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09.14.10

Marketing KDE the Novell Way

Posted in GNU/Linux, KDE, Marketing, Novell, OpenSUSE at 11:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

OpenSUSE 11.3 KDE - Plasma desktop

Summary: OpenSUSE flavour in marketing of KDE and a look at Novell’s marketing as of late, which is all about proprietary software

THE OPENSUSE Web site has this new post about KDE bugs and another new post speaks about the OpenSUSE KDE repository. No doubt OpenSUSE plays an important role in KDE development. Another new post offers an OpenSUSE Build Service cheat sheet and Jos Poortvliet, the new OpenSUSE community manager (also key KDE person), praises Build Service:

openSUSE is far more conservative when it comes to upgrading packages in the stable release. Making it a much more stable platform. So, that means you’re always a bit behind and you can’t have the latest and greatest? No! openSUSE users CAN have their cake and eat it too. Thanks to the Build Service, newer versions of enduser applications and libraries can be entirely build against the stable distribution, lowering the number of packages you need to pull in and thus increasing stability.

To a certain extent, Poortvliet is responsible for marketing KDE but his paymaster urges him to market OpenSUSE. How can objectiveness be maintained under such pressures? Can one consolidate two roles without a conflict of interest?

Historically, Novell has been good at marketing, not necessarily at execution (not in recent years anyway, as it suffered a brain drain). Some years ago Novell made commercials for GNU/Linux, but ever since it signed a deal with Microsoft there has been almost nothing of this kind. Even right now, the videos produced by Novell promote Novell Teaming (proprietary) and user “Novelldemo” uploaded many Novell Pulse videos this month, starting with this one. Pulse is also proprietary. It has been a long time since Novell produced anything promotional about Free/open source software. User “Novell” in YouTube uploaded 6 success stories at the beginning of this month [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] (there is another one about Novell’s booth at VMworld 2010), but that too has nothing to do with software freedom.

It sure seemed like several years ago KDE rebuilt and rewrote the site so as to introduce KDE as “Free software” (as in freedom, not open source). It would be a shame if Novell’s involvement in KDE changed that. KDE is already being used to promote OpenSUSE (e.g. the live CD). █

Lord Sainsbury is Pushing Monsanto’s Agenda in Europe

Posted in Bill Gates, Europe, Intellectual Monopoly, Patents at 11:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Sainsbury's logo and Monsanto

Summary: The world’s monopolist of food, which also puts people at risk while it acquires this monopoly, is connected closely to Lord Sainsbury

LIKE MANY OTHERS IN THE UK, I REGRET being an almost exclusive client of Sainsbury’s, which is connected to Lord Sainsbury of Turville. Based on the following couple of news items, the Sainsbury family is a big pusher of Monsanto’s GMO agenda (Professor Jonathan Jones, the head of the Sainsbury Laboratory at the John Innes Centre, is also funded by Monsanto to push its agenda). The new items are:

  1. GM FOOD: FACTS NOT CROPS [via Glyn Moody]

    The European Commission has recently approved growing genetically modified crops for the first time in 12 years, putting the GM lobby’s profits over public concerns — 60% of Europeans feel we need more information before growing foods that could threaten our health and environment.

  2. Lord Sainsbury calls for new debate on GM crops [via ThistleWeb]

    A former science minister has called for the debate on genetically modified crops to be reopened, arguing they are vital for a growing global population.

    Ahead of his speech at the British Science Association festival, Lord Sainsbury warned it would be foolish for the UK to rule out the technology.

This led us to looking for some older articles too. Here is what we fished for and netted within minutes:

  • GM row: Lord Sainsbury in Monsanto talks

    His meeting with Monsanto, attended by civil servants, raises fresh concerns about the extent of his role in dealing with GM issues within government and the potential conflict with his private business interests.

    The day after the Monsanto meeting, Lord Sainsbury chaired a government- sponsored biotechnology seminar with consumer associations, environmentalists such as Friends of the Earth, and one of the Monsanto officials he had met the day before.

  • Letter: Sainsbury must go

    When we continued to call on him to do the decent thing and resign, Lord Sainsbury continued to insist that he had nothing to do with GM food issues in government. Now The Independent has revealed that, as minister, he met with Monsanto the US GM crop giant, and discussed GM crops and food.

  • GM crops set to make Sainsbury millions

    THE science minister Lord Sainsbury could make millions of pounds from his investments in firms researching genetically modified (GM) crops, including one company closely associated with Monsanto, the controversial American biotechnology company.

    [...]

    In November 1999 Paradigm signed a deal with Monsanto, which is paying it £30m and up to £9m more in performance bonuses, to work on novel genes. Paradigm will also get royalties if any of the genes are used in commercial products. It is royalties that offer the biggest chance of high returns.

  • UK Testing GM Potatoes That Offer No Benefit to Farmers or Eaters

    The person heading the project is Jonathan Jones, who runs the Sainsbury Laboratory. During none of his promotion of the project have his ties with Monsanto been noted. The Guardian reports that Jonathan Matthews, the spokesman for GM Watch, pointed out:

    The frontman for the latest GM push in the UK is being portrayed as a dedicated public servant doing science in the public interest, but it now appears he not only has vested interests in the success of GM but even commercial connections to Monsanto.

    It turns out that Jones not only has links to Monsanto, he has direct financial interests. He founded Mendel Biotechnology, whose most significant customer—and also collaborator—is Monsanto. Yet, he didn’t provide that information in a recent tirade against opponents of GM, which he wrote for BBC. He went so far as to call them, “fussy eaters”. When confronted with his lack of transparency, he stated to the Observer that he hadn’t tried to hide his connections.

  • Sainsbury denies conflict of interest

    It is the same gene at the centre of a food scare following tests on rats that were fed GM potatoes. Lord Sainsbury said the virus is owned by Monsanto.

For those who are new to Monsanto, appended below are links to previous posts. The Gates Foundation is also a Monsanto pusher and investor (with an increasing stake). █

  1. How the Gates Foundation Privatises Africa
  2. With Microsoft Monopoly in Check, Bill Gates Proceeds to Creating More Monopolies
  3. Gates-Backed Company Accused of Monopoly Abuse and Investigated
  4. Reader’s Article: The Gates Foundation and Genetically-Modified Foods
  5. Monsanto: The Microsoft of Food
  6. Seeds of Doubt in Bill Gates Investments
  7. Gates Foundation Accused of Faking/Fabricating Data to Advance Political Goals
  8. More Dubious Practices from the Gates Foundation
  9. Video Transcript of Vandana Shiva on Insane Patents
  10. Explanation of What Bill Gates’ Patent Investments Do to Developing World
  11. Black Friday Film: What the Bill Gates-Backed Monsanto Does to Animals, Farmers, Food, and Patent Systems
  12. Gates Foundation Looking to Destroy Kenya with Intellectual Monopolies
  13. Young Napoleon Comes to Africa and Told Off
  14. Bill Gates Takes His GMO Patent Investments/Experiments to India
  15. Gates/Microsoft Tax Dodge and Agriculture Monopoly Revisited
  16. Beyond the ‘Public Relations’
  17. UK Intellectual Monopoly Office (UK-IPO) May be Breaking the Law
  18. “Boycott Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in China”
  19. The Gates Foundation Extends Control Over Communication with Oxfam Relationship
  20. Week of Monsanto

Jean-Luc Godard Says “There is No Such Thing as Intellectual Property” and Microsoft Lobbyist Jonathan Zuck Shows Up in IGF

Posted in Intellectual Monopoly, Microsoft, Patents at 10:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

House of money

Summary: Just as the movement against intellectual monopoly is growing, lobbyists continue to find their way into public events and patent trolls thrive

French-Swiss film director Jean-Luc Godard [FR] has just taken a bold step by saying something which I said several years ago. Having just donated €1,000 to an accused downloader (for his legal defence), Godard made some strong remark:

My French is very rusty, and there doesn’t seem to be any coverage of this story yet in English-language news… but apparently, the great French-Swiss film director Jean-Luc Godard (above) donated a thousand euros toward the legal defense costs of James Climent (inset), a 37-year-old French citizen accused of downloading 13,788 MP3s.

[...]

Update: Boing Boing reader Paul R. offers this translation of an important Godard quote in the linked news story (emphasis mine):

I am against Hadopi [the French internet-copyright law, or its attendant agency], of course. There is no such thing as intellectual property. I’m against the inheritance [of works], for example. An artist’s children could benefit from the copyright of their parents’ works, say, until they reach the age of majority… But afterward, it’s not clear to me why Ravel’s children should get any income from Bolero…

Incidentally, IP Watch has this new article about the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). Its title has to do with consumer rights over “intellectual property”-protected products (“intellectual”, “property”, “consumer”, and “protected” are all weasel words within this context). Here is what it says:

Copyright and patent laws “are often misused” for reasons that have “more to do with limiting competition and preventing consumers from making innovative uses of their products” than they do with stopping piracy, global consumer advocacy group Consumers International plans to tell a UN internet meeting today. Such misuse includes limitations on the use of third-party content on devices such as the iPhone, and regional codes that prevent consumers from playing DVDs bought legally abroad in a consumer’s home country.

The statement comes in the context of a 14-17 September meeting of the UN Internet Governance Forum in Vilnius, Lithuania. The IGF is a “multi-stakeholder dialogue” addressing various matters of public policy relating to the internet. This year’s meeting is intended to focus on internet governance as a tool for development, especially the Millennium Development Goals, according to a press release.

It sure seems like “intellectual property” works against customers a lot of the time. We covered this before and it ought to be obvious, although stake holders resort to reality distortion fields. Well, who’s attending this IGF anyway?

Based on what we witness, it also got stuffed by Microsoft lobbyists like Association for Competitive Technology (ACT). Here is what Jonathan Zuck had to ‘contribute’ to IGF (someone sent us the transcript of [1, 2]):

>> >> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you, Steve. Is Jonathan Zuck in the room you got the mike.

>> >> Mike: My name is — from the association for competitive technology. We represent small businesses all over the world. I think the IGF has been incredible in bringing about a discussion in a wide
range of issues. I want to echo Miss Hofmann’s ideas about the deep politicalization. A lot of the issues — again, surrounding the critical Internet resources, that shift from a political discussion to a practical one I think is critical. And I can’t be emphasized enough. There are so many challenges facing us, the Internet and bringing on the next billion users, et cetera, that we don’t have the luxury to
prioritize fixing problems that don’t exist or fixing things that aren’t broken. Because there are so many things that still need to be done.
And so I think depoliticizing the issues and focussing on access and infrastructure development, which is the more critical Internet resource has got to be the priority of the IGF.

>> >> WILLIAM DRAKE: Thank you for that Jonathan. There is another person in the room who’s provided a written question. And Markus can read his handwriting better than me.

What is a lobbyist doing speaking fraudulently ‘on behalf’ of “small businesses all over the world”? Why are these people even invited? They only ever stomp on small businesses because they are hired to lobby by those to whom small businesses are competitors. The only “small businesses” whose agenda Jonathan Zuck is promoting are patent trolls who, according to this other new article, are increasingly a problem, never an opportunity.

Patent licensing has become big business in recent decades. The high technology sector, in particular, places a high value on patents and licenses. Semiconductor companies have traditionally led the charge, given the myriad of competitors and patents in the industry, and the groundbreaking licensing campaigns driven by Texas Instruments in the 1980s. Today, intellectual property groups are firmly entrenched in every major corporation – from large communications providers such as Ericsson to consumer product giants like Apple. Each is responsible for growing and/or defending its intellectual property assets, with stakes often in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Fundamental to building and executing any successful patent licensing program is the ability to find and prove evidence of infringement, often through reverse engineering methods. This article explores the role of reverse engineering in identifying patent infringement, and offers some observations about the future direction of patent licensing and infringement analysis.

[...]

The other trend is the relatively steady state of patent litigations. Despite tough economic conditions last year, the overall number of high-tech patent litigations has remained relatively stable (see chart). This is largely being driven by the licensing activities of a growing number of nonpracticing entities (NPEs). NPEs are companies that assert patents without developing or selling any products of their own. Although companies who find themselves up against NPEs have few defensive strategies at their disposal, reverse engineering can help. It can be used to defend a position of non-patent infringement. It can also be used to find evidence of prior use of the invention, in order to weaken the validity of the opposing party’s patent.

Patent trolls are described as “NPEs” here (gentler technical term). It is them — along with patent lawyers and monopolies like Microsoft (who employ the Jonathan Zuck shill) — that benefit from the agenda pushed by Zuck and fellow minions. It’s worth watching out for. It’s also them who spread propaganda about “intellectual property” as they try to push software patents into Europe (whilst expelling open standards). █

Links 14/9/2010: Linux Graphics Survey Results, KDE 4.5 Reflections

Posted in News Roundup at 8:32 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Modern OS on ancient hardware.

    I am currently using, at this very moment, while I am typing, the latest completely updated version of Gentoo. I can surf the net, play movies and my window manager even has transparency. I am developing my Partalog program on it and transferring files, home movies taken with my Flip, to my home server over the internet. In other words pretty much everything which the average computer user uses.

    [...]

    There is no possible way I could run any windows on this machine and do what I can now do with this little trooper. It yet another reason why I like Linux. It doesn’t matter what I use, what the hardware specs are, I can still run the latest, modern, operating system available.

  • That Other OS is Cripple-ware

    Give me GNU/Linux any day. The licence is easy to understand: you have permission to

    1. use,
    2. examine,
    3. change and
    4. distribute the code.

    That’s so easy and the price is right, usually $0. There is no need for cripple-ware in GNU/Linux. It’s the real thing. Whether you are a large corporation of a young child, you can run top notch software on your PCs and servers, network and clusters. It’s the right way to do IT.

  • Are you happy being second rate?

    However, just owning a computer and using an operating system is not enough. The real measure of whether you are considered a second rate citizen or not, is the after market service, gadgets and thingamajigs available. It is those who manufacturer hardware and the amount of support they give to any particular operating system which, to me, is the real measure of rating level.

  • Open Source: FOSS Security Updates vs Microsoft Patch Day

    It is an ironic coincidence that I have received update notices from Mandriva for software installed on my Linux PC systems as well this weekend. These updates come regularly from the upstream developers through Mandriva to Mandriva end-users. These updates may be simple code fixes for bugs, upgrades to get new versions of software or security fixes to patch possible security problems. While looking at these today I thought it would be interesting to compare vulnerability wise what I am getting from Mandriva today with what Microsoft customers will be getting on Tuesday 14 September 2010.

  • Why Linux Should Never Win

    Remember when Linux was the “upstart,” and it used to drive us crazy? Declaring victory (which is arguably premature at this stage) just sets Linux up to be the target for our next upstart.

    Is Linux doing great? Yes, absolutely. Can it do better? Yes, always. Because even if Linux captures market dominance in every sector, it must always be ready to change and adapt to new consumer, business, or technological needs. Growth, adaptation, and change must forever be a part of the Linux mindset (indeed, any truly successful project).

    Because that which does not grow, dies. And declaring yourself the winner in one game never means you’ll automatically win the rest.

  • Be A Part of Our 200th Issue!!!

    The 200th issue of Linux Journal is just around the corner, and I thought it would be fun if all of you could participate! (No, I’m not just a lazy editor, stop thinking things like that…)

    For our 200th issue, we’re going to put an article in the front called, “200 Things To Do With Linux”, and you get to fill in those 200 things! Just drop your favorite thing to do with Linux in this nifty form, and we’ll try to get ‘em all in. We’ll try to give you credit as well, as long as your name isn’t something really long or really offensive.

  • Audiocasts/Shows

  • Kernel Space

    • Graphics Stack

      • A First Look At The 2010 Linux Graphics Survey Results

        Earlier this month we started once again our annual Linux Graphics Survey in which we poll our readers about their choices and opinions concerning graphics cards, display drivers, and other graphics / X.Org related features of the Linux desktop. While this survey is still going on through the end of September — so you still have time to participate — here are the results from the first 6,300 people to submit their responses. We are publishing the results so far since there is the X Developers’ Summit this week in Toulouse and some of these findings may prove to be useful during those discussions.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • Reflection: KDE 4.5

        I have applied the Oxygen KDE theme to Mozilla Firefox and have installed the Oxygen style to OpenOffice.org. I also wanted GTK+ applications to better integrate with KDE 4.5, so I installed the GTK-Qt engines and the QtCurve theme, but try as I might, other GTK+ applications (e.g. Pidgin, the Mint tools) would not look right (though the color scheme, if not the theme itself, was applied properly). Maybe I’m still doing something wrong, but I’ve run out of ideas regarding how to fix the problem.

      • KDEMU – Sebastian Kügler

        This week, a new season of KDE and the Masters of the Universe kicks off with our good friend, KDE e.V. Board Member, Sebastian Kügler (and his two chinchillas).

      • Review: Linux Mint 9 KDE

        A Mint derivative where the main color is BLUE. Yes I know that it is less than a month before Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat arrives, and then Linux Mint will follow with their releases soon after, but Mint 9 KDE warrants special attention.

        For those of you who have been following I have been looking for the perfect KDE 4 distro. Yes I have been neglecting it a little, and I have no excuse for it besides hoping to drag it along that I can review Kubuntu Maverick as part of my quest. The current incarnation of Kubuntu (Lucid) is a wreck.

      • KDE Science: New Forum, Mailing List and News

        If you’d like to get involved, have some ideas or just want to keep an eye on what we’re up to, please join the KDE science mailing list (which, along with the wiki, is the main point of coordination).

      • KDE WordPress Users Unite: You Now Have a KDE Air Theme

        So here we have, lo and behold brought to our attention, a new theme for at least some soon to be happy KDE bloggers out there. KDE-Look.org contributor csslayer has submitted a new WordPress theme based on KDE Air – The aptly titled KDE Air WordPress theme. We must say, it looks stunning.

      • Solutions for KDE 4.5 glitches
      • Clementine: a Port of Amarok 1.4 to QT 4

        Clementine is a port of Amarok 1.4 to QT 4, giving users an application that fits in well with KDE 4 while still resembling the previous version of the library-based music player. As I’ve commented in the past, acceptance of KDE 4 wasn’t helped by the fact that the developers took it upon themselves to redesign some of the most popular apps such as Konqueror and Amarok.

      • 15 minutes of fame screencast

        I recorded a quick screencast today about some 4.6 (and one 4.5.2) things. It ended up being exactly 15:00 minutes long, though that was more accidental than intentional.

  • Distributions

    • Does Linux Offer Too Much Choice?

      Linux doesn’t offer too much choice, “but it may not organize its choices well enough,” says Slashdot blogger David Masover. “The ideal situation “is to provide sane defaults so that people aren’t forced to make choices — but if you remove choice, you remove one of the biggest reasons to use Linux in the first place.”

    • Reviews

      • Minimalistic Computing: TinyCore Linux 3.0

        TinyCore Linux runs completely of RAM, which makes it extremely fast. Having bare minimum applications in a fully operational system further helps this. TinyCore Linux is not all hardware compatible nor does provide a complete desktop with all kind of fancy applications, it provides just enough functionality for someone to download and install application of Internet and customize distribution according to his needs.

        [...]

        In Conclusion, TinyCore Linux might not be suitable or recommended for a modern computer with humongous amount of resource as there are better distributions for such a platform, but for computer severely lacking in resources, TinyCore Linux could prove to be savior. On such a resource constraint system you could customize distribution with your own choice of applications, having only the required applications and services should makes things faster. TinyCore Linux uses applications like TinyX , BusyBox which are meant for Embedded Platform , this makes it as possible alternative for embedded platform(like Intelligent Panels, Netbooks (Maybe ? ), Kiosks. Overall, I had lots of fun playing around with a distribution with footprint of 10MB.

    • PCLinuxOS/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

      • PCLinuxOS

        PCLinuxOS or PCLOS is based on Mandrake. The Gnome version comes equipped with an ugly gray colored background. I attribute this to the fact that most PCLOS users are KDE desktoppers and don’t really care what color Gnome is.

        [...]

        Adding software and packages is a snap, this is what Linux is about, not some primitive terminal command (If I want old style, I’ll get out my 8088. It still runs and I remember some of the DOS commands). In addition it uses Synaptic update manager, but the status reload is extremely slow.
        Despite the fact that most PCLinuxOS users are KDE and get most of the support, the Gnome version is very good, I will give this OS an ‘A-’.

    • Red Hat Family

      • NCSU, Red Hat open entrepreneurship ‘Garage’

        N.C. State University on Monday opened a space on Centennial Campus called “the Garage” intended for students working on entrepreneurial activities.

        The N.C. State Entrepreneurship Initiative and Raleigh-based Red Hat, which is headquartered on Centennial Campus, are sponsoring the 2,000-square-foot facility. Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) is not disclosing how much it has contributed to the Garage.

      • Options Activity for Red Hat

        Shares of Red Hat gained $1.54 (+4.12%) to $38.95.

      • Wall Street Hubbub 9/13: A Higher Bid for ArcSight (ARST)?, Red Hat (RHT) Sees Action On Takeover Talk

        Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) rose on renewed takeover speculation. Shares are up 4.4 percent.

      • After Yesterday’s Rally of 4.12%, Red Hat Shares Could Pullback (RHT)

        Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) traded in a range yesterday that spanned from a low of $37.91 to a high of $39.08.

      • Najarian Says Red Hat May Be Acquired (RHT)

        Fast Money’s Jon Najarian said there is speculation that Red Hat (NYSE: RHT) may be acquired, and as a result, its options and common stock are active today.

        Shares of Red Hat are up more than 4% today, gaining $1.63 to trade at $39.04.

      • Red Hat teases: Who is its Australian cloud customer?

        Delegates at a Sydney open source conference this week heard that a cloud provider would launch in Australia shortly.

        In his open source Pacific conference keynote speech yesterday, Red Hat business development manager Colin McCabe said a Red Hat cloud-provider customer would soon launch in Australia.

        He said open source was the “foundation of the cloud”, naming Amazon Web Services, IBM and Savvis as companies that ran public clouds on Red Hat infrastructure.

      • Fedora

        • Linpus Lite 1.4 screenshots

          Linpus Lite 1.4 is the latest distribution that I am currently reviewing. While the review is in progress, I thought posting a few screenshots is in order. If you are not familiar with Linpus Lite, it is developed by Linpus Technologies, Inc. of Taipei, Taiwan. The company’s main distribution was Linpus Desktop, which was based on the old Mandrake Linux (now Mandriva). The Linpus Desktop line is no longer officially available for download (Linpus Desktop 9.6 was the last edition reviewed on this website).

        • OLF 2010, day 1.

          Yesterday the Ohio LinuxFest kicked into high gear, with dozens of talks and sessions geared toward free software aficionados of all skill levels. I don’t know the attendance numbers but I heard people saying the conference felt even bigger and busier than last year. (I was last at Ohio LinuxFest in 2008.)

          We had discovered that, besides the Fedora booth, the generous folks at OLF had also set up a booth for Red Hat, who sponsored the conference in part as well. Since we had a fair number of Red Hatters in attendance — Spot, Ruth, and myself — and had a full complement of Fedora Ambassadors on hand as well, we decided to work that booth. The booths were helpfully right next to each other so we could all easily collaborate and converse with each other during the day.

    • Debian Family

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Reflections on Ubuntu, Canonical and the march to free software adoption

          Nevertheless, the Ubuntu Project does bring something unique, special and important to free software: a total commitment to everyday users and use cases, the idea that free software should be “for everyone” both economically and in ease of use, and a willingness to chase down the problems that stand between here and there. I feel that commitment is a gift back to the people who built every one of those packages. If we can bring free software to ten times the audience, we have amplified the value of your generosity by a factor of ten, we have made every hour spent fixing an issue or making something amazing, ten times as valuable. I’m very proud to be spending the time and energy on Ubuntu that I do. Yes, I could do many other things, but I can’t think of another course which would have the same impact on the world.

        • Why (I think) Ubuntu One exists

          Above all, to extend the power of Ubuntu as an environment. Ubuntu One already allows you to many things beyond the basic file sync we started off with, you can keep your contacts from your phone and desktop (and between other Ubuntu devices) in sync and backed up, notes, bookmarks, all your important files are backed up and synced, you can share them privately or publicly, you can buy music that gets delivered right to your music player, and soon you will be able to stream any of your music to your phone. And this is just today. As the project matures, we are working hard to make it easy for more and more third-party projects to use our platform and out-pace us in ideas and code.
          All of this allows Ubuntu to extend its reach into mobile devices and even other operating systems. It feels like integrating into the real world today, not only the world we want to build.

        • Apple Magic Trackpad drivers land in Ubuntu 10.10 – even supports 10 finger touch!
        • Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat Beta – Overview & Screenshots

          Here’s what Ubuntu 10.10 has to offer:
          - Linux kernel 2.6.35
          - GNOME 2.31, including Nautilus as a file manager, Rhythmbox as a music player, Totem as the default video player, Empathy Instant Messaging client
          - OpenOffice 3.2 suite, including the Writer, Spreadsheet, Presentation and Drawing, (doesn’t that Oracle logo look awkward when the splash-screen appears?)
          - Mozilla Firefox 3.6.9
          - Evolution 2.30 email client

        • New Ubuntu “Extras” Repository Is Now Live

          …the Ubuntu Extras repository doesn’t have any purpose until after the Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat final release.

        • Maverick Sound Indicator Finally Gets Controls That Match The Radiance Theme
        • Kobo Desktop eReader application also available for Ubuntu
        • Ubuntu 10.10 – Misanthropic Mongoose Tryout

        • Flavours and Variants

          • Peppermint Ice resuscitates an elderly Thinkpad

            Bucking the trend toward ever beefier and bulkier Linux distributions, the Peppermint OS project recently unveiled the first release of a lighter-weight variant of its small-footprint Linux OS. Since “Peppermint Ice” targets netbooks and older, resource-constrained laptops and PCs, I dusted off a well-worn ThinkPad 2662-35U, loaded it up with the new OS, and took it for a spin.

          • Upcoming Artwork For Xubuntu 10.10 Maverick Wallpapers – Themes – Icons

            Upcoming Xubuntu 10.10 based on Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat with Xfce desktop environment coming with many artwork enhancement for Wallpapers, Icons, and Themes.

            Xubuntu Artwork wiki shows new logo, text logo with different dimensions, great wallpapers collection vector, bitmap, and photography wallpapers.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • D-Link Boxee Box now available for pre-order

      D-Link’s Boxee Box can now be ordered from Amazon for November delivery (to US destinations only). Additionally, the company disclosed today that its device is based on an Intel Atom processor CE4100, representing a significant triumph for Intel over ARM Ltd.

      D-Link unveiled its plans last December to build an STB (set-top-box) based on Boxee’s media-streaming software platform, and published preliminary photos and functional specs at that time.

    • Pandora Open-Source Gaming Handheld is Alive and in Demand

      Not to be confused with the music service, Pandora the Linux-based gaming handheld is off to a solid start, according to The Register.

      Pandora’s small team in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, has shipped 1,000 devices since they became available in May. Of course, that’s nothing compared to the Nintendo DS or Sony PSP, but it’s enough for the team to claim that they’re all sold out. Pandora devices are now being sold on pre-order, and the makers hope to ship another 3,000 units by the holidays.

    • Phones

Free Software/Open Source

  • Open Sesame

    But Venkatesh Hariharan, corporate affairs director, Red Hat, a leading vendor of open source software, says, “Without such a policy, e-government would be a mess of incompatible systems. We are still using land records and maps that date back 400 years. If we store this e-government data in closed proprietary formats, we risk losing this data forever. If we use open, royalty-free standards like those defined by the World Wide Web Consortium, we can ensure the long-term preservation of government data,” says he.

  • Will Cisco Be the Next to Fall to Open Source?

    Cisco has long dominated the networking world. It seems its supremacy is unassailable. Yet open source-based networking just might be its undoing – eventually.

    Open source software, after all, has conquered many arenas. Apache Web servers, Linux-based operating systems and the OpenOffice desktop suite are a few of the well-known areas where open source has carved out a large chunk of the marketplace.

  • Open source IQ test
  • More firms opting for open source software: Is it right for you?

    Many firms that had previously been reluctant to use open source (i.e., free) software have changed their minds. So what’s different now?

    For one thing, open source has evolved. Improvements in the actual software has led to a significant spike in businesses using open source.

    In fact, 98% of firms use some type of open source software – according to a study conducted by Zenoss, Inc., at the annual USENIX Large Installation System Administration conference.

  • Year-old vulnerability endangers OpenX ad server

    A critical security flaw in current and older versions of the popular open source OpenX ad server allows attackers to remotely compromise a server. A few reports (German language link) even discuss successful attacks on OpenX servers in which the vulnerability was exploited.

  • Apache Software Foundation announces new Executive Officers

    The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) has announced that it held elections for the Foundation’s Executive Officers, who will be overseeing the day-to-day operations of the foundation, during its September 11th board meeting. The non-profit Foundation supports the Apache community’s development of some of the most well-known open source projects, such as the ASF’s first project, the Apache HTTP Web Server, Tomcat and Hadoop.

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Banging on about Mozilla Drumbeat

        That will require quite a lot of work, and so I’d also like to propose a trivially easy step towards bringing some much-needed focus: do not ever let anyone on the site refer to “Drumbeat” – it should always be “Mozilla Drumbeat”. However evocative the word “drumbeat” may be, it is completely untethered – it could refer to anything, and certainly has no obvious, inherent links with the Internet or openness. Every time that the “drumbeat” brand is enhanced, Mozilla’s is diminished – and with it the focus on the open Internet. Foregrounding Mozilla in this way would remind everyone who is behind this project, and why, ultimately, they are getting involved.

      • Firefox 4 JavaScript Benchmarks – Showing Improvements

        One of the things that the Mozilla Firefox developers do not want to see happening is that their browser takes the back seat performance wise. That was almost the case, with the recent releases of Opera 10.60, Google Chrome 7 and the preview version of Internet Explorer 9, as all of which left Firefox in JavaScript benchmarks behind.

      • Firefox 4 Freeze Delayed Again, Panorama Gets Big Upgrades

        Mozilla’s goal to release the first release candidate of Firefox 4 in the second half of October may not be realistic anymore as the feature freeze of the software is now already more than two weeks behind schedule. Mozilla’s Mike Beltzner informed developers late last week that the feature freeze would be moved from September 10 to September 15, while the original feature freeze date was September 1.

  • SaaS

    • Announcing vtiger CRM On Demand

      vtiger CRM is a web-based Customer Relationship Management application that delivers enterprise features. vtiger CRM leverages the benefits of Open Source software and adds more value to users by providing advanced features such as Lead, Opportunity, Account and Contact Management, Integration with common desktop applications such as email and office productivity software and support for Quotation and Invoicing, Inventory Management, trouble ticketing and customer support activities.

  • Education

    • Open-Source Lecture Capture

      Lecture capture — the practice of recording lectures, storing them in a library, and allowing students to play them back whenever they want, along with accompanying slides or other media — has become one of the more popular trappings of e-learning. Some research suggests that having lectures available for playback could help students retain lecture content. Another study indicated that it would not prompt students to cut class, as some professors have feared. The number of companies selling lecture capture hardware, software, and services has grown to more than a dozen, with the top providers serving hundreds of colleges. All in all, the lecture capture market did more than $50 million in business last year, according to a recent report from the consulting firm Frost & Sullivan. The firm predicts that figure will triple by 2016.

  • Business

    • IT cuts, Open Sauce and harsh reality

      Proprietary software licensing is a dead model, and one the Public Sector can no longer afford.

      Turning to the greater proportion of costs taken up by services, this is precisely the reason that the Public Sector can no longer afford, and must break it’s reliance on, a small handful of enormous ICT companies and move to a triple-Open strategy (Open Data, Open Standards and Open Source).

      By migrating existing infrastructure in line with a triple-Open strategy, the Public Sector enables itself to escape ICT provision from the existing monopolies and oligopolies, freeing itself from lock-in, systemic risk and ruinous costs. In fact there is no choice in this matter (Public Sector ICT costs are unsustainable), but let us assume there is and explain why.

  • Project Releases

    • Lightspark 0.4.4.2 released

      Another week, another bug­fix release for Lightspark! Apart from restor­ing the sup­port for YouTube this release fea­tures the new plu­gin based audio frame­work that makes it pos­si­ble to sup­port other back­ends beside PulseAu­dio. At the moment both an ALSA and Ope­nAL plu­g­ins are being worked on.

  • Licensing

    • Open Source and Software Allergies

      And what about your own code? Do you know every open source package you use? What about code coming in from developers in other groups? Off-shore partners? Have any of them copied and pasted code from the open source community into code they give you?

  • Openness/Sharing

Leftovers

  • Just Because You Make Money, It Doesn’t Mean You Lose Section 230 Safe Harbors
  • Another Australian politician gets caught out by technology

    The latest Australian politician to be caught out by technology is New South Wales Ports and Waterways Minister Paul McLeay. According to ZDNet, he’s been forced to resign after having to admit to accessing porn and gambling websites on a parliamentary computer.

  • MP Paul McLeay resigns over porn and gambling

  • Security/Aggression

    • Pentagon aims to buy up book

      The Defense Department is attempting to buy the entire first printing – 10,000 copies – of a memoir by a controversial former Defense Intelligence Agency officer so that the book can be destroyed, according to military and other sources.

      “Operation Dark Heart,” which was scheduled to be published this month by St. Martin’s Press, recounts the adventures and frustrations of an Army reservist, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, who served in Afghanistan in 2003, a moment when the attention of Washington and the military had shifted to Iraq.

    • Homeland Security to test iris scanners

      The Homeland Security Department plans to test futuristic iris scan technology that stores digital images of people’s eyes in a database and is considered a quicker alternative to fingerprints.

    • Crims use hacked email to steal house

      An international cybercrime investigation is underway into a sophisticated scam network that left a Western Australian man half a million dollars out of pocket when criminals sold his Perth investment property using stolen credentials.

    • Attackers exploit additional zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Flash and Reader

      Adobe has issued a warning about yet another unpatched hole in its Flash Player and Reader (including Acrobat) products that attackers are already using to infect Windows systems. Just last week, Adobe warned of a hole in Reader that criminals are also using to spread malware on Windows systems.

  • Finance

    • Day One at Summer Davos: It’s all about the Soft Power

      “Summer Davos” is the World Economic Forum’s four-year old conference in China, titled “The Annual Meeting of the New Champions.” It’s all about the economic challenges and opportunities emerging markets. Wandering between panels where heads of multinationals, entrepreneurs, government officials and social entrepreneurs are talking about the Chinese consumer that’s just waking up, trillions in foreign investment and where it’s going and the time-bomb of shortages in food, water and energy as the world population goes from 6.9 billion to 9.1 billion in 2050, two things occurred to me: This is my version of porn, and I’m a total nerd.

    • September 13 2010: Basel III: We Lost, The Banks Won

      Still, while cheering Basel III, you’re cheering the further, continued and deepening screwing of American people, and European, and Japanese, not to mention dirt-poor-to-begin with Africans and Asians, who will for instance increasingly be bid out of what fertile land they once had to feed their children.

      Basically, the banks can continue to do anything they want till 2013, and “just about” anything they want until 2019. Not that they’ll be lending to “consumers”, mind you, unless their governments force them to and/or make it very attractive (50+% credit card charges), and if anyone has anything adverse to say about that, their answer will be that they will need the money to comply with Basel III in 2019. Oh, the lovely irony.

  • Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

    • Hoteliers to take their revenge on TripAdvisor’s critiques in court

      Britain’s biggest travel review website, whose critiques of hotels and restaurants can include damning references to Basil Fawlty-style hotel managers, bed bugs and stomach-churning meals, is facing potential legal action from hundreds of hoteliers and restaurateurs who claim their businesses are being damaged by malicious and unfounded reviews.

      More than 400 establishments have indicated they may join a “group defamation action” against TripAdvisor, which carries “unbiased” reviews, written by members of the public, of hotels and other businesses.

      Unless the popular site removes the most wounding criticisms within a fortnight, legal proceedings could begin shortly, according to KwikChex, a Bournemouth-based reputation management firm, which is canvassing support for a case.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM

    • HDCP master-key leaks, possible to make unrestricted Blu-Ray recorders

      Engadget reports that the master key that controls HDCP, the anti-copying system used to restrict the outputs of Blu-Ray boxes, set-top boxes, and many game systems, have been compromised and published. With these keys, knowledgeable users can make their own “source” and “sink” keys for devices that permit copying at full resolution — which means that you should be able to create a hard-drive-based recorder that you can plug into your Blu-Ray player and record shows in real-time. This player would be immune to “revocation” (part of the HDCP specification that allows a cartel of Hollywood studios to remotely disable devices so they won’t interoperate with compromised systems — essentially, the ability to reach into your living room and shut down your equipment).

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Vandals’ Bass Player Not A Fan Of The Public Domain, Thinks PD Recordings Will ‘Destroy’ Classical Music

        ormer entertainment industry lawyer, is currently in the middle of a legal fight with Reed Elsevier over a parody logo the band briefly used — but has since stopped using. His discussions of the lawsuit have been interesting and informative, so I’m a bit shocked to see the following article, submitted by a bunch of folks where Escalante goes a bit off his rocker in attacking the public domain as “communism.” Honestly, I had to read it a few times, and am still sort of wondering if this is pure satire. If it is, bravo. If it’s not, Escalante may have taken cluelessness about the public domain to previously unheard of levels.

        At issue? The story we recently covered of how the folks at Musopen wanted to raise money to hire an orchestra to record public domain symphonies, and release the recordings into the public domain. As you’re hopefully aware, while such symphonies are in the public domain already, new recordings of those works are not.

      • Another company fights back against copyright lawsuit

        Another company facing a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by Righthaven LLC is fighting back, this time calling the Las Vegas company’s litigation campaign “a parasitical abuse” of judicial resources.

        Righthaven is a company that detects online infringements of Las Vegas Review-Journal stories, obtains copyrights for those stories and then sues the alleged infringers.

      • Bob Marley Family Loses Case Over Hit Records

        Bob Marley’s family lost a lawsuit seeking the copyrights to several of the late Jamaican reggae singer’s best-known recordings.

        U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan said the UMG Recordings unit of Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group is the rightful owner of copyrights to five albums that Marley had recorded between 1973 and 1977 for Island Records.

        The albums “Catch a Fire,” “Burnin’,” “Natty Dread,” “Rastaman Vibrations” and “Exodus” were recorded with Marley’s band The Wailers. They include some of Marley’s best-known songs, including “Get Up, Stand Up,” “I Shot the Sheriff,” “No Woman, No Cry” and “One Love.”

        [...]

        But Cote concluded that Marley’s recordings were “works made for hire” as defined under U.S. copyright law, entitling UMG to be designated the owner of those recordings, for both the initial 28-year copyright terms and for renewals.

Clip of the Day

CES 2010 : Motorola Backflip


Credit: TinyOgg

PR Disaster: Discussion With Bill Gates Turns to “Death Panels ”

Posted in Antitrust, Bill Gates, Interview at 3:25 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Memories of the Connie Chung interview return to haunt as Bill Gates faces tough questions

BILL GATES does not like to be asked hard questions. At least once he abandoned an interview in the middle because he was asked a hard question (he probably bailed out of others before they could take place because his PR agents, e.g. Waggener Edstrom from Microsoft and the Gates Foundation, is known to be compiling dossiers on reporters to determine if communication with them is ‘safe’).

Essentially, Gates is using PR people to ensure in advance it’s just a few softball questions he will get, trying to control what the interviews (public appearances) ever cover. To quote from “Barbarians Led by Bill Gates”, a book composed by Pam Edstrom’s (of Waggener Edstrom) daughter:

By May of 1994, Gates’s patience was growing so thin that not even a public relations pro like Pam Edstrom could muzzle him.
On May 19, one of Edstrom’s biggest nightmares unfolded on national television. Gates had agreed to be interviewed by CBS’s Eye to Eye host Connie Chung. Chung said she wouldn’t ask Gates sensitive questions, particularly ones regarding the current Justice Department investigation. With that, “Gates’s keeper” swung open
the doors.
Gates was patient and accommodating during the interview, even when Chung asked him to jump over a chair from a standing position, a skill he demonstrated at various times, including once during COMDEX at the Shark’s Club in Las Vegas in front of a packed crowd of admirers and computer junkies. So, once again, Gates complied, successfully jumping over a chair for the camera crew and their network TV audience.
But by then Connie and company had outstayed their welcome. Gates turned to Edstrom.
“Is this five minutes up? Pam, I mean, do you know five minutes?” he drilled.
Edstrom replied with a simple yes, but Chung continued with her questioning, drifting further and further off limits. She asked about his wife, Melinda. Then she brought up the STAC lawsuit.
In early 1993, STAC Electronics, which made data compression software, had sued Microsoft for patent violation, claiming Microsoft had used these patents in DOS 6.0. STAC said Microsoft had been in negotiations to license “Stacker,” but talks disintegrated when Microsoft refused to pay the royalties STAC wanted. It was one of the only lawsuits Microsoft ever lost for patent infringement.
In preparation for her interview, Chung had talked to the CEO of STAC, Gary Clow, as well as other Gates rivals. She quoted a Clow comment to Gates on the air.
“A lot of people make that analogy that competing with Bill Gates is like playing hardball,” she had Clow saying. “I’d say it’s more like a knife fight.”
“I’ve never heard any of these things,” Gates said. “You know, you’re saying like a knife fight. That’s silliness. It’s—childish. I mean, why be a mouthpiece for that kind of—of silliness? Why doesn’t he just—just say them—anyway, it—because it has nothing to do with the patent lawsuit. It has to do with just, you know, creating a—you know, sort of a David versus Goliath thing out of it. Well, I’m done.”
And with that, Gates walked off the set.
“Can I just ask you one more question, Bill?” Chung said. His voice trailed off into the distance, “No, I don’t think so.” It wasn’t much later that Chung left CBS, and many people wondered if Gates had had something to do with it.

He chickened out. Now, watch the following new video, which somebody titled “Bill Gates Wants Death Panels: Dying People VS Teachers”

There are many comments here, such as the insinuation that Gates said: “SAVE A LIFE, FIRE A TEACHER”

And this is the person some people feel comfortable putting on top of the educating system? █

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