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11.26.11

Links 26/11/2011: Wine 1.3.33, KDE SC 4.8 Beta 1

Posted in News Roundup at 1:42 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Computing prodigy did his first Linux install at age 6

    Recent months have unearthed a wealth of computing and coding talent amongst Irish school kids with their hearts set on disrupting the technology world. The latest is a computing prodigy who at the age of six did his first Linux install.

    Dublin schoolkid Shane Curran, age 11, admits his obsession with computers began when was six, when he did his first Linux install. When he was 7 he learned how to programme in Visual Basic and built a simple web browser that he made available on the web for download.

  • Samsung leaps from consumer hero to enterprise zero

    Cars, hotels, healthcare, construction, financial and advertising services, data centres, systems integration and consultancy – even the dominant Linux enterprise operating system – bear the electronic giant’s pedigree.

  • Presenters to get first warning: Linux Aus

    The process to introduce an official code of conduct for Linux Australia events is continuing, with the Linux Australia council today issuing a re-drafted code for the consideration of members, including a proposed new warning system for inappropriate speakers.

    The new draft of the code once again sets out how attendees and presenters should conduct themselves at Linux Australia events, strongly emphasising appropriate, all-ages conduct at all times.

  • Server

    • HP expands its x86 options with Mission Critical programme

      Serviceguard for Linux: This is a big win for Linux users on HP, and removes a major operational and architectural hurdle for HP-UX migrations. ServiceGuard is a highly regarded clustering and HA facility on HP-UX, and includes many features for local and geographically distributed HA.

  • Kernel Space

    • Linus Issues A Thanksgiving Day Linux Kernel

      Linus Torvalds has issued a Thanksgiving Linux kernel update for those not in a food-induced coma from this American holiday. The delicacy is the Linux 3.2-rc3 kernel.

      The Linux 3.2-rc3 kernel consists of “One quarter arch updates, two quarters drivers, and one quarter random changes. Shake vigorously and serve cold..”

    • Linux 3.2-rc3 – just in time for Thanksgiving

      Hey, since most of the US will be in a food-induced coma tomorrow, I just *know* that doing a new release candidate is a good idea.

    • Graphics Stack

      • Linux 2.6.38 To Linux 3.2 Nouveau DRM Benchmarks

        Earlier this month I showed the Intel graphics performance hasn’t improved much in the Linux 3.2 kernel (but there might be a boost when RC6 is flipped on), but how is this new kernel shaping up for NVIDIA hardware owners wishing to use the open-source and reverse-engineered Nouveau driver? In this article are some benchmarks of the Nouveau DRM driver from recent Linux releases.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • Akademy KDE summit to take place in Estonia

        The search for a location for the KDE annual world summit Akademy 2012 is over. Tallinn, Estonia will be the venue for the event which will run from 30 June to 6 July 2012, according to the announcement by KDE e.V. The conference is jointly organised by the KDE e.V. and the host, the Estonian Information Technology College, which is located near to the Tehnopol Science and Business Park.

      • KDE SC 4.8 Beta 1 Is Available for Testing

        Softpedia is once again the first to announce that the KDE team proudly released a few minutes ago, November 24th, the first Beta version of the upcoming and renewed KDE Software Compilation 4.8 environment.

      • First KDE 4.8 beta released for testing

        The KDE Community has released a first beta of version 4.8 of the KDE Software Compilation (KDE SC). Aimed at testers, the development preview of the next major update to the open source K Desktop Environment brings changes to the Plasma Workspaces, applications and underlying platform, as well as various performance and stability improvements.

    • GNOME Desktop

      • The rules of the game

        Dave Neary was at college in his native Ireland in the mid 1990s when he discovered free software. He had “managed to get through a maths degree doing very little programming”, and went on to do a research degree in image analysis where the ability to program became an essential part of his work. He remembers “turning to a friend and saying: ‘I understand that these things are variables but what’s the star thing in front of the variable name?’ When he stopped laughing he told me, and that’s how I discovered pointers.”

        “The piece of software I was working on would only compile on UNIX so I ran an X-Server on my Windows desktop until somebody said ‘You’re not using Windows. Why don’t you just install Linux and be done with it?’, and I had to say ‘Linux, what’s that?’”

        This was in 1996. By 1999 he had taken a job as a developer with Informix which left him in something of a rut “where I was wanting to learn more than I was learning through my job. So I began to work on The Gimp. I hadn’t worked on user interface software before,” he says, “and started looking at bugs that were annoying me, scratching my itch, and got heavily involved in Gimp development.”

        “The great thing about the free software world in general and also my upbringing is that I haven’t been afraid to take things apart just to see how they work. I’m not afraid to get inside the hood and see what’s going on even if I don’t know what I am doing.”

        He went on to become release manager for The Gimp and a member of the board of the GNOME Foundation, and later advised Nokia and Intel on community aspects of the Maemo and Meego projects.

      • GNOME 3.3.2 Development Release Is Here

        The GNOME Project announced a few minuntes ago, November 24th, the immediate availability for testing of the second development release of the upcoming GNOME 3.4 desktop environment, which brings assorted fixes and improvements.

  • Distributions

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

  • Computerworld 25 years: Open source advocate says outlook is positive

    I am quite optimistic about the next 25 years of IT in New Zealand because, in recent months, I have got the sense that a number of auspicious trends are starting to converge.

    The new digital-native generation is starting get socially and politically involved in meaningful ways. For these young folk the internet is inextricably woven into their day to day social fabric.

    Their experience means they have some different priorities from earlier generations. Their influence seems to be quietly ushering in a new culture: one in which the opposite of open isn’t closed; this opposite of open is broken.

  • Convirture Open Source Server Tools for Virtualization and Cloud Management
  • appMobi Open Sources Its Mobile Platform During Black Friday
  • In the Open Source Community, the Platform Rarely Matters Anymore
  • In New York, open source data on bus location

    Last night, as I tried (and failed) to duck around raindrops on my way down Manhattan’s West 34th Street, I noticed something I hadn’t before: on the curbside bus stop, in blazing orange LED bulbs, were the times for the next city buses to arrive.

  • Ten things you didn’t know about Sourcefire

    1. Headquarted in Columbia, Maryland, Sourcefire was founded in January 2001 by Martin Roesch, author of open-source intrusion detection system Snort.

    2. Snort is the world’s most widely-deployed intrusion detection and prevention technology, with nearly 4 million downloads to date.

    3. In addition to Snort, Sourcefire manages some of the industry’s most respected open source security projects, including ClamAV, the most commonly used open source anti-virus and anti-malware gateway product in the world, as well as Razorback.

  • “Inspire” Magazine: Open Source Jihad

    The recent arrest of Jose Pimentel, a 27-year-old convert to Islam who was allegedly planning to detonate an explosive device in New York, underscores the ongoing danger posed by so-called “lone wolf” terrorists. Pimentel, busy preparing a bomb at the time of his arrest according to prosecutors, is alleged to have wanted to kill American troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. The real significance of his plot, however, lies in the method he was using.

  • Open-source projects that deserve your cash

    People who enjoy open-source software often forget that most of the developers behind the code are working in their own time and at their own expense.

  • Science education prize goes to Open Source Physics

    In an attempt to raise the profile of worthwhile science education projects, Science magazine has started handing out the Science Prize for Online Resources in Education, or SPORE. This week’s award is going to a project called Open Source Physics. Started by a group of college professors, the site offers simulation software on a wide variety of topics in the physical sciences (including astronomy), accompanied by guides and lesson plans that help integrate it into the classroom.

  • Events

  • SaaS

    • Italian people and the Cloud

      The storage is one of the favorite services offered by the Cloud: 76% of the sample interviewed is in favor of the storage of information in the Cloud, and consider the whole service a support in the work sphere (58%), in the education (38%), for social life (30%), for hobby sharing (21%) and to know new people (11%).

    • OpenStack is overstretched

      I’m back again at my daily job after a week travelling between San Francisco and Silicon Valley. It’s clear that the hot topics there are cloud and flash storage; in fact the first meeting I had last week in Silicon Valley was with OpenStack.

    • 6 reasons why 2012 could be the year of Hadoop

      Hadoop gets plenty of attention from investors and the IT press, but it’s very possible we haven’t seen anything yet. All the action of the last year has just set the stage for what should be a big year full of new companies, new users and new techniques for analyzing big data. That’s not to say there isn’t room for alternative platforms, but with even Microsoft abandoning its competitive effort and pinning its big data hopes on Hadoop, it’s difficult to see the project’s growth slowing down.

    • Hadoop is an Open Source Revolution: Federal Computer Week Interview

  • Databases

    • Is CouchDB in Trouble?

      So to recap, CouchDB doesn’t scale enough and it’s also too big for smaller devices. CouchBase, one of the leading commercial sponsors behind CouchDB should be plenty worried.

      To be fair, Ubuntu leaving an upstream project for their own needs is nothing new. You need to look no further than Mark Shuttleworth’s split from GNOME 3 with the Unity interface. The difference this time around though, is it’s not just the community that Ubuntu is splitting from, but the commercial relationship too. It’s one thing to have dis-agreements within an open source community, it’s another not to be able to get a commercial vendor to help tailor a solution that will work.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • CMS

    • PacktLib now Offers a Joomla! Library

      Packt has today announced a new subscription on PacktLib for Joomla! developers. Housing 26 books, this library will enable Joomla! developers to get up and running quickly, as well as extend their skills and knowledge to become serious professionals. Recently announced as the winner of the best 2011 Open Source CMS, a resurgent Joomla!, now with a six month development cycle, has proved itself to be one of the leading open source content management systems on the market.

    • Development of the world’s most popular WordPress open source ecommerce plug-in

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Copyright vs. Community

      Copyright developed in the age of the printing press, and was designed to fit with the system of centralized copying imposed by the printing press. But the copyright system does not fit well with computer networks, and only draconian punishments can enforce it.

  • Project Releases

    • MyPaint reaches 1.0.0 with improved user interface

      The MyPaint developers have announced the availability of version 1.0.0 of their open source graphics-tablet-oriented digital painting application. The raster graphics editing software, which runs on Linux, Windows and Mac OS X, began development in 2005 and has focused on being able to respond to pen pressure when drawing, while having a simple, minimalistic user interface that is hidden until the user needs it. It offers extensive brush creation and configuration options for the artist, basic layer support and an “unlimited canvas” which avoids the need for resizing.

    • Google sets Wave shutdown date, points to open source projects

      Google has now set specific dates for the shutdown of Google Wave, the collaboration service it launched in May 2009 and officially abandoned in August 2010. It has been informing users by email that from 31 January 2012, it will mark all waves, the equivalent of a conversation or thread on the service, as read only. On 30 April 2012, the service will be turned off entirely. Google is directing users who are interested in continuing to work with Wave or a similar collaborative tools to look at open source projects.

  • Public Services/Government

    • Open letter to the Romanian Ministry for Culture and Patrimony

      A group of organisations and interested persons from Romania are addressing an open letter to the Romanian Ministry for Culture and Patrimony about the Romanian cultural patrimony on the Internet, which can be published at Europeana.eu, where our country was to submit 789,000 works until 2015 and currently has managed to publish less than 36,000. We ask about the status of this project and propose the use of the images contributed in the recent Romanian Wikipedia photography contest. The full text can be read on the ProLinux website or in printable format (along with the signatures list) from the APTI blog.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Source Physics

      Scientists routinely use computer modeling and computation in innovative research, including predicting the nature of He4 at extremely low temperatures and the impact of human activity on climate. Why does computer-based modeling remain absent from many educational programs?

      The Open Source Physics (OSP) project, www.compadre.org/osp/, seeks to enhance computational physics education by providing a central Web site containing computer modeling tools, simulations, curricular resources such as lesson plans, and a computational physics textbook that explains the pedagogic simulations’ algorithms (1). Our resources are based on small single-concept simulations packaged with source codes that can be examined, modified, recompiled, and freely redistributed to teach fundamental computational skills. Students at all levels will benefit from these interactive simulations by learning to question and assess the simulation’s assumptions and output.

    • Let Them Hack Your Innovation!

    • Open Hardware

  • Programming

    • ActiveState Commits To Free Stackato Micro Cloud

      Canadian dynamic language company ActiveState has said that that after its beta stage is completed, its Stackato Micro Cloud will continue to be free of charge for developers to use as their own private Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution on a single node. ActiveState’s products all leverage community-driven open source projects, so with Stackato access assured, developers can build, test, and deploy applications on a micro cloud for free.

    • The R programming language gets 64-bit integer support

      The R programming language, a software environment designed especially for statistical computations and graphing, will now be able to process 64-bit integer types. A patch to enable this capability, from French R developer Romain François, is available to download from the CRAN server network. His approach involves storing int64 vectors in R as pairs of 32-bit integers in S4 objects, with one holding the high order bits and the other the low order bits. Behind the scenes, the arithmetic operations are carried out in high performance C++ code; François has modified almost all of the standard arithmetic operations available in R to transparently work with the new class.

Leftovers

  • SIM-free Lumia 800 handset is due at Clove in December

    ONLINE RETAILER Clove will start shipping a SIM-free Nokia Lumia 800 handset to people who want it at the start of December.

    Thus far Nokia’s first Windows Phone 7.5 handset is available from only three firms on a SIM-free basis – Carphone Warehouse, Phones4u and Expansys – and this is the source of some disappointment, says Clove, because apparently there are people out there who want to pay the best part of £500 for the handset.

  • source outgrown the Apache

    US lawmakers have launched an investigation into the threat of cyber espionage from Chinese telecoms firms operating in the US, singling out Huawei and ZTE.

    The House of Representatives committee on intelligence said yesterday that it was focused on the threat to America’s security and critical infrastructure coming from “the expansion of Chinese-owned telecommunications companies – including Huawei and ZTE – into our telecommunications infrastructure”.

  • Security

  • Finance

    • Many Influential Lawmakers Invested in Wall Street Giant Goldman Sachs

      Goldman Sachs, the most notorious investment bank on Wall Street, has two things in common with the legislators with significant investments in the company: wealth and power.

      According to research by the Center for Responsive Politics, 19 current members of Congress reported holdings in Goldman Sachs during 2010. Whether by coincidence or not, most of these 19 Goldman Sachs investors in Congress are more powerful or more wealthy than their peers, or both.

    • Goldman Sachs Announces Candidacy For President

      Goldman Sachs Inc., the global investment bank and financial services firm, announced this morning that it is running for president of the United States. The announcement was made at a farm near Waterloo, Iowa by the musician Ted Nugent, who was hired to speak for the candidate. “We love oil and God and gasoline!” shouted Mr. Nugent, as he held aloft two semi-automatic machine guns and a sleeve of red, white and blue painted grenades. “And we hate them people who don’t look American and drive those weird tiny cars and use big words!” Mr. Nugent kept his remarks brief and did not mention the candidate, Goldman Sachs, by name. At the end of his speech, the outspoken musician fired off several rounds of live ammunition, screamed “Let’s go eat a live bear!” and then charged into the woods with the frenzied crowd following behind.

  • Censorship

  • Intellectual Monopolies

11.25.11

IRC Proceedings: November 24th, 2011

Posted in IRC Logs at 12:20 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME Gedit

GNOME Gedit

#techrights log

#boycottnovell log

GNOME Gedit

GNOME Gedit

#boycottnovell-social log

#techbytes log

Enter the IRC channels now

While Thanking and Celebrating Independence, Freedom…

Posted in America, Site News at 11:44 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman at the launch of GPLv3

Summary: Wikipedia defines Thanksgiving Day as the “annual holiday celebrating the harvest and other blessings of the past year,” but as a mission-oriented site we wish to take a moment to discuss what needs fixing

FREEDOM cannot be properly understood until one loses it. Freedom is a gift that can be taken for granted in nature, but in an organised society people are subjected/confined to cubicles, servitude, loans, etc. In turn, one can be conditioned into the state of being a prisoner — a prisoner not behind bars but under pressure, not with free will but with free choice that is limited to several appalling options.

“If we could assure that the system’s internal nature is known to more people, then back doors (e.g. for spying) and corrupt procurement will become less likely.”The way to ensure our society respects personal freedom is to speak about the subject and organise. We need not achieve anything extreme or overthrow a government, which is merely an instrument set up by people to centralise particular activities that conveniently serve those people.

There are building blocks in our society that can prove to be more divisive than others. For instance, when our governments are dependent on a corporation, e.g. for access to source code, then we all can, in turn , become dependent on this corporation, which is of course structured hierarchically and has no facility like elections to keep power in check and to assure conformance to wider interests. It is the obligation of our governments to procure whatever tools serve us — the citizens — best, as well as adhere to open standards that reduce costs and facilitate access to information many years down the line.

The system as we know it can be easily perturbed when the governments become more dependent (financially) on corporations than on voters, who typically represent the majority of a population. When PR campaigns determine who wins and who loses, then a politician’s wise strategy becomes to just do what attracts the most campaign funding. The funding comes with strings attached and it is not too shocking to see continued investment in proprietary software, nuclear programmes, bank bailouts, and conquests overseas, especially when we all take a moment to see who funnels money into the political system. Rather than put tender on acquisition of products for use in government, it is government that applies for a sort of bidding among corporations, seeking a sugar daddy in exchange for campaign aid. It is then that we know that the systemic failure is so great that the only way to restore sanity is to restructure the topological annals of the system, putting people at the top and government beneath them, truly dependent only on the people. Corporations are merely an assemblage of particular groups of people, but decisions there — unlike decisions of collectives and governments — are made in private by very few people. These people are not beholden to the public.

“In the age of computing, knowledge gets encoded and formalised in accurate terms that make the application of knowledge easily reproducible.”So what does it have to do with Free software and competition? Quite a lot actually.

First of all, the transparency that goes hand in glove with Free software serves to demonstrate that operation can be put to scrutiny. In an ideal system, one who breaks the rules needs to have some fear of retaliation, or at least a fear of getting caught. If we could assure that the system’s internal nature is known to more people, then back doors (e.g. for spying) and corrupt procurement will become less likely.

Second of all, Free software is about modification, not just visibility, putting freedom aside for a moment. Throughout history scientists have collaborated and inherited the knowledge of others. In the age of computing, knowledge gets encoded and formalised in accurate terms that make the application of knowledge easily reproducible. No longer need we build a complex machine one part at the time. When a complex system is built with zeros and ones, it can be conveniently copied ad infinitum and then modified or changed in an evolution-esque process that further refines this encoding of knowledge. It’s what we call “innovation”.

To overlook this important fact is to give up on the basic building blocks of progress in science. For governments to harbour monolithic and separatist efforts to build software is to merely pursue the enrichment of selected corporations and not public knowledge, the Commons.

“For governments to harbour monolithic and separatist efforts to build software is to merely pursue the enrichment of selected corporations and not public knowledge, the Commons.”In order to guarantee that our elected officials promote and disseminate open standards, we need to do more. We should use the democratic system to have them select free(dom) software. Businesses interact with the governments in all sorts of ways (e.g. tax system/s) and if the government relies on proprietary software, so will they. In turn, people tend to use at home what they already use at the office, so tackling the problem at its root, it is vital to ensure that various administrations come to appreciate and ultimately choose software that helps us inherit some inherent freedoms.

There are other issues that governments these days seem to be getting wrong. One of these would be patents, especially patents on thought processes and matters that can be replicated infinitely rather than rebuilt based on one’s physical resources/capacity. If governments hand out monopolies on ideas that are mere commodities, then it may work very well for those who exploit this system and use it to their advantage. However, that gain comes to someone else’s expense, and that someone tends to be the public at large. Analysis of the real cost of patents does exist, but since this analysis does not really help sell anything, it tends to be overwhelmed by by contradictory disinformation. It’s an easy to concept to explain. When pollution accompanies great increase in energy resources, then there is a lot of money at stake, so to compel one to stop or reduce the pollution would be a tough fight against powerful wealth gainers like the Koch brothers. In the case of software, it can be monopolists and patent lawyers.

It does not take long to see that the real problem here is an administration so deeply interconnected and dependent on the few who are affluent is bound to make silly decisions on software, on patents, and more (copyrights for example, but that is another subject). if the law is intended to serve the interests of the people, then something here just doesn’t make sense. Decision-making fails and those who are elected to positions of power are hostile towards those whom they relied on for being elected (in the ballot boxes, not the wallet). The seriousness of these issues can probably be comprehended a little better now that there is Thanksgiving in the United States, not to mention the “Occupy” movement whose goals indirectly address some of the issues above. █

Techrights cake

If Patents Are Property

Posted in Patents at 10:47 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

No entry

Summary: Food for thought

If patents are property, what ever happened to property tax?

If patents are property, how come no resources are needed to physically put them together?

If patents are property, how come this ‘property’ can be copied so easily?

If patents are property and have always been around, how come they can be suddenly privatised?

If patents are property, how come they don’t last forever?

If patents are property, why isn’t ownership being passed (reassigned) from father to son (or mother to daughter)?

If patents are property, what will we have to show our kids except pieces of paper?

If patents are really property, why do they persist in existence even when we smash them?

If patents are property, what are the constituent ingredients?

If patents are property, why do they take so little space?

If patents are property, how come we need to hire a lawyer to remind ourselves of their existence?

If patents are property, do we really need to rely on a courtroom to simply take them back?

If patents are property, why can’t we give them to a loved one as a gift?

If patents are property, why won’t the pawn shop accept them?

If patents are property, why can’t their abundance save an economy?

If patents are property, then what the heck is property anyway? █

Access to Knowledge in the Age of Sharing

Posted in Intellectual Monopoly at 10:45 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

KEI

Summary: Knowledge withheld as a business model (and what can be done about it)

Copyrights are being contested by a form of unprecedented sharing of information, promoted greatly by the Internet and currently impeded by the rise of DRM in literature and applications (especially in mobile devices). Artificial limits on the sharing of knowledge are a business model to some. Failing to use copyrights for this purpose, some have escalated and harnessed patents, which make illegal even one’s own personal expression (and application) of ideas. What we are going through right now is a period where we can choose to use technology for the better or simply to use it for selfish and potentially malicious purposes. The decision is in our hands, but at the same time it is not in our hands because we depend on companies like Amazon and Apple to make or distribute products which a lot of people use. The matter of fact is, there are two competing camps — one that hoards and one which is being robbed. The idea that without planned obsolescence and artificial scarcity there will be no incentive to research and innovate is ludicrous and it is as case of wishful thinking in several different ways. If we look back at the industrial revolution and what made it possible, it is none of the things lawyers speak about. The light bulb has in some ways become a symbol of innovation even though it was the result of many ideas and attempts laid on top of each other. It was the sharing of understanding that improved the lives of so many people. Since to many readers this is a national holiday, we’ll keep the news lighter today. █

11.24.11

Links 24/11/2011: Doom Code, Atmos Storage for Linux

Posted in News Roundup at 8:21 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Microsoft’s Future: What’s the Worst that Could Happen?

    When you look at it methodically, it’s easy to see how all Microsoft’s parts are interconnected. If one part breaks, particularly if that part is Windows or Office, then the whole house could come down.

  • The retro vision of Commodore’s new OS.

  • Censorship

    • Highest EU Court Prohibits P2P Filtering by ISPs

      While the US is still pondering SOPA, we just got some absolutely fantastic news out of Europe. The European Court of Justice, the highest court in the European Union, has just ruled that P2P filters installed by ISPs violate the European Directive on electronic commerce as well as fundamental rights [full ruling]. This is a hugely important ruling that effectively protects all member states of the European Union from ever being subjected to ISP filtering and spying.

      The origins of this ruling lie in Belgium. The Belgian version of the RIAA, SABAM, had sued Belgian internet provider Scarlet because the ISP’s users were downloading copyrighted content without paying royalties. The President of the Tribunal de première instance de Bruxelles (Brussels Court of First Instance) then ordered Scarlet to install a filtering system to monitor the internet traffic of its subscribers.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Trademarks

      • Koha in fight to regain its own trademark

        The Horowhenua Library Trust, the birthplace of the Koha integrated library system, the first such open source project, finds itself in a peculiar position today, that of having to fight to regain rights to its own name.

        This follows the successful application by the American defence contractor, Progressive Technology Federal Systems/Liblime, for a trademark on the name Koha in New Zealand. Koha is a Maori term that means reciprocity in giving.

      • PTFS/LibLime Offers Trademark Transfer To Koha Foundation

        Open source Integrated Library System (ILS), Koha, came under a trademark threat when the US based PTFS/Liblime managed to get their application for a Trademark on Koha accepted in New Zealand.

        A Koha community blog says, “For the library that invented Koha to now have to have a legal battle to prevent a US company trademarking the word in NZ seems bizarre, but it is at this point that we find ourselves.”

    • Copyrights

      • Private Copying: French Parliament Downsizes The Public’s Rights

        Members of the French Parliament are using a bill on private copying levy as an occasion to kill the copyright exception for private copying. Under the pretense of saving royalties collection, MPs have redefined fair use in the process. Giving in once more to pressure from the recording and movie industry, the French Parliament carries on Nicolas Sarkozy’s repressive policy against the Internet and new cultural practices.

      • EU Court of Justice: Censorship in Name of Copyright Violates Fundamental Rights

        The European Court of Justice just rendered a historic decision in the Scarlet Extended case, which is crucial for the future of rights and freedoms on the Internet. The Court ruled that forcing Internet service providers to monitor and censor their users’ communications violated EU law, and in particular the right to freedom of communication. At a time of all-out offensive in the war against culture sharing online, this decision suggests that censorship measures requested by the entertainment industry are disproportionate means to enforce an outdated copyright regime. Policy-makers across Europe must take this decision into account by refusing new repressive schemes, such as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), and engage in a much needed reform of copyright.

11.23.11

IRC Proceedings: November 23rd, 2011

Posted in IRC Logs at 7:40 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME Gedit

GNOME Gedit

#techrights log

#boycottnovell log

GNOME Gedit

GNOME Gedit

#boycottnovell-social log

#techbytes log

Enter the IRC channels now

Links 23/11/2011: SeaMonkey 2.5, Google To Kill Knol

Posted in News Roundup at 7:16 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Five Gifts for Linux Lovers

    Is there a Linux lover in your life? Someone who loves to debate the advantage of Debian Linux over Ubuntu? Someone who wears a Tux the penguin t-shirt out to lunch? Then, these gifts might just be what they-or you-need to be happy this holiday season.

  • Server

    • EMC adds Linux support, metering to Atmos cloud software

      EMC today unveiled upgrades to its Atmos Cloud Delivery Platform that add new metering services and additional administrative reporting and controls.

      In addition, the Atmos GeoDrive, a piece of software that presents cloud storage as a drive letter on client systems, can now be deployed on Linxux servers. Previously, it could only be used on Windows systems.

  • Kernel Space

    • Linux kernel patch slashes power hunger

      Linux users working on laptops and other portable devices may soon have cause to rejoice thanks to a new kernel patch that finally promises to fix power regression problems associated with recent versions of the software.

  • Applications

  • Desktop Environments

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • KDE On Wayland For KDE SC 4.8, 4.9?

        Yesterday in Darmstadt, Germany I met up with Martin Gräßlin, the developer known for leading KDE’s KWin compositing window manager advancements, and a few other Linux developers. A few words about KDE on Wayland were said.

      • Congrats to the MyPaint team!

        Yesterday, the MyPaint team released version 1.0.0! Warm hugs and congratulations to their entire team! Read all about it on the MyPaint website. MyPaint is a digital painting application with some unique features, like its brush engine (well, we’re still working on making that usable in Krita) and its infinite canvas. Our projects are connected through frequent meetings between the developers on IRC and in real life, the OpenRaster file format, and our users!

      • plasma bug days

        We want to make Plasma Workspaces 4.8 a great release, and one way to reach that goal is to take care of the defects that creep in. To do that, we need your help to groom the bug database. We also realize that to do that, many of you would appreciate some help and teamwork.

        It’s been a while since we’ve held Plasma bug days. They worked very well in the past so we’re resurrecting them.

    • GNOME Desktop

      • Styling problems: living with both Gtk2 and Gtk3

        A couple of weeks ago, the harddisk in my small frontend, the one I’ve been using since last January after Yamato started acting up too much to be usable as a desktop as well, decided to give up. It wasn’t much of a bother as I was planning to replace it anyway: the small frontend was supposed to become an HTPC in short time, but for the moment it’s not of importance either since, as I noted previously I recently got a Sky subscription so that I can have most of the content I care about in my bedroom without having to spend time “finding” it.

  • Distributions

    • New Releases

    • Red Hat Family

      • Looking for a Linux & free software-friendly interaction designer

        For me, it is my dream job and it is also the best job in the world. My personal passion for making free software easier to use is encouraged & celebrated, and I’m always in the company of folks much smarter than I with a never-ending supply of interesting and challenging projects to work on together. The position also comes with the satisfaction that it is, even if only in a small way at times, making the world a better place. Not only does Red Hat work to make more free software available and to make its power more accessible, saving time, money, and pain for businesses: with Red Hat’s support, for example, I’ve been involved in initiatives to teach kids how to use free software and to develop openly-licensed course materials for teachers interested in their own free software programs. It’s a position that has never been boring and through which I’ve been able to travel internationally and constantly learn and grow as a person.

      • Welcome Ceylon to the public eye

        I’m really excited by Ceylon and what it might mean for other things we’re doing in Cloud and JBossEverywhere. So expect to hear more about this effort in the coming months, because just like Java, it’s going to continue to evolve. And can we please stop these “my language is better than your language” arguments? There’s room in this evolving polyglot world for a few more, even if just to allow people to stretch their mental legs and see what works and what doesn’t. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and reasoned arguments are always allowed; but flamewars, especially if they’re subjectively based, don’t help anyone.

      • Welcome to Ceylon

      • Fedora

        • Navigating in GNOME 3/Shell in Fedora 16

          The more I figure out how GNOME 3/Shell works in Fedora 16, the more I like it.

          I’m not at the point where I can say, “Oh, it’s totally better than GNOME 2,” but I’m increasingly able to do things the way I’m accustomed to doing in the GNOME Shell environment.

          I will refrain from comparing how things work in Fedora 16/GNOME Shell vs. Ubuntu 11.10/Unity until I spend more time in the latter. But this comparison is at the forefront of my thinking about which direction my Linux desktop use will go in during the year ahead.

        • Mousetrap in a Hat: Fedora 16 XFCE
        • The 5th Pillar of Fedora

    • Debian Family

      • People behind Debian: Stefano Zacchiroli, Debian Project Leader

        It’s been one year since the first People behind Debian interview. For this special occasion, I wanted a special guest… and I’m happy that our Debian Project Leader (DPL)—Stefano Zacchiroli—accepted my invitation.

        He has a difficult role in the community, but he’s doing a really great job of it. He’s a great mediator in difficult situations, but he’s also opinionated and can push a discussion towards a conclusion.

        Read on to learn how he became a Debian developer and later DPL, what he’s excited about in the next Debian release, and much more.

      • Derivatives

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • The Ubuntu Commons

            One of the most wonderful things about Open Source and collaborative community is that every community member participates in a commons; a shared area of community real-estate in which we can all contribute.

            As an example, with most small Open Source software projects, the commons is the code-base, the website, documentation, IRC channel, mailing list etc. Within that project’s commons people can contribute in different ways, such as writing code, fixing bugs, updating the website, creating documentation, providing support etc.

          • Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Issue 242
          • Ubuntu 11.10 Review

            The look has not changed much in Ubuntu 11.10, but the features sure have. For those unable to use Unity 3D, Unity 2D is now available as well. The login manager is now LiteDM which is fast and efficient. A new window switcher has also been added and there have also been improvements to the lenses feature. Ubuntu as always, is free to try, and remains one of the top choices for Linux newcomers. For a long time Ubuntu was the most popular choice among Linux users, but for the time being the position may have been respectively passed on to Linux Mint. At least temporarily…

          • Ubuntu Linux desktop tips
          • Unity and GNOME Shell are more alike than different

            I’ve been spending time each day working in Ubuntu 11.10′s GNOME 3/Unity and Fedora 16′s GNOME 3/GNOME Shell desktops.

            They’re more alike than you think. Rather than do things the GNOME way, Ubuntu/Canonical decided to take its own direction with Unity, which is now, like GNOME Shell, built on top of GNOME 3.

          • Ubuntu Linux losing popularity fast. New Unity interface to blame?

          • Flavours and Variants

            • Linux Mint 12 “Lisa” Review

              Linux Mint has always been known as the great alternative to Ubuntu. In fact, after Ubuntu implemented the Unity desktop, many people switched ship and flocked to Linux Mint as their next “easy-to-use and user-friendly” distro. According to DistroWatch, Linux Mint has even overtaken Ubuntu as the most popular distro. Well, that was Linux Mint 11, which is still based on Gnome 2, the desktop that most people are familiar with. What about Linux Mint 12?

              In the latest release of Linux Mint (version 12, codenamed Lisa, Release Candidate), the developers of Linux Mint decided to embrace the new technology and use Gnome 3 in place of Gnome 2. As we all know, Gnome 3 comes with a brand new user-interface (aka Gnome Shell) that is confusing to many. It is interesting to see how the developers of Linux Mint intend to tame this beast, without failing the expectation of its users.

            • What Should You Expect from Linux Mint 12

              Clement Lefebvre, the founder, project leader, developer and maintainer of the Linux Mint project, is working very hard
              these days to release an operating system that will enchant many Linux users.

              Long story short, the upcoming Linux Mint 12, dubbed Lisa, is an operating system based on the Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) distribution and powered by Linux kernel 3.0, featuring a new user interface based on the GNOME 3 desktop environment.

            • Linux Mint 12 Has Been Released, Download Now
            • Could MATE Be the Savior of the GNOME 2 Linux Interface?

              Right or wrong, plenty of Linux users — such as this guy — have been less than happy with the interface changes wrought by the advent of Unity and GNOME 3. Lucky for these people, there’s hope in the form of MATE, a fork of GNOME 2 that bills itself as “a non-intuitive and unattractive desktop for users.” Curious what MATE was all about — and pretty fed up myself with Unity — I recently gave it a spin. Here’s what I found.

              It’s true: Try as I have, I just can’t learn to love Unity. The concept itself is fine and I can even live with its biting lack of customizability, but I just can’t take the bugginess anymore. Random things happen when I try to switch between applications — trying to open recently used files via the dash launches Nautilus instead, and the whole thing just generally doesn’t work the way I need it to on a production machine.

            • Linux Mint Is a Refreshing Palate Cleanser

              Like it or not, GNOME 3 is the new direction for the Linux OS. But that doesn’t mean you have to learn a lot of new OS habits overnight. Two varieties of Linux Mint may be especially attractive for those making the transition. Mint 11 will allow you to maintain your current habits for the time being. Mint 12 gives you a steady and easy path to transitioning to GNOME 3.

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Phones

      • Android

        • Samsung video jabs Iphone users

          KOREAN ELECTRONICS GIANT Samsung might be behind a video that pokes fun at Apple and its Iphone users.

          A video posted to Youtube looks like an advert from the firm, but has not been posted to a company account. It’s a professional looking number however, and is rather good. We’ve asked Samsung to confirm whether it is the company’s work but so far have not had a response.

        • Facebook phone rises from the dead, again
        • Rugged Android handheld does RFID, bar code scanning

          Adlink announced a ruggedized Android handheld computer with IP65 protection and and optional 1D scanning and 2D bar code imaging. The TIOT 2000 runs Android 2.3 on an ARM11-based 800MHz Qualcomm processor, and is further equipped with a 3.5-inch, 320 x 240-pixel resistive touchscreen, a five-megapixel camera, plus a full slate of wireless features including 3G and optional RFID.

        • Android robots spy, race, and mix cocktails

          A startup called Romotive is readying a small, tank-tread “Romo” robot controlled by Android and iPhone smartphones that communicate to the robot via audio signals. Meanwhile, a prototype bartending robot called the iZac — based on a Motorola Xoom tablet and Arduino Mega controller board — has been created by developer Nick Johnson via the Android Open Accessory Development Kit.

    • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

      • How to sideload apps on the NOOK Tablet (Amazon Appstore, GO Launcher EX)

        The Barnes & Noble NOOK Tablet ships with a couple of great apps pre-loaded including Pandora, Netflix, a decent email app, and an excellent eBook reader. There’s also an app section of the B&N Shop where you can browse for additional apps for the tablet — but the selection is pretty limited.
        Fortunately it’s pretty easy to install third party apps on the NOOK Tablet. You don’t even need to root the tablet or install any custom firmware to do it. You might need a microSD card though.

      • Android e-reader debuts Mirasol display technology

        Kyobo Book Centre and Qualcomm MEMS Technologies (QMT) announced an Android 2.3-based e-reader, said to be the first device to use QMT’s sunlight-readable Mirasol color display technology. Equipped with a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, the Kyobo E-Reader provides a 5.7-inch, 1024 x 768-pixel display and offers “weeks of reading” on a single charge, the companies say.

Free Software/Open Source

  • FuseSource Open Source Messaging Powers Roadside Assistance for Millions of UK Drivers

    Open source middleware is delivering reliable messaging and routing for the UK’s largest and newest network for roadside assistance. The Automotive Network Services, developed and managed by Apex Networks, is using FuseSource distributions of Apache projects to link 90% of the UK’s 32 million drivers with tow trucks, garages and emergency first responders.

  • Has open source outgrown the Apache Way?

    Organizations like the Apache Software Foundation, the Linux Foundation, and the Free Software Foundation have long been a part of the open source and free software ecosystem. But some in the FLOSS community are beginning to wonder if these venerable organizations need to change in order to keep up with the changing demands of FLOSS.

    Yesterday, I read what could be the most articulate presentation of this line of reasoning from Yammer Developer Advocate Mikeal Rogers. Rogers also happened to be Employee Number One at CouchOne from 2010-2011–a tenure that certainly pertinent to his arguments.

  • Occupy Your Kids with Open Source Games during the Holidays

    Add to it the pets underfoot and your children complaining that they want to play on the Wii when grandpa wants to watch the Law and Order marathon on USA, and you have potential for a grumpy household.

  • Apache considered harmful

    Apache was founded about 12 years ago, a time when companies were still very afraid of open source and many people in the open source community were very afraid of companies. The world hasn’t changed that tremendously, big companies still use an open source stamp as a marketing tool, commonly referred to as “open washing”, and some in the enterprise are still wary about open source, particularly when it comes to certain kinds of licensing.

  • Open Source (Almost) Everything

    When Chris and I first started working on GitHub in late 2007, we split the work into two parts. Chris worked on the Rails app and I worked on Grit, the first ever Git bindings for Ruby. After six months of development, Grit had become complete enough to power GitHub during our public launch of the site and we were faced with an interesting question:

    Should we open source Grit or keep it proprietary?

    Keeping it private would provide a higher hurdle for competing Ruby-based Git hosting sites, giving us an advantage. Open sourcing it would mean thousands of people worldwide could use it to build interesting Git tools, creating an even more vibrant Git ecosystem.

  • Mozilla

    • SeaMonkey 2.5 improves add-on control

      The SeaMonkey Project has announced the release of version 2.5 of its “all-in-one internet application suite”. Based on the same Mozilla Gecko platform as Firefox 8, the update includes several under-the-hood performance and stability improvements, while also improving on the way in which add-ons are controlled.

  • SaaS

    • Using OwnCloud and PageKite could get you in trouble with Verizon

      These days, everybody is talking about cloud computing, and many people use it in one form or the other. But popular cloud computing services are provided by a third party, which means that you store you data on a server somewhere, so that you can access it any time, from anywhere. But there are cloud applications that any person can use to host their own private cloud, from their home.

  • Databases

    • Announcing Heroku Postgres

      Until now, Heroku’s Postgres database service – originally launched in 2007 – has only been available to Heroku customers for use with Heroku platform apps. Today we’re excited to announce the launch of Heroku Postgres as a standalone service.

      With measured service uptime of four nines (99.99%), and designed data durability of eleven nines (99.999999999%), the service is trustworthy for mission-critical data. As of today, these production-quality Heroku Postgres databases are independently available for use from any cloud platform, provisioned instantly, metered by the second, and without contract.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Oracle v. Google – Motions In Limine

      Judge Alsup has now invited the parties to jointly submit a list of the four motions in limine that are most deserving of oral argument. (629 [PDF; Text]) Presumably, each party will name the two of its own motions it most wants to argue before the judge. How the remainder will be disposed of, given that neither party has filed a response to the motions in limine of the other, is unclear. The list is due to Judge Alsup by December 7.

  • CMS

    • Google To Kill Knol, Its Wikipedia Competitor

      Google has announced that it will kill Knol, its Wikipedia competitor. Interestingly, Google co-founder Sergey Bring donated half a million dollars to Wikipedia foundation, last week.

      Google launched Knol in 2007 to help improve web content by enabling experts to collaborate on in-depth articles. In order to continue this work, Google has been working with Solvitor and Crowd Favorite to create Annotum, an open-source scholarly authoring and publishing platform based on WordPress.

    • Open Source Web CMS XOOPS Improves Ease of Use in Latest Release

  • Funding

    • Investment Protection With Open Source

      I have heard it said that companies don’t want open source because they want the security of a relationship with a big business. But this outlook reflects misunderstandings of the real values of open source. I believe it to be yet another consequence of the “price frame”.

      There is an overall price-related message-frame that proprietary software companies like to use around open source. In each instance, an idea completes the phrase “open source may come with free licenses but…” in creatively manipulative ways. In many cases, the resulting statement conceals a weakness of proprietary software by casting it as a weakness of open source.

      In the case of software investment protection, the phrase gets completed “… but you need a proprietary vendor for long-term investment protection”. That’s a deceptive statement and I suggest that actually the open source model – done well – offers more security than the proprietary model.

    • Rapid7 Secures $50 million in Series C Funding

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

  • Project Releases

    • Google Plugin for Eclipse (GPE) is Now Open Source

      Because of the large ecosystem that has developed around GWT, App Engine, and Google’s Cloud services, and because our primary mission is to help users (as opposed to creating proprietary development tools), it makes a lot of sense for us to open source GPE and make it easier for the community to enhance and extend the tools.

    • Apache Hadoop 0.23 is Here!

      I’ll present a short overview of the release in this post, more details are available in my recent talk on Apache Hadoop 0.23 at Hadoop World, 2011.

  • Public Services/Government

    • More open source software at European Space Agency

      The European Space Agency (ESA) wants to publish more of its software using open source licences. It is considering to use a source code tracking system to help untangle code that can be made available as open source and programs that, for whatever reason, can not.

    • French government tenders for open source support

      FOSS icon The French government has published a request for tenders to provide ICT support. The authorities are looking for a three-year support contract, worth two million euros and covering two-thirds of the country’s twenty-two ministries as well as the Court of Audit. According to Le Monde InformatiqueFrench language link this will include departments ranging from the Office of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Justice and Freedom to the Ministry of Sports and Ministry of Culture and Communication.

    • European Space Agency looks to open source more code

      The European Space Agency (ESA) hopes to promote more collaboration by open sourcing more of its software where possible. The effort is one of the facets of a recent case study of ESA by the Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR.eu). ESA produces software for its own use to, for example, evaluate and analyse data from its missions. Software it has already released under open source licenses includes POLSARPRO, a tool package for manipulating polarmetric data, BEAM, a platform for analysing remote sensing raster data, and NEST, used for analysing mission data archives.

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

    • Release often … enough
    • New Relic Expands Performance Monitoring as a Service with Python

      How exactly should you gain visibility into the performance levels your customers are seeing when they use your Web applications? One method that’s still in wide use is compelling users to install plug-ins and background processes. But for many users, that’s not just performance monitoring, that’s behavior monitoring. You don’t want your analytics tool straying too far into the realm of potential privacy violations.

      Until HTML5 can fully implement its standard methodology for capturing browser performance specs, Web developers need alternatives. One candidate, provided by a company RWW spoke with called New Relic, is to have Web apps servers supply performance measurement agents to clients while the apps themselves are being served. These agents communicate not with your server, but with New Relic instead, and the results are made visible as analytics charts through your browser.

    • Fear and slow loading: Eclipse celebrates 10 unsettling years

      In November 2001, IBM made its Java tools IDE and platform, developed for WebSphere Application Studio, available under an open source licence. It was the beginning of Eclipse, which now claims 65 per cent of the Java IDE market. But why was Eclipse founded and what has been its impact over a decade?

    • ActiveState Commits to Free Stackato Micro Cloud for Developers

Leftovers

  • ‘Apple’s iPhone 4S ate our SIM cards’

    The “phone” bit of the new iPhone 4S has stopped working properly for some users who are experiencing repeated SIM card failures, according to customer help forums on the Apple website.

    The SIM stutter appears to be affecting customers running the new iOS 5.01 on the iPhone 4S: those affected report frequent error messages detailing “invalid SIM”, even while using SIM cards they know have worked with other phones.

  • Apple cult mocked by Samsung in Galaxy S II ad
  • 7 Reasons Why Apple is More Evil than Microsoft

    Thanks to the hard work and vision of Steve Jobs, Apple has managed to evolve from a mere cult to a mainstream phenomenon. Fanboys, celebrities, politicians and geeks who adore their products have exalted the billion-dollar company to a technological pseudoreligion. A silent witness to Apple’s magnificent ascent from failure to stardom has been Microsoft.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Health Insurers, Lobbyists Re-Tuning Their Spin Machine

      One of the reasons why Congress has been largely unable to make the American health care system more efficient and equitable is because of the stranglehold lobbyists for special interests have on the institution.

      Whenever lawmakers consider any kind of meaningful reform, the proposed remedies inevitably create winners and losers. Physicians’ incomes most likely will be affected in some way, as will the profits of all the other major players: the hospitals, the drug companies, the medical device manufacturers, and the insurers, just to name a few. The list is long, and the platoons of highly paid and well-connected lobbyists who represent their interests comprise a large private army that conquered Capitol Hill years ago.

  • Security

    • Tool kills hidden Linux bugs, vulnerabilities
    • Google’s open source geezer gets shirty about security

      Google’s hackerishly hirsute Open Source Programs Manager, Chris DiBona, stormed the IT headlines this week when he stuck his paddle into the computer security world and stirred.

      In a blog posting which was at least as far above the line in gung-hovity as it was below the line in orthography, DiBona openly referred to vendors of Android anti-virus software as “charlatans and scammers.”

    • Microsoft and Some Press Catch Up to the 21st Century

      While many of us do simultaneous facepalms and giggle at a decade-late decision, others question the legality of doing so. A multi-billion dollar industry has grown, based on the absolute porous operating system that is Microsoft Windows.

      I’m sure Windows fans will protest, saying such things as:

      “Well, I’ve run Windows for years and NEVER had a virus”.

      Of course, when he says that, he should also hold up a sign to identify himself as belonging to the 1%.

      Personally, I cannot suss where this will land legally. It’s hard to argue with the fact that MS is finally going to at least try to address the issue of virus/trojan/malware security. But then again, we all know most anti virus “protection” is a reaction to something that’s already happened on the system….

  • Finance

    • Who’s Wrecking America? Meet Your 1% Nominees

      Of course, simply bandying names about isn’t the point. The point is that the activists fueling social movements like Occupy need to be able to understand exactly how oppression works and which individuals are controlling the process. Where would our nation be if, in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, activists had spoken only of the systemic issue of segregation and didn’t have George Wallace and Bull Connor to single out as perpetrators? We at Brave New Foundation are helping build a narrative so that citizens can draw a straight line between the cheats and bullies misusing their wealth and the economic predicament in which our country is now ensnared.

      We aren’t alone in this effort. Our partners include progressive media truth tellers like AlterNet, TruthOut, the Nation, PoliticusUSA, CARE2, the Center for Media and Democracy, the Young Turks, Campaign for America’s Future, Free Speech TV, Thom Hartmann, and MichaelMoore.com.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • FCC finds AT&T’s purchase of T-Mobile not in the public interest
    • It’s becoming their Internet — it should be our Internet

      Responding to Rob Reed’s Google+ post on the dark side of huge corporate entities — read: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube — controlling what we see and don’t see on the Internet, I wrote a couple of responses (instead of one because you can’t edit an existing post or comment on Google+’s Android client), which I will repeat here because, a) they’re not bad and b) I’m against “giving away” content to social networks and c) the irony of us having this discussion about Facebook on the newest, shiniest corporate-created social network, Google+ is particularly rich (and I acknowledge my part in it).

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Cautious Optimism Follows SOPA Hearings: Don’t Get Cocky

        Crisis averted, so far. Last week’s hearing on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was stacked in favor of the Internet blacklist bill but we seem to have come out unscathed.

        Public outcry against the bill rallied enough opposition to keep it from sailing through. Google testified against the bill, MasterCard voiced some objections, and tens of thousands of users lit up their representatives’ phone lines thanks to Tumblr. But it’s not over.

        Following the proceedings, I spoke with Electronic Frontier Foundation activist Parker Higgins. “Considering the makeup of the meetings, and how expectations were, it went really well” says Higgins. “It remains to be seen what happens next, but given positive experience [at the hearing] and outpouring through the EFF and other groups, things look better today than they did earlier this week.”

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