Programming News Picks: Focus on Free Software
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-02-16 23:26:19 UTC
- Modified: 2014-02-16 23:26:19 UTC
Summary: 2014 news picks that focus on programming and development, especially of Free software or using Free software tools
Demise of Proprietary
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HTML5 developers queried recently by tools vendor Sencha remain dedicated to building apps via Web technologies, even as doubts have been cast on how effective HTML5 is vis à vis native development. Many of those same developers, however, have dropped support for the classic Microsoft Windows platform.
Surveying 2,128 business application developers from the HTML5 development community, including users of its own tools, Sencha found that 70-plus percent of developers planned to do more with HTML5 in the 2013 timeframe than they had done the previous year. And 75 percent will work further with HTML5 in 2014. More than 60 percent of developers have migrated to HTML5 and hybrid development for primary applications. For the coming year, just 4 percent of HTML5 developers plan to cut back on HTML5.
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I still remember IBM's provocative announcement in 2001 that it was putting $1 billion toward the development and promotion of Linux. While such billion-dollar commitments from IBM are now so routine as to be unremarkable, back then a billion dollars meant a lot. I was working for an embedded Linux vendor at the time, and most of our sales cycle was spent explaining why GPL-licensed Linux wasn't the technology equivalent of terminal cancer. (Thanks in part to Microsoft's contribution.)
Google
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The second video features Jason Hibbets's full interview with Chris DiBona Open Source Director at Google. Find out how DiBona measures his performance, why he once called open source "brutal," and more on working for Google and the future of open source.
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Over 280 attendees representing 177 mentoring organizations gathered for a two-day, code-munity extravaganza celebrating the conclusion of Google Summer of Code with the annual Mentor Summit held at Google in Mountain View, California.
GitHub
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GitHub's position as the repository of choice for open source community projects is today one of dominance, most would argue.
Officially often referred to as a "web-based revision control service" (rather than simply a software code repository), this classification is an obvious nod to the site's inherent level of active community involvement as open projects are continuously developed, refined and augmented.
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So, what’s the problem? Well, that’s simple. It seems that Fox News’ technology department –run by a motley crew of half-witted quick-study-types– failed to explain GitHub, and also disregarded both spelling and punctuation in favor of adopting what I would describe as a rogue journalistic style; a style that exists far beyond the confines of traditional English language rules. It is now with great pleasure that I flog the holy-hell out of the following screen capture in an attempt to make them cry.
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I have an open source script for a specific site (I'm trying not to call anything by name here) that a few other developers and I recently moved to GitHub. We've been joined by several new developers since we moved to the new system, including one very active one in particular. However, this active one has started changing a lot of the project.
First of all, he deleted our versioning system (not like Git, but like that—we called it versions v4.1.16) and said it would be better to simply push the code to the site when we think it's ready. Now there's no centralized place to put release notes, which has become annoying.
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GitHub has become the de facto repository for open source projects. So, we were excited for the opportunity to sit down with GitHub's co-founder and CIO Scott Chacon during the All Things Open Conference in Raleigh, NC.
Python
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One year ago the Puerto Rico Python Interest Group (prPIG) was founded on one purpose; to create a sustainable user community based on software development in Puerto Rico. On February 20, 2014 we will celebrate our first anniversary with an open format meeting with lightning talks from the community.
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Programming languages are crucial to a programmer as they boosts their productivity. Keeping in mind the fact that programmers may not be comfortable with all the coding languages around, we thought of compiling a list of programming languages set to make it big in 2014.
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Python community, friends, fellow developers, we need to talk. On December 3rd, 2008 Python 3.0 was first released. At the time it was widely said that Python 3 adoption was going to be a long process, it was referred to as a five year process. We've just passed the five year mark.
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In an article entitled “Python Displacing R As The Programming Language For Data Science,” MongoDB’s Matt Asay made an argument that has been circulating for some time now. As Python has steadily improved its data science credentials, from Numpy to Pandas, with even R’s dominant ggplot2 charting library having been ported, its viability as a real data science platform improves daily. More than any other language in fact, save perhaps Java, Python is rapidly becoming a lingua franca, with footholds in every technology arena from the desktop to the server.
Git
LLVM
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It looks like there's finally going to be stable point releases of the LLVM compiler infrastructure for pushing out bug-fixes quicker, whether you're using the Clang C/C++ compiler or depending upon LLVM for your GPU driver compiler back-end.
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It's nearly one month late but the LLVM 3.4 compiler infrastructure is now available with the updated Clang C/C++ compiler front-end, the usual LLVM sub-projects, and also some new compiler tools.
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The release of LLVM 3.4 is imminent and with the major compiler infrastructure upgrade comes update to the Clang C/C++ compiler front-end, LLDB debugger, and other LLVM sub-projects. LLVM 3.4 is a very righteous release and in celebration of its forthcoming release, it's back into compiler benchmarking season at Phoronix.
Ruby
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Ruby 2.1 has many improvements including speedup without severe incompatibilities.
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The Ruby project has done a new major release on Christmas for their popular programming language. Ruby offers performance speed-ups but without severe incompatibilities, according to the release announcement.
Misc.
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Regular readers of this column won't be surprised to hear that I love both Ruby on Rails and PostgreSQL. Rails has been my primary server-side Web development framework for about eight years, and it has managed to provide solutions for a large number of consulting and personal projects. As for PostgreSQL, I've been using it for about 15 years, and I continue to be amazed by the functionality it has gained in that time. PostgreSQL is no longer just a relational database. It's also a platform supporting the storage and retrieval of many types of data, built on a rock-solid, ACID-compliant, transactional core.
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In the sometimes dark and mysterious world of computers, I see open source programming and community around it as a force of good. Open source sparks and kindles a connection between people that I think is hard to find elsewhere in programming. Working with open source, a programmer builds important and powerful collaboration skills. This is significant because many of us (programmers and self-proclaimed nerds) are rather antisocial. Open source programming helps us cultivate social behaviors like sharing, improved communication, and collaborating towards a common goal.
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So by the mid-1980s, programming in schools was surging...
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The Checkpoint-Restore Tool has reached version 1.0 as part of the CRIU project. Checkpoint/Restore In Userspace allows for users to freeze running applications and checkpoint it to the hard drive as a file and that checkpoint can then be restored to a running process later on. CRIU is different from suspend-and-resume with the Linux kernel in that this is a tool for handling individual programs and it is implemented in user-space.
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The development team behind the Clutter software, a library for creating compelling, portable, dynamic and fast graphical user interfaces (GUI), has announced a few days ago that the second maintenance release of the stable Clutter 1.16 branch is available for download.
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Jim Kukunas of Intel OTC published the set of 13 patches on Monday that include medium and quick deflate strategies, a faster hash function with SSE 4.2 support, PCLMULQDQ-optimized CRC folding, SSE2 hash shifting, and other changes/tuning.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Working for Freedom Makes You a Target
- it's not about what you do but about who gets served
- Claim That IBM Mass Layoffs Began Again in Europe, With Rumours It'll Close Offices
- Unless IBM issues a statement (admission) to the media or issues WARN notices (in the US), the lousy media will simply assume - however wrongly - that nothing is happening and there's nothing to report
- The "Alicante Mafia" - Part IX - EPO Budget Funnelled Into Cocaine and Moreover Rewards Cocaine-Addicted Management for Getting Busted by Police
- Any day that passes without European media and European politicians doing anything about it merely discredits the media and the EU (or national governments)
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- Links 23/01/2026: Growing Censorship, Intel Falls (Another Bubble, Propped Up by Cheeto Bailout), and Huge GAFAM Layoffs Continue
- Links for the day
- Appeasing Bullies Doesn't Work
- The reason we're still here and very active is that we're good at what we do
- How Microsoft Will Tell Shareholders That the Business is Failing in a Few Days
- It'll resort to "AI" storytelling (lying about slop having potential for some unspecified future year)
- Flying to See Today's Talk by Richard Stallman
- It's probably not too late to reserve a seat for today's talk
- The Fall of Freenode Didn't Kill IRC and the Web's Issues (Not Limited to LLM Slop) Didn't Kill Everything
- As long as there are enough people willing to keep the simple (or "old") stuff it'll refuse to die
- GAFAM Layoffs by Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) Hide the Real Scale of Their Financial Troubles
- the "official" numbers of layoffs will never tell the true story
- 'Domesticated' Animals Not More Valuable Than Free-range Wildlife, Proprietary ('Commercial') Software Isn't Better Than Free Software
- the proprietary software giants (companies like SAP or Microsoft) have a lot of lobbyists
- Richard Stallman Won't Talk About "AI", He'll Talk About Chatbots and LLMs Lacking Any Intelligence
- This really irritates people who dislike the message; so they attack the person
- Slopfarms Still Fed by Google, Boosting Fake 'Articles' That Pretend to Cover "Linux"
- At this point about 80-90% of the search results appear not to be slopfarms
- Gemini Links 23/01/2026: The Danish Approach to Deepfakes and Random vi Things
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 22, 2026
- IRC logs for Thursday, January 22, 2026
- Five Years Ago, After We Broke the Story About Richard Stallman Rejoining the FSF's Board, All Hell Broke Loose (for Me and My Family)
- They generally seem to target anyone who thinks Richard Stallman (RMS) should be in charge or thinks alike about computing
- Links 22/01/2026: Slop Fantasy About Patents, Retirement in China Now Reached at Age Seventy
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 22/01/2026: Why Europe Does Not Need GAFAMs, XScreenSaver Tinkering, FlatCube
- Links for the day
- Salvadorans' Usage of GNU/Linux Measured at Record Levels
- All-time high
- Links 22/01/2026: Ubisoft Layoffs Disguised as "RTO", US "Congress Wants To Hand Your Parenting To GAFAM", Americans' Image Tarnished Among Canadians (Now Planning to "Repel US Invasion")
- Links for the day
- 10 Easy Steps to Follow for Digital Sovereignty in Nations That Distrust GAFAM et al
- When "enough is enough"
- No, the Problem at IBM/Red Hat Isn't Diversity
- Microsoft Lunduke also openly shows his admiration for Pedo Cheeto
- Do Not Link to Linuxiac Anymore, Linuxiac Became a Slopfarm
- now Linuxiac is slop
- Dr. Andy Farnell Explains Why Slop Companies Like Anthropic and Microsoft 'Open' 'AI' Basically Plunder and Rob People
- This article was published last night at around 10
- Richard Stallman (RMS) at Georgia Tech Tomorrow
- After the talk we'll write a lot about "cancel culture" and online mobs fostered and emboldened in social control media
- Software Patents by Any Other Name
- There is no such thing as "AI" patents
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, January 21, 2026
- IRC logs for Wednesday, January 21, 2026
- The "Alicante Mafia" - Part VIII - Salary Cuts to Staff, 100,000 Euros to Managers Busted Using Cocaine (for Doing Absolutely Nothing, Just Pretending to be "Sick")
- Today we look at slides from the union
- Gemini Links 22/01/2026: Forest Monk, Aurora Observation, and Arduino Officially Launches the More Powerful Arduino UNO Q 4GB Single-Board Computer
- Links for the day
- Next Week is Close Enough for Wall Street Storytelling About 'Efficiency' by Layoffs for "AI"
- This coming week GAFAM and others will tell some creative tales about how "AI" something something...
- Google News Still a Feeder of Slop About "Linux", Which Became Rarer in 2026
- Our main concern these days is what happened to Linuxiac. Bobby Borisov became a chatbots addict.
- Links 21/01/2026: "Snap Settles Lawsuit on Social Media Addiction" and Attempts in the US to Revive Software Patents
- Links for the day
- Links 21/01/2026: Microsoft 'Open' 'Hey Hi' in More Trouble, US Has "Brown Shirts" Problem
- Links for the day
- Yesterday Afternoon The Register MS Published Paid Microsoft SPAM Disguised as an Article About "AI PCs"
- The Register MS cannot help itself, can it? [...] Follow the money.
- Microsoft's XBox is in Effect Dead Already, Now It's a Streaming and Advertising Platform
- Expect many layoffs soon
- Richard Stallman's Talk at Georgia Tech is Just 2 Days Away
- We're still curious to see how malicious people (or trolls) in social control media will try to slant his talk as "bad"
- EPO's Web Site Misused for Propaganda About Illegal Kangaroo Courts to Distract From EPO Scandals and Judicial Crisis in Europe
- UPC is illegal and unconstitutional
- The "Alicante Mafia" - Part VII - The Industrial Actions Began Yesterday, Here's Why
- The "Alicante Mafia" might not last much longer
- Gemini Links 21/01/2026: Edible Circuits and "Sayonara HTTP"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, January 20, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, January 20, 2026
- IBM Hides Its Own Destruction (and Red Hat's)
- It's like scenes out of '1984', which is what a now-famous advertisement from Apple compared IBM to