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04.01.15

Links 1/4/2015: Firefox 37, VirtualBox 5.0 Beta

Posted in News Roundup at 5:37 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Why open source and enterprise users are natural allies

    Open source software and enterprise users are natural allies. For example, at HotWax Systems, enterprise users are our focus customers, and open source software is at the core of the capabilities we deliver.

  • The benefits of open source identity management software

    What happens when your identity vendor doubles its software maintenance costs and management is so tired of being held at virtual vendor gunpoint that they start looking for an equivalent product in the marketplace? Realistically, there are two ways to respond to this problem: First, go with another vendor and hope it doesn’t have the same sales strategy as the last one, or second, look to see if there’s something on the open source…

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

  • CMS

    • How Moodle is driven by user and community feedback

      Moodle is a well-established, highly flexible open source learning platform, having grown from small beginnings at the start of the century into the mainstream solution for millions of people worldwide. Its customizable and secure learning management features allow anyone to create a private website filled with dynamic courses in any subject that promote learning on a schedule that suits students.

  • Education

    • OSS Watch: ‘Universities need to adapt to open source’

      Computer Science students are not learning the skills they need for working in the modern free and open source-friendly of software development, says Scott Wilson, service manager at OSS Watch, a service for higher and further education institutions in the UK. “Institutions need to rethink how they teach computing, to ensure students can practice the craft of software development, such as the use of source control, issue tracking and test-driven development, rather than just programming languages.”

  • BSD

    • OpenBSD 5.7 highlights

      The OpenBSD 5.7 release is still a month away, but the changes have been done for some time. The release page lists lots of changes, though certainly not all, and sometimes it’s hard to tell the big changes from the small changes. Annoying perhaps, but rewarding to someone who reads through the entire list looking for hidden gems. A few notes about changes I found personally interesting.

  • Public Services/Government

    • Hungary: open source key to Internet security

      The use of open source and open standards is essential for a secure Internet, the Hungarian government says in a statement following a workshop with IT researchers and ICT service providers. This type of software will also reduce the cost of ICT and contribute to the country’s economy, says Tamas Deutsch.

  • Licensing

    • Allwinner: “We Are Taking Initiative Actions Internally”

      Allwinner has been taking a lot of heat lately for violating open-source licenses with their Linux binary blob components. They then got caught obfuscating their code to try to hide their usage of open-source code, shifted around their licenses, and has continued jerking around the open-source community.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Jersey eGovernment to be restarted

      The government of Jersey is to restart its eGovernment project, according to press reports. The government failed to find a suitable contractor for the project and is reconsidering its objectives and approach. Jersey wants to make most of the island’s public administration services available online.

Leftovers

  • Science

    • Image of the Day: Intersex Fish

      Researchers found a developing egg in the testes of a male deep sea trout off the coast of France, an intersex condition possibly linked to pollution levels in the surrounding waters.

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Obama Personally Tells the Egyptian Dictator that U.S. Will Again Send Weapons (and Cash) to his Regime

      Yesterday, the Egyptian regime announced it was prosecuting witnesses who say they saw a police officer murder an unarmed poet and activist during a demonstration, the latest in a long line of brutal human rights abuses that includes imprisoning journalists, prosecuting LGBT citizens, and mass executions of protesters. Last June, Human Rights Watch said that Egyptian “security forces have carried out mass arrests and torture that harken back to the darkest days of former President Hosni Mubarak’s rule.”

  • Finance

    • Harry Reid’s appalling defense of his attack on Mitt Romney’s tax record

      One of the more outlandish moments of the 2012 campaign came when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid went to the floor of the world’s greatest deliberative body and accused GOP nominee Mitt Romney of not paying any taxes at all for the past 10 years. Reid’s evidence? Someone had told him. (That “someone” is alleged to be Jon Huntsman, father of the former Utah governor. Huntsman denies involvement.)

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Lee Kuan Yew is finally dead — and America’s elites are eulogizing a tyrant and psychological monster

      Lee Kuan Yew made Singapore wealthy & kept people in line with barbaric fear. Clinton & Kissinger should be ashamed

    • Media Inflate Threat With ‘ISIS Plots’ That Don’t Actually Involve ISIS

      Right on cue, the American media publish dressed-up FBI press releases about the “disrupted” plot, complete with balaclava-wearing stock photos: “FBI Disrupts Plot to Kill Scores at Military Base on Behalf of Islamic State” was the Washington Post‘s headline (3/26/15).

      These outlets, as usual, omitted the rather awkward fact that this “ISIS plot” did not actually involve anyone in ISIS: At no point was there any material contact between anyone in ISIS and the Edmond cousins. There was, as the criminal complaint lays out, lots of contact between the Edmond cousins and what they thought was ISIS, but at no point was there any contact with ISIS–the designated terror organization that the US is currently launching airstrikes against.

  • Censorship

    • New Pirate Bay Blockade Foiled By Simple DNS Trick

      The world’s newest blockade of The Pirate Bay has been thwarted in a matter of minutes. After a court in Spain ordered the country’s ISPs to block the notorious site on Friday, users who tweaked their connections to use Google’s DNS instead of the one provided by their service provider were back on the site in seconds.

    • How The TPP Agreement Could Be Used To Undermine Free Speech And Fair Use In The US

      We’ve been writing a lot about the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement over the past few years. There are many, many problems with it, but the two key ones are the intellectual property chapter and the investment chapter. Unlike some who are protesting TPP, we actually think that free trade is generally a good thing and important for the economy — but neither the intellectual property section nor the investment chapter are really about free trade. In many ways, they’re about the opposite: trying to put in place protectionist/mercantilist policies that benefit the interests of a few large legacy industries over the public and actual competition and trade. We’ve already discussed many of the problems of the intellectual property chapter — which is still being fought over — including that it would block the US from reforming copyright to lower copyright term lengths (as even the head of the Copyright Office, Maria Pallante has argued for).

  • Privacy

    • [NyTimes] The French Surveillance State

      Prime Minister Manuel Valls of France has presented yet another antiterrorism bill to Parliament. French lawmakers, who overwhelmingly approved a sweeping antiterrorism bill in September, are scheduled to debate the new bill this month.

    • The French Surveillance State

      Prime Minister Manuel Valls of France has presented yet another antiterrorism bill to Parliament. French lawmakers, who overwhelmingly approved a sweeping antiterrorism bill in September, are scheduled to debate the new bill this month. Mr. Valls argues that the bill’s sweeping new provisions for government surveillance are necessary to monitor potential terrorist-related activity, especially on the Internet and cellphones.

    • French Surveillance Bill: Time To Act!

      As the French Intelligence Bill (which should be more aptly called the French Mass Surveillance Bill) is being examined from 1 April by the French Parliament’s Law Commission, La Quadrature du Net launches a new campaign website and calls on all citizens to mobilize far and wide in order to convince Members of the French Parliament to refuse a law which, in its current form, organises mass surveillance and legalises intelligence methods that are highly detrimental to fundamental freedoms, all without any serious guarantees against abuse.

    • Facebook tracks everyone, everywhere, finds Belgian privacy probe

      FACEBOOK IS DISPUTING the findings of a Belgian study into the firm’s treatment of user rights, and has claimed that the opinions are wrong and that actually it does a lot for human privacy.

    • How Big Business Is Helping Expand NSA Surveillance, Snowden Be Damned

      Today, the bill is back, largely unchanged, and if congressional insiders and the bill’s sponsors are to believed, the legislation could end up on President Obama’s desk as soon as this month. In another boon to the legislation, Obama is expected to reverse his past opposition and sign it, albeit in an amended and renamed form (CISPA is now CISA, the “Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act”). The reversal comes in the wake of high-profile hacks on JPMorgan Chase and Sony Pictures Entertainment. The bill has also benefitted greatly from lobbying by big business, which sees it as a way to cut costs and to shift some anti-hacking defenses onto the government.

  • Civil Rights

    • Leaked TPP Investment Chapter Reveals Serious Threat to User Safeguards

      A newly leaked chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement from Wikileaks has confirmed some of our worst fears about the agreement. The latest provisions would enable multinational corporations to undermine public interest rules through an international tribunal process called investor state dispute settlement (ISDS). Under this process, foreign companies can challenge any new law or government action at the federal, state, or local level, in a country that is a signatory to the agreement. Companies can file such lawsuits based upon their claim that the law or action harms their present or future profits. If they win, there are no monetary limits to the potential award.

    • New TPP leak reveals how we’re trading our sovereignty for cheap tariffs

      WikiLeaks has published the secret investment chapter in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Dr Matthew Rimmer, associate professor at ANU College of Law, explains its insidious implications.

    • Cop caught berating Uber driver in xenophobic rant is NYPD detective, police sources say

      The angry lawman who was caught on camera belittling an Uber driver during a bias-fueled tirade in the West Village is an NYPD detective assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force, police sources confirmed Tuesday.

      The NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating the video, which shows Det. Patrick Cherry lambasting the Uber driver during a traffic stop and mocking his broken English.

      “I don’t know where you’re coming from, where you think you’re appropriate in doing that; that’s not the way it works. How long have you been in this country?” Cherry, who is white, barked at the driver after pulling him over in an unmarked car with flashing lights, according to video of the encounter.

    • Witnesses, Who Say Police Killed Activist, Are to Be Charged in Egypt

      Egyptian prosecutors are bringing criminal charges against witnesses who said they saw the police kill an unarmed poet and activist during a demonstration, a lawyer who has seen the charges said on Monday.

      The witnesses voluntarily told the Egyptian authorities that on Jan. 24, they had seen a group of riot police officers fire birdshot across a street into the peaceful march, which had been headed to Tahrir Square to lay memorial flowers to mark the anniversary, on the following day, of the Arab Spring uprising here.

    • Chinese court jails Muslim for 6 years for growing beard, wife gets 2 years for wearing veil

      A court in China’s mainly Muslim Xinjiang region has sentenced a man to six years in prison for “provoking trouble” and growing a beard, a practice discouraged by local authorities, a newspaper reported Sunday.

    • Katie Hopkins attacked me on Twitter — so I reported her to the police for inciting racial hatred

      That all changed following Katie’s comments, which pointedly linked the Pakistan flag to paedophilia. Employing her usual hateful and provocative shtick she went on to demand whether the nine men convicted in Rochdale of child grooming and sexual offences in 2012 were “my friends”. More abuse from Katie followed before she finished with a promise to come to Rochdale and “explain why no one messes with our white girls”.

      It would be easy to dismiss this as the vacuous posturing of an ill-informed pundit except my timeline suddenly became filled with a deluge of racist bile from Katie’s supporters. Soon I was getting threats from the EDL. A far right group called the North West Infidels suddenly announced they would be marching on our town and the Internet was quickly awash with intolerant abuse directed towards anyone of Pakistani origin in our town.

    • Leann and Paul DeHart to cross US/Canada border tomorrow, 1 April, 10am EDT

      With Paul having already been forced to give testimony to a secret grand jury in Washington DC regarding possible espionage charges, Matt’s parents are concerned that the actions they took to protect their son may have put them in legal jeopardy too.

      Matt, the Courage Foundation’s third beneficiary and a former US Air National Guard drone team member, was deported from Canada to the US on 1 March 2015, after being denied political asylum. Matt had sought refuge in Canada after he was tortured by the FBI during interrogation. The FBI’s own report confirms that US agents questioned him over an “espionage matter.” The FBI asked him about his unit, Anonymous, and WikiLeaks, yet they subsequently presented him with charges related to accusations of teenage pornography. Canadian officials said that the teen porn allegations have “no credible and trustworthy evidence” but deported him regardless, and Matt will be arraigned on Tuesday, 2 April, in Tennessee.

    • 5 other insane things a corrupt DEA agent did while allegedly stealing Bitcoin from Silk Road

      Anyone who has been following the real-life criminal drama swirling around the online drug marketplace Silk Road had their mind blown this week when San Francisco prosecutors announced charges against two federal agents involved in the investigation. DEA agent Carl Mark Force IV and Secret Service agent Shawn Bridges were allegedly helping themselves to copious amounts of Bitcoin through theft, deception and fraud, using the inside information and technical access they had to Silk Road operations as federal investigators.

    • Bureau of Prisons Demanded Whistleblower Work in Jail Cell

      A special prosecutor has stopped retaliation against a whistleblower committed directly under the nose of the Justice Department’s internal watchdog.

    • “Blackwater” Leads Failed Afghan Drug War, Reaps Hundreds of Millions of Dollars

      A mercenary force infamous for a 2007 massacre in central Baghdad has received nearly $600 million from US taxpayers to clamp down on Afghan opium production—an effort that’s been widely reported as a complete failure.

      New data released Tuesday by the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) shows that the lion’s share of private contracting dollars spent by the Department of Defense in counter-narcotics operations is going to the security firm Academi—a corporation formerly known as Blackwater.

    • After a story is published, a minimum wage worker loses her job

      Shanna Tippen was another hourly worker at the bottom of the nation’s economy, looking forward to a 25-cent bump in the Arkansas minimum wage that would make it easier for her to buy diapers for her grandson. When I wrote about her in The Post last month, she said the minimum wage hike would bring her a bit of financial relief, but it wouldn’t lift her above the poverty line.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • The Path Toward Tomorrow’s Internet

      High school students in Tennessee can see and manipulate ocean plankton under a superhigh-resolution microscope in Southern California, with a biologist in California serving as their tour guide.

      Surgeons in Cleveland and Los Angeles share insights and run through a simulation of brain surgery on a biologically exact image of the patient’s brain just before the real operation begins.

      Harnessing data from sources ranging from environmental sensor networks to patient records, researchers in Dallas and elsewhere are working to someday be able to send personalized alerts to people who are particularly sensitive to tiny airborne particles — notably, the 44,000 Americans who have an asthma attack each day, with 1,200 of them having to be admitted to a hospital.

    • Massive Anti-Net Neutrality E-mail Campaign Shows Signs Of Faking Many Signatures

      During the first round of the FCC’s net neutrality comment period, the agency was absolutely swamped by public input (including ours), the vast majority of it supporting net neutrality. After the agency released a database of the comments, analysis of the comments showed that while around half were generated via “outrage-o-matic” forms from various consumer advocacy groups, once you got into the other half of the comments — almost all were in support of net neutrality. After the volume of pro-neutrality comments received ample media coverage, anti-neutrality organizations — like the Phil Kerpen’s Koch-Funded “American Commitment” — dramatically ramped up their automated form comment efforts to try and balance the comment scales.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • Georgia Supreme Court: No, Writing Mean Things About Copyright Trolling By Linda Ellis Is Not ‘Stalking’

        A few years ago, we wrote about a terrible Georgia state court ruling against Matt Chan, the operator of Extortion Letter Info (ELI), a website/forum that has tracked copyright trolling for many years. There had been a number of discussions on the site about Linda Ellis, who is somewhat notorious for her trolling effort. Ellis wrote a poem called “The Dash” that gets reposted a lot online. Ellis and her lawyers then send threat letters, emphasizing the possible $150,000 in statutory damages (yet another example of how statutory damages aid in copyright trolling), before suggesting much lower (but still crazy high) dollar amounts to “settle.” While some of the discussions on ELI were overly aggressive towards Ellis, it still seemed ridiculous that the court ordered Chan to remove all content relating to Ellis and to block any future mentions of her.

      • KickassTorrents Celebrates ‘Happy Torrents Day’

        For the fourth year in a row KickassTorrents is celebrating Happy Torrents Day by encouraging users to download and share as much as possible. The initiative was started to celebrate file-sharing and is growing bigger every year. The latest edition features various challenges and also sees the debut of a Kickass magazine and a Torrents Day album.

When Battistelli’s Defender, Dutch Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten, Attacked Europeans’ Right to Demonstrate

Posted in Europe, Fraud at 6:59 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Ivo Opstelten

Summary: The now disgraced (having just resigned) Ivo Opstelten played a role in helping Benoît Battistelli crush his staff

The European Patent Office (EPO) — especially its management as opposed to patent examiners– has indulged in relative calm this past week. What it does not know is that there is still have plenty of exclusive coverage coming and it’s not going to like it. These problems cannot be resolved with words but only with actions.

The EPO‘s management, namely Battistelli and his cronies, are on the retreat from EPO staff. The staff arguably has the upper hand now, so it will be getting its demands met one way or another.

Merpel from IP Kat delivered a sort of interlude at the end of last week, saying: “By recognising both the “social unease” that exists in the EPO and by timetabling the need to address it, this month’s Administrative Council Meeting appears to have provided at least a basis for the various interested parties — the President, Boards of Appeal, management, staff and unions, and also the members of the Administrative Council themselves if truth be told — to start afresh by building relationships that are founded on respect, on tolerance and understanding, on listening to one another, plus a leavening dose of humility.

“The outcome of the Administrative Council Meeting will certainly not be to everyone’s liking. For one thing, it approved the controversial healthcare reforms which, viewed from the standpoint of an objective bystander, appear to be one of the most significant causes of the “social unrest” and which will remain a permanent obstacle to its being remedied. Nor will its acceptance of the proposal for a Board of Appeal Committee, in the face of some sensible and constructive criticisms from the Praesidium and Board members, have done much to enhance respect or confidence for the Council itself. However, a door has been opened and a small step has been taken in the right direction. The question to ask now is whether, now that this opportunity has been created, it will be taken and built upon — or mocked and spurned.

“It is easy to be sceptical and to say that something won’t work, particularly if you can do it anonymously by penning comments on a blogpost. It’s also rather fun to be able to say to anyone who can be bothered to listen “See, it didn’t work. I told you so!” It’s far harder to swallow one’s pride, sit down with people you have not hitherto liked, trusted or respected, and talk through the problems that the EPO has to address, both those which it always has to face and those which it has recently created for itself. But that is what this Kat is calling for.”

EPO scandals should not be left in the past and treated as ‘old news’ because the core issues, including corruption, have not been addressed yet. Some recent articles from the Süddeutsche Zeitung serve to remind us of the profound issues at the EPO.

“We hope that you are enjoying your time in Singapore,” wrote to us a source some weeks ago when sending us translations of Süddeutsche Zeitung articles. “For your information just to keep you up to date with recent developments,” wrote this source, two recent articles from the Süddeutsche Zeitung (with English translations) were sent, accompanying the originals in Dutch.

The first one [PDF] (25th of February) is about the planned demonstration at the British Consulate in Munich (a demonstration which was called off following threats from Battistelli). Here is the English translation:

Süddeutsche Zeitung – Wednesday, 25 February 2015

An Inexorable Conflict

EPO staff call off an officially approved demonstration – because the President bans it

On one occasion, such a large number of staff – reportedly 2000 – arrived with their banners and placards that the police had to cordon off the street in front of the building with the
dark glass façade beside the Isar. They had taken to the streets to protest against the management style of the man who sits – some would say “resides” – on the top floor: Benoît Battistelli, President of the European Patent Office (EPO), an international organisation with its very own rules – “a state within a state”. A state which for quite some time now has been
in a virtual state of war.

All those who object to Battistelli’s new rules had planned to march again today. The route along the Isar would have brought them to the British Consulate General, just like previous actions which had taken place at the French and Danish Consulates. The EPO’s Staff Union SUEPO unexpectedly called off the officially approved demonstration: not of its own volition, however, but because the President had threatened the demonstrators with massive disciplinary consequences. This is confirmed by a document which the Süddeutsche Zeitung has seen. The Office management claimed that the demonstration was “contrary to the interests of the Office” and was likely to damage the EPO’s reputation. Staff members participating in the organisation of the demonstration were warned that they were in breach of the legal framework applicable to their contracts. In a letter to SUEPO, the President stated that the organisers would be held liable for their actions.

This de facto demonstration ban represents a new peak in a conflict whose intensity has been escalating during recent months. It is a conflict which has by now reached a point
where not even senior EPO representatives see any hope of a resolution. For quite some time now staff representatives have been fighting against the President and his plans for reform. The aim of these reforms is to provide a more efficient and cost-effective management of the Office – and one aspect of this involves tackling certain long-established “perks” which date from the early days of the EPO and which until now have contributed to attractive remuneration and working conditions. Time and time again, EPO staff have protested against what they consider to be the excessively brusque manner in which these reforms have been forced through. They have taken to the streets and in the weeks before Christmas they engaged in a strike action, albeit with diminishing participation towards the end. According to staff representatives this was due to increased internal surveillance and repression by management.

Photo Caption:

The Frenchman Benoit Battistelli will remain at the head of the European Patent Office until 2018. However, his management style has been the subject of harsh criticism.

The demonstrators have consistently emphasised that as far as they are concerned, this is not about money but rather about their fundamental rights, such as the freedom of expression. They consider that these rights have been increasingly curtailed by the President. Meanwhile, in attempting to justify the demonstration ban, Battistelli did not cite the attacks on his person and management style but referred instead to those directed against the two British delegates on the Administrative Council, the only supervisory body to which the President is subordinate. This body which is composed of delegates from the EPO member states is considered by its critics to be too much under the sway of the President. On a number of recent occasions, it has bolstered Battistelli, in particular by prematurely extending his term of office until 2018.

For this reason, the Staff Union wrote to the British Consulate General at the beginning of February and requested a discussion: not just about the President but also about what they considered to be the overly uncritical stance of the British delegation. Battistelli interpreted this as a personal attack on the two representatives of a member state. Moreover, discussions with member states are exclusively a matter for the Office – and by “Office” Battistelli means those at the top, i.e. himself. The EPO was unable to provide an answer to our question as to why Battistelli only decided to intervene now and why he did not raise any objection to previous demonstrations and letters to diplomatic representatives.

The second one [PDF] (27th of February) is about the Dutch court judgment and the intervention by the Dutch Justice Minister to prevent execution of the Judgment. There are more documents and comments about this on the public website of SUEPO. Here is the English translation:

Süddeutsche Zeitung – Friday, 27 February 2015

Being in the right is no guarantee of obtaining satisfaction

Following a reprimand by a Dutch court, the European Patent Office strikes back

Berlin – A Court of Appeal in the Netherlands has ordered the European Patent Office (EPO) to engage in collective bargaining with the Staff Union. In addition to this, the EPO is required to cease blocking emails from staff representatives and to desist from threatening Staff Union activists with disciplinary measures. With this development, the conflict between EPO staff and the President Battistelli has reached a new level of intensity. The Appeal Court (“Gerechtshof”) in the Hague has officially declared that the EPO violated the fundamental rights of its staff. The Staff Union known as “SUEPO” had no means of legal redress available to it.

The judgment opens up a new chapter of legal history because until now it was generally accepted that the EPO, as an international organisation, enjoyed immunity from the jurisdiction of national courts. Battistelli consistently emphasised this, in particular in connection with the reforms which he has been implementing in the Office during the last few years. He claimed
that he wanted to do away with long-standing privileges enjoyed by staff and that he had the support of the representatives of the 38 member states of the Organisation. Staff representatives and Union activists, however, complained that the changes led to restrictions of their fundamental rights, for example with respect to Union activities and industrial action. The headquarters of the EPO are in Munich and it also has large sub-offices in Berlin, Vienna and the Hague.

“It was quite an unusual decision”, the attorney representing the Staff Union, Prof. Liesbeth Zegveld, says about the judgment. “The EPO had, however, behaved badly because it did not recognise SUEPO as a social partner”. The EPO management on the other hand rejects the judgment of the Appeal Court as an encroachment. The judges had “decided not to respect the
fundamental principle of immunity” wrote the EPO President in a Communiqué to his staff. “This judgement is neither legally admissible nor practically enforceable”.

In order to ensure that its point of view prevailed, it would appear that the EPO Administration brought pressure to bear on the Dutch authorities. A spokesperson for the Dutch Ministry of
External Affairs confirmed this version of events in response to a query from the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The Dutch Government now takes the position that although the EPO is not immune from the jurisdiction of the courts in its conflict with the Staff Union, it nevertheless enjoys immunity from execution of the judgment. The Ministry of Justice ordered the Court Bailiff not to proceed with the execution. “The Ministry of External Affairs has confirmed to us that the judgment failed to take account of the international legal obligations of the [Dutch] State”, said the EPO press officer, Rainer Osterwalder.

What will happen next is unclear. On one hand, the EPO may refer the matter to the next instance, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands. On the other hand, SUEPO attorney Liesbeth Zegveld is currently considering taking legal action against the [Dutch] State which, in her opinion, is obstructing its own justice system. It is possible that a similar lawsuit could succeed before the German courts.

“The European states, including Germany, should never have ratified the Convention relating to the European Patent Office,” says Siegfried Broß, a former judge of the German Constitutional Court, “because it places the fundamental and human rights of EPO employees at the disposition of the Office Administration.”

The Dutch Socialist Party has also issued a statement calling on the Dutch government not to tolerate human rights abuses at the EPO. To quote the summary alone: “The Court of Justice in The Hague last week ruled that the European Patents Organisation (EPO) is in conflict with important European fundamental rights, such as the right to strike. Security and Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten is, however, refusing to give effect to the judgment, on the grounds that the EPO – not an EU institution, but one with thirty-eight member states, including all EU countries – is an independent organisation and therefore enjoys immunity. SP Member of Parliament Michiel van Nispen finds this reasoning absurd, he says. ‘The minister is thus approving the silencing of trade unions and the fact that workers can’t in the end enforce their rights,’ he points out. ‘Independent organisations should not be hampered in their functioning, but that doesn’t mean that they have carte blanche to transgress human rights and ignore judicial rulings.’”

In imminent articles we are going to show that even Battistelli’s defence, namely Opstelten, is itself corrupt. There is much that can be deduced from it. █

Microsoft is Growing Desperate Trying to Destroy Linux While Not Publicly Appearing Anti-Linux

Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft at 6:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Trojan horse tactics

Trojan horse

Summary: Microsoft continues to be a destructive company whose goal is to derail Linux and Android by means of infiltration and subversion, shrewdly disguised as being “nice”

MICROSOFT has already lost a lot of money failing to sell hardware; by some estimates, hundreds of millions of dollars (if not billions) have in fact been lost. It’s becoming a real problem for what used to be an arrogant monopoly. When I went to a computer store last night I saw that “Windows” had been relegated to a small corner with just two devices somewhere at the corner; it was Linux/Android almost everywhere. Apple was nowhere in sight. Microsoft is getting not only worried but rather desperate, so it is now claiming to be ‘open’ to dual boot [1] (Trojan horse strategy) — a lie so insincere that one must read [2] and recall how Microsoft is working to delete Android whilst also working prevent GNU/Linux from booting on future hardware. There are other speculations about what Microsoft is trying to do [3], not that they are novel; Microsoft has been trying to exploit Android apps like this for a number of years now; it is still hoping to “embrace and extend” Android with an ultimate goal of altogether removing Android or GNU/Linux. One of the latest plots is wiping Android and installing Microsoft spyware instead of Android apps from Google (using Cyanogen and patent extortion). Rupert Murdoch, a friend of Bill Gates and a sworn enemy of Google, personally invests in Cyanogen and is now using his newspapers for anti-Google propaganda [4]. John Dvorak does not believe that Microsoft stands a chance in devices [5] and we too, based on numerous years of Microsoft’s attacks on Android (from Facebook, Nokia and so on), don’t believe that Microsoft will succeed. But have no doubts; Microsoft will keep on trying. Microsoft is a destructive company. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. Microsoft’s Surface 3 will dual boot with Android and Ubuntu

    However the most important feature of the tablet is its dual booting capability. Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft Corporate VP Devices and Studios Marketing said during a press event, “It can run Microsoft Windows as well as Google’s Android, and it can also handle any Linux based distro without a hiccup. It’s also “a premium product at a premium price.”

    The move syncs with Microsoft’s effort to dual boot Android devices with Windows; the company is already working with some Android players to put Windows on their Android devices.

  2. Hands-On: Linux UEFI multi-boot part three, problem solving

    We’re in the home stretch now. In the first post of this series I looked at the general characteristics of Linux installations on systems with UEFI firmware – specifically how the disk is partitioned, and how multi-boot installations interact with each other.

    In the second post I looked at some details of the boot process, and how the GRUB configuration file was set up, first for a simple Linux-only installation and then for multi-boot with Linux only and Linux/Windows combinations. Whew. That’s a good bit of territory to cover, and I congratulate those who are still with me at this point.

    Now I want to look at a couple of exceptions, unusual or uncooperative situations.

  3. Microsoft Windows 10 Considering Emulator; Open Source Developer Kit To Build Its App Store

    Using an emulator to emulate all Android apps on Windows 10 was the first suggestion because Google’s operating system has a whole lot of apps and games to be utilized. It is still being considered a rumor but an interesting one that may change the way people see Windows. Besides, Microsoft wouldn’t mind taking such a route when compared to Apple, reports Venture Beat.

  4. Rupert Murdoch’s Media Empire Pushes Baseless Conspiracy Theory That Google “Controls The White House”

    Three of Rupert Murdoch’s largest and most powerful news outlets promoted baseless conspiracy theories that Google is using its alleged “close ties” with the Obama administration to receive favorable treatment and to push its policy agenda. Murdoch has a long history of attacking Google.

  5. Microsoft Doesn’t Understand the Smartphone

    Apparently, the next generation of computing is smartphones. They have been around for less than a decade and are generally replaced every two years, making them an incredible money maker for manufacturers that can keep up with demand.

    Although people have talked about the potential for an open smartphone, none of the current crop are truly open. Only Microsoft, which made its fortune on open ideas, has been making noise about creating versions of Windows 10 for the phone that could be ported to various Android phones.

    This idea would be great—if it actually worked, and if it improved the user’s phone experience. The problem is, the public has not warmed up to the Windows Phone OS itself. And you have to wonder why.

Links 1/4/2015: $149 Chromebook, Cinnamon 2.4.7

Posted in News Roundup at 5:18 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • 5 questions to determine if open source is a good fit for a software project

    A benefit of open source in general, and commercial open source in particular, is that you have the support of others as well as the ability to do the maintenance yourself.

  • Events

    • Registration for R/Finance 2015 is now open!

      The conference will take place on May 29 and 30, at UIC in Chicago. Building on the success of the previous conferences in 2009-2014, we expect more than 250 attendees from around the world. R users from industry, academia, and government will joining 30+ presenters covering all areas of finance with R.

    • Glimpse of FOSS ASIA
    • FUDCon Pune Planning Meeting – 31 Mar
    • Android/Mobile Microconference Accepted into 2015 Linux Plumbers Conference

      As with 2014 and several years prior, 2015 is the year of the Linux smartphone. There are a number of mobile/embedded environments based on the Linux kernel, the most prominent of course being Android. One consequence of this prominence is a variety of projects derived from Android Open Source Project (AOSP), which raises the question of how best to manage them, and additionally if it is possible to run a single binary image of the various software components across a variety of devices. In addition, although good progress has been made upstreaming various Android patches, there is more work to be done for ADF, KMS, and Sync, among others. Migrating from Binder to KDBus is still a challenge, as are a number of other candidates for removal from drivers/staging. There are also issues remaining with ION, cenalloc, and DMA API. Finally, power management is still in need of improvement, with per-process power management being a case in point.

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Firefox 37.0

        Firefox 37.0 has been released. This release features improved protection against site impersonation via OneCRL centralized certificate revocation, Bing search now uses HTTPS for secure searching, opportunistic encrypting of HTTP traffic where the server supports HTTP/2 AltSvc, and more. See the release notes for details.

      • Mozilla Firefox 37.0 Officially Released with Native HTML5 YouTube Playback, Firefox 40 Pushed to Nightly Channel

        As expected, Mozilla had the pleasure of unveiling today, March 31, the Mozilla Firefox 37.0 web browser for all supported computer operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, while pushing Firefox 40 to the nightly (unstable channel), Firefox 39.0 to the Dev channel, and Firefox 38.0 to the Beta channel.

      • Firefox 37 Coming Today With Heartbeat, HTTPS Bing

        Mozilla is today releasing Firefox 37.0 and with this open-source web-browser update comes many changes.

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Why DBaaS matters to OpenStack operators

      OpenStack Live attendees will have several opportunities to hear Amrith Kumar speak. Kumar, the founder and CTO of Tesora, will give three talks: Replication and Clustering with OpenStack Trove; Deploying, Configuring, and Operating OpenStack Trove; and An introduction to Database as a Service with an emphasis on OpenStack using Trove.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • Development activity in LibreOffice and OpenOffice

      The LibreOffice project was announced with great fanfare in September 2010. Nearly one year later, the OpenOffice.org project (from which LibreOffice was forked) was cut loose from Oracle and found a new home as an Apache project. It is fair to say that the rivalry between the two projects in the time since then has been strong. Predictions that one project or the other would fail have not been borne out, but that does not mean that the two projects are equally successful. A look at the two projects’ development communities reveals some interesting differences.

  • BSD

  • FSF

    • LibrePlanet & the Sounds of Silence

      My sponsor for attending LibrePlanet was John Sullivan, the executive director of the Free Software Foundation, and I was surprised that he took the time to get me shown around. I wanted to kiddingly say to John, “Hey, you got people to do this, right?” I didn’t because I was afraid the humor would not have translated well…and I’m not sure it did here either.

    • Have You Decided Yet?

      On March 21st of this year, the Free Software Foundation presented our organization Reglue with the Award for Projects of Social Benefit. We share that announcement link with Sébastien Jodogne for being given the Award for the Advancement of Free Software. We’re specifically thankful that people like Sean “NZ17″ Robinson spearheaded this nomination campaign and got us into the running.

  • Public Services/Government

    • Bringing open source to the NHS

      Malcolm Senior, director of informatics at the Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, has been writing about the prospect of open source in the NHS.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Open Data

      • UK Ordnance Survey switches to Open Government Licence

        Ordnance Survey (OS), the British national mapping agency, has switched to version 3 of the Open Government Licence as the default for all of its open data products. This should make it easier for the open data community and other data publishers to re-use the OS mapping data, and for the data to be freely and easily mixed with other UK government sources.

      • Italy to implement its second OGP Action Plan

        Italy has published its second OGP Action Plan, covering the period 2014-2016. The central themes in the plan are participation, transparency, technological innovation, integrity, and accountability. Several online portals, including the Italian open data platform, will be extended with new functionality.

    • Open Hardware

      • Michigan Tech course to build your own 3D printer

        When engineering students start college, the high cost of proprietary tools can be a barrier to making their dreams become a reality. Recent advances in free and open source 3D printing have lowered rapid prototyping costs, making it accessible to everyone. The software industry already knows the force of open source, so now it’s time to start teaching free and open source hardware to all engineers.

  • Programming

Leftovers

  • Pac-Man Invades Ingress And Google Maps As Google Gets April Fools Started A Little Early

    You know what day it is. Yes, it’s March 31st, and that means the April Fools onslaught has commenced… because what’s better than one day when the internet becomes an annoying cacophony of fake news? Two of them, apparently. In fairness, Google’s pranks are usually less annoying than they are fun little games. Case in point, Pac-Man is invading Maps and Ingress.

  • OpenIndiana 2015.03 Updates Its Solaris/Illumos Environment

    The OpenIndiana crew responsible for this community-based OpenSolaris-derived operating system using the Illumos kernel is out with their first update in quite some time.

  • Hardware

    • Samsung, Google reportedly ink 3D NAND deal

      The Korea Times said Samsung had declined comment while Google was not available for its report. It noted that Samsung’s manufacturing plant in Xian, China, would grow its 3D NAND chips shipment to 960,000 wafers this year, up from 480,000 in 2014.

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Finance

    • Honduras’ Unfolding Socioeconomic Nightmare

      A five-year neoliberal program in Honduras has contributed to the country’s far-reaching civic and economic deterioration. The increased privatization of Honduras’ economic activity and militarization of its police force has exacerbated the country’s rapid decline into inequality, violence, and lawlessness. The US has backed many of developments with $65 million in aid since 2008.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

  • Privacy

    • After Snowden, The NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge

      After Snowden’s revelations, Swann’s thinking changed. The NSA’s tactics, which include retaining data from American citizens, raise too many questions in his mind: “I can’t see myself working there,” he says, “partially because of these moral reasons.”

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