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Links 5/8/2011: KDE 4.7 Reviewed, News Catchup



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Contents





GNU/Linux

  • Code 42 Software Reports New Data on Rapid Growth of Enterprise Linux Use
    Code 42 Software Inc., creators of CrashPlan, CrashPlan PRO, and CrashPlan PROe, continuous data backup for home and business, today reported new data about the rapid growth of Linux use in enterprise. Only halfway through 2011, Code 42’s CrashPlan PROe sales have grown 10 times 2010 levels. The company expects to end 2011 with a 14,000 percent growth in Linux revenue year-over-year. Since 2009, Code 42 has experienced substantial Linux growth. In 2010, the company recorded 400 percent year-over-year revenue growth of CrashPlan PROe for Linux.


  • How and Why Wall Street Programmers Earn Top Salaries
    There's actually a pretty wide range of languages/tools used, but Linux is the 'default' OS...


  • Desktop

    • Linux Desktop Hits and Misses
      It seems like it wasn't that long ago when Windows was an exclusive part of my computing life. Ever so slowly, I began to move away from Windows XP into some of the popular Linux distributions of the time.

      I found myself falling in love with a specific Linux distribution made popular by its ability to "just work" without a ton of configuration. At the time, this held a great appeal to me. After all, I had other things to do throughout my day besides having to configure everything on my desktop PC by hand.


    • Choosing the Right Linux Distro for Your Business
      In this article, I’ll look at the benefits of both corporate and community supported distributions and how they might best fit into the enterprise space. In addition, I’ll offer suggestions as to which option might make the most sense in each type of enterprise scenario. I’ll also take a look at specialized Linux distributions.






  • Kernel Space

    • Linux 3.0: More important than you think
      Ah vacation. It was a week of blissful lounging around a breezy beach side and playing in a water-filled world where I was no longer at the top of the food chain. There were no computers, no talk of networking this, security that, or anything in between. But then the hard reality of the world wormed its way back into my mind and I now find myself trying hard to get back into some sort of groove…an open source kind of groove (of course).

      And although it’s officially next month (the month of my forty-fourth birthday, thank you very much) Linux is about to turn 3.0. And although Linus Torvalds himself has said this is not a big deal, it is. Why? Because of the very fact it is not a big deal.

      [...]

      These assumptions occur whether they are true or not — even if it has been made clear there are no deal making/deal breaking changes in the kernel. After all, look at the major feature list in the 3.0 kernel:

      * Btrfs data scrubbing and automatic defragmentation * XEN Dom0 support. * Unprivileged ICMP_ECHO. * Wake on WLAN. * Berkeley Packet Filter JIT filtering. * A memcached-like system for the page cache. * A sendmmsg() syscall that batches sendmsg() calls. * The setns() a syscall that allows better handling of light virtualization systems such as containers. * New hardware support such as Microsoft Kinect and AMD Llano Fusion APUs.





  • Applications

    • Super Collision At Studio Dave: The New World of SuperCollider3, Part 1
      SuperCollider is composer/programmer James McCartney's gift to the world of open-source audio synthesis/composition environments. In its current manifestation, SuperCollider3 includes capabilities for a wide variety of sound synthesis and signal processing methods, cross-platform integrated GUI components for designing interfaces for interactive performance, support for remote control by various external devices, and a rich set of tools for algorithmic music and sound composition. And yes, there's more, much more.


    • LiVES 1.4.5 has been released! | Video editor
      LiVES 1.4.5 has been released! the new release comes with many news features and fixed many bugs, it add -tmpdir startup option, Stop PAL formats reverting to NTSC in x264 encoder., Fix bug to add fewer blank lines to ~/.lives file, Do not show "Loaded subtitles" message when subtitles are not loaded, Instant opening of some .flv files, Move correct pointer (start or end) when the timeline is clicked in longer files, Add video fade in/out effect, Fix frames being cut after applying effects in virtual clips. more info about this .


    • Instructionals/Technical



    • Games

      • REVIEW: BEEP – Linux platform fun!
        FPS games seem all the rage these days and after playing a few of them you would be forgiven for thinking there’s very little variety. Can you honestly remember vividly an FPS you played from a year ago on say the PS3, when all too often its the same generic gameplay albeit with different gfx and sound?

        As the Humble Indi Bundle, Minecraft et al showed, there’s a massive market for games which do not rely on the proven (and popular) FPS format. There are so many success stories that being an indi developer no longer means that you are resigned to selling only a few copies of your product – The Internet and word of mouth advertising mean that a decent product can be very lucrative.


      • First Person Shooter 'Red Eclipse : Supernova Edition' Released for Linux
        A new version for popular Linux FPS game Red Eclipse has been released. Codenamed 'Supernova Edition', this release sees many new features and changes.






  • Desktop Environments



  • Distributions



    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

      • Yes, I broke my computer with PCLinuxOS
        Let me put this straight: I'm not blaming PCLOS at all. The installer performed the actions I commanded, nothing less, nothing more. Granted, I might be a non-technical Linux user, but I'm also beyond that childish stage in which users blame Linux when something does not go as planned. I should have paid attention to the small voice telling me that it was not a good idea to use a free HD space BEFORE my Mandriva partition and that it was an even worse choice to install the PCLinuxOS GRUB to the main sector of the partition table, but I stubbornly ignored the still small voice of wisdom.


      • PCLinuxOS, the REAL deal!
        A couple of days ago, I described how I had an unfortunate experience while I attempted an install of PCLinuxOS. Because of lack of time, I had to remove the distro to recover my PC and finish my work, promising to get back at PCLOS later.

        Well, time has come: a kind reader of my post, to solve the problem of the multiple boot, recommended me to visit the PCLOS forums and find the wise sage, who goes through forum-land under the name of Old Pollack.


      • Not a Tug o'War, but Convergence




    • Red Hat Family



    • Debian Family

      • Debian Project News - July 25th, 2011
        Welcome to this year's eleventh issue of DPN, the newsletter for the Debian community.


      • Debian's GNU/kFreeBSD
        I've heard two popular reasons for running a GNU environment on top of a FreeBSD kernel. One is script compatibility. The idea being that if a person needs a FreeBSD kernel (for whatever reason) they may still want to run GNU-specific scripts. I can see the reasoning behind this, though kFreeBSD does have a few quirks to it (such as the device names I mentioned above) which may introduce new incompatibilities. The other reason often cited is ZFS support. Though I didn't find ZFS tools installed by default, ZFS utilities are available in the kFreeBSD repositories. This brings together great file system technology with an environment which will be familiar to GNU/Linux users. A third, and often overlooked, reason for running kFreeBSD is because we can. There is something compelling about running a mash-up of technologies from two different open source camps. For people who just like to tinker with computers kFreeBSD is right up there with trying MINIX or running NetBSD on a toaster.

        Given the problems I ran into with the installer and issues I ran into trying to login to a graphical environment, I have to say kFreeBSD isn't a project I would recommend to many people, certainly not novice users. Given the defaults it appears as though the project is aimed mostly at people running servers who have an interest in both GNU/Linux and FreeBSD. And, though certainly not without rough edges, it is an interesting operating system. It has got warts and it can be a pain to get up and running, but the fact that it can exist -- does exist -- is, well, is pretty cool when you think about it.


      • Derivatives



        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Ubuntu Contributor Harmony
            I have made no bones about my opposition to unpaid copyright assignment in any quarter. Least understandable was the old Canonical contributors agreement, Mark wrote another of his personal defences in his blog on Friday; of what I consider to be unreasonable and assumptive. But this isn’t about that blog post.


          • Contributor License Agreement corner cases
            I'm looking at the Canonical Individual Contributor License Agreement (pdf here). In contrast to the previous copyright assignment, it merely grants a broad set of rights to Canonical, including the right to relicense the work under any license they choose. Notably, it does not transfer copyright to Canonical. The contributor retains copyright.


          • Flavours and Variants











  • Devices/Embedded

    • Raspberry Pi $25 PC goes into alpha production
      Game developer David Braben caused geeks to get excited back in May when he announced plans to develop and release a $25 PC. It is called the Raspberry Pi, and takes the form of a USB stick that can be plugged into the HDMI port of a display ready to act as afully-functional PC.

      The thinking behind the super-cheap PC is to get it into the hands of school kids and let them start experimenting and programming. The planend hardware included a 700MHz ARM11 processor, 128MB RAM, OpenGL ES 2.0, and 1080p output. It will run Linux in some form, but importantly it’s only $25 and will allow access to the wealth of free tools Linux has access to.

      Two months on and the spec of the PCB layout has been finalized and an alpha release has been sent to manufacture. Any doubts this PC wasn’t going to happen should now disappear as this alpha board is expected to be almost the same as the final production unit.


    • Google TV box price drops to $99
      We learned in May that Amazon.com had dropped the price of Logitech’s Google TV system (aka the Logitech Revue) 33 percent, to $199. Now, Logitech says it’s dropping the Revue’s price to $99.


    • Phones



      • Android

        • Canalys: Android has almost half of global smartphone market, Microsoft has one percent
          Canalys tracks smartphone sales in 56 countries around the world, and released a summary of its data for Q2 2011 on August 1. According to the firm, Google's Android operating system led in 35 countries and achieved a global market share of 48 percent.

          Android, "the number one platform by shipments since Q4 2010," was shipped on 51.9 million phones during the quarter, a year-over-year increase of 379 percent, Canalys says. It put in a particularly strong performance in the APAC (Asia Pacific) region, garnering a 85 percent share in South Korea and a 71 percent share in Taiwan, the firm adds.


        • Huawei launches a 3D smartphone
          THE 3D TREND is once again being foisted upon punters as Huawei has announced the launch of its first 3D smartphone.

          Aptly called Vision, the handset features a 3D user interface and a "carousel display", by which we think Huawei means a revolving set of home page icons, or images, or something. With it Huawei will join the Korean handset maker LG in the 3D smartphone market, which - to be honest - hasn't exactly taken off yet.


        • HTC Salsa Android smartphone
          HTC has released two 'Facebook phones' of late – the Qwerty-packing ChaCha and the Salsa, the latter being a compact bundle of fun, which wears its dedicated Facebook button just beneath its screen.


        • Study: Android is least open of open source mobile platforms






    • Sub-notebooks/Tablets

      • Tablets will overtake consumer PCs, says Fujitsu CTO
        Content consumption rules for consumers and tablet sales will overtake consumer PC and notebook sales. That's the view of Dr Joseph Reger, Fujitsu's chief technology officer.


      • Asus spins three low-priced netbooks
        Asus is taking the netbook back to its roots, with two devices intended to sell for as little as $200. The low-cost EeePC R011PX and EeePC X101 come with the Ubuntu and MeeGo operating systems, respectively -- but will also run Windows if you insist.


      • Binatone Homesurf 705 tablet video demo
        MAKER OF GADGETS Binatone gave The INQUIRER a look at its budget 7in tablet, the Homesurf 705.

        Binatone has jumped into the tablet party with its Homesurf 705. It has a 7in resistive touchscreen with 480x800 resolution, 2GB of internal storage, WiFi, microUSB and a microSD card slot.


      • Android will turn the tablet market on its head
        SCATTER CUSHION HARDWARE, the tablet computer, will make its way into most homes with the Android operating system in place, according to a report.

        Informa Telecoms and Media said that despite its considerable hold on the market Apple's IOS based machines will start to fall out of favour with users over the next four years before being completely swept aside by Android devices.


      • Galaxy Tab vs Playbook vs Flyer video review
        BITTER RIVALS Khidr Suleman and Chris Martin fight to the metaphorical death over the best 7in tablet currently on the market. This video face-off features three 7in tablets that are assessed on their various merits, and a winner is crowned.








Free Software/Open Source



  • Mozilla

    • Mozilla eyes mobile OS landscape with new Boot to Gecko project
      Mozilla has announced a new experimental project called Boot to Gecko (B2G) with the aim of developing an operating system that emphasizes standards-based Web technologies. The initial focus will be on delivering a software environment for handheld devices such as smartphones.


    • Boot to Gecko – Mozilla’s Project To Build A Web Based Operating System For Smartphones
      When Mozilla announced the Webian Shell last month, many wondered if Mozilla too is planning to launch its own version of a web-based operating system. There was no definite answer then, but there is now.

      Mozilla has launched a new project called “Boot to Gecko”. The aim of this project is to develop a complete operating system for the open web. Unlike Google’s version of a web-based OS – the Chrome OS – Mozilla’s version is not aimed at netbooks. With Boot to Gecko, Mozilla is aiming for smartphones – and Android forms a part of their plan.


    • Mozilla aims to play the OS game
      Mozilla is plotting to join the operating system fray with an “open Web” twist.




  • Databases



  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • A Word of Thanks
      Yesterday Michael Brauer posted on the OASIS ODF TC mailing list his farewell post. Michael, like a very large number of the other employees of the “Oracle’s Hamburg Business Unit”, if not all of them, will be let go by the end of the month. If you wonder what the “Oracle’s Hamburg Business Unit” is, it’s the people who have been developing a large part of what was OpenOffice.org and before that, StarOffice. I remember the company when it was a privately owned entity called StarDivision. I have contributed and interacted with these people for over 10 years. I guess I will see some of them working for different employers; sometimes as competitors, sometimes as partners. But we will see us again one day or another, and I look forward that day. I have made a few friends there; these are bright people, and they have played an instrumental in the expansion of Free and Open Source Software, and dare I remind it? ODF and Open Standards as well. I sincerely wish them the best for the future, whatever road they choose to take. This “business unit” has been known under many names during all these years, and I understand very well that the present days must be sad and sorrowful days.




  • CMS

    • Open source wars: Wordpress vs Drupal vs Joomla
      Every IT person, developer, and programmer has an opinion when it comes to the various open source content management systems out there. It often comes down to functionality and ease of use, but even then the lines are often blurred and there is rarely a clear-cut victor. Wordpress vs Drupal vs Joomla – which is really the king of open source CMS?




  • Programming





Reader's Picks



  • United Nations University trains practitioners in GNU Health (formerly GNU Medical) and other free software.


  • Gmail wins Harvard
    Gmail will serve as the email interface for most Harvard undergraduate accounts by the middle of next month, replacing the webmail client currently designated for those addresses but used by a fraction of those students.


  • Trey Ratcliff likes Google+
    The interface of the streams and the hangouts enable me to get to know new people in a more human manner. Comparing it to Twitter, there is a not this matrix-like stream of symbols and bit.ly codes flying by my eyes. Here, I see photos, visual thoughts, videos, and the sorts of retinal stimulation that humans expect.


  • The value of open virtualization
    Over a 3-year period, an open virtualization solution can cost less than half of a proprietary alternative. Also, open virtualization efficiently supports a wide range of guest operating systems, including Windows as well as Linux. In fact, we think that one of the major uses of KVM is going to be by customers who want to virtualize mixed Linux / Windows environments, and have a common hypervisor.


  • Oracle throws Schwartz blog into the memory hole to hide his endorsement of Google's use of Java. [2]

    Robert Pogson's trolls taunt that use of free software caused the demise of Sun. Wikipedia's explanation is that the Dot Com bubble burst ruined the hardware market, by flooding it with cheap Sun hardware from bankrupt companies. Anti-trust authorities should revisit this episode to be sure Microsoft did not engage in a classic second hand equipment anti-trust violation as well as Microsoft and telco retardation of the internet in the late 90s which ruined so many businesses.



  • Judge Blasts Oracle in Android Software Fight

    PJ adds a link to the ruling and adds, " I don't think the judge altogether grasps the tech yet, but he definitely ruled that Oracle's expert wasn't fit for the jury to hear, and that the $6 figure proposed as damages was not defensible." In other news, she summarizes the history of the case,

    some keep pushing every step of this litigation as doom for Google, what has happened so far? Well, for starters, Oracle has had most of its patents found invalid in the reexaminations. And the judge has told it to reduce the number of its claims. So right there, Google has won a great deal. If there are any damages at all, they won't therefore be in the stratosphere. And the judge yesterday told Oracle its $6B-expert was all wet in how he came up with that ridiculous figure. ... In other words, this case is now a lot smaller than when it started, and if there is a settlement, it could only be on terms Google doesn't mind. ... at the beginning, almost the whole world was saying that Android was doomed, that Google was going to be found liable, that this was a slam dunk for Oracle, blah blah blah. Was any of that true? Obviously not. And may I point out that there are no patent counterclaims in this case, and yet Google is winning? Duh. Time for the media to notice that they got spun.


  • Praise for Web OS.
    If the tiny but powerful Veer and the absolutely rabid yet organised fan community is any indication of the direction WebOS is heading, the OS could make a rapid recovery under HP's stewardship.


  • Security



  • Defence/Police/Aggression



  • Anti-Trust

    • Nokia shows the Microsoft touch - faltering sales and losses.
      Nokia, struggling to hold onto its place as the world's number one mobile phone maker, slumped Thursday to only its second quarterly loss since 1998 as sales continued to fall. Having pinned its hopes for recovery on a tie-up with US giant Microsoft, Nokia reported a three months to June a net loss of 368 million euros ($520.5 million), compared to a profit of 227 million euros in second quarter 2010. Analysts had expected a net loss of 104 million euros

      I'd buy one of their MeGo phones if I could be sure it was not a jail.





  • Civil Rights

    • Ralph Nater calls for US Supreme Court impeachments.
      Five Supreme Court Justices–Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito and Kennedy are entrenching, in a whirlwind of judicial dictates, judicial legislating and sheer ideological judgments, a mega-corporate supremacy over the rights and remedies of individuals. ... the decisions are brazenly over-riding sensible precedents, tearing apart the state common law of torts and blocking class actions, shoving aside jury verdicts, limiting people's 'standing to sue,' pre-empting state jurisdictions–anything that serves to centralize power and hand it over to the corporate conquistadores.




  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Apple discusses patent threats in their SEC filings.

      PJ laughs at the ambiguity and asks, "Time to fix the US patent system, then, don't you think, if one of the most successful tech companies in the country can't predict its own survival with certainty, due to the threat of invalid patents?"



    • Microsoft sued for Kinect patent infringement
      Impulse Technology filed the suit in federal court in Delaware, accusing Microsoft and several game makers--including Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and THQ--of violating patents related to, among other things, tracking and assessing movement skills in multidimensional space

      This does not seem related to the HiE-D case.



    • Did Microsoft Steal the Kinect?
      [Carlos Anzola], an inventor, tinkerer, and self-ascribed geek from Bogotá, Colombia, had been working for years on a nearly identical gesture interface for the PC. His creation, the Human interface Electronic Device, or HiE-D – pronounced ‘Heidi’ - was capable of gesture recognition years before Microsoft would release the Kinect.

      This seems to be a typical wine, dine, steal by Microsoft of a not entirely obvious piece of hardware.







More Reader's Picks

  • Linus not happy with Gnome 3
    I'm using Xfce. I think it's a step down from gnome2, but it's a huge step up from gnome3. Really.



  • A study showing that IE users tended to be stupid was a hoax.

    I still think this PR flim flam was sponsored by Microsoft in the first place.



  • Security



    • McAffee admits complete and universal security failure.
      I am convinced that every company in every conceivable industry with significant size and valuable intellectual property and trade secrets has been compromised (or will be shortly), with the great majority of the victims rarely discovering the intrusion or its impact. In fact, I divide the entire set of Fortune Global 2000 firms into two categories: those that know they’ve been compromised and those that don’t yet know.

      Last year, another study showed that 88% of Fortune 500 networks had a particular botnet and Google has shown that Windows itself is spyware, so only people who don't mind Microsoft and criminals looking over their work should use Windows. All non free software carries the risk of backdoors.



    • Glen Moody calls out Windows for "Operation Shady Rat"
      This massive breach of security, and loss of possibly highly-sensitive information, was all down to two things: the abiding thoughtlessness of people opening attachments, and a range of flaws in Microsoft's software. So the statement that "the only organizations that are exempt from this threat are those that don’t have anything valuable or interesting worth stealing" is not true; another class would be those wise enough not to allow any of their personnel to use Microsoft products.






  • Defence/Police/Aggression

    • Feds Say They Can Search Bradley Manning's Friend's Laptop Because They Can
      This border search had nothing to do with the border and everything to do with the feds using a questionable opportunity to seize data that it could not otherwise get access to via legal means. If House's laptop were really crucial to the case, then the Justice Department should have gotten a warrant to view it. ... the reason given for having to keep House's laptop for so long ... the laptop ran both Linux and Windows and the tech geniuses at Homeland Security had trouble understanding how to deal with that.

      If you must travel to, from or within the US, bring a clean laptop you don't mind giving away, sftp via rsync your files to yourself when you get here and scrub the drive before you leave. If you must run Windows, do it in a VirtualBox.



    • Man arrested and beaten for taking pictures of police in Los Vegas
      Crooks can be heard yelling in pain while Colling can be heard telling him to "shut up" and telling him his decision not to turn off the camera put him in "a world of hurt."

      Bullies often blame their victims.





  • Cablegate



  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife





  • Finance



    • Who’s Grabbing Africa’s Land? U.S. Speculators, Including Universities
      China and Arab countries have generally been scrutinized in the media for their land deals, but much of the cash flow comes through U.S. and European investors, according to Oakland Institute—through established pension funds, agribusiness behemoths and even educational institutions. ... “We see really vertical integration and control of the markets [by investors] who will be able to both influence prices and also decide on what the production will be,” warns Oakland Institute Policy Director Frederic Mousseau. “We have the food chain, which is pervasively and quite rapidly in recent years being under the control of financial groups.




  • Anti-Trust

    • Former Microsoft Exec Steven VanRoekel Named US Federal CIO
      VanRoekel previously served 15 years at Microsoft where his final position was as Microsoft’s Windows Server and Tools Division, followed by a year+ stint at the FCC starting in 2009, ending at this newest appointment.

      Techrights has a lot of articles about the stint at the FCC.





  • Censorship



    • EFF - Vague Anti-Stalking Law Threatens Protected Speech Online
      In this case, the government has presented the novel and dangerous theory that the use of a public communication service like Twitter to criticize a well-known individual can result in criminal liability based on the personal sensibilities of the person being criticized. ... "While true threats can and should be opposed, public speech about prominent people must be vigorously protected."

      The rich and powerful would use anti-trolling laws and as a censorship tool which has no effect on corporate controlled media.





  • Privacy

    • EFF: Randi Zuckerberg Runs in the Wrong Direction on Pseudonymity Online
      Randi Zuckerberg [of Facebook] doesn’t just think that you should be using your real name on Facebook or Google+ or LinkedIn -- she thinks pseudonyms have no place on the Internet at all ... Not only is uncivil discourse alive and well in venues with real name policies (such as Facebook), the argument willfully ignores the many voices that are silenced in the name of shutting up trolls: activists living under authoritarian regimes, whistleblowers, victims of violence, abuse, and harassment, and anyone with an unpopular or dissenting point of view that can legitimately expect to be imprisoned, beat-up, or harassed for speaking out. ... An Internet in which everyone has to use their real name is not necessarily going to be any more polite, but it is guaranteed to be a disaster for freedom of expression.

      Not mentioned is the fact that rules against nyms might be violated by the enforcers themselves, which simply gives authorities power that others lack. Put more concisely, Facebook and other ISPs would be the greatest fuckwads of all, a situation that mirrors the world of broadcast and physical media.





  • Civil Rights

    • Biofuels from food crops and rampant speculation lead to starvation and people eating less.
      The surprising conclusion from all this is that, leaving out the impact of the biofuel boom of the 2000s, global consumption of both cereals and edible oils is actually slowing down. All the more tragic, then, that speculative forces are still allowed to run amok in global commodity markets and global food prices are kept so high as to increase the deprivation of the millions of hungry people in the world.


    • US insurance companies have raised premiums and reduced health care.


    • Alabama's immigrant hate law rehtoric finds a target.
      Newlywed shoppers claim Wal-Mart's false accusation that they tried to steal $2.90 worth of chicken neck bones caused the wife to be falsely arrested and lose her job, her husband to be deported, and both to lose their car, all their possessions and their house - though Wal-Mart's security video showed they had paid for the damn chicken bones.

      So much for "The customer is always right." This is what happens when political leaders turn on minorities. RMS notes, "That false accusation would only have caused a brief annoyance if it had not been followed by repeated violations of the couple's rights." The annoyance might be brief, but the bad attitude is pervasive here in Alabama and officially encouraged by the state.





  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Huffington Post notices US patent problems, Huffington Post Notices
      It's possible that one consequence of first-to-file is that you'll have a rush of more patents ... The bill's new review process inside the PTO does provide a cheaper way to challenge silly patents than the current court process, but tech firms aren't likely to take advantage of it. Monitoring patent applications is nearly impossible, and challenging a patent alerts its holder to a potential lawsuit target if the challenge fails.


    • Google: When patents attack Android
      Android's success has yielded something else: a hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents. ... A smartphone might involve as many as 250,000 (largely questionable) patent claims, and our competitors want to impose a "tax" for these dubious patents that makes Android devices more expensive for consumers. ... the law frowns on the accumulation of dubious patents for anti-competitive means - which means these deals are likely to draw regulatory scrutiny, and this patent bubble will pop. ... We're also looking at other ways to reduce the anti-competitive threats against Android by strengthening our own patent portfolio.

      It is sad to see Google buying into a corrupt system which Microsoft has long used to extort gnu/linux users. Money wasted on worthless patents won't fend off lawsuits from IV and other shell companies. Software patents should not exist.



    • Microsoft nonsense about Nortel Patents

      PJ notes, "Google publicly announced they wanted the patents for defense only. But counterclaims by a defendant are defense. It's how you defend, meaning if no one sues you for patent infringement, you never use the patents at all in litigation. For Shaw to pretend he doesn't know that, assuming the media won't, is cynical. And you thought "Get the Facts" was bad." Google put it more clearly

      it's obvious why we turned down Microsoft’s offer. Microsoft's objective has been to keep from Google and Android device-makers any patents that might be used to defend against their attacks. A joint acquisition of the Novell patents that gave all parties a license would have eliminated any protection these patents could offer to Android against attacks from Microsoft and its bidding partners. Making sure that we would be unable to assert these patents to defend Android — and having us pay for the privilege — must have seemed like an ingenious strategy to them. We didn't fall for it.


    • Patents against prosperity
      This recent episode of Planet Money, "When Patents Attack", is an informative and entertaining primer on the way America's patent system squelches competition, slows innovation, and enables egregious predation through the legal system. Please listen to this. And then tell me that Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures is not our age's authentic villainous robber baron, making a fortune gaming America's dysfunctional patent-law system to shake down would-be innovators.


    • Copyrights

      • Two solicitors fined and suspended for file-sharer letters
        The Solicitors Regulation Authority has suspended two lawyers and fined them €£20,000 each for sending out thousands of letters accusing people of illegally sharing files.... Davenport Lyons passed the work onto ACS:Law and Andrew Crossley in 2009 when it got sick of the bad publicity. Crossley was declared bankrupt in June


      • Righthaven, still angering judges, finally pays cash for its mistakes
        Now, it is finally paying defense lawyers, even if it can't quite manage to send a check to the proper location.

        Fraud from start to finish.



      • The UK Musicians Union wants to tax every device that can play music.
        [Their argument] reveals the abiding and ingrained sense of entitlement that pervades all the creative industries. They are not content to be paid once like most people, but want to be paid again and again.

        It is difficult to imagine individual musicians that blockheaded, so the union must represent someone else.









Recent Techrights' Posts

"Journalism in Twitter" is a Paradox
"I am writing an article" is not the same as "I am writing a set of tweets" (usually random thoughts and unverified assertions, citing other unverified assertions)
The Future of the World Wide Web is Just 'Webapps' in Chrome, Not Web Pages in One's Browser of Choice
The monoculture gets worse, not better
EPO Corruption is a Real Threat to the European Union (EU). The EPO Helps Russia. If It Does Not Reform or Reboot, It Can Contribute to the Collapse of the EU and UPC (Which Was Never Legal or Even Constitutional, It's a Captured Kangaroo Court Controlled by the Patent Litigation Industry).
second-largest institution in Europe
Linux is Becoming Non-free Software and the So-called 'Linux' Foundation Likes It That Way (It's Fronting for Companies That Violate the GPL, the Licence of Linux)
What's happening here is, they rip off people using their "stolen" (GPL-violating) product
Red Hat: Thank You, Microsoft. Here's Your Paid-for Puff Pieces From Our Media Partner!
Sort of like "money laundering" (or funnelling of bribes) for bribed "journalists"
 
Today's Slopwatch
MaKenna Hensley's latest
Playing Social Control Media 'Games' Instead of Writing Articles
someone will need to run two sites. One is "In Support of Richard Stallman", which is run by oneself, and other is "Stallman Support".
The Patent Litigation 'Industry' Controls the European Patent Office (Vendor Capture) and Everyone Suffers, Even the European Union
Today we relay an EPO publications dated just 4 days ago (this past Tuesday)
No, Mr. "Journalist", You Might be Corrupt (But Denying It to Yourself and to Others to Pacify Your Consciousness)
"Journalists" like the label because it makes the job sound like an honourable profession and they're presumed objective
Stop Glorifying Murderers, They Aren't Helping Anybody
Murder isn't the solution. Murder is a problem.
Europe's "Manhattan Project" Should be Abandoning Microsoft, Moving Everything to Free (Libre) Software
At the moment, Microsoft draws much of its budget from taxpayers
Gemini Links 14/12/2024: Minor Thing About git and jujutsu
Links for the day
Links 14/12/2024: Adobe's Shares Collapse, Apple Publishes Fake News With LLMs
Links for the day
Links 14/12/2024: ChatGPT Down, Microsofter Bracing for Layoffs
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/12/2024: Firing at Work, jujutsu, and Gemini Mode
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, December 13, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, December 13, 2024
Links 13/12/2024: British Journalism Awards and Censorship by Copyright Misuse
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/12/2024: "Virtue Signaling", Gopher, HTML and the 90s Web Aesthetic
Links for the day
Links 13/12/2024: Military Buildup Around Taiwan, More Health Problems Associated With Social Control Media Illuminated
Links for the day
Maybe - and Hopefully - More News Sites Will Go "Static" (More New Material Published But Established Pages Served Directly From the File System)
Keeping things simple and light is important for the sake of scaling
[Meme] Vendor Capture for 'Civility's Sake'
"I CoCed him already"
[Teaser] The EPO is Still Calling Monopolies "Products"
Coming soon
Anonymity for Sources
At the moment we can learn about stories in person or in encrypted voice chat
What Topics We Prioritise
On fishing for topics to cover
Why We Cover the Topics That We've Long Focused on (by Choice)
We'll continue to cover suppressed issues because such issues are usually obstructed
[Meme] The Reasonable Man
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world"
Oligarch-Owned Media Twists the Narrative and Demands More Surveillance
Corruption is the real issue here
Windows Falls to Single-Digit "Market Share" in Benin
Windows has fallen even further
[Meme] Doing Online Activism in Social Control Media
Dictators have always loved lists
Gemini Links 13/12/2024: Creative Moods, Berkeley DB, and More
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows Falls to New All-Time Low in Guatemala (Less Than a Quarter)
When it comes to operating systems, we don't think we've mentioned it before
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, December 12, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, December 12, 2024
[Meme] Leave My /home Alone
A new version of Systemd
There's a New Version of Lagrange (Gemini Reader) and Its Developer is Making an IDE/Editor
I share or reciprocate almost anything I can through Gemini Protocol
International Troll Alert by Helen Plews
Helen Plews from Cybershow has this new article
Nick's Job at OSI: Promote Microsoft, Promote Proprietary Software
This is what Microsoft pays him to do
[Meme] Award-Winning Back-stabbing Opportunists
part of the rebel alliance
The FSF (Free Software Foundation, Inc.) Can Reach Its Funding Goal of $400,000. This Bothers the Imposters and Foes of the FSF.
Software Freedom is something we must perpetually fight for
Azerbaijan Rejects Microsoft
Azerbaijan seems to have very little interest in Microsoft
Linux Foundation Pays for LLM Slop (Puff Pieces Made by Bots) About the Linux Foundation
The so-called Linux Foundation is responsible for the production of spam and slop
[Meme] You Just Grab Him by the CoC
Sponsors of Python Software Foundation... "You don't like Python's corporate sponsor?"
Explaining What Deb Nicholson Does to the Python Software Foundation
Of course the OSI, which Nicholson also occupied, still helps Microsoft attack copyleft
IBM Said to Be Firing People Days Before Christmas
IBM is entering taboo territories
Microsoft Falls to Just 11% in Ivory Coast
Microsoft tried hard to catch up in mobile
General Consultative Committee (GCC) Meeting at the European Patent Office (EPO) Shows Existing Problems
the "real problems" and why "digitalisation" doesn't solve them
Links 12/12/2024: Shell Settles With Greenpeace, DOJ Whistleblower Pilot Program
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/12/2024: AuraGem TV and Advent of Code 2024
Links for the day
Fake "Linux" News, Produced by Microsoft Chatbots in 'Brittany Day' or "LinuxSecurity" Clothing
She's back at it
Microsoft OSI Promoting GitHub, Which is Proprietary and a Massive GPL Violator
OSI works for Microsoft, speaks for Microsoft, promotes proprietary software
Links 12/12/2024: Another 'Self-driving' Cars Dead End, Infowars Sale Blocked by Court
Links for the day
Links 12/12/2024: "Hey Hi" Hype Debunked, ActivityPub and Gemini Software on Same Server
Links for the day
Google Has Only Solidified Its Search Monopoly in Africa Since Microsoft's Chatbot/LLM Hype Started
Africa is basically a "Failed Market" to Microsoft
[Teaser] EPO is Running Out of Brains
EPO has been in the business of offering fake patents
South Korea Has Its Own Alternative to IBM's Proprietary RHEL
Owing to the Open Enterprise Linux Association (OpenELA)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, December 11, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, December 11, 2024