● 06.17.09

● Links 17/06/2009: Mac4Lin 1.0, Red Hat Among 100 Best Places to Work in IT

Posted in News Roundup at 6:17 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• The delayed Fedora 11 was finally released last week. Does the new version of the popular distribution live up its standards? Did the delay help to squash all the bugs? And how does it fare in comparison with other desktop Linux products? Read our first-look review to find out. This week also sees the release of a new project to create more up-to-date installation media for FreeBSD. Currently shipping a 32-bit Xfce desktop, the project hopes to expand to many other areas, as needed. Meanwhile Fedora’s Leonidas release is in full swing, but some users are encountering an issue when installing via the live CD as the system cannot yet boot from the default ext4 file system. Read on to discover the simple fix! Also, Debian derivative distribution sidux has copped some heat over its decision to remove non-free firmware from its 2.6.30 kernel, while Novell gets its users to help advertise their products with an online “Custom Geeko” creation tool. Finally, don’t miss the freshly posted development roadmaps for Mandriva Linux 2010 and Fedora 12. Happy reading!

• LINUX users who want to run their computers so that they look like Macs can pick up this Mac4Lin distribution here.

• Linux: Mac4Lin, a package of skins, wallpapers, icons, and interface refinements that brings a completist Mac look to Linux with an automated installation, has reached the 1.0 stage with an impressive array of features.

• My interest here isn’t in what Microsoft and the EU agree to as an appropriate remedy for Microsoft’s market dominance in web browsers or past legal transgressions. My interest is in ensuring an increase in the global competition in operating system platforms. In short, unbundle IE in Europe? Why stop there? Why not unbundle the whole of Windows from all OEM PCs shipped in Europe?

• CodeWeavers has announced the release this morning of CrossOver 8.0. This software, which is based upon Wine and allows users to run their favorite Windows applications on Mac OS X or Linux, features several prominent improvements in this major update. CrossOver 8.0 has been in beta for a few months now and among the newly supported programs are Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0 and Intuit’s Quicken 2009. Adobe Photoshop CS2 is now also officially supported by CodeWeavers.

• In March, the ever-innovating Linux Foundation announced a new program aimed at bringing the brains behind Linux together with developers-to-be in order to supply the increasing need for Linux talent. Now the program is going online, with the first two courses set to call roll by mid-month.

• I’m currently organizing the New Mexico GNU/LinuxFest. At first we had it listed as New Mexico LinuxFest. The LinuxFest name was copied from many other festivals and I thought all was just fine. However, after a friend pointed out to me that he uses the term GNU/Linux I decided to look into the name. After all I of course had heard of GNU but like many others I had no idea what GNU was all about. A darn good place to start is this wiki article, you get both sides of the argument and plenty of reference matrial.

• Now, many of these arguments are bogus. Looks don’t matter much in discussions like these, both operating systems run software the other one doesn’t (I don’t care about the Sims, but I do want Openbox), and I’m not a nerd.

• The one thing that did struck me was how they felt about price. Linux is free, and almost all it’s software too? Well, so is Windows, and applications can be cracked.

Desktop

• NoMachine, creator and global provider of remote access NX software, announced that the University of Salford, one of UK’s most enterprising universities with a first-class reputation for real-world teaching and ground-breaking research, located in Manchester, is providing students with virtual around-the-clock access from any location to Linux desktops and applications via NX.

• Students in the School of Computing or Science and Engineering require access to the Linux environment along with students from other areas like the School of Business. They need access to a wide variety of applications like Epiphany and Konqueror for Internet access, Freemind and Planner for system documentation, Weka for data mining, and programming languages such as Java and Perl.

• The more steps that any Linux developer takes that make the overall Linux user’s experience easier are steps in the right direction. Take the technical mastery requirements from Linux and you’ll see the user base increase even faster.

• While I’ve been blogging less and reading more, I notice the Linux-on-the-desktop troll-war heating up again. So this was my latest take on it – because I’ve said everything else it is possible to say about it already. It demonstrates that you could go on and on with “why X isn’t ready for Y”, using the same pattern of half-truths, absolutes, hand-waves, and logical fallacies.

• Try it yourself! How about “Why Fords aren’t ready for the highway”, “Why Obama isn’t ready for the presidency”, or “Why the letter Q isn’t ready for the alphabet”?

• Linux opens a hole new world of freedom that Microsoft does not want you to see or even know about. But the tide is turning! Tom-Tom and Linux won the suit over Microsoft. The Linux community was more than ready and MS knew it!

• Open Source is getting bigger by the day in India. Success stories such as Tamil Nadu going completely open source, NRCFOSS and CDAC launching Debian based BOSS Linux distribution tailored for India in many Indian languages and the recent steps by Gujarat State Education Board(GSEB) to give 50% weightage to Open Source and Linux in Computer subject across all streams (Science, Commerce and Arts).

Backup

• Managed Service Providers (MSPs) that deliver cloud computing typically leverage both Linux and server virtualization, areas where Arkeia has demonstrated leadership and innovation. Linux provides a robust, cost-effective and flexible platform to deliver hosted services and virtualization improves the efficiencies of server deployment and management. With Arkeia Network Backup version 8.1, MSPs now have the ability to deliver even more customized backup capabilities to their customers with a system that is secure, scalable and granular.

• Druvaa announced the long awaited general availability of Druvaa inSync v3 on Linux platform.

• Druvaa inSync is fully automated laptop backup software which protects corporate data for office and remote users. It features simple backup, point-in-time restores, and patent-pending data deduplication technology to make backups up to 10 times faster.

Applications

• Wallpaper switchers, new themes, GDMs and GnoMenu all have one purpose – they bring fresh and new looks to our Gnome Desktops.

• GnoMenu is a highly customizable, theme-driven Applications Menu for your Gnome desktop. The XML theme engine supports very attractive themes with transparency, even on non composited desktops.

• Another nice feature introduced is “bookmarking” – any track with a length greater than 10minutes and Amarok will save the last listened position, so when you return to playing the track, it resumes from the last bookmarked place. You can also manually bookmark any track btw.

• So I’ve just installed Amarok 2.1. Configured my collection location easy enough, downloaded the alarm script from the scripts library (haven’t tried it yet) and now I set about making it look how I want. I know exactly how I want Amarok 2 to look: Exactly like Amarok 1.4.

• Linux used to have a fantastic client – KDE-SVN for KDE 3.5. It was better than Tortoise in many ways (it not only showed what you had modified locally, but not committed, but also showed what was newer on the server than the version you had), but not as good in others. The move to KDE4 broke it, and now it has “more bugs than a bait store”, and crashes on routine operations. It was also integrated with Konqueror, the old KDE file manager, and no one has (to my knowledge) taken the time to port it to Dolphin, so now it is just another, separate SVN client.

• Oddlabs sent in the following news:

• Ever wanted to note down some things that happened to you in a day? Diaries are ever useful for logging things that you might need to refer to in the future and to keep them in a calendar form would be easy for some. Others need to be able to refer to the calendar to make sure that the entries are consistent. Almanah seems to be an application made solely for that purpose.

Chrome/Fiefox/Web Browsers

• We all owe a debt of gratitude to Mozilla and Firefox. Firefox effectively paved the way for competition in the browser monopoly scenario we had a few years back. Without it, I doubt web applications development would have advanced the way it did.

• But I seriously abhor using Firefox right now. On my Kubuntu Jaunty laptop, my CPU utilization bottom-lines at 5-10% on average before firing up Firefox and shoots up to 30-40% after. Its memory issues are well-documented. Typing a URL in the address bar the first time after starting up causes the entire browser to freeze while it pulls up the address history. There have been experiments that show the Windows version of Firefox running faster on Wine than the native Linux versions.

• Editor’s note: We have a special installment for MakeUseOf readers who happen to be Chrome fans. We are reviewing the alpha build of Chrome for both Linux and Mac today. Watch out for the Mac edition later on.

• For those Linux users who have been waiting hard and long for the release of Google Chrome Linux Alpha, there are both a good and bad news for you. The bad news is, Google Chrome for Linux is still not available yet. The good news however, the alpha build is now available for testing, which could be a joy for some Linux geeks.

• I now rate Midori as one of the fastest browsers. I found a few rendering issues, but they are minor, and I’d rate it better than Konqueror at accurately rendering most pages, including this blog. It is without question faster and more accurate than Konqueror, and sidux includes Konqueror as their default browser in the KDE edition, so I am lobbying to make Midori the new default Web browser in the next sidux XFCE edition; it deserves it.

• Firefox 3.6, otherwise known as Firefox.next, is about to be released pretty soon. And one of its most interesting feature would be a self-profiling web tool that will allow user to see their browsing habits profile. The new Firefox feature which is tentatively known as about:me, will give relevant user information such as most visited sites, time of the day and days users navigate the web most, as well as how users access the site.

• Personas is a Firefox extension that add lightweight theming to the browser. It won’t improve security or solve financial crises, but it can infuse some color to your browser, bringing a touch of fun into the routine of Web life.

• One of the features planned for the next version of Firefox (tentatively named Firefox 3.6, but most accurately referred as Firefox.next) is about:me, a specially crafted web page that will let you see your browsing habits profile including most visited sites, time of the day and days you navigate most, how you access sites.

• Firefox, the open-source web browser, is close to overtaking the rival Microsoft product, Internet Explorer, in Germany, but Firefox still lags well behind in the rest of the world, according to market data Monday. The disclosure comes just days after Microsoft said it would respond to an EU desire to open up competition among browsers by offering its forthcoming operating system, Windows 7, in the European Union without a browser pre-installed.

Desktop Environments

• If you rely on computers to help you get things done in your personal or professional life, then you’re probably on the lookout for useful applications that will help you stay on top of things. Recently, we took a look at productivity tools for the KDE desktop, but there are plenty of options out there for the GNOME desktop, too. Here are a batch of tools designed with GNOME users in mind.

Distributions

• I just cannot believe that it has been a month to the day that I proudly signed off on the Cherry Pick of the Month for the second issue of GeekDeck! A whole lot has happened since then and I literally did not have a chance to get a lot of writing done. As if keeping up and committing translations for the GNOME, Xfce and LXDE projects wasn’t enough, I embarked on a 2-week-long roller coaster of a ride at work that just ended this afternoon! Have I mentioned that I am also running for the GNOME Board of Directors? My last adventures took me to a very familiar road, this time in my own backyard so to speak, as I was elected into the Foresight Linux Council and became their Community Manager.

Red Hat

• Three Triangle-based companies – Quintiles Transnational, SAS Institute and Red Hat – have won a place on Computerworld magazine’s latest annual list of the “‘100 Best Places to Work in IT.”

• Sometimes writing or reading tech stories about entirely different products can uncover new trends and ideas. I was intrigued with the JBoss Open Choice Java Application story last week because Red Hat officials said its new framework would enable customers to add specific functionality like clustering, caching, messaging and security in “microcontainers” or do without it, according to their needs.

• All in all, Fedora 11 is a great upgrade. There are lots of changes “under the hood” for those (like me) who are interested in such things. General users will notice a few cosmetic changes going from Fedora 10 to Fedora 11, especially when booting. For example: Under Fedora 10, graphical boot had just been re-written and didn’t work everywhere, so most systems booted in a sort of text-mode interface. But with Fedora 11, graphical boot now supports almost all video cards, so looks much better.

• But having said this, I can now safely proclaim that this latest release is nothing short of remarkable.

• All in all, I must admit that I am happy I took the leap to upgrade. It has been almost a week now since I did the upgrade and everything is working great with minimal fuss beyond the first two hours from the upgrade until I had X configured properly. If you are using Fedora 10, Fedora 11 is a welcome upgrade, and I look forward to spending more time over the next few weeks figuring out what else is new and interesting. If you have not given Fedora a serious look in a while, I would encourage at least downloading the Live CD and giving it a try — you may find it a pleasant surprise.

• So who should use Fedora? As a bleeding edge and short life cycle distribution, it is hardy the ideal server environment. It offers a very nice desktop environment, but requires a bit more manual tuning than some of the competition. Performance wise it is very typical, with similar system resource consumption that Ubuntu and others. FOSS purists will enjoy the fact that no proprietary code is included. Overall I would recommend Fedora to someone who has already learned the basics of Linux and can do a bit of work on the command line. The relation to RedHad is a terrific asset for anyone interested in learning Linux for a professional career, as RedHat / CentOS has a lot of commercial and corporate users. If you are looking for the quick jump from Windows to Linux, you should probably look elsewhere.

• Initng is a full replacement of the old and in many ways deprecated sysvinit tool. It is designed with speed in mind, doing as much as possible asynchronously. In other words: It will boot your unix-system much faster, and give you more control and statistics over your system.

• The ICT Association in Jordan (int@j) in corporation with Redhat and Savvytek ‘Red Hat Premier Business Partner in the Region’ and with support from the USAID-funded SABEQ Program conducted an Open Source Software Workshop titled ‘Achieving faster growth and success while reducing spending’ on Monday June 15th, 2009 at the Landmark hotel in Amman.

Ubuntu

• News of IBM’s cloud effort broke in The New York Times on June 15. The Times story didn’t mention Ubuntu, but the blogosphere is talking up IBM’s growing interest in Canonical’s operating system.

• According to the Cloudonomics blog, IBM will extend its on-premise virtual desktop offering into the cloud. The solution allegedly will include Verde’s Virtual Bridges, Ubuntu Linux and IBM’s Open Collaboration Client Solution Software (OCCS), based on IBM Lotus Symphony, IBM Lotus Notes, and Lotus applications. We’ll know for sure on June 16, but I believe the early reports about Ubuntu leaping into IBM’s cloud are accurate.

• In short, there may be some problem which you may face, but thats how we learn something new, isn’t it. So fellas, I definitely recommend you to install Ubuntu 9.04 and give it a shot. Ofcourse Ubuntu is going better and better, in terms of driver support, features and visual looks. So my conclusion is that, you should definitely try the all new Jaunty Jackalope and this was my first look at it. Go ahead, install this.

• There is a soft spot in my heart for Linux Mint: Mint 3.0 was the first Linux distribution that I really used rather than experimented with. Since then I have moved on to Ubuntu (on which Mint is based), but the release of the new Linux Mint 7.0 codenamed Gloria made me want to install and review Linux Mint again. I brought my old Dell latitude D400, a 5 year old subnotebook, out of storage and started the Mint live CD.

• Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 146 for the week June 8th – June 14th, 2009. In this issue we cover SanDisk collaborates to improve Ubuntu netbook SSD performance, MOTU Council Results, Ubuntu Stats, Calling all LoCo Teams!, In the Press & Blogosphere, Upcoming Meetings & Events, Updates & Security, and much, much more!

• So, though I’ve had a few problems with Ubuntu, the great thing is that everything can be fixed or close to being fixed. So, since I’m going to be using Ubuntu for at least the next couple of days, you will see a couple of posts centering around Ubuntu (yes, really). I’ve got to say though, using this computer with the speed of a new computer is very awesome. It’s going to make this whole sans-laptop period a whole lot easier.

• There are several major changes under the hood that users can look forward to in Karmic. Ext4, a new version of the standard Linux filesystem, is used by default for new installations. This is a step forward from Ubuntu 9.04, which only made Ext4 available as an option.

• click2try (http://www.click2try.com) today announced the availability of Ubuntu 8.04 (http://www.ubuntu.com) in its online catalog of virtualized Open Source applications. A Community site, click2try enables users to try applications for free and use by subscription.

• The Ubuntu Certified Professional (UCP) is a training certification based on the LPI level 1 certification. To earn the UCP, candidates are required to pass the LPI 101, LPI 102 and the Ubuntu 199 exams. Exams can be taken in any order.

• We’ve looked at a couple of religious based distributions such as Ubuntu: Christian Edition and Ubuntu: Muslim Edition. But there’s another version of Ubuntu…a dark and evil one. A version so hideous and so terrible that it’s name is only spoken in whispers among Linux users…

Mandriva

• I’ve been spending the past few days migrating some of my home computers to PCLinuxOS. Not my studio computer which is going to run Fedora with the Planet CCRMA packages. I keep a current Ubuntu on my laptop just to stay up-to-date, and Debian powers the home server. Nobody is pushing Debian out of that spot; it’s too important.

New Releases

• The Elive Team is proud to announce the development release of Elive-Compiz version 1.9.29

• Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri, a member of the E17 development team, has written in to share that a new development snapshot of this lightweight desktop environment is now available. Gustavo also shares that they hope to have E17 released by the end of this year. Available from the Enlightenment blog is a 2009-06-14 snapshot of E17 along with a new (stable) Eet library.

• Today, I’m announcing my new Linux company, HookLineNSinker, Inc. (HLNS) which will produce a new commercial Linux distribution: Pricey Linux. HLNS products include Pricey Linux Enterprise, Pricey Linux Small Business Server and The Pricey Linux Desktop. There are also Pricey Linux Support options for those of you who need 24×7 support for your Pricey Systems. And to comply with Linux licensing, we’ll also offer a free, community edition of our Pricey Linux known as BaitNSwitch Linux.

Devices/Embedded

• Freescale Semiconductor announced the availability of Linux-ready embedded software that provides security and networking functionality tailored for its multi-core, PowerPC-based QorIQ and PowerQUICC system-on-chips (SoCs). The “production-ready, application-level” Vortiqa software provides a base platform for developing firewall, IPSec-VPN, IPS, anti-virus, and anti-spam software, says the company.

• MP, the Japanese company that created the open hardware Pino humanoid robot, has announced a Linux and AMD-Geode based RoboCar (PDF format). The 6 lbs, 17 inch long RoboCar is 1/10 the size of a real car. It’s intended for use as a test platform for autonomous car technologies. While it looks like it’s made from RC car parts, the company claims the maneuvering accuracy is much higher than possible with toy cars. The hardward includes an AMD Geode LX800 processor running a soft real-time GNU/Linux system.

• Tokyo-based ZMP Inc. is readying a Linux-based car robotics platform designed to test automotive robots and autonomous navigation algorithms. The RoboCar is built on a 500MHz AMD Geode LX800, and offers a stereo camera, multiple sensors, and an optional image recognition module, says the company.

• We most associate hypervisors and virtualization with servers from their beginnings as tools for development and testing, through their widespread adoption as a means to reduce the number of physical servers needed, to their current stage as a foundation for dynamic IT architectures. Virtualization on the client side has been more of a niche although application virtualization continues to grow in importance and some specific uses, such as running Windows applications on Macs, have proven quite popular.

• Wind River announced the availability of its long-awaited virtualization technology for networking and industrial embedded systems. Wind River Hypervisor supports Intel and PowerPC multi-core processors running Wind River Linux and VxWorks, and will eventually support other chip architectures and operating systems (OSes), says the company.

• At CommunicAsia today, Garmin-Asus showed off its nuvifone G60 and M20 devices. The former was first developed independently by Garmin and later rebadged with the new brand name after the two companies decided to collaborate on a line of navigation-focused smartphones.

• It can do all that because it’s basically an embedded Linux system with a gigabit NIC. I can SSH into it, assume root, install packages manually, and configure it pretty much like any other Linux box. However, it runs cooler, houses more storage, and uses less power than a regular server. I’ve been very happy with it.

• Evergreen Terrace’s most famous resident – no, not Ned Flanders – has finally officially found his way onto a satnav.

Phones

• All it requires is a quick trip to root on the device a compile of the FCEUltra NES emulator for Linux and bam, it’s good to go. Hit up the read link for instructions (we’re sure we’re simplifying things just a tad) — and no, the incredible appropriateness of using a Contra ROM to kick things off hasn’t escaped us.

Mobile Computing

• Whether Godson-based devices become available with Android is up to business partners who put the chips into products, Hu said. A handful of Godson-based netbooks running Linux are currently available, though some Godson-based embedded products use other operating systems.

• Though the CrunchPad promises low end hardware and a Linux-based kernel, the touchscreen display, the Wi-Fi chips and solid state hard drive should all add up to a much higher price point that what Arrington is willing to let on.

• The developers of the KDE desktop environment for Linux are working on a netbook optimized KDE 4 Plasma user interface. Applications & widgets can be displayed on low resolution displays & the graphical effects don’t use too much resources.

• Even these manufacturers have more to gain by going with their own twist on Linux. HP, for example, has created a unique and differentiated experience with its Linux environment for netbooks. It will take some time before various Android implementations are so unique. It’s unclear why an Android-based netbook would fare much better than Linux-based netbooks have.

• Rwanda has targeted to provide all the 2.2 million of its primary school children with laptops by 2012. This was revealed last week (June 9) during the launch of regional Global Center for Excellence in Laptops and Learning by the One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a non-profit organisation.

Free Software/Open Source

• Open source cannot change the status quo on its own, and of itself. This has become entirely clear now, after 10 years of hype leading to effectively the exact same situation as when we started. No, open source needs to be combined with something else, and that’s usually a technology. That technology can be the Web, in the case of Mozilla, or a hardware platform, in the case of the recent netbook revolution.

• Below I look at some of the biggest challenges to the current computing status quo. In each and every case, open source is playing a part. It’s only now, around ten years after the open source revolution was supposed to have begun, that we’re actually seeing things really begin to happen.

• IFRA, the world’s leading association for newspaper and media publishing, knows how to set an example: they are switching their websites to Drupal.

• For many years, the only easy way to add decent search capability to a MySQL-backed web site was to use its full-text index support. It was fast, efficient, and reasonably configurable. But as more and more sites began to deal with larger datasets and moved from MyISAM to InnoDB, they found that it was harder to support their search needs. InnoDB does not provide full-text indexing, so that often meant keeping around a set of slaves that still ran MyISAM for the sole purpose of handling full-text search requests.

• Much like Linux is a fast kernel that can be extended with loadable modules (notably filesystems and device drivers, among others), Drizzle explicitly says “no” to building in some features, instead pushing them out of the core and into plug-ins. This separation allows Drizzle to focus on only the most essential features of a modern database kernel. In fact, it’s almost a become a joke on the Drizzle mailing list that someone will say “Make it a plugin!” when anyone questions removing functionality from the server.

• If you haven’t heard yet, Google have released a developer preview of their new social networking and collaboration tool – Wave. What impact might this have on free software users and developers?

• Wave is what Google call a “a new tool for communication and collaboration on the web”. Think of it as a cross between e-mail, social networking, IM, IRC and Twitter. It not only gives (or to be fair will give) ways to communicate but gives instant feedback to other participants. Using the basis of a wave as a conversation, it allows others in your conversation to see what you are writing in real-time, as you write it. No more having to wait while your IM buddy finishes her message. Wave also allows — in the same tool — bulletin board-style messaging for participants to follow when they log back in. It has nice features which permit you to respond to different parts of a message in-line and in-context. New participants can be brought in at any time and not only get the full history of the “wave” but can “playback” the wave as it happened, seeing who wrote what when and in chronological order.

• I don’t think I’ve ever been giddy over a video player until I meant my new crush, Flow. On top of being awesome (which I’ll get into in just a sec) it is an open source project with a GPL 3 license. They also offer a few flavors of a commercial license that let you fully brand the player, and of course, support them with some cash.

BSD

• Welcome to part 2 of our series. In this part we’ll explore first time setup and security for a machine running Freebsd 7.2 release, as well as upgrading to 7.2 stable, the newer, more secure version of the OS.

• After claims that China’s “Green Dam” filtering app includes code pirated from an American software maker, it should come as no surprise that the People’s Republic censorshipware is also using open-source code without displaying the proper license.

• According to multiple coders at Sourceforge, the Green Dam Youth Escort package – which the Chinese government wants loaded onto all PCs sold within the People’s Republic – includes code from the OpenCV computer vision library. But its developer – Jinhui Computer System Engineering – seems to have deleted the BSD license document that should be included when OpenCV code is reused.

Business

• He said that the free economy was made possible by the industrial revolution and dates back to Jello. Anderson pitched his latest book, called “Free: The Future of a Radical Price,” at Wired magazine’s Disruptive by Design conference. Anderson is best known for his Long Tail marketing thesis. “Free” details the changes Anderson expects to see in the business models of the future.

• He said that when the Genesee Pure Food Company was preparing to launch its new gelatin product, it needed to find a way to get customers to ask for it by name at the general store. One idea was to sell it door-to-door but that required licenses. Free products, however, did not require licenses so the Genesee Pure Food Company made a Jello recipe book, printed 5 million copies, hired the best artists, and gave it away for free.

• EnterpriseDB, which has commercialized the PostgreSQL open source database, announced on Tuesday the fifth version of its Postgres Plus Advanced Server. This latest version of EnterpriseDB’s relational database management system is designed to let users easily migrate more Oracle applications in order to cut costs. It also provides massive scalability using commodity hardware through its Infinite Cache feature. While several open source databases are available, demand for PostgreSQL is strong because enterprises are emphasizing analytics in database management systems.

• Open World Forum and Open Source Think Tank to bring together key players from the world of Free, Libre and Open Source Software in Paris, September 28th-2nd October 2009.

• Developer communities, business and policy-makers to attend event to ensure open software plays an active role in the digital recovery.

Leftovers

• Back in February 2008, we told you the epic Wikitale of Jossi Fresco, who had worked his way into the site’s inner circle to guard the Wikimage of his guru and apparent employer, Prem Rawat. Formerly known as Guru Maharaj Ji, Rawat once fostered a worldwide religious movement styling himself as the “Perfect Master” and encouraging followers to call him “Lord of the Universe.”

• [...]

• And now he’s gone again. Site admins have instituted a kind of forced retirement, banning “Pergamino” for sockpuppeting.

• The AACS-LA plans to phase out analog output of Blu-ray and other AACS-protected content over the next few years. The move is ostensibly to prevent pirating, but it seems more likely to just cause headaches for legitimate consumers.

Copyrights

• Satellite radio subscribers will be seeing their subscription price grow by nearly $2 a month thanks to increased music royalty rates, according to leaked internal company document.

• Hollywood? That’s not a daft guess. The MPAA is a lobby that wines and dines. The RIAA, you say? Get out of here! This once fierce attack dog is now a toothless old hound, its bark worse than its bite. It’s only bloggers and law professors with a peculiar psychological quirk – (they love to feel victimised) – who have morphed the RIAA into the Beast with Many Heads. So that’s not the right answer

• A new UK survey finds that only one-third of P2P file-sharers would change their behavior after receiving a warning letter alone. If ISP disconnection remains on the table, that number jumps to 80 percent.

• The world’s rightsholders gathered in Washington this week to discuss copyright in all its variegated glory, but the event was essentially about one topic: how do we survive in a digital world?

• A federal judge dealt a serious blow to Jammie Thomas’ defense on Thursday.

• U.S. District Court Judge Michael Davis will allow evidence gathered by MediaSentry, a security firm that once investigated illegal file sharing on behalf of the music industry, to be heard by a jury in Thomas’ retrial, scheduled for Monday. Thomas is the first person sued by the recording industry for copyright violations to have her case argued before a jury. She was found guilty in October 2007 of illegally sharing 24 digital-music files. The judge in the case declared a mistrial after acknowledging he erred in giving jury instructions.

• We’ve already discussed how silly the Performance Rights Act is — and how it’s basically an attempt by the record labels to get their own bailout courtesy of radio stations. There are all sorts of problems with it, and Jess Walker does an amazing job explaining just how ridiculous the Performance Rights Act is. In doing so, he highlights one point that is quite a common trick in the RIAA’s bag of tricks, but which doesn’t get enough attention: how it changes the story to flip things around to its advantage over and over and over again.

Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the DayGerry Singleton, OpenOffice.org documentation lead 02 (2007)Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating. Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink  Send this to a friend

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