● 10.12.11

● Links 12/10/2011: Nokia’s New Linux Team, NGINX Gets Dosh

Posted in News Roundup at 8:12 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• Hello friends, “Security through obscurity” may be a catchy phrase, but it’s not the only thing that’s catching among Windows users.The expression is intended to suggest that proprietary software is more secure by virtue of its closed nature. If hackers can’t see the code, then it’s harder for them to create exploits for it–or so the thinking goes.Unfortunately for Windows users, that’s just not true–as evidenced by the never-ending parade of patches coming out of Redmond. In fact, one of Linux’s many advantages over Windows is that it is more secure–much more. For small businesses and other organizations without a dedicated staff of security experts, that benefit can be particularly critical.

• Automated E911 solutions provider RedSky Technologies rolled out a new version of its E911 Manager, that has been engineered using Java and Linux to deliver improved scalability, resiliency and capability.

• The enterprise-class E911 Manager Version 6 software helps enterprise, government and education customers deploying virtual computing environments, SIP and Unified Communications networks capture, manage and deliver the detailed location information necessary to provide effective 9-1-1 emergency response.

• LinuxCon Europe is being held later this month in Prague as you may already know. In celebration of this fact, the Linux Foundation has this week welcomed seven new European members under its non-profit organisational umbrella, all of whom are apparently keen to “collaborate on advancing Linux” across industries and throughout Europe and the rest of the world.

• According to the organisation’s publicity function, “Europe has been the birthplace for many open source software projects, including Linux. The development community in Europe remains strong with many of the top individual Linux kernel contributors based in the region and you can read details here in The Linux Foundation’s Who Writes Linux report, 2010.”

Kernel Space

• Here at OStatic, we’ve watched steadily as The Linux Foundation has added significant new members over the years. The organization has, in only a few short years, become an important player in stewarding the Linux ecosystem toward an organized, united future. Now, with LinuxCon Europe coming up in Prague at the end of this month, The Linux Foundation has named seven European companies who are joining its ranks: Codethink, KeyPoint Technologies, Lanedo, Meinberg Funkuhren, Picochip, Puzzle ITC and RPA RusBITech. The announcement also contains an interesting bit of news about Linux implementation in Russia.

• Intel’s Open-Source Technology Center (OSTC) team responsible for the open-source Linux graphics driver stack is drafting new plans for how they release their driver code. The release model and release criteria for the Intel Linux driver will be quite different from the status quo of putting out new releases on a timed quarterly basis.

• The Linux Foundation announced today the first ever Automotive Linux Summit. Taking place in Japan on November 28, 2011, it will be an opportunity to address the growing need for carmakers and Linux developers to collaborate on the future of cars as devices. Nissan and Toyota will both be there, along with Intel, NEC, and a host of other mobile solutions developers.

Applications

Proprietary

Instructionals/Technical

• Linux can have the most beautiful interface in the world, because it is simply what you make of it. You can change every little detail with relative ease because that’s what Linux is all about: Freedom and OpenSource.

• I posted pictures of my desktop on the corkboard a few weeks back, encouraging others to show me theirs. I got a few compliments from people, as well as requests for how to get such nice looking themes in Linux.

Games

• Well, the folks who make “The Humble Frozen Synapse Bundle” have collected over a million dollars so far and served up almost a quarter million copies to consumers.

Desktop Environments

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

Distributions

New Releases

• The developers behind the Superb Mini Server (SMS) server operating system proudly announced last evening, October 10th, the immediate availability for download of the Superb Mini Server 1.6.2 release.

Devices/Embedded

• A virtual protyping environment is available for the device, something which Balogh called a ‘shrink wrap’ developed with Synopys. “Software is the largest part of the design effort,” he said. “Software developers won’t need to know about virtual prototyping, they can just ‘open the box’ and boot Linux in less than a minute.”

Phones

• So while the word Meltemi wasn’t exactly there, we do have three key phrase: “newly established team”, “Linux software and kernel architecture management”, and “Nokia Emerging Devices”. We do wonder though what the “Nokia Emerging Devices unit” is all about since we thought Nokia bet the farm on Windows Phone and will likely go with Windows 8 at some point in the future for tablets.

Android

• It should be noted that BlueStacks App Player is only in an alpha version at this point. It comes with a pre-installed set of Android apps and you can add many others, but not every Android app.

• So how does BlueStacks pull this off? The apps run in a virtualized instance of Android. CNet has a very interesting story up about BlueStacks, including a video.

• AT&T announced five new Android phones, led by the 4.3-inch, dual-core Motorola Atrix 2 and four-inch Samsung Captivate Glide QWERTY slider phone, both running Android 2.3 on dual-core processors. The other new AT&T Android phones include the 3.2-inch, QWERTY-enabled Samsung DoubleTime, the four-inch Pantech Pocket, and the ZTE-built AT&T Avail, which is available under the carrier’s GoPhone prepaid brand.

• 3LM, a unit of Motorola Mobility, is ready to release a set of enterprise-grade security and management tools to a number of Android phone manufacturers.

• The tools allow corporate IT departments to integrate Android devices into their systems. It also makes it easier for individuals to take their personal Android phones and tablets and use them for work.

• Cralina is organising an Android workshop called ‘Android QuickStart’ for professionals in Pune (India) on 15-16 October. Previous editions of this workshop have received good ratings from professionals in companies like Symantec, TCS, Siemens to name a few, says the organisers.

• While the world continues to wait for the Samsung Nexus Prime handset, details of another flagship handset have reportedly been leaked into the public domain.

• Phandroid has published a screenshot (pictured) from an anonymous tipster who claims to have unearthed the specs of the Samsung Galaxy S3 phone, the sequel to the blockbusting S2 device.

• The CyanogenMod project developers have announced the release of version 7.1 of their modified Android firmware. According to Android programmer and project founder Steve Kondik (AKA “Cyanogen”), the major update follows a long delay due to a number of issues, including problems with the automated build system. However, Kondik says that he hopes to “speed up our release process in the future”.

• Google and the Chinese government seemed to be at odds once again today, as online services related to the search giant’s Android.com market in that country were apparently inaccessible. But what appeared to be an intentional government blocking was merely a glitch related to a software update, Google told CNET.

• Fortunately, the Motorola Admiral — the device that we presume will become the fearless leader of the Direct Connect fleet — is one nautical mile closer to the sea of finished products,

Free Software/Open Source

• It used to be easy for Web server administrators. If you ran a Windows shop, you used Internet Information Server (IIS), if you didn’t, you used Apache. Now, though, you have more Web server choices and one of the leading alternatives, the open-source NGINX Web server, is gaining fast.

• According to Netcraft, the leading Web server analytics company, NGINX, with its over 40-million Web domains and 8.5% of all Web domains, is catching up with the big two. Indeed Netcraft analysts believe that “If current trends continue NGINX will soon overtake Microsoft to have the second largest number of active sites.”

• The paper analyzes business models of open source ERP, emphasizing the importance of software licensing and partner networks.

• Hypervisors based on open source code will get new consideration from users in the next 12 months, according to the results of SearchServerVirtualization.com’s 2011 Virtualization Decisions survey.

• I’ve written about open source hardware (OSHW) a few times before. Like this and this. I’ve understood open source software for quite some time and over the last few years have been starting to get what open source hardware is all about. It is different than open source software.

• With software, your tangible product is essentially intangible. Your acquisition and distribution of an open source project can be virtually free. Not so with hardware. Someone has to physically build something, which costs time and money in parts and labor. Really though, all that means is the proliferation of an open source hardware product just takes a little longer. If you look at it as the design being open source more than the actual product, then it gets to be more and more similar to software.

• While open source has seen tremendous uptake in companies large and small, there are still plenty of problems you can encounter when building on top of an open stack of software. Here are the top five.

• Open source software is computer software that has been produced and is licensed in such a way that the software is allowed to be downloaded and accessed by anybody, free of charge.

• Open source in many cases is built by people that care about software as something they love to produce and something that they want to build. The developers care about how things are done, and the quality of the end result rather than the money that they can get from selling the software itself.

Web Browsers

Chrome

• Late last week Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) released the Chrome Remote Desktop into beta, remote access software that works through the Chrome browser. Supported end-point devices are any computer that has a Chrome browser installed. This means that the top platforms such as Windows, Linux, Mac–as well as Google’s Chromebooks–are inherently capable of supporting Chrome Remote Desktop.

Mozilla

• The Mozilla boss said in the company’s latest State of Mozilla report that the growth of proprietary mobile platforms was posing a new threat to the open-source software environment.

SaaS

• ownCloud team has announced the release of version 2 of ownCloud, the free and open source cloud computing. The latest version comes after a huge gap of one and a half year. But, this release is promising.

• ownCloud 2 has just been released. ownCloud is a web-based storage application similar to Google Docs, Dropbox or Ubuntu One with a big difference—your data is under your control. With version 2, the ownCloud team has improved the basic service and added valuable features:

• * Access your files on the web or integrate ownCloud with desktop file managers. * Share files securely. * Access music and personal information directly or connect through applications. * Synchronize with other web applications that use the remoteStorage protocol. * More user support, demos and community interaction.

• Currently, the company is in alpha and testing with a limited number of clients. Linux has been deploying FDS cluster computer solutions for clients such as ARUP since a decade. As per the new strategy, Linux will provide an FDS SaaS solution that would provide efficiencies and cost savings for future clients, from industries such as Engineering, Educational institutions, Gas, Chemical and Government agencies like FEMA.

• The OpenStack collaborative industry effort to build an open source cloud platform is to be applauded for the remarkable gains it has achieved in a short amount of time. Founded by Rackspace Hosting and NASA in July last year, the organization is now backed by 120 companies, including the likes of HP, Dell, Intel and Cisco, and has already issued four major code releases, the last of which, Diablo, just came out last month and has already been downloaded 50,000 times.

Databases

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

• But as kernel developer Dave Jones notes, “The number of bug reports we get from people with VirtualBox loaded are truly astonishing. It’s GPL, but sadly that doesn’t mean it’s good. Nearly all of these bugs look like random corruption. (corrupt linked lists, corrupt page tables, and just plain ‘weird’ crashes).”

• Hence Jones has added a patch to list the driver as tainted. Doing so, means that “automatic bug filing tools can opt out of automatically filing kernel bugs, and inform the user to file bugs somewhere more appropriate.”

• There are many third-party drivers which are present on GNU/Linux systems. They are maintained by outsiders and if the code meets the high standards of the kernel then they often get merged with the mainline kernel. Oracle is the owner of VirtualBox and given that it is a widely used platform should, by rights, be maintaining the driver.

• Hamburg-based open-source project OpenOffice will embark upon a major fundraising campaign this week to defend itself against a looming shutdown.

• Almost lost within the fanfare of last week’s Oracle OpenWorld were several sneak peeks at where the company is heading with its Solaris and Oracle Linux operating systems (OS) in the near future. For the upcoming release of Solaris 11, the company announced features to make it more user friendly, more virtualized and more scalable. On the Linux side, Oracle revealed it is releasing a second version of its Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel for Linux. The big news here is that it can be patched without any downtime.

Education

• In 2009, mathematician Timothy Gowers posed this question to the blogosphere: “Is massively collaborative mathematics possible?” He described an unsolved math problem and asked for help figuring it out. Over the next few hours and days, commenters began to pick at the problem together. They brought up incomplete ideas, which were expanded and incorporated into other peoples’ ideas, until Gowers posted 37 days later that the problem had (probably) been solved.

Funding

• Spree Commerce, the open source, Ruby on Rails-based eCommerce solution, announced today that it has raised $1.5 million in seed funding led by True Ventures. Also participating in the round were Aol Ventures, and angels like Sean Glass. Spree has also brought on some notable advisors, including Dries Buytaert (Creator of Drupal), Luke Kanies (Creator of Puppet), Tom Preston-Werner (Co-founder of Github), and James Lindenbaum (Co-founder of Heroku).

• Popular open source ecommerce solution, Spree, announced yesterday it has officially become incorporated as Spree Commerce Inc. This announcement comes after Spree’s raising of $1.5 million in a seed-funding round led by True Ventures. Other participants in the round include AOL Ventures and Sean Glass.

Project Releases

Public Services/Government

• Bristol City Council has announced that there are “no security or accreditation issues that should hold us back from pushing ahead with our open source agenda”. The announcement was said by the council to be the result of working with the Cabinet Office after concerns were raised, by the council itself, about security accreditation for open source software. The council leader Barbara Janke said: “We have now been given the green light by the Cabinet Office to push ahead with this open source agenda and they have promised to work closely with us on this issue over the next few months”.

• The government’s cyber security arm has given Bristol council the go-ahead to use open source software

• Bristol City Council has been given the green light to push ahead with its open source strategy following a meeting with CESG, the cyber security arm of the UK intelligence services.

• The council first announced its intention to adopt open source alongside existing Microsoft software in September 2010. As part of an ongoing review of its desktop systems, the council was looking to replace its current email system with an open source alternative.

• Bristol City Council is set to begin work on a major open source project, following a meeting called by the Cabinet Office.

• The meeting, held on Thursday last week, was attended by LinuxIT, an open source specialist located in the city. GCHQ, the government’s communications tracking headquarters, and vendors BeLIB and Nameless, also attended.

Openness/Sharing

Open Data

• On the Internet, information is everywhere. From blogs to Tweets and everywhere in between, the data stream seems endless. For your average Web surfer, the majority of this information is irrelevant and may be disregarded. But what if casual information, like the kind found on blogs and Webcams, could be made useful?

• The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), a US government research agency, believes that this is possible, and that information from such sources may be able to predict the future.

Open Hardware

• The project that I discovered was developed by UK Aerospace Engineer, Arthur Amarra, who normally works on the structural analysis of composite aircraft wings, but who professes to have been an avid linux geek for as long as he can remember.

• Amarra initially purchased the robotic arm as a gadget to play with and admits that the machine is not particularly useful in itself since it is only capable of lifting objects that weigh in at about 100 grams.

Programming

• In a keynote presentation at the 2011 GoTo Conference in Denmark, Google revealed details of Dart, a new structured Web programming language designed to make programming for the Web easier. Although Google had announced the new programming language in September, the company withheld details until today.

Leftovers

• Microsoft has made it clear that it considers Windows 8′s Metro interface and applications to be the future. When I look at Metro, however, I see gaudy colors, boxy designs, applications that can either run as a small tile or as full screen with no way to resize or move windows. Where have I seen this before? Wait, I know! Windows 1.0.

• Twenty-five years of user-interface development and this is what we get? Scary.

Censorship

• ISPs are discussing what they call “Active Choice”: that is, to insist that adults are given a yes / no choice before installing or using parental controls when they set up a new broadband connection.

• Now, there is a world of difference between offering sensible child safety, and trying to persuade adults to live with layers of censorship.

• Thus the devil is therefore in the detail, and how “options” are presented. Will adults be asked if they need parental controls, or if they want to “adult content” switched on?

• These amendments will be debated late this afternoon, and we need as many sympathetic MPs to be there as possible!

Copyrights

• The Federal Trade Commission has decided that certain default software settings can violate the law against “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce.” The agency recently went after the peer-to-peer filesharing program FrostWire for sharing too many user files by default, something that could easily lead to identity theft, copyright infringement, and the loss of “intimate photographs.” That’s right: the federal government now goes to court to protect the privacy of your nude smartphone pics.

• Think about this, and think hard. I’m going to list a bunch of media:

• * Video Laserdiscs * Betamax Videotapes * VHS Videotapes * Long Play Vinyl Records * Reel to Reel Audio Tapes * Eight Track Audio Tapes * Cassette Audio Tapes * Audio Compact Discs * Paper Books

• All of these media have a common purpose, to deliver a form of entertainment. They are a delivery system. Of course the delivery system has to be delivered, and it has to be displayed on shelf space.

• The current switch to electronic delivery of electronic files removes the need for a delivery system and for shelf space. This is why Borders went bankrupt in the United States, and it is why Chapters-Indigo in Canada has a smaller and smaller amount of shelf space devoted to books.

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