Summary: As we noted yesterday, Windows is down sharply this month (27.1% market share worldwide) and the decreases are very significant in Africa, where Android (Linux-based) is spreading fast. Here’s a chart for Africa, showing Microsoft’s decrease to about 16%.
Orange is Android, blue is Windows.
Summary: After turbulence and technical issues at KiwiIRC we’ve managed to get a semi-working solution or some workaround
FOR about a year already we have had easy-to-access IRC widgets, first below posts and then to he right hand side of them. We recognise that many people don’t know what IRC is and how to use it. Widgets help abstract that away. Last Sunday or rather the Sunday before this past Sunday KiwiIRC folks managed to break their systems. At first, no Web interfaces worked. 2 days later they fixed this, but the interface for customising widgets has remained broken since then. We’ve tried every 1-2 days since then, to no avail…
“IRC is very important. It’s a communication tool hosted in our own network and server.”A lot of time was spent on this in vain. Today, about 9 days later, we’ve implemented a workaround. The widget does not look like it looked before, but it should generally work. Over the past decade we’ve repeatedly researched the possibility of self-hosting such Web interfaces/widgets, but it seemed impractical for different reasons. As always, we recommend using a proper IRC client with the details specified in our IRC portal.
IRC is very important. It’s a communication tool hosted in our own network and server. We receive a lot of tips through that. We can protect our sources this way. █
Summary: Last week’s public appearance by Torvalds seemed reluctant and a tad embarrassing (the media pointed out the awkwardness, too); whose idea was that, the Linux Foundation‘s?
Used for marketing by Intel last week:
Trolling by Microsoft's Lennart Poettering a decade ago:
Video download link | md5sum 39c71c961410d5ff77c6d2e547b01df4
Lennart Poettering versus backward compatibility or API stability
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
The Arch User Repository or the AUR is an absolutely incredible resource and will usually have everything that you could possibly want this even includes weird packages that don’t seem to make any sense in how they’re packaged
Firefox is the default browser on most desktop distributions of Linux, but sometimes we may not get updates from our maintainer as fast as we’d like. In other cases, we may not like how our distro packages Firefox. In this video, Jay will show you a method of implementing a custom Firefox installation that will be 100% under your control, and you’ll get updates directly from Mozilla!
Loads of discoveries including quickly fixing command line flubs, a must-have tool for USB booting, managing snapshots, and a router distro. Plus the problem with open-sourcing AI, Graham makes a dreadful racket, and more.
I am known to be a bit of a polemic when it comes to Rust. I will be forthright with the fact that I don’t particularly care for Rust, and that my public criticisms of it might set up many readers with a reluctance to endure yet another Rust Hot Take from my blog. My answer to the question posed in the title is, of course, “no”. However, let me assuage some of your fears by answering a different question first: does Hare belong in the Linux kernel?
If I should owe my allegiance to any programming language, it would be Hare. Not only is it a systems programming language that I designed myself, but I am using it to write a kernel. Like Rust, Hare is demonstrably useful for writing kernels with. One might even go so far as to suggest that I consider it superior to C for this purpose, given that I chose to to write Helios in Hare it rather than C, despite my extensive background in C. But the question remains: does Hare belong in the Linux kernel?
In my opinion, Hare does not belong in the Linux kernel, and neither does Rust. Some of the reasoning behind this answer is common to both, and some is unique to each, but I will be focusing on Rust today because Rust is the language which is actually making its way towards mainline Linux. I have no illusions about this blog post changing that, either: I simply find it an interesting case-study in software engineering decision-making in a major project, and that’s worth talking about.
Each change in software requires sufficient supporting rationale. What are the reasons to bring Rust into Linux? A kernel hacker thinks about these questions differently than a typical developer in userspace. One could espouse about Cargo, generics, whatever, but these concerns matter relatively little to kernel hackers. Kernels operate in a heavily constrained design space and a language has to fit into that design space. This is the first and foremost concern, and if it’s awkward to mold a language to fit into these constraints then it will be a poor fit.
The open-source Linux operating system is an essential component of the cloud and enterprise application delivery. In fact, every cloud service, even Microsoft, offers Linux-based compute resources and Linux is often the default choice for embedded and internet of things (IoT) devices. Among the major Linux distribution vendors today are IBM’s Red Hat business unit, German vendor SUSE and Canonical, which develops the Ubuntu Linux distribution.
The market for Linux is forecast to grow to $22.15 billion by 2029, according to Fortune Business Insights, up from $6.27 billion in 2022.
At the foundation of Linux is the kernel, which provides the core set of hardware drivers and functional services that enable an operating system. The Linux kernel was first released by developer Linus Torvalds in 1992 and to this day, Torvalds still helps to shepherd the release process, alongside the contributions of hundreds of developers around the world.
In other recent tech news from around the web, short promotional videos for the upcoming Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro have leaked a few days ahead of their official launch, if you have an older iPad with Apple SIM support… now you can’t use that technology to activate service on cellular networks anymore, and Linux 6.0 was released over the weekend.
The latest version of the Linux kernel has arrived with the usual batch of hardware updates. The latest version doesn’t include any major changes, but Linus Torvalds signaled an upcoming addition of code written in Rust in the next version.
No Major Changes, But “Core New Things” on the Horizon
While the version number would imply a major change in other software projects, Linus Torvalds said that it’s mostly about just keeping version numbers manageable in a message to the Linux Kernel Mailing List, the main hub of kernel development.
A stable version of Linux 6.0 is out, with 15,000 non-merge commits and a notable version number for the kernel. And while major Linux releases only happen when the prior number’s dot numbers start looking too big—”there is literally no other reason”—there are a lot of notable things rolled into this release besides a marking in time.
Most notable among them could be a patch that prevents a nearly two-decade slowdown for AMD chips, based on workaround code for power management in the early 2000s that hung around for far too long. Intel’s Dave Hansen wrote the patch that made it into 6.0, noting in a comment on an Ars post that the issue had become an expensive drain as AMD systems gained higher CPU core counts. The average desktop user won’t see huge gains, but larger systems working on intensive input/output applications should benefit.
Intel’s new Arc GPUs are supported in their discrete laptop form in 6.0 (though still experimental). Linux blog Phoronix notes that Intel’s ARC GPUs all seem to run on open source upstream drivers, so support should show up for future Intel cards and chipsets as they arrive on the market.
Linux 6.0 includes several hardware drivers of note: fourth-generation Intel Xeon server chips, the not-quite-out 13th-generation Raptor Lake and Meteor Lake chips, AMD’s RDNA 3 GPUs, Threadripper CPUs, EPYC systems, and audio drivers for a number of newer AMD systems.
Ars’ Kevin Purdy notes that in 2022, “there are patches in Linux 6.0 to help Atari’s Falcon computers from the early 1990s (or their emulated descendants) better handle VGA modes, color, and other issues.”
A few owners of Raptor Lake (opens in new tab) and Arc Alchemist (opens in new tab) who wish to escape the Microsoft hegemony and see the world of open-source software are now awake today. On the other hand, the news went up with the announcement that Linux kernel 6.0 would help their cutting-edge platforms direct.
Both the Snapdragon 8cx Gen3 and the Arm-based SoCs and Chromebooks, such as the Allwinner H616, found in TV streaming boxes and the NXP i.M.X93 embedded processor board. Raspberry Pi 4 has been upgraded to’stable’ status, with new updates for AMDs RDNA 3. Rockchip RK3588 devices, such as the Pine64 QuartzPro64 (pictured above) receive an MMC driver for their onboard storage.
Being parents one can easily have control over the internet usage of their kids using these 6 free Parental control software for Linux that works with Ubuntu. These come in different shapes and sizes but have features like site content filtering, screen time management and website blocking.
There are some applications that come with built-in controls but still, it is very important that you learn everything they can do to see if you need a more robust solution. The first thing is that you think about the age of your child along with your level of maturity so that you can come to a decision on what they should and should have access to.
FFmpeg is an open-source collection of libraries and tools used to process audio, video, and other multimedia-related files. It can be used to compress video size on almost all platforms.
It works great for compression but isn’t limited to it. Some of its applications are format transcoding, video editing, video scaling, etc.
The tool is very useful if you need to send large media files via the internet. Sometimes, large file sizes aren’t feasible for people who are low on storage or who have to frequently send media files over the internet. Compression helps reduce the size of a file takes while preserving the file content.
Using FFmpeg might be challenging to some users, but it is not that complicated. Since it is a command line utility, you can just follow the steps mentioned in this article and reduce your video size.
In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Chia on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Chia is a new kind of cryptocurrency that instead of using Proof of Space. Chia depends on the hard disk’s memory instead of the processing power (like other cryptocurrencies, i.e., Bitcoin). The user investing in the Chia blockchain is known as the farmer. The hard disk storage dedicated by a farmer for “Chia” is known as “Proof of space”, and the time invested by the farmer is referred to as “Proof of time”.
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 Chia blockchain on Ubuntu 22.04 (Jammy Jellyfish). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 22.04 and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint, Elementary OS, Pop!_OS, and more as well.
In this tutorial, we will show you how to install MongoDB on Linux Mint 21. For those of you who didn’t know, MongoDB is a very popular NoSQL database that can be used with both Linux and Windows operating systems. It stores data in JSON-like documents which offers high flexibility and dynamism and is therefore used in creating powerful applications and websites and makes it differs fundamentally from conventional relational databases.
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 MongoDB NoSQL database on Linux Mint 21 (Vanessa).
In this tutorial, we are going to install WonderCMS on Ubuntu 22.04, and we will use Nginx as a web server.
WonderCMS is a content management system written in PHP that uses javascript, jQuery, and CSS. This software does not require a traditional database system like MySQL or SQLite, and the data is saved in a small text file called a flat file.
Installing WonderCMS on Ubuntu 22.04 with Nginx as a web server is a very easy process that can take up to 10 minutes. Let’s get started!
As a system administrator, it’s your responsibility to keep the system up and running to avoid any service disruptions. However, sometimes, there are situations when your system shuts down or reboots. This can be due to the system unexpectedly losing power or some user intentionally rebooting it.
Whatever the reason is, you can check your Linux system’s shutdown and restart history to see when this activity exactly happened. This information will provide you with a starting point to begin the troubleshooting.
For many, Docker has been the container runtime for years. It’s simple to use and has plenty of third-party tools available to make it more efficient and accessible. Of course, Docker isn’t the only option. And if your host operating system of choice is of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux variety, such as RHEL, Rocky Linux or AlmaLinux, Docker has been replaced by Podman.
Learn the steps to install OpenToonz 2D animation software on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy JellyFish Linux using the command terminal.
“OpenToonz” is a 2D animation software that allows you to bring static drawings such as animals, people, and entire environments to life. In this way, short films, cartoons, or entire animated series can be produced. Among other things, the program offers the possibility to import hand-made sketches and convert them into editable lines and shapes.
In addition, you can use the Paint tool to add color to scenes and objects and blend them together on multiple layers. Effects such as image style, the incidence of light, or distortion can be inserted or removed with just a few clicks. In the timeline and the node tree, you keep track of all settings and parameters of the animation.
Even well-known TV series such as Futurama rely on the animation software Toonz. Now the program is also available for free as an open-source tool. After a bit of learning, you can create moving figures from static drawings or even your own animated series.
The open-source version of Toonz is based on the normal Toonz software which is also used by the Japanese Studio Ghibli. Thus, all features developed by the studio itself are also included in OpenToonz.
The Gallery is a new FMV (Full Motion Video) game – a genre that we can also describe as interactive movies. It’s been a very long time since I played a FMV game. There were a lot of those back in the early 90s, as the CD-ROM was introduced on the market as a massive storage medium. For the kids out there who just came out of their mothers after 2000, in the early 90s most of the storage was limited to floppy disks (1.4 Megabyte per disk) and small hard drives (in the hundreds of Megabytes). Most games were designed to fit in those constraints, and with the sudden advent of the CD-ROM, having full motion video as part of a game become a reality. This was often used as an excuse to make “remasters” of games by slapping a couple of sloppy FMVs sequences on top of them. At that time everyone was easily impressed by full motion video in games: it was new, it was a technical feat (the hardware at the time was barely capable of decoding FMV decently), and it was relatively cheap to make and produce. There were quite a few games mostly centered around FMV themselves, interactive movies if you’d like. And then you had those that mixed actual games with a lot of FMV, such as Wing Commander 3 (featuring Mark Hamill from Star Wars fame) that had the biggest budget of any game ever made at that time, or Under the Killing Moon (a great adventure game with cutscenes and conversations mixing CGI and video) – to cite the best examples. Seeing Wing Commander 3 in 1994/1995 was like seeing the future. No game managed to make you feel like you were in actual movie until then.
[...]
Oh yeah, you probably want to know if the game works as is on Steam? Actually, no. It won’t work if you use the regular Proton or even Experimental, at least at the time of writing: the videos won’t display, which makes the game unplayable. But GE-Proton (any recent version) will do the trick to make it work the way it’s supposed to.
Today, we bring you a new report on the Maui Project’s progress.
Maui 2.2.1 was released almost two months ago, and since then new features, bug fixes, and improvements have been made to the Maui set of apps and frameworks; the following blog post will cover some of the changes and highlights coming to the upcoming stable release.
What’s new?
Among many bug fixes that will be listed below, some of the highlights include paper-cut fixes to the MauiKit controls look and feel, such as translucent overflowing content, a new TabView, and more coherent and cohesive controls; more powerful features to the Maui apps, and updates to the latest libraries used by Maui apps.
For twenty-five years, SUSE has collaborated and innovated with Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE), to create a seamless hardware and software experience. As part of this extended partnership we are proud to announce the availability of SUSE Rancher, K3s and SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro (SLE Micro) with HPE Pointnext support bundled-in, starting October 3rd.
The next major release of Debian will ship installation images that are not 100 percent free open source software.
If you decide to try Debian GNU/Linux, even if you ignore the multitude of Debian derivatives and remixes, there remains an important and non-obvious choice to make: which image do you download?
Aside from the many platforms and architectures that Debian supports in what it calls ports, and despite the downloads page pointing you at at a sensible default, the problem is that the default download image is built entirely from FOSS components, meaning that it doesn’t include any vendor BLOBs (Binary Large Objects).
If your internet connection is via Wi-Fi, for instance, there is a strong probability that the default Debian ISO will not be able to bring up Wi-Fi – because many Wi-Fi adapters require some vendor firmware to be uploaded to the device before you can connect. This firmware is proprietary, and therefore Debian doesn’t include it.
The Debian project is making a major change to how it handles proprietary software in the next version. Debian 12′s installer will feature proprietary firmware in order to make installation easier with Wi-Fi adapters.
[...]
Debian is one of the oldest Linux distributions that is still actively maintained. Debian is well-known for hewing closer to the free software movement, to the point where it was endorsed for a time by the Free Software Foundation and refers to itself as a “GNU/Linux” system, in accordance with Richard Stallman’s preferred terminology.
Debian is also known for making design decisions in a democratic manner and putting decisions to a vote among members of the community.
The results are out. Debian’s team voted for one single ISO installer with non-free firmware included.
Today, Debian provides two basic installer types – “free” and “non-free”. The “free” installer contains actual “free and open-source” packages, whereas the “non-free” contains the proprietary firmware package.
Since the majority of the average user needs an “out of the box” Debian experience, it’s easier to use the non-free firmware Debian ISO image.
But, finding the non-free firmware image is a little difficult for the average Linux user (I explained it in a prior installation guide). Because it’s kind of “hidden” under several directories. Here’s an example of the paths you need to browse to locate the non-free ISO.
Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 755 for the week of September 25 – October 1, 2022. The full version of this issue is available here.
Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux operating system has, for a very long time, been considered one of the best options for users of all sorts. One of the best features of Ubuntu is that it all works effortlessly out of the box, which has been a plus of the operating system for some time. And with 22.10, that still holds.
On top of that continued ease of use, the latest version, Kinetic Kudu, adds several new features into the mix to make this release an outstanding option for any type of user.
What exactly can be found in the latest release of Ubuntu? Let’s dive in and take a look.
Ubuntu, the popular Linux distribution from Canonical, sees the latest release, 22, 10.10, come out in beta as of October. Ubuntu 22.10 sees the integration of the Gnome 43 desktop in the free operating system and has a very nice default wallpaper image. Thanks to the new tab, OMG!Ubuntu, who has brought one of the details here to our attention.
Every day news stories on this august site cover things that’re going to happen or products that exist, so there’s no such thing as a’sheer’ to provide you a report that something is not going to happen or happen. That’s the case for the 22,10 version of popular Linux distro Pop!_OS, which has not only exist, but is still still developing according to a report on the OMG!Ubuntu (opens in a new tab).
Now the latest Pop!_OS release has 22.04, Gnome 42. The system 76 uses a COSMIC computer environment to create this product which has hacked the most expensive Ubuntu generation. The new COSMIC desktop environment is being built in Rust rather than using Gnome extensions. In a reddit post, Michael Murphy explained why: There is little need to replace Pop to 22.10. 22.10 isn’t a LTS release, so if we release it, we’ll be forced to repatch and rebase Pop in six months after the next LTS in 24.04. It takes a lot of time to support Ubuntu, and the six month release cycle really suffocates the production time and stability.
If you’re new to electronics and want to learn to make your own devices, an Arduino project is a good place to start. Build it on an Arduino board – an open source microcontroller that allows you to explore the wonderful world of DIY electronics – with the benefit of a large helpful community. If you’re wondering what should you buy first, what follows is a descriptive list of everything you need in a starter kit to get you into the swing of things.
This iteration of the Weekly Update contains less headlines than usually.
Seventeen new GNU releases in the last month (as of October 03, 2022)…
Our Embedded Linux system development course has been for many years one of our most popular training courses. It is our course targeted at engineers who are getting started with Linux on embedded systems, and need to understand the big picture, but with a sufficiently deep level of details. It describes the overall structure of an embedded Linux system, and teaches step by step how it is build: cross-compilation toolchain, bootloader, Linux kernel, minimal root filesystem, storage, integration of user-space components, build systems, etc.
[...]
The course is currently delivered with practical labs done on the STM32MP1 platform from ST, but we intend to port it on the BeagleBone Black and Qemu as well. In any case, the course is very generic and relevant for all embedded Linux projects, regardless of the specific hardware platform being used.
The accepted sessions for the upcoming Netdev 0×16 have been posted. The conference will be held virtually and in-person in Lisbon, Portugal October 24-28. In addition, early-bird registration rates have been extended to October 4.
The latest feature release Git v2.38.0 is now available at the
usual places. It is comprised of 699 non-merge commits since
v2.37.0, contributed by 92 people, 24 of which are new faces [*].
The tarballs are found at:
https://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/
The following public repositories all have a copy of the 'v2.38.0'
tag and the 'master' branch that the tag points at:
url = https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git
url = https://kernel.googlesource.com/pub/scm/git/git
url = git://repo.or.cz/alt-git.git
url = https://github.com/gitster/git
New contributors whose contributions weren't in v2.37.0 are as follows.
Welcome to the Git development community!
Andrew Olsen, Anthony Delannoy, Carlos López, Celeste Liu,
Cleber Rosa, David Plumpton, Elijah Conners, Eric DeCosta,
Goss Geppert, Hubert Bossot, Ilya K, Ingy dot Net, Jacob Stopak,
Julien Rouhaud, Kilian Kilger, Lana Deere, Manuel Boni, Matthew
Klein, Miaoqian Lin, Moritz Baumann, Pavel Rappo, Pierre Garnier,
Richard Oliver, and Xavier Morel.
Returning contributors who helped this release are as follows.
Thanks for your continued support.
Abhradeep Chakraborty, Adam Dinwoodie, Ævar Arnfjörð
Bjarmason, Alexander Shopov, Alex Henrie, Arthur Milchior,
Bagas Sanjaya, brian m. carlson, Calvin Wan, Carlo Marcelo
Arenas Belón, Christian Couder, Christoph Reiter, Derrick
Stolee, Dimitriy Ryazantcev, Đoàn Trần Công Danh, Elijah
Newren, Emily Shaffer, Emir SARI, Eric Sunshine, Fangyi
Zhou, Felipe Contreras, Fernando Ramos, Glen Choo, Han Xin,
Hariom Verma, Jacob Keller, Jaydeep Das, Jean-Noël Avila,
Jeff King, Jiang Xin, Joey Hess, Johannes Schindelin, John
Cai, Jonathan Tan, Jordi Mas, Josh Steadmon, Junio C Hamano,
Justin Donnelly, Kyle Zhao, Lessley Dennington, Li Linchao,
Linus Torvalds, Martin Ågren, Matheus Tavares, Matthew John
Cheetham, Michael J Gruber, Øystein Walle, Peter Krefting,
Philip Oakley, Philippe Blain, Phillip Szelat, Phillip Wood,
Ralf Thielow, Randall S. Becker, Renato Botelho, René Scharfe,
Shaoxuan Yuan, Siddharth Asthana, SZEDER Gábor, Tao Klerks,
Taylor Blau, Teng Long, Todd Zullinger, Torsten Bögershausen,
Victoria Dye, Yi-Jyun Pan, ZheNing Hu, and 依云.
[*] We are counting not just the authorship contribution but issue
reporting, mentoring, helping and reviewing that are recorded in
the commit trailers.
Version 2.38.0 of the Git distributed version-control system has been released.
Git-cinnabar is a git remote helper to interact with mercurial repositories. It allows to clone, pull and push from/to mercurial remote repositories, using git.
After waiting for almost two, two, and a half months, I finally got mum’s death certificate last week. A part of me was saddened as it felt like I was nailing her or putting nails to the coffin or whatever it is, (even though I’m an Agarwal) I just felt sad and awful. I was told just get a death certificate and your problems will be over. Some people wanted me to give some amount under the table or something which I didn’t want to party of and because of that perhaps it took a month, month and a half more as I came to know later that it had been issued almost a month and a half back. The inflation over the last 8 years of the present Govt. has made the corrupt even more corrupt, all the while projecting and telling others that the others are corrupt. There had been also a few politicians who were caught red-handed but then pieces of evidence & witnesses vanish overnight. I don’t really wanna go in that direction as it would make for an unpleasant reading with no solutions at all unless the present Central Govt. goes out.
Telecommunincations company Singtel Optus has finally provided details of how many customers were affected by the data breach, saying that 2.1 million users had personal ID data stolen.
This includes 150,000 who had their passport details filched and 50,000 whose Medicare details were purloined.
In a statement, sent on Monday to users who had been affected, the company said of the 2.1 million, approximately 1.2 million customers had at least one number from a current and valid form of identification, and personal information, compromised.
Open-source software is one of the most innovative developments of the past few decades. Open-source is code that is publicly available and editable. While this sounds dangerous for security, it can actually significantly improve it by allowing anyone to fix errors. Applying the open-source methodology of collaboration to cybersecurity can greatly affect everyone’s security.
I was able to find a little spare time to work on cleaning up the PowerSeeker 127EQ (5-inch) which my friend loaned me. This mainly involved removing the primary mirror and cleaning it off. I just used water and very gentle wipes with a spare clean t-shirt. Not sure if that is the best approach, but it looked decent afterward, and I don’t think I scratched it any.
Unfortunately, we are still having what I call the “cloud apocalypse” here in Fairbanks, Alaska. This last week was a seemingly unbroken chain of overcast days and nights — very thick clouds with some light rain here and there. And the forecast was showing all the same for the next week. In a moment of desperation last night, I noticed there was one clear patch of sky visible, so I decide I would go ahead and give the PowerSeeker a try.
Anything we can do to fight climate change without a state, I’m all for. Keep up the good work. I’m not saying to throw anything out of our existing toolbox.
What are some meaningful interventions that a state or international organization like the UN can do more easily than we can do on our own?
Clickbait is encouraged in order to generate more revenue for websites, that are usually filled with ads or spyware. In other words, profit.
We’ve all seen how dire is the state of clickbait on the WWW. Articles are beginning to get written by neural networks just to automate clickbait, most of the titles are very exaggerated and you cannot find anything without stumbling upon some clickbait.
On Gemini however, clickbait isn’t present, at least as of writing this, because there’s no incentive to make profit. The restricted nature of the protocol makes it hard to monetize, in this case it’s a good thing. We write here for fun, not to earn money.
* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.
What’s up, guys!!! In this video, we check out Crystal Linux. Crystal Linux is a brand new Arch Linux-based distribution. Friendly, powerful, and easy to use.
This shows you all the steps to install a MacOS VM in Linux QEMU using Virtual Machine Manager or virt-manager.
In the fortieth episode of the WordPress Briefing, Josepha Haden Chomphosy sits down with special guests Anne McCarthy and Brian Alexander to discuss the Testing Team and how to get started with testing in the WordPress project.
GNU Linux-libre 6.0-gnu (-ETOOSIXY) cleaning-up scripts, cleaned-up
sources, and cleaning-up logs (including tarball signatures) are now
available from our git-based release archive
git://linux-libre.fsfla.org/releases.git/ tags
{scripts,sources,logs}/v6.0-gnu.
Compressed tarballs and incremental patches are also available at
<https://www.fsfla.org/selibre/linux-libre/download/releases/6.0-gnu/>.
The cleanup scripts required a change after rc7, because of blob names
changed for the final release upstream.
Jason Self and I have settled on -ETOOSIXY as the codename for this
release, and wrote a parody titled "I'm Too Sixy". Jason made the image.
https://www.fsfla.org/selibre/linux-libre/ETOOSIXY.en.html
Freesh and RPMFreedom, the distributions of .deb and .rpm packages of
GNU Linux-libre maintained by Jason Self, are expected to have binaries
of 6.0-gnu available shortly.
== Cleaning-up changes in this release
Blob requests have been neutered in the UCSI interface driver for
STM32G0, and in the CS35L41 HD-audio side codec driver.
MediaTek MT76 drivers have had their mcu blob requests refactored into a
connac mcu library, and cleaning up scripts have been adjusted to match.
Multiple dts files for Qualcomm and MediaTek AArch64 systems have been
added, requiring blob names in them to be cleaned up.
Cleaning up of blob names and requests in AMDGPU, Adreno, Tegra VIC,
Netronome NFP, and Habanalabs Gaudi2 drivers have been updated.
The VXGE driver was removed upstream, so we could drop the corresponding
cleaning up logic.
For up-to-the-minute news, join us on IRC (#gnu-linux-libre on
libera.chat). I often mention our releases on P2P or federated social
media as well. The link in my email signature has directions.
Be Free! with GNU Linux-libre.
What is GNU Linux-libre?
------------------------
GNU Linux-libre is a Free version of the kernel Linux (see below),
suitable for use with the GNU Operating System in 100% Free
GNU/Linux-libre System Distributions.
http://www.gnu.org/distros/
It removes non-Free components from Linux, that are disguised as
source code or distributed in separate files. It also disables
run-time requests for non-Free components, shipped separately or as
part of Linux, and documentation pointing to them, so as to avoid
(Free-)baiting users into the trap of non-Free Software.
http://www.fsfla.org/anuncio/2010-11-Linux-2.6.36-libre-debait
Linux-libre started within the gNewSense GNU/Linux distribution.
It was later adopted by Jeff Moe, who coined its name, and in 2008
it became a project maintained by FSF Latin America. In 2012, it
became part of the GNU Project.
The GNU Linux-libre project takes a minimal-changes approach to
cleaning up Linux, making no effort to substitute components that
need to be removed with functionally equivalent Free ones.
Nevertheless, we encourage and support efforts towards doing so.
http://libreplanet.org/wiki/LinuxLibre:Devices_that_require_non-free_firmware
Our mascot is Freedo, a light-blue penguin that has just come out
of the shower. Although we like penguins, GNU is a much greater
contribution to the entire system, so its mascot deserves more
promotion. See our web page for their images.
http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/
If you are the author of an awesome program and want to join us in
writing Free (libre) Software, please consider making it an official
GNU program and become a GNU Maintainer. You can find instructions
on how to do so at https://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation. We look
forward to hacking with you! :)
What is Linux?
--------------
Linux is a clone of the Unix kernel [...]
(snipped from Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst)
Linux 6.0 is a major new kernel number, but doesn’t represent big fundamental changes. That’s coming in Linux 6.1.
The new version of Linux — Linux 6.0 — has been launched. However, based on its founder Linux Torvalds’ reactions, the best of this new OS is yet to come. Torvalds is more excited about the upcoming 6.1 version of the Linus kernel. He mentioned that Linux 6.0 does not contain the ‘core new things’ coming in Linux 6.1.
Nonetheless, Torvalds hailed Linux 6.0 as “one of the bigger releases at least in numbers of commits in a while”, thanks largely to the inclusion of “15,000 non-merge commits in there in total”. In open source, the ‘number of commits’ means that the user is permitted to contribute source code changes.
The Linux Kernel 6.0 officially drops, and now, it introduces an interesting new feature which is its support for AArch64 hardware architecture. This allows it to swap huge transparent pages without even needing to split them.
Although it will be some time before most Linux distributions ship with the latest kernel, the next major release is now available.
Over on the Linux Kernel Mail List, Linus Torvalds announced the availability of the latest kernel by saying, “So, as is hopefully clear to everybody, the major version number change is more about me running out of fingers and toes than it is about any big fundamental changes.”
That doesn’t mean, however, there aren’t any changes and new editions to be found in the 6.0 release. In fact, with regards to the number of commits, the 6.0 kernel is one of the biggest releases in a while.
The new additions to the Linux kernel include a new graphics driver for the AMD RDNA 3 GPU, a new audio driver for AMD’s “Jadeite” systems, support for PCI buses on OpenRISC and LoongArch systems, improved cache block management for RISC-V, new support for the Lenovo ThinkPad X13 laptop, fixes for TUXEDO and Clevo laptop touchpads, initial support for XP-PEN Deco L Drawing Tablets, support for AMD Sensor Fusion Hub for Ryzen laptops, and functioning Thunderbolt support for Intel Raptor Lake.
Containerization is all the rage right now. Docker, introduced back in 2014, has become the most popular tool for managing containers. Later, in 2018, Red Hat unveiled Podman as an alternative to Docker.
Since both Docker and Podman are intended to do the same thing, let us see what advantages one holds over the other.
This is a series that surveys popular streaming services from a Linux perspective. We are not reviewing any of the streaming services themselves although we may make subjective comments along the way.
TIDAL is a global music streaming platform. It was the first streaming service to offer hi-res audio thanks to its adoption of MQA technology. Its competition has caught up in the hi-res player stakes with Amazon Music HD, Apple Music and Qobuz also offering better-than-CD streams – and at a cheaper price point. We tested “Tidal HiFi” which offers audio at up to 1411kbps (i.e. CD quality) from a Linux perspective.
There are Windows and Mac desktop apps, web player and Android and iOS mobile apps. But we’re running Linux. There’s no official or even semi-official client for Linux from TIDAL. Instead, the only choices are to use the web player or install TIDAL Hi-Fi, a third-party client. Let’s examine the web player.
The Linux Test Project (LTP) offers a comprehensive suite of tests to cover the reliability, robustness, and stability of Linux subsystems.
The much-anticipated Ubuntu 22.10 release is just around the corner, and with it comes significant improvements and the highly anticipated GNOME 43 and Linux Kernel 5.19. For users that would like to get a head jump now, you can begin to upgrade your Ubuntu system now as the full release is not far away.
Do note with any pre-release, even the final version before release, bugs can occur for users with data or documents that they cannot afford to lose. Remember to back your important files up as you should be doing already.
Django is a python based full stack framework. This framework works based on the model-template-view architectural patterns. Django is considered to be one of the popular web based development frameworks for developing Python’s server applications.
The high profile websites that use Django are Disqus, Instagram, MacArthur Foundation, National Geographic channel, Knight Foundation, Pinterest, Open knowledge foundation, and open stack software.
We will be installing Django application in a Python virtual environment. It is very useful because it allows developers to run and develop an application with different python versions.
In early 2022, Google and Valve announced that Steam would be coming to Chrome OS. This instantly made Chromebooks much more capable gaming devices. It took a long time for this to happen, so how does it work?
Technically, there are two ways to play Steam on a Chromebook. You can download the Steam Link Android app, which streams games from your PC to the app, or the newer method that lets the games actually be played on your Chromebook. That’s the method we’ll be focusing on.
Learn the steps to install OpenToonz 2D animation software on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy JellyFish Linux using the command terminal.
“OpenToonz” is a 2D animation software that allows you to bring static drawings such as animals, people, and entire environments to life. In this way, short films, cartoons, or entire animated series can be produced. Among other things, the program offers the possibility to import hand-made sketches and convert them into editable lines and shapes.
In addition, you can use the Paint tool to add color to scenes and objects and blend them together on multiple layers. Effects such as image style, the incidence of light, or distortion can be inserted or removed with just a few clicks. In the timeline and the node tree, you keep track of all settings and parameters of the animation.
Even well-known TV series such as Futurama rely on the animation software Toonz. Now the program is also available for free as an open-source tool. After a bit of learning, you can create moving figures from static drawings or even your own animated series.
The open-source version of Toonz is based on the normal Toonz software which is also used by the Japanese Studio Ghibli. Thus, all features developed by the studio itself are also included in OpenToonz.
Linux 6.0 will soon make its way into the stable software repositories of some of the most popular rolling-release distributions like Arch Linux and openSUSE Tumbleweed, and it’s coming to major distro releases this fall, such as the upcoming Fedora Linux 37.
But what about Ubuntu? Well, Ubuntu 22.10 will be released on October 20th and it will ship with Linux kernel 5.19, which will probably reach end of life before Kinetic Kudu hits the streets. This means that you’ll probably want to install a newer kernel, such as Linux 6.0.
The sun is shining, the beach is busy, the cava is flowing, the record shops are full of hipsters. Akademy is in full swing here in Barcelona, Here’s some scribbled notes I took from some of the talks I went to incase they are any interest to anyone.
The keynote was from Ashai dev Hector Martin. Ashai Linux runs on M1 ARM macs. EFI is a security nightmare, it’s an operating system in itself. Linus said Apple Macs won’t be available for Linux unless Apple opens up its GPU. Macs have a permissive mode to boot custom kernels including XNU (Apple’s open source OS kernel). He got himself a patreon and github sponsorship and enough people fund him to do it as a job. He did lots of impressive things to get Linux working on ARM M1 Macs and voila his video shows a Plasma desktop on a Mac.
The latest released version is 3.0.0 (2022-10-03).
In this video, I am going to show an overview of TUXEDO OS 1 and some of the applications pre-installed.
ROME is the rolling release designed for individual users, it will receive the most up to date packages including recent security and bug fix upgrades.
Some of the major changes since ROME Silver Candidate:Kernel 5.19.12 (clang compiled kernel as default, with the option to install GCC compiled kernel easily from the om-welcome module)
The very latest KDE products: KDE Frameworks 5.98.0, Plasma Desktop 5.25.90, KDE Gear 22.08.1
LibreOffice suite 7.4.1, VLC 3.0.17, Krita 5.1
LLVM/Clang 15.0.1, systemd 251,Calamares 3.2.61
More software upgraded to the latest versionIf you want to contribute to making ROME even better please have a look at the Backgrounds contest.
The ROME final release, suitable for a wide audience of users will be out very soon.
Stay in touch with us and continue to enjoy the new ROME Project.
Since the last update, the SIG gained two new members (Quentin Deslandes and Richard Phibel).
We welcome anybody that’s interested and willing to do work within the scope of the SIG to join and contribute. See the membership section on the wiki for the current members list and how to join.
[...]
The latest version in the Hyperscale SIG is systemd 251.4 for both CentOS Stream 8 and CentOS Stream 9. While the “hs+fb” version has been tagged and rolled out within Meta, we are still working on resolving issues with SELinux policies in the “hs” version before tagging and releasing it. In the meantime, the “hs” version is available on CBS for testing.
If you’re interested in learning more about how we roll out systemd in the Hyperscale SIG, we did a talk about it at the CentOS Dojo this past August. You can find out more about this and our other systemd-related conference activities this quarter in the conference recap linked below.
With the world increasingly becoming digital-first, organizations are aggressively moving towards the cloud—or clouds, to be precise. Modern IT teams often find themselves utilizing more than one cloud to solve a problem. In fact, leveraging a hybrid or multicloud strategy is becoming the new norm.
Given this, how can an organization stand out from the competition? Through cloud-native innovation.
Red Hat is the Linux distro security leader. And with its latest Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) beta releases, RHEL 8.7 and 9.1, the Linux powerhouse company is continuing to stake out its security claims.
Fedora test days are events where anyone can help make sure changes in Fedora Linux work well in an upcoming release. Fedora community members often participate, and the public is welcome at these events. If you’ve never contributed to Fedora before, this is a perfect way to get started. The F37 Upgrade Test Day is Wednesday, October 5.
[...]
A test day is an event where anyone can help make sure changes in Fedora work well in an upcoming release. Fedora community members often participate, and the public is welcome at these events. Test days are the perfect way to start contributing if you not in the past.
One of the key features of the news reporting are the words of an expert witness who reviewed the online content and reported that he was unable to sleep.
Over the summer, I was one of the Debian volunteers reviewing evidence of the Frans Pop suicide. I wrote some of the blogs about it and I created the Debian.Day web site with some of Frans’ last emails.
There are thousands of emails in the threads leading up to Frans’ first and second resignation. I emphasized that in one of the blogs. We can imagine the participants in those discussions suffering from the same sleepless nights that haunted the expert witness, a psychiatrist, in the Molly Russell inquest.
Despite Frans sending that last email the night before Debian.Day, some people insist on deflecting responsibility with comments asserting that “Frans had his own reasons” for the suicide. Nobody gave any examples of those reasons. In fact, everybody has reasons to contemplate suicide. Google and Ubuntu have both applied unreasonable pressure on volunteers. Their business practices keep people up at night and they keep people at work seven days per week. If somebody is suffering from depression or thinking about suicide, they need that energy to protect themselves. Sadly, Debian harassment culture has stolen the energy from some people.
In a vote held over the past two weeks, Debian’s developers decided to include non-free firmware by default in the Debian installer.
Debian has always aimed to adhere to the spirit of FOSS as closely as possible. As a result, its developers are known for their careful approach to the software included in the distribution.
However, times are changing. This necessitates either evolving and adapting to new realities or stubbornly refusing to accept them, putting your future at risk. Fortunately, the Debian developers went with the first option.
This month I didn’t have any particular focus. I just worked on issues in my info bubble.
This month I accepted 226 and rejected 33 packages. The overall number of packages that got accepted was 232.
All in all I addressed about 60 RM-bugs and either simply removed the package or added a moreinfo tag. In total I spent 5 hours for this task.
Anyway, I have to repeat my comment from last month: please have a look at the removal page and check whether the created dak command is really what you wanted. It would also help if you check the reverse dependencies and write a comment whether they are important or can be ignored or also file a new bug for them. Each removal must have one bug!
Martin Wimpress, one of the founders and maintainers of Ubuntu MATE, has mentioned something rather interesting in the beta release notes for Ubuntu MATE 22.10.
He aims to bring the Ubuntu MATE experience to Debian
Wait, can’t you already install MATE on Debian?
Yes, but what about an akin user experience to Ubuntu MATE with all the modern tools on Debian?
Amazon Web Services has added an Ubuntu option for customers that use Amazon Workspaces to distribute virtual desktops.
ANAVI Macro Pad 10, Knobs 3, and Knob 1 are open-source hardware input devices based on the Raspberry Pi RP2040-powered Xiao RP2040 mini module, and equipped with mechanical keys and/or rotary encoders
Leon Anavi has some experience under his belt with the earlier Macro Pad 2 and Macro Pad 8 open-source keypads with mechanical keys running QMK open-source firmware on a Microchip 8-bit microcontroller. The new models switch the MCU to the Raspberry Pi RP2040 and to KMK open-source firmware written in CircuitPython.
If you’re looking for a reliable operating system with support for file systems and connectivity, an embedded version of Linux is probably one of the possible candidates. With a huge installed base, plenty of experienced developers, and active development, it’s available for all the major SoCs. So, who is behind its development, and can it get any better?
Just a quick report. I have posted the latest Limine Installer scripts here
These articles are an interesting read not only if you’re working on WebKit, but also if you are curious on how a modern browser engine works and some of the moving parts beneath the surface. So go check them out!
Hello all, a quick post today. Inspired by Rust as a Language for High Performance GC Implementation by Yi Lin et al, a few months ago I had a look to see how the basic Rust concurrency facilities that they used were implemented.
One of the key components that Lin et al used was a Chase-Lev work-stealing double-ended queue (deque). The 2005 article Dynamic Circular Work-Stealing Deque by David Chase and Yossi Lev is a nice read defining this data structure. It’s used when you have a single producer of values, but multiple threads competing to claim those values. This is useful when implementing per-CPU schedulers or work queues; each CPU pushes on any items that it has to its own deque, and pops them also, but when it runs out of work, it goes to see if it can steal work from other CPUs.
[...]
The funny thing is that I looked at the proof and I looked at the industrial applications of the deque and I thought well, I just have to transcribe the algorithm exactly and I’ll be golden. But it just goes to show that proving one property of an algorithm doesn’t necessarily imply that the algorithm is correct.
If you have been programming for a while, you know the grind. You see a problem; you brainstorm the solution – the casual trial and error. However, we know that it can get frustrating to keep looking up at the same dull screen every time. So, if you are using IntelliJ IDEA, we can help you spice things up by introducing you to some awesome IntelliJ Themes.
We can also help you if you use other Jetbrains IDEs because you can find compatible versions of the ones we will talk about as Pycharm themes or as themes for PhpStorm – as well as any other IntelliJ-based IDE created by Jetbrains. You also do not need to worry about the costs as the themes we’ll discuss are all free.
That takes away precious hours, so it’s no wonder that 58% of US workers believe they can work remotely and finish job tasks on time.
Vadim Belman has started preparing for a set of teaching classes about developing the Rakudo core, and would like to know if you’re interested! It’s a great chance to get a flying start into contributing to the Raku Programming Language.
For years we have heard about the influence of social media on teens who take their own lives, but just how culpable are they? A London coroner has answered this question. He officially decided against officially declaring a 14-year-old girl’s death a suicide. The coroner listed Instagram and Pinterest as contributing factors in the teen’s death, declaring her suicide was “an act of self-harm while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content.”
[...]
Molly Russell died in 2017 by taking her own life. Her family’s attorneys have said that in the six months before she died, the 14-year-old showed an interest in 16,300 posts on Instagram by liking, sharing, or saving, with 2,100 of the posts self-harm related. She had 5,793 impressions and 2,692 close-ups on Pinterest in that same time frame.
[...]
But was her excessive use of social media the fault of the algorithms? Did it lure her into that behavior? It’s a hard call.
Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium, gdal, kernel, libdatetime-timezone-perl, libhttp-daemon-perl, lighttpd, mariadb-10.3, node-thenify, snakeyaml, tinyxml, and tzdata), Fedora (enlightenment, kitty, and thunderbird), Mageia (expat, firejail, libjpeg, nodejs, perl-HTTP-Daemon, python-mako, squid, and thunderbird), Scientific Linux (firefox and thunderbird), SUSE (buildah, connman, cosign, expat, ImageMagick, python36, python39, slurm, and webkit2gtk3), and Ubuntu (linux, linux-aws, linux-kvm, linux-lts-xenial and linux-gke-5.15).
How long will you support your device? Long-term support for IoT is a simple but difficult question for many device manufacturers.
If you are developing a smart home device, a mobile robot for hospitality, or the next iron man jetpack, you need to consider how long you will support the device on the market. This will have implications on your operational expenses, team resources and customer satisfaction. Simply put, the longer you support your device, the happier your user will be. But the more expensive it will be for you.
What does this mean for your company in practice? And what are the costs associated with it? Let’s have a look!
CISA has issued Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 23-01: Improving Asset Visibility and Vulnerability Detection on Federal Networks, which seeks improve asset visibility and vulnerability enumeration across the federal enterprise.
This is, of course, not the last word. Deepfake generators will figure out how to use these techniques to create harder-to-detect fake voices. And the deepfake detectors will figure out another, better, detection technique. And the arms race will continue.
Generative machine learning models have made convincing voice synthesis a reality. While such tools can be extremely useful in applications where people consent to their voices being cloned (e.g., patients losing the ability to speak, actors not wanting to have to redo dialog, etc), they also allow for the creation of nonconsensual content known as deepfakes. This malicious audio is problematic not only because it can convincingly be used to impersonate arbitrary users, but because detecting deepfakes is challenging and generally requires knowledge of the specific deepfake generator. In this paper, we develop a new mechanism for detecting audio deepfakes using techniques from the field of articulatory phonetics. Specifically, we apply fluid dynamics to estimate the arrangement of the human vocal tract during speech generation and show that deepfakes often model impossible or highly-unlikely anatomical arrangements. When parameterized to achieve 99.9% precision, our detection mechanism achieves a recall of 99.5%, correctly identifying all but one deepfake sample in our dataset. We then discuss the limitations of this approach, and how deepfake models fail to reproduce all aspects of speech equally. In so doing, we demonstrate that subtle, but biologically constrained aspects of how humans generate speech are not captured by current models, and can therefore act as a powerful tool to detect audio deepfakes.
Imagine the following scenario. A phone rings. An office worker answers it and hears his boss, in a panic, tell him that she forgot to transfer money to the new contractor before she left for the day and needs him to do it. She gives him the wire transfer information, and with the money transferred, the crisis has been averted.
The worker sits back in his chair, takes a deep breath, and watches as his boss walks in the door. The voice on the other end of the call was not his boss. In fact, it wasn’t even a human. The voice he heard was that of an audio deepfake, a machine-generated audio sample designed to sound exactly like his boss.
In February 2021, we filed Right to Information (‘RTI’) applications with the Department of Telecommunications (‘DoT’) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (‘MTNL’). We asked for the number of websites they blocked because of orders of competent courts in 2020 and 2021, and copies of such orders. While DoT did not provide us with complete information, MTNL claimed exemption under S.8(1)(a) and 8(a)(d) of the RTI Act, 2005. We appealed to the Central Information Commission (‘CIC’), which held hearings on both the RTIs on 20.09.2022. Before the hearing, MTNL reconsidered its stance and informed us that it had blocked 4700 websites in 2020 and 2021. On the other hand, CIC directed DoT to provide copies of the banning orders from 2020 and 2021.
[...]
DoT had directed the banning of 3725 websites till February 2021, and MTNL blocked 4700 websites in 2020 and 2021. This is a considerable number. Censorship of these websites directly impacts the right to speech on the internet. Thus, examining the underlying orders based on which such websites have been banned is essential. As a result of our efforts before CIC, we now have copies of those orders. We believe an analysis of these orders could provide important insight into the nature of information being censored by courts. We will study these orders and inform you of our findings.
[...]
We welcome both the decisions of the CIC. Online censorship is a serious threat to free speech, and the free exchange of ideas that has been enabled by the internet. The information we have received and will receive because of these orders will improve our understanding of the nature of information censored regularly by courts. We are thankful to advocates Krishnesh Bapat, Tanmay Singh, and Anandita Mishra, who appeared before the CIC in these proceedings and provided legal assistance by drafting written submissions.
“How are you?” is the default answer, as my brain either goes completely blank before receding into a state of existential crisis, or I just blurt out a “fine” and keep it moving.
I learned early on that most people don’t care how you’re actually feeling; they use it as a greeting instead, and engage in a baffling exchange of useless filler phrases (“I’m fine, how are you?”) before transitioning into actual conversation.
[...]
This was after I sort of snubbed him the previous week, when I only said “Yeah” and didn’t elaborate further. Cause ya know…my writing isn’t an interesting topic to him. Tried again last week, and he just walked away.
I get that he asks to be polite or whatever, but what’s the point if you aren’t going to even fake enthusiasm? Don’t bother me with pointless pleasantries, it just makes us both feel awkward.
If you’re not someone who’s trans/gender-divergent (TGD), trying to navigate the various language issues related to sex and gender can be bewildering. This piece is an attempt to note some language that’s currently considered problematic, and to provide some more appropriate language and alternatives.
The fewer materials I posses the more cognizant I become of their hollow nature. When this line of thinking is taken to its logical conclusion it becomes obvious that the mad rush to accumulate money and materials is essentially a form of collective insanity. Expressed somewhat more bluntly, there is no salvation for a culture that converts the bounty of nature into plastic garbage because there is only so much that can be plundered and pillaged from the biosphere before it can no longer sustain human existence.
This post is about “politics qua politics,” a topic I hoped to avoid writing about. I read something from a thinker I hold in high regard, and I feel like it deserves a rebuttal. But if you’re burnt out on talk about political parties and the like, feel free to skip this.
[...]
I think she’s mistaken. There are several reasons why I don’t believe that electoral paths to climate protection are worth pursuing, but I want to talk about how long and difficult this path actually is. I’ll focus on the US because I’m most familiar with its politics, but also because it is the world’s biggest barrier to mitigating climate change. The US military alone is probably responsible for more CO2 emissions than any other entity on Earth.
At one point in my life, I knew Python well. That point has receded to the point that much of the syntax escapes me. Though more so than the syntax itself, the practise of using list comprehensions and generators escapes me. Well, it *escaped* me. It no longer escapes me, as I am using these constructs in my current Python programming, though I’m certainly not adept at it yet. I have no recollection of using list comprehensions or generators when I initially obsessed myself with the language. I believe I was more concerned with object design. Those constructs may not have existed yet in Python, in fact. Possibly, my Haskell explorations were the first to enlighten me with higher programming paths, which brings me to the point of the current blog entry: My memory erodes more quickly than I’d like. This is especially true concerning anything academically oriented. Programming is very much at home in this bucket.
I want AWK to be more well known. It was treated as soem weird-ass tool that somehow works but no one knows why. It’s all over the place on StackOverflow whenever we need to select a reagon of a file or something. I didn’t apprishate this in the beginning. I was forced to learn `sed` and `awk` back in collage. Now I absolutely love awk. It’s a standard tool shipped on every UNIX system (so, anywhere besides Windows). Being readily available and easy to use. It’s a great tool to have in your toolbox if you work with any kind of data.
Last year I decided to read Doom’s source code to learn how to organize big C projects. Even though my exploration of doom’s source code was short I learned a lot from that experience and also made me realize some things that I never thought about Video Game preservation.
* Gemini (Primer) links can be opened using Gemini software. It’s like the World Wide Web but a lot lighter.
Video download link | md5sum 51d484f81757cc354ad85161448c5db1
EPO Standards Abolished
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
Summary: The EPO has turned into a farcical operation that laughs at the law, abuses its own staff, and lies to both staff and “customers” in the official Web site
THE EPO takes pride in adding Montenegro (warning: epo.org link) despite it being irrelevant to the EPO. Anything for some cheap PR (see image/screenshot)?
The video above goes through the latest nonsense in the EPO’s site (hogwash about patent quality and software tools that only work in Microsoft Windows). It’s frustrating to see a complete lack of accountability, but that’s what has been happening in the EPO for over a decade already. Immunity gets exploited for corruption. The impunity is damning.
The noteworthy thing that’s not in the above video is a new letter circulating among staff, calling their attention to recent developments and the need to get politicians involved as soon as possible for the first time in decades. We’ll just reproduce the full message below.
Last Call for Supporting the Petition to the Administrative Council to call for a Conference of Ministers of the Contracting States under Article 4a EPC
Dear Colleagues,
We initiated a *petition to the Members of the Administrative Council of the EPO to call for a Conference of Ministers of the Contracting States under Article 4a EPC some time ago. The petition shall be sent to the Administrative Council soon for its meeting on 13 October 2022.
Already more than 500 colleagues support the petition, for which we would like to express our sincere thanks.
If you have not yet signed the petition, please do so here[1] to help us to send a strong signal to the Administrative Council.
When the petition was launched, compelling reasons had already been published as to why such a Conference of Ministers of the Contracting States is necessary and, in fact, overdue. Since then, more events have occurred that speak for such an external review of the organisation and thus for the support of the petition, which are:
- The production demands for examiners are to be increased – increases of up to 10% are in the air – and this despite the fact that quality has fallen further;
- The office’s practice concerning patentability of business methods under Article 52(2)(c) EPC has become unclear again; and
- More embarrassing ILOAT Judgments showing the EPO’s violation of fundamental rights were issued three months ago and while implementation could be smooth and easy, it has yet to occur.
In more detail:
In the meantime it has been announced by senior managers and line managers that examiners will be required to produce more and that production pressure will be significantly increased for the coming year. This is even though staffing levels in core tasks are alarmingly low, examiner productivity is at its limits and at the same time the quality of issued patents has further deteriorated to below 75% compliance rate. In team meetings the figure of an increase of up to 10% of production has been mentioned (see also the corresponding CSC publication[2]). It seems that management no longer has any meaningful answers to manage the office’s workload.
Concerning the assessment of patentability of business methods in substantive examination (Article 52(2)(c) EPC), a recently started debate illustrates that this issue still seems to be very unclear. A clear guidance at the level of the Contracting States of the EPC seems to be necessary.
In early July the ILOAT issued inter-alia the Judgments no. 4550 and 4551, the latter clarifying that again the EPO has violated fundamental rights of staff freedom of association for roughly a decade. With the Judgment, the ILOAT lifted the presidential ban on Staff Committee sending mass emails to staff.
However, even after repeated requests by the Staff Committee and SUEPO, the President has not yet removed his technical restrictions on Staff Representation in the office’s email system that were put in place to enforce the ban. Currently, it looks like the Office continues to refuse to comply with the court’s ruling and allows the illegal email ban to remain in place. It seems that the ILOAT will have to be called again in this matter, this time simply to obtain the enforcement of its judgment.
Thus, not only has the fear that further embarrassing ILOAT Judgments will be issued against the organisation been confirmed, but it is compounded by the lack of willingness in the office leadership to recognise the highest court having jurisdiction over the organisation and to comply with the EPC. This procedure could put the existence of the organisation, and thus our own, in jeopardy. It is unclear whether the Administrative Council can or wants to put a stop to this.
In view of the above, an external review of the situation of the EPO by the Contracting States has become even more urgent.
This external review is claimed by the petitioners to the Members of the Administrative Council of the EPO to call for a Conference of Ministers of the Contracting States under Article 4a EPC.
Information about the petition is also available on our website, see **here.
Your SUEPO Committee The Hague
[1] [redacted]
[2] sc22124cl
There’s a meeting coming up in less than a fortnight. We’ll try to cover EPO affairs more frequently around that time, at the very least to raise awareness of the issues. █
Video download link | md5sum 92c7c5469f07a037d1a5a6640a4b7ceb
Pushing EPO Staff to the Limits
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
Summary: The European School The Hague (ESH) is not functioning like it’s supposed to; people who migrated (seeking a job) along with family members for an EPO position aren’t pleased (to say the least) and they request if not demand to speak with EPO management
THE EPO‘s staff is not happy. Nothing concrete has changed and nothing is improving. António Campinos continues to break the law and he even refuses to obey court rulings when he loses cases. He’s no better than Benoît Battistelli and he shamelessly promotes illegal software patents while forcing examiners to grant them.
The video above looks at a new letter from the staff union at The Hague. We’re reproducing it below in full:
27 September 2022
su22021hlLocal section The Hague
Steve Rowan
VP1 Office of EPO
TH Site managerSUEPO TH Committee
Open Letter
Request for a meeting between VP1 and EPO parents with children at the European School The Hague?
Dear Mr Rowan,
The SUEPO TH committee has been contacted by European School The Hague (ESH) parents who reported serious problems with the school functioning. In its role of defending the rights of EPO employees, SUEPO is committed to ensuring the quality of the school for employees’ children, which is part of the employment agreement.
SUEPO has been informed that the ESH schooling and education are facing severe and repeated neglect. The following lists some of the difficulties encountered at the ESH:
1. Shortage of teachers. Teachers are overbooked, absent or were simply not recruited. The situation is such that the school has to resort to using teachers from other language sections teaching the class in a language not known to the children. Examples of this are Science lessons taught in English where the language section is German and Mathematic tests given in Dutch to students who do not speak Dutch.
2. Inadequate timetables. Some students have blocks of up to 4 consecutive classes in subjects such as French, Italian, Economics. Other students have breaks of several hours between classes. Yet other students don’t have certain classes at all, simply because there is no teacher.
3. B-exam: No/ not sufficient preparation for specific mandatory exams as e.g. the B-exam; Rescheduling of the B-exam date.
4. ESH is uncapable to manage children with special needs.
5. Inadequate understanding of COVID Curfew learning impact and lack of learning catch-up programs.
6. A high rate of turnover of staff is reported.
7. Lack of administrative and support staff (reception, security, etc.).
8. Billing problems, such as the definition of miscellaneous costs.
The continued existence of these problems is leaving the children who have to pass official school exams already at a severe disadvantage when compared to children at other European Schools. Parents are concerned and have filed complaints with the Dutch Ministry of Education. The situation is so serious that an audit from the overseeing body of the European Schools is expected to take place.
After several failed attempts before the ESH administration to remediate the situation, the EPO parents approached SUEPO for help. Parents suggested that SUEPO facilitates a meeting with VP1, and are requesting that you listen to their concerns and provide institutional support to solve the various serious problems at ESH.
Therefore, SUEPO TH acting as a facilitator, hereby requests with a character of urgency, ameeting between the EPO parents with children at the ESH and with you, in your role as site
manager for The Hague.
Yours sincerely,
Chair SUEPO TH
“The EPO is in a state of crisis, so it’s masquerading as a for-profit corporation and boasts about nothing but money (raised by flagrantly violating the EPC, which was supposed to guard Europe from a mischievous, misbehaving patent-granting authority).”This is another problem among many. The staff of the EPO is also leaving rapidly (a “high rate of turnover of staff is reported” inside the EPO, not just ESH) and if this issue persists the EPO won’t be able to attract job candidates in compliance with the EPC. It’s already a longstanding problem and it’ll worsen over time.
The EPO is in a state of crisis, so it’s masquerading as a for-profit corporation and boasts about nothing but money (raised by flagrantly violating the EPC, which was supposed to guard Europe from a mischievous, misbehaving patent-granting authority). █
Summary: The EPO has totally lost the plot; it completely neglected its mission in pursuit of money and optics
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Guest Editorial Team
Community: Get involved
RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates
Site Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content
Site Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page
IRC Channels: Come and chat with us in real time
Design by Beccary and Weblogs.us · Valid XHTML · Valid CSS · Hosting by Schestowitz · Part of Bytes Media
 | |
Content is available under CC-BY-SA
Editors • About the Site • Comes vs. Microsoft • Using This Web Site • Site Archives • Credibility Index • OOXML • OpenDocument • Patents • Novell • News Digest • Site News • RSS