Will the clouds save Novell in a way that Linux has not yet done? The company certainly hopes so. Today, the company is kicking out its Cloud Manager tool, which has been under development for more than a year.
How is reliance on proprietary software from a company which is allegedly being sold [1, 2] actually a reducer of lock-in? As we explained in the past, calling Fog Computing “private” under any situation is deceiving at best. Microsoft does that too. █
Summary: Several former Microsoft chiefs (now running VMware) may soon own the second-largest server distribution/product built with GNU/Linux, which is also a source of revenue to Microsoft
NOVELL’S market position has been weakening for years and its market cap falling to dangerous levels. News sources say that Novell is about to be acquired and it’s primarily one source that all the reports rely on. “Why would Novell announce sale in 6 weeks,” gnufreex asked. “You announce deal when it is done… And when it is definitive… They are just trying to pump stock… They have nothing.” Agent Smith” wrote: “Novell being sold in parts. What will become of OpenSuse ???” (more details in the IRC logs we’ll publish later).
“They are just trying to pump stock… They have nothing.” –gnufreexgnufreex said that “maybe Novell is pumping it [the stock] to buy time. Their Market Cap was 1.9b yesterday. If it slides more, they can’t get same offer as they got from Elliot… Shareholder would sue for refusing Elliot offer… If market cap goes under 1.9B…
“What I meant is that Novell is getting panicky because their market cap is sliding below the level it was when Eliot made them an offer. If it falls bellow that level, then buyers are going to offer less than Elliot offered. And shareholders might sue because they got the worse deal because Hovsepian turned down Elliot offer without letting shareholders vote (there was no vote about Elliot)”
“Agent Smith” wrote: “Received tweets hinting VMware’s the mystery buyer of Novell Novell Sold to VMware”
We’ll come to this in just a moment.
First of all, here are some more reports about Novell closing its sale (following a split). The following is everything we’ve found on the Web so far, without exception:
Commercial operating system maker Novell is close to selling itself off after breaking it into two bits, according to the is New York Post.
Citing unnamed sources, the Post says a “strategic buyer” will shell out cash to acquire the SUSE Linux business that Novell paid $210m for in November 2003. That Linux business has just finally made it to break-even, according to Novell, and will by our estimates generate maybe $145m in revenues in fiscal 2010. (Novell brought in $108.2m in Linux platform sales in the first nine months of fiscal 2010 ended in July).
The New York Post, citing unnamed sources, said the struggling business software maker plans to sell the company to a “strategic buyer” and a private equity firm.
To say more about the stock: “Shares of Novell Inc. (NASDAQ: NOVL) rallied more than 6% in pre-market tradng after the New York Post reported that the business software maker has reached a deal in principle to sell itself in two parts, and is three to four weeks away from signing a deal.”
Also: “Novell Inc (NASDAQ: NOVL) soared 5.03% to $5.85 in the pre-market trading. NOVL’s trailing-twelve-month gross margin is 78.54%.”
One financial report summarised it as follows: “Novell Inc. (NOVL US): The maker of Linux operating-system software has reached an agreement in principle to sell itself in two parts, the New York Post reported, citing people close to the process.”
Financial news from prior days indicated problems for Novell [1, 2, 3], but not everything was pessimistic [1, 2].
Red Hat’s Jan Wildeboer wrote: “Big things are coming up. Nuff said. And no, it is not Red Hat being bought.”
People still send us messages asking something along the lines of, “what about OpenSUSE?” The project should take a lesson from OpenSolaris and take action before Novell (or its acquiror) does. We urged OpenSUSE people to fork and escape the relationship with Novell, which may no longer exist very soon.
What happens to Mono and Moonlight? Maybe Microsoft can have them (no, it’s not a joke).
The LWN discussion had just one comment at the time of writing and it said: “The WallStreet Journal has the rumour that the buyer of the GNU/Linux part might be VMware Inc.
“I don’t know much about VMWare Inc., but at first glance they seem ok. Not too likely to pull an Oracle.
“Anyone got more info?”
Here is the article which suggested that VMware is afoot (Maritz and fellow executives from Microsoft). Rather than Microsoft buying SUSE as some people speculated very long ago it may be Microsoft executives who take control of SUSE and harm it or sell it at Red Hat’s expense (with Microsoft tax). Only a couple of weeks ago we found articles like this one:
Some people might be surprised to hear that that vCD is based on RHEL v5 U4 and not on Novell SUSE. You might know that VMware recently decided to standardize on Novell SUSE for all its virtual appliances, and an OEM deal was struck between the two companies. The operative word here is “recently.” Sadly, the deal was struck at such a time that VMware could not use Novell SUSE for vCD. Merely from a standardization perspective, I would like to see that change at the next release of the product, but I think we will have to wait for the vCD 2.0 offering before that transpires.
At around 3:50 of the following video the same subject gets covered.
The idea that VMware might buy Novell is not new at all as it has been floating for months and never quite denied or debunk (not convincingly anyway). █
Despite the bombastic predictions of open-source advocates, and a short-lived spell as the default netbook operating system, Linux remains at the very margins of mainstream computing. Even among PC Pro’s technically literate readership, only 4% are running a Linux OS, according to the visitor stats for this website.
However, something rather extraordinary is happening in the Linux world. Amid all the distros that have come and gone over the years, one finally has the potential, the momentum and the commercial backing to at least challenge the Windows hegemony.
I have been touting the security of Linux on the desktop for several years now. But a question from Artremis on my article Open Source: FOSS Security Updates vs Microsoft Patch Day has me thinking about how to attempt to prove that. I know one “cannot prove a negative”, barring odd philosophical views from odd philosophers on that. But I think we in the FOSS Linux community can do more than just talk.
As if the smash success that was the original wasn’t enough, HTC has made official the Desire Z and Desire HD. Both handsets feature aluminum construction but each offer something unique. The HTC Desire HD — which has been floating around as the HTC Ace in leaked screen shots — features a 4.3-inch 480×800 SLCD display, 8MP camera and dual flash capable of 720p HD video capture, and Android 2.2 with a new HTC Sense. This monster packs some hefty specs including a 1GHz processor, 1.5GB of internal storage, and 768MB of RAM. The phone features radio support for HSPA/CDMA and quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE.
It’s been a while since I last reviewed a shooter game for Linux, and one of them was World of Padman (reviewed here), which was a cartoon-like, funny first-person shooter. Well, the same goes for Warsow, the game I’m going to talk about in this article. Every graphical aspect of Warsow indicates we’re dealing with a cartoon-like universe, from the character models to weapons and maps.
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According to an updated posted on September 5 on the official Warsow blog, the next version, 0.55, will feature several new maps, a tutorial map, a new chat console and a new crosshair featuring a damage indicator in a Quake Live style.
The Garage doors are opening for entrepreneurs at North Carolina State University thanks to support from open source software firm Red Hat and the NC State Entrepreneurial Initiative.
The “Garage,” is a facility for students engaged in entrepreneurial endeavors and provides curricular and extra-curricular opportunities to empower students, whatever their discipline, as entrepreneurial thinkers, doers and leaders.
He’s got a point. I remember the excitement generated a few years back when Michael Dell publicly applauded the Ubuntu desktop and Dell’s decision to preload Ubuntu on select PCs. Now that deal per se was not a big success, but it shifted perception about the potential of Linux on the desktop in a far more signifiant way than Red Hat or Novell ever did.
Both Canonical’s Ubuntu and Google’s Android are open source Linux projects that have advanced the cause of Linux, even if the implementations have stirred controversy within the open source community. That has to be good for open source.
Fortunately for me, my work in Canonical enabling Ubuntu to work on PCs fulfils this passion of mine. My daily work normally involves me looking at obscure firmware issues in PC BIOSs and figuring out what is wrong and how to address and fix the problem.
Without fixing these issues, quite a few machines would just not function correctly for various reasons. My work involves fixing issues such as Suspend/Resume and Hibernate/Resume hangs, or looking at why hardware is not quite configured correctly after boot or resume. Unfortunately buggy firmware does happen quite frequently and leads to all sorts of weird issues. Hotkeys, LCD backlights, wake alarms, fan controls, thermal trip points and even CPU configuration can be affected by BIOS or ACPI bugs. All these need fixing, so it keeps me busy!
Last month I gave a presentation on the interaction between Android and kernel upstream at Linuxcon. The video for that is now available here (requires registration). Contrary to stories you may have heard, I do not dropkick anyone through a window.
There’s some parallels between the Android/upstream scenario and Canonical’s approach to upstream. Mark wrote a lengthy defence of Canonical’s focus on components that they feel need development, while not putting development effort into things they feel are good enough already. That’s pretty consistent with the discussions I had with him at the Ubuntu development meeting in Oxford over six years ago. Back then the focus was on taking all the excellent software that already existed and concentrating on providing it as a single polished and integrated product. It was successful – what’s easy to forget now is that the first release of Ubuntu was massively more usable out of the box than any other Linux distribution available at the time, and it’s absolutely undeniable that its release spurred increased efforts on the part of competitors. But I don’t think the same focus is being applied any more.
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Canonical would be perceived as much better team players if there was an indication of their long-term plan in terms of Unity and the Ayatana projects and getting that code into mainline Gnome and integrating with the Gnome shell. It’s completely unsurprising that they’re viewed with distrust until that happens.
When it comes to organizations involved in tending to Free software projects, I personally take a view that is probably deeply colored by my previous life experiences in business. Which is to say, it’s probably a bit boring, conservative and balances out my raging enthusiasm for community.
In my opinion, there is a responsibility for such organizations to identify, define and manage risks related to the responsibility of oversight of what is a very valuable item: the intellectual and creative work embodied in the software products. This is ignored only at great risk to the software, its users and those responsible for the continued development of the software. As a whole, the Free software ecosystem fails more than it succeeds in this, though it is getting better every year.
English-built, open source games console Pandora has shipped its thousandth unit – not bad considering every one is hand made by geeks in Newcastle.
The Pandora isn’t just a games console: running a tweaked Ångström Linux it can manage Open Office and Firefox too, all using open source hardware and software in a box the size of a Nintendo DS. Even the fact that it costs twice as much as a DS hasn’t stopped 1000 people buying one.
The Chinese, like me, prefer low cost and efficient IT. Hence their love of GNU/Linux and home-grown chips. There is news that a new dual core ARM CPU has been integrated into the SoC (System on a Chip) design with 1.6gHz and 2gHz speeds.
Extreme Engineering Solutions (X-ES) announced a Linux-ready, conduction- or air-cooled 3U cPCI single-board computer (SBC) based on Freescale’s 1.5GHz, eight-core QorIQ P4080 system-on-chip (SoC). The XPedite5430 is equipped with up to 8GB of DDR3-1333 SDRAM, 16GB of NAND flash, PCI Express or Serial RapidIO expansion, plus gigabit Ethernet, serial, and USB connectivity.
At the Intel Developer Forum (IDF), Intel showed off Atom-based Google TV devices from Sony and Logitech. Meanwhile, Google confirmed Google TV is on schedule, and D-Link switched its Linux-based Boxee Box set-top box (STB) from an Nvidia Tegra 2 to the same Intel Atom CE4100 chipset used by the Google TV devices.
The open-source mobile operating system is the result of a tie-up between the two tech giants, bringing together Nokia’s Maemo and Intel’s Moblin. It’s designed for tablets, netbooks and handsets as well as televisions and in-car systems.
The MeeGo operating system is an open source Linux project, which is a combination of Intel’s Moblin project and Nokia’s Naemo project. It is able to provide flexible UI and application environments, allows you to do practically anything with it, and supports all popular file formats. It also manages to do this while working with a number of graphical and processor optimisations, meaning it is not only extremely open but also very fast.
DeviceVM previewed a new MeeGo-based version of its Splashtop instant-on distribution at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF), effectively opening up the technology to Linux developers. The distribution is already being made available to OEMs, with end user upgrades available in the first half of 2011, says the company.
At an Intel Developer Forum (IDF) keynote, Amino demonstrated a new MeeGo-ready set-top box (STB) while discussing its contributions to MeeGo’s Connected TV reference platform. Due to ship in the fourth quarter, the Freedom STB is equipped with Intel’s Atom CE4100 SoC, supports IPTV and traditional broadcast services, and offers both Adobe Flash 10.1 and Microsoft Silverlight.
Google’s Android platform is the elephant in the room. While open and completely community driven, there are thousands of applications running on Android that are closed source. To protect those applications, Google released its Licensing Service.
Google’s Licensing Service, which is still in the infancy stages, is a great offering to the development community when it comes to copy protection. Yet, the Licensing Service is easily defeated, depending on how it is implemented.
Verizon appears to be moving further away from Android’s Google and open source core premise this week as it has begun to ask for submissions to its own app store, expected to debut as early as next week. The carrier appears to be following a similar structure to that of Apple, where apps must go through an approval process and revenues are split between Verizon and the developer.
This is a problem that will get worse, not better, as open source moves ever-closer to the heart of consumer electronics, and as more large-scale projects start to put together open source components with many different licences. Android shows how powerful that can be – and the kind of challenges it brings with it. Now that this digital Pandora’s box has been opened, the open source community needs to start thinking about how to manage the consequences in a more structured, scalable way.
Amazon.com opened pre-order sales for a $370, seven-inch, Android 2.2 tablet from Stream TV Network. The eLocity A7 tablet is equipped with a 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2, 512MB RAM, 4GB of flash memory, and offers a seven-inch capacitive display, an HDMI port for 1080p output, plus Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, and a 1.3-megapixel webcam, says Amazon.
Yoon Boo Keun, head of Samsung’s TV business line, reportedly said the company is reviewing whether to use Android, an OS more commonly found in various smartphones, in a new line of TV sets.
Samsung is working on an operating system that can be used for both mobile phones and television, Yoon apparently revealed.
The Korean electronics could be stepping into a confusing market — it has its own Bada mobile phone OS and also makes Android smartphones. Further, it has just revealed an Android-based tablet, the Galaxy Tab.
T-Mobile officially unveiled its G2 smartphone, the successor to the world’s first Android-powered mobile phone, touting its faster Web-browsing experience and direct integration with Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) services.
The G2, which is designed specifically for T-Mobile’s new HSPA+ network, features downloads at “4G speeds,” according to T-Mobile. The network is expected to reach more than 100 million Americans in 55 major cities across the country when the smartphone becomes available later this month.
Of course, in TechCrunch’s world, there’s only two mobile platforms out there. It’s probably too hard to keep track of three. And yes, Symbian as well as MeeGo are open-source platforms. We’ll give TechCrunch a little bit of slack and presume they ignored this fact to get their link bait right.
Liferay, provider of the leading open source portal solution, today announced it has awarded CIGNEX, the global Platinum partner of Liferay, the Partner of the Year for 2010. This announcement was made at the Liferay West Coast Symposium held at Anaheim, CA on September 8 & 9.
Just because it say’s “Free” doesn’t necessarily mean it is. Arizona Reporter examines four relevant Open Source applications that reduce overall operating costs for small and large businesses alike.
To get another perspective on the Vernor vs Autodesk case we went to Groklaw. Groklaw is one of the best sources for legal information about the computer industry. The founder of Groklaw, P.J. Jones, has been correct about computer law case outcomes more times than not.
Sonatype, the start-up founded by the original author of the open source Maven build and project management software, has announced that it has a new CEO and is receiving $11.6M funding. Maven is an Apache Software Foundation project which is supported by Sonatype.
Open-Xchange, provider of business-class open source collaboration software, announced today an exclusive distribution agreement with Next IT for hosted and on-premises Open-Xchange products in Japan.
CONNECT includes one or more open source applications for each of the components, plus some private vendor tools such as IBM/Initiate Systems’ master patient index software.
Free, open-source software (FOSS) is finally a trusted solution in the enterprise, but primarily only in infrastructure layers. The promise of a completely open-source enterprise is nigh, but the nagging question remains: Will it work as a business for the technology industry? New business models are now appearing that bridge the old world of enterprise software with the promise and customizations of open source.
While only half a dozen people were affected there is a matter of principle at stake. Companies making use of (GPL) open source enter into a legal agreement to share their developments, so it was important that Dell complied.
Opsview, the open source network and application monitoring vendor, today announced it has teamed up with Canonical, the Ubuntu service provider, to help drive the enterprise adoption of Opsview Enterprise with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server Edition. Opsview has grown rapidly within the managed service provider and financial services space; key strategic verticals for Canonical.
I’m a college student, a panelist at IT seminars, a tutor at IT workshops, a writer, a moderator and the founder of a few hacker community forums, the head of KPLI — Kelompok Pengguna Linux [Linux User Group] – Tangerang.
And I do work on some IT projects that I can’t mention here.
The Department of Justice introduction of the “whistleblower bounty” is further evidence of the increasingly aggressive position the government is taking towards enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Under the provision, whistleblowers are eligible to recover between 10 and 30 percent of any settlement that exceeds $1 million based on the significance of information and level of cooperation provided.
The flaw appears to have been introduced in Firefox versions 3.5.12 and 3.6.9, released last week, with the Bugzilla bug-tracking system showing a large number of reported crashes from clients across Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms.
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While a report over on ComputerWorld suggests that the updates have started flowing once again as of early this morning, there has so far been no official word from Mozilla on whether the root cause of the problem has been addressed.
Open-source cloud infrastructure provider Cloud.com has announced a big win in the enterprise market: a partnership with HP that will bring Cloud.com into the AllianceONE programme.
Where Cloudera shines, however, is in taking these different contributions and making Hadoop relevant for enterprise IT, where data mining has waxed and waned over the years. Part of the “waning” has come through the cost and complexity of the systems used to mine corporate data.
With regard to continually refining its consumer products, Yahoo is working with developers through its open source initiative Hadoop, which is the company’s analytics and data warehousing framework, to constantly improve its compute capabilities, said the executive. The Hadoop framework was made available to the open source community last June and, since then, Yahoo has contributed about 70 percent of all code written, he added.
OpenStack, the open source cloud project built around a Rackspace API, has set some deadlines for development milestones.
The most important date is October 21.
That’s the day for delivering the company’s first release, dubbed Austin. This will be followed by a development conference scheduled for November 9-12 in San Antonio. (Nachos for everyone!)
What makes the Hadoop and NoSQL movements is that their growth is driven less by the itches of the associated vendors than it is the itches of the users/developers. Indeed we see vendors in these markets being led by existing users/developers in trying to figure out the opportunities for commercialization.
Xeround is based on an in-memory database and has been tested in a number of telco production environments, according to CEO Razi Sharir. The software utilizes virtual partitions where data partitions are decoupled–or abstracted–from physical resources. These virtual partitions hold copies of both the data and the indexes, in order to ensure high availability and performance.
Despite the ubiquity of open-source MySQL, the database has in the past suffered from scaling issues, which has often led developers down one of two paths: using a NoSQL database to front-end applications; and/or sharding, a process that splits the database into smaller chunks, but requires a high-degree of user sophistication.
Next, is the blog of Bruce Perens, original author of the “Open Source Definition” and a founder of the Open Source Initiative, the Linux Standard Base, and Software in the Public Interest. The insightful Perens jumped back into blogging after a fairly long absence with some useful posts on the Oracle lawsuit, the Mark Hurd firing and other issues.
What do I expect from JavaOne 2010? Well, I am hoping that Oracle will finally put rumours to rest regarding its stance on Open Source. I hope that its plans for Java will include a faster and more open process in defining and releasing improvements to the language and the technology.
I am hoping that JavaFX will finally get the much needed marketing funds to get developers, as well as device manufacturers, e.g., mobile phones and TVs, to start developing and deploying apps.
Sun announced the Java Application Store, I hope that this will be released for the global market, rather than for a select few.
OpenIndiana aims to be binary and package compatible with Solaris 11 and Solaris 11 Express and to act as a “free drop in replacement” for OpenSolaris. The developers compare their development model to the way CentOS project is based on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) source. OpenIndiana combines the official OpenSolaris source with free, open source software from the community, such as the XNV X Window System, the Sun Freeware Collection (SFW), the Java Desktop System (JDS), the IPS packaging system and the Caiman installer.
Additionally, the cost of developing courses can also be significantly reduced with open source technology. Currently, every university develops its own courses, one of the most costly aspects of running an academic institution. Why do we need so many professors developing courses at so many universities? Just as we share materials online, we must also share talent. If we enlist the top minds in every discipline to create quality courses and then distribute them via open source technology, we can drastically reduce education costs, lessening the economic burden on students.
The developers, including specialists from Brazil, Germany, Greece and France, aim to build a system that will manage electronic medical records, hospital information and health information. Its services include prescriptions, billing, patient information, managing epidemiological and statistical data and management of medical stock. The entire project is published using the GNU General Public Licence (GPL), an open source licence.
This Sunday sees Tauranga’s very own Software Freedom Day event.
The event – an open day to promote free software and free software concepts – is part of a worldwide celebration.
Organised by the BOP Linux User Group supported by TechnologyWise, the open day will feature volunteers showing visitors the extent of open source software and its capabilities.
Internationally, the goal of Software Freedom Day is to educate the worldwide public about the benefits of using high quality Free and Open Source Software in education, in government, at home, and in business.
A spokesman from the Department of Finance and Deregulation explained that while open source was “in wide use across the Australian Government”, AGIMO took a neutral position on open source.
“Based on the Committee’s decision, AGIMO formally declined South Australia’s request to be involved in the OTF,” she told iTnews.
“AGIMO has a policy of informed neutrality regarding open source software with value for money across the total cost of ownership of the software being the overriding principle for its use.”
But Bryan King of the SA Office of the CIO yesterday told delegates at the open source OSSPAC conference that “open source for Government hasn’t made any major penetration”.
Communications Minister Valerian Vreme, appointed in this position at the beginning of the month, says he is considering devising a strategy to introduce free-of-charge open-source software, which would see a decline in contracts between the state and software producers, but would mean cost savings for the government.
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Vreme (47), who worked for over ten years in IT in the private sector, says first interoperability rules will be set, in order for an institution that uses open-source software to be able to communicate with one that is not using such software. Open-source software, such as the OpenOffice suite, the Linux operating system, and the Firefox browser, is free-of-charge, and can be an alternative to Microsoft’s Windows and Office, produced by the world’s biggest software company.
They say open source material puts the information in the hands of students and professors.
“It gives students the choice as to how much they want to spend,” said Saul Adelman, a finance professor at Miami who had used open source books in his Risk Management class. “I’m concerned about book prices. That’s why I explored this option.”
It was the hard-edged professional, with either a product to push or a geospatial project searching for a solution, who attended this year’s FOSS4G. Perhaps more than any other descriptor I can think of, the word “mature” best defines the state of the free and open source geospatial software industry today. One has to look no further than companies like OpenGeo to realize these are legit outfits, with shrink-wrap software solutions capable of managing geospatial data and applications, from top to bottom, for all but perhaps the largest of users, such as the U.S. Dept. of Defense. Open source GIS software is here to stay, and it’s making big inroads into private and governmental users by the looks of the vendors and attendees at FOSS4G.
I’ve never been much for clubs. When I was young, I made a lousy cub scout. I wasn’t a real “joiner” in high school or college either (just enough to get by) and I still don’t get actively involved in many professional associations today.
Thousands of unpublished pages of Jeremy Bentham’s manuscripts are ready for transcription with a new crowdsourcing program from University College London’s Transcribe Bentham project.
Researchers at UCL are counting on Bentham enthusiasts around the globe to help transcribe and digitize thousands of handwritten pages of the influential philosopher’s work. The university has about 40,000 untranscribed pages of Bentham in its collection. It photographed 4,500 pages for the initial phase of the project—accessible through the Transcribe Bentham Web site—and is calling on Bentham scholars, armchair philosophers, or almost anyone with an Internet connection to turn the handwritten prose into machine-readable type.
The deluge of scientific research data has excited the general public, as well as the scientific community, with the possibilities for better understanding of scientific problems, from climate to culture. For data to be available, researchers must be willing and able to share them. The policies of governments, funding agencies, journals, and university tenure and promotion committees also influence how, when, and whether research data are shared. Data are complex objects. Their purposes and the methods by which they are produced vary widely across scientific fields, as do the criteria for sharing them. To address these challenges, it is necessary to examine the arguments for sharing data and how those arguments match the motivations and interests of the scientific community and the public. Four arguments are examined: to make the results of publicly funded data available to the public, to enable others to ask new questions of extant data, to advance the state of science, and to reproduce research. Libraries need to consider their role in the face of each of these arguments, and what expertise and systems they require for data curation.
The ‘Who Runs London?’ guide illustrates the web of ministries, assemblies, agencies and councils that together run London in a visual diagram (see example below). Additional information about each organization, including their key relationships and websites, is provided in a brief glossary on the last page. It is finally possible for a lay person to quickly distinguish between, for example, the Olympic Delivery Authority, Olympic Board and the Olympic Park Legacy Company, as well as establish what they do and who they answer to in the wider context of the capital’s governance. This sort of transparency is essential if these organizations are to be held up to public scrutiny and to public account.
What would you like to have happen? My feeling is that there should be a configuration option to choose the policy, and we should perhaps eventually distinguish “junk” (safe to delete) from “precious”, as Baz and GNU Arch did.
That’s because, unlike most Japanese robots, which are either purpose-built or one-offs, and unlike iRobot (which despite its name is a cleaner and military contracting company), the PR2 is built from an open source software base, with modular hardware.
Willow Garage is not the only open source base on which to build a robot. Urbi went open source last month, with a C++ library and an API. CARMEN is Carnegie-Mellon’s open source robotics toolkit. Orocos also offers an open source platform for robotic control.
Elhange is an open source developer, which seems to be a big part of the problem. Twitter doesn’t want certain parts of developer’s code to be out in the public. For an open developer, that’s impossible to prevent.
MIPS Technologies’ (MIPS) stock has skyrocketed recently as it lays the groundwork to challenge ARM (ARMH), the dominant player in cell phone chip design. Savvy investors see the small Silicon Valley company as an emerging threat to ARM, the Cambridge, England firm that licenses the processor designs used in nearly all the leading mobile phones.
Steven Hoskin had strong feelings about his killers. They had abused, exploited and humiliated him over a year, taking his money, treating him as their slave and making him wear his own dog’s collar and lead. Eventually, having forced him to swallow 70 painkillers, they took him to the top of a railway viaduct and made him hang from the railings as one member of the gang, a girl aged 16, stamped on his hands until he fell 30 metres to his death.
For those of you following along on facebook.com/savebradley (over 10,000 friends!) you might notice that the URL leads to a dead page. The page can now be found at https://www.facebook.com/pages/savebradley/114129961964452?ref=ts You’ll notice that the page, with over 10,300 supporters, is rather quiet. That’s because the Bradley Manning Support Network’s administrative rights to the page have been revoked due to a “violation of the terms of service.”
The Encyclopedia of Life is a cool tool which is a sort of wikification of taxonomy — it allows a large number of contributors to add descriptions of species with the goal of eventually documenting all 1.8 million known species in a single searchable source. Look at the page for my experimental animal, Danio rerio; lots of information in a standard format with links and references. Thumbs up!
However, there’s a problem here: the sources. To organize that much data, a large mob of contributors are needed, and that means some fairly open policies to allow contributors have been instituted, and that in turn means that there will be parasites on they system. And a reader sent me an example of a doozy.
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I know, this is a truism: don’t trust the Net of Lies, learn to vet your sources, watch out for anything on the net. But it looks to me like the Turkish creationists have been waging a successful astroturf campaign to infiltrate sources that we would normally regard as pretty good, and are thereby corrupting sources even more. It also allows them to pass casual review because their articles are very widely sourced.
These same Internet values are reflected in the open source movement. Links need to be free, access needs to be unlimited, for open source to maximize its potential. Worrying about the politics of contributors or users is a waste of brain cells.
According to recently leaked documents, the Pennsylvania Office of Homeland Security has been tracking anti-gas drilling groups and their meetings — including a public screening of the film “Gasland,” a documentary about the environmental hazards of natural gas drilling.
The office has included the information in its weekly intelligence bulletins sent to law enforcement agencies.
The bulletins are also sent to gas companies drilling in the Marcellus Shale.
The debate on Internet filters reaches the hot phase now on EU level, as discussions begin in the EU parliament. It is now urgently necessary to make ourselves heard. We cannot lean back now and complain later.
A program designed to make Iranian internet users safe from government peeking has been pulled by its creators because, er, it opens up their identities to anyone that cares to take a look.
The program, called Haystack, is designed to hide traffic to and from the internet at large inside what looks like connections to innocuous sites. The Haystack client connects to the company’s servers, which in turn talk to websites on behalf of its users.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged a federal appeals court Tuesday to dismiss charges that would turn any employee use of company computers in violation of corporate policy into a federal crime.
In U.S. v. Nosal, an ex-employee is being prosecuted on the claim that he induced current company employees to use their legitimate credentials to access the company’s proprietary database and provide him with information, in violation of corporate computer-use policy. The government claims that the violation of this private policy constitutes a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Following a decision issued just last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, the District Court ruled against the government, holding that violations of corporate policy are not equivalent to violations of federal computer crime law. The government appealed to the 9th Circuit.
Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit issued an unfortunate revised opinion in United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing Inc., a case featuring blatantly unconstitutional government action. As the court put it:
“This case is about a federal investigation into steroid use by professional baseball players. More generally, however, it’s about the procedures and safeguards that federal courts must observe in issuing and administering search warrants and subpoenas for electronically stored information.”
One shocking example: the government seized and reviewed the drug testing records for hundreds of players in Major League Baseball—and many other people—even though the judicially authorized warrant was limited to the records of the ten players for whom the government had probable cause.
The Open Source Consortium (OSC), a trade body for companies that work in open standards software, has formally written to Ofcom asking it to investigate Canvas, whose backers include the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and BT.
The complaints are mounting up against IPTV joint venture Project Canvas after the Open Source Consortium (OSC) became the latest group to submit a formal objection.
George Lucas likes lawsuits. He also really likes the word “Droid“, which Lucasfilm holds the rights to (yes, Verizon actually licenses the word “Droid” for its handsets). In fact, Lucas likes the word so much that he (or at least, his law firm) will threaten to sue you for using it as the name of your company — even the letters DROID make up just part of your company name.
That’s what Matt Cooper found out this week, when Lucasfilm’s lawyers sent him a cease and desist notice demanding that he change the name of his company, Addroid. Cooper says the new startup is an HTML5-based ad serving platform (hence the ad part of the name), and because it’s digital advertising he thought that a tie to the techie word “android” would be appropriate. In other words, the name stems from the word Android — not the abbreviated “Droid” that Lucas is so fond of.
Since emerging economies will soon have more web users than the EU and US combined, Internet governance should also be extended to the developing world, Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes said at the opening session of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Vilnius yesterday (14 September).
“Public authorities across the world must now be able, on an equal footing, to effectively carry out their roles and responsibilities when international public policy issues are at stake,” Kroes said, welcoming the fact that ICANN, the organisation coordinating Internet IP addresses, was now reviewing its working methods to include more representatives from the developing world in ‘advisory committees’.
Think Congress will take it up? I don’t either. Which means that, while the RIAA has to cut musicians in for more of the cash they bring in, they now have the right to raid your local library and blow all their digital media off the shelves.
The Gallo report on strengthening copyright enforcement will be voted in the European Parliament on Wednesday, September 22nd. Even if non-legislative, this dangerous text relies on biased figures pushed by producers and publishers’ lobbies to call for an extension of repression. It opens the door to the creation of private copyright police of the Net. All EU citizen can act to help the Members of the European Parliament out of the blind repressive path, and adopt an alternative resolution -more constructive and protective of consumers- instead of the Gallo report.
How big is Spotify? 10 million users big. Well, it’s about to break that milestone anyway.
The company is holding a party in London later this month “to celebrate reaching 10 million users across Europe”, according to an invite sent out to press and partners.
Copyright law and free speech are fundamentally in conflict. It bears repeating, because most of those pushing for things like ACTA simply do not recognize this simple fact — and when they then try to export the expression suppressing parts of copyright law without the all important exceptions and guarantees of free speech, it should come as no surprise, at all, that governments use the law the US pushed on them to suppress speech and dissent. What is not acceptable is for US policy makers to continue to ignore this key point.
I won’t bother analyzing why people copy games and other digital media, as that’s really a moot point. We’ve got an amazingly effective way of distributing culture that is extremely beneficial for humanity, but it clashes with our current economical models. Piracy will win in the long run. It has to. The alternative is too scary.
The New York Times article goes on to explain that the raid on the environmental group is only a recent example of a growing pattern: “Across Russia, the security services have carried out dozens of similar raids against outspoken advocacy groups or opposition newspapers in recent years.” For those familiar with the hard line copyright maximalist position — which holds that all copyright infringement should be swiftly prosecuted with harsh penalties regardless of the context — it was sadly unsurprising. (This risk is one reason that NGOs around the world choose free and open source tools that avoid the risk of copyright claims altogether.)
How far will ISPs be held liable for infringement of intellectual property rights under ACTA? On close examination in the EU context, we also come up against another question: is ACTA re-writing the weak “compromise” on Internet users rights that was rejected by the European Parliament in the Telecoms Package?
In previous drafts of ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), liability for ISPs in enforcing copyright on the Internet was clearly stated. In the latest leaked draft of 25 August 2010, it appears to have been deleted. At least the substantive text requiring countries to implement a liability provision is not there.
The UK government’s Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills has concluded its consultation on how to pay for all the new copyright enforcement built into the Digital Economy Act.
The DEA is a sweeping, punishing copyright law that the former Labour government crammed through Parliament without debate in a closed-door, poorly attended vote hours before it called the next election (which it lost). The Act requires ISPs to send letter to their customers warning them that an entertainment company has accused them of infringing copyright (if this fails to reduce national levels of infringement by 70% in 18 months — which it will fail to do — ISPs will then be required to disconnect entire families from the Internet on the unsubstantiated accusation of a rightsholder).
DEAPPG is an all party parliamentary group based in Portcullis House, Westminster. The group was started by Eric Joyce MP in May 2010 in response to the DE Act (and conversations in social media eg Twitter #DEAct)
Novell Inc. has reached a deal in principle to sell itself in two parts, and is three to four weeks away from signing a deal, according to people close to the process.
More details later. Boycott Novell has been a great success (site is up again today in traffic ranking, which means there is interest in the issues). █
Could 2010 be Linux’ breakout year? Linux is already making huge waves in mobile computing, with the rise of the Android operating system, the momentum behind Meego, a bevy of Linux-powered netbooks, and an army of Linux-toting tablets on the horizon. With Web-based computing becoming the norm, flexible and robust Linux could finally become the OS of choice for device manufacturers.
Now you can advance your proficiency in free and open source software solutions as the Linux Professional Institute (LPI (News – Alert)) has launched a brand new program for it service organizations and other technical solutions providers.
All new projects would involve GNU/Linux based operating systems. “The state has a successful history of GNU/Linux adaptation, and has a near cent-percent success rate,” observes Dr. Ajay Kumar. “We avoid proprietary software as much as possible. However some applications need legacy software, which are proprietary. In such cases, we are forced to use proprietary softwares,” he admits.
The AIX and Linux operating systems support either raw disk in 200 GB format or RAID mirroring performed by the operating system in 177 GB format for the new SSDs. The IBM i platform assumes you will use RAID mirroring, either RAID 0 mirroring of whole controller and SSD ensembles or RAID 5 or RAID 6 data protection within a single ensemble. (RAID 5 means striping across all four SSDs in the unit, while RAID 6 means striping across three drives in the set and keeping one as a hot spare.) You cannot mirror hard disks and SSDs against each other no matter what operating system you choose.
Make no mistake: Broadcom didn’t open source this driver to support peace, love and Linux. Companies who have included their drivers in the mainline Linux kernel do so because it benefits them. Once the driver is included in the mainline, the maintenance costs associated with keeping up with kernel changes drop considerably. Also, as Katherine points out, they undertook this work because they see a market and realize that many of their competitors, like Intel, have been enjoying an advantage their open-ness affords them.
Sometimes as a sysadmin the logfiles just don’t cut it, and to solve a problem you need to know what’s really going on. That’s when I turn to strace — the system-call tracer.
A system call, or syscall, is where a program crosses the boundary between user code and the kernel. Fortunately for us using strace, that boundary is where almost everything interesting happens in a typical program.
Shutter is probably the most powerful screenshot application for Linux, and the main reason for this is that it comes with tons of configuration options for the final process of taking a simple screenshot. And why not, considering there are people out there who need to take a screenshot of a single window or a desktop region instead of fullscreen only, like the GNOME default screenshot program. Of course, there is KSnapshot which offers these two options too, but that’s where similarities stop.
The Yorba developers have released version 0.7.2 of their open source Shotwell photo manager for the GNOME desktop. According to the developers, the latest update to their free digital photo manager includes several “crucial” fixes and includes translation updates.
Shotwell 0.7.2 addresses a “major startup problem” caused by users having a symbolic link in their Pictures directory and a potential crashing bug related to directories containing a large number of subdirectories. Other changes include copying and linking updates, PicasaWeb fixes for passwords containing a ‘+’ character and other bug fixes.
The ivi TV player allows users to select a channel by using a simple channel guide, the company said. The TV player can be downloaded to any Windows, Mac, or Linux computer. ivi says it will soon be available on platforms such as mobile devices, tablets, and set-top boxes.
A Linux class, based on Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop Edition, will be offered. The first session starts Wednesday. All computer classes cost $20. The sessions are for those 55 or older. The classes are taught by members of the Licking County Computer Society.
As the title suggests, TORCS is a free and open-source racing simulator available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. I’ll list here some of its features:
- 3D graphics using OpenGL
- 42 different car models
- 30 racing tracks
- 6 racing types
- different camera angles
I played this game at 12:30 AM, in a dark room with the door closed and using high quality head phones. It scared the crap out of me. No, I mean it scared me. Not a simple sneak-up-from-behind-and-yell-boo scared. I’m talking about crescendo-swelled music and sound effects. I mean, they let you know the horror is approaching and it still frightens you when you see the threat.
It’s really impressive how good Krita is getting these days. A look through the Krita showcase demonstrates quite admirably what someone can do with it. What strikes me most while looking through those images is how not all of them look like they were done with a computer, but could just as easily be scans of natural media artwork.
I have Plasma on the brain, however, so of course I immediately jumped into thinking about what this could mean from a Plasma perspective. Yes, I’m aware that any connection between a great natural media painting app and a component framework for building primary user interfaces is probably not immediately obvious. No, I wasn’t thinking about how to use Plasmoids in Krita, either.
How will it work? Each attendee can pick the Plasmoid or aspect of Plasma Desktop of their choice, announce their intentions in the irc channel and then start writing about it. You’ll have the support of KDE people to answers technical questions, proof-read and help with wiki-fu as needed. Personally, I’ll be working on documenting the new Activies features and user interface.
The SystemRescueCd developer and Partimage author François Dupoux has released version 1.6.0 of the SystemRescueCd Linux distribution. Based on the Gentoo LiveCD and using Xfce as its default desktop, the SystemRescueCd is configured as a tool kit for administering or repairing an operating system and recovering data after a system crash. Supported file systems include Ext2, Ext3 and Ext4, ReiserFS, XFS, JFS, VFAT, NTFS, ISO9660 and Btrfs.
Tiny Core lead developer Robert Shingledecker has released version 3.1 of Tiny Core Linux. Tiny Core is a minimal Linux distribution that weighs in at just over 11 MB in size. The “tiny frugal” desktop distribution features the BusyBox tool collection and a minimal graphics system based on Tiny X and JWM. The core can run entirely in RAM, allowing for very quick booting. With the help of online repositories, Tiny Core Linux can be expanded to include additional applications.
The collectively developed software is distributed under open source licenses, such as the GNU General Public License and GNU Lesser General Public License, permitting access to the human-readable software source code. These licenses also provide rights for licensees to use, copy, modify and distribute open source software.
I might add, which Shuttleworth didn’t spell out, that if you need help to do anything with Linux, you’re more likely to find online help on how to do it on Ubuntu than openSUSE, Fedora, Debian, or any other Linux. Ubuntu’s popularity combined with that attitude of helping everyday users get the most from Linux has made it the go-to Linux for users who want and need a helping hand.
Notwithstanding these moments of suspense, the upgrade was surprisingly trouble-free. My applications work just as they did before. My scanner and printer both work as well, and because Lucid kept my desktop settings, my windows control buttons are on the right side, and not on the left where Lucid puts them by default.
All in all, it’s worth going the upgrade route because the longer installation time is more than offset by the time you save from not having to reinstall programs and tweaking your system all over again. In my case, that could mean a savings of a day or more.
CrunchGear, TechCrunch’s hardware-focused sister site, makes a compelling argument for buying a “janky old computer” off Craigslist or from another source, then simply loading it up with Ubuntu and classifying it as a simple work/email/Facebook/MP3 machine.
Ubuntu creator Mark Shuttleworth shot back against detractors today, pointing out that his project has made Linux more marketable and successful on the desktop.
D-Link’s Boxee Box can now be ordered from Amazon for November delivery (to US destinations only). Additionally, the company disclosed today that its device is based on an Intel Atom processor CE4100, representing a significant triumph for Intel over ARM Ltd.
The Linux-powered gaming handheld known as Pandora is now available for pre-order, ever since the first 1,000 pre-orders have already been shipped ever since they became available back in May. Why Linux? Well, it was done so in order to take advantage of existing open source software, and the fact that Linux is a primary target for home-brew development is not lost on the Pandora as it is a miniature computer device which off Linux.
The Universal MediaLibrary 7200 has a 10GigE storage infrastructure and has Linux-based servers that offer constant access to all drivers with a massive storage capacity of up 144 terabytes.
Tanner EDA has released a Linux version of the company’s HiPer Silicon full-flow design suite, giving designers a complete analog design flow from schematic capture, circuit simulation, and waveform probing to physical layout and verification. HiPer Silicon v15.02 includes all the functionality of the recently-introduced HiPer Silicon v15 while allowing customers to choose between the Windows and the Linux platforms.
Both Mac OSX and Linux systems now support read and write of DNxHD files with the optional DaVinci Resolve DNxHD Update. This optional $500 update allows native DNxHD media files to move instantly between Avid and DaVinci Resolve.
Smith added, “We are delighted that we now support the OpenTV Linux-based client middleware and look forward to continuing our successful relationship with Nagravision”.
But most of the Android powered phones (interesting usage this), are really powered by a Qualcomm chip. According to Harald Welte, who lead the team of developers that gave us the Neo 1973, the problem with the Qualcomm chips, from a Free Software point of view, is that the company is very secretive about their products. Their lack of public documentation, and the ever-increasing integration between the application processor (AP) and baseband processor (BP), make it more difficult to run custom software on phones powered by these chips.
Qualcomm is a member of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) and proud of its Android innovation success story. Sy Choudhury, Product Manager at Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, who is heading up the company’s involvement in the OHA, reasons that due to Android’s open source nature, “developers can find and debug problems much easier and quicker because they can see the code and understand how it works.”
– The launching of a retail version of the Bria for Linux softphone and the deployment of the enterprise version by two Fortune 500 customers. Bria for Linux gives enterprises a new option for extending VoIP across multiple operating systems and enabling them to reduce communications and travel costs, while improving productivity and responsiveness.
The first tablet to feature the MeeGo operating system is set to hit the shelves next week.
Initially the WeTab will only be available in Germany, but Intel – which launched the OS with Nokia back at Mobile World Congress in February – is hoping the device will catapult the operating system into the consciousness of consumer and business alike.
What makes the German-exclusive WeTab so special? First, its 1366 x 768, 11-inch capacitive touch screen is over an inch larger than the iPad’s and has a lot more screen real estate. Considering that a 720p video is 1280 x 720, the WePad more than makes the cut, while the 1024 x 768 iPad and the 1024 x 600 Samsung Galaxy tab have to downscale. Amongst 10 and 11-inch tablets we’ve seen, only the Viliv X10, which hasn’t come to market yet, has a resolution this high.
DeviceVM’s Splashtop quick boot software is designed to let you run a handful of apps including a web browser, Skype, and email software without waiting for Windows to boot on your computer. It comes preloaded on a number of netbooks and laptops from major PC makers. Today DeviceVM announced that future versions of Splashtop, which is already based on Linux, will use MeeGo Linux technology.
Intel’s AppUp application portal for apps running on the MeeGo and Windows OSes has come out of beta and gone gold, and soon will be available on Samsung and Asus netbooks.
Amidt the turmoil in the executive ranks – with first its chief executive exiting abruptly on Friday, and then its recently-appointed head of mobile resigning on Monday – the question for developers is a much more simple one: what phones is Nokia going to offer, will there be compelling reasons to develop for them, and will people want to buy or use apps on them?
Nokia has been showing off its new N8, C7, C6 (two of them; you tell them apart because one has the -00 an the other has the -01 suffix, obviously) and E7 models. They all run on Symbian^3, the latest version of Symbian.
Speaking to some of the developers on the floor it’s clear that quite a few had been hoping – and expecting – to see something using MeeGo, which is a Linux-based mobile OS that is going to be part of another strand in Nokia’s smartphone attack.
Open source license compliance in general has been a hot topic in recent years. Multiple vendors have had legal suits brought against themfor non-compliance. In an effort to help developers and vendors comply with open source licensing requirement the Linux Foundation recently launched a new compliance program in an effort to make compliance easier to achieve.
The company is now going ‘tough’ against App Store name warehousing. App Store may be bloated with many app names without any binaries being uploaded. These name hogs keep other developers from creating and uploading genuine apps with the same names for the App Store.
In our last article we examined the steps required to prepare an Android application for publication to the Android Market, or for that matter, any number of other venues for distributing Android applications.
This article picks up where the prior article left off as we demonstrate the steps required to upload a signed and packaged application to the Android Market.
gvSIG Mini development team is proud to announce the release of the stable version gvSIG Mini for Android 1.0.
This version offers, among other features, the ability of a direct download of maps from the phone to the storage card, for a further map displaying in offline mode, with no data connection.
Jeff Orr told iTWire: “The tally at the end of 2009 had global netbook shipments consisting of around 24 percent for all types of Linux compared to 76 percent for all versions of Windows.
If you are a professional photographer or an aspiring one, then the article Photography with Open Source / Linux will be a great help for you. This article written by Nathan Willis delves deep into the various tools that aid you to create photographic masterpieces.
Bangalore’s premiere Linux event, FOSS.IN, turns 10 this year. What started out as Linux Bangalore in 2001, organised by a group of hackers and Linux technology enthusiasts from the Bangalore Linux Users Group, is today a well-attended conference. In 2004, it was re-christened as FOSS.in.
Firefox 4.0 is still a bit away from final release, but the time to think about switching is now. The Mozilla Project is releasing Firefox 4.0 beta 6 this week, and the current builds are really good. Why switch? I’ll give you five excellent reasons to jump on the 4.0 train today.
One of the great things about open source development is that you don’t have to wait for the final product to ship to get your hands on it. Case in point, I’ve been running development builds of the Firefox 4.0 series off and on for weeks. You can too, if you don’t mind some rapid changes and possible instability.
At the VLDB conference in Singapore, researchers from Saarland University have presented the results of the Hadoop++ project which aims to accelerate the distributed computing framework Hadoop when performing analytical queries. The technique involves plugging a kind of query planner into Hadoop using hooks provided for the purpose.
The open source movement already has produced innovations like online encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Linux operating system.
By creating a free or “open” platform that allows people to share and analyze information, the system can tap the collective intelligence of the world to improve technology and solve global problems.
In other words, 6 billion brains are better than one.
Principals from more than 60 elementary, junior high, and senior high schools of Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, signed a “Software Freedom Manifesto” at the invitation of the city’s Education Bureau on Sep 9 Thursday morning in a press conference. Also announced in the conference are the the upcoming events of International Conference on Open Source (ICOS), and the “mother tongue tux usb key” workshops designed for the growing population of Vietnamese mothers in Taiwan.
Red Hat employee Matthew Garrett says he has written to the US Customs about the fact that Fusion Garage, the maker of the Joojoo tablet, has not provided him with the source code for the operating system that runs the device.
Garrett sent the letter based on advice offered by former Linux Journal publisher Don Marti on a web forum.
“I can design with tools as good as those that the car companies use, that Intel uses. It’s just cheap software that lets me design, simulate and test,” he said. “Communication costs are also dropping because of the Internet. That lets users actually undertake bigger problems because each one does a chunk of the work. I can do part of Linux. You can do another part of Linux.”
Git, he said, is becoming popular because of its association with Linux and its speed, said Marion. Git was authored by Linux founder Linus Torvalds, Marion noted.
The developers of the Seaside web framework for Smalltalk have announced version 3.0. What had originally begun as development work for a 2.9 version turned out to be such a significant change that the developers say it justified relabelling the release a 3.0. They believe Seaside 3.0 to be a “solid foundation for the foreseeable development” of the Smalltalk web framework.
More schoolchildren are daily being killed by traffic on the highways of the world’s poorest nations than by deadly infectious diseases such as Aids, tuberculosis and malaria, prompting campaigners to call for a UN-backed target to halt the spiralling numbers of traffic fatalities by 2015.
Applications and desktops that run on Windows, Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux, and other UNIX and Linux versions are supported, as well as mainframe and midrange applications.
I was detained last night by federal authorities at San Francisco International Airport for refusing to answer questions about why I had travelled outside the United States.
The end result is that, after waiting for about half an hour and refusing to answer further questions, I was released – because U.S. citizens who have produced proof of citizenship and a written customs declaration are not obligated to answer questions.
The Times-Picayune reported yesterday, “A new wave of black oil suddenly came ashore west of the Mississippi River on Friday and Saturday, coating beaches and fouling interior marshes, according to anglers’ reports.”
Like BP PLC’s Maconda well, which spewed more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the Ixtoc spill began with rig explosion and a failed blowout preventer.
The nine victims want a ban on finning, a gruesome practice in which fishermen cut off a fin for shark fin soup and then dump the fish back in the water to drown or bleed to death. An estimated 73 million sharks are killed by finning each year. Nearly a third of all shark species are threatened or near threatened with extinction, conservationists said.
First of all, I’m not calling anyone out to put them down. I have had a long time to think about these topics. I’ve been in the workforce for over thirty years now, including a long period in which I earned the absolute minimum or close to it (in some cases more, in some cases less).
I earned two associate’s degrees (one of which was in business administration), on bachelor’s degree (business administration), and one master’s degree (information technology) during that time. This means that I have typically had years more education than my bosses. But most of the time, this had little impact on my bottom line.
During this time, I’ve been a voracious reader with a desire to know and understand what and how and why in things related to business and the economy (and computers, but that’s a different article).
No matter what your instructor tells you, you have to look deeper. Look at real world data. Very often, what you’ve heard is factually wrong. When I was sitting around with business school classmates who commiserated about the low quality of applicants, I could tell them directly that they chose the worst applicants out of the bunch, because many times I had been one of those they chose not to hire.
There are very many personal and group decisions that should be made with an understanding of economic principles. It is a pity that so few people ever learn them.
So the Haystack Affair (is there a Wikipedia page named after this already?) continues generating food for thought for those of us working at the intersection of free expression, Internet censorship, and media development.
Yesterday I blogged about what the Haystack Affair suggested about the responsibility of “Internet intellectuals”. Ethan Zuckerman, who was one of the intellectuals I singled out in that post, eloquently responded to my criticism on his blog.
“I’ve not published on Haystack for a very simple reason: I haven’t been able to conduct a proper evaluation of either the tool or the protocols behind it,” wrote Ethan.
Google released a statement confirming it fired teen-stalking engineer David Barksdale for “breaking Google’s strict internal privacy policies,” as Gawker first reported earlier today. Our original exclusive, about Barksdale spying on minors’ Google Voice and Talk accounts, has been updated.
Related to the recent Haystack hubbub, here’s a basic overview of censorship resistance tools, of which Haystack was an example (unfortunately a fairly broken one).
David Barksdale, a 27-year-old former Google engineer, repeatedly took advantage of his position as a member of an elite technical group at the company to access users’ accounts, violating the privacy of at least four minors during his employment, we’ve learned. Barksdale met the kids through a technology group in the Seattle area while working as a Site Reliability Engineer at Google’s Kirkland, Wash. office. He was fired in July 2010 after his actions were reported to the company. [Update: Google has confirmed the security breach. An update appears below.]
Just as the MPAA is preparing to offer movies to customers at home while they’re still in theaters by limiting playback to DRM-protected digital outputs only, the HDCP protocol they rely on may have been cracked wide open. All devices that support HDCP, like Blu-ray players, set-top boxes and displays with HDMI inputs, have their own set of keys to encrypt and decrypt protected data and if keys for a particular device are compromised, they can be revoked by content released in the future which will then refuse to play. Now, posts have been floating around on Twitter about a supposed “master key” which renders that protection unusable since it allows anyone to create their own source and sink keys.
Make you voice heard by responding to the European Commission’s public consultation on Net neutrality! The more citizens and NGOs submit their own responses to the questionnaire, the more chance we have to collectively weigh in the EU policy-making process to ensure that the Internet remains a free and open communications architecture. You have until September 30th to send your submission and tell the Commission to protect the Internet.
The Telegraph is reporting today on how the Digital Economy Act will be met in order to tackle online piracy or copyright infrigement. You can read the Telegraphs article here. People may remember that its proposed that alleged infringers of copyright are sent a number of warning letters before sanctions and eventually a ban is put on their connection.
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Now maybe here Mr Vaizey is making a joke that I don’t get. If the ISP is to pick up the tab for 25% of the costs for this “enforcement” where does he think the money will come from if not passed onto the customer? Whilst that may be fair for the repeated copyright infringer, how is that fair on me or anyone else who thinks that the material “infringed upon” is not even worth a download for “free” and on the rare occasion when they are interested in a title, actually goes out and buys it? – I think far from help enforce an anti-piracy message, many people will just say “stuff it, Im footing the bill, I may as well jump in too”. Just like in my view, the person who came up with the idea of knock off Nigel, when you get people who really don’t know the subject trying to solve it, you only end up looking silly when it backfires. (For those that don’t know, Knock off Nigel was an ad campaign against piracy, that turned into a cult classic and even gave piracy a little kudos)
Summary: Some very revealing details from people who are close to bad Microsoft affairs and speak about it in audio rather than dare publish it in writing (in blunt form)
Although SA is still lagging behind when it comes to embracing open source software, the increase in adoption has been growing at a steady pace.
This is according to Linux Warehouse, a distributor of enterprise open source software for Southern Africa
However, SA has seen an increase because companies have been facing financial pressures, says general manager of Linux Warehouse Shannon Moodley. “The open source market is quite mature; most of the large banks and telcos use open source in some way or form and many do so in mission critical environments.”
In line with this, ITWeb and The Linux Warehouse have collaborated to carry out an Open Source Software Survey to ascertain the level of use of open source and vendor-supported software, as well as identifying potential areas where marketing and education could add value back into the market on the solutions available.
As a little recap on what Microsoft was doing to free/open source software in South Africa around 2008 (loads of examples were given at the time):
There is this good show called “Open Tech Exchange” (an audiocast) from South Africa (and occasionally elsewhere) in which Microsoft's assault on Free software in South Africa was described earlier this year. A newer episode of the show helps shed light on the dirty Microsoft tactics which Microsoft used not only in South Africa but also in other countries. The episode’s summary does not mention this part, but our loyal contributor gnufreex transcribed it for future use because it’s rather revealing and another reader politely asked us for it.
In this episode Darlene and I chat about Crisis Commons, the dangers of cloud computing and the behaviour of corporates.
The part that’s relevant to us starts around 14 minutes from the start. The two hosts (a man and a woman called Mark and Darlene, whose voice/gender makes it simplest to distinguish, hence the omission of name from here onwards) first talk about South Africa moving to Free software and putting all the policies in place to develop many things locally.
The lady says that she came across an interesting Microsoft document about their plan not to let GNU/Linux win, no matter the cost. “For example,” she says “we’ve talked about Brazil several times… and how the government is committed… [but] Microsoft… went into provinces… and used provinces… where the leaders [aligned with the opposition]… signed deals… they are going province by province…
“How do you win against those tactics,” she asked. “Even in South Africa… they [Microsoft] announce they are going to build a laboratory…” (for an accurate transcription see below; the text here is messy because we try to succinctly encompass key points)
The South African guy in this show says (not accurate wording) that they “lost their moral dimensions to everything… it’s basically breaking the rules… it’s not really philanthropic or humanitarian… if you have people… sociopaths… they get put in institutions… I don’t know, especially in countries that aren’t in North America.. these things sound.. unethical… [people call it corruption... not euphemism, they] call it what it us… call it bribery rather than euphemistic names and stuff like that… the way they have been brought up… you play by the rules and that’s OK”
The lady says “they’ll take any of the royalties… they’ll take them and [send] them back to incentives funds”
Looking at the documents, she explains: “how do we change the tide?” She mentions the Gates Foundation and she is very cynical about it, philanthropy being part of it while there isn’t any of it (see transcript or listen to the show).
Some of the later parts are also interesting. There is an explanation of how Canonical managed to approach parts of Spain.
Later on they start talking about patents more generally. The lady says that “there is a company out there called Monsanto… this is just a small example [of patents]… so, [in] this company they have genetically-engineered their seeds… they made it into this terminator gene so that it cannot reproduce… here in Canada this corporation affected us… [tells a local story] went all the way to the Supreme Court…” (the Gates-Monsanto links are not mentioned here unfortunately).
She talks about farmers in India committing suicide over Monsanto-imposed debt. Then she explains how in Germany they patent the breeding of pigs (for pork) and mentions transplants for humans from pigs.
As this discussion about patents carries on the guy says that “Microsoft [is] becoming [like] more of a patent troll… making money from Linux”
He explains that “SCO [...] when the revenue stream dries up [...] then they’ll start to thrashing around… to continue to make a profit…”
He gives HTC as an example, explaining that Apple just wants HTC to stop making Android phones and won’t accept money, so HTC counter-sues. Microsoft goes to them not asking them to pay, or just tells them to say that “you are paying us a lot” in order to create a fake case against Linux and the perception that Linux owes Microsoft.
It’s “the same thing as having a nuclear weapons,” he argues, when you actually have no nuclear weapons at all. They won’t go to Google asking for a patent deal as “they only go to companies they know they can negotiate a deal with”
Then they both mention Microsoft pressure over Dell’s 10 seasons to go with GNU/Linux. The man calls it “strong-arming” and we covered this in [1, 2, 3].
The guy explains that Microsoft need only pretend to be doing “open source” in order to block genuine Free software from being adopted in the short term. It’s a long-term investment for Microsoft which substituted what we once knew as Free software, instead promoting Microsoft stack-only ‘open source’ (marketed by Microsoft boosters like Marius Oiaga in this case).
This helps justify our attempt to dissociate Microsoft’s embrace-and-extend moves from real Free software which annuls monopolies and lock-in, instead promoting standards, as well as a truly free/libre stack.
We found it rather amazing that Matt Asay, who almost took a job at Microsoft some years ago, defends Windows monopoly and other monopolies by just assuming they are a natural phenomenon. He did not accept the point that “monopoly for an open standard is a great thing, monopoly for a product is not.”
Apology for Microsoft’s bad behaviour is part of the problem and Asay has a history in that regard (inviting Microsoft to “Open Source” events, to OSI, and more). Yes, he almost went working for Microsoft and unlike the good guy from South Africa he doesn’t call corruption “corruption”; rather, he almost defends it because it’s more convenient for someone in his position who is business oriented and perhaps less ethics oriented. His role in Canonical is still worrisome given the opinions he expressed and continues to express. █
Transcribed text of audiocast “Open Tech Exchange” – Episode 22
[15:00]
“And you know… Microsoft against open source, their plan is not to let Linux win at any cost, at any cost.”[Darlene:] I came across interesting documents… it was result of a court case, so this documents become public. And you know… Microsoft against open source, their plan is not to let Linux win at any cost, at any cost. So the projects I have been involved at large scale… and so for example I was talking about Brazil several times on our discussions on the show, and how government is committed to open source solutions for education. But now Microsoft is… they go in, and what they’ve done you see… we saw them in South Africa, but in a way… so but they go into provinces that aren’t governor, or sets are not held by governing party, so the opposition party is in control of those provinces, and they go in those provinces and approached them and got them to sign deals with Microsoft and kinda undermine what the ruling party is doing… and the rest of the country. So they go province by province and manipulating the system… man… how one wins against those tactics? How do you win against those tactics? It is discouraging sometimes. Even is South Africa when there was a commitment, and we thought we might see a change here in 2010… but Microsoft just comes in and announces they are going to build huge lab. There is benefit to it, in the end. The development lab, the training lab, they promised billion rands… what are thoughts Mark?
[17:00]
“At least… in South Africa there is corruption but people still know it is corruption and call it corruption [...] While [in the west] they try to call it something, give it euphemistic name, like lobbying… they don’t call it what it is.”[Mark:] I think part of the problem we have with they way companies run today… is generally why we end where we are. It is all about profits. And what is bizarre, lost all moral dimension of everything. Everything is okay as long it’s within rules you’re not technically breaking the rules. But they set aside all moral aspect of what you are doing. So with the [case of Microsoft] “we are giving people free software [as in piracy] just they can make sure we don’t lose market-share so we can sell more software later”. There are no any philanthropic, humanitarian principle. So the whole humanism side of things is gone. That is problem with corporate this days, they are simply legal entities. If you have person without any social conscience, no empathy and no sympathy, act purely in self interest… we have word for that kind of people, they are called sociopaths. And they get put away in institutions. And yet companies can behave like sociopaths, it seen as good thing and encouraged. Legally they have better odds than a person: If something goes wrong, they just close company and start new one. Whereas if you commit a crime you got to jail, you don’t get to start a new life. Especially for people that aren’t in North America and developed world, those things just sound so bizarre and underhanded and unethical. I don’t know how people get away with it. But it seems to be normal part of life [in developed world]. At least… in South Africa there is corruption but people still know it is corruption and call it corruption. We try and fight it, if you talk with average person on the street they will be against corruption. While [in the west] they try to call it something, give it euphemistic name, like lobbying… they don’t call it what it is. People might say: in Africa corruption is endemic and it is hard to function without having to bribe somebody. That’s true, but at least people know it is bribery and call it what it is, instead of making euphemistic names and stuff like that.
[20:00]
“That’s true, but at least people know it is bribery and call it what it is, instead of making euphemistic names and stuff like that.”Darlene: So Microsoft does things like: They won’t take any of royalties from their sales as long it doesn’t affect OEMs, like the cost OEMs have to pay to put license on a machines. But then they take all of the royalties and revert them in incentive funds for all those countries. I guess after reading those document I thought “How do we change the tide”. But we are doing good. I think about my friend in Montreal, who recently left from canonical. How he worked the deal in Spain to get those large deployments of Ubuntu out there.
[25:30]
[Mark:] Microsoft is more and more becoming basically a patent troll. […]
HTC Desire, every time when you buy android phone, money goes to Microsoft. […]
“I’ve killed at least two Mac conferences. [...] by injecting Microsoft content into the conference, the conference got shut down. The guy who ran it said, why am I doing this?”
Summary: Yet another revelation that Microsoft uses pressure and blackmail to throw competitors out of conferences that it does not run; more evidence surfaces which shows that WPF and Silverlight are dying
Microsoft not only crashes or attempts to “kill” the events of rivals (most recently OpenOffice.org but also LinuxTag 2010 [1, 2, 3]); sometimes it invades other companies’ event or a companies-neutral events and then ejects rivals from it. Not so long ago we learned that “Microsoft refused to sponsor the conference unless the conference organizers denied Zimbra the opportunity to take a big, prominent booth at the event.”
Now we have another example like that. Jalemanwrote earlier today: “My talk for cloudconf got refused because Microsoft gets to approve every speaker and they don’t like us.”
It is worth documenting this type of stuff; otherwise, those who claims that Microsoft would withdraw funding based on the agenda (a form of blackmail) can be called “paranoid”.
“Former Microsoft managers confirm what I predicted 2 years ago WPF and Silverlight are dead.” –JalemanJaleman had another interesting tweet earlier today, one where he said that “Former Microsoft managers confirm what I predicted 2 years ago WPF and Silverlight are dead. http://www.riagenic.com/archives/363”
This is a subject which we covered before [1, 2, 3]. Maybe that’s why we no longer hear about Moonlight, either. Just to think that Microsoft MVP de Icaza urged GNU/Linux developers to embrace WPF, another dead horse. What kind of clown does he look like now? Marketing dunce for Microsoft pretending to still be a “FOSS guy”? Or that Microsoft is a friend? Delusion is the worst form of reassurance, ignorance is another. █
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