Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 27/4/2015: Debian 9 Named, Linux 4.1 Reaches RC





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • What is open source? Licensing, history, and more
    Another example of open source: You wouldn’t buy a car with the hood welded shut, so why do we buy proprietary software? If you can’t see what’s going on and see what’s happening under the hood then you’re stuck with the car exactly the way it is and that might not be so great. While some people are fine with that, computer geeks shouldn’t be. We should want to get in there and tinker with it.


  • AMD FP3 Motherboard Ported To Coreboot
    Another AMD motherboard has been ported to work under Coreboot.

    Sage Electronic Engineering, a company that does a lot of Coreboot work for AMD and other firms, has ported the AMD Lamar reference board for Coreboot. AMD Lamar is a consumer reference board used for AMD Kaveri APUs of the FP3 socket.


  • Events



    • A Rousing Start for LinuxFest Northwest
      With around 2,000 registrants, this year’s LFNW seems to be the largest in its history. This not only bodes well for the widespread popularity and acceptance of FOSS in general, but it also bodes well for one of the longest-running FOSS shows here in the Pacific Northwest.




  • CMS



    • An open source, e-commerce friendly CMS
      Developers Peter Ivanov, Alex Raikov, and I came up with the idea for Microweber about five years ago, when we were all having problems building sites with the existing solutions.




  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC





Leftovers



  • Poll: SNP increase lead over Labour


  • Security



    • Google Provides Detailed Analysis of GitHub Attack Traffic
      It wasn’t until March 26 that the attackers actually began targeting two separate resources on GitHub, one of which housed content from GreatFire.org, a censorship monitoring organization in China. The other resource was Chinese language content from the New York Times. The attack on those resources lasted until April 7 and Provos said that the attack wouldn’t have been possible if all of the Web’s links were encrypted.




  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife



    • University offering free online course to demolish climate denial
      The course coordinator is John Cook, University of Queensland Global Change Institute climate communication fellow, and founder of the climate science myth debunking website Skeptical Science. Cook’s research has primarily focused on the psychology of climate science denial.






  • Finance



    • Charles Gladden: Homeless man employed at US Senate building earns just $360 a week


      Like many of the people who work in menial jobs in the US Senate, Charles Gladden works long, hard hours for very modest pay. Unlike probably everyone else, Mr Gladden is homeless.

      The 63-year-old sweeps and mops, cleans dishes and carries laundry, for take-home pay of around $360 a week. He says he gives most to his children and grandchildren and spends most of his nights at the McPherson Square Metro Station, less than half-a-mile from the White House.




  • Privacy



    • Here’s how you can see and delete your entire Google search history
      The list does not stop at Google’s search engine function. It also includes documentation of searches within users’ email accounts and addresses that may have been typed into Google Maps. The range of personal information available has given rise to concerns over the databases’ potential vulnerability.

      Google has said the company is aware of the dangers associated with storing an extensive amount of personal information on home computers and warns users with a message before they download their entire search archive, asking users to “please read this carefully, it’s not the usual yada yada,” normally seen in warning messages.

      [...]

      But just because a user deletes his or her search history, that does not mean that it disappears completely.




  • Civil Rights



    • The Gordon and Dougie Show
      Douglas Alexander not only facilitated the use of Diego Garcia for torture and extraordinary rendition, in an act of extreme hypocrisy the evil little shit also declared a “marine conservation area” around it. In the 1960’s Britain forcibly deported the entire population of the islands to make way for the US Air Base. Faced with a continual political and legal fight for them to return, Alexander sought to make it impossible with his “marine conservation area”. There is nobody who better represents Scottish Labour’s loss of its soul than Alexander. If Mhairi beats him I shall be extremely happy.


    • 7 whistle-blowers facing more jail time than David Petraeus
      The administration of President Barack Obama once promised to be “the most transparent administration” of all time. Instead, Obama’s Department of Justice has led the most targeted campaign against whistleblowers of any president ever, charging more government employees under the Espionage Act than all previous presidents combined—almost all of whom sit in prison serving sentences up to 30 years.




  • Intellectual Monopolies





Recent Techrights' Posts

Web Developers in the US Can Already Disregard Mozilla, Firefox, and Firefox Users
"Last month, Firefox turned 21"
 
Cars Getting Worse and More Lethal
Who will be held accountable?
To "Take Back Control" Start With Actions Against 'Tech' (Mass Surveillance, Mass Censorship, Mass Control) Monopolies
collusion, price-fixing, a "cartel" of sorts
Beyond the Hype: Almost Nobody Uses Chatbots, Not Even 1% of Activity Online
3 years ago when Scam Altman (Microsoft) acted as if Google (search) was doomed a lot of the press got paid to pretend this was true
Rumour That Another IBM Round of Mass Layoffs (RAs) in Preparation Before the Current One is Even Completed
IBM still has strong brand recognition (because of its age and past might), but that won't last forever
Techrights Publication Pace to Increase Next Year
one is encouraged to stay indoors
Upgrading the Site
Debugging might be needed, so feedback helps
Why Microsoft is Panicking
Keep advocating (or "marketing") GNU/Linux to Vista 10 (or Vista 7) users... there are still over a billion of them "out there".
The Fate of "Blockchains" and "Metaverse" as a Sign of Things to Come for Slop ("AI")
Doesn't that tell us a lot about the modus operandi of these companies?
A Year After the Owner of X (Twitter) Performed Several Nazi Salutes on Stage the Germany-Based and Microsoft-Funded 'FSFE' Decides to Exit X (Twitter)
Will the real Free Software Foundation (FSF) follow suit?
EPO: What Comes Next
European media seems to have been sedated by soft bribes from cocaine addicts
Slopwatch: The Volume of Slop Has Certainly Gone Down a Lot Lately, Slop Image Providers Abandoned/Changed
It's a big improvement compared to past months
Thousands Laid Off at IBM, "Last Day" Yesterday
IBM is a dying company. This is a problem for Red Hat.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, December 04, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, December 04, 2025
Gemini Links 05/12/2025: Espressif ESP32-C5 UEXT Module, Pixelfed, and the Web Getting Much Worse
Links for the day
Links 04/12/2025: "People Hooked on [Slop] Far Are More Likely to Experience Mental Distress", Monopolies in Europe, and "Blogging Makes Me Feel Like A Worse Writer"
Links for the day
Dr. Andy Farnell: Can we regain control (of technology)?
"Technology as spiralling mass hysteria has the unsettling potential to draw even rational sceptics like myself into disaffection"
Links 04/12/2025: "Hey Hi" Implosion and Half of Europeans See Cheeto Trump as Enemy of Europe
Links for the day
Communication Needs Open Standards and Open Data
Standards are imperative
The "Hey Hi" House of Cards
The "Hey Hi" bubble is living on borrowed time (days or weeks) and it can implode any time now
Supporting the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Also Supports GNU Development
The FSF is mostly raising money to pay salaries
IBM's "AK Sez" Campaign
In today's media, to be characterised as important and smart one needn't be important and smart
Microsoft's Vista 11 Not Gaining, Just Plateauing or Even Going Down (Over Time)
"Desktop Windows version Market Share Worldwide"
Bubbles Popping, "Hey Hi" (AI) a Passing Fad
"Microsoft slides amid report it's cutting software sales quotas tied to AI"
At The Register MS, "Exclusive Webinar" Means Sponsored Video Ad Disguised as an Article
Why would one choose to watch these?
IBM Forces Staff to Sign an NDA If They Want Severance Package, in Effect Bribing Them or Denying Them Money They're Entitled to If They 'Disparage' IBM
We wrote about the legality or illegality of this in relation to Microsoft two years ago
IBM and Red Hat Not Done With 2025 Layoffs ("RAs") Yet
IBM isn't quite done laying off people this year, with only 3 weeks till Christmas
Gemini Links 04/12/2025: Christmas Looms, Devuan, and Programming
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, December 03, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, December 03, 2025
Loads of People Exit IBM Tomorrow
Way to slam the door on on those who march or walk on
Slopwatch: It's Blowing, Jim (Gym), the Bubble is Blowing Up
Let's race to "zero GPT"
At IBM, "Last Day" Can be Same as Layoffs ("RAs"), Might be Euphemism Advanced by PR/HR Under NDA-Tied Conditions
They try to act all happy cheerful (in public) about becoming unemployed
Links 03/12/2025: "Disastrous Hey Hi (AI)", Breaches of Confidentiality, and "Global Democratic Recession"
Links for the day
Fake Security and 'Free' Certificates as a Trap of Planned Obsolescence and Top-Down Centralisation
The boiling frogs
Links 03/12/2025: UK Budget Leak and Criticism of Peace Posturing Over Ukraine
Links for the day
So Far Rust in Ubuntu Has Turned Out to be an Expensive Mistake
it is certainly seeming or feeling like the wrong people are in charge and they make bad decisions based on false reasoning
Gemini Links 03/12/2025: Obsession, Ubuntu, and Programming With Scheme
Links for the day
The Next Stages of EPO Coverage (and Why That Matters)
What's at stake here?
Wayland Rejection Is Not Racist
We need to collectively reject that
Reflections on a Month of Techrights Search
it looks like we've survived nearly a month without the search functionality being leveraged to stage DDoS attacks
New Year's Resolutions 4 Weeks Ahead of 2026
the main New Year's Resolution was... sleep
IBM Layoffs: It's Like They Read From a Script, Like They've Signed a Non-Disparagement Agreement/Clause
Some new departures
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, December 02, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, December 02, 2025