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Links 25/7/2010: Catch-up With Last Week's News



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Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source

  • Virgin charity limbers up for London Marathon with open source tools
    Businesses everywhere clearly want to achieve maximum visibility and control over key management information. Whether open source tools can play a special part in building more cost effective IT infrastructures for the acutely 'cost-aware' charity sector is open to question.

    Looking to realise efficiencies via this route, Virgin Money Giving will be using the open source Talend Integration Suite with the Jaspersoft reporting tool to restructure and optimise its data for reporting.


  • Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary Partners with ByWater Solutions for Koha Support and Implementation
    ByWater Solutions, an open source community supporter and official Koha support company, announced today that the Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, of Allen Park, MI. has partnered with them for the installation and support of the official Koha integrated library system.


  • Digium and Open Source Software
    Asterisk is the open source telephony software created by Mark Spencer in the late 90s as an alternative to more expensive proprietary PBX systems. At the time, Spencer needed a telephone system to distribute customer service calls to his Linux engineers and decided to "build" his own PBX rather than pay for a new system.

    Spencer also opted to make Asterisk available as open source software to minimize ongoing development costs (this business model was also consistent with the anti-proprietary software movement of the time). A beautiful example of necessity (+ limited capital funds) being the mother of invention.


  • Facebook Built Walled Garden with Open Source Software
    Facebook supports its social network of 500 million users with LAMP software infrastructure. This open source approach, also used by Google, Twitter, Yahoo and others, is a departure from the proprietary products offered by Microsoft, Oracle and IBM.


  • MobileBeat: Aava offers a truly open-source mobile device platform


  • Ocean Blue Releases World's First Open Source MHEG and CI Plus Authoring Tool Supporting Development of Innovative Digital TV Applications




  • Reports

    • Open Source Gains Respect From Mainstream Vendors
      Several major IT vendors, including Dell, HP, Citrix and Rackspace Hosting gathered at OSCON this week to deliver a host of open source-related announcements to the ever growing open-source market.


    • Open Source Technology Set for Rapid Growth, Study Says
      More than two-thirds of organizations anticipate increasing their investment in open source technology, according to a recent survey by Accenture. With such an open source expansion, there is a need for effective training solutions that will show organizations how to harness open source technology properly. LevelTen has released a schedule that will offer a fast-paced Acquia training overview for Drupal users.


    • Open source growing quickly


    • Open Source Technology Set for Rapid Growth, Study Says
      Of those surveyed, 40% said they plan on migrating mission-critical software to open source platforms within the next 12 months.


    • Open Source Software In Enterprise Application Infrastructure Market - New Market Report Published
      Open Source Software (OSS) has been a part of the IT market for over two decades. Recently, the commoditization of IT markets, changing attitudes to the production and distribution of intellectual property, and the recession have put the OSS firmly in focus, particularly in the application infrastructure part of the stack.


    • The situation with the social media - a position paper
      Open Source as a concept is solely devoted to finding out the best methods to spread a product in an open manner, where open is to be understood purely within the logic of the market. The hacker attitude, based on play and sharing amongst peers, has been co-opted therein by an approach that is based on the logic of exploitation of time and labor with profit as the driving motive, and not individual and/ or collective welfare.






  • Events

    • Open Source SIG: The next instalment!!


    • O'Reilly Open Source Awards announced
      At the OSCON 2010 open source convention taking place in Portland, Oregon, O'Reilly Media's Edd Dumbill has announced the winners of this years O'Reilly Open Source Awards. The awards have been presented each year since 2005 to individuals for their "dedication, innovation, leadership and outstanding contribution to open source".


    • Open Hardware Summit
      The concept of open source hardware has interested me for some time. There are a number of wildly popular (at least with the geeks) products available for “free”. This particular type of free is akin to freedom and not cost. If you have the materials and tools on hand you could build a Makerbot from scratch or mill a circuit board and solder up your own Arduino compatible board, but even then it isn’t completely free. The freedom comes from sharing the design, making incremental improvements, and combining the community effort with a product to make it better.








  • Mozilla

    • An Introduction to Firefox's Tab Candy


    • Firefox 4 Beta 1 Will Change Browsing Experience Forever !


    • Mercury News interview: Mitchell Baker, chairwoman, Mozilla
      In the days after Microsoft's Internet Explorer had ground its browser rival Netscape into the digital dust, Baker, who had been working on the open-source Mozilla project within Netscape, was laid off in 2001. She stayed on at the nonprofit Mozilla organization as an unpaid volunteer because she believed its mission was crucial to the Internet's future.

      Nearly a decade later, Mozilla's Firefox browser is the window to the Web for nearly a third of the planet's Internet users. Firefox is even more popular in most of the rest of the world than in the U.S., and in some countries, including Germany, has become the most popular browser. Microsoft Internet Explorer, meanwhile, has slid from a dominating 95 percent of the market to a bare majority of users.








  • Databases





  • Oracle

    • Oracle Acquisition of Sun May Spark Resurgence of Java and Faster Growth of MySQL According to New Survey of Open Source Developers and Enterprise Customers
      Jaspersoft, the world's most widely used business intelligence platform, today released the findings of a global survey of open source community members about the future of Java and MySQL under Oracle (ORCL). Contrary to dark predictions by many in the open source community prior to its acquisition of Sun, Oracle was viewed by most respondents as a better steward of Java and MySQL than Sun. Indeed, most large organizations planned to use more Java than before and most expected to see MySQL innovate and improve faster under Oracle than under Sun.


    • Oracle's "stewardship" of MySQL and Java: how's it going so far?
      There is a generally accepted edict in the technology publicity business that when you run out of news and product announcements, the best idea is to commission a survey for the hell of it. Despite this reality of 'lies, damn lies and statistics' - on the face of it, the poll carried out by open source BI player Jaspersoft may have some validity.

      The company polled 130,000 customers and community members and found 'people' are planning to do more with MySQL and Java under Oracle than Sun. I'm slightly worried by the fact that the company used the term people rather than programmers (or IT professionals at least), but let's continue.


    • Report: Java and MySQL doing fine under Oracle


    • Study: Most MySQL users not too worried about Oracle
      Some 43 percent of respondents said they believed MySQL development would improve under Oracle. Another 35 percent expect it to remain the same, while 22 percent are anticipating the database will suffer under the giant vendor's wing.








  • CMS

    • WordPress 3 review
      WordPress is now seven years old and, with millions of active users, is widely recognised as the world’s most popular blogging platform. The latest release is the open source platform’s 13th major update and is crucial to WordPress’ ambitions to move on from its blog-based origins.






  • Healthcare







  • Semi-Open Source

    • Open Source Business Models Become More Attractive
      On the former, OpenGeo offers a whole stack of geospatial data. Those sophisticated enough to be able to plow through the databases and apps and extract the data they need or desire can do so. For others, OpenGeo sells its services in building software based on that data or in supporting that software.

      Though the "open core" business model has come under attack lately, this doesn't seem to fall under that category.








  • Government

    • AT: Increasing number of schools turn to open source
      The number of schools in Austria that are considering to use or are using open source is increasing, according to school IT administrators and open source developers involved in education.

      For instance, the number of schools using LinuxAdvanced, based on Debian Linux, is 'continuing to increase slowly', says Rene Schwarzinger, one of the developers of the Linux distribution tailored for use by schools.








  • Openness/Sharing





  • Programming

    • IDES 101, PART II: 5 More Open-Source Coding Environments for Developers
      2) NetBeans If you're a Java developer, you've at least heard of NetBeans, a free, open-sourced IDE originally created for Java development. With this Java focus, NetBeans -- with its just-released 6.9 version -- supports the full Java EE 6 specification as well as a basket of Java standards including Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) 3.1, JAX-RS 1.1, JAX-WS 2.2, JAXB 2.2, and Java Persistence JPA 2.0. Aside from Java, NetBeans also supports JavaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, Groovy, C/C++, Scala and Clojure. The IDE includes direct integration of Project Kenai for hosting open-source projects.








Leftovers



  • Security/Aggression

    • WPA2 vulnerability found
      Perhaps it was only a matter of time. But wireless security researchers say they have uncovered a vulnerability in the WPA2 security protocol, which is the strongest form of Wi-Fi encryption and authentication currently standardized and available.


    • Ian Tomlinson ruling: we must all fight this whitewash
      Hundreds of thousands of us have now seen the footage of the newspaper-seller shambling peacefully home from work. We've seen how, without warning or provocation, PC Simon Harwood attacked him from behind, hitting him with a baton then shoving him to the ground. We know that the officer had unlawfully removed his badge, and that his face was obscured by a balaclava. We know that, a few minutes afterwards, Ian Tomlinson collapsed and died. We also know that the Metropolitan police lied about his death to the media and to Tomlinson's family.








  • Digital Economy (UK)

    • A Guide to the Digital Economy Act - Part 2
      This is the second in a series of posts explaining what the Digital Economy Act will do, how it works and how it will affect individuals. It is aimed at providing an objective and descriptive overview of the legislation, rather than opinion or comment on the content. Some parts may be legally technical.


    • Government’s Online Tools Used Against Digital Act
      The FSF is calling on opponents of the law to use the government's online feedback service to call for it to be repealed

      [...]

      In a statement this week, the FSF called on UK citizens to use the government’s newly created “Your Freedom” site to call for the repeal of the Digital act. The “Your Freedom” site was created by the coalition government as a forum for citizens to nominate laws and regulation which should be scrapped.










Clip of the Day



OSCON 2010: Paul Fenwick, "The World's Worst Inventions"



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Recent Techrights' Posts

IBM Culling Workers or Pushing Them Out (So That It's Not Framed as Layoffs), Red Hat Mentioned Repeatedly Only Hours Ago
We all know what "reorg" means in the C-suite
Free Software Foundation Subpoenaed by Serial GPL Infringers
These attacks on software freedom are subsidised by serial GPL infringers
Publicly Posting in Social Control Media About Oneself Makes It Public Information
sheer hypocrisy on privacy is evident in the Debian mailing lists
 
Embrace, Extend, Replace the Original (Or Just Hijack the Word 'Sudo')
First comment? A Microsoft employee
Gemini Links 02/05/2024: Firewall Rules Etiquette and Self Host All The Things
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Red Hat/IBM Crybullies, GNOME Foundation Bankruptcy, and Microsoft Moles (Operatives) Inside Debian
reminder of the dangers of Microsoft moles inside Debian
PsyOps 007: Paul Tagliamonte wanted Debian Press Team to have license to kill
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
IBM Raleigh Layoffs (Home of Red Hat)
The former CEO left the company exactly a month ago
Paul R. Tagliamonte, the Pentagon and backstabbing Jacob Appelbaum, part B
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Links 01/05/2024: Surveillance and Hadopi, Russia Clones Wikipedia
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Links 01/05/2024: Calendaring, Spring Idleness, and Ads
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Paul Tagliamonte & Debian: White House, Pentagon, USDS and anti-RMS mob ringleader
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Jacob Appelbaum character assassination was pushed from the White House
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Why We Revisit the Jacob Appelbaum Story (Demonised and Punished Behind the Scenes by Pentagon Contractor Inside Debian)
If people who got raped are reporting to Twitter instead of reporting to cops, then there's something deeply flawed
Red Hat's Official Web Site is Promoting Microsoft
we're seeing similar things at Canonical's Ubuntu.com
Enrico Zini & Debian: falsified harassment claims
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
European Parliament Elections 2024: Daniel Pocock Running as an Independent Candidate
I became aware that Daniel Pocock had decided to enter politics
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GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 30, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 30, 2024
[Meme] Sometimes Torvalds and RMS Agree on Things
hype around chatbots
[Video] Linus Torvalds on 'Hilarious' AI Hype: "I Hate the Hype" and "I Don't Want to be Part of the Hype", "You Need to Be a Bit Cynical About This Whole Hype Cycle"
Linus Torvalds on LLMs
Colin Watson, Steve McIntyre & Debian, Ubuntu cover-up mission after Frans Pop suicide
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Links 30/04/2024: Wireless Carriers Selling Customer Location Data, Facebook Posts Causing Trouble
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Frans Pop suicide and Ubuntu grievances
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Links 30/04/2024: More Google Layoffs (Wide-Ranging)
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Fresh Rumours of Impending Mass Layoffs at IBM Red Hat
"IBM filed a W.A.R.N with the state of North Carolina. That only means one thing."
Workers' Right to Disconnect Won't Matter If Such a Right Isn't Properly Enforced
I was always "on-call" and my main role or function was being "on-call" in case of incidents
Mark Shuttleworth's (MS's) Canonical is Promoting Microsoft This Week (Surveillance Slanted as 'Confidential')
Who runs Canonical these days? Why does Canonical help sell Windows?
A Discussion About Suicides in Science and Technology (Including Debian and the European Patent Office)
In Debian, there is a long history of deaths, suicides, and mysterious disappearances
Federal News Network is Corrupt, It Runs Propaganda Pieces for Microsoft
Federal News Network used to be OK some years ago
What Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical Can to Remedy the Damage Done to Frans Pop's Family
Mr. Shuttleworth and Canonical as a company can at the very least apologise for putting undue pressure
Amnesty International & Debian Day suicides comparison
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
[Meme] A Way to Get No Real Work Done
Walter White looking at phone: Your changes could not be saved to device
Modern Measures of 'Productivity' Boil Down to Time Wasting and Misguided Measurements/Yardsticks
People are forgetting the value of nature and other human beings
Countries That Beat the United States at RSF's World Press Freedom Index (After US Plunged Some More)
The United States (US) was 17 when these rankings started in 2002
Record Productivity and Preserving People's Past on the Net
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Links 30/04/2024: Malaysian and Russian Governments Crack Down on Journalists
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Frans Pop Debian Day suicide, Ubuntu, Google and the DEP-5 machine-readable copyright file
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Axel Beckert (ETH Zurich), the mentality of sexual violence on campus
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[Meme] Russian Reversal
Mark Shuttleworth: In Soviet Russia's spacecraft... Man exploits peasants
Frans Pop & Debian suicide denial
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Hard Evidence Reinforces Suspicion That Mark Shuttleworth May Have Worked Volunteers to Death
Today we start re-publishing articles that contain unaltered E-mails