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● 04.15.09

● Links 15/04/2009: New GCC and Linux RCs

Posted in News Roundup at 4:47 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

=> ↺ Linux Foundation bows to RMS

• It’s more than a bit ironic that the Linux Foundation, an organisation that drips with bizspeak, has chosen as the winner of its Linux promotional campaign an ad that espouses the virtues of freedom.

• The Foundation – which describes itself “a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux” – hardly makes any reference to the freedom aspect of Linux when it issues statements.

• And this same Foundation has such a great devotion to freedom that it keeps journalists away from its conferences!

• But the seeds of this whole movement were planted by Richard Stallman and his ideas won’t die easily.

=> ↺ A letter to a Texas Senator

• I read with interest your opposition to upgrading to Vista and instead favor an upgrade to Windows 7.

• My name is Ken Starks and I am one of the most active Free Software advocates in the United States. Senator, the state of Texas is paying tens of millions of dollars a year to Microsoft when they have a free, virus-free and stable alternative at their fingertips, literally. Sir, let me pose a question. Why does the state of Texas insist on purchasing a product that proves to be more expensive to maintain than it does to purchase? Anti-virus software, defrag and registry fixers, malware protection…why? Why are we paying for software that demands we purchase other software in order for it to work? That is a question that I would honestly like answered.

• I will tip my hat to the obvious influence of the powerful Microsoft Lobby. They have been there and gone, and their impact on State software purchases is obvious. I am curious to know if the dollar amounts we taxpayers spend on Microsoft software is available for public consumption. Again, Microsoft has lobbied you successfully. Entire nations, states and municipalities across the globe have switched to GNU/Linux and Free Software, yet the US remains the last bastion of Microsoft strength.

=> ↺ Windows 7 distrust spurs Ubuntu for the desktop

• Ubuntu is emerging as an unlikely alternative to deploying Windows 7 or Vista on enterprise desktops as many IT managers express concerns over the upgrade path to the new Windows operating system.

=> ↺ Enterprises Chucking Windows Choose Macintosh

• Dimensional Research was right to call out the Macintosh number, But I see Ubuntu gains as being more significant. Mac is down from 28 percent in 2008, while Ubuntu is up from 21 percent last year and 17 percent in 2007.

=> ↺ EZblue Software Corporation Releases EZblue Linux Server 3.9, Featuring the iTunes Compatible Firefly Streaming Server Module

• EZblue Software Corp., a leading provider of Linux software products, today announced the release of its EZblue Linux Server software version 3.9 with a built in iTunes compatible streaming server module.

=> ↺ Acer’s Festive Offers on Notebooks, PCs in Kerala

• Acer said that the Acer Travelmate 4530 notebook will be available under this offer. The notebook features an AMD Turion RM70 processor, a 2GB DDR II RAM, a 160GB HDD, and a 14.1″ wide screen TFT. It also has a DVD writer, a 5-in-1 card reader, Bluetooth, and runs on Linux-based OS. It also has a gigabit LAN and Disk Antishock Protection (DASP) Technology with Backpack. The Acer Travelmate 4530 comes with a one-year warranty for Rs. 30,385, plus taxes.

=> ↺ Dell, Google make things tougher for Sun

• Dell, which sells servers that run open-source Linux on Intel CPU chips, is taking aim at Sun’s existing customers for its own servers, which run Sun’s non-open-source Solaris operating system on Sun’s Sparc processors.

=> ↺ Build The Ultimate PC

• Linux has come a long way in terms of hardware compatibility, but you don’t want to be troubleshooting three different network adaptors if you can help it. And it’s the network adaptors that are likely to be the weakest link. Cluster computing is dependent on each machine having access to the same data, and that means that data needs to be shuffled between each of the machines on the network cluster continually.

=> ↺ Wine 1.1.19 Makes Noticeable Progress

• Wine is maturing in the bottle: the current version 1.1.19 again offers a multitude of enhancements.

• In the official announcement, Wine growers reveal a slew of enhancements for 1.1.19. These include improved Direct3D support and Esound driver. Winemaker, which makes Windows programs Wine-compatible, now also supports Visual C++ projects.

=> ↺ Linux Migration for the Home PC User, Part 2

• 0. Mental migration: It’s an old computer geek joke to start a numbered list with zero, but it serves to symbolize the different mindset required for Linux compared to Windows.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Linux summit surprises

• The Linux Foundation (LF)’s Collaboration Summit last week in San Francisco featured a variety of announcements ranging from the LF’s new role in hosting Moblin to new collaboration tools to the latest kernel changes. Meanwhile, the LF announced the winners of its “We’re Linux” video contest.

=> ↺ GCC 4.4.0 Release Candidate Is Now Out There

• If you are into compilers and have not already tried out the latest bits from GCC 4.4, you may want to give the GCC 4.4.0 Release Candidate 1 a whirl. GCC 4.4.0 RC1 was tar’ed up yesterday and is now ready for testing.

• GCC 4.4 has a number of benefits over GCC 4.3 in all areas. One of the GCC 4.4 features that excite us is the merging of the Graphite framework, which will ultimately provide automatic parallelization support. Also on the multi-threaded front, GCC 4.4 supports version 3.0 of OpenMP. While still experimental, in this GNU Compiler Collection update there is also better support for the C++0x language.

=> ↺ Linux 2.6.30-rc2

• New ‘microblaze’ architecture, a somewhat late ‘input’ layer merge, a new intel virtual networking driver and some firmware loading updates. And mn10300 and frv moved their header files from include/asm to arch. That accounts for the bulk, but shouldn’t affect anybody.

Applications

=> ↺ Back In Time Does Full Linux Backups in One Click

• Linux only: Back In Time, a Linux backup app inspired by Macs’ Time Machine and offering the same kind of no-worry, space-saving snapshot protection, is worth adding to your must-install list.

• Why? First off, the user interface and documentation at its home page beat out similarly Time-Machine-inspired backup apps like previously mentioned Flyback, at least for my money. Second, it’s smart about being friendly with non-developer Linux users—it rewrites all the rules of the underlying rsync command in plain English in its settings, installs a “root” launching shortcut for when you want to back up your core system files, and adds itself to your cron automation engine automatically at the intervals you set it to, no crontab -e or other terminal jobs required.

=> ↺ 10 Best Audio Editors for Linux

• I’ve compiled a list of some of the most useful Audio applications you can download totally free of charge for Linux.

Distributions

=> ↺ Sabayon 4.1 Gnome Released

• Sabayon Linux is a very full featured DVD sized distribution that is really catching on in the Linux community as of late. The most recent release, Sabayon 4.1 Gnome, includes some very impressive features, and applications. I installed Sabayon 4.1 Gnome this morning and found some great stuff, I really have nothing but good things to say about this up and coming Linux distro. You can buy Sabayon on DVD inside our shopping cart. A portion of each Sabayon DVD sale is donated to the Sabayon project.

=> ↺ gNewSense 2.2 released

• This release features the return of 3D acceleration — as free software.

=> ↺ Bulgarian distro offers Live CD greatest hits

• A Bulgarian open source project has released a Live CD compilation of five popular boot-and-run Linux distributions. Just released in version 3.0, “Ultilex” can be booted from CD/DVD and USB flash devices, and offers Slax, Puppy Linux, Clonezilla, Parted Magic, and the System Rescue CD, says the Ultilex project.

=> ↺ Interview with Ricky Zhou – Fedora Project

• In this interview we talk with Ricky. In specific, we talk about:

• • Identity of the Fedora community and its relationship with Red Hat * Relationship between Fedora and other distributions * Upstream projects as they relate to Fedora * Public opinion about the Fedora project * Open source involvement in the software industry and university sphere

Mandriva

=> ↺ What You Should Expect from Mandriva 2009 Spring

• With the second Release Candidate out and only two weeks until the big launch, we thought it would be a good idea to give you an overall look at what you should expect from Mandriva Linux 2009.1 (Spring). First of all, Mandriva 2009 Spring will boot much faster, through several fixes (including udev), implementation of a new SpeedBoot mode and support for the powerful EXT4 filesystem. What Speedboot basically does is prioritizing boot processes in order to load the graphical system first and then continue with starting the rest of the processes. As for EXT4, though many users are still kind of wary about this new filesystem, its superior performance cannot be contested. Here at Softpedia we’ve been using it on most of our Linux machines and we’ve yet to encounter any problems.

=> ↺ Pclinuxos 2009

• So far I am very pleased with this release and think I have switched back to Pclinuxos full time. Good work guys!

=> ↺ Faceoff: PCLOS 2009.1 vs LinuxMint KDE CE 6

• In the past few days, I was lucky to be able to test drive two wonderful Linux distributions that both promises to work “out of the box” — PCLinuxOS 2009.1 and LinuxMint KDE Community Edition 6.

Debian/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Memo to Canonical: Follow Red Hat’s Partner Lead

• So, where’s Canonical? Admittedly, the company has its hands full developing Ubuntu 9.04, Ubuntu 9.10 and Landscape updates. But stay patient. Based on some educated guesses, I think Canonical will show more channel progress by mid-2009. In the meantime, Canonical should take a close look at Red Hat and the Open Source Channel Alliance to see how go-to-market partner strategies are evolving.

=> ↺ Here comes the Jackalope

• In a few days, you will see a new version of the popular Linux distribution, Ubuntu. Ubuntu version 9.04, or fondly called by developers as “Jaunty Jackalope,” is already in beta release and will soon see it bumped to “release candidate” status, before we get the full version before the end of the month.

=> ↺ 5 Benefits of Ubuntu–Server Edition

• 1. You can integrate Ubuntu server edition easily into your existing networks.

• 2. Ubuntu server edition gives you low total cost of ownership, which is very crucial to companies and organizations.

• [...]

=> ↺ First update for Debian 5.0 “Lenny” released

• The Debian project developers have announced the release of the first update to Debian 5.0 (codename Lenny), initially released in February.

=> ↺ Mint 6 “Fluxbox” – Short Review – Desktop Emphasis

• Meet Mint 6 Felicia, the community “Fluxbox” remake. The Fluxbox is a window manager that replaces Gnome’s default window manager. It is lightweight, customizable, and fast.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Linux-ready MIPS64 SoCs jump to 32 cores

• A Linux SDK and support from MontaVista and Wind River

• The Octeon II Software Development Kit (SDK) is an enhanced version of the existing Octeon SDK, says Cavium. It includes a Linux SMP, GNU Toolchain, and a “Simple Executive” for fast path applications. Other SDK features are said to include performance tools, a simulator, examples, and APIs for hardware acceleration Cavium also offers additional software toolkits and multi-core software architecture and design consulting services.

• Previously the Octeon SDKs have been based on SMP Linux 2.6 distributions from MontaVista or Wind River. Today, both companies announced support for the Octeon II family with their Carrier Grade Linux (CGL) 4.0-compliant MontaVista Linux and Wind River Linux 3.0 distributions, respectively.

=> ↺ Android army marches into living rooms

• Android, as just another Linux distribution, will be attractive to all sorts of companies. That doesn’t mean those devices will be accessing the Android Marketplace, but it will serve to increase the number of experienced Android developers.

=> ↺ Motorola building Android-based cable boxes for Japan’s KDDI?

Phones

=> ↺ Netbooks, Google Android Look to Thrive Despite the Economy

• While netbooks are becoming more powerful—and are in the throes of evolution, some say—ABI asserts that the more important changes have been at the lower end of the market, and that to create more inexpensive devices, designers are turning to Linux and the Google Android operating system.

• Research firm Strategy Analytics expects to see the Android mobile operating system take 12 percent of global smartphone shipment market share by 2012, as well as show growth in other device segments, which is already in evidence this year.

=> ↺ Android army marches into living rooms

• Android, as just another Linux distribution, will be attractive to all sorts of companies. That doesn’t mean those devices will be accessing the Android Marketplace, but it will serve to increase the number of experienced Android developers.

Sub-notebooks

=> ↺ Will Linux Overtake Windows XP in Netbooks?

• With cost-cutting pressures expected to continue into the post-recessionary phase, ABI Research predicts that Linux will benefit from the entry into the market of lower-cost netbooks that run ARM-based processors. The research firm also predicted that by 2012 Linux and “alternative operating systems” (OSes) will overtake Microsoft’s Windows XP in netbook sales. Apart from low-end netbooks, ABI cited the arrival of mobile stacks such as the Linux-based Android that are suited for these platforms as the main reason.

=> ↺ Pupeee 4.2 released

• Pupeee 4.2 is released. This Eee PC optimized Netbook distro is based on Puppy Linux. Puppy Linux (and the Puppeee distro) was written from scratch with 2 goals in mind: speed & ease of use.

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ How FOSS makes better programmers

• So in the end, yes, FOSS is destroying the traditional programming model. But what is growing up in its place makes what it’s replacing look silly and foolish, a practice and a product that should have been shed ages ago.

=> ↺ Globus Looks to the Future

• The open source Globus Project is planning for the future — and is looking to users for help in determining the grid computing group’s direction.

=> ↺ Knowmad Technologies Leverages Open Source to Help BabyPips.com Grow

• So they turned to Knowmad Technologies, known for their expertise in Open Source solutions. Knowmad developed and implemented a solution based on Open Source software. Forums, blogs, a wiki and a single sign-on solution were used to make the Web site interactive for its users.

=> ↺ Open Source: Channel Opportunity in a New World

• Fortunately, open-source alternatives have matured to the point where they deliver the value and return on investment that customers are demanding. Channel partners who have not investigated and embraced open-source solutions need to.

=> ↺ B/OSS World: BT’s Pardee Urges Telcos to Get Behind Open Source

• Now is the time to branch into open source. That was the assertion from Maria Pardee, managing director of global integration for BT in her keynote address Tuesday at the Billing & OSS World Conference & Expo.

=> ↺ Election Industry Trade Group Issues Report Examining Open Source Voting

• The report, entitled, “Open Source: Understanding its Application in the Voting Industry” reveals the need for policymakers to continue treating proprietary and open source products as separate and distinct.

=> ↺ Open source data integration tools good choice for ‘standard’ ETL jobs

• When Balfour Beatty Construction needed data integration software to connect its ERP and project management systems, the company considered many of the usual commercial data integration vendors.

• But, thanks to advice from colleagues at General Growth, decision makers at the Dallas-based construction firm also included open source data integration vendor Jitterbit in its evaluations.

=> ↺ Benefits of Using Open Source: Potential Versus Realizable

• Some definitions of open source explicitly require that open source software be freely available without any limitation or cost (free beer). However, others aren’t as concerned about the “free beer” aspect as they are about the “free speech” aspect of open source. Although most products that are advertised as open source do seem to be available for no cost, this should not be assumed without careful reading of the product’s license.

Mozilla

=> ↺ Firefox 3.5 beta 4 due next week

• Mozilla will release Firefox 3.0.9 as a regular maintenance update for the browser next week, but the company will also roll out the fourth beta version of a much more enhanced version, which will include the TraceMonkey Javascript engine. Previously developed under the Firefox 3.1 name, version 3.5 b4 will be made available in the coming week as well.

=> ↺ about:mozilla – Firefox support, Labs, Brazil, Add-ons, Tabs, Taskfox, and more…

• In this issue…

• • Help about:mozilla with a simple click * Firefox Support: Writing concise documents * Mozilla Labs: On rating mechanisms * Mozilla in Brazil update * Experimental add-ons and logins * Firefox.next: Tabs on the side? * Munich Mozilla meetup in May * Taskfox prototype: Ubiquity in Firefox

Video

=> ↺ The Digital Tipping Point: Free film made with free tools

• Christian Einfeldt is producing a documentary movie called the Digital Tipping Point about how free software is changing global culture. He is releasing all of his footage under a free license, and is inviting participants to grab the video and use it to tell stories about how free software has changed their lives. He also wants the film to be produced using only free software tools.

=> ↺ Obscure Shadows: New Open Source Linux Viewer With Dynamic Lighting, Projected Textures

• This eye-catching, remarkably vivid demo video shows off a Linux SL viewer built by renowned coder Opensource Obscure, using the “render-pipeline” from Linden Lab’s code branch. It was so impressive, I got in touch with Obscure, for more details.

Server

=> ↺ A faster, sleeker way to do MySQL?

• The archetypal MySQL database chugs along in the server room of a Web 2.0 start-up, powering a small but promising Web site. In fact, a quarter of the 12 million MySQL installations are data warehouses doing business intelligence and analytics for companies.

=> ↺ Large Data Set Analysis in the Cloud: Hadoop gets a boost

• Traditional business intelligence solutions can’t scale to the degree necessary in today’s data environment. One solution getting a lot of attention recently: Hadoop, an open-source product inspired by Google’s search architecture. Twenty years ago, most companies’ data came from fundamental transaction systems: Payroll, ERP, and so on.

=> ↺ NEWS: Yahoo! To Advance Cloud Computing Research With Universities

• Yahoo!’s M45 cluster runs Hadoop, an open source distributed file system and parallel execution environment that enables its users to process massive amounts of data. Apache Hadoop is an open source project of the Apache Software Foundation, to which Yahoo! engineers have been the primary contributors to date.

CMS

=> ↺ Concrete Releases Open-Source CMS to General Availability

• Concrete CMS today announced the general availability of its easy-to-use open source CMS product, Concrete5. The new release builds on Concrete’s foundation offering of a CMS that is as easy to configure as a blog, with the flexibility of a full web development platform. Improvements in Concrete5 include an updated file manager, embedded Picnik image editor, new help system and more. Concrete’s main competitors in the CMS space are Drupal and Joomla, but Silicon Florist says Concrete5 “crushes them in terms of ease-of-use.”

=> ↺ Drupal and Joomla to Lose Market Share to concrete5 Web CMS?

• If you were to believe all the hype surrounding concrete5, an open source Web content management system, then a remarkable new system has just gone on General Availability (GA).

=> ↺ Hippo Hips Up in the U.S. Market, Gets New Partner

• With its open source CMS — Hippo CMS 7.0 — recently out of the door, Hippo (news, site) has found a partner in the U.S. to help implement the revamped product. CorraTech is an open source software services and consulting shop. The two will work together to deliver web content management solutions to mid-market and enterprise customers.

Business

=> ↺ Zenoss Joins Industry Leaders in the Open Source Channel Alliance

• Zenoss Inc., a value leader in enterprise network and systems management, today announced that it is a founding member of the Open Source Channel Alliance. Led by Red Hat, the alliance program includes leading commercial open source software vendors including; Alfresco, Enterprise DB, Ingres, Jaspersoft, Likewise, Pentaho, Zmanda, and Zenoss. Through the alliance Zenoss has signed a distribution agreement with SYNNEX Corporation (NYSE: SNX) to distribute and market Zenoss’ portfolio of cost-effective, enterprise-proven network and systems monitoring solutions.

=> ↺ Citadel 7.5 Groupware Provides ClamAV Integration

• The Citadel project has released version 7.5 of its GPL3-licensed groupware server. The release improves the web interface and countless other details.

=> ↺ Why Be a Victim of Vendor Lock-in?

• Herring cites the example of using proprietary products from BEA Systems/Oracle, which are far more expensive to acquire than open-source alternatives and don’t even offer enterprise developers the flexibility to customize to fit their particular business’s changing needs. The strength of the open source community pays off when more than just a few employees of a particular vendor are at work on a solution but rather an entire community. Rollout time is reduced dramatically, Herring notes.

=> ↺ Cleversafe Expands Open Source Cloud Storage

• That’s been the promise of open source storage vendor Cleversafe, which this week is unveiling new technology to further streamline delivery — and potentially improving the process of making content available at massive scale.

=> ↺ Q&A video with Appcelerator founders

• Appcelerator, founded in 2006, uses an open-source platform designed to help developers more quickly create Web apps.

Funding

=> ↺ Open-source VC investments: Time for payback

• Venture capitalists have poured $3.2 billion into open-source companies since 1997, according to a new report from The 451 Group. It’s about time we started delivering a return on that investment.

=> ↺ Open Source 2009: It’s the Economy, Stupid. Or is it?

• Good news: Open source companies are alive and well.

=> ↺ InfoTech: Ez Systems proves open source model can be profitable

• The Open Source model for business is challenging – but publishing platform developer Ez Systems of Norway has proved that it’s a model that can turn in profits – provided you get the product right.

=> ↺ Open Core Debate: The Battle for a Business Model

• So-called open core software is essentially a subset of open source — a vendor gives away a free version under traditional open license and sells a commercial version with advanced features. Some open source purists see this as undermining the purpose of open source, but open core proponents say it’s the key to a new business model.

Security

=> ↺ New Coverity products verify use of open source software

• Coverity, Inc. announced two new tools for software development today: Coverity Build Analysis and the Coverity Integrity Center. These products are helpful for any type of development, but include features specially designed for companies using open source software in their commercial offerings.

=> ↺ Coverity Building Open Source Code Quality

=> ↺ Coverity: A new Mercury Interactive in the making?

=> ↺ Security Update for open source virus scanner

• The developers of the open source virus scanner ClamAV have released version 0.95.1, denoting is as simply a “bugfix release” with no security warnings. However, security service providers such as Secunia and the French Vupen (formerly FrIST) classify it as a critical safety update.

Government

=> ↺ Venezuela Information Technology Report Q1 2009

• In August 2008 the IT agency CNTI said that nearly 60% of Venezuela’s government offices had switched from proprietary software to open source, compared with its target of 100% migration by yearend 2008. Some ministries stood out for their progress. Venezuela’s Social Development Ministry had reportedly already migrated 93% of its PCs and all of its servers to open source, having started the migration in 2007.

=> ↺ OneWorld South Asia: International NGO relies intensively on open source solutions

• OneWorld South Asia (OWSA), the south Asian centre of OneWorld International Foundation, works to facilitate human rights and sustainable development in the region by leveraging a range of media and Information Communication Technologies (ICTs). For its IT projects, this international NGO, rely intensively on Plone, an open source Content Management System (CMS) and Zope an open source application server.

Licensing

=> ↺ Stallman discusses Free Software and GPLv3

• Richard Stallman: I am disappointed that Linux has not moved to GPLv3, since that means the added protections for users’ freedom do not apply to this important component of the GNU/Linux system. I was also somewhat alarmed to discover that Microsoft has procured the continued use of GPLv2 by certain projects by giving them money.

• Nonetheless, GPLv3 is used by many free software projects, and has even convinced some developers to liberate previously proprietary software packages. Overall, I think it is accomplishing its mission.

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ Digital Standards Organization publishes “standards for standards”

• The COSS lifecycle defines a specification as a contract between designers, implementers, and users. The weight of the contract depends on where the specification is, in its lifecycle: from raw, to draft, to stable, legacy, and through to retired. COSS editor Pieter Hintjens concludes, this model allows for experimentation, and standardization, which are normally opposed to each other.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Activist Group Uses DMCA To Take Down Video Exposing Its Fake Concerned Citizens

• That raises all sorts of questions… MSNBC reporting on the videos is almost certainly fair use of NOM’s videos. But, it was someone else who uploaded the MSNBC clip to YouTube. MSNBC is still running the clip on its own site — but, if anyone had any sort of DMCA claim on the video, one would think it would be MSNBC… not NOM. So, then, is NOM abusing the DMCA takedown process, in demanding an entire video (most of which is not its content) be taken down? Seems like you (or, say, the EFF) could make a pretty strong case for that…

=> ↺ Boston College Campus Police: “Using Prompt Commands” May Be a Sign of Criminal Activity

• Should Boston College Linux users be looking over their shoulders?

• In his application, the investigating officer asked that he be permitted to seize the student’s computers and other personal effects because they might yield evidence of the crimes of “Obtaining computer services by Fraud or Misrepresentation” and “Unauthorized access to a computer system.” Aside from the remarkable overreach by campus and state police in trying to paint a student as suspicious in part because he can navigate a non-Windows computer environment, nothing cited in the warrant application could possibly constitute the cited criminal offenses. There are no assertions that a commercial (i.e. for pay) commercial service was defrauded, a necessary element of any “Obtaining computer services by Fraud or Misrepresentation” allegation. Similarly, the investigating officer doesn’t explain how sending an e-mail to a campus mailing list might constitute “unauthorized access to a computer system.”

=> ↺ Homeland Security profiles conservatives, libertarians as “right-wing extremists”

• Did you buy extra ammunition after Barack Obama was elected President, and are you still concerned that he might ban your guns? Are you concerned that the economic crisis could devolve into a depression, or worse? Do you think the federal government has overstepped its authority under the Constitution? If so, the government thinks you’re a right-wing extremist and a potential terrorist threat.

Censorship/Web Abuse

=> ↺ Germany not a hard-line censor after all

• Beasts Associated were suitably unimpressed by this action and issued a statement (pdf) saying: “As a result of Mr. Reppe behaving in a manner that contravened the terms of the contract, notice of termination of his contract was issued as long ago as the start of December 2008, with the contract due to end on 30 March 2009, once the period of notice expired.

• “No objection was submitted in respect of the termination, and no legal action is pending against the termination.”

• They also warned Reppe that he should move his domains to another registrar as his domains would be placed “in transit” after March 31.

=> ↺ Time Warner Cable tells FCC to shut up about net neutrality

• “Now is not the time… to engage in a debate about the need for net neutrality obligations,” Time Warner Cable tells the FCC. But why not, other than the fact that TWC is taking a beating over bandwidth caps?

=> ↺ Amazon blocks Phorm adverts scan

• Amazon has said it will not allow online advertising system Phorm to scan its web pages to produce targeted ads.

=> ↺ Phorm director advises UK.gov broadband minister

• The Commission yesterday began infringement proceedings against the UK over the lack of a regulatory response to BT and Phorm’s secret trials of internet interception and profiling technology in 2006 and 2007. The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) is coordinating the government’s response, which if unsatisfactory could lead to heavy fines from the European Court of Justice.

=> ↺ Britain in the dock over secret tracking of internet accounts

• Fears that Britain is slipping into a surveillance society have been heightened by Brussels initiating legal action after declaring that UK laws guaranteeing data protection were “structurally flawed” and well below the European standard.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Canadian Recording Industry Puts Out Copyright Law FAQ… Which Gets Almost Everything Wrong

• Does the CRIA actually think anyone believes that P2P file sharing is the reason for this? I don’t do any file sharing at all, but haven’t set foot in a physical “record store” in years — because I buy all my CDs online (and, yes, I still buy CDs). To claim that the end of physical retailing can be blamed on file sharing is simply ridiculous.

=> ↺ I got you, babe

• Obama is whistling the music industry’s tune

=> ↺ Pirate Bay confident of trial win

• No copyright content is hosted on The Pirate Bay’s web servers; instead the site hosts “torrent” links to TV, film and music files held on its users’ computers.

• The file-sharing program BitTorrent, which is a legal piece of file-sharing software, uses the torrent links to manage the transfer of files online between those who have parts of the data and those who need parts of the data.

=> ↺ The Value of Sharing

• Yesterday I wrote about how the media industries abuse language in order to justify their broken business models; today I’d like to complement this by looking at their misuse of numbers.

• One of the weapons in the intellectual monopolists’ armoury is citing the economic damage that sharing puportedly causes. What’s remarkable is that the numbers usually quoted – around $250 billion – have been touted for decades, creating a kind of self-referential justification.

=> ↺ Trying to save orphan works from the Authors Guild monopoly control

• The Author’s Guild v Google suit recently produced a settlement agreement. The agreement has been lauded widely, but what hasn’t gotten as much press is what the agreement says about orphan works — copyrighted works whose author cannot be found, or where it is not clear if the copyright is valid.

=> ↺ [A2k] Re: [Upd-discuss] Free us from the Swindle

• I sympathize with the feeling behind these protests, but they are directed at the wrong target.

• The protestors rightly condemn the Authors Guild for demanding the removal of the screen reader feature, but the way they are doing it makes Amazon look like a victim. Actually it is the main perpetrator.

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