yesterday it has officially become incorporated as Spree Commerce Inc. This announcement comes after Spree’s raising of $1.5 million in a seed-funding round led by True Ventures. Other participants in the round include AOL Ventures and Sean Glass.

  • Project Releases

  • Public Services/Government

    • Bristol City Council all clear for open source

      Bristol City Council has announced that there are “no security or accreditation issues that should hold us back from pushing ahead with our open source agenda”. The announcement was said by the council to be the result of working with the Cabinet Office after concerns were raised, by the council itself, about security accreditation for open source software. The council leader Barbara Janke said: “We have now been given the green light by the Cabinet Office to push ahead with this open source agenda and they have promised to work closely with us on this issue over the next few months”.

    • Cabinet Office Approves Bristol’s Open Source Plans

      The government’s cyber security arm has given Bristol council the go-ahead to use open source software

      Bristol City Council has been given the green light to push ahead with its open source strategy following a meeting with CESG, the cyber security arm of the UK intelligence services.

      The council first announced its intention to adopt open source alongside existing Microsoft software in September 2010. As part of an ongoing review of its desktop systems, the council was looking to replace its current email system with an open source alternative.

    • Bristol gears up for ‘fantastic’ open source project

      Bristol City Council is set to begin work on a major open source project, following a meeting called by the Cabinet Office.

      The meeting, held on Thursday last week, was attended by LinuxIT, an open source specialist located in the city. GCHQ, the government’s communications tracking headquarters, and vendors BeLIB and Nameless, also attended.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Data

      • Public Data Mining Project Prompts Concerns

        On the Internet, information is everywhere. From blogs to Tweets and everywhere in between, the data stream seems endless. For your average Web surfer, the majority of this information is irrelevant and may be disregarded. But what if casual information, like the kind found on blogs and Webcams, could be made useful?

        The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), a US government research agency, believes that this is possible, and that information from such sources may be able to predict the future.

    • Open Hardware

      • How open source can help you build a voice-activated robotic arm

        The project that I discovered was developed by UK Aerospace Engineer, Arthur Amarra, who normally works on the structural analysis of composite aircraft wings, but who professes to have been an avid linux geek for as long as he can remember.

        Amarra initially purchased the robotic arm as a gadget to play with and admits that the machine is not particularly useful in itself since it is only capable of lifting objects that weigh in at about 100 grams.

  • Programming

Leftovers

  • Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols: Microsoft’s Metro is on the wrong track for many Windows users

    Microsoft has made it clear that it considers Windows 8′s Metro interface and applications to be the future. When I look at Metro, however, I see gaudy colors, boxy designs, applications that can either run as a small tile or as full screen with no way to resize or move windows. Where have I seen this before? Wait, I know! Windows 1.0.

    Twenty-five years of user-interface development and this is what we get? Scary.

  • Censorship

    • Censorware or child protection? We need clarity from government and ISPs

      ISPs are discussing what they call “Active Choice”: that is, to insist that adults are given a yes / no choice before installing or using parental controls when they set up a new broadband connection.

      Now, there is a world of difference between offering sensible child safety, and trying to persuade adults to live with layers of censorship.

      Thus the devil is therefore in the detail, and how “options” are presented. Will adults be asked if they need parental controls, or if they want to “adult content” switched on?

    • Call your MP today to repeal the Web Blocking Clauses of the Digital Economy Act

      These amendments will be debated late this afternoon, and we need as many sympathetic MPs to be there as possible!

  • Copyrights

    • Can default P2P settings break the law? US says yes

      The Federal Trade Commission has decided that certain default software settings can violate the law against “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce.” The agency recently went after the peer-to-peer filesharing program FrostWire for sharing too many user files by default, something that could easily lead to identity theft, copyright infringement, and the loss of “intimate photographs.” That’s right: the federal government now goes to court to protect the privacy of your nude smartphone pics.

    • Publishing. Right. Wrong. Otherwise!

      Think about this, and think hard. I’m going to list a bunch of media:

      * Video Laserdiscs
      * Betamax Videotapes
      * VHS Videotapes
      * Long Play Vinyl Records
      * Reel to Reel Audio Tapes
      * Eight Track Audio Tapes
      * Cassette Audio Tapes
      * Audio Compact Discs
      * Paper Books

      All of these media have a common purpose, to deliver a form of entertainment. They are a delivery system. Of course the delivery system has to be delivered, and it has to be displayed on shelf space.

      The current switch to electronic delivery of electronic files removes the need for a delivery system and for shelf space. This is why Borders went bankrupt in the United States, and it is why Chapters-Indigo in Canada has a smaller and smaller amount of shelf space devoted to books.

10.11.11

Links 11/10/2011: Wine 1.3.30, Sabayon 7 is Coming

Posted in News Roundup at 8:44 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • 4 Reasons to Have Live Linux at Home
  • LPI Announces Academic Training Partners in Malaysia

  • Desktop

    • Best Use for an Old Laptop: TinyCore Linux

      Like many computer geeks, I have more unused computers than I know what to do with. Old hardware is often considered to be obsolete when often the MSWindows went pear shaped.. I know that Linux can breath new life into almost any hardware, so I have a hard time letting older machines go. Unfortunately, they often don’t have the needed components to be fully usable — what good is a computer these days without networking?

      TinyCore Linux is an ultra-small Linux desktop; the 4.0 release is just under 12MB. TinyCore is stripped down, so don’t expect the bells and whistles of a more active desktop, such as KDE or OSX or Windows has. Instead, its claim is that it runs in RAM and it runs fast, which is great for older hardware.

    • Frankendesktop: My Gothic desktop fantasy

      Over the course of the day, I have to hop between various desktops. That experience set me wondering what a desktop would look like if it were assembled from all the favourite features that I encounter daily. Of course, it’s pure fantasy. But just in case, somewhere on the planet, a team of developers is trying to create the ideal desktop, here’s a roadmap that they might like to follow.

  • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Podcast Season 3 Episode 19

      In this episode: Canonical launches an app developer portal and there’s a new mobile Linux initiative. We create a whole new section of the podcast, discover lots of things and discuss whether secure booting will hinder Linux adoption.

  • Kernel Space

    • Kernel Log: Linux 3.1 approaches

      Kernel version 3.1 will probably be released in the next few days. After a break of more than four weeks, Greg Kroah-Hartman has released new stable kernels. The X.org developers are thinking about merging the most important graphics drivers into the X Server.

      Late last Tuesday night, Linus Torvalds issued the ninth release candidate of Linux 3.1. Since then, some further corrections have been integrated into the main development branch; however, in the past few days there have not been any new hints on when Linux 3.1 might get released – but it is likely to be released some time this week, or next week at the latest, as indicated by Torvalds when releasing RC7.

    • The kernel column with Jon Masters #106

      As is the case every month, Jon Masters looks at the latest developments in the Linux kernel community, including work on new architecture and ABI support, not to mention Kernel.org disruptions…

    • Logitech C270 Webcam and Linux

      After years of having an audio-only computer, I finally succumbed and bought a USB webcam, so that I can do video calling through Skype.

      First, because I’m frugal, I looked on-line to see what low-cost cameras were available at my local retail chains. The Logitech C210 seemed to be the least expensive and most available.

    • The VirtualBox Kernel Driver Is Tainted Crap

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • Testing, XFCE to the Rescue

      What a busy week it has been with testing, finding bugs, confirming and submitting. Generally I test Gnome and KDE isos, but this time went off the wall as my frustrations grow with both Gnome and KDE and decided to test XFCE 64 bit edition. Last time I looked at XFCE was like version 4.0, so to my surprise 4.8 will knock your socks off compared to that.

      So I have decided that with my Sabayon Forensic spins, I will go with xfce instead. I’ve been up to my ears in the skel files learning the xfce ways, adding and removing packages and been testing local isos via the wonderful tool molecule. My computer is feeling the pains tho, molecule will really give those cpus a work out. So drop the KDE and Gnome editions and just go with XFCE to make this simpler and more universal for working with various computers. Gnome-shell is kinda of a nightmare right now on various hardware. KDE has it’s issues too, but works better than gnome-shell.

    • Linux For The Masses!

      I remember when the 4.0 release of KDE hit the public, which I believe should never have happened that early. I didn’t like what the KDE 4 series brought to the table, and in some ways I still don’t, but I gave the project the time it needed to mature, which the KDE team wasn’t giving it by releasing too early in my opinion. Anyway, I found the 4.6, and 4.7 releases something I could work with, and give it a fair try. To be perfectly honest too, there was aspects of the KDE 3 series that I wasn’t fond of, and had found some problems with it many times, even with the last release of it. Nothing’s perfect, and it’s foolish to think all things must fit that way. But to the point, I waited it out, let it mature, and have been pleasantly surprised. Would I switch back to KDE after all this time since I left the 3 series? I don’t know. I won’t say that it wouldn’t happen, but I can’t say it will. I grew to like the GNOME 2 series, even with its lack of configuration options, and simplistic UIs, compared to KDE. But I could easily switch if need be, or more importantly, if GNOME 3 matures quickly, or even Unity, I could switch to those. They’re tomorrow.

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • Plasma Active

        Here is the About screen for Plasma Active One, as seen in our instance running on top of MeeGo, recently abandoned by Intel and Nokia Linux-based operating system for mobile devices.

      • Results from poll about future of XScreensavers in KDE Plasma

        Today ended the poll on forums.kde.org about the future of X Screen saver support in the KDE Plasma Workspaces. I want to thank everybody who participated in the poll. The poll and the thread clearly help us to see what the users need and want and what we need to provide.

      • KDE’s Summer of Achievements

        KDE took part in its 7th year as a mentoring organization for the Google Summer of Code. Thanks to Google’s generous funding and KDE’s mentors we were able to work with 51 students over the summer, once again making KDE the largest organization taking part in Google Summer of Code. Choosing the right students was hard but the selection turned out well. The students coded in nearly all areas of KDE from Calligra and Rekonq to Amarok and KStars. Their projects turned out very well, and we’ve once again been impressed with the talent and dedication of the students. All 51 students passed their mid-term evaluation and 47 successfully passed their final evaluation. Valorie Zimmerman, KDE Administrator for Google Summer of Code, says: “KDE got forty-seven completed projects, which is tremendous. Our focus though is not on the code itself, but on the students and their involvement with KDE. However, their projects enrich KDE immensely, and you’ll be seeing their code integrated into our codebase over the next few months. “

      • digiKam Tricks 3.9.5 Released
      • Humanizing metal and electrons

        We think that looking at different devices as isolated worlds, needing completely different “Apps” and UX stacks for each kind of device it’s pretty limiting, and it’s not the way who uses it (aka “humans”;) thinks.

        What we believe in, is that computing devices (doesn’t matter if it’s the laptop, a tablet, or something running in a washing machine) should exist in function of helping the people accomplishing the task they want to do, no more, no less, devices shouldn’t be something complex, hard and therefore “harming”, but should just be extensions of the user harm, of the user mind, just tools, and in every situation, the best tool for the best job.

      • How Cute can Konqui Be?
      • Plasma Active Perspectives: The App Story

        Plasma Active brings a flexible, elegant, activity-driven user experience to a spectrum of devices. This article is part of a series of articles about different perspectives on Plasma Active. In the first installment, we look at a number of applications that come with Plasma Active. Kontact Touch, Calligra Active, Bangarang and a collection of Active Apps provide a stable and powerful set of functionality, making Plasma Active suitable for personal and professional use cases.

      • KDE’s ‘Plasma Active’ Tops GNOME 3 and Unity

        Mobile devices have been influencing desktop software design for several years now. Mostly, I’ve not been impressed. Either the results are awkward, like GNOME 3, or over-simplified, like Ubuntu’s Unity.

        I had just about reached the conclusion that the mobile influence represented a step backwards in desktop design — then I tried KDE’s Plasma Active, a desktop designed for touch screen tablets, and all my assumptions were trampled underfoot.

    • GNOME Desktop

      • Has Gnome 3 decided that people shouldn’t want screen savers?

        As you may know, years ago some fresh young face on the Gnome team decided, for no sensible reason, to re-implement the xscreensaver daemon from scratch and call it “gnome-screensaver”. This re-write was still able to run the 95% of xscreensaver that comprised the actual, you know, screen savers. It ran them badly, but it ran them.

      • Elementary Viper Luna Gnome Shell Theme

        Elementary Viper Luna Gnome Shell theme is inspired by DanRabit’s work on Elementary Luna desktop. The theme is created by justviper who in past gave us couple of nice Gnome Shell themes.

      • Looking For a Beautiful GNOME Shell Theme? Try ‘Nord’
      • Gnome 3.2 reviewed | Its uber cool and feature rich

        Gnome 3.2 was released a few days back. With an improved shell and various other integrations, this shell will please many users. We had been looking closely at the developments from the Gnome stable with our posts on Installing Gnome shell, Gnome Shell extensions and Gnome Shell themes. Check out this article to find out more about the new features in Gnome 3.2

      • Gnome 3.2 Review

        All in all, it’s a mixed bag of a release. The improvements that have come with it are definitely welcome. The Gtk+ theme updates have certainly improved my day to day experience with the desktop, and I’m hopeful that the new applications and online accounts integration will turn in to really excellent features in the near future.

        Unfortunately, many of the bugs and annoyances from the 3.0 release persist – largely because the Gnome team doesn’t consider these bugs but features – and some new ones have been introduced.

        Weighing things up, I’d say that my overall experience with the desktop is little improved from 3.0. That said, it’s not an altogether bad thing since I did quite like the 3.0 release and still find this series of Gnome releases to be the best free desktop for my needs.

      • Thoughts on being an upstream

        I’ve been reading things people report in Bugzilla for years. How I feel about this now is that there are really several, entirely different things that we presently lump under “bug”. For example, I think it’s pretty clear that someone’s random ideas for a change to the design are totally different from say identified code regressions, which are in turn different from proposed patches.

  • Distributions

    • Slackware 13.37 – Perfect for My Laptop

      Most people who have dabbled in Linux for a while “know” that Slackware is difficult to install, configure, make work and keep up to date. It is an OS only for geeks. Not so. These days the developments in the wider universe have trickled down to Slackware as well, and having something like KDE 4 as default desktop already means plenty of things taken care of, with all the utilities and options this desktop environment is providing.

    • New Releases

    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

      • Million Dollar Baby…

        Since the begining of the Mageia adventure, 243 people gave money to Mageia.Org, helping us to buy hardware, domain names, goodies, …
        It makes an average donation of € 62 ($ 83) per donor! Thank you to all the money donors or ressources partners (ielo, gandi, online) but also to all other people offering in the way they want: time (packagers, triage, qa, artwork, marketing, bug report, dev…) or just by spreading Mageia arround them by buying TS or talking on forums, events…

    • Gentoo Family

      • Sabayon 7 Brings The Experimental Fusion Kernel

        Sabayon Linux, the easy-to-use distribution derived from Gentoo, reached version 7.0 yesterday. Among other improvements, Sabayon 7 features an “ultra-optimized” Linux 3.0 kernel as well as the project’s experimental Fusion Kernel.

        Some of the key software packages to Sabayon Linux 7 include the Linux 3.0 kernel, GNOME 3.2, KDE SC 4.7, Xfce 4.8, and LibreOffice 3.4. In total there’s been more than 4,000 package updatss since Sabayon 6.0, which arrived back in June. There’s also XBMC 10.0 support, an updated Entropy Framework, support for new languages and fonts, and semi-automated package updates.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat (RHT) Approaches New Upside Target of $44.40

        Shares of Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) have bullishly opened above the pivot of $42.75 today and have reached the first resistance level of $43.64. Analysts will be watching for a cross of the next upside pivot targets of $44.40 and $46.05.

      • Red Hat: Perfect Short Candidate For This Market

        Red Hat, Inc. (RHT) is a provider of open source, Linux-based software for corporate IT customers. The company has been a rumored acquisition target for years, with potential suitors including Oracle (ORCL), IBM (IBM), and most recently Hewlett-Packard (HPQ).

      • Red Hat’s Open-Source Software Lowers Costs

        Cloud computing has been compared to an electricity grid, mainly because end users can access power and services without having to set up and run the infrastructure.

        With the cloud, software and applications are stored on remote servers and delivered over the Internet rather than individual computers.

      • Fedora

        • Results of the voting for the Fedora 17 release name
        • Fedora 17 Has A Tasty Codename: Beefy Miracle

          Last week Mark Shuttleworth announced Ubuntu 12.04 LTS would be codenamed Precise Pangolin while this evening Red Hat’s Jared Smith has announced the codename for Fedora 17, which will be released around the same time next spring.

        • Testing Fedora 16 “Verne” – Beta

          I made the upgrade of my operating system to Fedora 16 (a.k.a. Verne). The first thing I did was update my applications. Then I did the procedures mentioned in this link.

          The download size was about 1.2 GB so I waited for it to end. I did not have to do any other commands in particular. When it was over, I restarted my computer to see if it had worked properly.

          The first thing I noticed was the advance of a grub2 grub. After changing to black at the bottom of plymouth. Then I realized I had changed from the login screen. Now I like Fedora more.

        • “I’m a Beefy Miracle” song
        • Fedora 17 Will Be Named Beefy Miracle

          Jared Smith proudly announced earlier today the codename for the upcoming Fedora 17 operating system, due for release next year.

    • Debian Family

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu 11.10 Is in the Wings: Three Days and Counting

            It’s now been almost six months since the release of Ubuntu 11.04, or “Natty Narwhal,” and that means it’s about time for the next version of Canonical’s popular Linux distribution to make its official debut.

          • Small Things That Matter: Logging Out of Ubuntu From the Dash
          • Unity: I just can’t
          • The Supreme Court of India Embraces Ubuntu Linux
          • Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 236
          • Official Ubuntu 11.10 CDs Go On Sale

            The official Ubuntu 11.10 CDs have gone on sale in the Canonical Store.

          • Video: Ubuntu 11.10 Review

            For our Ubuntu fans as well as those who just want to learn about the upcoming release, I found this on youtube. I was hoping for HTML5 playback option, but this seems to be Flash only. The review was done from a recent release candidate that I believe will be the final release due out this Thursday. I still prefer KDE myself. :)

          • Sushi File Previewer in Ubuntu 11.10 Unity

            One of the new features in GNOME 3.2 is quick file preview. Pressing space while a file is selected in the file browser will open a window with a preview of the file contents. Previews of images, videos, music, PDF documents, and more are supported.

          • Transforming the home PC with Ubuntu 11.10

            Millions of home users give their computers a new lease of life with Ubuntu each year. The upcoming version, Ubuntu 11.10, has substantial benefits for those looking for the latest personal cloud and web technologies, as well as those running on older hardware.

          • Ubuntu will power HP’s new cloud service

            Ubuntu Linux will be the primary operating system powering HP’s upcoming cloud service, Ubuntu maker Canonical said last week. HP recently opened a private beta program for an infrastructure-as-a-service cloud that will offer both compute and storage capacity, using the OpenStack open source cloud platform.

          • An Elephant On A Computer

            Probably a good idea to install one of the countless Linux and open source distros as a backup OS on the old traveling netbook.

          • Ubuntu 11.10 arrives with ARM support

            Canonical is claiming to have released the first general-purpose server platform to run on ARM architecture chips with Ubuntu 11.10, which also introduces a service orchestration framework and updated support for the OpenStack cloud platform.

          • Ubuntu prepares for ARM-based servers

            Linux vendor Canonical is to make the latest iteration of its operating systems for client and server, Ubuntu 11.10, available for download this Thursday.

          • Ubuntu 11.10 will support ARM processors to take on Red Hat

            Canonical’s popular Ubuntu Linux distribution will get its second update of 2011 this month for both desktop and server editions. However it is the server edition that Canonical has made the biggest changes to by supporting ARM processors.

          • The Other Issue With Ubuntu 11.10: Boot Speed
          • Ubuntu Server Aims to Own the Cloud

            With a lack of any license fees and a focus on cloud features from its primary sponsor, Canonical, Ubuntu has flourished in the cloud, becoming a popular guest operating system on Amazon EC2 and other infrastructure-as-a-service options.

          • Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot, new feature info

            Currently the most up-to-date Ubuntu distro is Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, this arrived back in April and initially we weren’t seeing a lot of love for the new Unity user interface which this OS version introduced, but now people have had a chance to use it you can understand why it was favored to the dated Gnome layout.

          • HP to Use Linux-Based Ubuntu Platform in Upcoming Cloud Computing Service

            Canonical has announced that Hewlett Packard has chosen Linux-based Ubuntu platform as the lead and guest OS in its upcoming cloud computing offering.

            In a blog post, Canonical, which handles the software distribution, revealed that CEO Jane Silber made the announcement during the OpenStack cloud computing conference in Boston.

          • Indian Supreme Court Switches Over To Ubuntu; So Should USA

            The Supreme Court of the world’s largest democracy has ordered all courts across India to switch to GNU/Linux based operating system Ubuntu. Prior to this move the courts across India were using the Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which is mainly targeted at servers. More than 17,000 courts around India will now be switching over to Ubuntu from RHEL.

          • Flavours and Variants

            • The Top 5 Ubuntu based Linux distributions

              In this article I am introducing some of the most amazing derivatives of Ubuntu. Ubuntu based distros are basically Ubuntu with specialized applications in a particular domain. For instance, it could be in education like Edubuntu or multimedia or Mythubunu. Read on to find out more.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Tux goes for a spin

      The Linux Foundation has announced a new event and a new emphasis for Linux: the inaugural Automotive Linux Summit.

      The Auto Summit, which will happen on November 28 in Yokohama, Japan, is geared to “address the growing need for carmakers and Linux developers to collaborate on the future of computing on wheels.”

      And, I would suspect, a chance to really try to showcase the in-vehicle capabilities of MeeGo and Tizen, two mobile platform projects stewarded by the Linux Foundation.

      You don’t hear much about these platforms’ in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) features, except in press releases about the platforms themselves, where we all die a little bit inside when we read the word “infotainment.” But it’s as good a term as any to describe the class of devices that have come as an option in cars in recent years, like seat warmers. OnStar, GM’s big revenue generator, and Ford Sync, an equivalent IVI platform powered by Microsoft’s Embedded Automotive operating system, are two examples of this kind of system.

    • Phones

    • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

      • Motorola Xoom Tablet: The Business Review

        Is the Motorola Xoom – a Google Android-powered tablet – ready for business users and channel partners? David Courbanou, my peer here at The VAR Guy, wasn’t all that impressed with early Xoom 2 chatter. But I’ve spent recent days using the original Xoom. iPad lovers cover your ears: I believe the Xoom tablet has something to offer the business world.

        First things first. While attending the recent Box.net customer conference, I received a Xoom tablet for free. Generally speaking, The VAR Guy’s editorial team doesn’t accept free technology unless it’s part of a broad conference giveaway — as in this case. Also, we always disclose how we received the hardware and software we test.

      • Motorola Solutions spins ruggedized Android tablet

        Motorola Solutions announced a ruggedized, seven-inch Android 2.3.4 tablet for enterprise users. The ET1 tablet offers a dual-core, 1GHz Texas Instruments OMAP4 processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of flash memory, a 1024 x 600 pixel display with extra thick Gorilla Glass, and an eight-megapixel camera with barcode reading capabilities, the company says.

Free Software/Open Source

  • Pros and Cons of Open Source Software

    And even though I can only cover a fraction of the open source/closed source applications available today, I ‘ll touch on the most common software titles.

  • FLOSS software things which I wonder about

    I attended the Floss Unconference fest yesterday at Manchester Conference centre (a location I had planned to use for BarCampManchester2 due to their ability to do overnights and excellent warren like structure).
    The event was reasonable but not well attended, which was a shame. It needed about another 30 people to feel more busy and active. Not quite sure why people never came out for it…? But to be honest I only spotted it by hearing a tweet from Teknoteacher. Anyhow, at the end of the day there were lightening talks and I jumped at the chance to talk about software which really needs to be developed on Linux. I’ve adopted this post to apply to most Floss type things…

  • Web Browsers

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • LibreOffice Conference
    • A message from the Eocene; or, the ballad of WordPerfect

      From time to time, I look back fondly on the years when I ran Windows. It doesn’t last; my wife’s computer has XP on it, and XP needs some periodic adjusting, and then it all seems like just a bad dream.

      [...]

      But the other day I opened up LibreOffice Writer in my Mageia installation on the laptop. It opened up in about ⅔ of a window, as it always does (it must be a KDE thing, because it does the same thing in my Kubuntu) (or it was transient; weeks later, sometimes it opens up in a full window), and I maximized it, and I realized that I’m really never going to love LibreOffice Writer.

    • A FOSS Success Story: LibreOffice Turns 1

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • GNU PDF no longer an FSF high priority project
    • Upon further review . . . [Ed: I do not agree with Stallman's critics, just informing about opinions]

      – A glaring omission: While re-reading my blog post, it mistakenly reads like it’s just Richard Stallman’s statement on Steve Jobs that is the sole reason for my leaving the FSF. It’s not. The statement about Jobs is just a tipping point in a list of several incidents where I, and others, have run into resistance, censorship and pariah-hood by merely questioning the FSF gospel over the years that I have been a FSF member. As an aside, an e-mail exchange with FSF executive director John Sullivan — some long and detailed, some not — allowed me to air my grievances, and I am grateful to him for lending a proverbial ear to hear these concerns. Sullivan’s e-mail exchanges, as well as discussions with others, show there is room for change in the organization.

    • Time to fork the FSF
    • I’d buy that for a dollar

      I hear “Photoshop is bad”, but I think you should say “Gimp is awesome” instead. I hear “Windows is evil”, but I’d rather hear “Use Fedora today!”.

    • Leave It To Richard Stallman To Go There

      I met Stallman for lunch many years ago at a San Francisco Burmese restaurant. Stallman can be an infuriating man, but he can also be a very charming lunch companion.

  • Public Services/Government

    • PL: Deputy Prime Minister calls FLOSS “the greatest success of the 20th century”

      Waldemar Pawlak, Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy, saluted Free and Open Source Software (FLOSS) as the “greatest success of the 20th century” in a conference talk on 27 September 2011. He added that FLOSS is based on very sound principles and can provide solutions to some of the problems of civilization which we will face in the 21st century.

  • Openness/Sharing

Leftovers

  • OpenIndiana—a Free Fork of the Solaris OS (Part 1)

    OpenIndiana comprises the Illumos core, taken from OpenSolaris, with a set of GNU user-land tools. OpenIndiana can even be called an analogue to GNU/Linux, but instead of a monolithic Linux kernel, it uses the OS/Net-based derivative kernel known as Illumos, which is 100 per cent ABI compatible with the Solaris kernel. In short, we can assume that OpenIndiana is actually the OpenSolaris operating system.
    Once upon a time, there was Sun Microsystems. Not just an IT industry flagship, but also a legendary firm. Famous for SPARC processors, the Java language, and for the decades it spent developing its own UNIX OS, Solaris. Solaris’ successor is the OpenIndiana project.

  • Hardware

    • Linux Hardware: Harddrives for Video Editing on Linux

      I like to shoot and edit video (on Debian GNU/Linux, of course on KDE, using the wonderful KDEnlive Video Editor), but in video editing, there is always a bottleneck. My wife and I recently purchased a Nikon D5100 camera which shoots fantastic video in hi-def! I was worried that my video editing computer hardware wouldn’t be able to keep up with these large HD video files.*

  • Health/Nutrition

    • “Occupy Wall Street” Should Protest Wall Street Takeover of Health Care

      The lobbyists for U.S. health insurers surely have to be feeling a little uneasy knowing that thousands of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators who have been marching and protesting in Washington as well as New York and other cities might target them in the days ahead. After all, the headquarters of the insurers’ biggest lobbying and PR group, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), at 601 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., is just blocks away from Freedom Plaza, where the demonstrators have set up camp — and problems with health insurers appear to be near the top of the list of protesters’ concerns.

      Health Care for America Now, an umbrella advocacy group that played a key role in the health care reform debate, last week analyzed the 546 comments that had been posted by then on the “We are the 99 percent” Tumblr site. It found that 262 of the comments mention such problems as getting denials for doctor-ordered care from their insurance companies and having to forego treatment because of hefty out-of-pocket costs.

  • Defence/Police/Aggression

    • Boston Police Assault #OccupyBoston arresting around one hundred protesters

      At 1:30 this morning police in full riot gear attacked the participants of Occupy Boston, which had peacefully gathered on the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Without any regard for the protester’s constitutional rights, the Boston Police Department made no distinction between protesters, medics, or legal observers, arresting legal observer Ursula Levelt, who serves on the steering committee for the National Lawyers Guild, as well as four medics attempting to care for the injured.

  • Finance

    • Occupy Wall Street
    • Goldman Sachs CEO cancels lecture at Barnard

      In response to Blankfein’s invite, Columbia students had organized “School the Squid” week—referring to writer Matt Taibbi calling Goldman Sachs “a great vampire squid”—including a series of discussions and film screenings focused on corporate greed and abuse of power.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • ALEC Tied to British Political Scandal

      British Conservative Party defense secretary Liam Fox is in the midst of scandal that has grown deeper as ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are revealed. Pressure has been growing on Fox in recent weeks after having been caught in a lie about unethical dealings with his friend and former flatmate, and more ethical problems arising from the operation of a recently-dissolved, ALEC-connected “charity” Fox founded.

  • Censorship

  • Civil Rights

    • Electronic Surveillance Scandal Hits Germany

      A German hacker organization claims to have cracked spying software allegedly used by German authorities. The Trojan horse has functions which go way beyond those allowed by German law. The news has sparked a wave of outrage among politicians and media commentators.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • EU Governments Oppose an Open Wireless Infrastructure

      Paris, October 11th, 2011 – As the European Union engages in important discussions on the future of the radio spectrum policy – i.e the future of open wireless communications -, it’s becoming clear that national governments are aligned on the position of dominant telecom operators. To protect open wireless communications operated and controlled by citizens, the EU Parliament must resist the pressure and defend its position.

  • DRM

    • Removing DRM can prevent piracy

      One of the biggest factors leading to music being pirated is the security software which is used to stop it being… er… pirated.

      Economists from Rice and Duke Universities have been using game theory to work out that DRM technologies, which restrict music file copying and moving, encourage illegal file sharing instead.

      Dinahy Vernik, assistant professor of marketing at Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business told Ars Technica that DRM restrictions prevent legal users from doing something as normal as making backup copies of their music. Because DRM makes things inconvenient, punters choose to pirate.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • ACTA

        • ACTA’s Impact on Industry and Human Rights – Letters to EU Parliament

          La Quadrature du Net has written to two key committees of the European Parliament regarding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). As the EU Parliament engages in preparatory works in view of its upcoming consent vote on ACTA, La Quadrature stresses that the Parliament must fully assess the dangers of this agreement for innovation, competition and competitiveness of EU businesses, but also for human rights.

Links 11/10/2011: KDE Releases Plasma Active One, Debian 6.0.3 is Out

Posted in News Roundup at 6:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Dave Whitinger, LXer

    I know of Dave Whitinger from LXer, which is a lot of people’s must-read for Linux and open source news (obviously, it’s one of my daily stops). Dave has a fascinating setup. As you’ll read, it’s Fluxbox over Fedora, and as Dave points out, it allows him to use the same user interface for as long as he wants to. Thinking like this keeps Dave out of the UI wars and lets him focus on work. It’s a novel concept…

  • Different computer users, one common Linux complaint

    I guess I fall in the gourmet user category. I decided not to jump into the MS Office 2007 wagon because I could use the previous version quite efficiently. Well, since the version I bought did not include PowerPoint, I had to learn how to use electronic presentation software in StarOffice. Additionally, I didn’t like the Ribbon interface…and they killed “Linxs”. To modify pictures, I used Satori (never liked Photoshop), not MS Paint. And I didn’t use MS Movie Maker to produce videos, but VirtualDub. I required my OS to be able to handle Japanese input. Finally, I also wanted my OS to handle text-to-speech synthesis, to fire all sorts of alarms (music, alerts, actions) and to keep me protected from malware. I managed to learn how to do all that in Windows (with the obvious exception of the latter, which is virtually impossible). To do everything I required, the computer depended on many, many third-party programs to add functionality to the MS OS.

    I never shy away from learning. That’s the reason why migrating to Linux was not so difficult for me…not to mention that I found a friendlier environment in which all tasks I require from the OS can be performed more easily than in the MS operating system.

  • Small Victories? I’ll Take ‘Em…

    Unfortunately, one of her most counted-on apps will not run in Wine or Crossover. Efficient PIM is a great little all-around calendaring app with a ton of features. She has now upgraded to the full version just so she has a license, should she ever have to reinstall. I had a legit license for WinXP SP3 and I installed it via VirtualBox on her Linux side.

    From what I understand, she is now working more than half the time in Linux. Microsoft is in the position to abuse their customer base this way because people think they have to endure it to access their computer.

    I am glad to report there is one less of them today.

  • Kernel Space

    • Motherboards With Broken ASPM On Linux

      One of the many OpenBenchmarking.org features that haven’t yet been fully taken advantage is the opportunities presented by the vast collection of system hardware/software information and logs that have been submitted to this collaborative testing platform from Phoronix Media. OpenBenchmarking.org is much more than just being a storage place for benchmark results. After writing a simple plug-in this morning, here’s a list of many motherboards that have broken PCI-E Active State Power Management support from their BIOS, which can lead to greatly increased power consumption under Linux.

    • Intel’s Brewing A New Linux Driver Release Cycle

      Intel’s Open-Source Technology Center (OSTC) team responsible for the open-source Linux graphics driver stack is drafting new plans for how they release their driver code. The release model and release criteria for the Intel Linux driver will be quite different from the status quo of putting out new releases on a timed quarterly basis.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • Desktop Summit 2011 Berlin survey published

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • KDE takes on Android, Apple’s iOS on smartphones and tablets

        If another group was trying to take on Android and Apple’s iOS on smartphones and tablets, I’d dismiss them. RIM, BlackBerry’s parent company, is having a heck of a time getting anyone to buy into PlayBook and while HP TouchPad users loved it,HP killed the TouchPad after only a few weeks. So, why should anyone think that KDE, makers of one of the two most popular Linux desktops, should stand a chance with Plasma Active? Well, because KDE has a long history of delivering the goods with minimal resources.

        So what is it? Plasma Active is not, like Android, iOS, or webOS, an operating system. It’s a KDE 4.x style interface and application programming interface (API) designed for touch devices. The Plasma Active Team states that “Plasma Active is innovative technology for an intelligent user experience (UX). It is intended for all types of tablets, smartphones and touch computing devices such as set-top boxes, smart TVs, home automation, in-vehicle infotainment. The goals for this KDE open source project are:
        A fast embedded UX platform with minimal memory requirements
        Customizable and modular to support different form factors
        An interface that adapts as users change Activities.

      • Plasma Active One released!

        Today marks a major milestone for KDE Plasma Workspaces. Plasma Active One has been released, primarily for tablet computers. It is the latest expression of the Plasma concept, following Plasma Desktop and Plasma Netbook. In the KDE tradition, Plasma Active One is designed for the best User Experience—for people on the move and engaged in many activities.

        Plasma Active is a truly open project. It is modular, customizable, and offers an attractive app development environment. The KDE Community and the Plasma Active team invite participation from individuals and companies with interests in ultraportable computing.

      • KDE Commit-Digest for 2nd October 2011
      • KDE Releases Plasma Active One User Experience

        There’s several screenshots of this new KDE tablet user experience within the press release. Plasma Active can be installed as a package and there are also live images available for those interested in testing this mobile user experience from the KDE developers.

  • Distributions

    • Tiny Core 4.0 Put Together Your Own Desktop

      The traditions of small size and speedy operation that were established in previous versions of this distro have been upheld in the new release, and believe it or not, improved upon. I’m not exaggerating when I say that you could be staring at a fully loaded desktop ten seconds after you boot from the 12MB ISO image.

    • New Releases

      • Parsix GNU/Linux 3.7r1 Is Available for Download

        Alan Baghumian proudly announced on October 9th, the immediate availability for download of the Parsix GNU/Linux 3.7r1 operating system.

        Parsix GNU/Linux 3.7r1 is the first maintenance update to Parsix 3.7 series, bringing a lot of new features and improvements, and of course many updated packages.

    • Red Hat Family

      • Video: Red Hat on CNBC’s Mad Money
      • Triangle CEOs back tax break

        BY DAVID RANII The News and Observer

        The CEOs of Red Hat and Quintiles, two of the largest companies based in the Triangle, say that a new bipartisan bill co-sponsored by North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan could entice them to hire more U.S. workers.

        Red Hat’s Jim Whitehurst and Dennis Gillings of Quintiles were among a half-dozen local business executives who turned out at a press briefing Friday, flanking Hagan in a show of support for the bill that calls for temporarily cutting the tax rate for corporate profits earned overseas. Many multinational corporations with a presence in the state across a range of industries – including Cisco Systems and Duke Energy – have pushed for the tax break.

      • Red Hat will wait on Progress

        Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst said the Linux software company can afford to delay its move into one of Progress Energy’s two downtown Raleigh buildings while the utility overhauls its merger plans with Duke Energy.

        In August, Red Hat announced it would shift its headquarters from N.C. State University’s Centennial Campus to downtown Raleigh, where Progress plans to exit one of its buildings in conjunction with its merger with Charlotte-based Duke. But a glitch emerged last week when federal regulators sought assurances that the merged company won’t manipulate electricity rates.

      • Red Hat
      • Red Hat to Acquire Gluster
      • Open Virtualization Alliance Grows

        It appears that KVM, the Linux kernel’s built-in virtualization, has become mainstream with the Open Virtualization Alliance now having 200 members. Started by HP, IBM, Intel and RedHat the Alliance seeks to promote and standardize KVM and associated tools so that price/performance and competition thrives.

    • Debian Family

      • Updated Debian 6.0: 6.0.3 released

        The Debian project is pleased to announce the third update of its stable distribution Debian 6.0 (codename squeeze). This update mainly adds corrections for security problems to the stable release, along with a few adjustments to serious problems. Security advisories were already published separately and are referenced where available.

      • Download Debian 6.0.3 Now

        The Debian project proudly announced a couple of days ago, October 8th, the third maintenance release of the stable Debian 6.0 operating system.

        Debian 6.0.3 brings fixes to various security issues, as well as improvements to some serious problems. Some of the packages included in the previous versions of the distribution were also updated with the Debian 6.0.3 release.

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu 11.10 In The Offing, Will Have ARM and Cloud Features

            Reports from a variety of sources indicate that the forthcoming Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) will feature ARM architecture support as well as a variety of cloud features.

            At the Open Stack conference in Boston this week, Jane Silber, CEO of Canonical (which makes Ubuntu), gave a keynote wherein she teased details of the upcoming distro, which is due to launch this week–Thursday, October 13th, to be exact.

          • The World Welcomes Oneiric Ocelot: Ubuntu 11.10

            The Ubuntu Linux distribution has come a long way since it’s first release in 2004. It started out as a nicely packaged Linux desktop, built from a specific set of packages cultivated from the nearly thirty thousand packages available in the Debian distribution. Regular six-month releases ensured that Ubuntu would always be close to the cutting edge of Linux and free software development. Every fourth release is a long-term support offering, which gets security and support updates for three years. In the last seven years Canonical, the primary commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, has added a server version of Ubuntu, built UbuntuOne, a cross-platform cloud storage solution, and made great strides in cloud computing.

          • Ubuntu 11.10 to Feature Arm Support, Cloud Orchestration

            The next version of Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux distribution, to be released next week, will be the first to run on the Arm architecture, as well as the first edition to offer a new cloud service orchestration engine, called JuJu.

          • Ubuntu Linux heads to the clouds

            Last week, Ubuntu Linux’s parent company Canonical CEO Jane Silber announced at the OpenStack cloud software conference that HP has chosen Ubuntu as the lead host and guest operating system for its Public Cloud. That’s impressive. It’s Canonical’s biggest enterprise win to date, but that’s only a hint of what Canonical is up to with the cloud.

            Canonical started its move to OpenStack from Eucalyptus in February. While Canonical has promised its not going to leave its Eucalyptus users without support, the company is clearly pinning all its cloud plans going forward around OpenStack.

          • Ubuntu 11.10 launch interview- Unity is here to stay

            Linux User talks to Canonical’s Gerry Carr to get the full low-down on Ubuntu 110.10 ‘Oneric Ocelot’ ahead of its 13th October launch…

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Bodhi Linux 1.2.1 and other Updates

              At little over a month ago the Bodhi team and I released our second update release. We were unaware at the time that the version of GCC used to compile the kernel on this release had an issue that caused an issue for some users when compiling and inserting extra kernel modules (such as the nvidia drivers and Virtual Box). This update release today contains a kernel in which this issue has been resolved.

              If you already installed Bodhi 1.2.0 (or an earlier release) and your system is working fine (odds are it is, this issue was only affecting some users) there is no reason to install this new release. It is simply a bug fix release so the ISO image has the updated kernel by default.

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

    • Chrome

      • Google Releases Chrome Desktop-Sharing Feature

        Called Chrome Remote Desktop, the new feature is in beta testing and lets you connect any two computers that have a Chrome browser, including systems running Windows, Linux, and Mac OS, as well as Chromebooks. The app can access all data on a remote computer and requires the person sharing access to their computer to give a code to the person who will tap into it remotely. That authentication must be done every time access is granted.

    • Mozilla

      • Future Firefox to slurp updates silently

        Mozilla is changing the way Firefox installs on computers in an apparent concession to enterprise users it previously ruled were irrelevant.

      • Stop Firefox from Greying Out URLs in the Navigation Bar
      • Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs On The Fate Of Firefox In A Mobile Era

        Firefox is one of the world’s most popular desktop browsers, with more than 450 million users. But as the world increasingly turns to mobile devices to access the web, Mozilla is in danger of getting left in the dust. A recent Pew report found that roughly 68% of all smartphone owners access the mobile web on a typical day; what’s more, 25% of those users go online mostly using their phone (rather than, say, a PC).

      • Mozilla postpones Firefox 3.6 update plan
      • Firefox Boounce, Switch Search Engines Effortlessly
      • Mozilla: Rising revenue, but rising challenges

        The Mozilla Foundation, the developer of the Firefox Web browser and an organization charged with defending openness on the Web, plans to report today that its revenue increased 18 percent from $104 million in 2009 to $123 million in 2010.

        Expenses rose, too, though–from $61 million to $87 million–and Mozilla generated less net cash, down from $26 million to $22 million, according to Mozilla’s tax filings. But hey, in case you missed it–Mozilla measures its success by improving the Web, not amassing a pile of cash.

      • Firefox 8: The Next Major Version of Mozilla’s Browser

        While many Firefox users are still working with version 7, Mozilla has made a beta version of Firefox 8 available, and this version can be thought of as the next major iteration of the browser. You can download the beta now. It’s the latest of several upgrades to Firefox that Mozilla has delivered since moving to a rapid release cycle in February, which came in response to machine gun-paced releases of Google Chrome. Firefox version 8, is in Mozilla’s own view, the next big upgrade.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Oracle Drives Java Technology Forward at Annual Conference

      One of the side benefits of Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems was it gained control over Java, and therefore gained a wedge against its Java-loving rival IBM. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison declared victory over IBM Power Systems in the Java performance category at its Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco last week, while at the same time, Oracle and IBM teamed up at the nearby JavaOne 2011 conference to discuss the future of the world’s most popular programming environment.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Free Software Foundation Calls PDF Done

      Matt Lee of the Free Software Foundation announced earlier this week from their web-site that this high priority FSF project has been removed from their list since the mission is complete. The foundation cites libpoppler as an open-source library supporting modern PDF features like annotations and forms as now being good enough to mark GNU PDF off their list.

    • Richard Stallman Draws Heat for His Negative Comments on Steve Jobs
    • Eric S Raymond Defends Richard M Stallman Over Steve Jobs
    • RMS – Too Crude to Lose

      When it comes to software freedom, Richard Stallman is a bomb throwing anarchist. That’s a good thing. The FOSS community needs a few bomb throwers in its arsenal.

      His job is to keep the bad guys, those who constantly attempt to usurp our principles for their own gain, at bay. More importantly, his job is to expose them, which helps keep us FOSSers from believing the spinmasters when they use Orwellian magic to convince us that “closed is open.”

  • Openness/Sharing

    • A New Experiment in Open-Source Citizenship

      Not long ago I received in the mail a slender envelope with international postage on the front. Inside was a small card-paper placard bearing my name, handwritten, confirming my citizenship in what is apparently the world’s newest nation—neither South Sudan nor Kosovo, of course, nor even a nascent Palestine, but rather nowhereisland. This decidedly more post-materialist undertaking is the brainchild of British artist Alex Hartley.

    • Big Pharma’s Open Innovation Initiatives Zoom In on Discovery

      The software industry was a trailblazer in the field of open-source innovation. Savings to users were estimated at about $60 billion a year, according to a 2008 study by The Standish Group International. Open-source collaboration has now spread to the biopharma industry, among others.

Leftovers

  • OpenIndiana – back and better

    The last time I took OpenIndiana for a test run it was back when the project was first getting up and running. At the time they’d just moved away from the OpenSolaris project and were in the process of moving things over and getting their infrastructure in place. Predictably running a development release of a new project in the midst of a major change wasn’t a smooth experience. At the time some applications didn’t work properly and, though the project’s work with file system snapshots was coming along nicely, the newborn OpenIndiana wasn’t yet ready to face the world. Well, some time has passed, a new stable release (version 151, Desktop edition) is here and it’s time to see what a fully formed OpenIndiana can do!

  • Security

  • Wikileaks

    • Google Hands Wikileaks Volunteer’s Gmail Data to U.S. Government

      The contacts list and IP address data of Jacob Appelbaum, a WikiLeaks volunteer and developer for Tor was given to the U.S. government after they requested it using a secret court order enabled by a controversial 1986 law called the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, according to the Wall Street Journal. The law allows the government to demand information from ISPs not only without a warrant, but without ever notifying the user.

  • Finance

    • Michael Lewis: The United States is Now a Third-World Nation

      Michael Lewis, author of the new book “Boomerang,” says the United States and many European nations suffered a moral failure which lead to economic collapse. Lewis insists that the U.S. economic situation will get much worse before it gets better.

    • Michael Hudson on #OccupyWallStreet and the Need to Treat Banks as Utilities
    • What They’ve Come to Find at Occupy Wall Street Is America

      Sal Cioffi and Randy Otero are union electricians from Local 3 of the IBEW in New York. They’re working on the Freedom Tower a few blocks over in lower Manhattan. Over the past couple of days, they’ve taken to having their lunch in Zuccotti Park, in the middle of the Occupy Wall Street protesters who have set up camp here. The event has grown sufficiently that it’s now attracted almost as many food trucks and mobile falafel units as it has television-news trucks, so there’s always some place for Sal and Randy to buy lunch. So they park themselves on the stone bench, put their hard hats on the ground and, almost organically, they become part of the event.

      “We’ve had demonstrations, and it never makes the news,” says Sal. “We could have 10,000 workers demonstrating, and it won’t make the news. At least, something like this, they get the publicity.”

    • “Occupy” Movement Comes to Madison, Wisconsin

      The energy from Wisconsinites protesting Governor Scott Walker’s attack on working people in early spring may have inspired Occupy Wall Street, and on Friday, Occupy Wall Street inspired demonstrations in Wisconsin. Around 150 people gathered in Madison’s Reynolds Park Friday night for the first in a series of Occupy Madison demonstrations.

    • How I tracked down The Market

      Has anyone seen him? Has anyone talked to him? Gotten answers? Maybe asked him to change his ways? I cannot think of a single journalist, economists, or policy maker who has interviewed The Market. And then I knew…this was only a job only for Dr. Gal Noir. I wanted to hear more about The Market’s rationale for what seemed to be very disturbing developments. I wouldn’t normally investigate questions that are only of interest to me, but it turns out that The 99% have been asking the same questions too. Of course, we all know who The 99% are. Here are their stories and their faces. But no one seems to know exactly who The Market is!

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