Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 28/3/2012: GTK+ 3.4.0, ACTA Spin





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Skype Open-Source Back In Action, Breaks v5.5
    After a several month hiatus, the individual(s) working to reverse-engineer Skype's binary client have successfully "deobfuscated" the Skype 5.5 release.

    "We got deobfuscated skype v5.5!!! I can't belive in this. But its fucking true. Great thanks and congratulations going to Vilko," begins a new post on the skype-open-source blog.


  • Roll Your Own Wiki With Open Source MoinMoin


  • WalmartLabs is building big data tools — and will then open source them


  • The benefits of open source
    Free and open source software has touched all our lives whether we know it or not. Often misunderstood and treated with suspicion, many businesses take advantage of the benefits of it without acknowledging the community that powers it.


  • Sirius CTO: UK businesses must start tapping SME talent
    The time has come for small and medium businesses to get the recognition they deserve, according to Andrew Savory, newly-appointed Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at open source systems integrator Sirius, with a new generation of smart British technology companies proving that they can deliver services just as well, sometimes cheaper, and sometimes better than their large entrenched counterparts.

    Savory, an active member of The Apache Software Foundation, joins Sirius from the LiMo Foundation, a non-profit technology consortium dedicated to creating the first Linux-based mobile operating system for smartphone devices. Coming from an open source, small business background himself, Savory is excited to see a step-change in the way that SMEs are being viewed, thanks to initiatives like the government's G-Cloud.


  • The Peek Email Device Goes Open Source
    f at first you don’t succeed, open source the sucker. Peek has released an open source version of their Peek Mobile operating system, allowing hackers to use the all-but-obsolete little email device as a hacker platform. The Linux release is available the PeekLinux wiki and hackers are already adding new apps and functionality to the tiny device.


  • Building a GSM network with open source
    Over the last few years open source technology has enabled mobile phone networks to be set up on a shoestring budget at hacker conferences, on a tiny Pacific island and at a festival in the Nevada desert. Andrew Back takes a look at how this has been made possible and at what's involved in building a GSM network using OpenBTS and OpenBSC.


  • Events

    • Sydneysider to give keynote at Wikimania
      Gardiner is a long-time member of the Sydney Linux User Group, an office-bearer of Linux Australia, and a regular member of the technical panel that chooses talks for the annual Australian national Linux conference.

      Last year Gardiner, along with Linux kernel developer Valerie Aurora, set up The Ada Initiative, a project to help increase the participation of women in technology. The project was born after several incidents of sexist behaviour towards women at FOSS events.


    • High-tech titans coming to Columbia
      Next week’s Palmetto Open Source Software Conference — or POSSCON — is starting to bring some serious high-tech street cred to Columbia.

      The conference – which grew substantially in each of its past four years — focuses on the communal development of software like Open Office and Firefox that developers share with the world, often for free.




  • Web Browsers



    • Chrome



    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla at Work on Mobile Do Not Track
        You can opt out of being tracked online by using a Web browser with support for Do Not Track, a privacy feature that lets you tell supporting websites that you don't want to be tracked by third parties (advertisers, marketing firms, and the like). It's like putting yourself on an online version of the Do Not Call list.

        Now Mozilla is developing an open-source operating system for smartphones and tablets that supports Do Not Track from the ground up. Code-named Boot to Gecko (B2G), this Linux-based mobile OS is designed to bring the (comparatively) rigorous privacy standards of the World Wide Web to smartphones and tablets.


      • Mozilla launches multiplayer browser adventure to showcase HTML5 gaming
        Mozilla has teamed up with Web design studio Little Workshop to develop a Web-based multiplayer adventure game called BrowserQuest. The game is built with standards-based Web technologies and is designed to be played within a Web browser.

        With the technical capabilities offered by the latest standards, Web developers no longer have to rely on plugins to create interactive multimedia experiences and application-like user interfaces. As we reported earlier this month, modern standards are making the Web an increasingly viable platform for game development.


      • Asa Dotzler Recommends Opera For Firefox 3.6 Users Who Don’t Want To Upgrade
        If you are a Firefox 3.6 user you know by now that support for that branch of the web browser will end on April 24, 2012. As it stands now, Firefox 3.6.28, released on March 14, is likely the last version of Firefox 3.6. Mozilla will not update the version of the browser again unless a major security or stability issue forces them to.

        With Firefox 3.6 out of the picture, Firefox users still using the branch are asked by Mozilla to either update to the current stable version of the browser, which is Firefox 11 at the time of writing, or the Firefox Extended Support Release. The latter has been specifically designed for organizations as a way to lessen the impact of Mozilla’s new rapid release process on the company’s IT department.


      • Firefox 3.6.x approaches end of life


      • Mozilla BrowserQuest The Future of Open Source HTML5 Gaming?


      • Jeff Klein, I hate you ;-)






  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • LibreOffice developers demo collaborative editing prototype
      A group of LibreOffice developers have added experimental collaborative editing capabilities to the open source office suite. The feature allows multiple users to work on the same document simultaneously over the Internet. The collaborative editing functionality was implemented by grafting Telepathy to LibreOffice.




  • CMS



  • Business



  • Funding

    • Kickstarter to fund development of Arduino-based, browser-controlled open source hardware automated gardening dome


    • Google Summer of Code: Contribute to Open Source, Make Money
      If you're a post-secondary student, 18 years or older, you have a golden opportunity this Summer. Contribute to an open source project that you care about, and get paid to do it. Once again, it's Google Summer of Code (GSoC) time, and open source organizations are beating the bushes to find the best ideas and applicants.

      The GSoC has been an annual tradition since 2005. Google partners with mentoring organizations and offers students stipends for successful completion of open source projects. Students get a stipend of $5,000 USD and the mentoring organization receives $500. Students get a $500 stipend after coding begins on May 1st, a $2,250 payment after a successful mid-term evaluation, and $2,250 after the final program evaluation. Oh, and don't forget the t-shirt.




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



  • Project Releases



  • Public Services/Government



  • Openness/Sharing

    • How open is too open?
      Last month, we posted a survey asking, "If you could open one of the following data sets tomorrow, which one would you open and why?" We got a great response–279 people voted and there were several comments.




  • Programming



  • Standards/Consortia

    • Tizen pops up as HTML5 winner
      No one has seen the Tizen mobile platform in action yet, but whatever browser the in-development platform is using has blown away the competition for HTML5 performance.

      Listed only as "Tizen 1" on The HTML5 Test (THT) site, the development version of the Tizen browser scored 387 points out of a possible total of 475 points within the mobile phone browser category.


    • 1&1 Internet AG receives German Document Freedom Award
      1&1, GMX and WEB.DE receive the German Document Freedom Award for the use of Open Standards. The prize is awarded by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure e.V. (FFII). 1&1 is awarded for automatically adding XMPP for all customers of their mail services. The Document Freedom Award is awarded annually on the occasion of Document Freedom Day - the international day for Open Standards. Last years winners include tagesschau.de, Deutschland Radio, and the German Foreign Office.






Leftovers



  • Security





  • Finance



  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Shocker! FOX asks Tough Questions and Paul Ryan Flubs
      In an uncharacteristic move for a Fox News anchor, Wallace asks some tough questions of the Chair of the House Budget Committee. Since the Ryan plan would lose 10 trillion dollars of revenue over ten years, Wallace asked exactly which tax loopholes would be closed to raise the revenue that would be lost from reducing the tax rate. But Ryan could not name specific loopholes that he would close as part of his plan because "that's not the job of the budget committee."


    • The Corporations Bankrolling ALEC, which Has Promoted "Stand Your Ground" as a "Model" Bill
      The gun lobby has come under the spotlight for its role in the so-called “Stand Your Ground” or "Shoot First" law that may protect the man who shot and killed seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida –- but many other special interests, including household names like Kraft Foods and Wal-Mart, also helped facilitate the spread of these and other laws by funding the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).




  • ACTA

    • Spinning ACTA “prolongation” strategies – noise in the cable
      LQDN demonstrates that their voting expectations do not depend upon the ECJ rerferral but their procedural input is quite a bit confusing. I had some strange artefacts in my DSL connection and then found out the ethernet cable between the router and the splitter was broken. You could argue that LQDN add some fog of war and inserted confusion in the process. I just wonder if MEPs would switch to a different cable. If you dismiss the current proposed procedures of the rapporteur David Martin as “delay” tactics what’s the actual alternative for Parliament?


    • EU Parliament Will Vote on ACTA Without Delay!
      The EU Parliament has refused to freeze the ACTA debate, and will not refer the agreement to the EU Court of Justice. In a 21 to 5 vote, the Parliament decided to stick to its calendar and will vote on ACTA in June, as originally planned. The Commission's technocratic manoeuvres have not stopped the Parliament, and the door remains open to a swift rejection of ACTA.





Recent Techrights' Posts

Trouble in Red Hat/IBM and a Retreat to Ponzi Economics in Search of Wall Street Market Heist
Would you invest your life savings in this kind of crap?
Who Asked Software in the Public Interest (SPI) for a Refund? ($100,000, Resulting in Losses of $267,201 in 12 Months, Highest-Ever Losses)
The IRS does not reveal who or what's tied to this refund (or the cause/reason)
 
Links 23/10/2025: Windows TCO Galore and "The Internet Is Going to Break Again"
Links for the day
Social engineering attack: Debian voted to trick you on binary blobs
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Techrights Will Always Stand for Women's Rights
We even invest money - personal savings that it - in our principles
Certified Lawyers Should Know Better (Than to Intimidate Us With Man Who Drives on Motorcycle Through a Really Bad Storm Between Distant Cities, Then Collects Photos of Our Home)
Mentioning someone was in prison for bad things isn't a crime, it's a public service
Why We Support Richard Stallman and You Probably Should Too
It's not about being "Richard Stallman fan", it is about maintaining the right to hold positions (on technology) like his
The "AI" (Slop) Bubble is Already Imploding
"ChatGPT Usage Has Peaked and Is Now Declining, New Data Finds"
The So-called "Sexy" Buckets (AI, Quantum) Cannot Save IBM From Reality, Shares Tank
"No matter how much financial hocus-pocus they use to reclassify revenues to land in the "sexy" buckets (AI, Quantum), it still smells old and musty - just like this company."
Paul Krugman is Wrong About the Scope of Mass Layoffs in the United States
A few years ago society was accelerating its journey towards feudalism, boosted by COVID-19
Links 23/10/2025: Proprietary Blunders and CISA's Latest Disclosure of Holes
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/10/2025: Fast Past (F1), 99.9% Uptime
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 22, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Slopwatch: Google News is Promoting Fake 'Articles' About Fake Xubuntu, Fake Articles About Replacing Windows With GNU/Linux
The quality of the Web deteriorates and unless someone cleans up the mess, real sites will lose an incentive to produce anything
When "AI Layoffs" Mean Layoffs Due to the "AI" Bubble Popping
many people that are laid off by Microsoft claim to be specialists in "AI"
Mysterious grant forfeited, $100,000 from Software in the Public Interest accounts 2023
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Evidence: bullying, student union behaviour: Armijn Hemel's FSFE resignation
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Evidence: psychological abuse, stalking, Galia Mancheva, Susanne Eiswirt ignored by FSFE judgment for Matthias Kirschner
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Helping FSFE scam victims and conference organisers
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Nigerian fraud in FSFE constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Worrying and Amusing Stories of "Clown Computing" Gone Awry
Many of these disasters could be avoided
Some Large German Media Covers Richard Stallman's Talks in Germany Earlier This Week
LLM-based chatbots are just "bullshit generators" (as he has long called them)
Links 22/10/2025: Amazon Plans to Replace Workers With Robotics, AWS and Clown Computing in General Ridiculed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/10/2025: Niri Completely Changes Multitasking and Overview of Diff-ers
Links for the day
Links 22/10/2025: Study on Misinformation by Slop and Heavily Debt-Sabbled Microsoft OpenAI (ClosedSlop) Uses "Browser" as Gimmick/Distraction
Links for the day
They've Already Spent Close to a Million Dollars on Lawyers and Sent Us About 50 KG of Legal Papers (Sponsored by Mysterious Third Party) to Try to Censor Techrights, Without Success
They try to overcompensate with sheer volume for a lack of solid, clear arguments (we are the victims here)
12 Months Ago the 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Officially Went 'Tag-Team'
We're actually sort of flattered or proud that such despicable people are so desperate to censor us
"Cloud Computing" Was Always a Joke, But This Week Was the Punchline
Maybe stop following tech trends and fashions
"Cloud Computing" Does Not Mean Safety
Fault tolerance is related to the notion of software freedom
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 21, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 21, 2025
The Fall of Windows: From Something to Nothing
Of course Microsoft will pretend everything is fine and "just trust the hey hi" (AI)
Sounds Like Fedora is Ready to Become Less of a Slave of Microsoft (GitHub)
This seems like a belated move in a positive direction
XBox is a Dead Microsoft Product in a Dying Industry
It's probable that another wave of XBox layoffs is just over the horizon (maybe even before month's end)
Progress on Techrights Site Search
Fun times
IBM's Bluewashing of Red Hat Means the Layoffs Are Silent, Barely Reported
Don't wait to hear about "Red Hat layoffs"
Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Happy Disconnection, AWS Falling Apart, Closing of Gemlog Blue
Links for the day
Full Audio of Today's Richard Stallman Talk in the Technical University of Munich
Free/Libre software and freedom in the digital society
Microsoft XBox is Just Vapourware (Promises of Hardware That Doesn't Exist), Real Products Perish
just as developers lose interest in developing for XBox Microsoft is increasing the costs imposed upon them
Slopwatch: Fake Articles (Slop) in "Linux" Clothing in Google News (Noise)
all about what Google does
Links 21/10/2025: Even "Inventor of Vibe Coding" Rejects Vibe Coding, USPTO Experiments With Slop in Examination
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Talk Now Available for Viewing (Archived Copy, Not Live-streamed)
This recording is over 2 hours old
Links 21/10/2025: AWS-Induced Chaos and Social Control Media Curbs
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/10/2025: Programming, StarGrid, Brand-New Palm OS Strategy Game in 2025, and Chatbot as Addiction Mechanisms
Links for the day
The African Lion and the American Cowards
Safaris exist for people to watch and enjoy animals
Amazon Web Shenanigans Perfectly Timed for Today's Talk by Richard Stallman
Maybe listen to him instead of looking for excuses to ridicule the messenger
Mission:Libre Has Taken Off (Project by Carmen Maris)
there will be a lot more to report on next month (after the event)
Techrights to Publish More EPO Leaks Next Week
We're meanwhile also doing lots of work on search, whose interface now looks better
Links 21/10/2025: 'The Lost Art' of Neon Signs and Twitter (X) to Enable Identity Theft (or Handle Theft) as a Service
Links for the day
Plagiarism With LLM Slop: Hindustan Times (HT Digital Streams Limited) Has Become a Slop Factory/Hub
What a disgrace
A radical proposal to keep your personal data safe, by Richard Stallman
"The surveillance imposed on us today is worse than in the Soviet Union. We need laws to stop this data being collected in the first place"
Next Week We Launch Search at Techrights
We're planning to launch it some time next week. Maybe Tuesday, maybe Thursday.
Talk by Richard Stallman Will be Live-streamed in Less Than 10 Hours
Happy hacking
"No Kings" in the Software World (GAFAM Should Not Exist, Either)
"No Kings" is a good slogan. Let's start by ridding ourselves of masters, not only those who reside in DC or visit DC
Every Morning
Bugs/edge cases combined with automation can spell disaster
Insane, Deliberately Dishonest, or Just Another Bigot?
very intellectually-dishonest human being
A Lot of Techrights is Built on Perl
Perl also runs the sister site
The Register MS Selling Slop for Microsoft (Vapourware, Ponzi Scheme, False Claims)
What will be left of The Register MS if it keeps repeating falsehoods and looking to profit from Ponzi schemes?
analytics.usa.gov Says Less Than 14% of Web Requests (to Government Sites) Come From Vista 11
Vista 11 was released more than 4 years ago!
People Who Attempt to Take Down Correct Information Need a Doctor a Day
“Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” ― George Orwell
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 20, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 20, 2025
Vista 11 is Sinking While Microsoft is PIPing (Mass Layoffs But Silent Layoffs)
We're witnessing a shift in platform dominance
Richard Stallman is Having a Good Week Already (Stallman Was Right About 'Clown Computing')
That alone is worth bringing up in his talk
An Update About Soylent News, With Jan Rinok "Back in the Saddle"
Burnout or "near burnout" a possibility when having to curate abuse
When Prominent GNU/Linux Distros Are Run by Spies
What has Microsoft Canonical become?
More Publishers and Companies Nowadays Say "GNU/Linux", Not "Linux"
It's not to see InstallAware saying GNU/Linux this week