● 09.23.11

● Links 23/9/2011: Linux Delay, GNU Health 1.3.3

Posted in News Roundup at 8:03 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Desktop

Server

• Beyond that I’ll find discussions on virtualization, the cloud, and Linux, as well as how to noodle lifecycle costs by factoring in the cost of operation and incremental changes on top of the cost of acquisition. I can categorize some of that as “must know” and some of it as “hope I can skip through that.”

• Big Blue has joined the ranks of server makers that are pitching servers using over-clocked processors to latency-sensitive financial services companies.

Kernel Space

• ARM is often toted as one of Linux’s largest successes. Thanks to Google’s Android platform it is true that a penguin powers at least half of the world’s mobile devices today.

• Linus Torvalds wants to do the Linux 3.2 merge on kernel.org.

Applications

Instructionals/Technical

Games

• The Desura Game Client, which is a similar service to Valve’s Steam game distribution platform for e-delivery, is now in beta on Linux.

Distributions

• Even having these oddities, this distribution gains popularity. As per recent voting, Pardus got just below 5% of votes for best KDE-based distribution. More than monstrous Mandriva or newborn Mageia.

• Intel saved $200 million by switching from proprietary Unix software to free software running on GNU/Linux.

New Releases

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

• A year ago, when I wrote about a group of Mandriva former employees and contributors who’d decided to create a fork called Mageia, I had no idea whatsoever whether the project would survive to actually release a product. Well, a year has come and gone and Mageia not only released Mageia 1 in June, it’s now a distro with a year’s worth of organization under it’s belt. That may not sound like a lot, but to my mind it’s quite an accomplishment.

Red Hat Family

• Red Hat Inc. (RHT: News ), the world’s largest seller of Linux software, said Wednesday after the markets closed that its second quarter profit rose 69% from last year, as revenue surged 28% amid strong demand for its products and services. The company’s quarterly earnings per share, excluding items, also came in above analysts’ expectations as did its quarterly revenue.

• Following a better-than-expected fiscal Q2 report this afternoon by Linux operating system and tools vendor Red Hat (RHT), CEO Jim Whitehurst was kind enough to take a few moments to talk with me about the results but also about how his company is progressing in “cloud” computing.

• Red Hat has reported financial results for its fiscal second quarter, which ended August 31, and the company continues to prove that a business model of supporting robust open source software can lead to remarkable success. In fact, as we predicted it would be, the company is emerging as the first ever billion dollar a year open source company. Red Hat’s total revenue for the quarter was $281.3 million, an increase of 28% from the year ago quarter. Subscription revenue for the quarter was $238.3 million, up 28% year-over-year.

Devices/Embedded

• Iomega’s StorCenter PX px4-300d NAS (network attached storage) device is a solid contender for the SMB market, says this eWEEK Labs review. The four-bay, Linux-based device runs on a dual-core 1.8GHz Intel Atom D525, offers up to 12TB storage, and supports hot-swappable solid-state disks as well as Iomega’s Personal Cloud.

Phones

• The open sourcing of Bada is designed, it is reported, to attract more developers to the platform. Another reported reason is that the move is a reaction to the takeover by Google of Motorola Mobility, producers of Android phones and other devices; it is believed that Samsung would aim to counterbalance the threat of Google preferring to work with Motorola.

• OpenMobile has demonstrated OEM-focused technology that permits any Android app to run on MeeGo, with versions planned for Linux, Bada, WebOS, and Windows, Symbian, and QNX. OpenMobile’s Application Compatibility Layer (ACL) was shown in a video running Android apps and quickly switching between MeeGo and Android environments on a MeeGo tablet.

Android

• DaniWeb recently reported how Apple had won a ban on the sale of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in Europe and even published the rather generic-looking design drawings at the heart of the case. Now a Düsseldorf regional court judge, Johanna Brueckner-Hoffmann, has heard the Samsung appeal against the ban and concluded that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 gives a “clear impression of similarity” to the iPad: the result being that the ban has been upheld, but only in Germany rather than being across the EU. If reports are to be believed, Samsung could fight back with an attempt to delay or block the sale of the new iPhone 5 in Europe (on the grounds that it infringes some basic technology patents held by Samsung) before it has even arrived.

• Google today rolled an update of Google + app for Android devices. The update brings the most demanded feature to the Android device — Hangout. Now Android users can join Hangouts from the mobile app. Another notable new feature is changing Huddle to Messenger. You can now send photos to each other using Messenger (Huddle).

• Acer’s newest mobile has been leaked by Orange. The Android-powered C6 Liquid Express has popped up on the network operator’s website, along with a list of its specs.

• The C6 Liquid Express, spotted by Unwired View, will come running Android version 2.3 Gingerbread, backed up by both Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. It’s going to have a 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen, and around the back it’s set to pack a 5-megapixel camera.

Free Software/Open Source

• The town of Kankaanpää in the western Finnish region of Satakunta has been able to halve its project hardware costs by deploying enterprise virtualisation software from a global open source (OS) solutions provider, it was announced on 24 August 2011.

Events

• After a terrific response to the opening of early bird registrations just one week ago, the linux.conf.au 2012 organising team are excited to announce open source law luminary Karen Sandler as the first keynote for the January conference.

SaaS

• The OpenStack Project is moving a bit closer to its proprietary competition with the Diablo release, out today. In addition to improving the three core projects, OpenStack is now adding a Web-based dashboard, unified authentication and an API for configuring virtual networks. With Diablo, OpenStack is poised to manage global clouds.

Databases

• MySQL founder and developer Monty Widenius announced on his blog that the MySQL relational database management system would no longer be a free software project and will instead be under an Open Core model. Widenius pointed to an Oracle announcement last week, which detailed new commercial extensions for MySQL Enterprise Edition.

Education

• If you’re unfamiliar with the fast-growing world of online learning (e-learning) it’s becoming a huge business, and top universities such as U.C. Berkeley now offer free webcasts and podcasts to the public. Did you know that one of the biggest players in software and platforms for e-learning is a free, open source offering? If not, consider Moodle, which we covered here. Moodle is a course management system (CMS) that leverages developers from all around the world, and allows people to deliver and take courses online. In the latest piece of Moodle news, there is now a Moodle iPhone app.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• People have been using our email servers since around February. The systems are basically up and running, but at this point mainly on borrowed and donated hardware. We set our membership fee at 300 SEK per year (around 33 Euros) and that’s basically covering the running costs of an exclusive internet connection for the main server. Though it’s consumer grade at this point, we’re currently looking at a better solution; we want to be hosted in a more serious location.

• We’ve discussed whether or not a virtual private server is OK, seeing as we want to keep everything under our own control. Obviously we want to control all hardware as well as the software. But at the moment we basically receive email and store it on our IMAP server. We have no outgoing email, though we are currently working on setting this up. We received the server just this week which has been lent to us for this purpose.

• This spring we had a party which was quite successful, basically a “launch party”. We are looking to organize another party for October 1st. It’s nice that parts of the Fripost work are already going on outside the “main” channels, which means we can spread the work load amongst more people; a goal that we have for everything in the project.

• I’m pleased to announce GNU Health 1.3.3

Leftovers

• Lo and behold! We discovered that Microsoft is secretly including Unix-like runlevels into their new OS. Some of these runlevels will be available to the user (although they won’t be called “runlevels”) and others will only be able to be activated by MS through the Windows Update feature, without user control. Doesn’t sound good, does it? Things from Redmond seldom do.

• So, here it is, our list of the top 10 runlevels for Windows 8….

• 9. Reboot. It’s predicted this will be the most used runlevel in Windows. 8. Big Brother Mode. We can’t find anything about this because the information is classified and requires clearance from either Homeland Security or the Chinese government. 7. Pre-Infected Mode. Why wait for a drive-by attack. Go ahead and get it over with. Offer your machine as a bot to the Russian mob.

Defence/Police/Aggression

• Just because she offers advice on manners in the modern world, don’t expect blogger/columnist Amy Alkon to stand by quietly if she thinks a government employee is violating her rights at the airport.

Cablegate

• They were putting copies of Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography in the window of Waterstone’s this morning when I arrived to buy a copy, which was cool — I really thought that was no more than a movie cliché. Inside, half a dozen copies sold in 10 minutes — most of the purchasers looked like newsroom interns — and a film crew from German state television was sharking around interviewing people.

• Julian Assange Press Statement on the Unauthorised “Autobiography”: Thursday 22nd September 2011, 0100

• I have learned today through an article in The Independent that my publisher, Canongate, has secretly distributed an unauthorised 70,000 word first draft of what was going to be my autobiography. According to The Independent, Canongate “enacted a huge security operation to secretly ship books out to thousands of stores nationwide without tipping anyone off as to the content of the book”. It will be in the bookshops tomorrow.

• I am not “the writer” of this book. I own the copyright of the manuscript, which was written by Andrew O’Hagan. By publishing this draft against my wishes Canongate has acted in breach of contract, in breach of confidence, in breach of my creative rights and in breach of personal assurances. The US publisher, Knopf, withdrew from the deal when it learned of Canongate’s intentions to publish without my consent. This book was meant to be about my life’s struggle for justice through access to knowledge. It has turned into something else. The events surrounding its unauthorised publication by Canongate are not about freedom of information — they are about old-fashioned opportunism and duplicity—screwing people over to make a buck.

Finance

• WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The government is continuing an aggressive drive to hold accountable those responsible for the 2007-2009 financial crisis, but prosecutors may find it tough to prove criminal intent in some cases, a top Justice Department official said in an interview.

• A former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) trader and his father were accused by U.S. regulators of making illegal trades based on confidential information related to the Wall Street firm’s exchange-traded fund investments.

• The Wall S. Journal reports that DOJ is seriously considering criminal charges against Rajat Gupta, the former Goldman Sachs director whose wire tapped conversations were played at Raj Rajaratnam’s insider trading trial. The SEC, whose administrative proceeding against Gupta was discontinued, reportedly is also considering filing civil charges in court. WSJ, Focus on Goldman Ex-Director

• Federal prosecutors are moving closer toward bringing criminal charges against Rajat Gupta, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. director who allegedly leaked inside information about the Wall Street giant at the height of the financial crisis, according to people familiar with the situation.

• Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE:GS) traded today at a new 52-week low of $92.33. Approximately 8.8 million shares have changed hands today, as compared to an average 30-day volume of 8.8 million shares.

• If a protest is considered a success based on whether its revolutionary spirit proves contagious, then Occupy Wall Street may indeed become a triumph in the long run. The event’s official website recently announced that a similar protest is now being planned in Los Angeles.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• Wisconsin has been riveted this week by reports that more of Governor Scott Walker’s top aides may be implicated in an ongoing “John Doe” investigation into potentially illegal campaign practices related to Walker’s 2010 gubernatorial race. Although the investigation, first reported on by Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, has been underway for at least a year, a recent FBI raid on the home of Walker’s chief lieutenant, Cynthia “Cindy” Archer, has the state abuzz with speculation about who may be the target of the investigation.

• When Jeff Wright walked into the lobby of the New Orleans Marriott on Aug. 3, he wasn’t sure what to expect. As the director of public policy advocacy for the Florida Education Association — a prominent teachers’ union that had been bearing the brunt of legislative attacks from Florida Republicans throughout the 2011 legislative session — he wasn’t there for your standard Mardi Gras-themed party. The American Legislative Exchange Council, a national nonprofit organization made up of elected officials and private interests who gather regularly to try to directly influence the substance of public policy, was holding its annual four-day meeting there, so any “partying” would probably be a little more conservative, and — going by a recent glut of press coverage pointing out ALEC’s clearinghouse mentality of privately linking big corporations with the state legislators willing to pursue their bottom-line agendas in the form of “model legislation” — slightly more nefarious. Nevertheless, he wanted to see it for himself.

• When Jeff Wright walked into the lobby of the New Orleans Marriott on Aug. 3, he wasn’t sure what to expect. As the director of public policy advocacy for the Florida Education Association — a prominent teachers’ union that had been bearing the brunt of legislative attacks from Florida Republicans throughout the 2011 legislative session — he wasn’t there for your standard Mardi Gras-themed party. The American Legislative Exchange Council, a national nonprofit organization made up of elected officials and private interests who gather regularly to try to directly influence the substance of public policy, was holding its annual four-day meeting there, so any “partying” would probably be a little more conservative, and — going by a recent glut of press coverage pointing out ALEC’s clearinghouse mentality of privately linking big corporations with the state legislators willing to pursue their bottom-line agendas in the form of “model legislation” — slightly more nefarious. Nevertheless, he wanted to see it for himself.

Internet/Net Neutrality

• A new Global Game Download Report by Pando Networks is out, and it includes a ranking of countries by their respective average download speeds. The Pando data also features a drop-down of ten “gamer friendly” countries around the world.

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