01.10.12

After Microsoft OOXML Corruption, Microsoft Corrupts UK Government Through Front Groups and Lobbyists

Posted in Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument, Standard at 11:30 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Westminster Parlament

Summary: Leaked documents from the UK reveal the role Microsoft played in derailing standards in the United Kingdom

THE thugs from Microsoft are waging imperialist wars again. They do this via mercenaries of sorts — front groups that pretend to be “local”.

“So MS got the UK Cabinet office to use a broken definition of Open Standard,” says iophk. “Strange that the office was so malleable.”

Herein we see standards getting replaced by Microsoft “interop” nonsense, just like Novell-type deals with their new propaganda. The sheer abuses (including bribery) Microsoft used for OOXML were covered here closely. Rather than recall them now we’ll just say with conviction that Microsoft is a criminal company, as evidenced around 2007 and 2008 when Microsoft attacked international standards bodies, many professionals (those whom Microsoft did not manage to bribe), etc.

“MS has been pushing RAND for more than a few years now,” iophk explains. As we showed in prior years, Microsoft is using the BSA and other front groups to achieve this.

Here too we have a new report which shows what Microsoft has just done (based on a leak):

The British government withdrew its open standards policy after lobbying from Microsoft, it has been revealed in a Cabinet Office brief leaked to Computer Weekly.

The Department of Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) also formerly opposed the policy before Cabinet Office withdrew it. BIS supported Microsoft’s position against open standards, the backbone of the government’s ICT policy. The Business Software Alliance, infamous for its lobbying against open standards policy in Brussels, also lobbied against the government policy.

Microsoft took up direct opposition to the ICT Strategy’s pledge to give preference to technologies that supported open standards of interoperability between government computer systems, said the briefing paper.

The software supplier was concerned this would prevent companies from claiming royalties on the point of exchange between those systems.

It complained specifically about the wording of UK procurement policy, which in January 2011 established a definition to explain its edict that open standards should be used in government computing wherever possible. UK policy specified that “[open standards] must have intellectual property made irrevocably available on a royalty free basis”.

Microsoft said it supported the aims of UK open standards policy – specifically that government systems should be interoperable, that it should be possible for government to re-use purchased software components, and that government should not be “locked-in” to using particular technologies.

[...]

Microsoft refused to talk to Computer Weekly about its consultation with the Cabinet Office.

It said in a written statement: “Microsoft fully supports the Government’s ICT strategy and its goals of reducing cost and complexity, and increasing information sharing, interoperability, openness and re-use.”

The BSA said in a written statement it also supported government’s policy aims.

“However,” it said, “reducing public procurement expenses in the UK does not require the adoption of a policy which undermines the value of Intellectual Property and Innovation.”

Cabinet Office said in a written statement: “No lobbying has taken place that has affected our approach in creating an Open Standards definition that works for government.”

BIS also refused to discuss its differences with Cabinet Office. It said in a written statement: “Discussions are still ongoing between the departments with many options being considered.”

Glyn Moody was filled with fury over this. He wrote:

Although I am not surprised by this revelation, I remain incredibly angry about it – and I think everyone who cares about computing in this country should be too. It confirms that the UK government’s fine words about supporting open source and open standard are truly the typical and cynical political sweet-talking before you are stabbed in the back at the behest of lobbyists that wield so much power. No one should take anything the UK government says in this context seriously again.

What’s truly shocking about this episode is not that Microsoft has once again interfered with a sovereign nation’s decision to create a level playing-field – that’s just par for the course for the convicted monopolist. What’s really disgusting is that UK government has let them. This is a total scandal: anyone involved with this pathetic kowtowing to US business interests with any sense of decency would resign immediately. And those that don’t should be fired.

Free Software Magazine wrote, “look who’s behind it?”

It is at times like this I recall the Free Software Foundation’s opposition to the use of the term Open Source. Just as with “Open Standard” it is way to open to interpretation.

So once again the UK Government falls behind the pack in terms of freedom, transparency and accessibility for its citizens. This is not a party-political thing by the way – it’s a politician thing. In the UK there has been a backlash lately over the influence that the media (in particular the print media “barons”) has over government policy. Isn’t it about time the same spotlight was cast upon the influence that big business (many of them not British) have over government policy as well?

I find it saddening, disheartening and somewhat ironic that the one part of the software industry that is continuing to provide real innovation and progress is being locked out of Whitehall because of lobbying by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills!

Microsoft’s role in these situation is easy to see, even when Microsoft hides behind front groups. Over in a smaller country we find news about another FOSS-hostile government position:

A state which has been popular for using FOSS has now entered in a conditional pact where they ‘willingly’ chose to spend money on proprietary software despite the availability of free and open source alternatives.

Bribes come from proprietary software and overpriced goods. It should not be surprising that politicians turn their back on Free/Open Source software. █

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Openwashing Linux Tax: OpenSUSE and Tuxera

Posted in GNU/Linux, GPL, Kernel at 11:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Peaceful place

Summary: Tuxera makes the news again, even in light of potential GPL violations, not just taxing Linux and Android on behalf of Microsoft (like SUSE does)

THE OpenSUSE project is relatively quiet these days, but some people are still on vacation. We’ll touch on that separately quite soon.

In order to keep abreast of things, Phoronix notes some Plymouth developments:

While Plymouth is now quite mature and didn’t see too much new activity in 2011, it may be finding its way into another Linux distribution. The openSUSE developers are debating to use Plymouth as a replacement to bootsplash.

OpenSUSE is behind some of the competition here. There’s no good reason to choose OpenSUSE these days. Phoronix proceeds from the little OpenSUSE news that exists [1, 2] and criticises Microsoft’s exFAT, which other than SUSE is one of Microsoft’s main patent extortion cash cows (another is Android “licensing”). Michael writes:

Microsoft’s exFAT Is Still Crap On Linux

[...]

For those very serious about exFAT on Linux, Tuxera — the same company that claims NTFS is the fastest Linux file-system — does have exFAT Embedded (product page). This is a legal implementation of exFAT on Linux with Tuxera having gone through the proper licensing channels to receive the file-system documentation and construct this Linux kernel module. Tuxera also offers exFAT for Android devices.

The debate resulting from this article is quite large and Tuxera is at the centre of it all. Ryan spoke quite a lot about it in IRC (even last night). And recently he also approached some developers. Among the things he wrote (see recent IRC logs, especially from yesterday and the day before that): “I also believe the Microsoft Gold Partner Tuxera is a GPL violator that has stolen GPL licensed source code for XFS for Linux and made it into a proprietary IFS for Windows (both violate the GPL. I doubt they used the FreeBSD implementation since it is not only crap, it is read only. The only version of XFS with any maturity and completeness that has any source code available is under the GPL, and Tuxera won’t answer my email when I ask them where they got “Tuxera XFS” from. I have notified several of the copyright holders on XFS of Tuxera’s activity. They can pursue legal remedies if it does turn out to be the case that Tuxera XFS violates the GPL, which is more likely than not.

“Microsoft sits back and lets Tuxera violate the GPL on their behalf”
–Ryan“Alex Elder has told me that he is suspicious that they have stolen GPL licensed XFS code from SGI’s git repository, due to the reason I brought up about the GPL version being the only usable and full featured public implementation with any maturity… he said that he is unaware of SGI licensing XFS to them, and if they did, it would not cover anything that has been added to XFS for Linux, which has spanned the last 12 years, for which SGI doesn’t require copyright assignment, so if SGI were to license the code, it would be the code from IRIX, not the considerably more advanced version from Linux [...] the version from IRIX hasn’t seen any major development since around 2000. IRIX itself has been in End Of Life extended support since 2006, which is due to end within the next couple of years [...] an IFS for Windows implementing XFS out of GPL licensed source code would be a GPL violation on two fronts: 1. Since it is under a proprietary license from Tuxera, which is not allowed under the GPL. 2. When added as an IFS, it runs inside the Windows kernel, which violates the linking requirements of the GPL, unless Microsoft was to relicense Windows under the GPL [...] Microsoft sits back and lets Tuxera violate the GPL on their behalf [...]that way they can claim compatibility with Linux file systems without being sued for it [...] if it blows up on anyone, it will be Tuxera.”

iophk responds with: “That’s usual. They mostly work through proxies”

This gives them GPL FUD to be used later, too. They get device makers stuck with Microsoft tax and also GPL violations, assuming the above conviction is true.

“[T]he only Ext2 IFS for Windows which is proprietary freeware and doesn’t violate the GPL,” writes Ryan, “is a from scratch implementation that used no GPL source codewhich was written by a college student as part of a thesis.”

The discussion was very long and on it goes in IRC. This is still work in progress for us. We may write about it again when conclusions are reached. █

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Apple’s Backdoorgate and New Antitrust Class Action

Posted in Apple, Courtroom at 11:07 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Gate

Summary: Apple gets unwanted attention for putting back doors in its software in order for authorities to intrude; more antitrust lawsuits (class action) brought against Apple

APPLE received a lot of flack (hot fire even) in recent day after it turned out that it had set up a backdoor for governments, validating many suspicions that we wrote about before. To quote Slashdot:

“In a tweet early this morning, cybersecurity researcher Christopher Soghoian pointed to an internal memo of India’s Military Intelligence that has been liberated by hackers and posted on the Net. The memo suggests that, “in exchange for the Indian market presence” mobile device manufacturers, including RIM, Nokia, and Apple (collectively defined in the document as “RINOA”) have agreed to provide backdoor access on their devices. The Indian government then “utilized backdoors provided by RINOA” to intercept internal emails of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a U.S. government body with a mandate to monitor, investigate and report to Congress on ‘the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship’ between the U.S. and China. Manan Kakkar, an Indian blogger for ZDNet, has also picked up the story and writes that it may be the fruits of an earlier hack of Symantec. If Apple is providing governments with a backdoor to iOS, can we assume that they have also done so with Mac OS X?”

This is an important development because with documents in our hands it will no longer be possible for Apple to duck serious allegations. Apple has more bad publicity coming as another antitrust class action is brought against it:

Four American iPhone users have launched a class action suit against Apple over its exclusive deals with carriers in the country and the way it runs the App Store.

Apple partnered with US carrier AT&T when it first brought the Jesus-mobe to stores in 2007, in a five-year exclusivity agreement that tied users to an AT&T SIM card with no option to use another network.

AT&T conspired with the government to spy, oppress and censor too. We wrote about this in previous years [1, 2, 3]. So AT&T and Apple have more in common than the common man (or woman) may realise. █

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Links 10/1/2012: Linux 3.3 Plans, More Desktops With GNU/Linux

Posted in News Roundup at 5:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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

GNU/Linux

Desktop
- CES 2012: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Hybrid Demonstration Video
  
  Earlier in the weekend we heard about Lenovo’s new ThinkPad X1 Hybrid notebook that combines standard Intel x86 hardware with a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor running an open-source Linux OS.
- Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Hybrid hands on: Based on Android, won’t leverage Windows 8
- Desktop Linux Gains Share in Recent Months
  
  Linux’s prospects as a desktop operating system have long been a topic of hot debate, with some arguing that it will never surpass 1 percent of the market while others–including yours truly–countering that it already has.
- Lenovo ThinkPads at CES
  
  Other ThinkPad offerings run the usual gamut of T-series, W-series, and ThinkPad Edge to name a few. Lenovo has also decided to move away from the s-suffix (e.g. T420s) and created a new S-series line. The ThinkPad Edge S430 is interesting in that it’s one of the few laptops we’ve seen so far at CES with a Thunderbolt port. Another cool ThinkPad is the X1 Hybrid, which is the same as the X1 but with a mini-PCIe card that contains an SoC capable of running a Linux-style. If you need more battery life and don’t need the performance of a full Core i5/i7 processor you can switch to the SoC. At that point, the Windows environment goes into sleep mode and you switch to a Linux-based (Android-based) environment. There’s shared flash memory storage that can be accessed by both the Windows and Linux platforms, but the Linux OS can only read from the flash memory. The battery life benefit is claimed as being up to 2X when in SoC mode, though others have reported even lengthier runtimes.
- FXI Cotton Candy Hands-On: USB Stick Computer Now Runs Ubuntu, Ice Cream Sandwich
  
  When we first saw FXI’s Cotton Candy, the tiny dual-core computer on a USB stick blew our minds with its ability to take over either a notebook or a standalone screen and turn it into an Android station. Now, the Norwegian company has managed to port both Ubuntu Linux and Android 4.0 Ice Cream sandwich to its diminuitive device while adding a micro USB port and working on an even slimmer design.
Server
- Open Source Web Server nginx Passes IIS in Popularity
- The road to a successful open source project: Learning lessons from Drupal
  
  By almost any measure, Drupal, an open source content management system/Web platform, should be a poster child for open source success. The PHP-based CMS, the first version of which was released by Dries Buytaert in 2001, powers the Web presence of a number of major organisations, including, since 2009, Whitehouse.gov.
  
  When it comes what other open source projects can learn from Drupal’s success, Buytaert, who is now chief technology officer of Acquia and remains Drupal’s project lead, says that although he doesn’t have all the answers — and that “there’s no one right way” to do things — there are some lessons to be learned.
Kernel Space
- What’s New in Linux 3.2?
  
  What better way to kick off the new year than with a brand new kernel, fresh out of Kernel.org? Linus Torvalds released the 3.2 kernel on January 4th, with improvements in the Ext4 and Btrfs filesystems, thin provisioning features, a new architecture, and CPU bandwidth control.
- Linux kernel hits version 3.2, plenty of power-saving features in tow
- Linux 3.3 Kernel Has A Big, “Pretty Good” Staging Merge
  
  The Linux 3.3 kernel staging pull request has been submitted to Linus Torvalds. As said by Greg Kroah-Hartman, the 3.3 staging merge is big and “overall, the story is pretty good.”
  
  Here’s some of the highlights of the staging area pull for the Linux 3.3 kernel:
- Reiser4 Still Lacks Mainline Ambitions
  
  Reiser4 is still not ready for integration into the Linux 3.3 kernel nor has the file-system even been officially updated yet for any of the recent kernel releases.
  
  The Reiser4 patch directory hasn’t even been restored since the downing of Kernel.org, but at least their Wiki is back online, which notes the Linux 2.6.38 kernel as the latest. On reiserfs-devel is where some discussions do take place (circa two dozen per month) with some patches for Reiser4.
Applications
- App of the Week: LiLi USB Creator 2.8
- Automating the Linux Desktop With AutoKey
  
  AutoKey is one of those rare applications that you do not know you need until you start using it, and then it becomes an essential part of your workflow. AutoKey is a system wide service that allows you to create text shortcuts for commonly used words or phrases. For example, you could set the key combination “,,e” (without quotation marks) to automatically expand to your email address. Or, you could set “,,p” to expand into your phone number. AutoKey’s power goes beyond simple text expansion. AutoKey allows you to write your own scripts in Python, and that’s where things get interesting.
- Top 10 free apps in the Ubuntu Software Center
  
  People generally don’t prefer Ubuntu for the simple reason that it does not provide the variety of apps found in other OSes. Though it is partly true , there are a lot of free apps out there that are just waiting to be found. We bring to you the list of top ten free apps for Ubuntu. Check it out to see whether your favourite app has bagged a spot.Prepare yourselves for some surprises.Here is the list of the free Ubuntu apps that we think are a cut above the rest.
- Instructionals/Technical
Distributions
- New Releases
  - Porteus 1.1
  - Core Update 54 + 55 released
  - Tiny Core 4.2.1
  - Porteus 1.1
  - RIPLinuX 13.6
  - Asturix 4
  - Two updates for IPFire open source firewall released
    
    IPFire Project Leader and developer Michael Tremer has announced the release of two new core updates to version 2.11 of his open source firewall. Core 54 includes updates for network hardware, such as new Intel network drivers, as well as updated versions of the Squid proxy server, the Snort network intrusion prevention and detection system, and the smartmontools package.
- PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family
  - Mandriva may be forced to shut down
    
    The French GNU/Linux company, Mandriva, may be forced to shut its doors as soon as January 16, following the refusal of one of its main shareholders to accept a recapitalisation scheme.
  - Mandriva Linux maker could enter bankruptcy next week
  - On disaster reports
    
    2012 started as a rather interesting year. Perhaps influenced by the so-called “Mayan Doomsday” prophecies, people today reported hearing strange rumbling noises coming from the Earth.
    
    Interestingly, the Linux world also has its own disaster predictions–you always listen that Linux is finished on the desktop, that the desktop computer itself is finished, and a myriad more.
    
    One of the predictions that I read is that 2012 will be the definite year of Mandriva’s disappearance. Since Mandriva was the distro that made me migrate to Linux, I must admit that I received the news with a grave heart.
- Red Hat Family
  - Red Hat prepares for growth while key competitor teeters on brink of collapse
    
    In recent days Red Hat has announced a new enterprise storage appliance platform based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1. The company also anticipates that the growth in cloud computing, particularly as a back-end to consumer appliances, will mean the deployment of more Linux servers by business.
- Debian Family
  - Derivatives
    - Canonical/Ubuntu
      - All Eyes on Ubuntu as CES Draws Near
        
        It’s obvious that Canonical was never about engineering,” said Slashdot blogger Barbara Hudson. “It’s always been marketing, hype, generating buzz by trying to get their fingers into the latest trend, and ‘oh look — shiny.’ Unfortunately for them, unless you have a practical monopoly like Microsoft enjoyed, you ultimately need product engineering to stand out.”
      - TV for Human Beings: Ubuntu Linux
      - Ubuntu TV Demoed At CES [Video]
      - CES 2012: Linux Ubuntu TV launched by British firm Canonical
      - I Want My Ubuntu TV!
      - Flavours and Variants
        
        Blue Systems becomes Linux Mint partner and sponsor
        
        Clement Lefebvre, leader of the Linux Mint project, has announced that Blue Systems, a German company, has become a partner of the Linux Mint project. The partnership is focused on improving the KDE editions of Linux Mint KDE and Blue Systems-sponsored Netrunner – Lefebvre says that this should have a positive effect on both distributions even though they offer different experiences. Lefebvre also notes that Blue Systems will become the primary sponsor for Linux Mint, in a deal that has allowed the Mint developers to contract an additional full-time developer for all of 2012.
Devices/Embedded
- Marvell Introduces Tiny SMILE Plug Classroom Server at CES
  
  Not content to help students only through its partnership with One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), Marvell is rolling out a new product designed to revolutionize the classroom learning experience. Not much bigger than a walwart, the tiny SMILE Plug is a Linux-based, wireless learning server that can provide unique educational content to up to 60 students at a time.
- CES: GM Wants To Turn Your Car Into An iPhone On Wheels
  
  CUE is based on Linux, the same open-source software running many of the world’s servers. Cars last three to four to five years, so Cue’s open, Linux-based architecture will let GM keep the CUE’s interface up to date, Vurpillat said.
- Raspberry Pi’s Gertboard expansion board already works (video)
  
  In the middle of December last year the Raspberry Pi Foundation made a surprising announcement that not only would we see the $25 PC released in 2012, it would also be getting an expansion board–possibly joining it at launch.
- New Iomega Network Storage Gear Starts at 1TB, $220
  
  The StorCenter ix2 runs EMC LifeLine, a Linux-based OS created for enterprise-level storage devices. Setup via a web interface requires no CD. The two-drive units support RAID 1 (mirrored) data protection.
- Phones
  - Tizen UI leaks ahead of Samsung I9500 debut
  - Tizen Association Launched to Drive Industry Engagement for Tizen™
  - Tizen releases some code
  - Android
    - UNVEILED: Huawei announces world’s slimmest Android smartphone – the Huawei Ascend P1 S
    - LTE Android Lineup to Expand on MetroPCS
    - Supersonic, Inc. introduces a new Android powered set-top box
      
      Supersonic, Inc. recently introduced a new set top box, powered by Android. The SC-66G ($199) Android-powered set-top box features a wireless full-size keyboard and Wi-Fi capability. The SC-66G, which is shipping now at a $199 suggested retail, has Wi-Fi capability, four USB ports and a MicroSD card slot, as well as SATA, Ethernet and HDMI ports.
    - ASUS announces Eee Pad MeMO ME370T and new Transformer Prime TF700T
      
      ASUS is bringing the Ice Cream Sandwich love in 2012 with the EeePad MeMO ME370T, and a new upmarket model Transformer Prime, the TF700T. The new Prime, which doesn’t replace the existing Transformer Prime we all know and love, has a few upgrades from the original model, namely a 1920×1200 display, a 2MP front camera for HD video conferencing, and a re-designed back plate for better Wifi, Bluetooth and GPS reception. It will use the same docking station and battery life should be very comparable to the current TF201 Transformer Prime.
    - Fujitsu leaks quad-core Tegra 3 smartphone, unwraps Ice Cream Sandwich
      
      Did the performance chops of the Transformer Prime whet your appetite for quad-core Android? Perhaps the UI of Ice Cream Sandwich is almost enough to push you over from your iPhone. Well, Fujitsu may be the surprising choice for your next phone. Pushing the envelope way beyond the Arrows μ F-07D, Fujitsu’s let slip that it has another phone up its sleeve. In a leaflet distributed at CES Unveiled, the brief specification reads like a wish list: a quad-core Tegra 3 CPU and Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) right out of the gates. Now, whether we’ll see it in the flesh as CES unfolds this week, well, only Fujitsu knows.
    - At Least 3 New 4G LTE Devices Launching on Sprint in 2012
    - HDMI dongle IPTV device supports Android 4.0
      
      Always Innovating announced a tiny open source, IP set-top box (STB) that runs Android 4.0 on a Texas Instruments OMAP4 processor clocked as high as 1.8GHz. The HDMI Dongle plugs directly into a TV’s HDMI port, and provides up to 1GB of RAM, a microSD slot, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a remote control that offers NFC, accelerometers, and voice control.
    - CES 2012: OpenMobile Makes Android Apps Run On Everything
      
      There are more than just Android and iOS powering smart devices today and one company is making apps easier to get on those other platforms.
      
      OpenMobile announced today at CES their Application Compatibility Layer (ACL) which allows for perfect porting of the more than 300,000 apps available for Android to devices running on other OSes including Windows, Linux and more.
- Sub-notebooks/Tablets
  - Lenovo puts Android 4.0 in dockable tablet and smart TV
    
    Lenovo announced two new devices that run Android 4.0 (“Ice Cream Sandwich”) on a dual-core, 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ8060 processor. One is a 10.1-inch tablet with a detachable keyboard dock and up to 20 hours’ battery life (the IdeaTab S2), while the other is a television with an in-plane switching (IPS) display and voice-activated remote control (the K91 Smart TV), according to the company.
  - Verizon Announces World’s Thinnest 4G LTE Tablet – Galaxy Tab 7.7
    
    The newest addition to the Galaxy tablet line up was announced today at CES. The 7.7 inch 4G LTE-Enabled Samsung Galaxy Tab will be available in the coming weeks. It’s the first tablet in the United States to feature a Super AMOLED™ Plus Display. As mentioned above, it is the world’s thinnest 4G LTE tablet weighing only 340 grams (roughly 12 oz) and measuring at only 7.9 millimeters thin.
  - Verizon and Motorola announce Droid 4: Thinnest, most powerful 4G LTE smartphone with QWERTY keyboard
  - OLPC’s XO 3 tablet uses 1GHz ARM SoC to run Sugar Linux or Android
    
    One Laptop per Child (OLPC) demonstrated a “fully functional” version of its long-delayed XO 3.0 tablet, equipped with a 1GHz Marvell Armada PXA618 processor running Sugar Linux or Android 3.x. Like OLPC’s XO 2 laptop, the eight-inch tablet is aimed at educational systems in developing nations, and it will feature an optional sunlight-readable Pixel Qi touchscreen plus the ability to draw power from an optional solar panel or crank charger.
  - OLPC shows off XO 3 tablet running Android or Linux
  - CES 2012: £70 XO3 tablet to be unveiled by One Laptop Per Child
  - One Laptop Per Child Debuts Rugged Tablet for Students in the Developing World
  - Qooq culinary tablet: recipes and videos in a kitchen-safe enclosure (hands-on video)
  - Qooq: The French Linux-Based Tablet For Your Kitchen
  - CES 2012: New technologies unleashed at show
    
    The Linux-based device is splash-proof, is held off the ground by feet that allow spilled liquids to run underneath, and can shrug off temperatures of up to 60C (140F).
  - Toshiba’s ‘world’s thinnest tablet’ heads stateside
    
    Toshiba announced “the world’s thinnest 10-inch tablet,” measuring 0.3 inches (7.7mm) thick and weighing 1.18 pounds (535 grams). Heading for a 1Q U.S. release, the Excite X10 runs the “latest” Android build on a 1.2GHz TI OMAP4430 processor, has 1GB RAM and either 16GB or 32GB of storage, offers a 10.1-inch, 1280 x 800 IPS display, and includes five- and two-megapixel cameras.

Free Software/Open Source

Prof: Schools moving to OpenSim should pay for hosting
Google’s Open Source Video Player

Perhaps Google isn’t all bad these days! A new open source HTML5 video player is yours for the download. As well as being a good showcase app it is also practically useful. It is the architectural core of the new 60 Minutes and RedBull.tv apps available in the Chrome Web Store.
Google open sources new HTML5 video tool

Google chose the PR graveyard shift slot of 4:30 USA Pacific time on Friday afternoon last week to put out its latest communiqué to us, the consuming masses.

The ‘search giant’ has pushed its latest HTML5 video tool to open source.

The new Video Player Sample is built with open web technology and is designed to allow developers (and other users) to wrap video up in the required code to be able to release it as a web store application.
Rackspace open-sources Dreadnot for failure-free software deployment with Node.js
IBM Delivers Open Source Version of EGL Tools
Consolidation enables open source software strategy
AT&T Signs On With OpenStack Open-Source Cloud

AT&T on Monday officially signed on with the OpenStack cloud, the Rackspace- and NASA-created open-source cloud computing project.
An Interactive eGuide: Open Source
ChannelEyes Social Media Cloud Built On Open Source
OSQA, the open source Q&A system

OSQA is the free, open source Q&A system you’ve been waiting for. Your OSQA site is more than just an FAQ page, it is a full-featured Q&A community. Users earn points and badges for useful participation, and everyone in the community wins.
Events
- SCALE 10x Shows CSPs How to Build A Cloud on Open Source
Web Browsers
- Mozilla
  - The new MPL
    
    Last week the Mozilla Foundation released version 2.0 of the Mozilla Public License. Immediately recognized as a free software license by the Free Software Foundation and approved as an Open Source license by the Open Source Initiative, MPL 2.0 is a well-crafted modern license that ought to be considered by any open source project desiring a weak copyleft licensing policy.
Databases
- Hadoop vs. an RDBMS: How much (less) would you pay?
Oracle/Java/LibreOffice
- Unused LibreOffice Code Expunged
  
  The more code an application accumulates, the heavier it gets and the slower it performs usually. It’s just basic physics of programming. Since years of neglect left lots of unused code in LibreOffice, contributors have been busy cleaning it up. The latest scan by Michael Meeks shows the efforts are really paying off.
Project Releases
- LSU Releases First Open Source ParalleX Runtime Software System
  
  Louisiana State University’s Center for Computation & Technology (CCT) has delivered the first freely available open-source runtime system implementation of the ParalleX execution model. The HPX, or High Performance Parallex, runtime software package is a modular, feature-complete, and performance oriented representation of the ParalleX execution model targeted at conventional parallel computing architectures such as SMP nodes and commodity clusters.
Public Services/Government
- NASA: Prize money a bargain for better software
  
  In October 2010, NASA and the Harvard Business School launched the NASA Tournament Lab, an online platform for contests between independent programmers who compete to create software and algorithms and solve computational problems.
Licensing
- Mozilla Releases OSI-Approved MPLv2
  
  Last week saw a quiet landmark in the history of the open source movement with the formal release of version two of the Mozilla Public License (MPLv2) and its approval as an official open source license. While to many it may look like just another legal detail, it is significant both for the way it was conducted and for the intent with which it has been created. This is a license aimed at unity.
- 2011: Top Ten FOSS Legal Developments
  
  This year, 2011, was one of the most active years in legal developments in FOSS. This activity reflects the increase in FOSS use: Laura Wurster of Gartner, noted in the Harvard Business Review blog that open source has hit a “strategic tipping point” this year with companies increasingly focused on using “open source” software for competitive rather than cost reasons http://lawandlifesiliconvalley.com/blog/?p=619.
Openness/Sharing
- Public Knowledge opens wireless usage caps website
  
  The site is sponsored by PK, Mozilla Foundation and the Open Source Democracy Foundation. PK and the Open Technology Initiative last May asked the FCC to investigate data caps generally.
- Open Data
  - Open Source Maps Gain Ground as Google Paywall Looms
Programming
- Zend Updates PHP Server Stack for IBM i
  
  Zend Technologies has launched a major update to Zend Server for IBM i, its PHP server stack for the IBM i platform. Version 5.6 marks the general availability of the new XML Toolkit, which provides a new way for integrating RPG logic into PHP apps, and a new application deployment mechanism. DBi, the drop-in replacement for MySQL on the platform that was slated for release about this time, is not yet ready.

Leftovers

Finance
- REO To Rental Fed Plan Would Do Little For Housing, Says Goldman Sachs
  
  The Federal Reserve’s foreclosure rental program would do little to lift the ailing housing market, Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a research paper released on Friday morning.
  
  The analysis, written in response to a Federal Reserve paper released earlier this week, calculates the nationwide effects of renting foreclosed properties as “positive but modest,” possibly fostering a 0.5 percent increase in home prices in the first year of program implementation, and a 1 percent increase in the second year. But those are Goldman’s maximum increases, and the researchers are quick to add that the “actual effect would likely be less.”
- Goldman’s Infamous ‘Sh*tty Deal’ Turns Out Not To Have Been As Sh*tty As Others
  
  The infamous Abacus transaction that cost Goldman Sachs $550 million might have been designed to fail, but it turns out that it actually performed better than its peers, according to a new study co-authored by BlackRock and Columbia Business School.
  
  The Abacus CDOs’ performance, “while undoubtedly bad, was actually better than average among all bonds that had been similarly packaged.”
Copyrights
- Copying the copyrighted is okay if it transforms: What’s that?
  
  Writing in the New York Times, Randy Kennedy reports on a court decision that would make it illegal to use most work of others still under copyright as the basis for new works which “transform” the original link here.
  
  “The decision, by Judge Deborah A. Batts, set off alarm bells throughout Chelsea and in museums across America that show contemporary art. At the heart of the case, which Mr. Prince is now appealing, is the principle called fair use, a kind of door in the bulwark of copyright protections. It gives artists (or anyone for that matter) the ability to use someone else’s material for certain purposes, especially if the result transforms the thing used or as Judge Pierre N. Leval described it in an influential 1990 law review article, if the new thing “adds value to the original” so that society as a whole is culturally enriched by it. In the most famous test of the principle, the Supreme Court in 1994 found a possibility of fair use by the group 2 Live Crew in its sampling of parts of Roy Orbison’s “Oh Pretty Woman” for the sake of one form of added value, parody.”

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01.09.12

Links 9/1/2012: Ubuntu TV Unveiled, Qooq Runs Linux

Posted in News Roundup at 9:38 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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

GNU/Linux

Softpedia Linux Weekly, Issue 181
Download Linux From Your Desktop With Get Linux

How do I download Linux? That’s a question that I hear fairly often. It usually leads to follow-up questions, like what is a distribution, which distribution should I download or how do I install Linux on my PC.

While it is possible to download a Linux distribution from a project website or developer homepage right away, it is often more comfortable to download it from the desktop without having to search for the download links and homepage in the first place.
Desktop
- A snapshot of Linux on the desktop
  
  The Linux desktop landscape is a diverse place. As an open-source operating system, anyone can take the code, make whatever changes they want, and release it as their own custom distribution. A land of diversity, however, also has its pitfalls. Mandriva Linux seems like the most recent candidate to fall, with the company purportedly going under on January 16th if it doesn’t receive an infusion of funds. The funds are being blocked by a shareholder dispute, and it will be a sad story for the once-popular Linux distribution. How many Linux distributions have gone quietly into memory, and which have stayed? What makes Ubuntu so popular? Let’s take a quick look into the the history of Linux on the desktop.
Kernel Space
- FIOPS: A New Linux I/O Scheduler For Flash/SSDs
  
  Last week a new I/O scheduler was presented for the Linux kernel. This new scheduler, FIOPS, is designed around modern flash-based storage devices like solid-state drives.
  
  Shaohua Li presented FIOPS, the Fair IOPS scheduler, under an “RFC” state last week on the Linux kernel mailing list.
Applications
- 7 Best Free Linux Time Tracking Software
  
  Time tracking software is a type of computer software that records time spent on tasks. This category of software can enable users to run billing reports, and prepare invoices for clients.
  
  The deployment of this software offers a new level of productivity to organisations, as it provides management with information on what time is spent by employees on different activities such as projects and tasks. This can help to measure productivity over time. This software is commonly used by professionals that charge clients by the hour such as accountants, solicitors, and freelancers. The generation of automatic invoices with minimal or no data entry removes the inconvenience of billing and invoicing clients, and improves efficiency.
- Proprietary
  - Corel debuts AfterShot Pro photo management software
- Instructionals/Technical
- Games
  - Tomes of Mephistopheles Teaser
  - Are sales bad for games?
    
    Some of you may know of the game Cardinal Quest (a fast paced rougelike – it’s pretty cool go check it out) by a guy named Ido Yehieli, well he wrote a blog post I have been meaning to bring to light for a while but kept forgetting (I have a back log of articles to cover!).
Desktop Environments
- ‘The Workspace Strap’, A New Experimental Way to Manage Space on Your Virtual Desktops
  
  Anton Kreuzkamp, a 15 year old KDE developer has come up with a fantastic new way of managing space on virtual desktops.
Distributions
- First look at VectorLinux 7.0
  
  I wanted to start the year off by looking at a Linux project which doesn’t generally get much of the spotlight. The project I chose is VectorLinux whose team, toward the end of 2011, launched version 7.0 of their distribution. The project advertises their credo as “keep it simple, keep it small and let the end user decide what their operating system is going to be.” It certainly sounds good on virtual paper, especially for people who are interested in resurrecting older hardware. The latest version of VectorLinux comes in two editions, Standard and Live. The latter doubles as both a live CD and as installation media. At the time of writing, both editions are available in 32-bit builds only and both ISOs are about 700 MB in size.
- antiX M11 in Review – Sadly Not So Great
  
  As most readers will already know antiX is a light weight distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux and SimplyMEPIS, or just Mepis if you prefer, which is itself based on Debian. antiX sports a custom IceWM as default window manager and environment with tools from the ROX desktop. It is supposed to mainly be used on older machines and as a consequence there is no x86_64 edition, only two 32-bit optimized for i486 and i686 processor instructions.
- Redo- A simple live CD to Backup-Restore your computer
- Red Hat Family
  - City, Red Hat tout Raleigh as open-source leader
    
    Mayor Nancy McFarlane formally welcomed Red Hat to downtown, saying Friday that the software company’s presence will help Raleigh become a national hub for open-source technology.
  - File System Encryption on CentOS 6 | Linux Hangout
- Debian Family
  - Debian Project News – January 9th, 2012
    
    * Debian Edu/Skolelinux 6.0.3 beta2 released
    * Bits from the DPL
    * Forthcoming new release of the X server
    * Scientific article on Debian in PNAS
    * New Debian Infographic
    * New interface for Debtags website
    * apt-get purge defoma
    * Further interviews
    * Other news
    * Upcoming events
    * New Debian Contributors
    * Release-critical bugs statistics for the upcoming release
    * Status of Debian Installer localisation
    * Important Debian Security Advisories
    * New and noteworthy packages
    * Work-needing packages
    * Want to continue reading DPN?
  - Debian is now the most popular Linux distribution on web servers
    
    Debian is now used by 9.6% of all websites (up from 8.9% one year ago, and 8% two years ago), which is equivalent to 29.4% of all Linux-based sites.
  - I’m using Debian Live-based Tails from a live USB stick to preserve privacy and anonymity
    
    Courtesy of Distrowatch, I learned about Tails, a live Linux distribution based on Debian Live that uses Tor and other cryptographic- and privacy-minded features to protect a users anonymity while using the Internet.
  - Claudio’s Art
    
    Claudio has designed some art which describes the history of Debian GNU/Linux structurally and with some statistics
  - Derivatives
    - Canonical/Ubuntu
      - Introducing Ubuntu Binary Clock Lens for Unity
        
        Following our previous articles, Ubuntu YouTube Lens and Scope, Ubuntu Calendar Lens, Ubuntu Web Sources Lens, Ubuntu Gwibber Lens, Ubuntu Books Lens, Ubuntu Cities Scope, Ubuntu Grooveshark Scope, Ubuntu Calculator Scope and Pirate Bay Torrents Lens for Unity, today we are introducing the Ubuntu YouTube Lens and Scope for the Unity interface.
      - Ubuntu bringing smart TV concept, more ‘consumer’ products to CES 2012
      - Let’s Watch Ubuntu TV, Right Now
      - Ubuntu Bringing Linux to your TV
      - Canonical Demonstrates Ubuntu TV
      - Ubuntu TV Will Be Revealed By Canonical At CES 2012
        
        Canonical introduced a new online entertainment experience with Ubuntu TV. It will allow you to watch movies, and TV shows over the web with need to additional devices except the Ubuntu TV. It will be a strong competitor to satellite TV and many online TV streamers because you will be able to search through millions of movies and TV shows and watch it directly or record it to watch it later.
      - Ubuntu TV Will Be In Your Living Room This Year
      - Ubuntu TV has Unity-inspired UI, will ship on televisions by end of 2012
      - Why Ubuntu One DB Won’t Necessarily Fail Utterly
        
        This is a subject that all users should be interested in, but probably aren’t paying close enough attention to have followed closely. I’m talking about databases. Not in a very technical sense, but what you can do with them.
      - Ubuntu TV Will Be Announced At CES 2012
        
        Mark Shuttleworth shared his ambitious plans for Ubuntu a few months ago when he gave hints about Ubuntu TV. Now, we can see the product taking shape. According to reports Canonical will be showcasing Ubuntu TV at CES 2012 (Consumer Electronics Show).
      - System and Sound Settings to be Redesigned for Ubuntu 12.04
      - Ten factors that make Ubuntu 11.10 a hit
      - Ubuntu TV unveiled
        
        Canonical has demonstrated Ubuntu TV for the first time, as the company moves to broaden the reach of its open-source OS beyond the PC.
      - CES: Canonical shows off Ubuntu TV
        
        Canonical is showing off what it describes as ‘an exciting concept design’ at the CES tradeshow in Las Vegas, this week – Ubuntu TV.
      - Looking for Alternatives to Unity in Ubuntu 11.10: LXDE and XFCE
        
        The Unity desktop, which comes as the only out-of-the-box desktop environment with Ubuntu 11.10, has attracted a great deal of criticism from Linux lovers.
        
        While some users may be impressed by the “stunning good looks” of the Unity desktop, many are angry at the attempt to use the glitz factor to popularize Ubuntu. Some reports such as this one indicate that this has in fact backfired in some ways, and resulted in Ubuntu’s popularity falling among users who have loved the traditional simplicity of the various Linux flavors.
      - Flavours and Variants
        
        5 reasons Linux Mint is better than Ubuntu
        
        Linux Mint 12 offers a traditional Gnome feel
        
        The recently released Linux Mint 12 offers a two pronged approach to supporting those who prefer the traditional Gnome desktop. Firstly, the Mint Gnome Shell Extensions (MGSE) transform Gnome 3 into something resembling Gnome 2. Secondly it ships with Mate, the Gnome 2.0 fork project.
Devices/Embedded
- Boxee Box gets a major facelift plus live TV support
  
  Boxee Box users who enjoy staying on the bleeding edge of features and functions can now download and install beta v1.5 firmware on their devices, by following a fairly straightforward procedure.
  
  Version 1.5.0.23422 implements quite a few new features and enhancements to the Boxee Box’s user interface. It also adds support for the soon-to-be-available Boxee Live TV adapter option.
- Phones
  - Emerging markets push growth in handsets, mobile workers
    
    Smartphone manufacturers are increasingly focusing their efforts on emerging markets, says ABI Research, which forecasts the mobile handset market in general growing 8 percent in 2012, representing 1.67 million shipments. Meanwhile, IDC projects that by 2015, the world’s mobile worker population will reach 1.3 billion, representing 37.2 percent of the total workforce, with the greatest growth expected in emerging markets.
  - Samsung-backed open-source mobile OS Tizen leaks in new screenshots
    
    Tizen, a new open-source operating system backed by Intel, Samsung and a number of other smartphone manufacturers, has leaked in a number of new screenshots, providing a first look at the new platform that will power new smartphones, tablets, smart TVs and in-car devices.
  - Android
    - Android Powered 3D Goggles To Be Revealed At CES 2012
    - Android Powered 3D Goggles To Be Revealed At CES 2012
    - Wind River Solution Accelerators for Android Released
      
      Wind River, the maker of embedded and mobile software, has presented Wind River Solution Accelerators for Android, a series of software modules which the company claims can accelerate Android device development and reduce engineering time and cost to help developers turn around high quality devices faster.
    - From the Las Vegas Strip to your living room: Google TV partners at CES
      
      Last October, we launched an update to Google TV: a simpler interface, a new way to discover great web and TV content, a more TV-like YouTube experience, and Android Market. Since launching the update, we’ve seen our activation rates more than double. New features and new apps are coming to the living room via Google TV almost every day. We now have more than 150 apps which developers have specifically built for TV with thousands more Android apps from the mobile world available to deepen your living room TV experience. We’ve also been working with our hardware partners to bring new Google TV-powered devices to consumers.
    - Lenovo impresses at CES with Android
      
      The magic that is CES is starting a bit early, thanks to Lenovo. They’ve unveiled several new Android devices, and each is just as impressive as the next.
    - Lenovo outs Ice Cream Sarnie telly
      
      Lenovo has announced what it claims is the world’s first TV to sport Google’s latest OS, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It’s also the first set with a dual-core processor.
      
      Having already pitched its new ThinkPad laptop range for the Consumer Electronics Show 2012, the company turned attentions to the living room tech-head, introducing a smart TV, the K91.
- Sub-notebooks/Tablets
  - OLPC News: The OLPC Tablet at CES?
    
    It seems that the upcoming OLPC XO 3 Tablet is getting some buzz right before its debut next week at CES. It is said to be an 8″ tablet that may come in a few models. Information about it is currently very sketchy but supposedly some will be revealed next week. I am NOT posting any of the early concept pictures because they are dated and I’m fairly sure the real thing looks quite different… since it is designed to be very rugged for children. Here are some external links to get you in the mood:
  - One Laptop per Child To Unveil XO 3.0 Tablet At CES
    
    The One Laptop Per Child program’s XO-3 tablet will be revealed next week at CES, according to the project’s founder, Nicholas Negroponte. The XO 3.0 features Marvell’s Armada PXA618 SOC processor and Avastar Wi-Fi SOC, with 512MB of RAM. It can run Android and other Linux operating systems like Fedora. The version that will be shown at the CES will be running Android.
  - Motorola’s Wi-Fi Only Xyboard Tablet Coming Soon!
  - Toshiba launches Excite X10 at CES, redefines the term “sexy tablet”
    
    Toshiba hasn’t been too involved in the Android tablet world, save for the launch of their Thrive last year. It looks as if they’re aiming to change that in 2012, and they’re starting it off with a bang. Meet the Toshiba Excite X10, the latest in gorgeous Android tablets. Once we get past the brushed aluminum back and incredibly thin (just 7.7mm) profile, the Excite is packing a TI OMAP 4430 dual-core 1.2GHz processor, Ice Cream Sandwich (although it appears to be running stock Honeycomb in the photos), a wide 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 Gorilla Glass display, a 5MP rear camera, 2MP front-facing shooter, stereo speakers, Micro HDMI and Micro SD card ports, and it clocks in at just 1.2 pounds. Impressive enough?
  - Archos G9 101 8GB Android tablet
    
    Over the years, Archos has pitched much of its kit at the impecunious rather than the technically demanding. However, some of its Android devices like the 43 media player have appealed to both camps. Now it’s trying to repeat the trick with the G9 series of Android 3.2 Honeycomb tablets.
  - Qooq: The French Linux-Based Tablet For Your Kitchen
    
    The Qooq runs on a 1 GHz Cortex A9 processor, a 10.1-inch display with 1024 x 600 resolution SD card slot, Ethernet port, USB port and a headphone jack under a protective cover. The Linux OS is a specially customised version by Qooq, which it’s it easy to set up and run. Users will be able to access digital cookbooks and other recipe and cooking-related apps and too
  - Qooq: The tomato-proof tablet
    
    Linux. Designed for the kitchen. The Qooq is one of the weirdest tablet computers we have seen in a while. It’s selling respectably well in France, we are told, and it’s coming to the United States soon.
  - Overcrowded Markets
    
    Chuckle. The Android/Linux market is only overcrowded to those who are trying to sell that other OS on x86… Newsflash: The world does not owe those who sell that other OS and x86 a living. Free markets work. Manufacturers are making Android/Linux on ARMed tablets and selling them. They make money doing that because there’s no “tax” from M$ and they are not paying twice for the CPU. They will see the same thing on the desktop/notebook markets as well. With a free market, these makers can minimize the cost of manufacture the way sane manufacturers in other industries do.

Free Software/Open Source

eyeOS 2.5 Open Source review – how the mighty have fallen

If you can set up a Linux box with Apache, with a bit of fettling you can use eyeOS to create your own personalised cloud desktop. Michael Reed reviews eyeOS version 2.5…
FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC
- GnuTLS 2.12.16
- FSFE calls for an amendment of Slovak Copyright Act
  
  Free Software Foundation Europe calls for an amendment of the Slovak Copyright Act that would eventually enable Free Software and Creative Commons licenses for Slovak citizens. Currently, these licenses are considered to be void due to lack of their written form and problems with formation of the contract. Slovakia is thus one of a few countries where these popular licensing tools still struggle with rigid legislative framework. During the last week, FSFE therefore sent support letters to four members of Slovak Parliament that proposed this highly awaited amendment, but later faced its dismissal due to preliminary elections (See the sample letter below). If you also feel that also other 5 million Europeans should have this option, please support our action and write members of Slovak parliament (regardless of your residence). Explain them what is your experience with Free Software or just reuse our letter. Your support is important!.
Project Releases
- What’s New In XBMC 11.0 Beta Eden
Programming
- RosettaCode vs Stack Overflow
  
  Stack Overflow is a great site. every time when a search on a problem takes me there i look forward to the helpful and insightful answers. in ways, posting a question on Stack Overflow is similar to creating a task on RosettaCode.
  
  on Stack Overflow a problem gets posted in form of a question, and people attempt to solve the problem by answering it. question and answers can be discussed and updated. once the poster of the question is satisfied, an answer may be chosen as being accepted.
- Top languages on Github: JavaScript reigns, Ruby and Python next
- Adding support for if, while, and do while, to a simple compiler and virtual machine written in Php
- Visual Diff
  
  Then came KDE version 4. Apparently not content to leave well enough alone, KDE4 broke Kompare. (KDE4 also messed up kdesvn and kate, but that’s a subject for another post.) Kompare now says “unable to parse diff output.” So now I’m in the market for a new graphical diff tool.

Leftovers

Why The Verge Is Wrong, Acer Did Not Rip Apple’s iCloud

Apple fans and fan sites keep reminding us they are still trapped in Steve Jobs’ RDF (reality distortion field) that keeps us from seeing the reality and think everyone else is ripping Apple. Paul Miller of The Verge has written an article “Acer’s AcerCloud unveil is a blatant iCloud ripoff”. He goes on to put images of Apple’s iCloud Slides next to AcerCloud slides. (Business Insider also did a similar story without doing any home work.)
Security
- OpenSSL fixes six security holes
- Israel Basically Threatens to Assassinate Teen Hacker Who Leaked Israelis’ Credit Cards
  
  Nobody expected Israel to take lightly the leaking of thousands of its citizens’ credit card details by a Saudi hacker. But now Israel says the 19-year-old hacker who lives with his parents is a dangerous terrorist. And we all know what Israel does to people it deems terrorists.
Censorship
- Hackerspace Global Grid to make an Uncensorable internet in space?
  
  The wilder shores of the internet are awash with bizarre stories but the one I’m about to relate just has to be one of the most extraordinary things I have ever heard in relation to FOSS. You will have heard about SOPA and the reaction against it in the open source community including petitions, boycotts of GoDaddy etc. Look, that’s small potatoes. What these guys are plannng is out of this world. Literally. Read on.
  
  Every hacker, geek and commentator has their own solution to circumvent internet censorship but some people’s reaction has been ballistic. In the actual sense of the word. A bunch of open source enthusiasts, hackers and amateur scientists at the Hackerspace Global Grid project have decided that the only way to escape internet censorship is to, well, reach escape velocity and launch communication satellites into orbit. Ambitious is not the word. Better still, the software and the hardware will be free and open. To track and support satellites there will be a distributed network of ground tracking stations using FOSS.
- 2011: The Coming of Gestalt Politics?
  
  If there’s anything 2011 will be remembered for, it’s probably going to be the wave of mass protests that reverberated around the world (and is still traveling). I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this. I think this is the leading edge of an on-going pattern that will continue for decades. What’s happened is that a kind of behavior common online has jumped a groove and found a place in the “real world”.
- Copyrights
  - Creative Commons and FreeSound.org Phase Out Sampling Licenses, Choose More Freedom
    
    A few years ago, I discovered a site called “FreeSound.org” which sounded quite exciting, but turned out to be rather disappointing because the content was released under the Creative Commons “Sampling+” license, which is not a free license. This made all of the content incompatible with use on free software or free culture projects, and was very frustrating, especially given the name. Last month, though, Creative Commons decided to retire the Sampling+ licenses, and FreeSound.org is rolling out a new site with a license chooser that favors the “CC 0″ public domain declaration and the “CC By” attribution licenses — both compatible with free projects. This will be a big help for free-culture multimedia projects.

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IRC Proceedings: January 9th, 2012

Posted in IRC Logs at 8:34 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz


#techrights log	#boycottnovell log

#boycottnovell-social log	#techbytes log

Enter the IRC channels now

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Links – Kindle, Nook, OLPC and Anti-Trust. Please petition Obama to Veto SOPA.

Posted in Site News at 7:54 pm by Guest Editorial Team

Reader’s Picks

How Not to Ace a Google Interview

Are you a software engineer? Do you want to work at Google? If so, ignore this WSJ article, and ignore the book it comes from, titled “Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?”
Mike Elgan Google+ Diet update.

That’s still using Facebook, but for some people it’s an acceptable middle ground. And at least you don’t actually have to go to facebook.com, see all the app spam, junk and other stuff you don’t want to see.

Advice on how to get out of Facebook and pull your friends to G+.
Hardware
- One Laptop per Child To Unveil XO 3.0 Tablet At CES
  
  The XO 3.0 features Marvell’s Armada PXA618 SOC processor and Avastar Wi-Fi SOC, with 512MB of RAM. It can run Android and other Linux operating systems like Fedora. … The tablet will be priced at $100 or less
  
  All sorts of wonderful tablets are on the way but OLPC has traditionally been free software friendly.
- ZDNet’s version of Software Freedom and Android
  
  The author of this article is making things look worse than they are. He uses Windows and a variety of dubious software to exercise some trivial control over his Android phone. There’s nothing wrong with the author’s goals but non free tools may betray him later. Things should be much easier than that and is for reasonable devices and host OS. His device may be nastier and should be avoided if it is.
  
  The situation reminds me of the x86 world ten years ago, where a person had to be a little more careful before buying a computer or device. I saved myself all sorts of trouble by abandoning non free software then. Then, as now, “experts” and the Windows press said that free software was too difficult and not for ordinary users.
- One Tablet Per Child, Non-Profit Now Says
  
  OLPC’s hardware has been distinguished in part by an unusual display from Pixel Qi that is designed to be read in bright sunlight. Models of the new tablet with that screen are expected to cost more than $100.
- Marvell and One Laptop per Child Unveil the XO 3.0 Tablet
  
  Built on Marvell’s Armada PXA618 SOC processor and Avastar Wi-Fi SOC, with 512MB of RAM, the 8-inch XO 3.0 tablet is purported to be very thin and boasts some rather unique charging circuitry, being the only tablet able to draw charge directly from solar panels, hand cranks and other alternative power sources. OLPC has said the two-watt system is even capable of 10 minutes of runtime from just one minute of hand cranking.
  The tablet can be configured to sport either a standard LCD or Pixel Qi sunlight-readable display at 1024 x 768-resolution and can run either the Android or OLPC’s Sugar Linux operating system, built specifically for children.
Defence/Police/Aggression
- TSA screenings aren’t just for airports anymore
  
  The TSA’s 25 “viper” teams — for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response — have run more than 9,300 unannounced checkpoints and other search operations in the last year. Department of Homeland Security officials have asked Congress for funding to add 12 more teams next year. According to budget documents, the department spent $110 million in fiscal 2011 for “surface transportation security,” including the TSA’s viper program, and is asking for an additional $24 million next year.
  
  As predicted, the loss of rights at airports is translated. They gave themselves technical justification by declaring a jurisdiction perimeter around “ports” that encompasses 80% of the US population.
- Weapons Sales to Iraq Move Ahead Despite US Worries.
- Mossad chief: Iranian nuclear weapons do not threaten Israel’s survival.
- Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta: Iran Not Building a Nuclear Weapon
Environment/Energy/Wildlife
- [14,000] U.S. excess deaths linked to Fukushima
  
  Study authors epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project, and Dr. Janette Sherman, an adjunct professor at Western Michigan University, said six days after the nuclear reactor meltdowns struck four reactors at Fukushima March 11, scientists detected the plume of toxic fallout had arrived over American shores. … Mangano said the normal level of Iodine-131 in U.S. precipitation was about 2 picocuries Iodine-131 per liter of water, but the highest detected levels of Iodine-131 in precipitation were: Boise, Idaho, 390; Kansas City, 200; Salt Lake City, 190; Jacksonville, Fla., 150; Olympia, Wash., 125; and Boston, 92.
  
  After passing on warnings here, I switched my family to UHTP milk and stayed there for months. The US said everything was safe, raised acceptable levels for milk and rainwater then quit monitoring.
- A whistleblower who worked on the smaller existing Keystone pipeline says that Bechtel and Transcanda cut costs at the expense of safety — and it shows, in oil spills.
Finance
- How Romney’s Firm Drove Steel Plant Into Bankruptcy, But Still Profited Thanks To Federal Bailout
  
  Romney’s real world experience includes making millions from federal bailouts and running firms in to bankrupcy anyway. His retirement from this work still pays him millions of dollars while the people who used to do the work got shafted.
- Simon Lack shows us that there is no honor among the frauds on Wall Street
  
  from 1998 to 2010, 84% of the investment gains of the entire hedge fund industry went to the managers, and only 16% to the investors. The thievery of our “financial industry” beggars the mind. Never mind the 1%! This is a tiny fraction of the 1% fleecing the rest of the 1%.
  
  Move Your Money away from these crooks.
Anti-Trust
- Kindle Fire Review: Decent Tablet Despite Sacrifices
  
  While we’re on the subject of “too small,” let’s talk about the Fire’s memory. It has 8 gigabytes of storage. That’s enough for more books than you’ll ever read, but ten movies will eat up the whole thing. The cheapest iPad, which costs $499, has twice as much memory. The Nook Color, which costs $199, also has 8 gigabytes, but it comes with a slot for memory expansion with cheap cards. I don’t understand why the Fire doesn’t have a slot like that. The very first Kindle did. There’s no step-up model of the Fire with more memory.
  
  PJ asked some questions Fox News should have, “The logical question is why — did the patent license agreement Amazon signed to get Microsoft to go away include the kinds of hardware and software restrictions that Barnes & Noble has now revealed Microsoft unsuccessfully demanded of them as conditions to get a license to its patents? Barnes & Noble calls the demands in effect a ‘veto power’ over Android’s features. Barnes and Noble wrote: ‘Indeed, the proposed license would have severely limited and, in some cases, entirely eliminated Barnes & Noble’s ability to upgrade or improve the Nook or Nook Color, even though Microsoft’s asserted patents have nothing to do with such improvements.’ It’s the right question, I think, then regarding the Kindle Fire’s limitations.”
- Nook Tablet review: Great hardware, stiff competition
  
  The B&N Nook Tablet, successor to the underground hit Nook Color, is a terrific tablet, with a vibrant screen, a speedy CPU and a nice offering of books and other media. If you buy it, especially for reading, or streaming from your Netflix video or Pandora music accounts, you’ll likely be quite happy. For $250, it’s hard to find a nicer media-focused 7-inch Android tablet
  
  It’s funny how MSNBC colored in advance the failure of Nook Microsoft would like due to “competition” and inability to “cozy up to” big movie and music publishers.
- Barnes and Noble Has Shipped One Million Nook Tablets, Industry Report States
  
  But the sub-iPad tablet market is largely untapped and the impressive initial sales numbers show consumers want a $200-ish tablet. For example, if this report is correct (it seems very likely), B&N shipped a million tablets in roughly a month while CE giant Asus is predicting to ship just 1.8 million tablets for all of 2011. The iPad has effectively already won the first several rounds of the tablet war. But much like the PC battlefield, there is plenty of room for more than just one vendor. Barnes & Noble is officially a top player.
- Nook Color gets new streaming content
  
  This is an example of a feature upgrade on an older device.
- Amazon Selling ‘Well Over’ 1 Million Kindle Devices Per Week
  
  “Kindle Fire is the most successful product we’ve ever launched-it’s the bestselling product across all of Amazon for 11 straight weeks, we’ve already sold millions of units, and we’re building millions more to meet the high demand,” said Dave Limp, vice president of Amazon Kindle. “In fact, demand is accelerating-Kindle Fire sales increased week over week for each of the past three weeks.
  
  The $50 price and a few other things sold Fire to people I know. The update mentioned is supposed to make it hard to liberate the device, but it was soon rooted again. PJ adds: I got to play with one over the holidays, and it was lovely. A bit heavy, compared to the Nook, and personally I support the Nook because I don’t want my money going to Microsoft for their stupid patents, and Amazon signed a patent license agreement with Microsoft rather than fight back, and Nook is fighting instead, so I’m a Nook girl, myself. I prefer it to the iPad, actually, because I can take it with me everywhere. But the Kindle Fire is a good product, and I have to say I didn’t notice any of the issues I read about that Jacob Nielsen complained about. He has strong persona views which I don’t share, so I have some questions about all that. It seems any time a wonderful new product comes out, it gets slammed in the media [Techrights: the Microsoft media, unless it's a Microsoft device but then it would suck and be hyped.] The Kindle Fire does what it says it will do for you, and it is great for watching movies, as well as for reading. I can see why people are buying it. Both the Nook and the Kindle Fire are, of course, Android devices. – Update: Sorry for the typo, which I have just fixed. It’s Amazon that signed the agreement, not Android, of course.
- Barnes and Noble may spin off Nook e-reader
  
  Barnes & Noble is considering spinning off its Nook business, the company said Thursday in an announcement that sent investors reeling. “We see substantial value in what we’ve built with our Nook business in only two years,” Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch said in a prepared statement. “We believe it’s the right time to investigate our options to unlock that value.”
  
  The WSJ/FoxNews said that losses were expected but that’s hard to imagine after selling millions of devices.
PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying
- Lockheed Martin goes to bat for oppressive regime
  
  A top executive at Lockheed Martin recently worked with lobbyists for Bahrain to place an Op-Ed defending the nation’s embattled regime in the Washington Times — but the newspaper did not reveal the role of the regime’s lobbyists to its readers.
Censorship
- Urgent: Sign the petition for a veto of SOPA and PIPA
- Lawmakers seem intent on approving SOPA, PIPA
  
  The U.S. Senate is expected to begin floor debate on PIPA shortly after senators return to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 23, and supporters appear to have the votes to override a threatened filibuster by Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, and a handful of other lawmakers.
  
  They do so over a massive public outcry and against the best technical and legal advice.
- Petition via RMS: Tell Google: Quit the Chamber of Commerce
  
  whether it’s shilling for Big Oil or the tobacco companies or media giants, the Chamber is the poster child for how wealthy corporate money corrupts our system of government.
  
  I’m surprised to learn Google is a member. They should have quit after the HB Garry emails were published.
- Obscenity law in doubt after jury acquits distributor of gay pornography
  
  the Obscene Publications Act, which came into force in 1959, appears to be on its last legs. … a London jury rejected prosecution claims that gay pornography depicting acts that are legal between consenting adults were capable of “depraving and corrupting” those who watched them on DVDs. … [the case] comes amid growing concern that Britain’s obscenity laws, which have multiplied in recent years with new laws on the possession of “extreme pornography”, are contradictory, ill-defined and illogical.
- United States of Indefinite Detention
  
  © Coleen Monroe and Reverse Retrograde, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material including text, photography, and design without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Coleen Monroe and Reverse Retrograde with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
  
  Even copyright maximalists are concerned about SOPA and NDAA. The essay is worth reading but I thought it would be better to comply with the copyright notice than quote it.
- A new “anti-terrorism” law in Argentina could be used against protesters.
Civil Rights
- Greenwald: Three myths about the detention bill
  
  White-House-allied groups are now trying to ride to the rescue with attacks on the ACLU and dismissive belittling of the bill’s dangers. … it is very worthwhile to briefly examine — and debunk — the three principal myths being spread by supporters of this bill, and to do so very simply: by citing the relevant provisions of the bill, as well as the relevant passages of the original 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF),
  
  The damage control continues so it is still worth citing, even though the law was passed.
- Child labor in Chinese coal mines.
  
  Coal powers China’s exports.
- The streets of 2012
  
  The answers are alarming, but quite predictable: We are likely to see much greater centralisation of top-down suppression – and a rash of laws around the developed and developing world that restrict human rights. But we are also likely to see significant grassroots reaction. … All over the world, the pushback against protest looks similar, suggesting that state and corporate actors are learning “best practices” for repressing dissent while maintaining democratic facades. … [people use social media] in ways that indicate that they have little interest in being cordoned off into conflicting and competing ethnicities, nationalities, or religious identities. Overwhelmingly, they want simple democracy and economic self-determination.
- Why growing up as an American female has left me wary of men
  
  There are big events that linger always and smaller ones that just accumulate, like the many many cars that have slowed down to keep pace with my walking down the street, while a strange man croons at me or whistles or calls out. In the aggregate, though, they lead to four-plus decades of experience as an American female.
- Obama’s War on Whistleblowers
  
  This is a chilling little speech by Jesselyn Radick, a Bush administration whistleblower who was harassed aggressively by the Department of Justice, on how matters have gotten much worse for government whistleblowers under Obama, both in numbers and the ferocity of the retaliation.
  
  It is not fair to blame Obama alone. Beer and other alcohol are bad for you.
- Legislators Are Out to Take Over Their State Judiciary Systems
  
  Florida is just one of dozens of states where legislators have attempted to seize control of the justice system to varying degrees. … in the wake of another decision that didn’t go their way, Republican legislators in Florida attempted to ram through a broad package of restrictions on the state’s judiciary last spring. The legislators tried unsuccessfully to emulate Texas and Oklahoma by splitting the Florida Supreme Court into civil and criminal divisions. They also tried to cut the state bar out of the judicial nominating process.
- Indiana Workers Fight Back Against Assault on Unions and the ALEC Agenda
- The ACLU is suing to overturn the Wisconsin voter ID law.
  
  Voter ID laws are a favorite Republican tactic for stopping poor people, old people, students, and minority group members from voting.

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Links 9/1/2012: OLPC’s XO 3.0, Boot to Gecko (B2G)

Posted in News Roundup at 11:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows
- “The Goodnight iPad, Hello Fedora Episode” of Dr. Bill.TV Netcast #221
- Linux Outlaws 244 – Let Me Get on the Human Megaphone
Kernel Space
- Bufferbloat To Be Fought In Linux 3.3 With BQL
  
  Byte Queue Limits is reported to bring significant performance improvements across nearly all Linux package schedulers and AQMs. Byte Queue Limits is a way to limit a network controller’s hardware queues by number of bytes rather than number of packets, which can reduce buffer bloat. A much more detailed description of BQL can be found from the 2011 LPC page. This is merged into the Linux 3.3 kernel with the “net-next” pull.
- Graphics Stack
  - Sprite Support For Wayland’s Weston
    
    There’s some RFC patches out this week from Intel’s Jesse Barnes that provides sprite support for the recently announced Weston Compositor for the Wayland Display Server.
Applications
- Eidete – A simple screencasting application
- Instructionals/Technical
  - Unexpected requirements for creating a video DVD with Brasero
  - Before Dual Booting: What you Need to Know
  - Easily Create Screencast Videos With Kazam Screencaster [Linux]
  - Using Screen Captures Of Xscreensaver Modules For Image Sources
  - On Demand ssh-add
  - Book Review: Blender 2.49 Scripting
    
    Python scripting in Blender seems like a natural interest for me, as I’m interested in both Blender and Python. I really enjoyed reading this book on the subject, and the examples were certainly interesting. However, there is one small problem that I didn’t realize until after I had read it: Blender’s Python API changed a lot in the major re-write that accompanied the transition from Blender 2.4x to 2.5x. This unfortunately is going to make this book dated a lot sooner than you might expect. So, while I do think it’s a great book, I might have to recommend waiting for a version updated to Blender 2.5x.
- Games
  - Tomes Of Mephistopheles Teaser Released !
    
    Alexander Zubov from Kot-in-Action who developed the Steel Storm games are working on a 3d dungeon crawler game called “Tomes Of Mephistopheles“.
  - ‘Sintel The Game’ Update
    
    Sintel The Game is based on Blender Foundation’s extremely popular movie ‘Sintel’. The game will have action oriented gameplay while keeping same level of intensity and emotions that touched so many people. The story is as follows:
  - New iodoom3 Project will Improve Doom 3 Game Engine
    
    Many popular Linux games like Open Arena and Urban Terror are based on ioquake3 engine. With starting of iodoom3 project we will see more games coming to Linux in future that will be able to utilize high end features of id Tech 4 engine.
  - How to Install Dungeons of Dredmor Mods
Desktop Environments
- Introduction To The Enlightenment 17 Window Manager For X (Ubuntu 11.10)
- Desktops for Netbooks – KDE, Unity, or Gnome
  
  Maximizing the use of screen space on netbook computers is critical, and it really helps when the desktop environment correctly size window to fit the screen. While writing about the KDE, Unity, and Gnome 3 desktops for my Basic Linux course, I made some interesting discoveries.
  
  For the KDE Project, I discovered the Plasma Netbook Workspace. For KDE SC 4.7, you just need to go to Configure Desktop -> Workspace Behavior -> Workspace and change the value from Desktop to Netbook. For the Plasma Netbook Workspace, the application launcher are on the Workspace, including Krunner, which is a great way to find applications. Windows open as maximized, and the task bar slide off the top of the screen. The title bar is part of the task bar, so the application window has the entire screen. To launch additional applications, or switch between applications, just press <Alt> and then tab the <Tab> key, and select the the workspace you want. With the Plasma Workspace, I have not found a window that does not size correctly to the screen. I knew I switched to openSUSE for a reason.
- K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)
  - Answering a tricky question with the KStars desktop planetarium package
    
    In an earlier phase of my life, I worked as a professional astronomer, and I’ve loved space and astronomy since before I could pronounce the words. So naturally, I’ve gotten a lot of personal pleasure from the free software astronomy tools that are included in my Debian GNU/Linux system. But ironically, I haven’t written about them much. Recently, though, I was asked a question which I used KStars to answer, so this is a good chance to talk about how to use it.
  - Thoughts on KDE activities and workspaces
    
    The traditional desktop included menus, and icons for launching applications and various kinds of shortcuts. At times and in many environments widgets and things could also be added to it, along with task and window management, notifications, indicators, etc. These all came about separately with no cohesive vision, and as space became cluttered from all these things, virtual desktops were used to make it easier to help spread out all that clutter over multiple workspaces, at least for the single-headed users. This is perhaps best represented in very traditional desktops like gnome 2 and xfce4.
    
    Some looked at this as an awful mess and decided it was bad, but two very different visions came about from it. The first was in the KDE project, where it seems to me they thought about how all these different elements finally could be organized in a better way by the desktop itself to increase user productivity. From this we got plasma desktop and concepts like KDE activities. Those involved in GNOME, on the other hand, saw this as a question of how to remove all but what they believed are the bare minimal essentials. These two visions are I think almost polar opposites.
  - The Great Features of KDE Workspaces and Applications Part V – Gwenview
    
    After few super-busy weeks I finally have time to sit down and write another part of this blogseries. In this installment I’ll introduce Gwenview – the default KDE Application for viewing images.
  - Search this site:
    KDE Commit-Digest for 18th December 2011
  - Encryption in KDE SC
  - Active Settings: Modular, embeddable configuration
    
    Plasma Active‘s goal is develop an elegant, Free user experience for the device spectrum, for example touch-based tablets. Active Settings is a modular application hosting configuration user interfaces for apps and the system.
- GNOME Desktop
  - Cinnamon Desktop Gets First Custom Theme
  - Hope GTK3 Theme is Gorgeous, Supports Unity and Gnome Shell
    
    Hope is a beautiful GTK3 by grvrulz who worked on original Hope GTK theme by 0rAX0.
  - Android Ice Cream Sandwich Theme For Gnome Shell
    
    Here’s a Gnome Shell theme inspired by the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich mobile operating system. It’s designed by tmari0 deviantart user. Ice Cream Gnome shell theme is compatible with Gnome 3.2.1.
Distributions
- DreamLinux 5 Review
  
  DreamLinux is a distribution that is based on Debian “Wheezy” and using the latest desktop version of XFCE 4.8 on a Linux 3.1 Kernel.
  
  DreamLinux has just released this latest version after a long absence and we will see if it can make up for lost time.
- An eye on simpleLinux GNU/Linux
- Red Hat Family
  - Fedora
    - Why the Fedora ISV SIG never caught fire
      
      Once upon a time, it was part of my job to help these kinds of companies to work more closely with Fedora. We created the ISV SIG for this purpose. Karsten and I would go to trade shows and meet with various open source vendors, and we’d talk with them at length about the great benefit of leveraging the Fedora install base, and the power of “yum install YourCoolProduct”, and the general usefulness of building an ISV packaging community, and they’d nod and smile, and then we’d have a follow-up meeting or two to discuss the ins and outs of being in a distro. And then… well, nothing much would happen.
    - Geek Software of the Week: Dr. Bill’s Perfect Fedora 16 Build!
- Debian Family
  - Second beta version of Debian Edu / Skolelinux based on Squeeze
    
    I am happy to announce that today we managed to wrap up and publish the second beta version of Debian Edu / Skolelinux.
  - Derivatives
    - Canonical/Ubuntu
      - System Settings for Precise
        
        With Unity we have been trying to raise the bar innovating in the User Experience with new UI elements, such as Dash and Overlay Scrollbars. But this shouldn’t come at the cost of overlooking less exciting but essential core areas of the OS.
      - Launcher Reveal Prototype
      - 2012: The Year of Ubuntu
        
        At this time of year I like to read forward-thinking and philosophical writings. It’s one of the ways I try to “reboot” my thinking processes and clear the way for new ideas. In that quest today, I discovered an interesting and helpful research paper on Ubuntu written by Tom Bennett at the University of Cape Town entitled “Ubuntu: An African Equity.”
        
        Though written in the context of law several ideas presented resonated with what I’ve seen both online and in the “in-real-life” community.
      - ‘Ubuntu TV’ to be Revealed at CES
        
        An Ubuntu-powered internet TV is Canonical’s mystery ‘Ubuntu Concept Design’.
      - Cinnamon Desktop Gets First Custom Theme
        
        Canonical design team has revealed some more plans for the upcoming LTS release in a series of blog posts. Along with multi-monitor setup improvements, new changes have been proposed for system and sound settings.
      - Flavours and Variants
        
        Linux Mint signs a partnership with Blue Systems
        
        Blue Systems is a German company sponsoring Free and Open Source projects such as Netrunner and KDE-projects like kcm-gtk-config.
        
        As part of the partnership, Linux Mint will share its knowledge and expertise with Netrunner and both distributions will work together on improving their respective KDE editions. Although Netrunner and Linux Mint KDE offer a different experience, they’re built on the same technology. This cooperation between the two distributions will have positive effects on both.
Devices/Embedded
- Cool little cheapo Linux device for 2012…
  
  Good news this start-of-year 2012 for some of us Linux DIY tinkerers:
  The little Raspberry Pi device is set to be released soon.
  The Raspberry Pi comes as a Printed Circuit Board with a processing System on a Chip (also known as a PCB with a SoC). Already eBay is auctioning off the first Beta releases of these boards, see Raspberry Pi – first 10 on eBay!
- OLPC
  - OLPC’s XO 3.0 tablet hands-on (video)
    
    OLPC announced the XO 3.0 tablet yesterday, and today we had a chance to sit down with the company’s CTO, Ed McNierney and Marvell’s Chief Marketing Officer Tom Hayes, who gave us a tour of the new tablet. The XO 3.0 is powered by Marvell Armada PXA618 silicon, which lowers the power requirements of the tablet to a scant 2 watts. That chip, along with the custom charging circuitry developed by OLPC and Marvell means that the tablet can be charged by a hand crank at a 10:1 ratio (10 minutes of usage time for every minute spent cranking), or by the optional four watt solar panel cover at a 2:1 ratio on sunny days. Like other OLPC devices, the XO 3.0 is customizable to customer needs — so you can get the CPU clocked at 800Mhz or 1GHz, a 1500 – 1800 mAh battery, and your choice of a Pixel Qi or standard LCD display. The slate comes with 512MB of RAM, 4GB of NAND storage, USB and USB On-The-Go ports, plus the standard OLPC power and sensor input ports as well.
  - OLPC XO 3.0 Hands On: The $100 Wonder Tablet
    
    OLPC XO 3.0 Hands On: The $100 Wonder Tablet Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child initiative has historically been more about promise than fulfillment. But in the $100 XO 3.0 tablet, OLPC may have its first product that’s not just practical, capable, or cheap. It’s actually… good.
  - The Inside Story of India’s $50 Computer Tablet
    
    The annual gadget bacchanalia known as CES kicks off next Tuesday in Vegas, but as has been the case for the past decade, the most important new product in consumer electronics won’t be there.
  - San Francisco State University signs an MOU with OLPC

Free Software/Open Source

Many Eyes, Many Heads

“Many eyes” does not mean FLOSS is perfect but that it can be made more perfect more rapidly and with greater certainty than closed software. “Many eyes” permitted the bugs to be found and corrections proposed. Otherwise, those bugs would have been found eventually by evildoers and we would have been victimized. This is one of the main reasons FLOSS is less targeted by malware. Many more bugs exist in closed software and few are motivated or able to fix them. That’s why the world wastes tens of $billions fighting malware in closed source software. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and it’s certainly less expensive.
What Minecraft Can Teach Us About Open Source Communities

Along with the praises I’ve already heaped upon Minecraft and the fascination I’ve continued to have with it, I’ve been enthusiastic about it because of its very unique development pattern.

Minecraft, you see, is developed a little bit like open source software evolves. The lead developer, Notch (Markus Persson and his company Mojang AB), has been plugged into online social media since day one. He tweets, he blogs, he responds to forums, he asks users what they want to see put in next. And also the game has a thriving mod community (even I’ve done a custom texture pack). What’s more, when a mod becomes particularly popular, Notch ends up incorporating it into the game, such as with the pistons mod. For another example, the game now includes ways to switch custom texture packs.

Watching Minecraft “grow up” for two years has been a unique experience in studying how software and the community around it grows together. Here, we have an example of a developer who bends over backwards to make everybody as happy as he possibly, humanly can.
Super short review: Minix 3

The world of the UNIX system is very wide.
There are many different flavours. Linux is just one of them. Honestly, though, it is the most popular and the most widely used.
Web Browsers
- Mozilla
  - Will Boot to Gecko (B2G) become the OS of 2012
    
    News of the game-changing browser Operating System – Boot to Gecko (B2G) – first made the rounds in July last year. Backed by Mozilla, the Browser OS follows a 3-phased build and will debut by summer this year.
  - Where are the Firefox Channels Today?

Leftovers

Finance
- MF Global Inquiry Turns to Its Primary Regulator
  
  Federal authorities investigating the collapse of MF Global have expanded their inquiry to include the actions of the CME Group, the operator of the main exchange where the commodities brokerage firm conducted business, according to people briefed on the matter.
Internet/Net Neutrality
- Here Comes the National Internet
  
  I first heard about the concept of a national Internet over a decade ago while visiting the offices of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and discussing threats to the Internet. It was apparent then and it is apparent now that most countries, including the U.S., will eventually shut down the “World Wide” Web and instead use the technologies developed by the Internet community to cocoon itself. It solves endless political problems with the Web that plague almost every country.
Copyrights
- Libre.fm: A music sharing site just for free-culture works
  
  You’ve probably heard of “Last FM”, a music playlist site that allows users to track their favorite bands and listen to music streamed over their mobile devices. But you may not have heard of Libre FM, a recent free software project and free culture web application intended to serve this purpose exclusively for free-licensed musical works.
  
  I discovered this site when I was looking for what happened to some of the bands that had left Jamendo, and it does serve some of the same purposes. I do have certain doubts about it as a reliable source as yet — it’s still very much in an “alpha” state, and the software is therefore fairly incomplete. It’s missing many of the features I’ve come to rely on with Jamendo (still the best site I know for this kind of search).

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