02.29.12

Gemini version available ♊︎

Links 29/2/2012: Fedora 17 Alpha, MINIX 3.2.0

Posted in News Roundup at 7:00 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Open source teaches people how to fish

    One of the things I love most about the open source communities I’m a part of is that when I ask a question, I just don’t get the answer, I get taught how to find the answer.

  • It’s scary to join an open source project
  • HP culls nearly half remaining webOS team

  • Web Browsers

  • Education

    • Musings of a dark overlord: Leveraging 21st-century education with open source

      When I first went to the dark side, I lamented that I was trading my noble teaching role for that of a dark overlord administrator. Much of the time, this characterization remains true. But as I mature as an educational leader, I find that I am in a more complicated teaching role–not only retaining my former group of students, but also expanding my responsibilities to include teaching teachers.

  • Project Releases

  • Openness/Sharing

    • LocalWiki project spawns open source communities

      Who says open source is all about code and hackathons have to stick to computer hacking? Code Across America is a different kind of open source community, and it came together on February 25, 2012. This effort was part of civic innovation week (February 24-March 4), where over a dozen cities in the United States have citizens organizing to improve their cities and communities. Simultaneous events included hackathons, unconferences, meet-ups, and Code for America ’brigades’ deploying existing open source applications. This is a story about building community knowledge the open source way, using the open source platform LocalWiki.

    • Foundation Formed to Marry Open Principles with Job Search Tools

      With economic problems lingering, many people remain in need of employment and that’s true across the technology sector. Now, a group called DirectEmployers Association has announced a new foundation–DirectEmployers Foundation–that will purportedly leverage open source principles and technology to deliver improved job search and career marketing tools. In addition to standalone tools, the foundation will also focus on APIs and components that can be shared, delivering job search tools and listing to many online sites.

    • Open Hardware

      • Facebook plans open-source storage hardware

        The designs should become available in May via Facebook-spinoff the Open Compute Project, the company confirmed to ZDNet UK on Friday. The move will come a year after it started publishing the design specifications of its own ultra-efficient servers.

  • Programming

Leftovers

  • Genode OS Framework 12.02 Released

    At the beginning of the year I wrote about how Genode OS had an ambitious road-map for this year after coming up with plans for their own general purpose operating system. Today marks the first release since that point with the release of Genode OS Framework 12.02.

    One of the fundamental shifts in Genode’s development that happened this cycle is moving to an open development cycle rather than within the confines of Genode Labs. Genode is now being developed in the open on GitHub.

  • Security

    • Your Exim is Vulnerable, No its Not, Well We Say it is!
    • A New Dawn of Energy Security for the West? A Non-OPEC Update

      OPEC currently supplies the world with 32% of its oil. The rest is supplied by Non-OPEC producers. One of the most important distinctions between the two is that OPEC oil largely comes from state-run oil companies. Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia, PDVSA in Venezuela, and the National Oil Company of Iran, for example. Meanwhile, in Non-OPEC, production flows from countries mostly through private enterprise: United States, Canada, UK, for example. What has surprised the global oil market over the past 7 years is that this majority segment of world oil production has also remained trapped below a ceiling, despite the price revolution which took oil from under $40 to above $100 a barrel. Free markets are supposed to create more supply, when price rises. New supply has indeed come online in Non-OPEC over the past decade. However, geology has trumped investment. It is geology that determines flow rates.

  • Finance

    • Goldman Sachs Workers Unionize In Japan: Report

      Wall Street workers and union hands may seem like total opposites, but employees at an iconic investment bank are countering those preconceived notions.

      That’s right, some Goldman Sachs workers in Japan are unionizing, according to the Japan Times (h/t Dealbook). The workers made the decision after the bank allegedly attempted to convince certain employees to voluntarily resign in order to get around Japanese labor laws that make laying off workers difficult.

  • Privacy

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Public Knowledge

      John Bennett draws our attention to Public Knowledge (.org). They “preserve… the openness of the Internet and the public’s access to knowledge; promote… creativity through balanced copyright; and uphold.. and protect… the rights of consumers to use innovative technology lawfully”. In the wake of SOPA/PIPA they have started the internet blueprint an effort to crowdsource legislative proposals to protect internet freedoms.

    • Copyrights

      • ACTA

        • A Vibrant Political Debate on ACTA Sparks at the EU Parliament

          The European Parliament may be adopting a strong political line on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), despite the EU Commission’s attempt to buy time and defuse the debate. Due to the referral of ACTA to the EU Court of Justice, the final vote paving the way for its ratification will be delayed. This will give the EU Parliament time to build up a clear stance on the issues raised by this dangerous trade agreement, do in-depth research and impact assessments, and hopefully define guidelines for a better and fair copyright regime. Citizens must remain mobilized, as they will have many opportunities to weigh in this open process.

        • ICC BASCAP on ACTA

          A lobby group pushing for ACTA is ICC BASCAP. I remember Cecile Arns(?) as a representative at the first stakeholder meeting, in particular because of her arguing style. That’s my point of interest here. They are kind of hammering these short emotive phrases, you always find a little lighthouse in a sentence. Very professional from a midterm lobbying perspective.

        • EU Trade Negotiators trash Europarl role at WTO

          He previously mentioned Pedro Velasco-Martins was leading the WTO TRIPS Council delegation. He is the current Mr. ACTA at the Commission. Arrogance is part of their administrative culture at DG Trade.

          At the European Parliament STOA meeting for instance he spoke of China as a “very old, traditional country” while MEP Ruebig was spreading stupid nonsense. They are professional trade negotiators. Skilled persons which get screwed and screw other nations up. You cannot expect them to respond to “suggestions” from Parliament as it would be usual. More than 50 written questions from Parliament to the Commission. Any other Commission initiative would be dead and gone by then.

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DecorWhat Else is New

  1. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, January 28, 2023

    IRC logs for Saturday, January 28, 2023

  2. Unmasking AI

    A guest article by Andy Farnell

  3. The ISO Delusion/Sirius Corporation: A 'Tech' Company Run by Non-Technical People

    Sirius ‘Open Source’ was hiring people who brought to the company a culture of redundant tasks and unwanted, even hostile technology; today we continue to tell the story of a company run by the CEO whose friends and acquaintances did severe damage

  4. Links 28/01/2023: Lots of Catching Up (Had Hardware Crash)

    Links for the day

  5. IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 27, 2023

    IRC logs for Friday, January 27, 2023

  6. Microsoft DuckDuckGo Falls to Lowest Share in 2 Years After Being Widely Exposed as Microsoft Proxy, Fake 'Privacy'

    DuckDuckGo, according to this latest data from Statcounter, fell from about 0.71% to just 0.58%; all the gains have been lost amid scandals, such as widespread realisation that DuckDuckGo is a Microsoft informant, curated by Microsoft and hosted by Microsoft (Bing is meanwhile laying off many people, but the media isn’t covering that or barely bothers)

  7. This is What the Microsoft-Sponsored Media Has Been Hyping Up for Weeks (Ahead of Microsoft Layoffs)

    Reprinted with permission from Ryan

  8. [Meme] António Campinos Wants to Be F***ing President Until 2028

    António Campinos insists he will be EPO President for 10 years, i.e. even longer than Benoît Battistelli (despite having appalling approval rates from staff)

  9. European Patent Office Staff Losing Hope

    The EPO’s management with its shallow campaign of obfuscation (pretending to protect children or some other nonsense) is not fooling patent examiners, who have grown tired and whose representatives say “the administration shows no intention of involving the staff representation in the drafting of the consultant’s mandate” (like in Sirius ‘Open Source’ where technical staff is ignored completely for misguided proposals to pass in the dark)

  10. IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 26, 2023

    IRC logs for Thursday, January 26, 2023

  11. Sirius Relegated/Demoted/Destined Itself to Technical Hell by Refusing to Listen to the Technical Staff (Which Wanted to Stay With Asterisk/Free Software)

    In my final year at Sirius ‘Open Source’ communication systems had already become chaotic; there were too many dysfunctional tools, a lack of instructions, a lack of coordination and the proposed ‘solution’ (this past October) was just more complexity and red tape

  12. Geminispace Approaching Another Growth Milestone (2,300 Active Capsules)

    The expansion of Geminispace is worth noting again because another milestone is approached, flirted with, or will be surpassed this coming weekend

  13. [Meme] Cannot Get a Phone to Work... in 2022

    Sirius ‘Open Source’ wasted hours of workers’ time just testing the phone after it had moved to a defective system of Google (proprietary); instead of a rollback (back to Asterisk) the company doubled down on the faulty system and the phones still didn’t work properly, resulting in missing calls and angst (the company just blamed the workers who all along rejected this new system)

  14. [Meme] Modern Phones

    Sirius ‘Open Source’ is mistaking “modern” for better; insecurity and a lack of tech savvy typically leads to that

  15. The ISO Delusion: Sirius Corporation Demonstrates a Lack of Understanding of Security and Privacy

    Sirius ‘Open Source’, emboldened by ISO ‘paperwork’ (certification), lost sight of what it truly takes to run a business securely, mistaking worthless gadgets for “advancement” while compelling staff to sign a new contract in a hurry (prior contract-signing scandals notwithstanding)

  16. Links 26/01/2023: LibreOffice 7.4.5 and Ubuntu Pro Offers

    Links for the day

  17. Links 26/01/2023: GNU poke 3.0 and PipeWire 0.3.65

    Links for the day

  18. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, January 25, 2023

    IRC logs for Wednesday, January 25, 2023

  19. Companies Would Collapse Upon Abandoning Their Original Goals (That Attracted All the Productive Staff)

    Staff with technical skills won't stick around in companies that reject technical arguments and moreover move to proprietary software in a company that brands itself "Open Source"

  20. [Meme] Listen to Your Workers, Avert Disaster

    Companies that refuse to take input from staff are doomed to fail

  21. The ISO Delusion: When the Employer Doesn’t Understand the Company's Value Proposition (Building Systems) and Rejects Security

    Sirius ‘Open Source’ has failed to sell what it was actually good at; instead it hired unqualified people and outsourced almost everything

  22. Links 25/01/2023: NuTyX 23.01.1 and GNU Guile 3.0.9 Released

    Links for the day

  23. Links 25/01/2023: Stratis 3.5.0 and Many Political Links

    Links for the day

  24. New Record Low: Only One 'Linux' Article in ZDNet in More Than Two Weeks

    Only a few years ago ZDNet published about 3 “Linux” stories per day (mostly FUD pieces); now it’s a ghost town, painted in ‘alien green’; considering ZDNet’s agenda (and sponsors) maybe it’s better this way

  25. Links 25/01/2023: Pale Moon 32.0 and DXVK 2.1

    Links for the day

  26. IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, January 24, 2023

    IRC logs for Tuesday, January 24, 2023

  27. ISO Certification Hardly Tackles Any of the Real Issues

    The real-world threats faced by private companies or non-profit organisations aren't covered by the ISO certification mill; today we publish the last post on this topic before proceeding to some practical examples

  28. [Meme] Medical Data Sovereignty

    What happens when your medical records/data are accessible to a company based abroad after a mysterious NDA with the Gates Foundation? The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) does not mind.

  29. The ISO Delusion: Sirius Open Wash Ltd. and Medical Data/Projects at Risk/Peril

    Sirius ‘Open Source’ was good at gloating about “ISO” as in ISO certification (see our ISO wiki to understand what ISO truly is; ISO certification needs to be more widely condemned and exposed) while signing all sorts of dodgy deals and lying to clients (some, like the Gates Foundation, were never mentioned because of a mysterious NDA); security and privacy were systematically neglected and some qualified as criminal negligence (with fines/penalties likely an applicable liability if caught/reported)

  30. Links 24/01/2023: Wine 8.0 is Ready, FSF Bolsters Copyleft

    Links for the day

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