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Links 09/09/2009 (9/9/9): Debian switches to Upstart, Palm introduces Pré junior



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • Another Reason Open Source is Better: No Abandonware
    This is extraordinary: it means that Windows 2000 becomes abandonware – no longer fully supported by its manufacturer, and left with a critical security flaw that makes it pretty much unusable in many circumstances.

    Contrast this with open source. Even if a company providing support for GNU/Linux decided not to provide a patch for an old version, end-users always have the option of writing one themselves, or paying a third-party to do it.


  • Google Chrome Privacy Policy Changes Hint at Public Launch of Mac, Linux Versions
    It's been just over a year since Google surprised the world with a release of their very own web browser, Google Chrome, now the basis for the company's upcoming operating system.


  • ViewSonic VNB101 review
    It runs Windows XP, but the ViewSonic VNB101 also has a version of Linux installed that you can boot into quickly if you don't need to use anything more than web-based applications.


  • LugRadio Live 2009 Announced
    I am proud to join my fellow large gents in announcing the power and the glory that is LugRadio Live 2009 in Wolverhampton on the 24th October 2009! Although LugRadio may be no more, LugRadio Live is alive and kicking and we are all tickled pink about the forthcoming fun-fest.


  • What Drove Me to Linux -- and Keeps Me There
    When the Blaster Worm hit everyone here in my home state, I was shocked and appalled at how many IT pros failed to patch their systems/networks ahead of time. Pure laziness as far as I am concerned, but it also opened my eyes to just how vulnerable our Windows PCs were. Despite the patch being released well ahead of time, many people ended up needing to use a removal tool to fix the problem. This troubled me greatly.

    Roughly in the same time line, I had been using Knoppix Linux to help with rescuing data off client PCs. I was always amazed at how cool it was that I could run this operating system from a LiveCd without being forced to install over the existing data on the hard drive. Shortly after this, I found myself drawn to one of the most promising distros at that time, called Simply Mepis. Unlike Linspire during the same period, I found Mepis to be a bit more cutting edge, hence was drawn to it as something I wanted to run on my notebook while still keeping my feet in the Windows world on my desktop.




  • Server

    • South Korea inks $40m deal with Cray
      What neither Cray nor KMA discussed was how this future box would be configured. The XT5h super deploys the Cray X2 vector engines on blade servers and allows it to hook into the XT interconnect that was pioneered with the "Red Storm" Opteron-Linux super made for Sandia National Laboratory and commercialized as the XT3, XT4, and XT5 lines.


    • Oracle finally updates flagship database
      The new database will initially support Linux. Support for "all major Unix platforms" is coming later this year, with Windows to be added at an undisclosed future date, Townsend said.


    • Neon makes IBM z-series glow
      For IBM, the mainframe has gone through a bit of a renaissance, as such systems have become more cost effective, required less management resource, have standardised at the hardware and software levels and have also opened up to be able to run Linux as well as IBM's own z/OS (nee MVS). But the biggest change in mainframe direction has been the launch by IBM of "specialty engines" - separate processor units that allow specific workloads to be offloaded from the mainframe central processors, and run on lower-cost specialty processors run within the mainframe.


    • Virtualisation gets ready for the mainstream
      Virtualisation is a hot topic in the IT industry, to be found in every new processor, every datacentre and on every roadmap. But if the average person on the street has even heard of virtualisation, the idea probably left little impression beyond something to do with running corporate datacentres packed with computing hardware.


    • Build Your Own PBX With Asterisk and Linux
      Personally I'd recommend taking an Asterisk Fast Start course to get you up and running, but if you fancy trying out Asterisk in the lab to see if it might be suitable for your organization here's what you need to know to start.


    • Personalize Your Own PBX Using FreePBX Features
      In this article by Alex Robar, we will introduce some of the FreePBX features that allows us to personalize our PBX, which essentially means to make our PBX on our own. We will discuss how to configure FreePBX to check additional sources for caller ID information if none is provided, using the HTTP source type method or MySQL source type method. We will also learn how to configure PIN sets to password protect various FreePBX features.








  • Kernel Space

    • Chip Maker VIA joins the Linux Foundation
      VIA Technologies, maker of chip-sets, graphics chips and other components, has joined the Linux Foundation. Richard Brown, VP of marketing at VIA Technologies Inc, said in the announcement "VIA shares the Linux Foundation’s goal of fostering the growth of the Linux ecosystem".


    • VIA Technologies, Inc. Joins Linux Foundation


    • Metadata Performance Exploration Part 2: XFS, JFS, ReiserFS, ext2, and Reiser4
      More performance: We add five file systems to our previous benchmark results to creating a “uber” article on metadata file system performance. We follow the “good” benchmarking guidelines presented in a previous article and examine the good, the bad and the interesting.


    • Work On Mesa 7.7 Is Underway
      Anyhow, work on Mesa 7.7 has already started. A number of commits have poured into Mesa's Git "master" code-base. Among this work are commits affecting LLVMpipe, the Intel i915 Gallium3D driver, the Radeon Gallium3D driver, and the general Mesa stack. The Intel hardware driver and software rasterizer has picked up support for the GL_ARB_draw_elements_base_vertex, GL_ARB_depth_clamp, and GL_NV_depth_clamp. The two prior OpenGL extensions are part of the OpenGL 3 specification, which Mesa has slowly been adopting.


    • Ingo Molnar Tests New BF Scheduler
      Kernel developer Ingo Molnar has done a benchmark test to compare his Completely Fair Scheduler (CFS) with the recently released BFS from Australian Con Kolivas.


    • Linux 2.6.32 To Get R600 KMS Along With 3D
      Additionally, this code provides firmware loading support for the r128/mga/radeon + Radeon KMS drivers, the latest Intel drm-next code, Radeon R100/200 KMS command stream checking, Radeon KMS TV-Out support, merged FB handling for all KMS drivers, and DMT timings + better HDMI EDID decoding.








  • Applications







  • Desktops

    • Third Plasma Summit Lifts KDE Desktop To Higher Grounds
      Plasmate is the working name for a new Plasma-addon development application. It provides a workflow-oriented tool to make it easy to create Plasma components such as widgets. By providing this kind of tool on top of scripting languages that can be used to create Plasma components, the plasma team aims to open development of Plasma add-ons to a much wider audience. Plasmate specifically targets programmers and designers that are currently focusing on web technologies. This way, JavaScript (or rather its ISO-standardized version ECMA) becomes a first-class citizen to develop Plasma components that can be shared across the network, for example using the new remote widget support or web services such as Get Hot New Stuff, the application-store functionality integrated into many KDE applications.


    • GNOME Journal Issue 16 Released!
      * Putting the Network back into G(N)OME - An Interview with John Palmieri * Writing Open Source Conference * Behind the Scenes with Lucas Rocha


    • Openbox: A fun and lightweight window manager
      I am always on the lookout for a new way of doing things when it comes to personal computing, and one of the best ways to do so is to experiment with different window managers for Linux.


    • The Command Line Is Not Always Better
      I started learning computers back when DOS was all that was available to me, so I was comfortable with the command line. When Windows 95 was released my command line usage dropped considerably because there simply wasn't the "need" for it that there once was. I've gone from using the command line all the time to using it very seldom because GUI's were getting better and becoming more wide spread.

      [...]

      Linux has come a long way and, if we are to see it take over the desktop, we need to avoid "pushing" the command line when a GUI will serve the same purpose. We also need to teach new users a method which works best for them instead of forcing a method which works best for us.








  • Distributions

    • Lin-X Linux 1.1
      Since the Lin-X site is not available I could not find exact install requirements. But since it’s based on Ubuntu you should simply bear the Ubuntu install requirements in mind. I had a few problems with the install which I’ve detailed in the problems section. Suffice to say that once you actually get the install going it’s about the same as installing any other Ubuntu-based distribution which means that it’s not difficult.




    • Red Hat Family

      • Trusted Computer Solutions Introduces Automated Lock Down Solution for Red Hat Enterprise Linux on IBM's System z
        Trusted Computer Solutions, Inc. (TCS), a leading developer of cross domain and cyber security solutions, today announced that Security Blanket, the company's award-winning automated lock down solution, is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 operating systems running on IBM System z hardware.


      • Red Hat: Linux versus Solaris
        There are a number of Linux and Unix operating system platform choices available today for enterprise workloads, an advantage which gives IT executives flexibility and reduces vendor risk. However, this choice also requires carefulexamination to select the best option among the wide range of proprietary Unix and open source Linux offerings. One of the most contentious today is choosing between Linux and Sun Microsystems' Solaris.








    • Debian Family

      • Debian switches to Upstart
        The Debian boot system maintainers have announced plans to switch to the newer Upstart boot system in the forthcoming version 6 (Squeeze).


      • Dell renews Ubuntu Linux desktop line up
        Microsoft is doing its best to bury desktop Linux with lies — but at least one major vendor, Dell, isn't just continuing to deliver laptops and netbooks with Ubuntu Linux; it's actually upgrading the version of Ubuntu it's shipping and, later this week, it will start selling Ubuntu 9.04-powered Inspiron 537s desktops.


      • 10 Karmic/Koala Wallpapers To Get You In The Mood…
        A selection of 10 Karmic Koala “themed” wallpapers that are either are official submissions to be the default wallpaper or “koala” themed!












  • Devices/Embedded

    • Eurotech Adds Wind River Linux 3.0 Support to Products Based on Intel(R) Atom(TM) Processor
      Together with Wind River's World-Class Customer Support and Broad ISV Ecosystem, Eurotech Customers Can Focus on Differentiated Value


    • ARM11 SoC boasts under one-Watt efficiency
      Cavium Networks announced a SoC family with single- and dual ARM11 cores and claimed power consumption of under a Watt. Aimed at home media gateways and network-attached storage devices, the Econa CNS3xxx offers 300MHz to 700MHz clock rates, over ten multimedia and networking acceleration engines, and a Linux SDK, Cavium says.




    • Phones

      • Palm introduces Pré junior
        Rumours of a low-end alternative to the Pré were true, Palm has formally announced.


      • Mini-Pre debuts
        Palm announced the second phone to run its Linux-based WebOS, and cut the price of the Palm Pre by $50. Destined for a fourth-quarter release on Sprint, the Palm Pixi runs a new Qualcomm MSM7627 SoC, and offers a 2.8-inch, 320 x 400 touchscreen, an exposed QWERTY keyboard, and 3G support.
      • Immersion’s Haptics Technology to Drive User Experience Innovation in Linux-based Mobile Devices
        Immersion Corporation (NASDAQ: IMMR), the leading developer and licensor of touch feedback technology, today announced that it has joined the LiMo Foundation. Immersion’s TouchSense€® haptics technology is now available to LiMo platform developers for designing innovative user experiences that engage the sense of touch.


      • Nokia to skip operator tailoring for Linux phones
        Nokia Oyj plans to skip tailoring software of its upcoming top-of-the-range model N900 to different operators, raising the risk some carriers, who focus on integrating their own software, could refuse to offer the model.

        Nokia's plan for phones using its Linux Maemo operating system is the latest twist in a battle between handset vendors and operators for access to cell phone users.


      • Mass-market Android phone offers customizable UI
        HTC Corp. announced an Android phone aimed at "the masses" that offers the same Sense UI as its more robust HTC Hero smartphone cousin. The HTC Tattoo provides a 2.8-inch touchscreen, HSPA, WCDMA, and Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE network support, plus WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and a 3.2-megapixel camera, says HTC.


      • Google Android: Mobile open source has finally arrived
        But just as Linux's big moment on the server came with IBM's $1 billion commitment to fund its development and marketing, so, too, will the mobile open-source market come into its own with Google Android.






    • Sub-notebooks

      • Jolicloud Innovates Atop Ubuntu Netbook Remix
        Linux distributions designed specifically for use on netbooks is nothing new. Canonical produces the Ubuntu Netbook Remix version of Ubuntu for these small-sized devices, Intel has their Moblin distribution that is very fast and offers an attractive interface, gOS has their own netbook distribution...

        [...]

        Jolicloud's 2.6.30 kernel is also built with GCC optimizations for the Intel Atom processor and has picked up several out-of-tree kernel modules to support different functionality like PCI overclocking and more WiFi drivers. Other core improvements include updating the Intel Linux graphics stack, striping out unused kernel modules, and making other performance refinements.


      • Intel offers preview of enhancements to Moblin 2.0 Linux
        Intel's Linux-based platform, Moblin, which is optimized for its Atom netbook processor, has gained new momentum in the mobile world since the chip giant teamed up on various joint developments with Nokia earlier this year. The software fruits of that collaboration will not be seen until next year, but Intel is already talking up Moblin enhancements, geared to smartbooks and smartphones.


      • Dell Inspiron Mini 10v review
        For that pound-under-€£200 tag, you get a netbook very much based on the Mini 10, but with a little 8GB solid-state drive in place of a hard disk, an older graphics chipset, and Ubuntu Linux 8.04 operating system. Bluetooth has been stripped out too, and the screen, while still all-too glossy and 10in in size, loses the edge-to-edge glass effect.












Free Software/Open Source

  • Needlessly Needling Neelie
    What's interesting here is that Kroes is juxtaposing proprietary and open source. Now, for you and me, this is reflexive, but for the EU's Competition Commissioner to be framing an extremely contentious intervention in these terms seems pretty stunning to me. It implies that the difference between those two worlds has been interiorised by at least some senior politicians to such an extent that they are using it as a central part of their analysis in major decisions, *without* feeling the need to justify that approach. Whatever your views on other aspects of the decision, I think Kroes deserves some credit for getting to that point.

    More importantly, it basically means we're winning, people.


  • Open vSwitch Project Launches
    Last week a new Open vSwitch project was launched with little fan fare and even less insight into who is behind the project. The project aims to create a multilayer virtual switch licensed under the open source Apache 2 license. At first glance the project looks very promising as the basis for creating distributed VLan and Virtual Private Clouds (VPC).


  • Ingres Open Source Solutions Help Slash Costs for Department of Education and Training in Western Australia
    Ingres Corporation, the leading open source database management company and pioneer of the New Economics of IT, announced today that The Department of Education and Training in Western Australia (WA DET) is harnessing the power of Ingres Database to build a range of complex applications to manage administrative activities and programs delivered by 11 colleges and 8,000 staff throughout the state. The systems also collectively manage in excess of 1 million student records, with 120,000 students processed through the state`s training systems annually.


  • Deep packet inspection engine goes open source
    A leading European vendor of deep packet inspection (DPI) has just open-sourced the detection engine that identifies protocols passing over the Internet—just don't count on learning how it identifies even encrypted BitTorrent and Skype connections.


  • Zimbra Open Source Email Attracts 450 Hosting Partners
    Zimbra, the open source email and collaboration software company owned by Yahoo, continues to make progress in the channel. The VAR Guy hears Zimbra now generates 60 percent of its revenue from partners, and hopes to push that figure closer to 70 percent by the end of this year. Here’s the scoop from The VAR Guy.


  • Open source StarCluster shines on Amazon cloud
    According to developer Justin Riley, StarCluster minimises the administrative overhead associated with obtaining, configuring, and managing a traditional computing cluster used in research labs or for general distributed computing applications.


  • Java.net using Drupal
    With the help of Cognisync, Sun Microsystems converted Java.net, the website of the Java community, to Drupal. The previous version of java.net, was custom built by O'Reilly Media. Interesting choice for a site devoted to Java, but needless to say, a great testimonial to Drupal.




  • Mozilla

    • Creative Collective, Extend Firefox, OneWebDay, Service Week, Test Pilot, Fennec, Firefox, and more…
      In this issue…

      * “Firefox Goes Mobile” design challenge * Extend Firefox contest ends soon! * Mozilla Service Week challenge * OneWebDay: Sep 22


    • Get a Visual Overview of Your Firefox Browsing History
      Like most browsers, Firefox keeps a history of your browsing activity so you can find sites you visited previously.


    • Mozilla-Based Postbox Email App Launches to Public
      Think desktop email is dead? Not so says the latest entrant to this field, San Francisco-based startup Postbox, who is today revealing the final release of their desktop email application based on Mozilla technology. Originally launched into beta a year ago, Postbox has a heavy focus on search and organization with a primary goal of addressing email users' information overload issues. Like Mozilla's own Thunderbird email application, Postbox exists only as downloadable software. However, unlike other desktop programs, Postbox natively integrates web services into its interface, including Facebook, Twitter, and FriendFeed.








  • Business

    • Open Source Service Management: RiverMuse’s Community Building Process
      RiverMuse - a company established in 2008 by the original founders of Micromuse and RiverSoft - at the end of July announced the availability of RiverMuse Open Source Fault Management, a fault management platform designed to be extensible via pluggable modules.


    • Openbravo QuickStart: Speeding Small Business ERP?
      Openbravo claims the new solution requires 40 to 80 hours of fixed-price installation and customization services — down from about 400 hours for a typical ERP project, asserts Josep Mitja, chief operating officer at Openbravo.








  • FSF/GNU

    • FRhack in live !
      Below, you’ll find the live report of FRhack international conference in Besançon, for the first day. But here is a snall overview of the contents of this conference (in french, sorry !), ripped from the local news...


    • The Stallman Paradox
      Until society can resolve what I will call for the first time the “Stallman Paradox”, where learning and access enabling technologies, such as for example digital books, conversely disables the freedom to read and hence more than negates the actual benefits of said access, the rush to embrace all digital libraries and textbooks is a rush to a new dark ages.

      [...]

      The logical solution is one where the right to read and think, and to share knowledge, is not made into a good that only few will be able to experience. In the European dark age, education was an exclusive privilege enabled only for a very few. While most societies today now recognize that universal education is both a right and a need, the use of mandated digitally restricted e-book solutions for education could well return societies to a new dark age.


    • The Freedomware Project Manifesto
      In addition, large software corporations often inhibit sharing of ideas by not allowing the user to share the software with other people. Software patents exist in order to prevent individuals from outdoing the large organizations who wish to retain that “competitive edge.” Having the source code was out of the question, and woe be unto those who shared copies with other people, despite the fact that the software in question was vastly overpriced. This is why organizations such as the Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative exists.








  • Government







  • Openness

    • Introducing the Open Dinosaur Project
      Hello, and thanks for dropping by at the Open Dinosaur Project. This blog is part of a wider project, in which we hope — with your help — to make some science. We want to put together a paper on the multiple independent transitions from bipedality to quadrupedality in ornithischians, and we want to involve everyone who’s interested in helping out. We’ll get to the details later, but the basic idea is to amass a huge database of measurements of the limb bones of ornithischian dinosaurs, to which we can apply various statistical techniques. Hopefully we’ll figure out how these transitions happened — for example, whether ceratopsians, thyreophorans and ornithopods all made it in the same way or differently.

      Who are “we”, I hear you ask. The core ODP team is Andy Farke (curator at the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology, Claremont, California), Matt Wedel (Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona, California) and Mike Taylor (University College London). We’re all researching and publishing scientists, specialising in dinosaurs — although up until now Matt and Mike have concentrated on sauropods.

      As for who you are: if you care about dinosaurs, and want to make some science, then you can be involved. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a seasoned professional palaeontologist, a high-school kid or a retired used-car salesman: so long as you can conduct yourself like a professional, you’re welcome here.






  • Standards/Consortia

    • Ogg Theora Book Sprint
      The event is another in the growing body of FLOSS Manuals Book Sprints, kicked off by our first meeting to write a manual for Inkscape. The aim of these sprints is to write a book in 5 days. Actually, we have done it it in shorter time – in February of this year we wrote a 260 page manual introducing newbies to the Command Line in 2 days. Though created quickly, these books are extremely well written texts: comprehensive, readable, and complete.

      [...]

      For a long time we have been wanting to add to the available material on how to use Ogg Theora – the premier free video codec. Waiting until now to do it turned out to be very fortuitous as Firefox 3.5 was released just weeks before and hence Theora has been given a very recent boost with native support via the HTML5 video tag. As it happens a lot of the technologies supporting Theora have come to recent maturity. Only a few months ago it was hard to find a simple GUI editor for Theora video but now PiTiVi can manage simple editing very easily and smoothly and the development track looks very good. Theora also has great subtitling support, either through embedded subtitles or using an extension to JQuery javascript libraries.


    • Open format for local map data
      TomTom of the Netherlands has proposed a new open standard that would allow currently incompatible, localised data, to be more widely used. Called OpenLR, it covers "procedures and formats for the encoding, transmission, and decoding of local data irrespective of the map".








Leftovers

  • "Anonymized" data really isn't—and here's why not
    Companies continue to store and sometimes release vast databases of "anonymized" information about users. But, as Netflix, AOL, and the State of Massachusetts have learned, "anonymized" data can often be cracked in surprising ways, revealing the hidden secrets each of us are assembling in online "databases of ruin."


  • What US Homeland Security collects about you
    Any time a person crosses the US border, the Department of Homeland Security assigns travelers with a "risk assessment" score to divine their likelihood of any involvement with a terrorist cell or criminal activity.




  • AstroTurf

    • Health care lobbyists boost key players in debate
      When Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley staged a $1,000-per-person fundraiser at a Capitol Hill restaurant in June, insurance company Aflac helped to host.

      Later that week, lobbyists for physicians' groups attended a fundraiser for Rep. George Miller, D-Calif.


    • Critics decry paid election-coverage policy
      Tom Oosterhoudt, publisher of the weekly "Conch Color," acknowledged his policy, which alarmed journalism experts at an internationally renowned institute and troubled two national civic elections and election reform groups.

      "As far as candidate forums and debates, we'll cover those when we can, but if candidates want their campaign covered, they have to pay to play," Oosterhoudt told The Citizen Thursday. "I gotta pay the bills."


    • Judge Says Ratings Agencies Are Not Necessarily Protected By Free Speech
      In a ruling last week, a judge has noted that ratings agencies' ratings are not protected free speech if they're only disseminated to a small group of people, rather than the wider public. While the ruling cites a few earlier cases, I have to admit that I have trouble understanding this reasoning. I don't recall anything in the First Amendment that says the government can restrict freedom of expression if it's to a small group of people, but not if it's to a large group of people.








  • Censorship/Web Abuse

    • Anonymity Online Under Attack: China And Australia
      For the most part, the US has recognized that the right to be anonymous is a form of protected free speech -- and yet, anonymity is constantly under attack. Of course, the right to be anonymous is not absolute, but there is value in allowing anonymous speech to occur. With the right to anonymity under attack in the US, it's even worse in other countries, where such rights aren't even seen as vital as it is in the US. China, for example, is now requiring news websites to force all commenters to reveal their real identity.


    • Scientology seeks to squash anonymity
      A little local controversy involving the Church of Scientology and its critics could lead to curbs on the right to anonymity of anyone using the web.


    • Kiddie Monitoring Software Spying On IM Chats, Selling Info To Marketers
      But it appears that just selling the tools isn't enough for some companies.


    • Who watches the baby-sitter?
      And, you thought Big Brother was just a character in George Orwell's 1984. Welcome to 2009, when, according to an AP news report by Deborah Yow. "Software sold under the Sentry and FamilySafe brands can read private chats conducted through Yahoo, MSN, AOL and other services, and send back data on what kids are saying about such things as movies, music or video games. The information is then offered to businesses seeking ways to tailor their marketing messages to kids."


    • Amazon makes amends for Kindle blunder -- to a point
      Yesterday, however, Amazon quietly made amends. According to a report published in the Wall Street Journal's Digits blog, Amazon is giving Kindle owners the option of having the books restored free of charge, getting a $30 gift certificate, or receiving a check for $30. (Kind of along the lines of what I suggested they do -- do you think they read Cringe, too?)

      First reaction: Great news. This is exactly what Amazon should have done in the first place.








  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Lies, Damned Lies and Media Industry Numbers
      By quoting that number, they are effectively saying a vast swathe of the UK population is engaged in that activity. And as history teaches us, when such a vast proportion of a nation is doing something that is technically breaking the law, this shows not that these people are bad, but that such a law is self-evidently unjust to that nation.


    • How The UK Gov't Extrapolated 136 Self-Reported File Sharers Into 7 Million


    • UK Lawyers Promise First Court Action Against File-Sharers
      Since 2007, the UK has seen thousands of postal threats to take alleged file-sharers to court. But aside from getting default judgments against a handful easy targets who didn’t try to defend themselves, the majority of threats have come to nothing. Lawyers ACS:Law are now promising to step up to the mark and bring their first court cases in Britain.


    • Music and the theory of disruptive innovation
      Christensen’s theory of disruptive innovation was originally formulated in the context of technology-based businesses (e.g., computer companies), and thus our basic strategy is to equate the world of art with the world of business at a fairly deep level. (If this offends you please stop reading now.)

      We start with vendors selling products to customers; a set of similar vendors providing similar products to a set of similar customers constitutes a particular market. In the simplest model applied to music we can identify composers with vendors, compositions with products, and listeners with customers. The price paid to composers for their products may be in the form of patronage (direct or indirect) or simply in the form of sustained attention to and engagement with their works.


    • Someone Has a Man with a Red Flag Moment
      But that's the whole point about digital content: you *can* leave it out in front of your virtual house, and allow people to take it, because you *still* have a copy. It's non-rivalrous - that's it's amazing, wonderful, nature. Trying to make it rivalrous is like putting a mad with a red flag in front of a motor car because it goes too fast: it's *meant* to go fast.


    • ‘Pioneering’ System To Target Cellphone Music Piracy
      The Japanese government and music companies have set their sights on a “pioneering system” designed to stop the unauthorized copying of music on mobile phones. Persistent offenders could have their phone’s music capabilities disabled.


    • Pirated Artist Orders Police Raid on Sony Music Office
      A Sony Music office in Mexico has been raided after the label refused to hand over the recordings of one of Latin America’s biggest artists, Alejandro Fernández. Police took over 6,000 CDs that Sony refused to return, even though Fernández’ contract with the label had ended.








Recent Techrights' Posts

Comparing U.E.F.I. to B.I.O.S. (Bloat and Insecurity to K.I.S.S.)
By Sami Tikkanen
New 'Slides' From Stallman Support (stallmansupport.org) Site
"In celebration of RMS's birthday, we've been playing a bit. We extracted some quotes from the various articles, comments, letters, writings, etc. and put them in the form of a slideshow in the home page."
Thailand: GNU/Linux Up to 6% of Desktops/Laptops, According to statCounter
Desktop Operating System Market Share Thailand
António Campinos is Still 'The Fucking President' (in His Own Words) After a Fake 'Election' in 2022 (He Bribed All the Voters to Keep His Seat)
António Campinos and the Administrative Council, whose delegates he clearly bribed with EPO budget in exchange for votes
Adrian von Bidder, homeworking & Debian unexplained deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Sainsbury’s Epic Downtime Seems to be Microsoft's Fault and Might Even Constitute a Data Breach (Legal Liability)
one of Britain's largest groceries (and beyond) chains
 
People Don't Just Kill Themselves (Same for Other Animals)
And recent reports about Boeing whistleblower John Barnett
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 18, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, March 18, 2024
Suicide Cluster Cover-up tactics & Debian exposed
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 19/03/2024: A Society That Lost Focus and Abandoning Social Control Media
Links for the day
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE: Plagiarism & Child labour in YH4F
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Linux Foundation Boasting About Being Connected to Bill Gates
Examples of boasting about the association
Alexandre Oliva's Article on Monstering Cults
"I'm told an earlier draft version of this post got published elsewhere. Please consider this IMHO improved version instead."
[Meme] 'Russian' Elections in Munich (Bavaria, Germany)
fake elections
Sainsbury's to Techrights: Yes, Our Web Site Broke Down, But We Cannot Say Which Part or Why
Windows TCO?
Plagiarism: Axel Beckert (ETH Zurich) & Debian Developer list hacking
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 18/03/2024: Putin Cements Power
Links for the day
Flashback 2003: Debian has always had a toxic culture
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] You Know You're Winning the Argument When...
EPO management starts cursing at everybody (which is what's happening)
Catspaw With Attitude
The posts "they" complain about merely point out the facts about this harassment and doxing
'Clown Computing' Businesses Are Waning and the Same Will Happen to 'G.A.I.' Businesses (the 'Hey Hi' Fame)
decrease in "HEY HI" (AI) hype
Free Software Needs Watchdogs, Too
Gentle lapdogs prevent self-regulation and transparency
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE analogous to identity fraud
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 18/03/2024: LLM Inference and Can We Survive Technology?
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 17, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, March 17, 2024
Links 17/03/2024: Microsoft Windows Shoves Ads Into Third-Party Software, More Countries Explore TikTok Ban
Links for the day
Molly Russell suicide & Debian Frans Pop, Lucy Wayland, social media deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Our Plans for Spring
Later this year we turn 18 and a few months from now our IRC community turns 16
Open Invention Network (OIN) Fails to Explain If Linux is Safe From Microsoft's Software Patent Royalties (Charges)
Keith Bergelt has not replied to queries on this very important matter
RedHat.com, Brought to You by Microsoft Staff
This is totally normal, right?
USPTO Corruption: People Who Don't Use Microsoft Will Be Penalised ~$400 for Each Patent Filing
Not joking!
The Hobbyists of Mozilla, Where the CEO is a Bigger Liability Than All Liabilities Combined
the hobbyist in chief earns much more than colleagues, to say the least; the number quadrupled in a matter of years
Jim Zemlin Says Linux Foundation Should Combat Fraud Together With the Gates Foundation. Maybe They Should Start With Jim's Wife.
There's a class action lawsuit for securities fraud
Not About Linux at All!
nobody bothers with the site anymore; it's marketing, and now even Linux
Links 17/03/2024: Abuses Against Human Rights, Tesla Settlement (and Crash)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 16, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, March 16, 2024
Under Taliban, GNU/Linux Share Nearly Doubled in Afghanistan, Windows Sank From About 90% to 68.5%
Suffice to say, we're not meaning to imply Taliban is "good"
Debian aggression: woman asked about her profession
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 17/03/2024: Winter Can't Hurt Us Anymore and Playstation Plus
Links for the day