03.30.15

Gemini version available ♊︎

Links 30/3/2015: Linux 4.0 RC6, OpenELEC 5.0.7

Posted in News Roundup at 5:51 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • ARM64 Improvements Piling Up In Coreboot

    While yesterday I was talking about many Intel Broadwell improvements landing in Coreboot, the new Git activity today for Coreboot is about 64-bit ARM.

  • Open Source Mandatory for Indian Government Projects

    I’ve written about the potential for open source in China several times, and the same can be said about India. Here’s some big news on that front, just announced by the Government of India’s Department Of Electronics & Information Technology [.pdf]:

  • India backs open source software for e-governance projects

    India has said it will use open source software in all e-governance projects, though it did not rule out the use of proprietary software to meet specialized requirements.

  • India doubles down on use of Open Source software

    The government on Sunday announced a policy on adoption of open source software, which makes it mandatory for all software applications and services of the government be built using open source software, so that projects under Digital India “ensure efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs”.

  • Facebook Rolls Out 3 Open Source Tools for Mobile Developers

    In a move sure to delight iOS and Android developers, Facebook has launched React-Native, an open source, cross-platform JavaScript framework for building mobile applications. Announced Thursday at the company’s F8 developer conference, the framework is based on React, another open source JavaScript framework Facebook released two years ago to help developers build user interfaces for Web projects.

  • NASA Goddard Releases Open Source Core Flight Software System Application Suite to Public

    The Innovative Technology Partnerships Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, announced the release of its core Flight System (cFS) Application Suite to the public. The cFS application suite is composed of 12 individual Command and Data Handling (C&DH) flight software applications that together create a reusable library of common C&DH functions.

  • Events

    • Development Tools Tutorial Accepted into 2015 Linux Plumbers Conference

      In a departure from prior Plumbers tradition, we are pleased to announce not a Development Tools Microconference, but rather a set of Development Tools tutorials, including interactive tutorials, demos, and short presentations. Topics include Coccinelle (Julia Lawall), testing and debugging tools (Shuah Khan), issues with copying and pasting Linux kernel code (Michael Godfrey), and LLVM/clang and the Linux kernel (Behan Webster).

    • Open Source Conference Albania 2015

      OSCAL (Open Source Conference Albania) is the first annual international tech conference in Albania organized by the open source community in Albania to promote software freedom, open source software, free culture and open knowledge.

  • CMS

    • WordPress 4.2 Beta 3 Released, Final Version Around the Corner

      Version 4.2 of WordPress, the world’s most popular web software that allows anyone to create beautiful blogs and websites in minutes, is getting closer with the recently released Beta 3 version that brings over 65 changes. The new version is available for download here.

  • BSD

    • Running FreeBSD on the server: a sysadmin speaks

      For years now, Linux has been all the rage. But in recent times, there have been murmurings among some veterans — long-time users — after the introduction of systemd, the init system that seems to overstep its boundaries.

  • Public Services/Government

    • South-Tyrol finances open source eInvoicing tool

      Proxy FatturaPA [1], an eInvoicing software solution co-financed by the Autonomous Province of South-Tyrol (Italy), is made public using the GPLv3 free software licence. The software is developed by Link.it, a IT company based in Pisa.

  • Openness/Sharing

  • Programming

Leftovers

  • Security

  • Finance

    • PayPal agrees to pay $7.7 million for alleged sanctions violations

      On Wednesday afternoon, PayPal reached a settlement with the US Treasury Department, agreeing that it would pay $7.7 million for allegedly processing payments to people in countries under sanction as well as to a man the US has listed as involved in the nuclear weapons black market. The company neither confirmed nor denied the allegations, but it voluntarily handed over its transaction data to the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

    • How “standby” modes on game consoles suck up energy

      The Natural Resources Defense Council recently put out an alarming press release claiming the Xbox One is causing consumers to waste an aggregate of $250 million annually in energy costs. The culprit: the “instant on” mode that draws significant power 24 hours a day, even when the system is supposedly “off.”

      The NRDC put out the release in an effort to convince Microsoft to turn off this “instant on” setting by default, or to at least offer an option to turn it off on the system’s initial setup (as it does in Europe). Until Microsoft takes that step, though, we thought we’d bust out the old Kill A Watt power meter and confirm just how much energy our consoles are wasting when they’re not in use, and offer you some tips on how to avoid that potential waste.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Xinhua, AP presidents discuss cooperation in new media era

      President of the Xinhua News Agency Cai Mingzhao and his Associated Press (AP) counterpart Gary Pruitt discussed cooperation between the two news outlets in the new media era on Friday at the Xinhua head office in Beijing.

      Xinhua and the AP should forge a strategic cooperative relationship, Cai said, expressing the wish that the two news agencies will expand cooperation onto a wider range of areas.

      Xinhua has been turning out omni media products integrating texts, pictures and videos, and reducing costs through application of technologies to meet the new demand of its clients, Cai noted.

  • Censorship

    • Copyright crackdown: Government introduces website-blocking bill

      The government has introduced a bill that will allow copyright holders to apply for court orders forcing ISPs to block access to pirate websites.

      Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull today introduced the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015.

      “Existing copyright law is not adequate to deter a specific type of infringing activity, which is the facilitation of the online infringement of copyright owners’ content… by online operators,” the minister said, introducing the bill into the lower house.

      “There are a number of foreign-based online locations that disseminate large amounts of infringing content to Australian Internet users.”

      If the bill becomes law rights holders will be able to apply to the Federal Court for an injunction that will force an ISP to block a site.

  • Privacy

    • The AP’s Recycled “We Don’t Need a Phone Dragnet” Story Lays the Groundwork for Swapping Section 215 for CISA

      The NSA in no way went “cold turkey” in 2011. Starting in 2009, just before it finally confessed to DOJ it had been violating collection rules for the life of the program, it rolled out the SPCMA program that allowed the government to do precisely the same thing, from precisely the same user interface, with any Internet data accessible through EO 12333. SPCMA was made available to all units within NSA in early 2011, well before NSA “went cold turkey.” And, at the same time, NSA moved some of its Internet dragnet to PRISM production, with the added benefit that it had few of the data sharing limits that the PRTT dragnet did.

      That is, rather than going “cold turkey” the NSA moved the production under different authorities, which came with the added benefits of weaker FISC oversight, application for uses beyond counterterrorism, and far, far more permissive dissemination rules.

      That AP’s sources claimed — and AP credulously reported — that this is about “cold turkey” is a pretty glaring hint that the NSA and FBI are preparing to do something very similar with the phone dragnet. As with the Internet dragnet, SPCMA permits phone chaining for any EO 12333 phone collection, under far looser rules. And under CISA, anyone who “voluntarily” wants to share this data (which always includes AT&T and likely includes other backbone providers) can share promiscuously and with greater secrecy (because it is protected by both Trade Secret and FOIA exemption). Some of this production, done under PRISM, would permit the government to get “connection” chaining information more easily than under a phone dragnet. And as with the Internet dragnet, any move of Section 215 production to CISA production evades existing FISC oversight.

    • Europol chief warns on computer encryption (propaganda against encryption)

      Mr Wainwright said that in most current investigations the use of encrypted communications was found to be central to the way terrorists operated.

    • Hacking the Nazis: The secret story of the women who broke Hitler’s codes

      Of the 10,000-plus staff at the Government Code and Cypher School during World War II, two-thirds were female. Three veteran servicewomen explain what life was like as part of the code-breaking operation during World War II.

  • Civil Rights

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Chairman Wheeler Predicts FCC Will Beat Legal Challenge To Net Neutrality

      Now that the FCC is the subject of several lawsuits, and its leader, Chairman Tom Wheeler, was dragged in front of Congress repeatedly to answer the same battery of inanity, it’s worth checking in to see how the agency is feeling. Is it confident that its recent vote to reclassify broadband under Title II of the Telecommunications Act will hold?

    • A Growing Chorus Is Trying To Rewrite The History Of Net Neutrality — And Blame Absolutely Everything On Netflix

      With either an ISP lawsuit or a 2016 party shift the only way to kill our new net neutrality rules, neutrality opponents have some time to kill. As such, they’re in desperate need of somewhere to direct their impotent rage at the foul idea of a healthier Internet free from gatekeeper control. Step one of this catharsis has been to publicly shame the FCC for daring to stand up to broadband ISPs in a series of increasingly absurd and often entirely nonsensical public “fact finding” hearings. Step two is to push forth a series of editorials that tries to rewrite the history of the net neutrality debate — with Netflix as the villainous, Machiavellian centerpiece.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Once You Accept File-Sharing Is Here To Stay, You Can Focus On All The Positive Things

        When I grew up, file-sharing was already rampant. But we didn’t have any Internet. We had a so-called Sneakernet. And it was actually quite comparable in sharing efficiency – not just over large distances.

      • Copyright Bots Kill App Over ‘Potentially Infringing’ Images, Follow This Up By Blocking App For Use Of CC/Public Domain Images

        With bots performing all sorts of intellectual property policing these days, fair use considerations are completely off the table. Nuances that can’t be handled by a bot should theoretically be turned over to a human being in disputed cases. Unfortunately, dispute processes are often handled in an automated fashion, leading to even more problems.

      • MPAA Wanted Less Fair Use In Copyright Curriculum

        The MPAA and RIAA are backing a new copyright curriculum showing kids how to become “Ethical Digital Citizens.” After public pressure the curriculum was edited to include fair use principles, but a leaked MPAA email shows that there’s more fair use in the lesson plans than Hollywood wanted.

      • Block Pirate Bay in 72 Hours, Spanish Court Tells ISPs

        Infamous torrent site The Pirate Bay has a new European block to contend with after a judge in Spain handed down a ruling against the site today. Local ISPs now have 72 hours in which to block the site, the first instruction of its type under the country’s so-called Sinde Law.

      • City of London Police Make Piracy Fight Official

        City of London Police and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations underlined their relationship this week with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding. Focusing on IP crime, the agencies collaborate to suspend domains, shut down file-sharing sites, and arrest uploaders.

      • “VPN Friendly” Aussie Pirate Site Blocking Draft Unveiled

        A draft of new legislation aimed at stopping Aussie consumers accessing ‘pirate’ sites has been made available this morning. The amendments, which contain criteria that could see hundreds of sites blocked by ISPs, is believed to have been reworded to ensure that VPN services don’t become caught in the dragnet.

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

DecorWhat Else is New

  1. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, January 22, 2022

    IRC logs for Saturday, January 22, 2022

  2. Links 23/1/2022: MongoDB 5.2, BuddyPress 10.0.0, and GNU Parallel 20220122

    Links for the day

  3. A Parade of Fake News About the UPC Does Not Change the General Consensus or the Simple Facts

    European Patents (EPs) from the EPO are granted in violation of the EPC; Courts are now targeted by António Campinos and the minions he associates with (mostly parasitic litigation firms and monopolists), for they want puppets for “judges” and for invalid patents to be magically rendered “valid” and “enforceable”

  4. Welcome to 2022: Intentional Lies Are 'Benefits' and 'Alternative Facts'

    A crooks-run EPO, together with the patent litigation cabal that we’ve dubbed ‘Team UPC’ (it has nothing to do with science or with innovation), is spreading tons of misinformation; the lies are designed to make the law-breaking seem OK, knowing that Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos are practically above the law, so perjury as well as gross violations of the EPC and constitutions won’t scare them (prosecution as deterrence just isn’t there, which is another inherent problem with the UPC)

  5. From Software Eating the World to the Pentagon Eating All the Software

    “Software is eating the world,” according to Marc Andreessen (co-founder of Netscape), but the Empire Strikes Back (not the movie, the actual empire) by hijacking all code by proxy, via Microsoft, just as it grabbed a lot of the world’s communications via Skype, bypassing the world's many national telecoms; coders need to fight back rather than participate in racist (imperial) shams such as GitHub

  6. Links 22/1/2022: Skrooge 2.27.0 and Ray-Tracing Stuff

    Links for the day

  7. IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 21, 2022

    IRC logs for Friday, January 21, 2022

  8. Peak Code — Part II: Lost Source

    "Debian and Mozilla played along. They were made “Yeoman Freeholders” in return for rewriting their charters to “work closely with the new Ministry in the interests of all stakeholders” – or some-such vacuous spout… because no one remembers… after that it started."

  9. Links 22/1/2022: Ubuntu MATE 21.10 for GPD Pocket 3, MINISFORUM Preloads GNU/Linux

    Links for the day

  10. Computer Users Should be Operators, But Instead They're Being Operated by Vendors and Governments

    Computers have been turned into hostile black boxes (unlike Blackbox) that distrust the person who purchased them; moreover, from a legislative point of view, encryption (i.e. computer security) is perceived and treated by governments like a threat instead of something imperative — a necessity for society’s empowerment (privacy is about control and people in positions of unjust power want total and complete control)

  11. Peak Code — Part I: Before the Wars

    Article/series by Dr. Andy Farnell: "in the period between 1960 and 2060 people had mistaken what they called "The Internet" for a communications system, when it had in fact been an Ideal and a Battleground all along - the site of the 100 years info-war."

  12. Links 21/1/2022: RISC-V Development Board and Rust 1.58.1

    Links for the day

  13. IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 20, 2022

    IRC logs for Thursday, January 20, 2022

  14. Gemini Lets You Control the Presentation Layer to Suit Your Own Needs

    In Gemini (or the Web as seen through Gemini clients such as Kristall) the user comes first; it's not sites/capsules that tell the user how pages are presented/rendered, as they decide only on structural/semantic aspects

  15. The Future of Techrights

    Futures are difficult to predict, but our general vision for the years ahead revolves around more community involvement and less (none or decreased) reliance on third parties, especially monopolistic corporations, mostly because they oppress the population via the network and via electronic devices

  16. [Meme] UPC for CJEU

    When you do illegal things and knowingly break the law to get started with a “legal” system you know it’ll end up in tears… or the CJEU

  17. Links 20/1/2022: 'Pluton' Pushback and Red Hat Satellite 6.10.2

    Links for the day

  18. The Web is a Corporate Misinformation/Disinformation Platform, Biased Against Communities, Facts, and Science

    Misinformation/disinformation in so-called 'news' sites is a pandemic which spreads; in the process, the founder of GNU/Linux gets defamed and GNU/Linux itself is described as the problem, not the solution to the actual problems

  19. Links 20/1/2022: McKinsey Openwashing and Stable Kernels

    Links for the day

  20. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, January 19, 2022

    IRC logs for Wednesday, January 19, 2022

  21. Links 20/1/2022: Linuxfx 11.1 WxDesktop 11.0.3 and FreeIPMI 1.6.9 Released

    Links for the day

  22. Links 19/1/2022: XWayland 22.1 RC1 and OnlyOffice 7.0 Release

    Links for the day

  23. Links 19/1/2022: ArchLabs 2022.01.18 and KDE's 15-Minute Bug Initiative

    Links for the day

  24. When Twitter Protects Abusers and Abuse (and Twitter's Sponsors)

    Twitter is an out-of-control censorship machine and it should be treated accordingly even by those who merely "read" or "follow" Twitter accounts; Twitter is a filter, not a news/media platform or even means of communication

  25. IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, January 18, 2022

    IRC logs for Tuesday, January 18, 2022

  26. Links 19/1/2022: Wine 7.x Era Begins and Istio 1.12.2 is Out

    Links for the day

  27. Another Video IBM Does Not Want You to Watch

    It seems very much possible that IBM (or someone close to IBM) is trying to purge me from Twitter, so let’s examine what they may be trying to distract from. As we put it 2 years ago, "Watson" is a lot more offensive than those supposedly offensive words IBM is working to purge; think about those hundreds of Red Hat workers who are black and were never told about ethnic purges of blacks facilitated by IBM (their new boss).

  28. What IBM Does Not Want You to Watch

    Let's 'Streisand it'...

  29. Good News, Bad News (and Back to Normal)

    When many services are reliant on the integrity of a single, very tiny MicroSD card you're only moments away from 2 days of intensive labour (recovery, investigation, migration, and further coding); we've learned our lessons and took advantage of this incident to upgrade the operating system, double the storage space, even improve the code slightly (for compatibility with newer systems)

  30. Someone Is Very Desperate to Knock My Account Off Twitter

    Many reports against me — some successful — are putting my free speech (and factual statements) at risk

RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts