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Links 17/7/2013: Torvalds Language Controversy, OLPC in Walmart





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • How to Turn a PC Into a Linux Web Kiosk
    Although the PC market is in turmoil, it has never been easier to replace its out-of-date, often unsupported, bloated & infected preinstalled OS with a Linux alternative.

    In this tutorial, I'll explain how to turn your PC into a Web kiosk. What's a Web kiosk? It's a PC that directs the public to a certain intended Web application. Imagine public computers found at a library or a cafe, these would be considered Web kiosks.


  • Desktop



  • Server

    • Revisiting One Server Per Person
      Last December I wrote about an idea I call "One Server Per Person", the basic idea being that if every household included their own server, the Internet could make a return to being the decentralized, distributed, and open platform it was meant to be. Recent events have brought to light some pitfalls of cloud computing, and a call for privacy online make the concept of the One Server worth a revisit. I have three projects that I would like to talk about, and how they relate to bringing the datacenter home.

      [...]

      Transporter - If you took the Raspberry Pi setup above, put it in a nice plastic case, added a nice web interface and restricted its use to filesharing only, you might wind up with the Transporter from Connected Data. The Transporter is a tiny device that plugs into your home network and allows you to share your files with all of your computers and mobile devices, no matter where they are. It is like Dropbox, but hosted on your own personal server. The only drawback that I can see is that it is not open source (although I'd bet on it running Linux or FreeBSD under the hood), and it does require some form of cloud interaction with a central server to allow the connection back into your Transporter. However, as a proof of concept, it works well.






  • Kernel Space



    • Linux 3.11: Linux for Workgroups


    • Linux 3.11 Officially Dubbed ‘Linux for Workgroups’


    • Dear Linus, STOP SHOUTING and play nice - says Linux kernel dev


    • Is Linus Torvalds too abusive on the Linux Kernel Mailing List?


    • Is It Time to Restore Civility to Linux Development?
      Linus Torvalds is well known for his use of colorful language on the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML) and he's not the only one that uses questionable language that some might considering threatening.

      For the last 20 years, I can't remember anyone actually standing up to Linus (or the other colorful devs) saying that's just not right -- until today.

      Sarah Sharp, Linux kernel developer at Intel, is making a stand against the verbal abuse.


    • No more verbal abuse


    • Linus Torvalds defends his right to shame Linux kernel developers
      Profanity and insults have long been management tactics of Linux creator Linus Torvalds. He once memorably gave the middle finger to Nvidia; separately, he announced that he would not change Linux "to deep-throat Microsoft." Torvalds has also shown no qualms about being rude to those who disagree with him.


    • Intel Programmer Sarah Sharp Wants Linux Creator Linus Torvalds To Knock Off The 'Verbal Abuse'
      There’s an interesting public spat going on in the world of Linux, where a Linux programmer from Intel, Sarah Sharp, has picked a fight with the Linux creator himself: Linus Torvalds.


    • Intel Linux Developer Requests More Respect From Torvalds But Linus Isn't Buying
      Linus Torvalds is a man of many emotions. At times, he's got a great sense of humor - he did just name the 3.11 Linux kernel 'Linux for Workgroups', after all. Other times, and especially if you're a developer making his life harder, he can be less-than-pleasant, as has been evidenced time and time again. As much as I respect Linus, I've long believed that it wouldn't hurt to tone down his aggressiveness just a wee bit, and now, it's become clear that I'm not alone.


    • Standing up against verbal abuse
      Sarah is completely right, and entitled to demand an abuse-free working environment. Thank you for making this explicit, and standing up against those that think it’s not necessary. You’re speaking for a silent crowd, that is now not so silent anymore.

      [...]

      Food for thought: If we want Asian hardware manufacturers to work with us on, e.g. drivers for their hardware, and do it upstream, it simply won’t happen in a rude atmosphere that is entirely incompatible with Asian culture (where critique has to be much more subtile). Of course it’s a general problem with cultural diversity.


    • Tempest, meet teapot
      The “Linus being Linus” issue comes up occasionally, and often with a hue and cry about how mean, nasty and ugly he can be. I’ve called him on things in the past — not that he cares (he doesn’t), but at the time I thought it merited discussion. But back to the latest edition of the blow up, which can be found here, here and here, and you’ll see wherein lies the rub.


    • Female dev asks Torvalds to curb list abuse


      A female kernel developer has told Linux creator Linus Torvalds that he should stop abusing and cursing developers on the main kernel mailing list, advising him to "keep it professional on the mailing lists".


    • Graphics Stack

      • XBMC on Wayland Compositors, take two
        In late February this year, I published a proof of concept demonstrating the XBMC Media Center on the Weston system compositor. It was basically a hack which used SDL’s existing wayland compositor support with a few additions required to make XBMC work. XBMC plans to drop SDL usage and use window systems directly, which makes a lot of sense, but it meant that this proof of concept would have to be largely rewritten.


      • XBMC Will Gain Full Wayland Support Before Mir
        XBMC developer smspillaz, the man responsible for the XBMC Weston hack a few months ago, is now rounding the final turns towards XBMC being fully compatible with Wayland. smspillaz reports that he will be doing a GSoC this year to move XBMC completely to Wayland–without the use of SDL.


      • The Current State Of OpenGL 3, OpenGL 4 In Mesa 9.2
        With the release of Mesa 9.2 being a few weeks out, here's a current look at the OpenGL 3.x/4.x support levels within Mesa.

        The current overview of the modern OpenGL functionality offered by Mesa can be found in the latest GL3.txt Git.


      • Intel X.Org Driver Offers Various Improvements
        Chris Wilson has put out another speedy X.Org Intel graphics driver release, this time bumping it to version 2.21.12.




    • Benchmarks

      • A New & Exciting OpenGL 3 Benchmark To Run
        There's finally a new and visually exciting OpenGL benchmark to try out for Linux, OS X, and Windows users alike. The benchmark also supports OpenGL 3.x contexts for making testing more exciting with regard to the Linux graphics driver stack.






  • Applications



  • Desktop Environments/WMs



    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

      • KeePassX: Treating Your Passwords Like They’re Important
        Christmas morning 2012, one of my Gmail accounts was hacked. The good news was that it wasn’t my main account. The bad news was that it was one I used for a fair amount of work-related communication. I was lucky that I caught it quickly and was able to button it up within an hour or so, but it was a surprisingly intense experience, leaving me feeling violated, humbled, vulnerable, and silly.


      • An unexpected journey
        Since my last post quite some progress has been made in getting KWin working on top of a Wayland compositor. My main focus of work has been on the input stack. This is something I am not really familiar with as so far we did not have to care about it.

        As some might know input handling in X11 is very insecure. Every application is able to listen to every key event. And in the KDE workspaces we obviously make use of these “features”. For example the global shortcut handling is implemented as a kded module listening to all key events and notifying the application via D-Bus that the shortcut got triggered. In a post-X11 world this will not work any more: applications are no longer able to listen to all key events.


      • Akademy 2013 Day 3 in Photos - Kubuntu Developer Summit
        At the Kubuntu Developer Summit we discussed various topics. The guys on the left are from a 15,000 seat Kubuntu rollout in Munich, we worked out a plan to supply LTS backport packages they need.


      • Quick updates


      • Qt Project and Defensive Publications
        Open Source communities are amazingly innovative. Linux Defenders encourages them to document their ideas in the form of defensive publications, so that this body of knowledge becomes relevant prior art for later patent applications and patent invalidations.


      • AudioCd. Week 4.


      • Artikulate at Akademy
        Language data for Artikulate is growing. We currently have 19 units in basic course skeleton form which 18 are translated into Polish,


      • Window list QML : Update


      • Kubuntu All Stars @ Akademy
        A quiet day for me at Akademy catching up on e-mail and learning how to make an apt archive so here's some more photos from the rocking party last night.


      • Amarok MTP (Android) GSoC: week 4; hello from Bilbao!


      • QtWebKit 2.3.2 and QtWebKit for Qt 5.1




    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • Selecting a GNOME 2 Successor Desktop
        GNOME 2 is the Linux desktop environment that refuses to die. Three years after its last release, GNOME 2—or, to be precise, its successors—are collectively as popular as uncustomized GNOME 3. The GNOME 2 successors scored 18 percent to GNOME 3's 13 percent in the 2012 LinuxQuestion's Member's Choice poll, and 15 percent to GNOME 3's 21 percent in the Linux Journal Readers' Choice poll. Despite the half dozen desktops available today, GNOME 2's successors remain leading choices.

        This persistent popularity is both a measure of the initial user dissatisfaction with the GNOME 3 release series and a triumph of branding. Initially, dissatisfaction with GNOME 3.0 caused many users to turn to Xfce. A long-time distant third to GNOME and KDE, Xfce closely resembles GNOME 2 but is generally lighter and faster.






  • Distributions

    • Distro Hopping Update


    • Bluestar Linux – full-2013.07.11 – Release
      The new 2013.07.11 Bluestar Full edition has been released and is available for download from the Bluestar Linux downloads area. This release introduces a number of new and useful features, including new icons for shutdown/reboot/logout/screenlock, and extended language installation options.


    • New Releases



      • Webconverger 21.0


      • Elive 2.1.54 development released
        This version includes some misc features like:

        Eltrans: This release includes a complete rewrite of the translator tool for Elive. With features like a grammar corrector and a proofreader mode, where the translator can modify the original sentences of the application itself, making it more userfriendly and intuitive. Backported Randr code from Enlightenment 18 to E17 which makes it easier to configure dual-screen and external monitors, special thanks to PrinceAMD and devilhorns.





    • Screenshots



    • Red Hat Family

      • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.10 Updates Server Security and MySQL
        Linux vendor Red Hat is updating its Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (RHEL) platform with a new beta release.

        RHEL 5.10 provides users with a variety of updated capabilities, including a new version of MySQL, improved management tools and enhanced security.


      • Red Hat Named One of the 25 Best Tech Companies to Work for in 2013
        We’re excited to share that Red Hat has just been named by Business Insider as one of “The 25 Best Tech Companies to Work for in 2013.” The list was compiled using information gathered from Glassdoor.com, a free jobs and career community where employees and job seekers can provide anonymous information about different companies.


      • Fedora

        • Fedora 19 - Of Schroedingers Cat and Mixed Blessings
          Fedora is one of those distributions I try from time to time but that ultimately fail to stay around, usually when it comes to the upgrade process. I last used Fedora 14, after brushes with 12 and 10, the KDE spin of which got slower with every point update to the desktop but whose LXDE spin actually got used for quite a few months. So let's see how Fedora 19 pans out, featuring GNOME Shell 3.8.2, and how/if that has improved since I last tried the Shell when it was freshly released on the unsuspecting public.


        • Fedora 20 Might No Longer Install Syslog
          Beginning with Fedora 20, the Linux distribution is considering no longer installing rsyslog by default but would replace it with use of the systemd journal as the Fedora logging solution.






    • Debian Family





  • Devices/Embedded

    • Raspberry Pi becomes Raspberry PC via Mini-ITX carrier
      Raspberry Pi embedded development firm Geekroo has surpassed its Kickstarter funding goal for a Mini-ITX board and case that extends the RPi into a full-fledged computer (SBC). The Fairywren is equipped with a 24-pin ATX power supply connector, a four-port USB hub, a 2.5-inch HDD bay, a serial port, an IR remote module, GPIO breakout, and sockets for a built-in XBee radio and Arduino Uno boards.


    • Phones



      • Android

        • Should HTC Merge With Huawei?
          HTC One is a stunning device and the Taiwanese smartphone maker should be real proud of it, but being critically acclaimed doesn’t guarantee commercial success, and that exact same thing has been happening with HTC. The company’s popular flagship smartphone even though has had a positive impact on the finances, has not been enough to pull the company out of the crisis. Now analysts are suggesting that HTC should merge with the Chinese smartphone manufacturer Huawei.


        • OLPC’s New $150 Android Tablet Is on Sale at Walmart


        • Introducing the XO Learning Tablet


        • Family Oriented XO Tablet Debuts at Walmart for $149
          The new family-friendly XO Tablet debuts July 16 on Walmart.com and will be in Walmart stores on August 1, and will provide kids with a fun and exciting new way to build, learn and dream at their own pace via a powerful Android tablet packed with free educational games, apps, videos, e-books and more. The flexible tablet also grows with the family offering up to three separate user accounts plus full-fledged Android tablet functionality with parental-controlled access to conventional Android apps and the Google Play store.


        • Android Gaming Consoles: The Ultimate Guide
          Successful Kickstarter project and highly publicized Android gaming console OUYA has ignited a feeding frenzy as competitors rise to fill the market.


        • BoxTone's Brian Reed: Securing Android for the Enterprise
          BoxTone's enterprise mobility management platform is designed to bring Android security up to levels better-suited to the rigors of the business workforce, but in making Android enterprise-hardened, the company left Android's open source trappings intact.

          As part of that EMM platform, BoxTone delivers its service in three categories of functionality, according to Brian Reed, the company's chief marketing officer and chief product officer. Mobile device management is generally the most well-known functional area; the second one is an emerging market called Web services management. The third category, mobile services management, focuses on reliability, service quality and cost efficiency.


        • $99 ARM-based PC runs either Ubuntu or Android










Free Software/Open Source



Leftovers



  • Security



    • Web Security
      As I write these words in mid-February 2013, many Ruby on Rails developers are worried. The framework that so many of us have used and enjoyed for so many years, turned out to have some serious security flaws. It's not just the sort of flaw that can allow someone to modify your Web site either;these holes meant that a properly armed attacker could execute arbitrary code on your server. And nowadays, "properly armed" is not a very high threshold because of such tools as Metasploit, which make it laughably easy to launch an attack against an arbitrary computer on the Internet.


    • NSS 3.15.1 brings TLS 1.2 support to Firefox




  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression



    • Lithuania accused of stonewalling over CIA jail case
      Lawyers for a man who alleges he was held in a secret CIA jail in Lithuania have accused the Baltic state of failing to give proper answers to judges considering the case at the European Court of Human Rights.


    • The CIA's New Black Bag Is Digital
      When the NSA can't break into your computer, these guys break into your house.


    • HyTrust trousers $13m from VMware and CIA sugar daddy In-Q-Tel
      Business is booming at HyTrust, a maker of policy management and access control software for VMware virtual infrastructure, and whistleblower system admin Edward Snowden, who revealed the National Security Agency's web-spying PRISM project, is doing his inadvertent part to pump it up even further.

      [...]

      HyTrust has been saying that IT shops should adopt a second approval rule for a lot of things that go on inside the data center for the past year, and the Snowden episode just makes this necessity all that more clear (at least, from the point of view of companies and governments).


    • How the CIA worked
      But Krasheninnikova thinks that “talking about soft power, we need to understand who developed it and for what purpose. If the concept of soft power still belongs to the U.S., we must learn the true meaning of this concept and understand how these mechanisms work. The main instrument of the cultural front of the Cold War was the "Congress for Cultural Freedom," with offices in 35 countries and dozens of publications and programs. The majority of these programs were conducted through foundations and non-profit organizations. Some funds were very real, such as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Asia Foundation, they exist today, and other funds were fakes, created specifically to transfer money and to clean the CIA as a source of funds for the organization. Non-profit organizations and U.S. funds are a mere extension of the U.S. state apparatus. If someone thinks that they are truly independent, then that person is deeply mistaken. As the author says, at one point in time there was a joke: "If any American philanthropic or cultural organization includes the words "independent" or "private" in their documents, most likely it is a cover for the CIA."

      [...]

      “We have no right to have illusions and have no right to make errors,” Krasheninnikova believes. “The U.S. may make mistakes because they have enormous economic, political and military weight, and their margin for error is wide. We have almost no margin for error. For example, the situation with Libya. We have made a decision, and Libya as a state does not exist. Our mistakes cost us too much. Therefore, we must, as experts, people who are involved in the processes of government, be responsible for the decisions, be responsible for the fate of the country. And so we must have the possibility of a deeper understanding of the current processes, understanding of history, as they provide a much more accurate prediction of the future, of the steps of the United States. America's not going anywhere, we have to deal with America for a long time, as long as we exist. Therefore, we need to know this actor exceptionally well.”


    • CIA human resources hiring wrong (ethical) people
      What's wrong with human resources officials of the CIA and U.S. Army intelligence? Their ineptitude is damaging the image of Western democracy by hiring people that let the truth out.


    • Public deserves to know what's in CIA torture report: Guest opinion
      Yes, America, we tortured. And there is a step that Oregonians can take now to help ensure that U.S.-sponsored torture never happens again.

      The torture in which our government engaged was illegal, abhorrent and cruel. Detainees died as a result of American torture, and former President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld knew about it and were involved in authorizing it.


    • US drones kill nine 'militants'


      AT least nine suspected militants, including two foreigners, were killed in Pakistan's lawless tribal region in a US drone strike and a separate Pakistan military operation, security officials have said.


    • U.S. drones, Pakistan military attacks kill 19 militants
      At least 19 suspected militants, including two foreigners, were killed in Pakistan's lawless tribal region overnight in a Pakistani military operation and a separate U.S. drone strike, security officials said on Sunday.

      Read more: U.S. drones, Pakistan military attacks kill 19 militants - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_23658987/u-s-drones-pakistan-military-attacks-kill-19#ixzz2ZL0sPsmq Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse Follow us: @Denverpost on Twitter | Denverpost on Facebook


    • Thanks to lobby effort, flawed drone still flying despite Pentagon, White House objections
      Despite needed cuts to big ticket US defense programs, an investigation into Northrop Grumman’s lobbying efforts reveals the military contractor kept its costly Global Hawk drone flying despite the Pentagon’s own attempt to kill the project.


    • Actually, drones worry Europe more than spying


    • Snowden’s Contingency: ‘Dead Man’s Switch’ Borrows From Cold War, WikiLeaks
      The strategy employed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to discourage a CIA hit job has been likened to a tactic employed by the U.S. and Russian governments during the Cold War.




  • Transparency Reporting



    • Julian Assange calls upcoming Dreamworks film 'a mass propaganda attack against WikiLeaks'
      Earlier this week we got our first look at actor Benedict Cumberbatch playing Julian Assange in the forthcoming WikiLeaks film The Fifth Estate — but Assange himself has some particularly harsh words for the production. In a speech before the Oxford Union, Assange revealed that a draft of the script for the Dreamworks project had in fact been shared with WikiLeaks, and he called it "a mass propaganda attack against WikiLeaks the organization, and the character of my staff and our activities, and so on."


    • Meet the Journalist Who Connects the Dots Between Wikileaks, Edward Snowden, and the NSA
      Barrett Brown is a journalist imprisoned without bail, facing over 100 years of potential jail time, much of it for posting an http link to a public forum. He had been writing about several private intelligence companies and set up a Wikipedia-like site, ProjectPM, for crowdsourced analysis of the documents released by Anonymous after several hacking attacks. Some people are petitioning for Brown's freedom from what they view as a politically targeted prosecution, but this article will concentrate on what the information Brown has uncovered can do to explain how PRISM and related spying programs may be used against Americans. The official government line has been that PRISM is targeted at foreign terrorists, but it's just as likely that the program will be used to frustrate expressions of political opinion at home.






  • Finance

    • How capitalism's great relocation pauperised America's 'middle class'
      As long as workers could wrest gains from capitalism, the system was safe. But with production offshored, that bargain blew up


    • Secret TPP Deal Would Void Democracy
      TPP talks held in British Columbia in June were kept secret, but Canadian activists learned about them the day before from an article in the Peruvian media. Opponents hustled to hold an emergency teach-in and to project messages about the TPP on downtown Vancouver buildings. More talks will take place July 15-25 in Malaysia. Photo: Citizens Trade Campaign. - See more at: http://www.labornotes.org/2013/07/secret-tpp-deal-would-void-democracy#sthash.yPy3NTN9.dpuf




  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Cashing in on Kids: 139 ALEC Bills in 2013 Promote a Private, For-Profit Education Mode
      Despite widespread public opposition to the education privatization agenda, at least 139 bills or state budget provisions reflecting American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) education bills have been introduced in 43 states and the District of Columbia in just the first six months of 2013, according to an analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy, publishers of ALECexposed.org. Thirty-one have become law.


    • Obama, Like Ike, 'Avoided Military Adventures'? Not Quite
      New York Times reporter Peter Baker has a piece today (7/16/13) about Barack Obama and Dwight Eisenhower that presents a somewhat confusing picture of both.

      The article is about how Obama wields power–or, in the eyes of some critics, fails to take advantage of the "bully pulpit."




  • Privacy



  • Civil Rights



    • McAfee Weekly..Who’s watching who?
      And now, living in a world of instant everything, I worry about huge number of people who blindly read and believe almost anything posted, pinned, linked or Tweeted. It scares me.


    • Snowden Backlash: US Media Get Persona
      As the mainstream American press goes after NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, the leakers' revelations are becoming an afterthought.


    • Voter ID Laws: More He Said, She Said
      The recent Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act is bound to bring voter ID laws back into the media discussion. And, unfortunately, that means some of these discussions will suffer from a familiar problem: The unwillingness to point out that the problem such laws are allegedly fighting–voter fraud–doesn't exist.


    • Racism and Richard Cohen
      That platform is more likely belongs to someone like Cohen–who, in 1986, wrote a column defending store owners in Washington, D.C. who refused to allow young black men to enter their stores because of a fear of crime. The Post apologized to readers. This time around they probably won't.


    • NDAA: It Still Makes a Mockery Of American Values
      But what the NDAA has done is essentially codified the elimination of one of the most important restrictions on state power. These restraints — that the burden of proof is on the state, that nobody can be locked in a cage without due process, that only the civilian police force is allowed to make arrests — are some of the most revolutionary legacies of Western liberalism and represent one of the starting points of anything resembling a free society.

      But thanks to the president's stroke of a pen and a Congress that resembles the rubber-stamping body of the Roman Empire, these constitutional restrictions, written by men who combed through history for the devices that were intended to keep state power in a box, have been legislated away.


    • Military seeks stay of Guantanamo groin search ban
      The Obama Administration and the U.S. military are asking a federal judge to put a hold on his order blocking groin searches of Guantanamo Bay prisoners in connection with attorney visits.


    • Why Doctors Oppose Force-Feeding Guantanamo Hunger Strikers
      For centuries, the act of refusing food has turned human bodies into effective political bargaining chips. And so it's no surprise that the prisoners desperate to leave Guantanamo after, in some cases, nearly a dozen years there, have turned to hunger strikes on and off since 2005 to try to win their release.

      For years, the Pentagon officials who run the detention camp have responded by prisoners. Currently, some 45 of the 104 hunger-striking captives are receiving the procedure, as many people learned this week when a graphic video featuring Yasiin Bey, the rapper and actor formerly known as Mos Def, went viral. While Bey's performance may be part publicity stunt, doctors say it does help expose the unethical treatment and some of the pain of the Gitmo detainees subjected to force-feeding.


    • Twenty trade union leaders murdered in the Philippines over the last decade


      Antonio Petalcorin, President of the Network of Transport Organisation (NETO) has been shot dead on his way to a union meeting. Antonio is one of twenty trade union leaders to have been murdered over the course of the last decade, and one of up to 1,000 politically motivated killings in the Philippines.


    • Chris Hedges Responds to NDAA Defeat, Says It’s a ‘Black Day’ for Liberty
      The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit has dealt a terrible blow to Chris Hedges, Daniel Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky and the other activists and journalists suing to prevent the indefinite military detention of American citizens.


    • NDAA Indefinite Detention Lawsuit Thrown Out
      A federal appeals court on Wednesday threw out a lawsuit targeting a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 that opponents argue could be used to indefinitely detain American citizens on mere suspicions of terrorism.

      The journalists and activists who brought the case argued that the NDAA unconstitutionally gives the president the authority to detain anyone he suspects of teaming up with al Qaeda or the Taliban, anywhere. They argued that even those who merely spoke with terrorists -- like former New York Times reporter Chris Hedges -- might be in danger.




  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Mobile roaming and the four stages of grief
      On Tuesday of last week I announced a package of measures to be presented in September – for a telecommunications single market, bringing down barriers to support a sector critical for our future growth.

      The focus of some of the immediate reactions to this speech has been on mobile roaming. Operators have long resisted attempts to stop them charging well over the odds on roaming rates. And it appears that they are continuing to do so.




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights



      • HBO Asks Google To Take Down "Infringing" VLC Media Player
        "It's no secret that copyright holders are trying to take down as much pirated content as they can, but their targeting of open source software is something new. In an attempt to remove pirated copies of Game of Thrones from the Internet, HBO sent a DMCA takedown to Google, listing a copy of the popular media player VLC as a copyright infringement. An honest mistake, perhaps, but a worrying one. ... Usually these notices ask Google to get rid of links to pirate sites, but for some reason the cable network also wants Google to remove a link to the highly popular open source video player VLC. ... The same DMCA notice also lists various other links that don't appear to link to HBO content, including a lot of porn related material, Ben Harper's album Give Till It's Gone, Naruto, free Java applets and Prince of Persia 5."


      • VLC Media Player Making Good Progress In Qt5 Port


      • Features Coming For The VLC 2.1 Media Player
        The VLC 2.1 media player update is due out in the coming weeks and with it will come several new features for the open-source program.

        After the excitement this morning about the VLC port to Qt 5 nearly working, I decided to check in on the state of VLC 2.1 -- the next major release for the project -- and what features it shall possess.








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Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries