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Links 22/12/2015: Linux 4.4 RC6, Solus 1.0 Imminent





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source



  • Diversity in open source highlights from 2015
    The pool of people participating in open source communities still lacks diversity, but the good news is that many people, projects, and organizations are working to improve it. I've collected a few highlights from 2015 efforts to increase diversity in open source communities. Which 2015 diversity in open source stories would you add to the list? Let us know in the comments.


  • Inside the Robot Operating System, the robotics industry and the Open Source Robotics Foundation
    Eight years ago, the Robot Operating System (ROS) project began, and since then there have been huge advancements made to the robotics industry. Robots are teaching kids to code, becoming companions, have been given X-ray vision, and even started to fly.

    But adding these features aren’t easy, and that is where the Robot Operating System comes in, according to Brian Gerkey, CEO of the Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF).


  • The Year of Crowdfunded Open Source Small Businesses
    2015 was crowded with events for Linux and open source. It was a year in which the runaway success of OpenStack continued, fuelling -- among other things, rumors of a Canonical Software public offering. It was also the year of unsuccessful ventures into smartphones by Mozilla, Sailfish, and Ubuntu, and the first appearance of a Steam Machine for gamers.


  • Adafruit's best open source wearables of 2015
    Wearable electronics have exploded in the past year. Countless small devices are now on the market for not only fitness tracking, but posture improvement, sunscreen reminders, muscle-sensing gesture control, and much more. As technology on the body becomes more pervasive than ever, having open source tools for developing wearable technology is more important than ever, so that we can create the future of fashion tech while maintaining data privacy of biometric sensor data.


  • The Keys to Success When Launching Your Own Open Source Concept
    Have you been thinking of launching an open source project or are you in the process of doing so? Doing it successfully and rallying community support can be more complicated than you think, but a little up-front footwork and howework can help things go smoothly. Beyond that, some planning can also keep you out of legal trouble. Issues pertaining to licensing, distribution, support options and even branding require thinking ahead if you want your project to flourish. In this post, you'll find our newly updated collection of good, free resources to pay attention to if you're doing an open source project.


  • Why Pinterest just open-sourced new tools for the Elixir programming language


    At Pinterest, that company with a popular app for pinning images and other content to boards, much of the source code is written in the longstanding Python programming language. But in the past year, a few of the company’s software engineers have called on a young language called Elixir.

    Pinterest’s notification system now uses Elixir to deliver 14,000 notifications per second. The notification system runs across 15 servers, whereas the old system, written in Java, ran on 30. The new code is about one-tenth of the size of the old code.


  • Puppet Labs Plugs in Kubernetes Orchestration Framework for Containers
    Rather than continuing to use low-level tools such as YAML, says Carl Caum, technical marketing manager for Puppet Labs, IT organizations can now make use of the declarative programming environment that Puppet Labs created to configure containers alongside the operating system and virtual machines that many of them already rely on Puppet to configure.


  • Web Browsers



    • Mozilla



      • An open vision: Strategic planning is transparent at Mozilla [Ed: but now they support the evil which is DRM to support a rotten business model (opposite of transparency)]
        This month marks a milestone for me. It's been five years since I started working in—and learning from—an open organization.

        But it also marks another important milestone. My organization, the Mozilla Foundation, just finished drafting a strategic plan for what the next five years may hold.

        And we created that plan through open collaboration between our staff and community.






  • SaaS/Big Data



  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice



    • Collabora making modest profits on LibreOffice


      A little more than two years ago, the open source consulting company Collabora took over the job of commercialising LibreOffice, the free office suite that is produced by an army of developers.

      At that time, a number of LibreOffice developers moved from the Germany-based Linux company SUSE and became staff of Collabora.


    • LibreOffice Online is here!
      There are however a few comments I would like to make about this testing release. First, I’m very happy to see LibreOffice Online become a reality. By reality, I mean more than an announcement and more than a demo with chunks of code and configuration notes. Today, LibreOffice runs in the cloud. Which leads me to my second comment: the relevance of LibreOffice in the future is now pretty secure. Running LibreOffice in the browser needs you can access it without having to download the code and just by using the access gateway to everything these days: the browser.




  • Funding



  • BSD



  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC



    • GnuCash 2.6.10 released
      The GnuCash development team proudly announces GnuCash 2.6.10, the tenth maintenance release in the 2.6-stable series. Please take the tour of all the new features.


    • The Fight For Freedom
      There’s a problem with the word ‘free’. Specifically, it can refer to something that costs no money, or something that isn’t held down by restrictions – in other words, something that has liberty. This difference is crucial when we talk about software, because free (as in cost) software doesn’t necessarily give you freedom. There are plenty of no-cost applications out there that spy on you, steal your data, and try to lock you in to specific file formats. And you certainly can’t get the source code to them.


    • GNU MediaGoblin 0.8.1 Open-Source Media Server Fixes Critical OAuth Security Flaw
      Jessica Tallon from the MediaGoblin project, open-source media server software designed for GNU/Linux operating systems, announced this past weekend the immediate availability of a patch for GNU MediaGoblin 0.8.


    • GnuCash 2.6.10 Free Accounting Software Squashes over 15 Bugs, Adds Improvements
      The developers behind the GnuCash Project were happy to announce this past weekend the immediate availability for download of the tenth maintenance release in the GnuCash 2.6 series, bringing all sorts of improvements, updated translations, and numerous bugfixes.


    • Stallman on happiness and perseverance
      It’s amazing to think that a broken printer lead to the creation of the Free Software movement which, many years later, would give me a professional career, an education, and incredible friends around the world.


    • Join with me to support the Software Freedom Conservancy


    • GPL enforcement is a social good
      Vendors who don't release their code remove that freedom from their users, and the weapons users have to fight against that are limited. Most users hold no copyright over the software in the device and are unable to take direct action themselves. A vendor's failure to comply dooms them to having to choose between buying a new device in 12 months or no longer receiving security updates. When yet more examples of vendor-supplied malware are discovered, it's more difficult to produce new builds without them. The utility of the devices that the user purchased is curtailed significantly.


    • Donate to Conservancy!
      Conservancy needs 750 Supporters to continue its basic community services & 2,500 to avoid hibernating its enforcement efforts! The next 38 supporters who sign up by December 24th will count twice thanks to an anonymous match donor! 552 have joined so far and match pledges reduced our 2,500 maximum need by 178 !


    • MediaGoblin 0.8.1: Security release
      We have had a security problem in our OAuth implementation reported to us privately and have taken steps to address it. The security problem affects all versions of GNU MediaGoblin since 0.5.0. I have created a patch for this and released a minor version 0.8.1 (see the release notes page). It’s strongly advised that everyone upgrade as soon as they can.




  • Public Services/Government



    • Commission begins overhaul of Joinup
      The European Commission has started working on the next version of Joinup, the collaboration platform for eGovernment professionals. Users are the main focus of the upgrade, which will make the platform easier to use. Access to and sharing of interoperability solutions will be streamlined, and the developers are making it more straightforward to contribute to the platform’s projects and communities. If all goes well, the new version could go live in June.




  • Licensing



    • Open Source Software: Usually Cash-free, but with Strings Attached [Ed: lawyers in a lawyers’ site spread FUD about FOSS and pretend it was all along just about cost]
      While everyone knows of the need to comply with contractual terms in software licenses (and elsewhere), the salient point in this context, is that under several recent cases, failure to do so with respect to a license for copyrighted material (which is usually applicable to software), allows the pursuit in United States District Court of claims for infringement damages under the Copyright Act and related items, such as attorney fees. This is in addition to traditional contract damages, which may be non-existent or difficult to prove. For example, if the evidence establishes (among other things) that the work infringed was a registered work in the U.S. Copyright Office and the infringement was willful, then the court may, in its discretion, award statutory damages of up to $150,000 (regardless of the retail cost of the underlying work).




  • Programming



    • Know Your Language: PHP Lurches On
      Presumably there are people that think the PHP language is awesome. An afternoon spent writing PHP code is like a fine meal and a backrub in one transcendent coding experience while JavaScript and client-side scripting can just go to hell.




  • Standards/Consortia



    • New data porting rules mustn't overburden businesses with costs, says UK minister
      Baroness Neville-Rolfe said that the planned new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is likely to give consumers "more control over how their data is to be used" but she raised concern about the impact data portability rules could have on "new ideas, innovation and competition".

      Various drafts of the GDPR have contained proposed new rules which would, if finalised, require businesses to ensure that they can hand over the personal data they possess on a consumer in a usable transferable format.





Leftovers



Recent Techrights' Posts

The New Head of OSI is an "Hey Hi" (AI) Obsessed Person
when Bryant says "AI" that doesn't mean AI
"Governments, local authorities, schools and hospitals can lead by example by procuring only Free Software"
Crossposted from Tux Machines
Cindy Cohn Leaving the Electronic Frontier Foundation While Its Co-founder John Gilmore, Whom She Apparently Helped Oust, Will Celebrate 40 Years of the Free Software Foundation, Inc.
EFF has been busy hoarding GAFAM money, whereas the latter is where all the real activism is done
"Google is Googlebombing KDE's Project Banana"
So is Google googlebombing KDE's Project Banana? You decide.
Some Very Large IRC Networks Are Growing
IRC will turn 38 next year
What Ruben Amorim and Stefano Maffulli Have in Common
Censors Wikipedia and Social Control Media
Microsoft Won't Cooperate in Trying to Tackle EPO Corruption (Microsoft Profits From This Corruption)
Use something like BigBlueButton, Jami, Ring, and Jitsi instead
We Are Sad to Hear the Story of Jonathan Riddell, Champion of KDE and GNU/Linux on Desktops/Laptops
I have enormous respect for Jonathan and everything he has done
 
Microsoft Lunduke: I Spread Hate and Then I Receive Hate
Cry us a river, Microsoft Lunduke
"Use Wayland" Isn't a Bugfix for X (X11 is Still Necessary)
They tell us X is "dead" and we must all be herded into Wayland ASAP
"Disable Secure Boot and Fast Boot. Wipe and Start Over."
At least they didn't say, buy a new computer...
The Oracle Ponzi Scheme
Oracle isn't doing well, but it's nowadays fashionable to say "clown" and "hey hi" to prop up one's stock, even based on nothing at all
Taking Out the Battery, Opening Up Your Computer, Just Like a "Normie" Would
At this stage, any person who still says "enable Secure Boot" is misguided or persuaded by companies that sell rootkits
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers and Slopfarms Still Infesting Google News (Fake 'Articles' About "Linux" Spreading FUD)
searching for "Linux" today yields a lot of FUD
The Reach of Techrights Has Broadened
We nowadays cover a broader range of issues
Complicating Things for No Actual Benefit, Just Added Risk and More Difficulties Adding GNU/Linux and BSDs
Watch what it's like for people who wish to use BSDs
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 15, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 15, 2025
Links 16/09/2025: Autumn Party, RPG Planet, and Optical ROOPHLOCH
Links for the day
Geminispace Growing at Pace of Over 10% Per Year
Contrary to what some pessimists try to claim
Linux Mint Forums Today: Disable 'Secure Boot', It Doesn't Improve Security, It's Just a Microsoft Obstacle to GNU/Linux Users
They also mention MOK
Solved Less Than an Hour Ago: Trying to Escape Windows, 'Secure Boot' Gets in the Way
'Secure Boot' wasn't meant to even exist in the first place
Stefano Maffulli, Executive Director of the Open Source Initiative, Resigns or Gets Removed (We'll Continue Covering OSI Scandals)
A dozen mentions of "AI", not much about "Open Source"
Andy Has Just Nailed It (Regarding Complexity and Failure, a la UEFI)
The users no longer own or control what they buy
Compatibility Support Module (CSM) Versus GNU/Linux Simplicity
what Andy recently called "solutionism"
Links 15/09/2025: "Postal Traffic to US Down by Over 80%" and 'Smart' Spinozacampus Laundry Room Goes AWOL
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/09/2025: Dungeon Hustle and Deleting Oneself From the Net
Links for the day
Breach of EPO's Duty of Care or Cigna Reimbursement Issues
This is the sort of thing that motivated Luigi Mangione to assassinate a CEO
Ask Ubuntu About "Secure Boot" Violation and Laptops That Don't Boot GNU/Linux
Does anyone still believe that "Secure Boot" has anything at all to do with security?
Talking About the Problem vs Talking to the Problem
Wanting an audience is never a good excuse for compromising one's values and principles
Focusing on Patents
The reason we cover the EPO so much is that it's close to home
"Secure Boot Violation": The 'Joys' of Fake Security Gone Wrong
Not everyone reboots every day
Links 15/09/2025: Russia Invades Romanian Airspace, Penske Media Sues Google Over LLM Slop
Links for the day
Links 15/09/2025: Bitcoin ATMs Scam and "Conservative Cryptography" (Backdoors Fantasies)
Links for the day
EPO Imitates Microsoft: "Three Days or More Per Week" Inside the Office to Get a Desk to Work on; "the Office Breaches Its Promise Towards Staff and Acts in Breach of Its Duty of Care"
The EPO serves no actual function in Europe
Links 15/09/2025: Political Affairs, Censorship, and Copyrights
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/09/2025: Music Genres, Invisible Networks, and Akademy 2025
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 14, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 14, 2025
Satya's Plan B: Try to Hide the Massive Extent/Scale/Scope of Microsoft Layoffs
fewer people buy Microsoft
Red Hat News About De Facto Mass Layoffs (Bluewashing) Gone From Reddit (Censored by Gatekeepers), Still Online in The Register
With RTOs, PIPs, relocation etc. expect IBM to "shed off" many Red Hatters
UEFI "Secure Boot Doesn’t Play Nice at the Moment"
UEFI "Secure Boot" does not improve security. It's an artificial obstacle in service of monopoly.
Gemini Links 14/09/2025: ROOPHLOCH, Music, and Reddit
Links for the day
If You Want to "make your 'Windows PC' lean, mean, and fast" You Will Install GNU/Linux or Some BSD
That kind of article says a lot about IDG
Slopwatch: Google News Infested With Slop (About Half of the Results for "Linux" Today)
This is the sort of junk one finds when looking for "Linux" in Google News these days
Links 14/09/2025: Ricky Hatton Dies and McDonald's Declares War on Tipping Culture
Links for the day
Links 14/09/2025: Disasters for CEOs Obsessed With Slop and Slop Companies School Like Fish
Links for the day
"Bad Shim Signature" (Microsoft 'Secure' Boot)
"Fresh install not booting"
What Microsoft Garrett and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
Similar tactics, different "wings"
Links 14/09/2025: US "Economy Sagging", "Michigan Economy Wobbles From Tariffs"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/09/2025: Minimalist Snippet Manager and Omarchy Linux
Links for the day
The Face of the Digital Far Right: Microsoft Lunduke
Microsoft Lunduke is an online extremist that belongs to and panders to the far right
20 Years Later and Academia Isn't the Same
"I never dreamed of being a professor"
'Cancel Culture' by the Right: Microsoft Lunduke Contacts People's Employers Trying to Get Them Fired
Microsoft Lunduke panders to extremists online
"Bad Shim Signature"; So 'Secure' That It Overrides Users' Preferences and Turns Itself Back on (Coercive Measure)
This was a few hours ago
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 13, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, September 13, 2025