● 10.01.15

● Links 1/10/2015: LFS 7.8, Calculate Linux 15 Released

Posted in News Roundup at 5:45 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

• Now that you’ve learned the basics of Linux and the difference between the Linux kernel and a GNU/Linux operating system, and how to use these terms in a conversation with friends or colleagues so that you know what you’re talking about, the time has come to continue our free Linux lessons.

• Reports have been coming in about a new Trojan malware named XOR DDoS that has been responsible for a number of DDoS attacks in Asia. It’s coming from Linux machines, and people are going wild. The truth is somewhat different from what’s been published until now.

• However, even if you’re running a Linux-based OS on your desktop there’s a good chance you’re not vulnerable to the malware that is forcing machines to join this botnet.

• For a start, Ubuntu, one of the most popular Linux-based operating systems, isn’t set up in a way that allows new users to get infected.

Desktop

• Indian government pushes GNU/Linux for government and Dell and others actually give it space on retail shelves.

• Everyone is aware of the web browser, Linux particularly since the maker of Ubuntu Linux, Canonical has created an online tour of their computer operating system, which the users can always try at http://tour.ubuntu.com/en/ for free.

• The Free Software Foundation (FSF) take free software very seriously. To them, any proprietary software, hardware, or drivers is bad news. In practice, they’ve had to compromise.

Server

• IBM is into “identifying disruptive technology that’s changing the industry,” according to Swanberg. Linux, he mentioned, is one of those very technologies that IBM supported that’s done just that. Additionally, IBM wants to “[identify] open technologies,” which Linux is yet also an example of. “Embracing open on the software front and the hardware front” is at the core of IBM’s future vision of innovation, and it appears as though it has struck a balance.

• RancherOS is a container-native operating system designed solely for running Docker containers. It’s one of 6 operating systems designed just for Docker and other container runtimes in active development.

• On an operating system of that nature, you need containers for providing system-wide services other than running applications. They are called system containers in Project Atomic, a container-native OS developed by the folks at Fedora. In this linked-to blogged post, Ivan Mikushin from Rancher, the company developing RancherOS, shows how to use Docker Compose to create such system containers.

Kernel Space

• The Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) development cycle is coming to an end and it looks like developers are finally settling down. The last big piece of software in the distro, the Linux kernel, will also enter freeze in just a few days.

• Placing a price tag on Linux and other open source platforms is tough for several reasons. Most obviously, a lot of open source software is available at no charge, which means there’s no clear answer to how much people would be willing to pay for it if it cost money. In addition, open code is often shared freely between projects, and some developers are paid for their work by companies while others volunteer their time.

• By jumping into the fire. I started using Linux in the office lab for network experiments it became easier to use Linux functions like tcpdump than it to requisition the data scope to monitor networks. Then we needed a DNS for the lab, then a file server and … so the little Linux box under my desk became part of the glue keeping things running. It was not the best solution, but it was fun. It sounds great, but we did have some formal training on other *ix’s as the company was looking to migrate away from the proprietary OS’s of the day.

Benchmarks

• This six-way Linux distribution comparison is looking at the out-of-the-box performance of this set of popular Linux distributions while using the default package sets and running all tests on the same system. For this comparison an Intel Xeon E5-2687W v3 Haswell system with 16GB of DDR4 memory, 80GB Intel SSD, and AMD FirePro V7500 graphics were used for benchmarking.

Applications

• I’ve just released new version of imap-utils. Main reason for new release was change on PyPI which now needs files to be hosted there.

• OpenShot Studios have announced today, on the last day of September, that their upcoming OpenShot 2.0 open-source video editor software will be released soon for the GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows operating systems.

• The Fotoxx application is a free image-editing application that comes with a ton of features, including management of RAW files. It’s not difficult to find this kind of applications on the Linux platform, but not all of them are good. Fortunately, Fotoxx is a more than adequate solution.

Proprietary

• Downloading video clips from online sources like YouTube or others of this sort is not something actively supported by said websites, and it’s easy to see why, and this is the reason apps like ClipGrab exist.

• [...]

• I tested ClipGrab in Ubuntu 15.10, and that means that I encountered a little problem, but it’s not the application’s fault. The distribution is not yet stable, and the new OS is not supported in the PPA, at least for now. On the other hand, I can run it with just a double click, and the only inconvenience is that I don’t get any new updates when they are released.

Instructionals/Technical

Games

• PlayOnLinux is a well-known app that allows its users to install and run games and applications that have been released only for the Windows platform, without breaking any laws.

• This is a game I’ve been waiting eagerly for since the Windows release, and so far it’s not disappointing. I only wish it didn’t come on top of all the other great games that have been releasing recently, since it’s making it really hard for me to choose between this game and those other games. If you’re not too bogged down by the latest Humble Bundle, you’ll find NOT A HERO on Steam.

• The Escapists isn’t a game I’ve played before, since the first game isn’t on Linux (yet), but The Escapists: The Walking Dead is now on Linux and our friends at GOG sent me a key.

• Valve is making some strange choices when it comes to Linux, and it’s been using different icons to SteamOS and Linux. It’s unclear why they are doing this, but the worst scenario imaginable is that some games will be built for SteamOS and not for generic Linux distros.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

• Comics with Krita author Timothée Giet is back with his second training DVD: Secrets of Krita, a collection of videos containing 100 lessons about the most important things to know when using Krita.

• There are quite some things failing inside KDE but I heard there was quite some positive energy this year at Akademy and we just finished/ended the longest Randa Meetings yet and although these meetings were for me quite exhausting they were another great success and almost the size of half of Akademy this year. Just compare the group pictures. And I met again some great people, new and old, young and old, with great ideas, a lot of energy and willingness to put in some energy and with the incubator projects I sponsor there was and is even more enthusiasm coming to KDE.

• Legacy system tray icons are problematic; they don’t scale, they don’t fit in with the theme, they can’t multiplex (be in two trays) and they’re just generally very dated.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

• GNOME 3.18 includes a variety of other improvements. It now supports automatic brightness control, using a light sensor on your laptop to adjust the backlight to save battery life. Multi-touch gestures aren’t just for touch screens anymore—they can be used on a laptop touchpad under the new Wayland graphical server. Selecting, copying, cutting, and otherwise editing text with a touch screen is much improved. Scrolling has been improved, and you can now activate automatic scrolling by right-clicking a scrollbar.

• Today marks the beginning of a new financial year, and the GNOME Foundation is pleased to announce the release of its latest annual report, which covers the outgoing 2014 financial year. The Report reviews all the events and activities in the GNOME project during the 2014 financial year, including hackfests, conferences, our releases, outreach activities and more.

Distributions

New Releases

• The developers of the unique and independently developed NixOS GNU/Linux operating system announced a few minutes ago, on September 30, the immediate availability for download of NixOS 15.09.

• NixOS, the “purely functional Linux distribution” built around the Nix package manager, is out with a new release.

• The Solus operating system launch that was supposed to happen today has been delayed until Saturday. Developers need to fix a nasty problem that can affect the installation of the distro.

• The Linux From Scratch community announces the release of LFS Stable Version 7.8. It is a major release with toolchain updates to glibc-2.22, binutils-2.25.1, and gcc-5.2.0. In total, 30 packages were updated and changes to bootscripts and text have been made throughout the book.

Slackware Family

• Calculate Linux Desktop, featuring either the KDE (CLD), the MATE (CLDM) or the Xfce (CLDX) environment, Calculate Directory Server (CDS), Calculate Media Center (CMC), Calculate Linux Scratch (CLS), Calculate Scratch Server (CSS) are all available for download.

• Calculate Linux 15 has the Linux 3.18 kernel, KDE 4.14.12, Mesa 10.3.7, GCC 4.8.5, LLVM 3.5.0, and X.Org Server 1.16.4 by default on an EXT4 file-system. Calculate Linux 15 was tested on the same Intel Haswell Xeon + AMD FirePro system as used in the other Linux distributions, of course.

• On the last day of September, Calculate Linux’s Alexander Tratsevskiy was more than proud to announce the release and immediate availability of his Calculate Linux 15 operating system based on Gentoo Linux.

Red Hat Family

• In his new book, “The Open Organization”, Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst makes the case for catalytic leadership. Managers direct. Leaders inspire and enable. Catalytic leaders build on inspiring and enabling with their attention to earning the right to lead and encouraging without judging.

Fedora

• The Fedora 23 Linux operating system has not even been released, and Fedora Project’s Jan Kurik comes with the first system-wide change proposal for the next major version of the acclaimed GNU/Linux distribution, Fedora 24.

• The Nvidia driver repository has been updated to CUDA 7.5, along with an updated GPU Deployment Kit (Nvidia Management Library) that also contains the validation suite. For specific versions, see the Nvidia repository page.

Debian Family

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

• We’ve just been informed by the Linux AIO team, a group of developers that create all-in-one Live ISO images with the hottest editions of a popular GNU/Linux operating system, that they have released Linux AIO Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS.

• On the last day of September, Canonical’s Łukasz Zemczak sent in his daily report to inform Ubuntu Touch developers and Ubuntu Phone users alike about the latest new features and bug fixes implemented in the upcoming OTA-7 software update for Canonical’s mobile operating system.

• The Ubuntu Touch operating system already has a distinct look, and its makers don’t intend to change it any time soon. On the other hand, the community is not limited by what it can do and designer Pablo Marlasca just posted a concept for Ubuntu that looks absolutely stunning.

• JAyatana is a project that integrates Java Swing applications (such as NetBeans IDE, IntelliJ IDEA, Android Studio, jDownloader and so on) with Ubuntu’s global menu and HUD.

Flavours and Variants

• It’s the first day of October 2015, the month when the second and last release (for the year) of all Ubuntu-based distributions are released. That won’t be until the tail end of the month, but the last pre-stable editions have already being made available for testing.

• Developers have explained that the upcoming MATE 1.12 branch will get some pretty cool improvements, and those changes will also land in the new Linux Mint 18 that is scheduled for next year.

Devices/Embedded

• Industrial Shields has launched a rugged 10.1-inch “HummTouch” touch-panel system that runs Linux or Android on an i.MX6 DualLite-based HummingBoard SBC.

• A new tiny piece of hardware called ZYMKEY has been developed by Zymbit based in Santa Barbara California, that has been created to help secure Raspberry Pi and Linux Internet of Things applications.

• Orbbec has launched an “Astra Pro” 3D depth camera, also available in a Linux-based “Persee” camera-PC, with an 8-meter range and 5-millimeter accuracy.

• Shenzhen-based Orbbec has gone to Indiegogo to launch a campaign for a $79 and up Orbbec Astra Pro 3D depth sensing camera and a $179 and up Orbbec Persee camera and sensing computer aimed at developers. The devices enable 3D and gesture control applications for home, office, retail, education, entertainment, manufacturing, robotics, 3D scanning and printing, point cloud, and other creative and DIY projects, says Orbbec, which has been developing the technology for three years.

• I’ll preface this by reminding everyone that I’ve been a huge fan/supporter/advocate of Linux since the mid- to late ’90s. That being said…

• Embedded Linux has some issues that must be addressed.

• Let me set the stage for you.

• The smart home niche of the Internet of Things (IoT) is shaping up to be the next great frontier for open source software to conquer. And a new, crowdfunded device, Mycroft, is hoping to be among the first open source platforms to make inroads in this market.

• I love the flavor of raspberries, but quite honestly, the seeds gross me out. They get stuck in my teeth, and whenever I crunch them, it feels like I have a mouth full of sand. That (among other geeky reasons) is why I love Raspberry Pi devices so much. They have all the awesome, with none of the seeds! This month is our Raspberry Pi issue, and if you’ve ever wanted a reason to fiddle with one of the tiny computers, look no further.

Phones

Android

• I published some Free rebuilds of the Android SDK, NDK and ADT…

• Google on Tuesday introduced a pair of new phablets, a couple of Chromecasts and the first tablet it built by itself. The unveilings took place at the company’s Nexus event in San Francisco.

• Months of leaks drew very accurate portraits of the US$499 Huawei Nexus 6P (pictured above) and $379 LG Nexus 5X and other Android hardware, but Google filled in the details ahead of the expected Oct. 5 release of its next mobile operating system: Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

• The new Nexus handsets have arrived, and along with the Nexus 5X we’ve also been treated to the Nexus 6P – the second generation phablet from Google.

• While the Nexus 6 was built by Motorola, Google has switched manufacturers for the 6P with Huawei being drafted in for its first Nexus device.

• Other enhancements include native 4K rendering for select Android games (Beach Buggy Racing, Bombsquad, Hardwood Solitaire IV, Riptide GP 2, Kosmik Revenge, Video Poker Duel, Leo’s Fortune, Machinarium, Meltdown, Never Alone, Samurai II, and Sky Gamblers: Storm Raiders), ability to transfer data between USB storage and a microSD card, ability to manually turn off the SHIELD controller and lowering the audio latency by as much as 40ms compared to standard Android. The last aspect is especially important for gaming, and it will be one of the prime reasons to pick up the update before checking out the GeForce NOW cloud game streaming service that is getting launched today.

• Chromecast is officially a thing. What started out as a simple streaming stick two years ago has now become a product that Google can boast about, with 20 million devices sold since launch. And today, we saw not one but two new versions of Chromecast, a video-streaming stick that supports modern Wi-Fi standards and another that now turns home speakers into Wi-Fi-connected, cast-enabled audio devices. Google has kept it at an accessible price — $35 per dongle — and the intent is clear: we’re going to be in your living room, one way or another.

• The new official figure for active Android users is up 400 million from the one billion active users it announced in June 2014 and the 900 million it counted in mid-2013.

• Not so many years ago, the introduction of a major new Android release was more like looking six months or more into the future when your phone just might become eligible for upgrade. In the case of the Android 6.0 (“Marshmallow”) update announced yesterday, however, owners of recent Nexus devices can start downloading next week, and those who buy the newly announced Nexus devices — the LG-made, 5.2-inch, Nexus 5X, and Huawei’s 5.7-inch Nexus 6P — will feast on Marshmallow when the devices ship in October. The same goes for Google’s newly tipped Pixel-C tablet, due in December (see below). Based on Android 5.0 “Lollipop”, most other major Android devices that run Lollipop should be onboard before the end of the year or early 2016.

• LG is announcing a new version of the Watch Urbane, the chunky Android Wear device it released this spring. The new version puts an ever so slightly bigger screen inside of a slightly smaller body. It’s able to do that by building some of the watch’s tech into its bands, which are no longer swappable. It’s inside one of those bands that you’ll find the most interesting addition to this model: a cellular radio. That makes it the first Android Wear watch to include cellular connectivity and LTE — though certainly not the first smartwatch to have those features.

• There’s never been a better time to buy an Android smartphone. Not only is there a huge array of different handsets from a multitude of manufacturers to choose from, but what you get for your money is simply incredible.

Free Software/Open Source

• I used to write manuals, so no doubt I consider documentation more important than most users. But whatever the reason, I am increasingly convinced that if desktop Linux applications are ever going to receive the attention they deserve, they need not only to have documentation, but to have the right sort as well.

• In a recent survey I conducted of government departments’ use and understanding of FOSS, I found that most officers are aware of open source. However, I also found that officers have a limited appreciation of the principles of transparency that open source software is based on. They are aware that FOSS is a low-cost, basically free, alternative to proprietary software, but are unaware of the strong intangible benefits it provides, such as those of process transparency.

• So open source chose me. It was the right fit for science and discovery, and so it just happened. I can’t take credit for any of that. But it’s not the reason why I decided to work in open source.

• For Yahoo, the main benefit of open sourcing a project like Omid is that many of the community’s improvements will directly help it improve its own service. That’s something that held true for Hadoop, and the company hopes to replicate this success with projects like Omid.

• In the nearly two years since going open source, Presto has grown from an internal Facebook project into a platform that’s used by likes of Airbnb, Dropbox and Netflix to process data more rapidly.

• The US Department of Transportation (DOT) says security researchers tinkering with vehicle software shouldn’t be allowed to go public with their findings. The agency “is concerned that there may be circumstances in which security researchers may not fully appreciate the potential safety ramifications” if their findings are released in the wild.

• Cloud Security Alliance and Waverley Labs to build software-defined perimeter (SDP) to protect cloud and critical infrastructure from DDoS attacks.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

• On the last day of September, Mozilla pushed the first point release of the recently announced Mozilla Firefox 41.0 web browser to users worldwide, a hotfix build that patches five critical issues.

• Yesterday, my FirefoxOS gave me some bad news: ConnectA2, my chosen app to access the WhatsApp network was discontinued and that I should wait for a new soon-to-be ready app called “ConnectedIM”.

• ConnectA2 was not a perfect app. Sometimes it would fail to connect and, after an update, it would constantly receive messages from +server saying “Unable to parse the resource”. This messages were annoying, specially because one could several during a day. I once got 11 in two hours!

SaaS/Big Data

• Mirantis has emerged in recent years as one of the leading vendors and contributors to the open-source OpenStack cloud platform. Today Mirantis is releasing its OpenStack 7.0 distribution, which bundles its Fuel toolkit for cloud deployment and management alongside common OpenStack components.

• Transwarp offers several proprietary products that are built upon a Hadoop core. What’s unique about this Hadoop core is that it is open source and non-proprietary. Transwarp Data Hub is the number one Hadoop distribution available in China; it’s specific to customer demands. This distribution makes it easy for the company’s customers to transition their legacy applications from old infrastructure to new infrastructure. This is done by a single engine layer on top of a Hadoop core.

• EMC Cloud Solutions always seems to be on the horizon of producing easy solutions. In a smart partnership with BlueData, Inc., it has been able to combine its abilities to deliver customers one-click solutions to Hadoop.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

• So I can finally share publicly that Brno will host LibreOffice Conference 2016. After GUADEC 2013 and Akademy 2014, it’s the third major desktop conference that will take place in Brno. The venue will be the campus of Faculty of Information Technologies of Brno University of Technology which is one of the major computer science universities in the country with a lot of open source participation. That’s also where GUADEC 2013 and DevConf.cz 2015 took place.

• It’s taken a year, but Apache OpenOffice finally seems to be moving forward. However, whether the progress will be enough to make the project a success remains impossible to predict.

• Apache OpenOffice has been practically declared dead by many while others suggest folding back into LibreOffice. It’s true the last release was a year ago, but release manager Andrea Pescetti recently blogged OpenOffice 4.1.2 is right around the corner. The LibreOffice Conference wrapped up Monday and a couple of attendees blogged of their experiences. Elsewhere, Jesse Smith summarized the current state of Linux touch desktops and Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols said there will never be a year of the Linux desktop.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

• The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today announced publication of “The Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement,” co-authored with the Software Freedom Conservancy. The document lays out the principles that both organizations follow when they receive reports that a company is violating copyleft terms like the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL).

Openness/Sharing

Open Data

• Open data initiatives should actively create their own successes. Instead of publishing everything they can, Cities should investigate which data can actually be used to solve a problem, Albert Meijer, Professor of Public Innovation at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, said in an interview with the Dutch centre of expertise Open Overheid.

Programming

• Dennis is a key developer of the UNIX operating system, and co-author of the book “The C Programming Language”. He worked along with Ken Thompson (A scientist who wrote the original UNIX). Later he developed a collaboration on the C programming language with Brian Kernighan and they were known together as K&R (Kernighan & Ritchie). Dennis Ritchie had an important contribution to UNIX which was that UNIX ported to different machines and platforms. His ideas still live on, at the center of modern operating systems design, in almost all new programming languages, and in every bit of open systems.

Leftovers

Science

• The report, which looks like it was a lot of work (over 450 pages and 79 variables), is a comprehensive indexing exercise. The UK ranks second, having risen from tenth in 2011; Switzerland again is number one.

Security

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

• The West cannot approach the problems of Syria, Ukraine or Iran without facing up to the question of its relationship with Putin’s Russia. That relationship is now severely dysfunctional and characterised by squabble and acrimony on a range of detail encompassing much of the globe.

• That “diplomatic strategy” involves getting Russia to endorse regime change in Syria…

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

• AL GORE: Of course, there are at least two big flaws in that argument. First of all, we can create jobs by taking on this challenge. And we can create jobs that cannot be outsourced, jobs like refurbishing buildings to make them energy efficient, installing solar panels on rooftops so individuals can have lower electricity bills. There are tens of millions of jobs in this, and it’s one of the few areas in our economy where the jobs are growing in number fairly rapidly. Eighty-eight percent growth in green jobs year over year over the past year. And secondly, since when did the United States abandon its traditional world leadership role? Especially at a time when just this past week the president of China says “Okay, we’re going to adopt a cap and trade program and we’re reducing our CO2 emissions and we want to create jobs in solar and wind and efficiency.” So the rest of the world still does look to the United States for leadership. This is the most serious global challenge we’ve ever faced. No other country can play the role that the U.S. can play.

Finance

• I honestly do not care if David Cameron stuck it in a pig, though it is a stark reminder the ruling class are very different to us. But what is disgusting is the attack on the vulnerable, poor and disadvantaged which he is leading now.

• Expansion into China could buy Western tech giants half a decade or more of sustained growth

• Capitalism is relocating to new centers in China, India, Brazil.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

• It is evidence of what a sewer Westminster is, that the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner has ruled that Straw and Rifkind broke no rules. The BBC and Sky are full of smug reporters telling us the two are “vindicated”.

• They are not vindicated, they are disgusting.

• What is revealed is that it is absolutely the norm for Tory and Blairite MPs to be firmly in the pockets of corporations, looking after corporate interests and receiving huge slabs of cash. Straw and Rifkind were just behaving like greedy grasping unprincipled bastards within the rules. How is that a vindication?

• This week, a shadowy network of state-based, right-wing think tanks and advocacy groups will convene with Koch operatives and other big donors in Grand Rapids, Michigan to coordinate their 2016 agenda for all 50 states.

• The State Policy Network (SPN) is a network of state-branded groups, like the Civitas Institute in North Carolina and the Goldwater Institute in Arizona, which appear to be independent yet actually are operating from the same national playbook. SPN plays a key role in driving the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) agenda, particularly by providing academic-like cover for ALEC’s corporate-friendly policies.

• …New York Times virtually ignores the movement’s momentum.

• If Jeremy Corbyn sticks to his guns, and just goes along and shows normal respect, I have no doubt at all the Queen will carry on completely unfazed. She is not stupid, is very well aware that a significant number of British people are republicans, and is not interested in making people uncomfortable. She will expect so long as she is monarch, Jeremy Corbyn to work as prescribed within the forms of government – just as I organised State Visits to the very best of my ability. But personal displays of obsequiousness are not of importance to the Queen; they are rather the obsession of the pathetically servile Guardian and other media.

Privacy

• Recently TrueCrypt has been in the news again, because of a couple of new critical security issues that were found for its Windows version. You can read more in these articles at Engadget, Threatpost and Extremetech. Windows computers with TrueCrypt installed can be taken over completely by a non-privileged user, and the computer does not even have to have mounted any TrueCrypt container.

Civil Rights

• We cannot undo the physical and mental damage of all the torture.

• [...]

• The reason Shaker has been detained longer than any other British resident is that he was tortured with MI6 personnel directly in the room, as opposed to waiting outside. If the British establishment were not totally corrupt, his return to the UK would finally make it impossible to avoid prosecutions over torture, up to and including Dearlove, Straw and Blair.

• A 50-year-old man, Mohammad Akhlaq, was beaten to death and his 22-year-old son severely injured on Monday night in UP’s Dadri, allegedly by residents of Bisara village, after rumours spread in the area about the family storing and consuming beef, police said.

• George Orwell said, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

• These are dark times, in which the propaganda of deceit touches all our lives. It is as if political reality has been privatised and illusion legitimised. The information age is a media age. We have politics by media; censorship by media; war by media; retribution by media; diversion by media – a surreal assembly line of clichés and false assumptions.

• Wondrous technology has become both our friend and our enemy. Every time we turn on a computer or pick up a digital device – our secular rosary beads – we are subjected to control: to surveillance of our habits and routines, and to lies and manipulation.

Internet/Net Neutrality

• Now it seems that things have started moving a bit, at least in relation to geoblocking and the debate around online platforms and ISPs, bearing in mind that both go beyond the sole realm of copyright and encompass a number of other/broader issues. All this without forgetting – of course – that relevant Commissioners, notably Günther H. Oettinger, are also constantly and actively engaged in the relevant debate by issuing (somehow at times cryptical) statements.

• On the architecture side, the networking firm unveiled Unite, a platform based the Junos operating system software.

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

• Have you ever come across a copyright law that provides that the State automatically acquires ownership of copyright in a certain work upon death of the relevant owner?

• Conferring legal personality to animals gives rise to a number of problematic issues. For example, should animals also have criminal responsibility? As regards ownership of property, there are obvious problems with how that ownership can be balanced with third party interests; how to decide which charity or other body would manage the animal’s ownership on its behalf and in what way? Perhaps these problems can be overcome if one considers how common interests can be represented before the Courts by unincorporated associations, how children’s property can be managed by trusts or how a concept of guardianship might be deployed.

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