● 04.12.13

● Links 12/4/2013: Jolla With Wayland, Mozilla CEO Leaves

Posted in News Roundup at 4:06 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Kernel Space

• For The Linux Foundation, April is not the cruelest month: it’s one of the busiest. Every year, we hold our Collaboration Summit in mid-April to bring together our members, Linux and open source community developers, open source legal minds, and large scale Linux and open source users in an intimate setting. Even as The Linux Foundation has expanded its event lineup to include LinuxCon, CloudOpen, Automotive Linux Summits, and more throughout the world, this remains our original event, and because of that, as well as it’s small size and unique format, it’s special to many of us in the community.

Applications

Games

• Indie Royale is back with a brand new sale called the Spring Sun Bundle. The bundle contains Nifflas’ Games’ complex platformer Knytt Underground, Kitty Lambda Games’ Zelda meats Ultima mash up The Real Texas, Uber Entertainment’s MOBA meets third person shooter Monday Night Combat, ASTRO PORT’s side scrolling shooter Satazius, and Phr00t’s Metroid inspired FPS Gentrieve 2. The bundle also contains the soundtracks for Gentrieve 2 and The Real Texas. Those who pay more than $8.00 for the bundle will also receive Ben Landis’ comic book meets music album Adventures in Pixels.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• It’s Hack Week 9 at SUSE, and I’m working on a cracking project this time around. I’ve codenamed it ‘KLyDE’, for K Lightweight Desktop Environment, and it’s an effort to point KDE at the lightweight desktop market. Surely some mistake, you say? KDE and lightweight kan’t fit in the same sentence. I think they can.

• This project has been bouncing around my head for a couple of years now, starting on a train ride back from the KDE PIM meeting in Osnabrück in 2010, then I presented it at COSCUP 2012 in Taiwan last August. But work commitments and family always got in the way of completing/finishing it. SUSE’s hack week gives me 40 hours to throw at it and this time I wasn’t going to tackle it alone, so I enlisted my bro(grammer)s Jos and Klaas.

Distributions

Red Hat Family

• Cloud computing is driving many disruptions to traditional technology business models these days, and open source technology is a big part of it. Through participation in initiatives such as OpenStack as well as its own deep roots with Linux, Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT) has been an open source trail blazer. To get a better sense of both the trends in cloud computing and the momentum behind public cloud migrations, we spoke with Paul Cormier EVP at Red Hat and president of the companies technologies and products division. Here’s what he had to say about his philosophy of open source and the state of the market today.

• When asked about the most important part of social-media engagement, Red Hat Inc.’s Stephanie Wonderlick offers a simple answer:

• “Listening.”

• Wonderlick, corporate communications director for Raleigh-based technology firm Red Hat (NYSE:RHT), says companies shouldn’t use social media just as a way to get out their own messages. They also should use it as a way to gauge how their customers are feeling.

Devices/Embedded

Phones

• Jolla, the start-up company built around former Nokia N9 engineers developing the Sailfish OS for mobile phones, might be dating Wayland. Jolla’s Chief Research Engineer has made it possible to run Wayland atop Android GPU drivers. Additionally, it’s being done with glibc rather than Android’s Bionic libc derivative.

Android

Free Software/Open Source

• Application development may have once been the exclusive domain of professional programmers, but today a growing number of amateur-friendly development environments invite just about anyone with an app idea to bring it to life.

• In the past few years we’ve seen the arrival of BuildAnApp and Google’s App Inventor for Android on the mobile side, for example. An even longer-standing contender, however, is RunRev’s cross-platform LiveCode, a recently renamed version of the HyperCard-inspired “Revolution” development system born in the early 2000s.

• [...]

• LiveCode 6.0 is released under the GPL3 license

Web Browsers

Mozilla

SaaS/Big Data

• This week sees the arrival of OpenStack Grizzly, the seventh release of the open source software for building public, private and hybrid clouds.

• Global contributors to OpenStack have now grown 45 percent in the last six months. This figure sits alongside a total of 230 new features now recorded to support cloud production operations with broad Software-Defined Networking support.

• Basho was founded in 2008 by a group of executives and software engineers from Akamai Technologies. Over the last five years, the team has received $26 million ($39 million based on GigaOm’s estimates) in venture funding. While the company name may have been selected for other reasons, it seems likely that there was inspiration from Matsuo Basho, a famous Japanese poet who lived during the 1600’s. This connection to Japan may have proved useful to help the American company achieve funding from Japanese companies IDC Frontier and Tokyo Electron Device Limited, along with quite a few American ones chipping in too. The Basho logo features a face with hair styled in a Japanese-style topknot, not too unlike the look that Basho’s CTO Justin Sheehy sports.

Licensing

• The Open Source Initiative (OSI) will host a small open source license clinic as part of its non-profit educational mission, in collaboration with federal agency participants and the Washington D.C. technology community.

Openness/Sharing

• The iPad mini is a unique device in that it offers much more portability than the standard iPad, while still providing a much bigger screen than the iPhone for more enjoyable gaming. Techdy has recognized that as an opportunity to build a game controller specifically for Apple’s smaller tablet, which aims to turn it into a much more capable gaming rig.

• The Free Diagnostic Pathology Software Project uses the open source principle to give doctors access to improved cancer testing workflows

Programming

• When I first started aggressively using open source code , freshmeat and sourceforge.net were typically the first places I’d go to look.

• In 2006, Google shook up the open source code repository market with Google Code and I started to find great stuff there.

• Today, the VAST majority of all open source code that I seek, use and play with is all found on GitHub.

Leftovers

• I used to be a Google fan. I must have tried most of their services as early as possible.

• But lately, they are pushing towards a version of the WWW that I don’t like. A WWW where things only happen if you use the “right” browser, where URLs are second class web citizens, where you have to have a Google account, you have to have Google+ enabled, you must be logged in and you have to notify Google of your every move and then Google decides what goes and what not.

Security

• The Hack in the Box (#HITB2013AMS) security conference in Amsterdam has a very interesting lineup of talks [pdf]. One that jumped out was the Aircraft Hacking: Practical Aero Series presented by Hugo Teso, a security consultant at n.runs in Germany. According to the abstract, “This presentation will be a practical demonstration on how to remotely attack and take full control of an aircraft, exposing some of the results of my three years research on the aviation security field. The attack performed will follow the classical methodology, divided in discovery, information gathering, exploitation and post-exploitation phases. The complete attack will be accomplished remotely, without needing physical access to the target aircraft at any time, and a testing laboratory will be used to attack virtual airplanes systems.

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

• Arkansas department facing series of lawsuits over fatal shootings as victims’ families allege officers violated LRPD rules

• Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey said Thursday the United States needs to pressure Russia and China to cooperate in breaking the alliance between North Korea, Syria and Iran.

• In a must-read column, Micah Zenko of Foreign Policy notes the many ways the Obama Administration has misled Congress about its targeted-killing program, and calls for a comprehensive official history so that we’re no longer at the mercy of dishonest national-security officials. If you haven’t heard, they’ve been talking as if American drone strikes are mostly killing members of al-Qaeda who pose an imminent threat to the United States. In fact, a minority of the people they’ve killed belong to al-Qaeda far fewer than that pose an imminent threat to America, and many victims of U.S. drone strikes are killed without the CIA knowing their identity.

• It may sound melodramatic but one of the most tragic examples of blowback from our terror war in Pakistan is that the Taliban there are now trying to prevent Pakistani children from getting the polio vaccine, which has been available to Americans since the 1950′s and is all but gone from every corner of the earth, save for Pakistan and Nigeria where the remaining victims, and traces of the virus, linger.

• Washington, Apr 11 (Prensa Latina) The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) refused to provide information about whether it knew or was involved in a plot to assassinate the late President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund revealed today.

• Using the Freedom of Information Act, the organization filed a lawsuit regarding recent allegations that U.S. agencies plotted to kill Chavez.

• The CIA issued an official response which argues that it will not confirm or deny the existence or nonexistence of files that respond to the request of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF).

Cablegate

• From ‘Collateral Murder’ to this latest release, his whistleblowing has laid bare US military misconduct and American realpolitik

• Director visits Julian Assange at Ecuadorian embassy in London and praises the Wikileaks founder’s strength of mind

• The Oscar-winning filmmaker met with the wanted web activist in England, then took to Twitter to slam several high-profile upcoming movies tackling the subject.

• Never far from controversy, Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone has conveniently attacked two forthcoming movies about Julian Assange after meeting the Wikileaks founder at the Ecudorian embassy in London last week. Stone tweeted a picture of himself with the political activist during the visit, saying, “A sad occasion in that Julian could not follow me out the door. He lives in a tiny room with great modesty and discipline.”

• Oscar-winning director OLIVER STONE has given a boost to WikiLeaks founder JULIAN ASSANGE by visiting him at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• Say you wanted to build an industry from the ground up. On a macro level, the research, development, manufacturing, sourcing, distribution, and fueling would require a lot of energy. This is particularly true for energy industries. But the great thing about renewable energy is that it generally requires no fuel and starts to pay for itself as it scales.

• A ship moored off Beirut is helping Lebanon overcome electricity shortages – and many developing countries may follow suit

Finance

• The Royal Bank of Canada will make a public apology to the workers affected by the bank’s outsourcing arrangement with a foreign company.

• The apology comes at the end of a week of drubbing from RBC customers and labour critics after the bank’s outsourcing plans were disclosed in media reports. RBC should have been more sensitive and helpful to the affected employees, chief executive officer Gord Nixon says in a letter to be published in newspapers Friday.

• N ew York City’s raid on Occupy Wall Street that cleared the group’s Zuccotti Park encampment will cost the city more than $350,000 — and that total could still rise.

• In a free market capitalist system ‘price signals’ are everything. Prices are determined by buyers and sellers in the free market and these prices are broadcast from the exchanges reaching all corners of the economy — where they are used to transact business. In a centrally planned economy, prices are set by fiat and implemented in a ‘top down’ approach organized by a committee; rather than by the bottoms-up, animal-spirits-driven, self-interested, individualistic, free market approach.

• But we have a problem with free market capitalism. Where free markets have failed over the past few decades is in maintaining fair and equitable ‘price discovery’ on various exchanges to compliment those animal spirits. Instead of buyers and sellers coming together and letting the ‘invisible hand’ of self-interest determine prices; more and more we see the dead hand of Wall Street monopolists and their market-rigging determining prices.

• Banks including Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., along with congressional staff members and trade groups, received potentially market-moving Federal Reserve information 19 hours before the public in a release the central bank called accidental.

• Brian Gross, a member of the Fed’s congressional liaison staff, distributed the March 19-20 minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting at 2 p.m. yesterday Washington time, according to an e-mail obtained by Bloomberg News. Gross referred questions to Fed spokeswoman Michelle Smith.

• Distribution List

Censorship

• In the wake of a major pipeline spill in Mayflower, Arkansas, Exxon has launched a dirty tricks campaign to prevent Little Rock television stations from running a political ad titled, “Exxon Hates Your Children.” The ad, which can be viewed at exxonhatesyourchildren.com, makes an obviously over-the-top assertion about the company’s views about children, in order to call attention to the creators’ serious concerns about the company’s policies. To try to keep it off the air, Exxon is circulating a memo to television stations claiming that the commercial is “defamatory toward each of ExxonMobil’s 80,000 employees and their families.” Exxon goes on to describe good things the company does for children and the environment.

• Amidst reports of media intimidation at the site of the Mayflower, Arkansas tar sands oil spill, ExxonMobil has now taken to bullying local Little Rock television stations into canceling the airing of a satirical but cutting advertisement critical of their business practices.

• Scotland Yard says no one has taken up its offer to facilitate lawful protests, but activists decry ‘insidious’ deterrent policing

• Tory hagiographers are intent on recasting the prime minister who divided Britain as a national hero, writes Jonathan Freedland.

• Last month there were revelations about the EU Parliament IT system, and the arbitrary way in which email blocks on legitimate topics can be implemented with lighting speed. Yesterday, Christian Engstrom MEP, has received a response to his complaint from EU President Martin Schulz. It states, in short, that Mr Schulz can’t do maths, and doesn’t understand technology, or the importance of being able to contact elected representatives.

• The Athens Indymedia website previously located at https://athens.indymedia.org has been shut down by the Greek government…

Privacy

• We’re used to being watched when we shop. Cookies track our every move online, and salespeople follow us around high-end stores. But many walk-in retailers are taking spying to a new level.

Civil Rights

• To date, thousands of people have sent messages to Congress demanding reform of the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act through EFF alone, not counting the ones sent through our friends at Demand Progress and elsewhere. But the citizens of the Internet will need to shout even louder if we’re going to drown out the corporate interests that have already dedicated hundreds of thousands of dollars to influence lawmakers to change the CFAA for the worst.

• A Tennessee lawmaker has relented and agreed to drop his bill linking academic performance to the family’s welfare benefits after an 8-year-old girl shamed him by following him around the state Capitol.

• On his way to vote on Thursday, state Sen. Stacey Campfield (R) was confronted by 8-year-old homeschooler Aamira Fetuga, who presented him with a petition signed by people opposing his welfare bill, according to the Tennessean. Nearby, a choir of about 60 activists sang “Jesus Loves the Little Children.”

• Violence has broken out in Chile following a massive rally in support of calls to reform the country’s education laws.

• The clashes erupted after thousands of students, teachers and their supporters took to the streets to demand free and fair access to education for all, and not just for the rich and well-off.

• California lawmakers are pushing a bill that would exempt the state from federal laws authorizing indefinite detention of citizens.

• The California Public Safety Committee voted unanimously Tuesday in favor of the California Liberty Preservation Act, which was introduced by Republican Assemblyman Tim Donnelly.

• Famously outed former CIA agent Valerie Plame said Thursday she is not bitter despite being “betrayed” by the government officials who exposed her identity.

• But people need to “continually hold our government to account,” she said at the Conference on World Affairs discussion.

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