Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 24/5/2011: More Linux Tablets (MeeGo and Android), LibreOffice Engineering Steering Committee



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • The Linux Week in Review (May 23 – 30, 2011)
    Fedora 15: Lovelock Continues the Fedora Heritage of Innovation


  • Desktop

    • Xi3 Spins Desktop As Google-Based ChromiumPC
      At Google I/O earlier this month, Google introduced (briefly) a Samsung-labeled Chrome desktop box. But while it looked a lot like the Mac Mini, there still aren't any true details to show people what it may be capable of. Google also stated that they'd continue to push Chromium for those who want a taste of Chrome on a non-sanctioned machine, and it looks like Xi3 is jumping on that notion to make a timely announcement.


    • Mini-PC offers Chrome OS, modular design




  • Server

    • FAUMachine: First Impressions
      For those of you who don’t already know about FAUmachine (FAU), it’s a virtual machine that allows you to install full operating systems and run them as if they were independent computers. FAUmachine is similar to VirtualBox, QEMU, and other full virtualization technologies. It is a project sponsored by the Friedrich Alexander University Computer Science Department in Germany (Erlangen-Nuremberg*). FAU is a computer simulator that is an independent virtual machine project. The CPU is based on the virtual CPU in QEMU.


    • Software AG acquires open source caching experts Terracotta
      Terracotta, home of open source projects such as the Ehcache Java cache and Quartz scheduler, has been acquired by Software AG. The acquisition will, says the German company, act as a foundation for its in-memory and cloud offerings, allowing it to run business processes which use in-memory cached data access at "up to a thousand times faster than database access"; it expects to offer the first combined products in the fourth quarter of 2011.


    • Software AG To Acquire Terracotta
      Software AG has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Terracotta. Terracotta provides in-memory technology for high performance applications and cloud services. The company also owns the de facto caching standard for enterprise Java used by over 1 million developers worldwide.







  • Kernel Space



    • Graphics Stack

      • MeeGo Tablet UX Can Already Run On Wayland?
        The MeeGo conference is running from tomorrow through Wednesday in San Francisco. This is the first conference for the Moblin-Maemo-mix since Nokia parted ways to team up with Microsoft and ship Windows Phone 7 on their future devices, but there's interesting work still going on in the MeeGo world. In particular, of interest to many Phoronix readers will be the fact that it sounds like the adoption of the Wayland Display Server is going quite well within the MeeGo world. It appears that there's already an experimental version of MeeGo Tablet UX working atop Wayland.






  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments



    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

      • KOffice evolves: first Calligra Suite snapshot released
        The Calligra project, part of the KDE community, has announced the release of the first snapshot for version 2.4 of the Calligra Suite, a set of productivity applications. According to the developers, since splitting with KOffice five months ago, they have improved their core libraries as well as the applications themselves, adding that their goal is to "provide the best application suite on all platforms based on open standards."




    • GNOME Desktop

      • Advaicium: Adwaita Theme Ported To GTK2
        If you use GNOME 3 and Adwaita theme, GTK2 applications look different (as in ugly) than GTK3 apps. That's why maximo1010 @ Ubuntuforums has ported Adwaita GTK3 theme to GTK2.


      • Nautilus Elementary Ambiance Theme + Orange Themed Clarity Icons = Looks Nice in Unity
        Even more Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal customization tips. We have seen some of the most beautiful themes for Ubuntu 11.04 Unity desktop already and one of the highlights of that list was Nautilus Elementary Ambiance Theme. We think we have just found out an icons theme that gels pretty well with Nautilus Elementary Ambiance Theme and it's called Clarity.






  • Distributions



  • Devices/Embedded



    • Phones



      • Android

        • Is Android Really the 'Open' Platform?
          Rooting and jailbreaking are not illegal, but they usually will void your phone's warranty. Typically, though, you can restore the original OS before taking a phone in for service, and the company would never know.


        • No Movie Rentals On Rooted Android: Does It Matter?
          According to reports Google is blocking the installation of its Android Movie Market on rooted Android devices. Google's decision seemed to be driven by content providers who don't want rooted phones to be able to copy or download their movies.


        • Miro 4.0 Runs On Android
          The Participatory Culture Foundation (PCF) has announced the launch of Miro 4, the open-source desktop media player (read more about Miro here).

          Miro 4.0 allows users to manage music including iTunes libraries, videos, playlists and apps in one place and to sync these digital libraries with Android devices.






    • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

      • Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 great for media consumption, says review
        Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 is a remarkable media-chomping tablet with Android 3.0, a crisp, 10.1-inch touchscreen, 10-hour battery life, and a slim, lightweight design, says this eWEEK review. Despite the modest three-megapixel camera and lack of ports -- or even an SD slot -- the tablet is said to best the Motorola Xoom for straightforward media consumption purposes.


      • Asustek sets prices lower for US-bound Eee Pad Transformer tablet PCs
        Additionally, prices for Android 3.1-based tablet PCs to be launched by other vendors in the second half of the year may also be affected, with ASPs of Android 3.1 models likely to be dragged down by US$100, the sources commented.


      • Red Flag Announces MeeGo 1.2 Based Tablet OS
        Red Flag Software, the Linux major of China, is planning to release one of the first tablet operating systems based on the MeeGo open source software platform.

        The Red Flag Midinux Tablet Edition operating system will incorporate the MeeGo v1.2 common code base and a user experience built by Red Flag Software that uses the MeeGo user interface building blocks and demonstrates the flexibility MeeGo offers companies to differentiate their products. The tablet will be demonstrated at Computex in Taipei May 31 to June 4, 2011.








Free Software/Open Source



  • Creative Barcode Responds to the Hargreaves Report
    Digital Opportunity - a review of Intellectual Property and Growth, the 132 page report published on May 18, 2011, is the result of an intensive 6 month independent review lead by Ian Hargreaves, commissioned by PM David Cameron in November 2010.

    The basis for the review was a ministerial concern that in a digital age the intellectual property framework was not keeping pace with new innovation an


  • The Open Source Road Ahead: Individuals matter
    Jim Jagielski, Simon Phipps and Mark Radcliffe at OSBC unveiled OSI plan during the ”A New OSI for a New Decade: Rebooting the Open Source Initiative OSI” session (presentation). Some reports stressed the importance of organizations, but volunteers are welcome too!


  • Events



  • Web Browsers



    • Mozilla

      • Firefox 5: Track Me, Just Don't Track Me
        The Mozilla Foundation launched a beta version of its fifth edition of the Firefox Web browser Monday -- just eight weeks after it rolled out Firefox 4.

        This includes a mobile version for Android as well as versions for Windows, Mac and Linux desktops.






  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • The body coordinates development activities and defines the technology evolution of LibreOffice
      The Document Foundation presents the members of the Engineering Steering Committee, the second body to be announced – after the Membership Committee – of those envisioned by the foundation bylaws. The ESC has come into being in early 2011, and is now officially in place to coordinate all development activities and set future technology directions.


    • LibreOffice Creators Announce The Engineering Steering Committee Members
      The Document Foundation, the organisation behind LibreOffice, has announced the members of the Engineering Steering Committee. This is the second body announced by TDF after the Membership Committee.

      The ESC has come into being in early 2011, and is now officially in place to coordinate all development activities and set future technology directions.




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • May 2011 GNU Toolchain Update


    • GNU Parallel 20110522 ('Pakistan') released
      GNU Parallel 20115022 ('Pakistan') has been released. It is available for download at: http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/parallel/

      This is a major release. So far GNU Parallel has been focused on replacing a single for-loop. The Pakistan release introduces ways to replace nested loops.

      If you are using the {1} {2} syntax for multiple input sources, then you need to read about --xapply as the function has changed.




  • Public Services/Government

    • U.S. Department of Defense Details Open Source Lessons Learned
      The 68-page report has the goal of helping the U.S. government to implement what they refer to as open technology development (OTD) for government software projects. As part of OTD, the report includes a number of specific recommendations for open source software usage. Some of those recommendations are somewhat of a surprise, considering that the U.S. military is often seen as an organization that is not likely to be very open about their software development practices.




  • Standards/Consortia

    • Cloudy with a Chance of Clarity: NIST Seeks Public Comment on Draft Guide to Cloud Computing
      Next time you feel like your head’s in the clouds, don’t fret: that’s where the action is. Advancements in information technology have made it possible to store virtually endless amounts of information in a system of “clouds.” Opening numerous possibilities, cloud computing is on par with the Internet in terms of its potential to change the face of computing and the way we live and do business.






Leftovers

  • IPv6 transition still a low priority for most organizations
    As the World IPv6 Day approaches, recent research reports show that a majority of organizations are still postponing migration to the IPv6 networking protocol. Despite the growing scarcity of IPv4 addresses, due in large part to the growth of mobile and embedded devices, a British Telecom Diamond IP survey says that only 35 percent of respondents considered IPv6 a "huge concern."


  • How can you trust a cloud? Verify.
    Group developing audit specs that could build faith in cloud applications


  • Security





  • Finance

    • Matt Taibbi: Wall St. Has No Incentive Not To Commit Crimes (VIDEO)
      In a video interview with RT America, Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, the author of Griftopia, says that as of now, and until the government more aggressively prosecutes financial fraud, Wall Street has a continued incentive to bend the rules in their favor. (Hat tip to Naked Capitalism.)

      Since the financial crisis, Taibbi has been one of Wall Street's most outspoken critics. Earlier this month, Taibbi wrote "The People. vs. Goldman Sachs," a sweeping investigation into the Senate report on Goldman Sachs that accused the investment bank of profiting by misleading investors.


    • The “Road To Recovery” Is A Dead End
      The high profile financial analyst and investment manager Marshall Auerback explains in this exclusive interview his views on: the IMF; the ongoing financial crisis; the commodities rally; the implications of the current oil price; the conflict in Libya/Middle East; the rigging of the precious metal markets; and last but not least this, ironically spoken, “bunch of cranks“ – the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, GATA.


    • Janet Yellen’s QE2 Promise Now Dying on the Vine, in California
      California reported its April jobs data on Friday. The LA Times repeated the figure, laid out in the report from EDD, that on a year-over-year basis the state had created 144,000 jobs. What The LA Times did not clarify is that these were non-farm payrolls. For the fuller picture of the Golden State’s job market, I track the total employment figure. In the same time period called out in media headlines, therefore, the number of employed persons actually fell by 22,000, from 15.960 million to 15.938 million. | see: California Employment in Millions (seasonally adjusted) 2000-2011.




  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Look Out, Pearson; Murdoch Is Serious About Online Education
      It was an unusual topic for the News Corp (NSDQ: NWS) CEO. In November, News Corp hired New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein as an advisor, and bought 90 percent of ed-tech provider Wireless Generation for $360 million. In January, Klein got his own education division in News Corp and a $2 million salary.

      Judging from his keynote to the eG8, which was assembled by France’s president Sarkozy to hear tech business’ views to be fed to the French-hosted G8 summit, Murdoch is both passionate and excited about what he sees as both a duty and a business opportunity.

      This could encompass both e-books and learning materials and group learning platforms, and could be a gauntlet thrown down to one of the digital learning sector’s big beasts - Pearson.




  • Civil Rights

    • France's G8 Focuses on Control and Restrictions to Online Freedoms
      A detailed analysis of exchanges between the French President and his former Minister of Foreign Affairs on G8 related matters appears in tomorrow's edition of the French magazine Marianne. La Quadrature du Net has had access to sources that confirm the existence of a control-oriented policy, explicitly hostile to the support to the freedom of expression on the Internet, in blatant contrast with the farcical “eG8 forum” smokescreen. Governments must be made accountable for the positions they take on these issues when they speak behind close doors.




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights

      • Please Help Us Figure Out How Much The Public Has 'Lost' Due To Overprotective Anti-Copy Laws
        We recently posted about an ITC report that, among other things, estimated that US companies "lost" $48 billion due to "piracy" in China. This $48 billion number generated plenty of headlines, and since the report was requested by the Senate, you can bet that it will be used politically. The problem, however, was that the methodology was ridiculous. Rather than using any sort of objective measure, the ITC went out and asked 5,000 businesses who were in "IP-intensive fields" what they thought their "losses" were, and then extrapolated out.


      • ACTA

        • FFII calls upon European Parliament to resolve uncertainties regarding ACTA
          We are writing to express our concerns with ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). Whether the Parliament will ratify or reject ACTA, it will be a landmark decision. Yet, ACTA is still surrounded by uncertainties. We call upon you to decisively resolve these uncertainties. We urge the Parliament to seek an opinion of the European Court of Justice on the compatibility of ACTA with the EU Treaties, and to commission independent assessments of the effects ACTA will have on access to medicine, diffusion of green technologies needed to fight climate change, fundamental rights within and outside the Union, innovation, small and medium sized companies and a fair balance of interests.

          Prior to ratifying the 1994 WTO TRIPS agreement (Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights), the Commission asked the European Court of Justice whether TRIPS complied with the Treaties. The Court decided that the Community was not competent to ratify the criminal measures.












Clip of the Day



The Passion of the MeeGo Community



[an error occurred while processing this directive]



Credit: TinyOgg

Recent Techrights' Posts

Pushers of systemd Rewrite History (Richard Stallman Said UNIX "Was Portable and Seemed Fairly Clean")
Unlike systemd
Trajectory of The Register: From News Site/s Into "B2B"... and Into Microsoft Salespeople
Something isn't right at The Register
 
Links 27/07/2025: More Microsoft Layoffs Coming, Science and Hardware News
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: FSF Hackathon and "Hulk Hogan Was a Very Bad Man"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: DAW Mixer Chains and Simple Software
Links for the day
The Register MS is Inventing or Giving Air Time to New Conspiracy Theories so as to Distort the Narrative As High-Profile Agencies Fall Prey to Microsoft Holes
But the problem is holes, i.e. Microsoft making bad products; the problem is Microsoft
When You Tell You It's Free, Does That Mean No Charges (If So, Who's Paying and Why)?
there's "no free lunch"
Most Editors at The Register Are American, Including the Editor in Chief, a Decade-Long Microsoft Stenographer (Writing Prose to Sell Microsoft)
It's not easy to tell where the site is based (we tried) because it's hiding behind ClownFlare and CrimeFlare hasn't been well lately
"New Techrights" Soon Turns 2 (A Few Days Before the FSF Turns 40)
We have a lot more to say about LLM bots
When Silence Says So Much
Garrett, a 'secure' boot pusher, will need to defend himself in the UK High Court
The Register in Trouble
There is not much that can be done at this point
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 26, 2025
Misinformation in Social Control Media
Social control media passes around all sorts of tropes
Slopwatch: Fake Linux 'Articles' and Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Names/Domains
throwing bots at "Linux" to make some fake articles
Links 26/07/2025: Amazon Shutdown in China, Russian Economy Slows
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: History of Time (1988) and Gemini Games
Links for the day
Links 26/07/2025: 50 Percent Tariffs in Amazon, Dying Intel Offloads Network and Edge Group (NEX)
Links for the day
Doing My Share to Tackle Online Slop and SPAM
Trying my best to 'fix' the Web
Blaming Programming Languages for Users' and Developers' Bad Practices
That's like blaming cars for drivers who crash into things
Slopwatch: Fakes, FUD, Duplicates, and Charlatans Galore
The Web as we once know it is collapsing. Some opportunists try to replace it with low-quality slop.
The Register UK Seems to Have Become American and Management is Changing (Microsofter as Editor in Chief)
The Register 'UK' is now controlled by the Directions on Microsoft guy
Many People Still Read Techrights Because It Says the Truth, Produces Evidence, and Does Not Self-Censor
Unlike so many other sites
The Register is Desperate for Money, According to The Register
I decided to check how they're doing as a business
Microsoft Finally Finds a Use Case for Slop?
Create low-quality chaff to shift the media's attention?
Microsoft Windows Lost 400 Million Users in a Few Years, Why Does The Register Double Down on Windows With New US Editor?
days ago they hired a new US editor
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 25, 2025
For Libel Reform One Must First Bring (or Raise) Awareness to the Issues and Their Magnitude
I myself know, from personal experience
Links 26/07/2025: Rationed Meals in the US and TikTok Repels Investments (Too Toxic)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: "Bloody Google" and New People in Geminispace
Links for the day
Response to Solderpunk (Father of Gemini Protocol) About the Gemini Community
Solderpunk responds to non-sequitur
HTML and the Web Used to be Something a Child Could Learn, "Modern" Web is a Puzzle of Frameworks, Bloat, and Worse
When the Web was more like Gemini Protocol
New US Editor in The Register is 84% Microsoft/Windows Booster
It'll be worrying if it carries on like this
Links 25/07/2025: Slop Blunders and China Has Code of Conduct for Lawmakers in HK
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/07/2025: Some Books and Babies and Capital
Links for the day
Links 25/07/2025: NOAA Cuts Endanger Lives, "Europe's Self Inflicted Cloud Crisis"
Links for the day
They Try to Lecture Us on Ethics
They even removed "master" from Microsoft GitHub
The Future of the Web is One Rendering Engine or 'Flavours' of Chrome
The future of the Web does not look bright at all
Best Sites Are Not Optimised for Any Browser, They Work Equally Well With All of Them
Red Hat (IBM) is making rubbish sites
YouTube is a Spamfarm, Slopfarm, and Clickfarm (a Lot of Numbers There Are Fake)
Those who don't fake look unpopular and unimportant
We Don't Do JavaScript and Pages Are Small
Thankfully Gemini Protocol has nothing like JavaScript
'Tech' is Not Technology
Some people use terms like 'Old Tech'
IBM's Debt Rose by Almost 10 Billion Dollars in the Past 6 Months Alone
The "hey hi" circus is coming to an end
Yes, Master
Gaslighting by actual racists
Microsoft Bribes and Buys Politicians to Tell Europe What to Do About Free Software (Which It's Attacking)
Microsoft: we speak for the thing that we are attacking! Follow the money...
Making Backups Quickly and Reliably
Backups are imperative, more so in an age of uncertainty, unpredictable weather, and worsening standards (quality of products going down while prices go up)
Techrights Investigation: Estimating the Point in Time LinuxIac Turned Into LLM Slop (Part of the Time)
Bobby Borisov got lazy
10th Month, Ten Weeks From Now, at Ten AM
In Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 24, 2025
A Nadella Memo Distracts From Microsoft's Cheapening Of the Workforce
Right now the "MSM" (mainstream media) is flooded/overwhelmed by garbage pieces that relay lies for Nadella
Vanishing Faces of GNU/Linux
Free software projects do not depend on any one person or company to still exist
Microsoft Says It Lost 400 Million Windows Users, Now It's Waiting for GNU/Linux to Stop Booting on 'Old' PCs
When it comes to Windows, Microsoft is fully aware of the issue and statements it made earlier this summer suggest it lost 400 million Windows users
Slopwatch: LinuxTechLab, linuxsecurity.com, LinuxIac, and More
Also: The Register's Microsoft agenda (new editor)
Gemini Links 25/07/2025: Gemtext Aware Titan Editor and Gemini Protocol Comeback
Links for the day