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Links 5/9/2021: Kdenlive 21.08.1 and Many Kernel Merges



  • GNU/Linux

    • Kernel Space

      • Linux Has A New Maintainer For Its CD-ROM Driver Code

        After more than two decades of maintaining the Linux CD-ROM driver code, Jens Axboe who also serves as the block subsystem maintainer, IO_uring lead developer, and filling other roles, announced he was looking for someone to take over the CD-ROM code.

        Axboe had been maintaining the Linux kernel's CD-ROM driver code since the late 90's as part of his early involvement in the Linux kernel. However, he doesn't have much time to devote to it these days with everything else on his Linux I/O plate while also being employed by Facebook.

      • Tachyum's Prodigy emulator achieves first boot, runs Linux and says 'hello, world'

        Tachyum has announced a milestone on the road to finally launching its much-vaunted high-performance "universal processor," Prodigy, with a first-boot into Linux - but its FPGA prototype is still a long way away from proving the company's bold claims.

        Founded in 2017 by a team made up of Skyera and SandForce co-founder Dr Radoslav "Rado" Danilak, Wave Computing co-founder Ken Wagner, engineer Igor Shevlyakov, and hardware architect Rod Mullendore, Tachyum is in the process of designing what it calls a "universal processor.' Dubbed Prodigy, the design - originally known as the "Cloud Chip" - is claimed to be able to run programs written for x86, Arm, and RISC-V architectures as well as its own native architecture, and to do so 10 times faster than its rivals.

        In the years since its unveiling, Tachyum's claims haven't wavered - but they also haven't yet been proven, something which didn't stop the company joining an EU project to build an exascale supercomputer. Earlier this year, Tachyum announced the delivery of its first FPGA-based Prodigy system emulator - and now, around three months on, it has laid claim to a successful first run of a Linux operating system and a simple user-mode application.

      • Linus Torvalds Jokes About Celebrations for Linux's 30th Anniversary

        Despite Linux reaching its 30th anniversary, "most outside the tech industry will be unaware that Linux has reached such a milestone," writes ZDNet, "even though the project has had a huge impact on everything from smartphones to cloud computing."

      • Linux patch disables TRIM and NCQ on Samsung 860/870 SSDs in Intel and AMD systems - Neowin

        About two years ago, several users of the Samsung 860 EVO SATA SSD started reporting issues on their drives in Linux. Later it was also established that the same or very similar problem also existed on the 870 EVO model. Linux engineers stated meanwhile that they were looking into the problem and while it took a while, earlier today, it was announced that patches for the issue have been sent upstream for final implementation.

        According to the findings, it has been determined that Queued Trim commands on the 860 and 870 SSDs are causing such issues on Intel, ASmedia, and Marvell SATA AHCI controllers and the problem has been found to be the worst on older AMD systems.

      • Linux Kernel 5.15 will integrate NTFS3 driver to better support NTFS file system

        In the upcoming Linux Kernel 5.15 update, the NTFS3 kernel driver from Paragon Software will provide better support for the Microsoft NFTS file system. Last year, Paragon Software made an amazing decision: try to Mainline the NTFS3 driver that was previously only used for business.

        Considering that there are fewer and fewer organizations interested in NTFS, and more and more interest in Microsoft ‘s exFAT, and even in file systems like Android’s F2FS, we are still very happy to see that Paragon is finally willing to drive Mainline and promised Maintain it upstream and move on.

      • Samsung 860/870 SSDs Continue Causing Problems For Linux Users

        While Samsung has explicitly stated before that queued TRIM works for Samsung 860 SSDs on Linux and thus leading to only older Samsung 840/850 drives being blocked from queued TRIM usage, that turns out to be inaccurate and now more quirks are added for the Samsung 860 and 870 series SSDs on Linux.

        Linux kernels of the past three years have allowed queued TRIM for the Samsung 860 while blocking its usage for 840/850 drives. However, many users continue to find issues under Linux with the 860 and 870 drives.

      • Apple M1 IOMMU Driver Merged For Linux 5.15, Intel Scalable Mode By Default

        While Linux 5.13 landed initial Apple Silicon M1 support, it was just the very initial bits. Now for Linux 5.15 we are seeing another step in the bring-up with the community-created Apple M1 IOMMU driver being merged.

        Sent in as part of the IOMMU subsystem updates for the Linux 5.15 kernel is the DART IOMMU driver for Apple M1 chips. This IOMMU driver was created by the community as part of the "Asahi Linux" project.

      • Comparing Linux file systems: Btrfs and Ext4

        For a long time I have been interested in the question of file systems. There are many of them, there are favorites. From time to time I come across references, comparisons, conversations, but I myself am floating in the question. So which is better and why, which to choose? … … Here I tried to answer this question.

      • Graphics Stack

        • NVIDIA Confirms Sway Wayland Compositor Works Fine With Their New GBM Driver Support - Phoronix

          Stemming from an ongoing Mesa GBM discussion over introducing new gbm_bo_create_with_modifiers2 / gbm_surface_create_with_modifiers2 functions since the original "gbm_*_create_with_modifiers" functions lack support for passing usage flags, NVIDIA confirmed that the Sway Wayland compositor is working fine with their forthcoming driver supporting GBM.

          For years NVIDIA resisted supporting GBM as used by the Mesa drivers and commonly leveraged by the Wayland compositors for buffer handling. NVIDIA's preferred approach around EGLStreams didn't gain much adoption besides patches they posted for the major compositors. Meanwhile, their work on coming up with a new device memory allocator API seems to be dead at this point and wouldn't address the issue of all existing Wayland compositors needing to be adapted to make use of it.

        • Juan A. Suarez: Implementing Performance Counters in V3D driver

          Let me talk here about how we implemented the support for performance counters in the Mesa V3D driver, the OpenGL driver used by the Raspberry Pi 4. For reference, the implementation is very similar to the one already available (not done by me, by the way) for the VC4, OpenGL driver for the Raspberry Pi 3 and prior devices, also part of Mesa. If you are already familiar with how this is implemented in VC4, then this will mostly be a refresher.

          First of all, what are these performance counters? Most of the processors nowadays contain some hardware facilities to get measurements about what is happening inside the processor. And of course graphics processors aren’t different. In this case, the graphics chips used by Raspberry Pi devices (manufactured by Broadcom) can record a bunch of different graphics-related parameters: how many quads are passing or failing depth/stencil tests, how many clock cycles are spent on doing vertex/fragment shading, hits/misses in the GPU cache, and many others values. In fact, with the V3D driver it is possible to measure around 87 different parameters, and up to 32 of them simultaneously. Quite a few less in VC4, though. But still a lot.

          On a hardware level, using these counters is just a matter of writing and reading some GPU registers. First, write the registers to select what we want to measure, then a few more to start to measure, and finally read other registers containing the results. But of course, much like we don’t expect users to write GPU assembly code, we don’t expect users to write registers in the GPU directly. Moreover, even the Mesa drivers such as V3D can’t interact directly with the hardware; rather, this is done through the kernel, the one that can use the hardware directly, through the DRM subsystem in the kernel. For the case of V3D (and same applies to VC4, and in general to any other driver), we have a driver in user-space (whether the OpenGL driver, V3D, or the Vulkan driver, V3DV), and a kernel driver in the kernel-space, unsurprisingly also called V3D. The user-space driver is in charge of translating all the commands and options created with the OpenGL API or other API to batches of commands to be executed by the GPU, which are submitted to the kernel driver as DRM jobs. The kernel does the proper actions to send these to the GPU to execute them, including touching the proper registers. Thus, if we want to implement support for the performance counters, we need to modify the code in two places: the kernel and the (user-space) driver.

        • X.Org Looks To Drop DMX After Being Rather Broken For ~14 Years - Phoronix

          X.Org's DMX DDX driver for supporting Distributed Multi-Head X looks like it will be removed from the source tree after finding out the code has been rather broken for the past 14 years.

          Back around 2007, Xdmx broke rather significantly in that if any client attempts to use OpenGL it will crash. Xdmx for distributed multi-head X serves as a proxy server so multiple displays for a desktop can be hosted from different machines / X.Org Servers. Not exactly a popular feature these days and apparently extremely rarely used given that a significant feature like OpenGL support can be broken for Xdmx clients for more than one decade.

    • Applications

      • 9 Best Free and Open Source Audio Converters

        There is a huge range of open source free audio software available for Linux which is both mature and feature-laden. Linux has all the tools needed to be a serious contender in music production without a user having to venture into the commercial software world. Linux is a superior platform for professional audio production: rock solid, efficient, and you don’t get fleeced for software licenses. Software that creates music can often be expensive.

        Do you need to convert music files to a different audio format? Unsure of what tool is best suited for the job? To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 9 high quality free and open source Linux audio converters.

        Here’s our verdict summarized in one of our legendary ratings chart.

      • Trash – a safer alternative to rm

        There are several memes circulating the Linux space: not knowing how to exit vim, invoking sudo to get someone to make you a sandwich, how Linux is the stuff clouds are made of, &c &c.

        Recently I fell victim to my own stupidity and re-created one such meme – I managed to rm -rf {$important_directory}.

        Oh, sure, I used Git, but what does Git’s history help you, if you deleted the whole repository.

        Luckily, after I made some tea and calmed down, I remembered I had working backups1, so all was fine, but lessons were learnt (for the umpfth time) …and today I will tell you how to avoid this issue in the first place. (But do set up backups still!)

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How To Install LAMP Stack on Debian 11 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install LAMP Stack on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, The LAMP Stack is a common set of open-source tools used to host websites and applications on the web. LAMP Stack is a web development platform that uses Linux as an operating system, Apache as a web server, MariaDB/MySQL as a database server, and PHP as a scripting language. It is so widely used and provides a proven set of software for delivering high-performance web applications.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of LAMP Stack on a Debian 11 (Bullseye).

      • How to Install PHP 8.0 on AlmaLinux 8

        PHP 8.0 is a major update of the PHP language released on November 26, 2020, a giant leap forward from the existing PHP 7.4 release. The new PHP contains many new features and optimizations, including named arguments, union types, attributes, constructor property promotion, match expression, null safe operators, JIT and improvements in the type system, error handling, and consistency.

      • How To Install GParted on Linux Mint 20 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install GParted on Linux Mint 20. For those of you who didn’t know, GParted or Gnome Partition Editor is a disk partition manager available for the different distro of Linux. Using GParted, we can create and manage the disk partitions. It allows us to create new partition tables, partitions, views the disk information, and many more.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the GNOME partition editor on a Linux Mint 20 (Ulyana).

      • Sync Android Phone With Linux Using KDE Connect - OSTechNix

        This guide explains what is KDE Connect and its features, how to install KDE connect in various Linux platforms and Android and finally how to sync Android phone with Linux desktop using KDE connect in order to access files and notifications from Android devices to Linux and vice versa.

      • How to Concatenate Strings in Bash [Example Scripts]

        Concatenating strings can be an important part of using any programming language for practical applications.

        You can concatenate strings in bash as well. There is no concatenation operator here. Just write the strings one after another to join strings in Bash.

        concat_string="$str1$str2" Don't worry! I’ll show you various actual examples to concatenate strings in bash.

      • Add ‘Open File/Folder as Root / Administrator’ in Elementary OS 6 [Update 2021] | UbuntuHandbook

        This is a step by step tutorial shows how to add “open as root (or administrator)” option in Pantheon file browser in Elementary OS 6 Odin.

        Elementary OS now is at version 6.0 based on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those looking for the “Open as Administrator” function to open system file via root user permission, or do copy & paste things outside of user’s home directory, things have changed.

      • How To Install LEMP Stack on Debian 11 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install LEMP Stack on Debian 11. For those of you who didn’t know, LEMP is a combination of free, open-source software. The acronym LEMP refers to the first letters of Linux (Operating system), Nginx Web Server, MySQL/MariaDB (database software), and PHP, PERL, or Python, which is popularly used for hosting extensive websites due to its performance and scalability.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of LEMP Stack on a Debian 11 (Bullseye).

      • How to Fix : Virtual Box Guru Meditation error on Linux

        I launched Virtual Box today as usual, and thought to turn on my virtual machine, but for some reason I got this error" Virtual Box Guru Meditation", I have to admit this was the first time I got this error, I had never seen this error before and I thought well I need to Investigate this more and hopefully I can find a solution so I can write about it for other people who may be getting the same issue.

        On the error tab it also tells you where the log file is located so you can look at it, to see exactly what caused this issue, so I went and checked the log file which was located on /home/user/VirtualBox VMs/arch/Logs, now on this folder you will find all logs related to Virtualbox and it actually helps to debug when an issue happens however in this case it did not, the error was still there.

    • Games

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • Kdenlive 21.08.1 is out

          The first maintenance release of the 21.08 series is out fixing regressions to Fade transition and Position and Zoom effect (when applied to bin clips) also, on Windows, Text to Speech is working again. This version adds the ability to import motion tracked data to the Alpha Shapes and Alpha Shapes (mask) effects.

        • This week in KDE: gazillions of bugfixes

          …Including many for the Plasma Wayland session! It’s finally reaching stability. I’m using it myself as a daily driver now. At this point my biggest annoyances are all with 3rd-party apps, not any KDE software. I know it’s taken a while, but I think we’re very nearly there!

        • KDE's Plasma Wayland Session Is "Finally Reaching Stability" Following Many Fixes - Phoronix

          KDE developers have kicked off September by landing many fixes for their desktop stack, including around their Plasma Wayland session.

          KDE developer Nate Graham continues to publish his weekly development summaries outlining the work on the project. This week he had good things to say about the state now of KDE on Wayland. Nate wrote, "gazillions of bugfixes...Including many for the Plasma Wayland session! It’s finally reaching stability. I’m using it myself as a daily driver now. At this point my biggest annoyances are all with 3rd-party apps, not any KDE software. I know it’s taken a while, but I think we’re very nearly there!"

        • Killing the dreaded hamburger menu — Kalendar devlog 13

          Since almost the beginning, Kalendar has depended on hamburger menus to access a lot of its key functionality: undoing/redoing, switching views, accessing settings, and so on. Last week, when we introduced the new sidebar, we managed to remove most of these items from the hamburger menu and place them where you could easily and quickly find them.

          We don’t like hamburger menus because they hamper UI discoverability and they slow interaction down. So this week we got rid of them on the desktop. But don’t worry, we’ve replaced them! Kalendar now has the tried and tested menu bar, faster and clearer than the hamburger.

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • 20 GNOME Extensions To Perfectly Balance GNOME 40

          GNOME 40 was released a few months ago with many new features and a revamped desktop experience. Many Linux distributions like Arch and Fedora already have it in their official repositories, while others like Ubuntu are about to get it in the upcoming releases.

          In any case, you may feel somehow limited by the default GNOME desktop and the few options you have to tweak. No worries. Today, we bring you 20 different useful GNOME extensions for GNOME 40.

          So that it becomes perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

    • Distributions

      • New Releases

        • Linux From Scratch 11, a distro to learn about Linux

          Have you already been through Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch Linux, Slackware, Gentoo … and you still lack things to learn to build a Linux system from scratch? That is exactly what Linux From Scratch 11 (LFS) is about , the new version of this distrolibro with which to build a Linux system from its very base and as far as you want to go.

          Linux From Scratch is an old acquaintance of any linuxer with a minimum of experience, if only for having read the name of the distro somewhere and despite not being a distro as such, as we have already said. Linux From Scratch is a distrolbook, or an instruction manual with tools ready to get started. Something like that.

      • IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

        • CloudLinux: CentOS 8 can get updated support before the end of 2025

          When the parent company RedHat announced that it would shift its focus from CentOS Linux to the CentOS Stream distribution that refactored RHEL, many CentOS users felt that they were officially abandoned. Because the support period for CentOS 8 will end at the end of 2021 instead of 2029. Fortunately, CloudLinux has stepped up and announced that it will renew CentOS 8 until December 31, 2025.

        • Revitalizing US Manufacturing

          “The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored manufacturing’s role in providing products that are critical to health, safety, national security, and the continuity of multiple industries,” said McKinsey in a recent discussion paper, Building a More Competitive US Manufacturing Sector. “It has also revealed the extent to which global supply chains are exposed to shocks and disruptions. All of this has occurred at a moment when new technologies, process innovations, and demand growth are reshaping the sector worldwide. The United States can seize on these developments to make its own manufacturing sector more competitive.”

          Manufacturing jobs helped build the US middle class after WWII. In the 1950s, it accounted for roughly 30% of employment and close to 30% of GDP. But manufacturing has significantly declined in the intervening decades, now comprising only 8% of the workforce and 11% of GDP. Manufacturing growth has particularly slowed down over the past 30 years, from 4.9% in the 1990s to 1.4% in each of the past two decades.

          Despite its dramatic decline, manufacturing continues to have a disproportionate impact on the US economy, accounting for 35% of productivity growth, 55% of patents, 70% of R&D spending, and 60% of exports. According to McKinsey, these outsize economic contributions uniquely position manufacturing to strengthen the US recovery over the long term.

          The paper examined the future of US manufacturing by looking at four distinct types, each characterized by its distinct growth opportunities, competitive dynamics, investment profiles, and occupational mix.

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • The Digital Economy Runs on Open Source. Here’s How to Protect It.

        Though most people don’t realize it, much of the technology we rely on every day runs on free and open source software (FOSS). Phones, cars, planes, and even many cutting-edge artificial intelligence programs use open-source software such as the Linux kernel operating system, the Apache and Nginx web servers, which run over 60% of the world’s websites, and Kubernetes, which powers cloud computing. The sustainability, stability, and security of these software packages is a major concern to every company that uses them (which is essentially every company). But unlike traditional closed-source software, which companies build internally and sell, FOSS is developed by an unsung army of typically unpaid developers, and is typically given away for free.

        In the last few years, we have observed an increase in the active role of corporations in open source software, by either assigning employees to contribute to existing open source projects or open sourcing their own code both to allow the community to utilize it and to help maintain it. As companies have made FOSS part of their business model, they have also acquired important FOSS producers. Two years ago, IBM purchased Red Hat, one of the most successful companies built around FOSS for $34 billion. A year before that, other tech giants paid billions to acquire a stake in FOSS, most notably Microsoft (bought GitHub for $7.5 billion) and Salesforce.com (bought MuleSoft for $6.5 billion).

        The corporate world’s entry into free and open source online communities has caused some serious concerns and friction. Acquisitions of FOSS producers could lead to a crowding-out of volunteer contributors to an extent that threatens the future health of the FOSS ecosystem. Further, the world’s largest cloud providers have built multi-billion dollar businesses on top of FOSS components, leading FOSS contributors to wonder why they are spending their free time making the rich richer. Such actions can deter volunteers from contributing, threatening the underlying ethos of the FOSS community.

      • Neither Windows, nor Linux! Shrine is ‘God’s Operating System’

        From that introduction, you’re probably wondering what the heck is going on. Well, it all started with a guy named Terry Davis. Before we go any further, I’d better warn you that Terry suffered from schizophrenia during his life and often didn’t take his medication. Because of this, he said or did things during his life that were not quite socially acceptable.

        Anyway, back to the story line. In the early 2000s, Terry released a simple operating system.

        [...]

        In 2013, Terry announced on his website that TempleOS was complete. Tragically, Terry died a few years later in August of 2018 when he was hit by a train. He was homeless at the time. Over the years, many people followed Terry through his work on the operating system. Most were impressed at his ability to write an operating system in such a small package.

      • Web Browsers

        • Mozilla

          • Mozilla VPN Client Audit Results Published [Ed: They should check not the client but the VPN servers]

            Mozilla announced the completion of an independent audit of client software for connecting to the Mozilla VPN service . The audit analyzed a stand-alone client application written using the Qt library and delivered for Linux, macOS, Windows, Android and iOS. Mozilla VPN is powered by over 400 servers from Swedish VPN provider Mullvad in over 30 countries. The connection to the VPN service is made using the WireGuard protocol .

      • Management

        • iRedMail: an Open-source Mail Server for enterprise

          iRedMail is a complete open-source mail suite that include a mail server, and a webmail client. It is built for enterprise use as it support Calendars management and sync, Contact Sync ActiveSync, CalDav and CardDav and more.

          iRedMail plays well with the popular webmail client and groupware: SOGo Groupware, so If you are planning to have a mail suite consider using SOGo and iRedMail together.

          It offers a rich-feature server backend, web-based dashboard and a webmail for email users.

          System setup does not require more than several minutes and works smoothly with Linux and Unix servers.

          [...]

          iRedMail is released and distributed under GPL v3.

        • Zammad: Free self-hosted ticketing support system

          Zammad is a web-based ticketing and customer support portal for teams, small and medium-sized companies. It helps the support team to manage customer issues and reports from several channels like phone, Facebook, emails, Twitter and chat.

          The project is in active development and update by a large community of developers and contributors.

          It is used as the primary support system by dozens of companies around the world.

          Zammad is a developer-friendly solution and offers a rich REST-API which makes it easy to integrate with other solutions and software. Developers also can use the API to build custom mobile, web or desktop apps based on it.

          [...]

          GNU AFFERO General Public License (GNU AGPLv3).

        • Automad: An Open-source Flat-file CMS with style

          Flat-File CMSs (content management systems) have always been a fascination for me. They don't require database to work and usually work out-of-the-box with low-resource server and a minimal requirement.

      • Programming/Development

  • Leftovers

    • Health/Nutrition

    • Integrity/Availability

    • Environment

      • Energy

        • Hurricane Ida Makes a Mockery of Big Oil’s Philanthropy

          AS HURRICANE IDA wrought destruction throughout Louisiana and Mississippi this week, the companies that own the oil rigs and refineries in the storm’s path — and helped fuel this and the other natural disasters now upending life in every region of the world — said very little. While a highway collapsed, people died, homes flooded, power grids shattered, and more than 1 million homes and businesses lost power, the Twitter feeds of Exxon Mobil, Marathon Oil, Valero, Phillips 66, Chevron, and Shell remained notably inactive.

          That silence contrasts with the steady patter of positive PR the big oil and gas companies usually spout about their roles as stewards of the environment. Ida — whose power stemmed from the unusually warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, turning it into the “poster child” for climate change-driven disasters — made Big Oil’s usual pledges to help us cope with the climate crisis ring impossibly hollow.

    • Finance

      • The 6 Best Ethereum Mining Software for NVIDIA and AMD

        Mining cryptocurrencies, especially Ethereum, has become extremely popular recently due to the sudden surge in Bitcoin's value. More often than not, when Bitcoin is doing well, the rest of the crypto market does really well too.

        Most people take advantage of this situation and try to make some quick cash by mining Ethereum. Using your computer's graphics card is one of the easiest ways to mine this cryptocurrency. However, you'll need mining software to get started, even if you have all the necessary hardware.

        Here, we'll look at the best Ethereum mining software for both NVIDIA and AMD GPUs.

        [...]

        You can install NBMiner on both Windows and Linux systems, so compatibility isn't really a problem. It works with both NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards out of the box. Besides Ethereum, you can also use NBMiner to mine other cryptocurrencies like RVN, GRIN, BEAM, CFX, ZIL, ERGO, AE, and SERO. So, even when Ethereum switches to Proof-of-stake, you still have other cryptocurrencies to mine and make money.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Algerian dissident case raises fears over Tunisian rights

        An Algerian dissident appeared in court in Algiers on Wednesday accused of terrorism, a person in court said, confirming he was no longer in Tunisia where he had held refugee status.

        Soulimane Bouhafs was accused of membership of MAK, a Kabylie region separatist group that Algeria declared a terrorist organisation last year, and was remanded in custody.

      • India locks down restive Kashmir after burial of separatist leader

        Authorities in Indian Kashmir imposed curbs on the movement of people and communications until Friday, a police official said, to prevent people from gathering in the streets following the death of a veteran secessionist leader.

        Syed Ali Shah Geelani was laid to rest in Indian Kashmir's main city of Srinagar in the early hours of Thursday, with the disputed Himalayan region blanketed with troops to prevent large-scale protests.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • Hands off our VPNs! #SaveTheInternet

        The Standing Committee on Home Affairs recently reiterated its stance on Virtual Private Networks or VPNs, asking for them to be permanently blocked. We wrote to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), highlighting why VPNs are important and asking for the committee’s proposal to be put through a public consultation that includes criminologists, technologists, industry and civil society organisations.

    • Monopolies

      • Patents

        • Inventorship and Artificial Intelligence [Ed: Fraudulent 'law' firm Marks & Clerk (corrupt company that also pushes software patents and cheers for criminals who run the EPO) leverages or misuses buzzwords for its extreme #patent agenda

          Artificial intelligence (AI) never ceases to challenge our certainties in the field of patent law, even if it means taking us out of the summer torpor. The latest feat in this field comes from Dr. Stephen Thaler(1), who has been trying to have AI recognised as an inventor for several years.

        • Standard-essential patent royalties set to rise after unanimous Fifth Circuit judgment in Ericsson's favor ($2.50 or 1%/$1-4 per 4G device) against HTC

          HTC's response to the original $2.50 rate was a measly $0.10 counterproposal. The reaction to the 1%/$1-4 deal was an amended complaint.

          Why such a discrepancy? Primarily it's due to the fact that HTC made a smallest salable patent-practicing unit (SSPPU) argument, claiming that the baseband processor should serve as the royalty base.

          Outside of the Northern District of California, SSPPU arguments don't seem to get traction. While I believe no court would ever be inclined to let a WiFi SEP holder collect 1% of the price of an entire airplane with WiFi on board, baseband processors that aren't fully licensed aren't the measure--and if they are fully licensed, than the value of all IP licenses far exceeds that of the raw material.

          The district court declined to overinstruct the jury, and its approach has now been affirmed. This is also a post-term achievement for the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice under then-AAG Makan Delrahim. In late 2019, the Trump DOJ had filed an amicus brief formally in support of neither party but practically in Ericsson's favor. Interestingly, Apple's amicus brief in support of automotive supplier Continental's ill-conceived U.S. case against Avanci, Nokia and others--which is pending with the same appeals court--is all about bashing the Trump DOJ.

        • In Becoming the First Country to Recognise Non-Human Inventors, is Australia a Hero of Progress, or a Chump? [Ed: Even Australian patent profiteers concerned that patents are being offers to bots or to some computer programs? This is an own goal to the patent system and its stated goals.]

          As I recently (tentatively) predicted, on Friday 30 July 2021 Justice Beach in the Federal Court of Australia handed down a judgment giving Australia the dubious honour of becoming the first country in the world to legally recognise a non-human as a valid inventor on a patent application: Thaler v Commissioner of Patents [2021] FCA 879. I would suggest that the remarkable speed with which this unnecessarily lengthy (228 paragraphs) decision was rendered, after being heard on 2 July 2021, may reflect the judge’s enthusiasm for issuing such a ground-breaking ruling. Unfortunately, I do not share that enthusiasm, and I am confident that there are many others who are equally uncomfortable with the outcome. My hope is that this includes officials within IP Australia and the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, and that the decision will be duly appealed to a Full Bench of the court. It is, in my view, deeply regrettable that the Commissioner of Patents did not put on a stronger defence in the first instance because, even though an appeal was probably inevitable either way, the worldwide publicity that this decision is now generating is not necessarily beneficial for Australia.

        • SA becomes the first country in the world to award a patent to an AI-generated invention [Ed: This is so harmful to the patent "profession" that even some maximalists who push patents and litigation have begun worrying (it's a self-discrediting circus)]

          South Africa recently became what is believed to be the first country in the world to award a patent to an invention by an Artificial Intelligence (AI).

          An interlocking food and beverage container based on fractal geometry has been awarded a patent by South Africa’s Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC). Confirmation of the patent was published in the commission’s journal on 28 July.

        • Full Scope Written Description

          The COVID vaccines do not genetically modify your DNA, but Juno’s patented CAR T-Cell therapy certainly does. Sloan Kettering owns U.S. patent No. 7,446,190 and Juno (BMS) is the exclusive licensee. The patent claims a nucleic acid polymer (DNA/RNA) that encodes for a particular “chimeric T cell receptor.” The idea here is part of a revolutionary CAR T-Cell therapy that genetically modifies a patient’s own T-Cells so that it will be able to recognize (and thus attack) specific antigens. The inventors have been awarded numerous accolades for showing that this approach works to treat some lymphomas. Kite’s “YESCARTA” therapy was found to infringe.

          [...]

          Full Scope Written Description: The Patent Act requires that the specification include “a written description of the invention.” 35 U.S.C. €§ 112*(a). The specification needs to convey that the inventor had “possession” of the claimed invention as of the patent application’s filing date. Written description regularly arises with regard to genus claims — claims covering multiple embodiments. In that situation, the court is looking for possession of the “full scope” of the invention as claimed. Typically this involves disclosure of “either a representative number of species falling within the scope of the genus or structural features common to the members of the genus so that one of skill in the art can ‘visualize or recognize’ the members of the genus.” Ariad. The test is even tougher for functionally-defined genus since structure cannot be derived from the claim language itself.

        • Earlier Start Likely For Europe’s Unified Patent Court [Ed: Ian Schofield is relaying lies for Team UPC. UPC is dead, but they pretend it's about timetables (for what, a funeral?). This is another Big Pharma-funded propaganda mill that lacks fact-checking.]

          Having cleared numerous hurdles along the way, the proposed new patent system in Europe now appears to be approaching the home straight, with completion forecast for mid-2022. But will a unitary patent with pan-European effect necessarily be the best option in all cases?

        • AI’s right to legal identity in India [Ed: Quit using meaningless buzzwords and start using a language that actually means something, like "treating computer program like it is a person"]

          on-human entities such as limited liability companies and their separate distinct identity are recognised by individuals and the legal system. Their identity is a creature of the phenomenon of “legal fiction”, which has been invoked in India to confer rights such as the preservation of rivers. Artificial intelligence (AI) reignites a similar debate on legal personhood. Advocates of IP and economic growth have consistently propagated the cause of recognising AI inventions in law. However, this is different from the issue that debates granting legal recognition to AI as an independent entity.

        • IP Australia appeals seminal AI inventorship ruling [Ed: Australia realises it looks idiotic to the whole world after saying granting monopolies to bots is acceptable]

          Australia's commissioner of patents has filed an appeal against a decision to recognise an artificial intelligence tool as an inventor

        • Only Humans, Not AI, Can Be An Inventor, Va. Judge Rules

          A Virginia federal judge ruled Thursday that artificial intelligence cannot be listed as an inventor on a patent application, holding that the Patent Act makes clear that inventing is the exclusive legal province of human beings.

          Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia shut down a suit against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by AI researcher Stephen Thaler, who sued after the office rejected applications he filed seeking patents on inventions he claims were developed by an AI machine he created.

          "Can an artificial intelligence machine be an 'inventor' under the Patent Act? Based on the plain statutory language... Stay ahead of the curve In the legal profession, information is the key to success. You have to know what’s happening with clients, competitors, practice areas, and industries. Law360 provides the intelligence you need to remain an expert and beat the competition.

        • Only Humans, Not AI Machines, Can Get a U.S. Patent, Judge Rules

          A computer using artificial intelligence can’t be listed as an inventor on patents because only a human can be an inventor under U.S. law, a federal judge ruled in the first American decision that’s part of a global debate over how to handle computer-created innovation.

          Federal law requires that an “individual” take an oath that he or she is the inventor on a patent application, and both the dictionary and legal definition of an individual is a natural person, ruled U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia.

        • Software Patents

          • MPEG LA and TCL settle disputes with help from key advisors

            On 1 September, MPEG LA announced that TCL is now a licensee of MPEG LA’s AVC/H.264 licensing program. This puts an end to all patent enforcement litigation brought by members of MPEG LA’s patent pool against the Chinese company.

            According to JUVE Patent information, the pool members IP Bridge, NEC and Panasonic had filed suit at the Regional Court Düsseldorf in July 2020. The court had scheduled an oral hearing for last Tuesday. However, the companies agreed on a settlement before it could take place.

          • $2,000 for R2 Solutions, an Acacia subsidiary, prior art

            On September 1, 2021, Unified Patents added a new PATROLL contest, with a $2,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on U.S. Patent No. 8,190,610. The patent is owned by R2 Solutions LLC, an Acacia Research Corporation entity. The '610 generally relates to an input data set is treated as a plurality of grouped sets of key/value pairs, which enhances the utility of the MapReduce programming methodology. It is currently being asserted against Walmart, iHeartRadio, Target, Expedia, Roku, Workday, Deezer and others.

          • Determining An Analysis Chronicle: Non-Technical [Ed: Patent zealots from Bardehle Pagenberg still pushing the lunacy of software patents, even in Europe where those patents are not allowed but the EPO has been infiltrated and corrupted to the core, including its tribunals]

            Presentation of information as such is excluded from patentability under Article 52(2)(d) and (3) EPC.

            Reduction of user distraction or disruption by selectively presenting information to the user fulfils the cognitive interests or needs of the user, which is not a technical purpose or based on technical considerations.

            A bonus effect which is at best incidental to a non-technical solution is not a technical effect on which an inventive step can be based.

          • Projection Surface With Built-In Track Pad: Technical [Ed: Totally missing the key point that those EPO boards are crooked kangaroo courts under immense pressure (threats) by the Mafia that illegally took over the office to just allow software patents]

            Initially, the Board of Appeal agreed with the Examining Board that the subject-matter of (old) claim 1 lacked of inventive step (Article 56 EPC) in view of D1 (US 2005/273345) in combination with D3 (Ammer A: "Projector-Camera System for Flexible Interactive Projections", 2005, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden, XP002470986).

      • Trademarks

      • Copyrights

        • Copyrightability of a Programming Language

          This is a follow-up post on the pending SAS v. WPL appeal before the Federal Circuit. The focus of the case is copyrightability of the SAS statistical software and its outputs. SAS argues that it made a “plethora of creative choices” in developing its material, and that creativity is more than sufficient to satisfy the originality requirements of copyright law. Thus far, the courts have disagreed with SAS and rejected its copyright assertions. However, the company has now positioned its case before the intellectual property friendly Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

          [...]

          In a prior post, I wrote about the SAS appeal including a number of amicus briefs supporting their strong copyright claim. Now the other-side has had its chance to respond, including substantial amicus support. The Federal Circuit’s Google v. Oracle decisions are sitting in the background. Although the Supreme Court eventually sided with Google on fair use grounds, it did not disturb the Federal Circuit’s copyrightability decision that strongly supported copyright protection even for functional software. WPL’s amicus supporters are concerned that the Federal Circuit will reinvigorate its approach to copyrightability in SAS.



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