● 10.16.09

● Links 16/10/2009: Asterisk Gets IBM Support, OpenOffice.org 3.2 Beta Released, Uruguay Students All to Use GNU/Linux

Posted in News Roundup at 8:13 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• As mentioned above, this market is seeing some significant growth. Let’s find out how far these companies have helped to push the Linux market upwards.

• Today, many of Red Hat’s customers with valid subscriptions are enjoying the benefits of newer versions or upgrades of RHEL which has integrated virtualization, high availability and failover solutions, storage enhancements, greater manageability and more. Red Hat is also the leading named (organized) contributor to the Linux Kernel accounting for 13.2% of these.

• Now M$ is using many servers, handled by the Akamai caching system, that run Linux. They should also extend this to their end users. In that case they can say that they are doing some utilitarian tasks (since they are improvising the lots of the end users by giving them Linux based machines to store data).

• I’ve been fighting an OS (kernel and xorg mostly) that changes with nearly every patch or release to support the Eee PCs for almost 12 months to try to make Linux better for Eee users.

• Every time something in the OS changes, Eee PC Utils gets the blame for “breaking” people’s computers even though whatever I release typically doesn’t even alter the code being reported. Even though I’ve published work-around after work-around on the Wiki for Linux bugs like the famous bluetooth bug in 2.6.28, the WIFI hotplug bug (pciehp force), or linking to the fix for the Intel video driver bugs, its still considered my fault in the eyes of the users when the screen won’t turn off and on (xrandr reports a protocol error that it didn’t a few weeks ago) or their WIFI won’t come on after they turn it off (because the kernel pciehp module is broken).

• Home automation may sound like a science-fiction dream, but in reality it is not only commonplace, but relatively simple to get started, especially with Linux.

• [...]

• Like any large-scale project, home automation demands a time investment, whether you take the do-it-yourself approach or use a whole-house system. Setting up the modules, designing lighting scenarios, and planning then testing the schedules takes time. There is also a hardware investment–even the simplest and cheapest standard, X10, begins to add up once you purchase a dozen or more modules and controllers; INSTEON and the other standards can be an order of magnitude more expensive. Still, the open source device drivers and Linux-based whole-house management systems are vastly less expensive than proprietary options, and like all open source code, offer the user unlimited freedom to customize.

• Overall, Linux has maintained steady growth in a number of areas and dominates in some areas with Windows the primary competitor. The primary reasons for this growth and dominance are cost and innovation. Innovation is especially key because IT managers are always looking for new technologies and new ways to lower their costs and increase business agility. For the past several releases, about every two years, commercial Linux vendors have announced releases with new innovative technologies. On the other hand, Microsoft has struggled to release a new Windows operating system with little evidence of new technologies every four to five years.

• Lina Software today announced the beta release of LINA 1.0, its application portability solution. This groundbreaking technology helps Linux software developers reach new markets more efficiently, simplify the end-user experience, and run Linux applications without migrating from existing hardware.

Desktop

• For newcomers to the open source world, selecting a Linux desktop from the many available choices can seem overwhelming. But don’t let that stop you! There’s plenty of free expert advice available online to help you narrow the field and figure out which distro is likely to best suit your needs.

• What’s interesting is that this recognises that open source is not just an inspiration, but a key part of the solution, because – like the open maths movement I wrote about below – it needs new kinds of tools, and free software is the best way to provide them.

Google

• Google wants the whole world in the cloud, preferably using Google services and viewing Google ads while they’re doing it. Fair enough. This competes directly with Microsoft’s more hardware grounded software and services strategy. With the recent announcement of the Chrome OS, Google’s challenging Microsoft even more closely by offering a free open source option to the ubiquitous Windows OS and an even closer tie-in to their web services. To accelerate the process of getting more people using Chrome OS and getting them using Google online services, information is coming to light from our industry sources that indicates Google may very well plan to battle Intel and Microsoft on 2 separate fronts to win the OS, browser and services wars.

• Interesting download site choice don’t you think? That’s what I thought. I then looked at the screen shots and I thought this looks real familiar. Of course, it did. I quickly recognized an early version of Google Chrome Web browser for Linux.

• In fact, with a little checking I found that this particular version of the Chrome Web browser, google-chrome-unstable_4.0.222.6-r28902_i386.deb, has made several earlier appearances before masquerading as the Chrome operating system.

• Rumors regarding what form Google’s Chrome operating system may take have been popping up thick and fast ever since the Linux-based OS was announced back in July, but now the first legitimate hints as to what the user interface (UI) may look like have surfaced.

• Google this week apparently let slip a “chromeos” folder in the same directory where its nightly Chromium browser builds are stored, causing a stir of speculation on the Web that the company had leaked an early look at its upcoming Chrome OS. As it turns out, that’s not the case.

Kernel Space

• As mentioned in the -rc4 notes, this was a short week for the -rc series, since I’m leaving for the yearly kernel summit tomorrow morning. And obviously a lot of other kernel maintainers have left or will be leaving shortly, so I’d expect/hope that next week will be quiet too.

• 90% of the bulk of the changes since -rc4 are in drivers, with most of it coming from two new network drivers (stmmac and vmxnet3). But apart from the new drivers, there’s almost 300 commits in there, and most of them are pretty spread our random one- (or few-) liners: arch updates (arm, powerpc, x86), some filesystem updates (mainly btrfs), and some documentation, networking etc.

• Earlier this week AMD launched the Radeon HD 5700 series GPUs using their Juniper GPUs as part of the Evergreen family. We published Linux benchmarks of the Radeon HD 5750/5770 on Tuesday with our thoughts on these new mid-range graphics cards, but today there are a few more Ubuntu results to add in for these ATI graphics cards.

• The history, status, and future of audio for Linux systems was the topic of two talks—coming at the theme from two different directions—at the Linux Plumbers Conference (LPC). Ardour and JACK developer Paul Davis looked at audio from mostly the professional audio perspective, while PulseAudio developer Lennart Poettering, unsurprisingly, discussed desktop audio. Davis’s talk ranged over the full history of Linux audio and gave a look at where he’d like to see things go, while Poettering focused on the changes since last year’s conference and “action items” for the coming year.

Applications

• Compiz 0.9 still isn’t out yet (though it should be coming soon) with its Nomad and Compiz++ integration and Compiz Fusion dropping, but in the meantime Compiz 0.8.4 has been pushed out this afternoon.

• Hulu Desktop is now available for Linux. Ars puts it to the test on Ubuntu 9.04. Although it’s extremely resource intensive, it’s reasonably acceptable for a beta.

• It’s not an exhaustive list, but it will help you get by with the main applications one would use on a modern Mac computer. If you have a Mac-based application you are looking for a Linux equivalent, let me know what that is and I will attempt to locate an equivalent for you.

• Evernote is a free note taking software that allows you to capture, organize, and find information across multiple platforms. Using Evernote, you can do the following -

• * Take notes * Clip web pages

• [...]

• The Midori team today announced the release of version 0.2.0 of the webkit based web browser…

• The following is the list of open source programs. These applications has not been so famous maybe you never heard about these programs. However, excessively useful for Linux. You can get more information about the application’s by clicking the name of the application.

Games

• Linux has always had an impression of being a geek’s toolbox. Critics have often pointed out the lack of a user friendly interface and a lack of software applications and games that appeal to the general audience as one of the main reasons hindering its widespread adoption.

• A new release of Warzone 2100, a FOSS real-time strategy game has been announced. Changes in this release include:

• * In-game cutscenes are now available (the installer will download them automatically, by default) * Some basic protection against multiplayer cheating has been added * Game balance has been significantly improved

• [...]

• DoomWorld mentioned that the DOOM source port Doomsday has been updated to version 1.9.0-beta-6.7. Fixes in this release includes the following items:

• * Common code library “Bullets not visible in map cheat”.

• [...]

• Have a few minutes to spare for a quick online game? OMGPOP has over ten different multiplayer games (and counting) that have one thing in common: they’re excellent at getting your productivity down a notch! And thanks to the site’s obligatory social networking features, it’s really easy to challenge your friends to a Bomberman game over the internet. Here’s a selection of some of their best games.

Desktop Environments

• If it hasn’t happened already it seems poised to happen sooner or later, albeit usability is to some extent in the eyes of the beholder. My basis of this expectation is personal experience of KDE4 improvements thus far and observation of future trends for both platforms.

KDE

• There’s a lot to like about Kdenlive, and I like it a lot. Its feature set is full enough to satisfy basic desktop video production needs, and its workflow is uncomplicated and easy to learn. However, it must be considered that I’ve reviewed a personal build from SVN sources. I look forward to what my readers have to report regarding Kdenlive’s utility and stability on their systems.

• The latest version of Qt offers Symbian support, as well as advanced graphics and multi-touch capabilities.

• Nokia has announced the availability of the first Qt 4.6 beta release. Qt 4.6 will introduce support for Maemo and S60. It also includes a number of significant improvements to QtWebKit.

• Just weeks after release of Amarok 2.2 (code-named Sunjammer), developers are already blogging about the new features in version 2.2.1. New features only? Hardly just that. With Amarok 2.2 the team behind the KDE audioplayer wants to match the quality and stability of the renowned KDE 3 version 1.4. Therefore, Sunjammer will get numerous minor versions intent on enhancing Amarok and not necessarily rushing head-on to the next release.

• Dolphin the KDE4′s default file manager. You can think of it as an equivalent to Windows Explorer on a KDE based Linux. Much like Explorer it allows you to browse the contents of your computer, and manage files and folders.

• When someone wants to learn the techniques and tricks of development with KDE libraries, they can head on over to Techbase. While we have a great amount of information there already with dozens and dozens of tutorials, we’re still missing a lot of topics there. We really need to address that over time, but that’s a different issue from the one this blog entry is about: example code.

Distributions

• In 2008 the Gentoo Foundation ceased to exist, sending rumors of Gentoo’s demise and ultimate death circulating around the Internet. Almost two years on, the distro is still here and celebrating its 10th anniversary. How close did the distro come to disaster, and where does it stand now?

• I’m especially happy about the PulseAudio changes that land in this release (and, to be fair to our erstwhile fellow distributions, in Mandriva 2010 and Ubuntu 9.10 as well, for the most part). Awesome features like having any audio device on your system show up to any UPnP client as a UPnP server – any audio being played on that device will automatically play on the client – and great Bluetooth integration – so any Bluetooth audio device you pair with will show up as a device in PulseAudio just like any other card in your system – really help to tell the PulseAudio story. These are the kinds of things that either just never got done or got done in really unusable, half-assed ways before we had PulseAudio, and now it’s as easy as crashing my phone is this evening (and believe me, that’s pretty easy). Fantastic job by all the PA developers.

Debian Family

• Even though Ubuntu 9.10 is officially completed, developers managed to slip in the new beta version of Apache CouchDB that stores addresses, notes and bookmarks.

• launch2net features a comprehensive SMS text message manager to send, receive and manage SMS text messages. A statistic window offers detailed information about oline time and data throughput for each connection.

• Alongside the batch of open-source software updates you’ll find in any new Linux distribution release, the upcoming Ubuntu Linux 9.10, now available in a beta version, packs some eye-catching enhancements around disk encryption, tightened access controls and Web service integration.

• How do you make money from Linux in the cloud? One potential route could be to open a store.

• As part of its upcoming Karmic Koala release, Ubuntu Linux is set to integrate a number of new cloud technologies. One of the efforts will include a cloud software appliance store to help expedite setup and deployment of private clouds.

• She has already commented how she enjoys the look, feel and speed of this new Ubuntu. And it does make a pretty awesome desktop system.

• Free and open source software is not held back by a lack of coding prowess. If anything, many pieces of proprietary software have a long way to go before they can compete with the technical accomplishments of their open source counterparts.

• What I think most FOSS projects lack are things far more difficult to fix than rooms full of talented coders. Many FOSS projects lack strong leadership. They lack vision. They lack designers. They lack pragmatists. They lack true communities.

• I was recently contacted by a person called Graeme Cobbett. In his email he told me he got his Windows license refunded and donated that money to Linux Mint. Of course, as you can imagine, he felt pretty happy about it and he wanted to let people know how he did it.

Devices/Embedded

• Timesys® Corporation (http://www.timesys.com), provider of LinuxLink, the first commercial software development framework for building custom embedded Linux®-based products, today announced the first commercial Linux support for the LPC313x series of microcontrollers from NXP Semiconductors. The LPC313x series will be supported by LinuxLink, with additional support for the family anticipated in future releases.

• Timesys announced that it is providing the first commercial Linux development support for NXP Semiconductors’ LPC313x series of ARM9-based microcontrollers. The “LinuxLink for LPC313x” offering enables developers to build custom Linux-based products on the 180MHz ARM926EJ-S-based processor, says the company.

• Jim Zemlin, the executive director of the Linux Foundation, is one of the platform’s most vocal cheerleaders. He never misses an opportunity to point out that many important emerging trends in the technology industry are contributing to Linux growth and adoption. During his keynote address at the recent Maemo Summit in Amsterdam, he suggested that the trend towards mobile convergence is favorable for the open source software operating system.

• As netbooks and smartphones redefine the boundaries of computing, he argues, Linux will take on even greater importance. Although he says it’s not clear what kind of form factors will dominate when the dust settles, he’s convinced that Linux will become the dominant platform of the transforming mobile and embedded ecosystem. Thanks to greater flexibility, freedom from lock-in, and lack of licensing costs, he believes that Linux “enables consumer electronics like no other platform.”

• Taiwan-based Artila Electronics announced a Linux-ready, ARM9-based box computer that runs on only three Watts of power and offers “fault resilient” booting from 2MB of data flash. The fanless Matrix-504 incorporates a 400MHz Atmel AT91SAM9G20 processor, and offers Ethernet, serial, and USB connectivity, says the company.

Phones

• The Palm Pré has been available Stateside since June, but Blighty-based gadget fans can finally bag themselves the smartphone from today.

• We’ve done a number of posts lately on the incredible momentum that the open source Android operating system has. It’s being supported by nearly every major smartphone maker, with players such as Acer and Motorola putting huge bets behind it. Acer’s new “Liquid” Android smartphone has the trendy Snapdragon chip from Qualcomm built in, a sign that the OS could boost the prospects of cutting-edge new processors.

• [...]

• Scenario 2: An Android Foundation? ZDNet asks the excellent question, “Should Google Spin Android Into a Foundation?” Foundations, such as the Apache Foundation, can have an enormously positive impact on open source platforms and applications. But ZDnet’s Dana Blankenhorn points this out: “It doesn’t always work. Witness LiMo, which Motorola recently abandoned for Android. Witness Moblin, which Intel gave to the Linux Foundation. Witness Symbian itself for that matter.” He also points out that foundations lead to lots of forks, which raises the possibility of problems like the ones cited in scenario one above. Would an Android foundation necessarily be good? What do you think?

• Acer has disclosed more details about its upcoming Android-based Liquid smartphone, a thin device with a 3.5-inch touchscreen.

Sub-notebooks

• Uruguay has become the first country to provide a laptop for every child attending state primary school.

• [...]

• The laptops have an open source Linux operating system with a user interface called Sugar. It has attracted some criticism from detractors for not being mainstream.

• “We are starting to see increasing demand for smartphone and mediaphone devices built on Android,” he said. “Google’s decision to move forward with open source technology — that is, making it available to a wide variety of manufacturers — is beginning to pay off.”

• I loaded the Beta on my ASUS N10J, and I was amazed. I have not been a big fan of UNR until now, I found the desktop to be a bit, hmmm, I can’t quite think of the right description – clunky, unrefined, very much in-your-face, I suppose in an attempt to make it “obvious”. It was vastly superior to the Moblin desktop if your purpose with the netbook was anything other than “Social Networking”, but I still didn’t care for it for my own daily use. The new desktop is much nicer, it seems smoother and I actually find it much more obvious to use than the previous version simply because you don’t have everything “shouting at you” from the desktop.

Free Software/Open Source

• As we reported recently, the ApacheCon 2009 conference is rapidly approaching, to be held November 2nd through 6th in Oakland, California. The conference will feature sessions and speakers talking not only about web server- and services-related topics, but about the Hadoop software framework for data-intensive queries, and the many sub-projects that the Apache Software Foundation oversees. The event is partly intended to mark the 10th anniversary of the Apache Software Foundation, and we already ran a post from Jim Jagielski, co-founder and chairman of the foundation, on Apache’s future, and a post from Justin Erenkrantz, who is the president.

• Jitterbit, the leading provider of simple-yet-powerful enterprise integration software, today announced the general availability of Jitterbit 3.0 Enterprise MX, the latest release of the company’s award-winning solution for application and data integration. Also available today in Community and Enterprise editions, Jitterbit Enterprise MX includes new management tools specifically designed for large enterprise use.

• Most important to Open Source advocates it that there are communication and sales processes in Open Source Marketing that one should take care of. Open Source lead generation begins very early (Twitter, Weblog, etc.) and does not end once you closed a deal. It’s a continuous process. When a customer bought your cost argument, you’d better make sure that this customer can also experience the freedom of using your product. Open up endless opportunities through third-party extensions, technical tutorials and so on. This is how you retain customers in Open Source. It only works if you have built-in freedom into your business ecosystem.

• As someone else once put it, open source is useful if your primary product is not software itself. A company whose main product is consultancy or support staffing (IBM) can make more direct use of open source as an attractor than a company that makes software itself as their main offering (Microsoft or Adobe). The more I talk with people in and around this industry, the more I think there’s a case to be made for both approaches. The hard part is convincing people on both sides that the other guy is not always wrong.

• A national partnership has been launched today at Bletchley Park, to encourage UK local authorities to look at implementing open source solutions in all areas of their education services, in order to save up to £60 million a year

• Bletchley Park, the home of the Enigma machine and where most of Germany’s codes were cracked during the Second World War, is today playing host to the launch a national partnership, that aims to encourage UK local authorities to look at implementing open source solutions in all areas of their education services.

• A couple of developers are working to replace GCC in the FreeBSD base system with clang/LLVM. Clang is a compiler built on the Low Level Virtual Machine compiler infrastructure. Both clang and llvm are released under a BSD like license, unlike GCC that’s GPL licensed.

• Antomic is a project to build a free operating system based on GNU and other free software.

• Apkg is Antomic’s package manager. It’s inspired from Debian’s dpkg, hence the name. Like most things in Antomic it was designed with one goal in mind – simplicity. Although apkg is simple it does not mean it’s limited in it’s capabilities, apkg will support all essential functions that a GNU/Linux package manager should.

Oracle

• EnterpriseDB is touting enterprise level capabilities of its Postgres Plus Standard Server 8.4 open source database, which was released this week. The company says the database, which is based on PostgreSQL database technology, offers enterprises cost benefits of open source, performance benefits of a community developed product, and the reassurance of vendor support.

• Oracle VM Server 2.2, which is the full name of the hypervisor, is based on the open source Xen 3.4 hypervisor, and it uses Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.3 as the new Dom0 for the hypervisor to boot on bare server metal. By moving to a cut-down Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.3, VM Server 2.2 can now support the latest server processors from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, including all of the tweaks to virtualization electronics they put into the VT-d and AMD-V instructions and features for their latest Nehalem and Istanbul processors.

Digium/Asterisk

• For the past decade, Asterisk has prospered as an open source VoIP PBX (define). Now it’s poised for greater traction, courtesy of a new joint effort with IBM.

• The work will see Asterisk getting a boost with a tie-in to IBM’s Smart Cube. The six-month-old IBM Smart Cube platform is designed for small- and midsized businesses (SMB). The general idea is that the server is an easy-to-configure appliance for a variety of business applications.

• Digium CEO Danny Windham has a message for networking VARs seeking a new opportunity in the IT channel: Digium — the provider of Asterisk, the open source IP PBX — is profitable, growing and seeking talented solutions providers. Here are more thoughts from Windham and the Digium executive team.

OpenOffice.org

• please install the OOO320_m2 developer snapshot build (called OpenOffice.org 3.2 Beta) and test this version.

• The OpenOffice.org (OOo) project has announced that it will be switching to Mercurial as its source code management (SCM) tool for the future development of its open source office suite. The project developers chose Mercurial over other distributed source code management tools, such as Git or Bazaar, because they “believe that its combination of ease of use, flexibility and performance fits best with the overall OOo needs”.

Drupal

• Strayer University, with more than 44,000 students enrolled at over 70 campuses, is using Drupal on http://strayer.edu.

• Earlier this afternoon, I blogged about Stanford using Drupal. Well, if Stanford isn’t enough for you, check out the main page for Duke University, recently redesigned using Drupal.

• I’ve been around the web long enough to know a good-looking site when I see one — http://shc.stanford.edu is a good looking site. It is the home page of the Stanford Humanities Center, and it uses Drupal.

Mozilla

• Mozilla plans to let people running rival browsers use Firefox’s new plug-in update service, company officials said today.

• After a week of testing, Mozilla late Tuesday launched a Web-based service that checks for outdated Firefox plug-ins. The service, which relies on a Web page users must steer to manually, is part of the company’s effort to prod people into upgrading potentially-vulnerable add-ons, such as Adobe Flash Player, which have become a major target for attackers.

• Mozilla has again slammed the browser “ballot screen” proposal that Microsoft’s made to European antitrust regulators, saying that the voting will be skewed Apple’s way because its Safari browser will be the first choice on the list.

• Firefox 3.6 is a minor update to Firefox 3.5 that is based on version 1.9.2 of the Gecko layout engine.

Licensing

• With IntelliJ now being available under an Open Source license, developers have another option to choose from when it comes to Java-based IDEs/Frameworks (Eclipse and NetBeans being the other two prominent ones). Choice is always good, and being an Open Source enthusiast, I of course welcome JetBrain’s move!

• We have previously discussed the theory that the GPL is a better licensing choice than a more permissive license such as the BSD license for vendors establishing commercial dominance around an open source project.

• That remains true today. What I now believe is that for vendors that have used the GPL to control a project and establish commercial dominance with proprietary extensions, a more permissive license is likely to act as a better method of expanding the development opportunities for that underlying project as well as the commercial opportunities for those proprietary extensions.

• The Register is reporting on a webcast hosted by Black Duck Software with Karen Copenhaver and Mark Radcliffe. The Register article starts out with the misleading paragraph:

• [...]

• As far as the Register article goes, the first comment finishes with “Rocket science it is not.” No, it’s not rocket science, but the gap between what you want (or what you have been led to believe) and what the text actually says — let alone what it does when subjected to scrutiny — may be very great. And that’s the different between landing on the moon, crashing into the moon, and exploding on the launch pad (which is AGPLv3, BTW).

• Here we go with another round of Linux Today reader comments. Let’s start off with an issue that has been on my mind: Vendors who boast of the their Linux-based devices, but they only support Windows and Mac clients. It’s a step in the right direction, but would supporting Linux clients be so difficult? LT readers weigh in with examples

Programming

• Major enhancements and bug fixes to Version 7.0 include Python scripting support, Reverse debugging, Process record and replay, Non-stop debugging, Multi-architecture debugging, Multi-inferior, multi-process debugging and an interface for JIT compilation.

• When you’re collaborating with a team that’s flung across the globe, sometimes you need collaboration software with some heft to help you get the job done. Open source Web-based project manager, Collabtive, might be just the tool you’re looking for. It has several features that make it a great alternative to proprietary alternatives like Basecamp.

Leftovers

• At Oracle’s OpenWorld conference in San Francisco, CEO Larry Ellison previews the company’s Exadata Version 2 computer. He says the new database computer is designed for online transaction processing and data warehousing. He adds that Exadata 2 can do faster processing at a much lower cost than its biggest competitor, IBM.

• A Conservative MP facing claims he used expenses to pay his own company is to stand down at the general election.

• Executives from IBM and Intel were arrested today amid allegations they were involved in an insider trading scam.

• On this morning’s conference call, David Viniar, Goldman Sachs’ chief financial officer, emphasized the bank’s valuable social role. His bank made markets and provided credit when other financial players were suffering.

• [...]

• Even as Goldman reported results that reflected in part the resurgence in derivatives, the House Financial Services Committee passed legislation that would increase derivatives regulation. But the bill is riddled with loopholes that Wall Street can easily exploit. A much tougher line is necessary.

• It’s probably cold comfort, but Goldman Sachs couldn’t have done it without your help.

• The outstanding question is whether Congress has the cajones to force the country’s richest people and institutions to change the ways that made them so wealthy in the first place.

• The U.S. Treasury Department is the central headquarters of Wall Street, and Timmy Geithner is its demigod. The coup of the Treasury Department, which promotes itself as the “steward of U.S. economic and financial systems,” means an economy and financial system run by and for the Wall Street oligarchy, with Goldman Sachs spearheading the ruling class.

• Gapper notes that Taibbi “mischaracterised Goldman” — their success has not been based on “pump and dump,” but on “sticking obstinately to the institutional, less-regulated elite end of the market.”

• There may be something to do that, but there can be no doubt that Taibbi perfectly captured the Zeitgeist of the moment.

Censorship/Web Abuse

• As the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement rolls forward, it’s clear that some kind of Internet “enforcement” will end up in the text; but what kind? Thirty-eight corporate lawyers and 4 public interest lawyers are the only ones with a say.

• UK border police used anti-terrorist legislation to prevent a British climate change activist from crossing over into mainland Europe where he planned to take part in events surrounding the forthcoming United Nations summit in Denmark.

• With the support of at least 18 other politicians, UK Labour Party MP Tom Watson has tabled an Early Day Motion in which he questions government proposals to disconnect or throttle alleged file-sharers. Calling the measures “futile,” Watson says those accused should have the right to legal redress in a court of law.

• TALKTALK has carried out an experiment designed to illustrate the extent to which Lord Mandelson’s ‘anti-piracy’ measures are ill thought out.

• The UK Internet service provider is trying to prove that extreme measures designed to thwart file sharing could see innocent people accused of stealing music and other content just because they have left their wireless networks open.

• Finland has made broadband a ‘legal right’, leading experts to question whether the UK government is similarly committed.

• A landmark Australian court case could see thousands of Australians losing their internet connection, and has major implications worldwide for the law on copyright.

• The government has abandoned its long-standing pledge to force 100 per cent of internet providers to block access to a list of child pornography websites.

• The decision to drop the policy will be finalised at a meeting on Monday to be attended by internet industry representatives, children’s charities and Alun Michael MP.

• Earlier this week, we noted that a court had rejected, yet again, the Obama administration’s attempt to stall in handing over info on who lobbied to get telco immunity. At the time, we asked what excuse the administration would use to delay again — given that the release of documents was due today, Friday. Well, it appears they haven’t come up with any excuse… they’ve just tried asking the court yet again — as if the first three “no” answers weren’t enough.

• The Communication Workers of America have added its voice to the debate over the Federal Communication Commission’s proposed net neutrality rules. The Wall Street Journal reports that the union told the FCC that the proposed rules – particularly those that address competition and transparency — should apply to every Internet company, “including network providers, application and service providers, and content providers.”

Intellectual Monopolies

• It’s already quite troubling that Pandora appears to be supporting the RIAA bailout tax against radios (Pandora’s competitors), but now we have a better understanding of why, thanks to a little birdie who highlighted what’s going on.

• As we reported in June, ASCAP believes that when your cell phone’s musical ringtone sounds in a public place, you’re infringing copyright. A federal court yesterday firmly rejected that argument, ruling that “when a ringtone plays on a cellular telephone, even when that occurs in public, the user is exempt from copyright liability, and [the cellular carrier] is not liable either secondarily or directly.” This is exactly the outcome urged by EFF, Public Knowledge, and the Center for Democracy & Technology in an amicus brief filed in the case.

• Several of the largest BitTorrent sites including Mininova, The Pirate Bay and isoHunt have joined a coalition of file-sharing partners in an ambitious project to help filmmakers get their work out to the public. Founded by the director of Steal This Film, the VODO project debuts its first title today.

• A new scheme to play and promote independent artists may spell the end to mainstream Australian music at clubs and restaurants.

• The move is part of a plan by the clubs industry to avoid higher music licence fees.

• When clubs, restaurants and hotels want to play background music, they have to pay a licence fee to the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia (PPCA), which represents major music labels and recording artists.

• As for the claims that a performance license will somehow help musicians, that’s bogus as well. First, ask the RIAA’s SoundExchange about all the money it keeps for itself and about all the musicians it “can’t find.” Besides, all this will do is harm up-and-coming musicians.

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