Free Software/Open Source Software News
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2014-03-31 16:09:40 UTC
- Modified: 2014-03-31 16:40:21 UTC
Nuxeo
Xen
Army
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has initiated a program to develop approaches for fixing software flaws by using big data analytics principles, GCN reported Monday.
DARPA intends for the Mining and Understanding Software Enclaves program to boost the reliability of building, verifying and maintaining software systems, according to the report.
Security
GlobalSign has offered to give a free wildcard SSL certificate for qualified open source projects, as a way of supporting open source and as a way to encourage adoption of industry best practices.
The project must have an OSI-approved license, be actively maintained, be non-commercial, and pass some simple requirements, all of which are desirable conditions.
Tor
Almost three months after being alerted to its presence, Apple has taken down from the App Store an allegedly fake Tor Browser containing adware and spyware.
It's notable that according to recent statistics available through Tor Metrics Portal there has been a large 1increase in the number of Tor clients used and more than a million users are now connecting to the network. Tor, from the Tor Project, is one of the most powerful and flexible open source solutions for online anonymity, and it's clearly gaining popularity.
Blender
Blender is perhaps open source's biggest poster child for years now. And in every year or two, Blender foundation showcases the product's 3D graphics capabilities by releasing animated movies created exclusively using Blender software. They are called "open movies" and you're free to download and reuse the movies the way you want, standing true to its open source credentials. We have featured each and every Blender "open" movie ever released here and here. Now its time for the fifth one codenamed "Gooseberry", and unlike its predecessors, the project's goal would be to produce a feature length animated film.
Out today is another big update to the open-source Blender 3D animation software.
New features include initial support for volumetrics in Cycles, and faster rendering of hair and textures. The motion tracker now supports weighted tracks and has improved planar tracking. For mesh modeling there are new Laplacian deform and wireframe modifiers, along with more control in the bevel tool. The game engine now supports object levels of detail.
Sony
Sony is making it Authoring Tools Framework product available to programmers for free under the Apache 2.0 open source license.
The Authoring Tools Framework (ATF) will be free to download and use.
Industry commentators have suggested that this may now create an incentive for independent third-party developers to start developing games (or indeed porting existing games) to the PlayStation.
Misc.
The main question behind open source software is: Why would developers want to create software or contribute to another piece of software for free? For a lot of developers the answer is easy. They rely on some piece of open source software for their business so they have an active interest in supporting the community around that software.
If you enjoy making music you might be interested in a new open source midi keyboard kit called the Kyub which offers users a feather touch three-dimensional midi keyboard which is supplied as a kit.
Jacie Buckner and Alexis Wills are teenagers. Both grew up in the same Appalachian region of North Carolina. Jacie describes herself as quiet. Alexis says she is a rebel. They met in middle school, when they ran into each other in the lunchroom. " I looked at Jacie and thought 'oh my goodness, she’s going to hate me!'"Alexis says.
Tajo, a big data open source project predominantly developed by domestic developers, has gotten recognition from developers around the world.
The open source project Tajo, an on-going project led by domestic big data company Gruter, was chosen as a “top level” project on March 23 by the Apache Foundation, the world’s biggest open source organization. Tajo made its introduction in the Apache Foundation in March, last year.
The announcement at the turn of the year that a bunch of seventies and early eighties videogames were being released to play for free in a web browser was met with something of a sneer in some quarters. If you missed it, this is the latest work from the Internet Archive, which kicked off its latest project, The Console Living Room, with games for five different machines. Two of them were Ataris, while titles from the ColecoVision, the Magnavox Odyssey and The Astrocade were also featured. All you now have to do if you want to play one of the available games is to head to Console Living Room, click on your machine of choice, and pick a game – but don’t blame me if you overrun your lunch hour.
Irish 21-year-old who founded CoderDojos after-school clubs tells of huge impact on young worldwide
There’s an ongoing conversation about the shifting role of developers and what that means for IT departments. They’re now shaping product and user experience with such great influence that businesses must understand their importance in order to be as successful as possible.
Which open source software should you consider for your business? Here, Steve Nice from Reconnix reviews three of the leading providers.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- The Slop Debt (Trillions of Dollars, Money That Does Not Exist) is Causing the Collapse of GAFAM et al
- This slop hype will end up like "metaverse", except "metaverse" never ended up justifying trillions of dollars in "investment"
- Social Control Media is the Opposite of Information
- That says a lot about social control media
- Lack of Empathy Rampant in the Sector
- Sociopaths are sociopaths. They cannot help themselves
- Before the "Big Tech" (That Almost Everybody is Forced to Use) Was Controlled by Men Who Hate Women
- Such rejection and even hatred of women qualifies/enshrines oneself as an "incel"- a dangerous and violent online cult
- Enshittification More Than a Century Ago
- Is enshittification more than a century old?
- GNU in 1991 (35 Years Ago): Compiler and Lots More Ready, Linux Now Becoming 'Vibe Heap' (Slop Replaces Real Code)
- Without curbs in place, many Linux developers will flee
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 147 Out of 200: The SLAPP Series is 'Slow' Because Timing Matters
- It is important to stress that after this series is finished there will be many more series, with some of them showing raw evidence of what we've been illuminating and telling
-
- The Register MS Has Just Published Slop Spam for NVIDIA and HP, It Says "AI" 43 Times
- As usual, The Register MS ought to be ashamed of itself for participating in it
- Simpler Means More Reliable
- The simple old way of local storage and local backups is still the best
- Clownflare and statCounter See GNU/Linux at ~8% in Norway
- Norway has long championed GNU/Linux compared to the rest of Europe
- Clacton manifesto: Reform UK hacking, leaks, raw sewage & 8GB Swiss Archive
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- statCounter Today: ChromeOS + GNU/Linux Measured at 10.98% Globally (Desktops and Laptops)
- Clownflare does not quite refute this
- The Register MS Has Just Published Fake Article About Replacing Linux With Proprietary Google System, "Sponsored by ASUS."
- All of those things are proprietary GAFAMware
- Links 12/08/2026: "X’s Advertising Business Continues to Tank", "Stop Feeding the Billionaires"
- Links for the day
- In Defence of Hoarding CDs, More So When Digital Restrictions (DRM) Come to More 'Content' and Even Offline/Physical Media Won't Work When Some Remote Server Says "No" (or Goes Offline)
- made to serve and entertain owners, not to allow companies like Sony and Microsoft subjugate owners
- Clownflare: In Finland, Birthplace of Linux Kernel, GNU/Linux Now Bigger Than Apple's MacOS
- It's not just in Finland where we see such trends
- More Mass Layoffs Due to Monumental Debt Excused as "Investment" (in Slop)
- They're maxing up the private debt and their country is already insolvent
- METRO Interviews Daniel Pocock a Day Before Election
- The article is behind a wall that blocks people who block ads
- Company-Wide 'Reorg' ('Redundancies') at IBM, Mark October 1st 2026 in the Calendar
- Is Oct 1 the new Apr 1?
- Even ZDNet Accepts That "Market Share" of GNU/Linux May Have Doubled on Desktops and Laptops
- GNU/Linux is definitely growing, and quite quickly in fact
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 11, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, August 11, 2026
- Microsoft Layoffs and Shutdowns Continue This August, Morale Low, Employees Set Up Giant Inflatable Rat to Protest Against CEO
- nothing demonstrates their anger better than what they did to the CEO
- Gemini Links 12/08/2026: Sophomore Slump, Mandatory Phone Addiction, and Vintage Web Game Gallery
- Links for the day
- Summer Layoffs and 'Redundancies' (Cost-Cutting) at Microsoft and IBM
- IBM is merely buying its revenue - an unsustainable strategy that aims to hide the company's rapid decline
- Links 11/08/2026: Tensions South of China and Stingy "YouTube Doubles the Eligibility Requirements" (to Get Paid)
- Links for the day
- The Independent (UK) Today: "Independent candidate Daniel Pocock is concerned about media issues."
- Let's see what results say around Friday
- Gemini Links 11/08/2026: Stargate, Stargazer, Air-gapped Environments, and SystemVerilog Simulator
- Links for the day
- The Slop ('Linux') Foundation Celebrates 35 'Linux' Years a Week After GNU/Linux Turns 43
- they'll keep on trying to change history
- Keumars Afifi-Sabet Produces Useful, Informative Coverage Regarding Privacy
- And it's good for Richard Stallman
- Confirmed: Microsoft Layoffs in August 2026, Entire Operations Shut Down Too
- Microsoft is just bleeding
- Paying With Cash in 2026
- Cash isn't going away. Not any time soon.
- Blocking Tor Is Not a Solution, It's Paranoia
- Tor is not a crime
- Oligarchs and Their Footsoldiers Are Most Enthusiastically Loud About the Things They're Attacking
- Like "Microsoft loves Linux"
- FOSSY (SFC) Platforming GAFAM, Sells Endorsement
- Houston, we have a problem here
- Not Allowing Misogyny and Misogynists to Run the World
- We stand with (and for) equality, justice, and freedom
- "SPONSORED EXPLAINER" at The Register MS is Just More SPAM "Sponsored by HPE."
- This is a great example of crap 'journalism'
- IBM Won't Hire (or Hardly Hire) This Year
- IBM is bluffing with buzzwords while shrinking out of existence and reducing salaries
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 146 Out of 200: An Industry of Plagiarism, 'Normalised'
- they pursue personal enrichment by stealing from Free software developers
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 10, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, August 10, 2026
- 5.1k Capsules Known to Lupa, Gemini Protocol Crawler
- If no limits (e.g. 10k max per capsule) were imposed on crawling, there would likely be millions of pages in the database
- Gemini Links 11/08/2026: Waking Up Earlier, Whining About LLMs as Destructive Plagiarism
- Links for the day
- Links 11/08/2026: "The Enemy Is the Platform" and 'Vibe' 'Coding' Shown to be Little But Plagiarism
- Links for the day
- IBM's Age Discrimination Leads Workers to Contemplate Suicide While the CEO Becomes Billionaire for Lying to the Press and Faking Performance (Fraudulent Accounting)
- IBM avoids issuing WARM notices
- If Your Software Project Welcomes Bots, Then All You'll Have Left at the End Is Bots (Same for Sites Which Permit LLM Slop; They End up as Slopfarms and No Human Wants to Contribute Anymore)
- A "slippery slop."
- Clownflare Affirms Disturbing Trend of Web Monoculture (Which Extents to Clownflare Itself)
- Clownflare itself is another layer of the same problem
- The Open Web Is Not Coming Back
- the open Web going out of control
- Tell Me Something I Don't Know
- Those who have a stake in the secrecy would do anything to maintain secrecy
- Gemini Links 10/08/2026: Recollections and Washing Machine That Only Last a Few Years
- Links for the day
- Claims of Mass Layoffs at IBM (in Finance)
- IBM tries hard to maintain an illusion of normality - to the point of viciously censoring critics and whistleblowers.
- The Slop Bubble (Pyramid Scheme) is Becoming Bigger and Everyone Should be Terrified (Its Implosion Will Cause More Damage)
- there's no plan for a turnaround
- Microsoft and Apple Lose Ground to GNU/Linux in the United States
- This contributes a lot to the international curve
- Escaping Ads
- When users do not want ads, then no ads should show up, period
- For Second Year in a Row Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) Loses Money (Over $3,000,000 Lost in 2 Years), Bradley M Kuhn Steps Down as Treasurer
- lost almost $600,000 last year
- Microsoft/GAFAM Operating at a Loss
- Microsoft has financial problems
- Nigel Farage crisis: Taylor Swift & Jeffrey Epstein both shunned cryptocurrency bosses
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- statCounter Now Sees GNU/Linux "Market Share Worldwide" at 9.21%, Soon 10%
- If this data is more or less accurate, it's time for panic at Microsoft
- Rumours of Impending Mass Layoffs in IBM's Yorktown Office, Impacting the LLM (Slop) Staff
- Bubbles never last forever, hence their name
- Links 10/08/2026: "Long COVID Linked to Lasting Damage in The Brain's Dopamine System", Microsoft’s Weather App Uses Over 1,000 Megabytes of RAM
- Links for the day
- Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) Does Not Support Women, It Imitates Authentic Organisations, Embraces Misogynists, Then Projects
- They try to monetise for personal gain at the expense of unpaid volunteers
- When You're Evil and You're Publicly Attacking Something, That Something Will Become More Popular
- when an oppressor becomes openly oppressive and does anything to squash/censor critics, the outcome will typically be detrimental to the oppressor
- Links 10/08/2026: "Against Oligarch" and "The Invisible Women"
- Links for the day
- Social Control Media Deathwatch: After Nearly a Million Posts Sent EchoFeed Shuts Down
- EchoFeed is hardly unique
- When the LLM Chatbots Industry (Trillions in the Red) Quits Paying the Media for FOMO
- fear of missing out, or FOMO for short
- Microsoft Killing Morale
- branding the process “inhumane” and “demoralizing”
- Google's "AI Overview" as Proprietary Censorship Engine and Gatekeeper
- People do not choose to use this, Google is just shoving that in people's faces, encouraging laziness and misinformation
- SLAPP Censorship - Part 145 Out of 200: They Tried Hard to Hide the Fact Their Client Had Been Sued, Twice Even
- A month ago Brett Wilson LLP tried to take my wife "to the side" (in effect isolated) to make her an offer
- statCounter: GNU/Linux Up to 8.95% Globally
- So the estimates are being "corrected" upwards, not downwards
- Explaining How Someone Attempted to Cancel RMS This Year (and Failed)
- The process itself involved debunking some falsehoods
- Microsoft's "XBOX Ranks Last", IBM is Headed for Extinction
- If Microsoft cannot dominate its own "home turf", what prospects are there elsewhere?
- DebConf6 fight denied by Google artificial intelligence
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 09, 2026
- IRC logs for Sunday, August 09, 2026
- Gemini Links 10/08/2026: A Mild Monday, Sleepy Saturday, OUYA, and Moving to GNU/Linux
- Links for the day
