08.03.08

Links 03/08/2008: GNU/Linux Multi-touch, Intellectual Monopoly Wrecks

Posted in News Roundup at 9:43 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

More fun than it looks: Compiz + MPX

I found a modified version of compiz here which allows MPX support. I have a video for you!
More than a toy [GNU/Linux on PS3]
Sylvania g MESO and MAGNI netbooks to arrive soon
You can make the old new for school

For the sufficiently nerdy, I recommend trying a Linux-based operating system like Ubuntu (www.ubuntu.com), which really excels on computers with at least 256 MB of RAM memory.
A Quick Look at Xubuntu Xtreme

Unlike PC/OS and Linux Mint, Xubuntu Xtreme doesn’t make any attempt to call itself a new distribution. It’s just Xubuntu with stuff added. You can read more about what’s added here, but to summarize, you get multimedia codecs, Java, Flash, DVD playback, some extra themes, and a few extra programs already installed.
RHT CEO Talks Biz
7 Uses of GParted LiveI

’ve been using GNU Parted to slice and dice my disk in preference to the fdisk for almost as long as I’ve been using Linux. We all fill up our hard-drives from time to time, but thanks to Gnome GParted, rearranging disk partitions isn’t as terrifying as it used to be.

F/OSS

Pidgin IM vs MSN Messenger

Microsoft makes lots of money with the Windows Live Messenger ads. Pidgin developers aren’t that interested in money: The software is advertising-free, which results in more speed and less memory use.
Open-source Openbravo buys your ticket on Portland’s public transportation

Intellectual Monopolies

End of the Blog

Like Humpty-Dumpty, the copyright law we used to know can never be put back together again: multilateral and trade agreements have ensured that, and quite deliberately.
Trademark Insanity

It’s bad enough that we have to deal with struggles over the use of trademarks that have become generic terms, like “Xerox” and “Coke”, and trademarks that were already generic terms among specialists, such as “Windows”, but a new low in trademarking has been reached by the joint efforts of Dell and the US Patent and Trademark Office.

[...]

In other words, this is a pure example of theft from the public domain. Speakers of English have a term, “cloud computing”, which the US government is on the verge of privatizing and assigning exclusively to Dell.

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