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Links 23/9/2011: Linux Delay, GNU Health 1.3.3





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



  • Desktop



  • Server

    • Looking For i In All The Wrong Places
      Beyond that I'll find discussions on virtualization, the cloud, and Linux, as well as how to noodle lifecycle costs by factoring in the cost of operation and incremental changes on top of the cost of acquisition. I can categorize some of that as "must know" and some of it as "hope I can skip through that."


    • IBM pitches overclocked Xeons to Wall Street
      Big Blue has joined the ranks of server makers that are pitching servers using over-clocked processors to latency-sensitive financial services companies.






  • Kernel Space



  • Applications



  • Distributions

    • Pardus 2011.2: new version or service pack?
      Even having these oddities, this distribution gains popularity. As per recent voting, Pardus got just below 5% of votes for best KDE-based distribution. More than monstrous Mandriva or newborn Mageia.


    • TLWIR 18: Ubuntu Rapid Release, Acer, and The Philippines’ Bold Move
      Intel saved $200 million by switching from proprietary Unix software to free software running on GNU/Linux.


    • New Releases



    • PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

      • Happy Belated Birthday, Mageia
        A year ago, when I wrote about a group of Mandriva former employees and contributors who’d decided to create a fork called Mageia, I had no idea whatsoever whether the project would survive to actually release a product. Well, a year has come and gone and Mageia not only released Mageia 1 in June, it’s now a distro with a year’s worth of organization under it’s belt. That may not sound like a lot, but to my mind it’s quite an accomplishment.




    • Red Hat Family

      • CloudLinux Now Running on More Than 5,000 Servers


      • Red Hat Profit Jumps 69%
        Red Hat Inc. (RHT: News ), the world's largest seller of Linux software, said Wednesday after the markets closed that its second quarter profit rose 69% from last year, as revenue surged 28% amid strong demand for its products and services. The company's quarterly earnings per share, excluding items, also came in above analysts' expectations as did its quarterly revenue.


      • RHT: Microsoft’s Ship Has Sailed In ‘Cloud Computing’
        Following a better-than-expected fiscal Q2 report this afternoon by Linux operating system and tools vendor Red Hat (RHT), CEO Jim Whitehurst was kind enough to take a few moments to talk with me about the results but also about how his company is progressing in “cloud” computing.


      • Red Hat Beats its Own Forecasts
        Red Hat has reported financial results for its fiscal second quarter, which ended August 31, and the company continues to prove that a business model of supporting robust open source software can lead to remarkable success. In fact, as we predicted it would be, the company is emerging as the first ever billion dollar a year open source company. Red Hat's total revenue for the quarter was $281.3 million, an increase of 28% from the year ago quarter. Subscription revenue for the quarter was $238.3 million, up 28% year-over-year.






  • Devices/Embedded

    • RoweBots Helps the Blind See


    • Iomega's NAS excels with flexible connections, cloud storage, says review
      Iomega's StorCenter PX px4-300d NAS (network attached storage) device is a solid contender for the SMB market, says this eWEEK Labs review. The four-bay, Linux-based device runs on a dual-core 1.8GHz Intel Atom D525, offers up to 12TB storage, and supports hot-swappable solid-state disks as well as Iomega's Personal Cloud.


    • Phones

      • Report: Bada to be open sourced
        The open sourcing of Bada is designed, it is reported, to attract more developers to the platform. Another reported reason is that the move is a reaction to the takeover by Google of Motorola Mobility, producers of Android phones and other devices; it is believed that Samsung would aim to counterbalance the threat of Google preferring to work with Motorola.


      • Android compatibility layer launches first on MeeGo
        OpenMobile has demonstrated OEM-focused technology that permits any Android app to run on MeeGo, with versions planned for Linux, Bada, WebOS, and Windows, Symbian, and QNX. OpenMobile's Application Compatibility Layer (ACL) was shown in a video running Android apps and quickly switching between MeeGo and Android environments on a MeeGo tablet.


      • Android

        • Is banned Android Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 better than the Apple iPad 2?
          DaniWeb recently reported how Apple had won a ban on the sale of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in Europe and even published the rather generic-looking design drawings at the heart of the case. Now a Düsseldorf regional court judge, Johanna Brueckner-Hoffmann, has heard the Samsung appeal against the ban and concluded that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 gives a "clear impression of similarity" to the iPad: the result being that the ban has been upheld, but only in Germany rather than being across the EU. If reports are to be believed, Samsung could fight back with an attempt to delay or block the sale of the new iPhone 5 in Europe (on the grounds that it infringes some basic technology patents held by Samsung) before it has even arrived.


        • Google Plus Hangout Comes To Android
          Google today rolled an update of Google + app for Android devices. The update brings the most demanded feature to the Android device -- Hangout. Now Android users can join Hangouts from the mobile app. Another notable new feature is changing Huddle to Messenger. You can now send photos to each other using Messenger (Huddle).


        • Acer C6 Liquid Express Android phone in Orange leak
          Acer's newest mobile has been leaked by Orange. The Android-powered C6 Liquid Express has popped up on the network operator's website, along with a list of its specs.

          The C6 Liquid Express, spotted by Unwired View, will come running Android version 2.3 Gingerbread, backed up by both Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. It's going to have a 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen, and around the back it's set to pack a 5-megapixel camera.










Free Software/Open Source



  • FI: Kankaanpää halves project hardware costs by deploying open source enterprise virtualisation software
    The town of Kankaanpää in the western Finnish region of Satakunta has been able to halve its project hardware costs by deploying enterprise virtualisation software from a global open source (OS) solutions provider, it was announced on 24 August 2011.


  • Events



  • SaaS

    • OpenStack Diablo is a Quantum Leap for Open Source Cloud
      The OpenStack Project is moving a bit closer to its proprietary competition with the Diablo release, out today. In addition to improving the three core projects, OpenStack is now adding a Web-based dashboard, unified authentication and an API for configuring virtual networks. With Diablo, OpenStack is poised to manage global clouds.




  • Databases

    • MySQL Moves Closer to Closed
      MySQL founder and developer Monty Widenius announced on his blog that the MySQL relational database management system would no longer be a free software project and will instead be under an Open Core model. Widenius pointed to an Oracle announcement last week, which detailed new commercial extensions for MySQL Enterprise Edition.




  • Education

    • Mobile Moodle App Arrives for Open Source e-Learners
      If you're unfamiliar with the fast-growing world of online learning (e-learning) it's becoming a huge business, and top universities such as U.C. Berkeley now offer free webcasts and podcasts to the public. Did you know that one of the biggest players in software and platforms for e-learning is a free, open source offering? If not, consider Moodle, which we covered here. Moodle is a course management system (CMS) that leverages developers from all around the world, and allows people to deliver and take courses online. In the latest piece of Moodle news, there is now a Moodle iPhone app.




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • Fellowship Interview with Stefan Kangas
      People have been using our email servers since around February. The systems are basically up and running, but at this point mainly on borrowed and donated hardware. We set our membership fee at 300 SEK per year (around 33 Euros) and that’s basically covering the running costs of an exclusive internet connection for the main server. Though it’s consumer grade at this point, we’re currently looking at a better solution; we want to be hosted in a more serious location.

      We’ve discussed whether or not a virtual private server is OK, seeing as we want to keep everything under our own control. Obviously we want to control all hardware as well as the software. But at the moment we basically receive email and store it on our IMAP server. We have no outgoing email, though we are currently working on setting this up. We received the server just this week which has been lent to us for this purpose.

      This spring we had a party which was quite successful, basically a “launch party”. We are looking to organize another party for October 1st. It’s nice that parts of the Fripost work are already going on outside the “main” channels, which means we can spread the work load amongst more people; a goal that we have for everything in the project.


    • GNU Health 1.3.3 is out !
      I'm pleased to announce GNU Health 1.3.3






Leftovers

  • Top 10 Runlevels for Windows 8
    Lo and behold! We discovered that Microsoft is secretly including Unix-like runlevels into their new OS. Some of these runlevels will be available to the user (although they won’t be called “runlevels”) and others will only be able to be activated by MS through the Windows Update feature, without user control. Doesn’t sound good, does it? Things from Redmond seldom do.

    So, here it is, our list of the top 10 runlevels for Windows 8….

    9. Reboot. It’s predicted this will be the most used runlevel in Windows. 8. Big Brother Mode. We can’t find anything about this because the information is classified and requires clearance from either Homeland Security or the Chinese government. 7. Pre-Infected Mode. Why wait for a drive-by attack. Go ahead and get it over with. Offer your machine as a bot to the Russian mob.


  • Defence/Police/Aggression

    • TSA Employee vs. Advice Goddess
      Just because she offers advice on manners in the modern world, don't expect blogger/columnist Amy Alkon to stand by quietly if she thinks a government employee is violating her rights at the airport.




  • Cablegate

    • Assange bio: not a manuscript anyone would intend to publish
      They were putting copies of Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography in the window of Waterstone’s this morning when I arrived to buy a copy, which was cool — I really thought that was no more than a movie cliché. Inside, half a dozen copies sold in 10 minutes — most of the purchasers looked like newsroom interns — and a film crew from German state television was sharking around interviewing people.


    • Julian Assange: Statement on the Unauthorised, Secret Publishing of the Julian Assange “autobiography” by Canongate
      Julian Assange Press Statement on the Unauthorised "Autobiography": Thursday 22nd September 2011, 0100

      I have learned today through an article in The Independent that my publisher, Canongate, has secretly distributed an unauthorised 70,000 word first draft of what was going to be my autobiography. According to The Independent, Canongate “enacted a huge security operation to secretly ship books out to thousands of stores nationwide without tipping anyone off as to the content of the book”. It will be in the bookshops tomorrow.

      I am not “the writer” of this book. I own the copyright of the manuscript, which was written by Andrew O’Hagan. By publishing this draft against my wishes Canongate has acted in breach of contract, in breach of confidence, in breach of my creative rights and in breach of personal assurances. The US publisher, Knopf, withdrew from the deal when it learned of Canongate’s intentions to publish without my consent. This book was meant to be about my life’s struggle for justice through access to knowledge. It has turned into something else. The events surrounding its unauthorised publication by Canongate are not about freedom of information — they are about old-fashioned opportunism and duplicity—screwing people over to make a buck.






  • Finance



  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Is Scott Walker John Doe?
      Wisconsin has been riveted this week by reports that more of Governor Scott Walker’s top aides may be implicated in an ongoing “John Doe” investigation into potentially illegal campaign practices related to Walker’s 2010 gubernatorial race. Although the investigation, first reported on by Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, has been underway for at least a year, a recent FBI raid on the home of Walker’s chief lieutenant, Cynthia “Cindy” Archer, has the state abuzz with speculation about who may be the target of the investigation.


    • Hiding the Sausage: How a Well-Funded Right-Wing Organization is Grinding Out State Laws
      When Jeff Wright walked into the lobby of the New Orleans Marriott on Aug. 3, he wasn't sure what to expect. As the director of public policy advocacy for the Florida Education Association -- a prominent teachers' union that had been bearing the brunt of legislative attacks from Florida Republicans throughout the 2011 legislative session -- he wasn't there for your standard Mardi Gras-themed party. The American Legislative Exchange Council, a national nonprofit organization made up of elected officials and private interests who gather regularly to try to directly influence the substance of public policy, was holding its annual four-day meeting there, so any "partying" would probably be a little more conservative, and -- going by a recent glut of press coverage pointing out ALEC's clearinghouse mentality of privately linking big corporations with the state legislators willing to pursue their bottom-line agendas in the form of "model legislation" -- slightly more nefarious. Nevertheless, he wanted to see it for himself.


    • Koch Lobbyist is ALEC State Co-Chair for Wisconsin; Scholarships Raise Ethics Concerns
      When Jeff Wright walked into the lobby of the New Orleans Marriott on Aug. 3, he wasn't sure what to expect. As the director of public policy advocacy for the Florida Education Association -- a prominent teachers' union that had been bearing the brunt of legislative attacks from Florida Republicans throughout the 2011 legislative session -- he wasn't there for your standard Mardi Gras-themed party. The American Legislative Exchange Council, a national nonprofit organization made up of elected officials and private interests who gather regularly to try to directly influence the substance of public policy, was holding its annual four-day meeting there, so any "partying" would probably be a little more conservative, and -- going by a recent glut of press coverage pointing out ALEC's clearinghouse mentality of privately linking big corporations with the state legislators willing to pursue their bottom-line agendas in the form of "model legislation" -- slightly more nefarious. Nevertheless, he wanted to see it for himself.




  • Internet/Net Neutrality





Recent Techrights' Posts

Early Unverified Figures About Scale of Latest IBM Layoffs
the real scale of the RAs will remain elusive
How Techrights Search Works
Hopefully bots won't use it
Techrights Became a Lot More Productive as a Result of Attacks on It
By default, it's safe to assume anything on the Web is garbage, especially in social control media
Unverified Rumours: IBM Cuts Will Continue Another ~10 Days, Managers Will Invite Those Impacted for 1-on-1 Meetings
Right now IBM likes diversity because with adoption of low-paid demographies it gets to pay workers less for the same work
analytics.usa.gov: Vista 11 Scarcely Used, GNU/Linux Increasingly Dominant (Microsoft Loses "Goodwill", Depletes Cash Equivalents, and Debt Soars)
"Total current assets" fell by more than 2 billion dollars in the past 3 months
Not Only Mass Layoffs at IBM But Complete Shutdowns "Amid A.I. Boom"
apparently about 10,000 layoffs, not counting those who got pushed out by PIPs and other means
Search @ Techrights: Almost There Now (Maybe an Anniversary Gift)
Just to be very clear, search would not be unprecedented at Techrights
 
Red Hat Staff Also Impacted by Latest IBM Layoffs With Focus on North America and Software, Infrastructure
After the bluewashing never expect to see news about "Red Hat layoffs", just as "Tivoli layoffs" aren't to be expected
Coming Soon: Part 4 About the EPO's Substance Abuse (Breaking Laws to Fake 'Production' and Profiting From Unlawful Monopolies)
Notice how quiet the EPO's management has been lately
For the Record: We Never Named Staff of the Law Firm That's Attacking Us, Except the One the Firm is Named After!
Just to affirm and be sure, I've used our new search facility
Links 05/11/2025: Medicare Privatisation and "Breaker Box Economy"
Links for the day
Techrights Search Will Come Early
Maybe tomorrow
It Seems Like GNOME/IBM Don't Like Women and When Budget is Limited Only Women Take the Fall
Seems like a very patriarchal, GAFAM-controlled Foundation
"Last Day" as in "IBM Sacked Me" (Cruel Euphemisms)
"The entire design and research technical leadership at IBM was laid off in the past year, including this round"
Shadow Crew and Ads Disguised as Articles
That The Register MS runs articles that are paid-for fluff isn't unprecedented
Vista 11 "Market Share" Has Fallen This Month, Based on statCounter
The US government's own data shows the same thing this month
This is How Mainstream Media, Boosted or Parroted by Slopfarms, Spins IBM's Commercial Failure and Mass Layoffs as "AI"
Some say "software focus", but most just resort to buzzwords and blame-shifting hype
Resisting Misogynists
Rianne has already added close to 100,000 pages to this site
Starting November on a Strong Note
All in all, this month started well for us as we have good, accurate publications with considerable impact
Fake Retirements Help IBM Keep the Layoff Figures Down
Yesterday we read that it was quite cruel how IBM (or Red Hat) compelled staff to pretend to be happily leaving or "retiring" when the reality was, they had been pushed out with some "package"
Cocaine at the European Patent Office Now a Subject in YouTube, Media Will Revisit the Topic
"The Cocaine Patent Office" is no joking matter
Gemini Links 05/11/2025: "Wuthering Heights" and "Winter is Coming"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 04, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 04, 2025
2 Days Until Site Anniversary Party, Search Likely to Launch Same Day
We're now just two days away from the nineteenth anniversary of the site
Richard Stallman's 2005 Article on Why Patents on Software Should be Denied
If patent law had been applied to novels in the 1880s, great books would not have been written. If the EU applies it to software, every computer user will be restricted, says Richard Stallman
"Last Day" at IBM and Red Hat as "Stealth Layoffs" (They Force People to Pretend It's Wilful)
So the real extent of the layoffs is being kept 'undercover'
Slopwatch: The WebProNews Slopfarm and the Serial Slopper
The Web is ill
Links 04/11/2025: Tensions Around Belarus Grow, Turkey’s Hype-inflation Continues
Links for the day
Corporate Media That Fails to Report Cocaine at EPO is Totally Failing to Report Mass Layoffs at IBM
How come nobody anywhere writes about this week's RAs?
At IBM, Layoffs Start at 1AM (at Night)
not a single English-speaking site covers the news about the layoffs
Links 04/11/2025: Google Cloud Account Engages in Censorship of the Innocent, arXiv Spammed by LLM Slop
Links for the day
EPO Cocaine Chronicles: Our Aim Will be to Ensure This Becomes a Mainstream Media Topic, Not a Suppressed Scandal (Which the German State Deems Embarrassing and Detrimental to Its Pan-European Patent Franchise)
At the EPO, and perhaps in German media as well, people "fall upwards" (they get rewarded for bad things)
Envy Makes People Do Self-Harming Things (and Harm to Others)
Online communities that can be deemed successful are built around trust, mutual respect, and collective accomplishment
Static Site Generators (SSGs) Made Techrights Better, Faster, Easier to Manage
Consider adopting SSGs if you still use a CMS such as WordPress
But he Was Born in Manchester! (Origin Stories)
Borussia Dortmund does not exist!
What Julian Darley Wrote About the Stallman Talk Regarding "AI" in Oxford (2025)
From LinkedIn (Microsoft)
GNU/Linux is American, Not Finnish
It started in Boston, not in Helsinki
'Hacker' 'News' Makes Dumb Assertions Against Smart People
A logical fallacy
We Turned Down Every Settlement Offer Because Truths Aren't Determined in Bank Accounts
Without free press, there won't be free society
"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." -Galileo Galilei
This site is educational
Why I'm Always Proud of the Site I've Devoted My Life to
As a graffiti around the corner from our home says, "be a better person"
Standing Up or Standing for What's True But Inconvenient
Bad actors need to be called out
Many People Have Said That They "Leave" IBM in Recent Days (Ahead of Mass Layoffs)
So the real extent of layoffs is greater than what's publicly stated (there are silent layoffs) [...] Whatever IBM says about the scope, scale, or magnitude of the "RAs", it doesn't tell the full story
Media Coverage Regarding IBM is Vapourware and LLM Slop
With slop images, too
statCounter Says GNU/Linux Rose to 4% in the Russian Federation
Adoption of Vista 11 has been embarrassingly weak
Corruption is Not a Joke
we'll try to limit our use of humour to avoid misunderstandings or misinterpretations
The Slopfarm WebProNews is Overwhelming "linux" Results in Google News
Google News is slop
The Fall of IBM: What Happened?
Just like the EPO continues riding some old reputation acquired in the 1970s IBM relies on old myths like, "nobody gets fired for buying IBM."
IBM's CEO Already Has the Excuse for the Latest Wave of Mass Layoffs
Only days ago the CEO told a bunch of nonsense
Links 04/11/2025: Conflicts, Politics, and IPv6 at Home
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/11/2025: Entering WiFi Passwords and Programming Rambles
Links for the day
Arch Linux Seems Like the New Debian
Arch users (btw!) are growing in relative and absolute share
Analytics From US Government Affirm a Trend: Microsoft's "Market Share" in Search is Falling
the data set is large
Holding Institutions Such as the EPO Accountable Through Public Information
Speaking truth to power is never easy
Techrights Will Contact German Media About the EPO's Substance Abuse
This scandal won't "go to waste"
EPO Staff Losing Holidays, as Usual, as the Office Increases Profits by Illegally Granting Invalid Patents While Reducing Salaries
How much more can the staff endure and generally tolerate?
Free Software Does Not Always Speak for Itself, It Needs Advocates
Legal matters that relate to sharing of code will be discussed
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 03, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, November 03, 2025
The Register MS Continues Looking for Money in Promotion of the "AI" Ponzi Scheme
That The Register MS participates in this deceit rather than tackle/debunk it says a lot about The Register MS
IBM Layoffs in "Software", This Likely Impacts Red Hat as Well
Many people say "software" people are impacted
Escaping Proprietary Software, Not Just Escaping Microsoft
To take control of your life adopt GNU/Linux
A Lot of Fake News About Microsoft Headcount (Also: Microsoft's Debt Rose by About 24 Billion Dollars in Past 12 Months)
If you see some headline about Microsoft's CEO making claims about hirings, look away
Techrights Turns 19 in Three Days
It would be nice to meet for a chat
Akira Urushibata on How Grokipedia Fails to Work
The Grokipedia article gives the wrong character for the "Ko" on "Koan"
Links 03/11/2025: Data Breaches, Wars, and Digital Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/11/2025: Poetry, Old Androids and Small Shells
Links for the day
The Rumour Was True, Mass Layoffs at IBM Today
How widespread the layoffs are (or how they're disguised, e.g. PIPs) is hard to assess
Links 03/11/2025: Internet Anniversary
Links for the day
Two Years of Uptime
Reboots are seldom involuntary
Richard Stallman is Giving Another Talk in Less Than a Fortnight
in two weeks' time (13 days from now)
Windows Falls Below 20% in the UK
Many people choose to leave Windows altogether
Microsoft's Search Business Falls to Lowest Point in 2 Years, Based on statCounter
what can Microsoft sell other than shares in Microsoft?
Evidence Regarding Layoffs at Red Hat
Seems like IBM layoffs
Microsoft: Our "Goodwill" Value Grew More Than Tenfold Since 2011
Hallmark of pseudo-economics
GNU/Linux as a Boarding Pass
being mostly analogue is still feasible
Links 03/11/2025: Lack of Trust in LLMs and Windows TCO at Jaguar
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/11/2025: Books in October and Change
Links for the day
Mozilla Firefox Won't Survive and Many Sites Don't Work With It (Compatibility Abandoned)
The Web has become monocultural
Debian is Non-Free
Devuan might be worth looking into
Slopwatch: Brian Fagioli and LinuxSecurity
This is a real problem and most certainly a big problem because when people try to find real information about security and GNU/Linux they instead read "word salads" made by bots
Four Reasons to Party With Us in Four Days, Celebrating the Four Freedoms
Today we expect to be back to a more-or-less regular publication pace
Links 03/11/2025: The "Smartphone Panopticon" and Belarus' Hybrid Attacks on EU Intensify
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 02, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, November 02, 2025