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● 09.26.15

● Links 25/9/2015: GNU/Linux in Indian Government, NeoKylin in China

Posted in News Roundup at 2:42 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

=> ↺ No, XFS won’t steal your money

• That handy link & footnote leads us to Wikipedia, which explains that “XFS middleware” refers to CEN/XFS, which is not in any way related to the XFS filesystem, or Linux, and is in fact Microsoft specific:

• CEN/XFS or XFS (eXtensions for Financial Services) provides a client-server architecture for financial applications on the Microsoft Windows platform.

=> ↺ What’s the Game or App That Would Convince You to Drop Windows?

• One of the reasons some users are not dropping Windows right now and adopting Linux is because of a particular game they love and play. So, what is the game that’s keeping you from switching to Linux and total freedom?

=> ↺ Keeping your Linux system safe

• On Linux servers, ClamAV can be run as a daemon. It can service requests to scan files sent from other processes. These can include spam filters or files on Samba shares. ClamAV typically runs from the command line, but there are third party developers who have created graphical user interfaces for it.

=> ↺ Microsoft’s Linux OS & Open Source Cred

• Now, I can’t guarantee that Microsoft would actually get the open source cred they want by following these steps. There are a lot of decades of bad blood to overcome. But it couldn’t hurt and would be a start anyway.

=> ↺ Linux based Boss to replace Microsoft’s Windows as OS for Indian Government

• Whether be it the countless attacks by Chinese hackers on key government websites or be it Snowden reports, it has exposed the vulnerabilities in the cyberspace. The Government of India has decided to go its own way and has decided to create its own operating system (OS) and replace all other OSs. This could be a major set-back to the most popular Microsoft Windows, that has so far dominated the operating systems market in India.

Desktop

=> ↺ NeoKylin is the Linux OS China built to look like Windows XP

• When Microsoft finally announced that official support for Windows XP was coming to an end, China wasn’t happy. At the time, Windows accounted for 91 percent market share on the desktop, compared to seven percent for OS X and just over one percent for Linux. Calling it “fairly expensive,” China wasn’t too keen to upgrade to Windows 8 either, or pay for extended support like the US Navy has.

• To solve these issues, and “wean its IT sector off Western software,” China decided to create its own OS. At first, this involved partnering with Canonical to create Ubuntu Kylin, a heavily localised version of Ubuntu for the Chinese market. However, since then the government has been championing a new OS, one that’s entirely home grown, and one that’s eerily familiar to millions of users.

=> ↺ Chromebooks, Linux, and Lenovo

• Have you ever made a technology purchase without fully researching the device to make sure you can use it the way you want to? I have, and many times I’ve come to regret it. My recent purchase of a Lenovo Thinkpad 11e Chromebook is trying to turn into one of those times.

• I have a collection of sad old obsolete laptops that are essentially tethered permanently to an electrical outlet to function. They’re also mostly large and bulky, so not ideal for on-the-go use. I also have an old Asus eee Netbook that was the main computer I used when out and about, but it was slow and not able to do too much at once without being bogged down.

=> ↺ Give new life and purpose to old hardware

• …this includes old Android Phones too.

=> ↺ What you should not expect when switching to Linux

• Linux is a great operating system. Nobody in the Linux camp will argue about that. There are many articles on the Internet convincing you to try and to switch to Linux. There are also many articles that attempt to show you why you should not switch.

• Let’s look at this question from a slightly different viewpoint today. Say, you are now convinced that you want to switch to Linux. What you should NOT expect from this switch?

=> ↺ Google Chromebooks Make Up Nearly Half of All US K-12 Device Sales

• Chromebooks, which began as cheap netbooks that required Internet and raised eyebrows, have now become a bargain for many schools, especially as educational tools increasingly move to the cloud. They made up almost half of the 3.9 million devices shipped to the US K-12 market from April through June 2015.

=> ↺ A first look at the Chinese operating system the government wants to replace Windows

• Microsoft Windows is the dominant operating system in China, but the government is trying to encourage homegrown replacements. The most popular one is called NeoKylin. We gave it a whirl to see how the hottest China-made OS looks and feels.

=> ↺ China’s Linux-based replacement for Windows XP looks an awful lot like Windows XP

• When the Quartz reviewer attempted to install Google Chrome, he was blocked. The same happened with other apps. Quite a few apps were blocked from installation, but eventually they found they could manually add the apps by editing system files, and who wants novice computer users like office workers doing that?

=> ↺ FLOSS OSs Break Out In Gibraltar

• FreeBSD (0.67%) and Chrome OS GNU/Linux (1.68%) peaked on September 21. GNU/Linux began to ramp up on September 20 and is still rising (16.41%). Even “Unknown” jumped to 0.67% on September 20 and reached 0.96% yesterday. It could be Gibraltar’s schools have adopted FLOSS as affordable and robust. Nearby, Malta stood at 5.42% and Reunion stood at 6.71% GNU/Linux page-views yesterday. Doing education rather than IT is what schools are about.

Server

=> ↺ Clear Containers for Docker* Engine

=> ↺ Nginx Plus vs open source Nginx

=> ↺ NGINX Plus R7 Brings HTTP2 Support to Servers

=> ↺ Docker Hub Expands Container Deployments, Development

• The online development project repository for Docker containers apps grows dramatically in the 15 months since Docker Inc. introduced the technology. The open-source Docker container technology is popular for a number of reasons, particularly ease of virtualized application development and deployment.

• A key tool in the Docker arsenal for development and deployment is Docker Hub—which was launched in June 2014 by Docker Inc., the lead commercial sponsor behind Docker—and has grown significantly over the course of the past year.

=> ↺ Revealed: Why Amazon, Netflix, Tinder, Airbnb and co plunged offline

• …mega-outage was caused by vital systems in one part of AWS

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Podcast Season 3 Episode 16

=> ↺ Suckless

Kernel Space

=> ↺ PulseAudio 7.0 Improves Support for Creative SoundBlaster Omni Surround 5.1

• Arun Raghavan has had the great pleasure of announcing the release and immediate availability for download of the PulseAudio 7.0 open-source sound server software for GNU/Linux operating systems.

=> ↺ libratbag – a library for configurable mice

• Many modern mice have the ability to store profiles, customize button mappings and actions and switch between several hardware resolutions. A number of those mice are targeted at gamers, but the features are increasingly common in standard mice. Under Linux, support for these device is spotty, though there are a few projects dedicated to supporting parts of the available device range. [1] [2] [3]

=> ↺ kdbus is merged into linux-next

• kdbus is a somewhat contentious kernel patch that is intended to provide the dbus api in kernel space. It is slated to be a drop in replacement for dbus (user space), with the initial beneficiary of the merge the systemd software that is present on most recent distributions. With linux 4.3rc1 out (which does not include kdbus), linux-next (proposals for inclusion of patches into kernel 4.4) has been made available, and it does indeed include kdbus.

=> ↺ Exclusive Interview: HydroXphere’s Charlie Houchin

• As an avid swimmer growing up in North Carolina, Charlie Houchin spent his summers participating in many volunteer-run community swim meets. After he graduated from the University of Michigan, Houchin qualified for the 2012 London Olympics, where he won a gold medal in the 4×200 freestyle relay. At the 2013 World Championships in Barcelona, he won another gold medal in the same event.

• [...]

• Product positioning is one thing that IoT tech helps enable — certainly AllJoyn has for us — the idea of capturing data at the point of origin — for us, that had been a powerful concept we’ve applied.

=> ↺ Linux 4.1 is a longterm kernel.

=> ↺ [website PATCH] 4.1 is a longterm kernel.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ Optimizing shader assembly instruction on Mesa using shader-db

• So in order to get the final shader assemlby, it was executed a copy propagation, a register coalesce, and a dead code eliminate. BTW, I found that environment variable while looking at the code. It is not listed on the mesa envvar page, something I assume is a bug.

Applications

=> ↺ Git 2.5.3 Open-Source Distributed Version Control System Now Available for Download

• On September 17, the Git developers announced that the third maintenance release of the stable 2.5 branch of the world’s most used distributed version control system software, Git, is available for download for all GNU/Linux operating systems, as well as for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X platforms.

=> ↺ Kodi 15.2 RC2 Open-Source Media Center Is Out for Grabs, Final Release Coming Soon

• Kodi’s Martijn Kaijser announced earlier today, September 20, the immediate availability for download and testing of the second RC (Release Candidate) build of the upcoming Kodi 15.2 release.

• Kodi 15.2 will be the second point release of the 15.x series of the world’s most acclaimed open-source media center software, formerly known as XBMC Media Center. According to the release notes, Kodi 15.2 Release Candidate 2 fixes more of those annoying issues reported by users since the previous RC build.

=> ↺ Babel renewed – again.

=> ↺ GNOME 3.18′s Cheese Open-Source Webcam Viewer App Gets New Features

=> ↺ 4 open source alternatives to Slack for team chat

• In any collaborative environment, it’s important to have good tools for communication. What tools work best for you depend a bit on your situation, but might include anything from mailing lists for email communication, Git or Subversion for version control, a wiki or Etherpad for collaborative authoring, a shared task list for organizing workflow, or even a full fledged project management suite.

=> ↺ Flatcar: A tool for creating Docker-ready Rails projects

• One of the most compelling reasons to use Ruby on Rails is the ease in which you can get a web project up and running. And one of Docker’s key benefits is freedom from “dependency hell”.

• In his prior post, Mike Arnold (@dharmamike) provided a 5-Step guide on how to setup In-container Rails development on your local machine using Docker Compose.

=> ↺ nginScript: A JavaScript tool for configuring NGINX

=> ↺ Linux: Making the jump from Photoshop to GIMP

=> ↺ Yawls: Let Your Webcam Adjust Your Laptop Screen Brightness in Ubuntu/Linux Mint

Proprietary

=> ↺ Storix® System Backup Administrator Announces Support for Linux Distributions Optimized for IBM POWER8

=> ↺ Install Microsoft Office 2010 using PlayOnLinux On Ubuntu 15.04

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to Watch Netflix Natively on Linux – the Easy Way

=> ↺ How to Use Conspy to View and Control Remote Linux Virtual Consoles in Real Time

=> ↺ How to Compile and Install Linux Kernel v4.2 Source On a Debian / Ubuntu Linux

=> ↺ Deluge Torrent 1.3.12 Released, How To Install/Update In Ubuntu/Linux Mint Or Other Derivatives

=> ↺ How To Install & Use TrueCrypt In Ubuntu Linux To Encrypt Files & Folders

=> ↺ How to Record and Replay Linux Terminal Sessions using ‘script’ and ‘scriptreplay’ Commands

=> ↺ How to Install and Set Up Tor Browser on Linux

=> ↺ How to trigger commands on File/Directory changes with Incron on Debian

=> ↺ How to fix ‘Fontconfig warning’ errors in Linux

=> ↺ When does your documentation need screenshots?

=> ↺ JBoss/Wildfly Doman Mode Master/Slave Set Up & Configuration

=> ↺ Migrate a LAMP application to Bluemix

=> ↺ RDO Liberty DVR Deployment (Controller/Network)+Compute+Compute (ML2&OVS&VXLAN) on CentOS 7.1

=> ↺ How to extend GIMP with GMIC

=> ↺ How to install phpList on a CentOS 7 VPS

=> ↺ Hooking into docking and undocking events to run scripts

=> ↺ Working with z/VM DIRMAINT as a mere user

=> ↺ virt-v2v, libguestfs and qemu remote drivers in RHEL 7

=> ↺ Using a system installed conda

=> ↺ what’s cooking in sfdisk for v2.28

=> ↺ How To Install Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS On VirtualBox

=> ↺ Using Flannel as a soft-defined networking solution for rkt containers

=> ↺ Clustering Atomic Hosts with Kubernetes, Ansible, and Vagrant

=> ↺ A beginner’s guide to bash scripting

=> ↺ Your _get_type() function is not G_GNUC_CONST

=> ↺ Getting Started with UFW (Uncomplicated Firewall) on Ubuntu 15.04

=> ↺ Enable Remote root login in Ubuntu Linux

=> ↺ Installing Persistant Linux on a USB

=> ↺ How to install Koken on an Ubuntu VPS

=> ↺ Bashing Your Shell: Shell Scripting Boot Camp

=> ↺ Continuous Delivery: Getting Started

=> ↺ Using Command Line Aliases – Frequently

=> ↺ Aggregating application logs from Docker containers with Loggly

=> ↺ Vagrant Simplified

• I admit it, some tools confuse me. I know they must be amazing, because programs don’t get popular by being dumb (well, reality TV, but that’s another story). I have the same sort of confusion with Vagrant that I have with Wine, Docker, Chef and countless other amazing tools people constantly rave about. So in this article, I’m going to break down Vagrant into its simplest form.

=> ↺ Real-Time E-Book Editing With Calibre

• The only caveat to this process is that it requires you have at least a basic understanding of HTML and CSS (as the editing pane works with both). In other words, you’re not going to be editing a LibreOffice .odt file in a WYSIWYG editor. Also, you must have converted your e-book to either .epub or .azw3 formats (the Calibre editor cannot work with .mobi files).

=> ↺ 10 passwd command examples in Linux

=> ↺ Building and Installing the latest kernel on CentOS 7

=> ↺ How to Create Encrypted and Bandwidth-efficient Backups Using ‘Duplicity’ in Linux

=> ↺ How To Watch Hulu on Ubuntu 14.04 and Up

• Want to know how to watch Hulu on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and up?

• Well, we’re going to show you.

• The American streaming service Hulu uses Adobe Flash to play back video in the browser, and uses Adobe Flash DRM to encrypt it.

=> ↺ Setting up Unison File Synchronization between two Servers on Debian 8 (Jessie)

=> ↺ Setting up Unison File Synchronization between two Servers on Debian 8 (Jessie)

• Today we look at Yakuake, the drop down terminal emulator for KDE. This application is part of The KDE Extragear collection, hosted on KDE-Apps.org. You can also download it from KDE.org’s Yakuake mirror page.

=> ↺ Display Awesome Linux Logo With Basic Hardware Info Using screenfetch and linux_logo Tools

=> ↺ Top 3 Online Resources for Learning the Command Line (For Linux and OS X)

Games

=> ↺ Adventure RPG ‘Last Word’ Now Available On Steam For Linux

• The game has been ported to Linux by Jonas Ancurio Kulla, who is best known for his ports of To the Moon and Always Sometimes Monsters and for mkxp, which is an open source implementation of the scripting interface used by the latest generations of the RPG Maker engine. Last Word also uses Ryan C. Gordon’s newly released open source framework SteamShim for Steamworks integration.

=> ↺ Alien: Isolation heading to Mac and Linux next week

• In my day, Mac games were limited to playing tag in your raincoat, so it’s always great to see the Macintosh’s relatively tiny game library expand. The latest big-budget developer to offer a Mac version of one of their games is Creative Assembly, whose Alien: Isolation is coming to Mac—and Linux—next week.

=> ↺ Insurgency FPS Now Has The Linux Port On Their Official Trello Todo List

• The FPS junky in me approves of this, the developers of Insurgency added the Linux port to their official Trello todo list, and it looks like it already runs.

=> ↺ Valve Goes After Microsoft: You Don’t Need to Ever Build a DirectX 12 Game

• Vulkan is a new API from the Khronos Group, the same developers who are also working on OpenGL. Their efforts are now supported by Valve as well, and they are saying that developers won’t ever need to make a DirectX 12 game.

=> ↺ New Steam controller, Sherlock Holmes on ScummVM, and more open gaming news

=> ↺ Old PC games rendered unplayable thanks to Windows update

• In the age of the digital download, DRM is a hot-button issue for video game players. The concept of ownership was cut-and-dried in the days of physical media, but there’s far more room for debate now that digital distribution services like Steam make up such a large proportion of the wider marketplace.

• And while the concept of DRM is nothing new, it’s the age of the practice that might lead to some older games becoming unplayable — thanks to a new update Microsoft has released for systems running running Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8.

=> ↺ Vendetta Online 1.8.350 3D Space Combat MMORPG Gets 21 New Missions

• Guild Software has had the pleasure of announcing that their popular, cross-platform 3D space combat MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game), Vendetta Online, has been updated to version 1.8.350.

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ Enlightenment 0.19.11 Desktop Environment for GNU/Linux Systems Fixes over 30 Bugs

• Looking at the release notes, which we’ve attached at the end of the article for reference, it would appear that there are 33 changes in the eleventh maintenance release of the Enlightenment 0.19 desktop environment.

=> ↺ Exploring Tiling Window Managers

• If you have a low-resource computer, one with a small screen like some laptops, or are even someone just looking for something different to try, a tiling window manager could be a good option. They’re not for everybody, but then they’re not just for command-line commandos either.

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ How I solved a digiKam panorama hiccup

• I’ve come across a stumble in digiKam panorama creation, but also found a way around it, too.

=> ↺ Kubuntu 15.10 Beta 2

=> ↺ Get your Kubuntu Wily (to become 15.10) Beta 2

=> ↺ libssh is running in the Matrix now

• With all of this implemented and new releases of the wrappers, which I’m preparing at the moment, all you have to do is to install cmocka, socket_wrapper, nss_wrapper and uid_wrapper and run ‘make test’. The Matrix will be created and libssh tested. You can find the cwrap libssh branch here.

• There is one test for a feature missing right now. We do not test keyboard-interactive authentication, but the cwrap project is working on a new wrapper to fix this. Stay tuned!

=> ↺ KDE: Kubuntu: #Akademy and #Randa oh my!

• Kubuntu Day landed on the same day as my BoF sadly so I did not get to attend much of that. I was able to attend the BoF with Munich and a lot was accomplished in regards to upstream KDE working closer with the Munich team. Overall Akademy was extremely successful in catching up with everyone and working with them in person.

=> ↺ Vote in the Kiki Drawing Challenge Contest

=> ↺ Done Porting!

• Technically, we’re done porting Krita to Qt5 and KDE Frameworks 5…

=> ↺ September 26: SystemSettings and KCMs bug triaging day!

=> ↺ 3 Brand New Plasma 5 Themes by half-left

• I don’t even remember the last time when I used KDE. The versions after KDE 3.x were not really my cup of tea. But when Sean mailed me some of his new works, I just had to try KDE one more time. Sean (half-left) is a renowned designer and customization guru who for years have been producing some of the greatest themes and artwork for Linux desktop. And as always, his latest creations are just as good as ever. 3 gorgeous Plasma 5 themes folks.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ Who wrote GTK+ (Reprise)

=> ↺ Outrageous Outreach

• The Internet being what it is today, being a public figure can be a very dangerous role. For those unaware, Karen Sandler has been under vigorous attacks—hate mail, public slandering, and more—for having been the GNOME Foundation‘s Executive Director from 2011 to 2014. Contrary to what I had hoped, even many months after, the hate has not died down. You still see wretched hives of scum and villainy like this blog post on a regular basis (warning: the comments over there are depressing). Enough is enough, time to set the record straight.

=> ↺ Introducing gspell, a new spell checking library

• At first I wanted to contribute to GtkSpell so that GtkSpell and GtkSourceView work well together, without a dependency on each other. GtkSourceView defines a no-spell-check region. For LaTeX, the region includes the LaTeX command’s names, for example. But GtkSpell didn’t read that region, and the region was available only through the GtkSourceView API. Adding a dependency on GtkSourceView in GtkSpell was not desirable, because many applications use GtkSpell only. Also, a library like GtkSpell could potentially add the support for GtkEntry too, so if there is a dependency on GtkSourceView, it isn’t nice for an application that wants only the spell checking for a GtkEntry. The solution was actually really simple: the no-spell-check region is a GtkTextTag. After setting a name to the tag and expose it in the API, it was possible for GtkSpell to lookup the tag and read the region.

=> ↺ raspberry pi, hifiberry, piTFT with gtk GUI

• I bought a hifiberry amp (a 2x25W class D amplifier with a fully digital path from the raspberry) and a PiTFT 2.8″ touchscreen. I’m planning to integrate them with my raspberry pi model B inside in a set of Mission 731i speakers. That will give me a set of powered speakers that can stream music over a wifi network, with a touchscreen interface.

=> ↺ WebKit Contributors Meeting 2015 (late, I know)

=> ↺ WebKitGTK+ 2.10

• WebKitGTK+ already had an HTTP disk cache implementation, simply using SoupCache, but Apple introduced a new cross-platform implementation to WebKit (just a few bits needed a platform specific implementation), so we decided to switch to it.

=> ↺ GNOME 3.18 is out!

• We left codenames and macaques years ago but this year at GUADEC came the idea of a small gift to the GUADEC and GNOME.Asia teams, they do an amazing work, and here we are, the GNOME 3.18 release has been named “Gothenburg” as a token of recognition for this year’s GUADEC team.

=> ↺ GNOME 3.20 to Get Reworked Nautilus Search, Gtk+ Improvements, and More

• The development cycle for GNOME never stops and soon we’ll have the first releases in the 3.20 branch of the desktop environment. This happens because there are usually a lot of changes, improvements, and features that are not ready in time for a release and they get pushed forward. In this case, pretty much anything that landed too late for GNOME 3.18 will probably be ready in time for 3.20, and so on.

=> ↺ Screenshot preview of GNOME 3.18 on Fedora 23

• Together with the default Fedora edition, which uses the GNOME 3 desktop, and the Spins, Fedora editions that use other desktop environments, the beta 1 installation images were released three days ago.

• I’ve already posted a few screenshots from a test installation of the Cinnamon Spin. See Fedora 23 Cinnamon preview. In this post, you’ll find screenshots taken from a test installation of the main edition.

=> ↺ Here’s What’s New in the GNOME 3.18 Desktop Environment – Video

• The highly anticipated GNOME 3.18 open-source desktop environment for GNU/Linux distributions will be officially unveiled tomorrow, September 23, 2015, and it promises to add a host of new features, as well as numerous under-the-hood improvements.

=> ↺ GNOME 3.18 RC Is Out, Stable Version to Land on September 23

=> ↺ gtkmm 3.18 and glibmm 2.46

• A couple of days ago I made the usual bunch of *mm releases for GNOME 3.18, including glibmm 2.46 and gtkmm 3.18, wrapping glib and GTK+ for C++. This adds the usual collection of new API from glib and GTK+, but the big change is the use of C++ 11.

Distributions

Reviews

=> ↺ ​Turnkey Linux 14: Small business server Linux made easy

• Let’s say you want inexpensive, open-source server applications that are under your control… but you don’t have the tech chops to install Linux server programs from packages, never mind source code. If that’s you, then you need Turnkey Linux.

Screenshots/Screencasts

=> ↺ Live Voyager X2 – Screencast and Screenshots

=> ↺ Apricity OS 09.2015 Beta Screenshot Tour

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

=> ↺ Exploring the magic of Mageia 5

• Mageia, a community distribution forked from the now-discontinued Mandriva project, released Mageia 5 a few weeks ago. The new version of Mageia ships with updated software packages and UEFI support. (Secure Boot is not supported at this time.) The development team provided a good deal of documentation with the new version, supplying release notes, a summarizing release announcement and errata to guide us through potential problems. The Mageia distribution is available in many different builds and editions. There are plain installation discs, live discs (offered in GNOME and KDE editions) and discs for network installations. Each of the download options is available in 32-bit and 64-bit x86 builds.

=> ↺ A review of the Mageia 5 Linux distro

Arch Family

=> ↺ Second Alpha Build of Manjaro Linux Xfce 15.12 Is Now Available for Download

• After publishing details about the last Release Candidate builds of the Manjaro Linux Xfce 15.09 and Manjaro Linux KDE 15.09 distributions, Philip Müller had the pleasure of announcing a few minutes ago, September 18, the immediate availability for download and testing of the second Alpha build of Manjaro Linux Xfce 15.12.

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ An Everyday Linux User Review Of CentOS Linux 7

• As mentioned in my previous review (Q4OS), I recently updated a guide designed to help people choose the right Linux distribution for them by going through the top 25 Linux distributions on Distrowatch and providing a short excerpt about each one, listing who they are for and what users can expect.

• There were a handful that I hadn’t tried myself and so I had to use other people’s words to describe them. Q4OS was one of them and CentOS was another. I can now say that I have tried both of these distributions.

=> ↺ Red Hat To Be First $2 Billion Open Source Company

• Red Hat reports 13% growth in the second quarter, improved cloud and emerging technology sales, and an expanded revenue estimate for third quarter.

=> ↺ Red Hat’s Equal Weight Rating Reaffirmed at Pacific Crest (RHT)

=> ↺ 5 takeaways from a Red Hat intern

• This past summer, I was a Red Hat intern and conducted a top-secret operation with high-quality survey methods (OK, maybe just some interviews and conversations with fellow interns). I wanted to learn the keys to a successful internship experience at Red Hat.

• Red Hat prides itself on running an incredibly strong internship program. The company realizes the importance of teaching future employees from the ground up. And the feedback I got from the interns I spoke with was overwhelmingly positive.

=> ↺ New Red Hat CFO Calderoni predicts big milemarker for open-source giant

=> ↺ The Open Organization book club: Engaging people

=> ↺ Be a leader who can admit mistakes

=> ↺ FOSS Training Campaign, Red Hat Aims At $2 Billion & More…

=> ↺ Red Hat: Public Cloud Will Drive The Company To The Next Level

• In the quarter, Red Hat’s annualized run rate from its certified cloud and service provider program reached $100 million. It might appear insignificant at the first glance, but if it is judged from the perspective of the company’s future potential in public cloud compared to where it was a year ago, $100 million is an important milestone. Red Hat’s RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) expansion in public cloud helped the company achieve the milestone. Although Red Hat is still a traditional data center company offering software to enterprises for internal operations, I believe it is silently becoming a cloud computing powerhouse via its container and full virtualization technologies.

=> ↺ Red Hat Introduces Training and Certification Paths for OpenStack

=> ↺ Red Hat Announces New OpenStack Training and Certification Offerings

=> ↺ Red Hat launches new OpenStack training and certifications

Fedora

=> ↺ Red Hat unveils foretaste of upcoming features with Fedora 23 Beta release

=> ↺ Fedora 23 Cinnamon preview

• The Cinnamon Desktop will be the newest desktop environment with its own Fedora installation image when Fedora 23 is released late next month.

• That would add one more Fedora Spin to the list of existing Spins. Fedora Spins are Fedora editions with a desktop environment different from the GNOME 3 desktop environment. GNOME 3 is the default desktop environment of Fedora.

=> ↺ The Linux Setup – Jim Whitehurst, President/CEO, Red Hat

• Actually, I started using Linux well before I came to work at Red Hat. But having been at Red Hat for (going on) eight years now, it’s pretty much all I use.

• When I first started using Linux, I was trying to breathe life into an old computer. I was hacking around to see what it was all about. I graduated from Rice with a computer science degree back in 1989, and we used Solaris. Linux didn’t exist yet!

=> ↺ Red Hat’s Fedora 23 Beta showcases Enterprise Linux platform features

=> ↺ FUDcon at cba24n

• During FUDcon we had the opportunity to participate on a small interview that channel cba24n did, and where Valentin, Neville and I were invited to talk, explaining a bit about what’s the FUDcon and why do we promote open source technologies as a community.

=> ↺ Fedora 23 Beta Is Out! Upgrade To Fedora 23 From Fedora 22

Debian Family

=> ↺ Reproducible builds: week 21 in Stretch cycle

=> ↺ The Incredible Proof Machine

• Unfortunately, I don’t think one can get high school students without any prior knowledge in logic, or programming, or fancy mathematical symbols, to do something meaningful with a system like Isabelle, so I need something that is (much) easier to use. I always had this idea in the back of my head that proving is not so much about writing text (as in “normally written” proofs) or programs (as in Agda) or labeled statements (as in Hilbert-style proofs), but rather something involving facts that I have proven so far floating around freely, and way to combine these facts to new facts, without the need to name them, or put them in a particular order or sequence. In a way, I’m looking for labVIEW wrestled through the Curry-Horward-isomorphism. Something like this:

=> ↺ RcppEigen 0.3.2.5.1

=> ↺ jfontmaps release 20150923.0

=> ↺ Linaro VLANd v0.4

• VLANd is Free Software, released under the GPL version 2 (or any later version).

=> ↺ With 3 months of automatic decrufting in unstable

Derivatives

=> ↺ Ubuntu MATE 15.10 Beta 2 Screenshot Tour – A Modern OS for Conservative Users

• The stable version of Ubuntu MATE Wily Werewolf (15.10) is almost here and we just received the final Beta. We now take a closer look at this Ubuntu flavor and see what’s been happening in the past few months.

=> ↺ Open Source Privacy: Tails OS Issues Security Fixes and New Release

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Canonical Is Showing Off the Unity 8 Greeter Running on the Desktop

• Canonical is working on Unity 8 for the desktop, and they are making some very good progress with it. The latest news from the Ubuntu developers has to do with the greeter, which happens to be pretty much the same one from the phone.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Touch Receives New Mir, Unity 8, Ubuntu Download Manager, and Web Browser

• Canonical’s Łukasz Zemczak has sent in his daily reports for Wednesday, September 23, and Thursday, September 24, to inform us all about the latest features that landed in the Ubuntu Touch mobile operating system in preparation for the OTA-7 software update.

=> ↺ HC holds ‘Ubuntu Linux Training Program’

=> ↺ HC organizes Ubuntu Linux awareness cum training program’ for judicial officers

• On instructions of Chief Justice High Court of J&K N Paul Vasanthakumar and Justice Mohammad Yaqoob Mir, Chairperson e-Court , High Court of Jammu & Kashmir, Justice Muzaffar Hussain Attar and Justice Tashi Rabstan Members e-Committee, High Court of J&K, “Ubuntu Linux Awareness Cum Training Program under Change Management” for Judicial officers of District Ganderbal, Pulwama, Kupwara and Kargil was conducted.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Aims to Be an OS with Great Accessibility Features

• One of the most important functions for any operating system, especially for the ones that are used by a lot of people, are the accessibility features. Ubuntu has support for people with disabilities, but there is still room for improvement.

• We wrote a while back that the head of the Ubuntu desktop, Will Cooke, was working to enhance the accessibility features for Ubuntu 16.04. He’s now working to get even more work done in this regard, just in time for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

=> ↺ Could Ubuntu 15.10 be the end of the road for boring upgrades?

• You know the drill. Over the last couple of years, each major and minor Ubuntu upgrade has been, well, boring. There’s been little to report on, save for the constant droning of “When will we finally see Unity 8?” In fact, I can’t remember the last time Ubuntu had an exciting upgrade to roll out. That, in and of itself, says a lot about where we are as consumers and technologists. We live very much in a show me something exciting state. When a company or platform has nothing exciting to offer in an upgrade, the product loses its appeal.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 15.10 Is Getting Some Pretty Nice Scrollbars

• One of the features that will be present in Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) are the new scrollbars that have been imported from upstream GNOME and that will make a lot of people happy.

=> ↺ General Electric and Canonical Working on a New Open-Source IoT Standard

• IoT is the acronym for the Internet for Things, a new category of devices that are smart and can connect to the Internet, but they are far removed from anything that’s been done until now. We all knew that a time would come when we would have all kinds of cool stuff connected to the Internet, like a fridge or oven, but now that we’re here, we find that things have become terribly complicated.

=> ↺ White Version of Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition No Longer in Stock

• The Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition seems to be a success, and the white version of the phone is no longer available in the official Meizu store.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Kylin 15.10 Beta 2 Out Now with Updated Software Center, China Weather Indicator

• As part of today’s Ubuntu 15.10 (Wily Werewolf) Final Beta releases, Canonical has pushed the second Beta build of Ubuntu Kylin 15.10, an official flavor of the world’s most popular free operating system designed specifically for the Chinese Linux community.

=> ↺ Valve Developer Asks Ubuntu Devs to Fix Bugs with Steam Controller

• Ubuntu developers have been prompted by someone at Valve to fix a couple of problems in the operating system so that the new Steam Controllers will work as they are intended.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf Final Beta Available For Download

• Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf final beta (beta 2 for the flavors) was released last night, bringing updated applications (including most GNOME 3.16.x apps), GNOME’s overlay scrollbars by default for GTK3 applications and of course, numerous bug fixes.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 15.10 Beta 2 Releases Now Available for Download, Here’s What’s New

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Z-Wave Plus home automation hub runs Linux on Raspberry Pi

• Z-Wave Europe and Popp & Co. have launched a “Popp Hub” home automation gateway that runs Linux on a Raspberry Pi, and supports Z-Wave and IP smart devices.

• Z-Wave Europe GmbH, which bills itself as Europe’s largest distributor for Z-Wave wireless technology devices, is selling and distributing the Popp Hub smart IP home gateway on behalf of UK-based Popp & Co. The latter has previously launched products such as energy-automated wind and weather sensors, and a self-connecting smoke detector. The Popp-Hub’s underlying Raspberry Pi 2 SBC runs the Z-Way Middleware, which Z-Wave Europe says is the first Z-Wave controller certified for the new Z-Wave Plus standard.

=> ↺ Rugged PC/104-Plus SBC runs Linux on Vortex86DX2 SoC

• Versalogic’s “Fox” SBC features a DMP Vortex86DX2 SoC, dual display, USB, serial, and LAN ports, stackable ISA and PCI expansion, and -40 to 85°C operation.

=> ↺ This Amazing Miniature Apple Computer Is Based on Raspberry Pi and Raspbian

• Someone built a miniature Apple Computer that is powered by Raspberry Pi Model A+ and Raspbian, and it looks fantastic. The best thing about it is that you can actually buy one of these, or you can download the specs and 3D print them yourself.

=> ↺ Philips Wireless, modernised

• My first attempt at getting something that I could control on this small computer was lcdgrilo. Unfortunately, I would have had to write a Web UI for it (remember, my buttons are just stuck on, for now at least), and probably port the SSD1306 OLED screen’s driver from Python, so not a good fit.

• There’s no proper Fedora support for Raspberry Pis, and while one can use a nearly stock Debian with a few additional firmware files on Raspberry Pis, Fedora chose not to support that slightly older SoC at all, which is obviously disappointing for somebody working on Fedora as a day job.

• Looking for other radio retrofits, and there are plenty of quality ones on the Internet, and for various connected speakers backends, I found PiMusicBox. It’s a Debian variant with Mopidy builtin, and a very easy to use initial setup: edit a settings file on the SD card image, boot and access the interface via a browser. Tada!

=> ↺ NASA rover coders at Intel’s Wind River biz axed – sources

• Intel-owned Wind River – the maker of the VxWorks software used in NASA rovers, spacecraft, military computer systems, and industry – has laid off a number of its most experienced staff, sources tell The Register.

• We’ve learned that some of the engineers hit by this quiet “reduction in force” have been with the Alameda, California, biz for more than 20 years – and worked on the version of the software used in space programs.

=> ↺ SBC offers Bay Trail CPUs, three video outputs, dual GbE

Phones

Tizen

=> ↺ [Application] Line Messenger and WeChat coming soon to Tizen Smartphones

=> ↺ [Application] HERE Maps to come bundled with the Samsung Gear S2 Smartwatch

=> ↺ Tizen Native Gear Manager App could come bundled with Samsung Z3, Will Work with Gear S2

=> ↺ Tizen Developer Conference 2015 Shenzhen, China – Wrap Up

• The Tizen Developer Conference 2015 took place in Shenzhen China 17 – 18 September. Over 1,000 developers from all over China and Asia gathered to learn more about the new OS of Everything, with the new slogan “The Best way to connect everything”, a clear reference ot the world of IoT.

=> ↺ Samsung further ramps up production of the upcoming Z3

• Over a week ago we saw Samsung start Importing parts for the Samsung Z3, their next Tizen based Smartphone. Now we see them importing parts for tens of thousands of SM-Z300H Smartphones. This is the same pattern that we saw previously for their first Tizen Smartphone, the Z1. The Z3, however, is a Smartphone with a higher spec sheet & price tag than the Z1 and therefore will appeal to a different type of user than the Z1.

Android

=> ↺ 16 reasons Android phones are better than iPhones

• Apple recently pushed out its latest software update and already sold out its supply of its new iPhone 6S.

• But while iPhones might be selling like hotcakes, there are still a bunch of reasons why Android phones are better.

=> ↺ BlackBerry Should Embrace Android OS And Ditch BlackBerry 10, Says Analyst

• BlackBerry is gearing up to release the new slider phone with a physical QWERTY keyboard dubbed “Venice.” A recent report, however, said that the handset will be called “BlackBerry Priv.” The new device will reportedly be powered by Android OS, instead of the synonymous BlackBerry 10 OS. An analyst with knowledge about the business talks about why the Canadian tech giant should embrace Android for good.

=> ↺ Rumored Android-powered BlackBerry might now have a name

=> ↺ Android-powered BlackBerry Venice appears to have a new name

=> ↺ BlackBerry’s Android phone will be known as the ‘Priv’

• BlackBerry’s upcoming Android phone has been called “Venice” for quite some time, but that’s apparently nothing but a moniker meant to be shed and replaced by its real model name. According to Evleaks and N4BB, it will be released as the BlackBerry Priv, presumably due to its privacy features. Evleaks also revealed a new stock photo of the phone, which you can see below the fold. Don’t expect to see anything new, though: it’s still a QWERTY slider with a curved screen and an 18-megapixel camera. Hopefully, we’ll find out more about it and its release date soon. If the device turns out to have killer features, then it doesn’t matter what it’s called: after all, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

=> ↺ Latest Chrome Dev For Android Has Partial Support For ‘Theme-Color’ Attribute Without Merging Tabs And Apps

=> ↺ Google Celebrated 7th Android B-Day With New Wallpapers

=> ↺ Android 6.0 Marshmallow Release Date Likely Set As Oct. 5; LG Nexus 5, Motorola Nexus 6 Will Be First To Receive It

=> ↺ Google Nexus 5X, 6P and Android 6 launch: Everything we know about the 29 September event

=> ↺ Android 6.0 Marshmallow due Tuesday – when will I get Android M?

=> ↺ Samsung reveals first numbers for its Apple and Android Pay rival

=> ↺ March update bringing Android Auto to 2016 Chevrolet MyLink vehicles

=> ↺ Chevy sets Android Auto rollout date for select 2016 models

=> ↺ Chrome Dev For Android Now Shows A Snackbar For Completed Downloads

=> ↺ Google Tweaks Voice Search On Android To Make It Faster And More Accurate

=> ↺ Meizu has no Plans for Android Wear, Yet

=> ↺ Is Android a monopoly?

• Google is guilty of making software people and companies want.

=> ↺ Save 71% on a Chromo Android Tablet from Amazon

=> ↺ 15 Must Have Android Apps: Messaging and More

• With two Android phones and an Android tablet, I find myself relying on mobile apps more than ever. Unfortunately, finding useful apps isn’t always easy. With that in mind, I’ve compiled a list of my own must have apps for Android to share. Some of these apps might be considered widgets, however each of them provides a critical role in my daily Android usage.

=> ↺ Run Android 5.1.1 Lollipop on Your PC with AndEX Live CD, an Android-x86 Fork

• Arne Exton, the developer of several GNU/Linux distributions and Android-x86 derivatives, was more than happy to inform us earlier today, September 14, about the immediate availability of a new build of his AndEX OS.

=> ↺ Rebuilding Android proprietary SDK binaries

• Going back to Android recently, I saw that all tools binaries from the Android project are now click-wrapped by a quite ugly proprietary license, among others an anti-fork clause (details below). Apparently those T&C are years old, but the click-wrapping is newer.

• This applies to the SDK, the NDK, Android Studio, and all the essentials you download through the Android SDK Manager.

=> ↺ iOS or Android, Which One Should You Pick?

• …I’ve kept swapping between Android and iOS every few years and although currently I swear by Android…

=> ↺ BlackBerry to Sell Android-Based Smartphone

=> ↺ BlackBerry Priv: The story so far on the Android slider

=> ↺ BlackBerry Has to Crack Android’s Code

=> ↺ BlackBerry’s Android slider phone is called the Priv and will be available this year

=> ↺ BlackBerry to Launch Android Smartphone

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ Box, LinkedIn and WhatsApp share open source advice

=> ↺ AT&T’s Chiosi: Open source is critical to integrated cloud architecture

• The telecom industry needs to be wary of different versions of open source platforms taking hold in the industry as it moves to the new IP. That was the message from Margaret Chiosi, a distinguished network architect at AT&T Labs (NYSE: T) and president of the Open Platform for NFV Project (OPNFV), at the NFV Everywhere event in Dallas last week.

=> ↺ MemSQL makes it easier to hook up to Apache Spark

• Apache Spark may be the fastest data processing engine around for big data, but unless you are conversant in Scala or Java, this cluster computing framework can be a pain to set up and manage.

=> ↺ Tectonic Preview is now open to the public

• Tectonic is an enterprise platform that provides out-of-the-box Kubernetes clusters on CoreOS Linux.

• Kubernetes is a Google-sponsored platform for managing clusters of Linux containers, while CoreOS Linux is a container-native operating system for containers, one of several container-native operating systems in active development.

=> ↺ World finally ready for USB-bootable OS/2

• eComStation, the Dutch-owned company that offers a PC operating system based on IBM’s OS/2, has floated the idea of a USB-bootable version of the OS.

• The firm keeps the OS/2 torch burning by offering a PC OS that lets users run OS/2 apps. The outfit claims the likes of Boeing, Whirlpool Corporation and VMware use its software, usually in applications where they can upgrade PCs but still need to run OS/2 code.

=> ↺ Apache Big Data Preview: Q&A with IBM’s Anjul Bhambhri

• As a preview to the upcoming Apache Big Data Europe conference, we spoke with with Anjul Bhambhri, Vice President, Big Data and Analytics, IBM Silicon Valley Lab, who will be giving a keynote presentation titled, “Apache Spark — Making the Unthinkable Possible.” We talked with Bhambhri about IBM’s involvement with open source and what Big Data really means.

=> ↺ Google Launches Service for Managing Hadoop, Spark Clusters

• Cloud Dataproc will make it easier to administer and manage clusters, the company says. Big data analytics technologies such as Hadoop and Spark can help organizations extract business value from massive data sets, but they can be very complex to administer and to manage.

• Hoping to help reduce some of that complexity, Google Wednesday announced the launch of a new service dubbed Cloud Dataproc for customers of its cloud platform. The service is currently available only in beta and is designed to minimize the time businesses spend on administering and managing computing clusters in Hadoop and Spark environments.

=> ↺ Cloudera is building a new open-source storage engine called Kudu, sources say

• The storage engine, Kudu, is meant as an alternative to the widely used Hadoop Distributed File System and the Hadoop-oriented HBase NoSQL database, borrowing characteristics from both, according to a copy of a slide deck on Kudu’s design goals that VentureBeat has obtained. The technology will be released as Apache-licensed open-source software, the slides show.

=> ↺ Inside The GitHub Systems Where Open Source Lives

• Sometimes the best way to cope with scale is to keep things simple and do everything you can to avoid it. This is the approach that GitHub, the repository service for the popular Git source version control tool created by Linus Torvalds a decade ago, has taken as it has grown explosively and become one of the centers of gravity for open source software development.

=> ↺ GitHub Open Sources a Tool That Teaches Students to Code

• GitHub is a way for software engineers to share, shape, and collaborate on code. And it’s also a good way of teaching people to do the same thing.

=> ↺ Get ready to meet Kudu, a new, open-source storage engine from Cloudera

=> ↺ Dronecode Hosts Workshop As Open Source Drones Proliferate

• The Linux Foundation’s Dronecode Project is hosting a workshop in Dublin, Ireland on Oct. 5, as well as a Flight Day event at a nearby airport on Oct. 8, to showcase open source Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology. These events bookend LinuxCon + CloudOpen + Embedded Linux Conference Europe, which is being held Oct. 5-7 at Conference Centre Dublin.

=> ↺ Introducing Brotli: a new compression algorithm for the internet

=> ↺ Introducing Lemur

=> ↺ The Volkswagen Scandal Is Just the Beginning

• Last week, the EPA revealed that it had trusted Volkswagen’s diesel cars, without checking to see where they kept their brains. It sent a letter to the carmaker detailing how VW programmed about 500,000 cars over half a decade to cheat on its emissions tests. (The worldwide total, VW has revealed, is now 11 million.) It’s a story of massive corporate fraud but also an object lesson in everything that’s terrifying about a world in which cars and other things can think for themselves.

=> ↺ 8 key open source software foundations (and what makes them key)

• Open source software foundations are proliferating: Every month it seems that a new one is announced — Open Contain Initiative (OCI) and Cloud Native Container Foundation (CNCF) are just two of the more recent launches.

=> ↺ First look: Facebook’s open source React library

=> ↺ Facebook takes Relay JavaScript framework open source

=> ↺ What CIOs can learn from Facebook’s use of open source

=> ↺ Google’s open source attempt to undercut Facebook

• As much as we like to talk about the open-source community, it might be more accurate to describe it as an open-source club. No, not the kind you join, but rather something you use to pummel someone.

=> ↺ Bossies 2015: The Best of Open Source Software Awards

• Whenever you hear someone complain about developer productivity, just slap them. Having slogged through hundreds of open source projects each year for the past several years, I can assure you that developers are extremely productive. Every time we put together this package — InfoWorld’s annual Best of Open Source Awards, aka the Bossies — I end up wishing developers were just a little less on the ball.

=> ↺ Pumpiverse community update

• Earlier this week, pump.io creator Evan Prodromou announced that, due to budget and time pressures, he was looking to move pump.io into a community-governed project structure. “Ideally, what I’d like to do is transfer the copyrights, domains and data to a non-profit that could collect donations to keep the servers running. Budget-wise, it’s about $5K/year, including servers, domain registration, and SSL certs. It’d also be great if some of the people who have been sending in pull requests could start working on the software directly. There are a lot of PRs backed up.”

Events

=> ↺ IT industry: Moot highlights role of open source technologies

• Speakers at a conference have emphasised the importance of developing an annual plan for the promotion and advocacy of open source technologies to reduce the import of licensed software worth millions of dollars.

• A day-long conference was organised by the Open Source Foundation of Pakistan, in collaboration with the Higher Education Commission (HEC), Zong Pakistan, Pakistan Software Export Board, NADRA Technologies Limited and others. Leaders of the industry shared their expertise and shed light on how to use and develop open source technologies. HEC Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed underlined the need of measuring the progress according to the target set in the annual plan. “HEC, on behalf of universities, is always available to extend all kind of support to promote open source technologies in the country,” he said. He added open source had resulted in a paradigm shift which created a lot of opportunities for youth.

=> ↺ Enter for a chance to win a free pass to All Things Open 2015

=> ↺ The DevConf.cz 2016 Call For Participation is now open

=> ↺ Software Freedom Day 2015 Phnom Penh

• Saturday the 19. September was Software Freedom Day, an worldwide organized day full with events on various places. I participated in the event in Phnom Penh, which was hold at the National Institute of Posts, Telecommunications and ICT (NIPTICT). It was the second time this event was hold in Phnom Penh and at this place and it begins to grow. There was around 100 participants. The event started in the afternoon and was just a single track with various talks. Fedora was presented by Leap Sok who hold an talk “Understanding Software Virtualization” and me with “Fedora.next And Beyond – Fedora For Everybody”. We also distributed arround 100 DVD to the audience, we met also some people who already use Fedora on their computer.

=> ↺ SFD Phnom Penh 2015 roundup

• It’s the second time I organize Software Freedom Day in Phnom Penh! I would like to thank everyone who volunteered, joined and/or presented yesterday. We had a great event and a nice turnout. It seems we managed to have a better focus on our audience this year.

Web Browsers

Chrome

=> ↺ Crash Google Chrome with one tiny URL: We cram a probe in this bug

Mozilla

=> ↺ Mozilla Brings Instant Messaging to Firefox 41, Tracking Protection to Firefox 42

• Times are lean for Mozilla’s Firefox browser, no longer the second fiddle in the browser usage race, as it continues to fall behind Google Chrome and Internet Explorer and Edge for user market share. Into that environment Mozilla this week released a new stable release and a beta milestone of Firefox.

=> ↺ Mozilla’s Vision for a Healthy, Sustainable Web

=> ↺ Mozilla Rust Programming Language Hits Version 1.3

SaaS/Big Data

=> ↺ How safe and secure is open-source OpenStack?

• Last month we explored the pros and cons of open-source OpenStack, a platform I admittedly love, but which is not meant for everyone (for reasons laid out in that post). Today the topic shifts to OpenStack security. Why security? Because security is not only a hot media topic, but also one that automatically forces the CIO/CTO to analyze his or her own security situation within the organization. Is your open-source OpenStack network secure?

=> ↺ The return of TryStack, life as a PTL, and more OpenStack news

=> ↺ 5 new guides for working with OpenStack

• Cloud computing is an immensely complicated subject, and it can be hard to keep pace with the speed of development. When you look at a large collaborative project like OpenStack, it can be easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer number of pieces of the puzzle you need to be able to put together. But don’t worry! There are lots of resources out there to help you, including the official documentation, various OpenStack training and certification programs, as well as tutorials from the community members themselves.

=> ↺ Tesora Enterprise 1.5 Expands OpenStack Database as a Service

• New features in Tesora Enterprise 1.5 include several from the upcoming OpenStack Liberty release, providing improved MongoDB and Reddis database support. OpenStack database-as-a-service (DBaaS) vendor Tesora released version 1.5 of Tesora Enterprise 1.5 today, providing users with new features including several that are part of the upcoming OpenStack Liberty release.

• Tesora is a venture-backed vendor that has raised $14.5 million in funding to date, including a $5.8 million round announced on Aug. 13. The company is one of the leading contributors to the OpenStack Trove DBaaS project, which is part of the OpenStack Liberty milestone that is set to officially debut on Oct. 15. Among the new updates in Tesora DBaaS Platform Enterprise Edition 1.5 that come from OpenStack Liberty are improved MongoDB and Reddis database support.

=> ↺ The official user survey, visualizing your cloud, and more OpenStack news

=> ↺ HP Launches New HP Vertica For Big Data Open Source Adoption

• HP has ramped up efforts in the open source big data and analytics space, adding extensive support to open source technologies in the latest release of its HP Vertica analytics engine.

=> ↺ Apache Big Data Preview: Q&A with Pivotal’s Roman Shaposhnik

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

=> ↺ LibreOffice 5.0 Is the Office Suite Champ

• The Document Foundation last month released LibreOffice 5.0 for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. It is the 10th major release since the launch of the project, and the first in the third development cycle.

=> ↺ Netherlands Fighting to Replace Microsoft’s OpenXML with ODF

• The Dutch government is now pushing to have the Open Document Format mandatory in all the administration, a move that would make Microsoft very unhappy.

=> ↺ Q&A: Italo Vignoli on the Italian Ministry of Defense’s move to LibreOffice

• On September 15, the LibreItalia Association announced that the Italian Ministry of Defense Information Systems is switching to LibreOffice. The ministry will be installing LO on around 150,000 workstation, that makes it the second largest deployment of LO by an European agency.

CMS

=> ↺ Always be shippable

• Drupal will soon be 15 years old, and 5 of that will be spent on building Drupal 8 — a third of Drupal’s life. We started work on Drupal early in 2011 and targeted December 1, 2012 as the original code freeze date. Now almost three years later, we still haven’t released Drupal 8. While we are close to the release of Drupal 8, I’m sure many many of you are wondering why it took 3 years to stabilize. It is not like we didn’t work hard or that we aren’t smart people. Quite the contrary, the Drupal community has some of the most dedicated, hardest working and smartest people I know. Many spent evenings and weekends pushing to get Drupal 8 across the finish line. No one individual or group is to blame for the delay — except maybe me as the project lead for not having learned fast enough from previous release cycles.

=> ↺ The keenness of a higher ed Drupal devotee

=> ↺ Eloquently coding in Drupal, one line at a time

• For going on two years, Hussain Abbas has been consistently achieving at Axelerant—an India-based, open source incubator—where he holds the title of technical architect. His experience runs the gamut from x86 assembly and C#, to modern PHP-based platforms, to mainly Drupal these days. Hussain happened to be in the middle of a community summit at DrupalCon Los Angeles this year when we began talking about his dedication to the project he contributes to nonstop.

Education

=> ↺ Getting started with open source machine learning

• What is machine learning? It is the use of both historical and current data to make predictions, organize content, and learn patterns about data without being explicitly programmed to do so. This is typically done using statistical techniques that look for significant events like co-occurrences and anomalies in the data and then factoring in their likelihood into a model that is queried at a later time to provide a prediction for some new piece of data.

=> ↺ 6 open source tools to help educators stay organized

• The number of universities and schools that have opted for open source alternatives of popular properties solutions has significantly increased over the last years. We often hear about adopting OpenOffice or LibreOffice as alternatives to Microsoft Office or about replacing Windows with Linux. Nevertheless, the amount of open source software designed specially for teachers still remains limited. Here are some tips on how to make the school life easier with the help of the commonly used open source software.

Business

Semi-Open Source

=> ↺ ​How Salesforce went open source for its Thunder Internet of things cloud

• Thunder, the scalable processing engine behind Salesforce’s Internet of things (IoT) Cloud, took about a year to complete and is powered by four open source platforms used for big data analytics.

=> ↺ First Data Moves Into Open Source Payments

=> ↺ First Data Buys Spree Commerce To Move Into Open Source Payments Technology

=> ↺ Serial entrepreneurs start OSSCube to help organisations leverage Open Source Software to transform their ROI

• Technology is advancing at a breakneck speed. Cloud, big data, enterprise mobility, and IoT are changing the way organisations function, look at revenues, and acquire customers. We no longer are in the age of proprietary softwares, it’s the age of open source.

• Looking at this global opportunity for organisations to transform their ROI on the IT spend by leveraging the best commercially supported, enterprise-grade open source solutions, OSSCube was established by Lavanya Rastogi and Vineet Agarwal.

Funding

=> ↺ Open Source History: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of VA Linux

=> ↺ FUUG grant for Obnam development

• …the FUUG foundation in Finland has awarded me a grant to buy some hardware to help development of Obnam…

=> ↺ Behind the scenes at Google Summer of Code

• The two universities that have sent the most students to Google’s Summer of Code are located in Sri Lanka and India—University of Moratuwa and Indian Institutes of Technology. To what do you attribute the flowering of open source academic talent at these universities?

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

=> ↺ Universal Permissive License added to license list

• We recently updated our list of various licenses and comments about them to include the Universal Permissive License (UPL). The UPL is a lax, non-copyleft license that is compatible with the GNU GPL. The UPL contains provisions dealing explicitly with the grant of patent licenses, whereas many other simple lax licenses only have an implicit grant. While making the grant perfectly clear is a reasonable goal, we still recommend using Apache 2.0 for simple programs that don’t require copyleft. For more extensive programs, a copyleft license like the GNU GPL should be used to ensure that all users can enjoy software freedom.

=> ↺ September 2015 GNU Toolchain Update

=> ↺ GNU Autoconf Archive – News: Noteworthy changes in release 2015.09.25

Openness/Sharing

=> ↺ Munich app increases political transparency

• A group of volunteers, consisting of OKF (Open Knowledge Foundation) members and developers, has built an alternative web application to the official website of the Munich City Council, the goal of which is to increase the transparency of local political life.

=> ↺ Madrid launches eParticipation portal

=> ↺ Eco-geeks hold open source alternative to UN climate talks

• Divided by borders, assembled in hierarchies and motivated by the kind of competitive ideology shared by the neoliberal business class, this meeting embodies the self-interested conventions of the old world. Unsurprisingly, the context has resulted in a failure of shameful proportions.

=> ↺ Welcome to the era of open source cars

• Even if they’ve been longtime partners, the tech sector’s influence on the automotive industry has never been stronger. OEMs in Detroit, Stuttgart, Seoul, and elsewhere are continually transforming cars to meet the demands of consumers now conditioned to smartphones (and their 18-month refresh cycle). Much of this is being driven by cheap and rugged hardware that can finally cope with the harsh environment (compared to your pocket or an air-conditioned office) that a car needs to be able to handle. Wireless modems, sensors, processors, and displays are all essential to a new car in 2015, but don’t let this visible impact fool you. The tech industry is having a broader influence on the automobile. Hardware is important, but we’re now starting to see larger tech philosophies adopted—like the open source car.

Open Data

=> ↺ Open-source Tree of Life maps genesis of 2.3 million species

Programming

=> ↺ APIs, not apps: What the future will be like when everyone can code

• A couple of decades ago, if you spent every day in chat rooms with your friends, you were a nerd. Today if you do the same thing, you’re just the average Facebook user. And so it’s no surprise there’s a gold rush mentality in the learn-to-code movement. With the tech industry booming and its products so pervasive in our lives, the allure of six-figure tech salaries make plenty of people pack up and head West (literally).

Leftovers

=> ↺ FIFA President Sepp Blatter Facing Criminal Proceedings In Switzerland

• FIFA President Sepp Blatter has been the target of U.S. and Swiss corruption probes for months, and allegations of wrongdoing have swirled around him for even longer. Even as criminal probes resulted in the arrest of 14 FIFA officials in May and claimed his right hand man earlier this month, Blatter has largely remained above the fray.

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ Cannabis ‘forest’ discovered in south-west London

• A cannabis “forest” has been discovered by police officers in a wealthy borough of south-west London.

• Scores of marijuana plants can be seen surrounded by native plant life in images posted on social media by officers from Kingston upon Thames.

=> ↺ Industrial farming is one of the worst crimes in history

• Animals are the main victims of history, and the treatment of domesticated animals in industrial farms is perhaps the worst crime in history. The march of human progress is strewn with dead animals. Even tens of thousands of years ago, our stone age ancestors were already responsible for a series of ecological disasters. When the first humans reached Australia about 45,000 years ago, they quickly drove to extinction 90% of its large animals. This was the first significant impact that Homo sapiens had on the planet’s ecosystem. It was not the last.

• About 15,000 years ago, humans colonised America, wiping out in the process about 75% of its large mammals. Numerous other species disappeared from Africa, from Eurasia and from the myriad islands around their coasts. The archaeological record of country after country tells the same sad story. The tragedy opens with a scene showing a rich and varied population of large animals, without any trace of Homo sapiens. In scene two, humans appear, evidenced by a fossilised bone, a spear point, or perhaps a campfire. Scene three quickly follows, in which men and women occupy centre-stage and most large animals, along with many smaller ones, have gone. Altogether, sapiens drove to extinction about 50% of all the large terrestrial mammals of the planet before they planted the first wheat field, shaped the first metal tool, wrote the first text or struck the first coin.

=> ↺ GM Mustard in India: a Case of Monumental Fraud and Unremitting Regulatory Delinquency

• The approval and planting of large-scale field trials of genetically modified (GM) mustard in India is currently taking place. According to environmentalist Aruna Rodrigues, this is completely unconscionable. It is occurring even as the Supreme Court-appointed Technical Expert Committee (TEC) Report awaits adjudication in India’s Supreme Court, which expressly recommends a bar on herbicide-tolerant (HT) crops. As a result, Rodrigues is mounting a legal challenge as the lead petitioner in a Public Interest Litigation.

Security

=> ↺ Security updates for Thursday

=> ↺ Microsoft puts a bullet in blundering D-Link’s leaked key that made malware VIPs on PCs

• Microsoft has finally revoked D-Link’s leaked code-signing key, which gave malware the red carpet treatment on millions of Windows PCs.

• Last week, it emerged that, for six months between February and September, D-Link exposed its private code-signing key to the world in a firmware download. Anyone who stumbled upon this key could use it to dress up malware as a legit-looking D-Link application, tricking Windows and users into trusting it.

• The key expired at the start of this month, meaning it cannot be used to digitally sign new malware. But any software nasties signed using the key earlier in the year would still be trusted and run by Windows PCs.

=> ↺ Filling in the holes in Linux boot chain measurement, and the TPM measurement log

• When I wrote about TPM attestation via 2FA, I mentioned that you needed a bootloader that actually performed measurement. I’ve now written some patches for Shim and Grub that do so.

• The Shim code does a couple of things. The obvious one is to measure the second-stage bootloader into PCR 9. The perhaps less expected one is to measure the contents of the MokList and MokSBState UEFI variables into PCR 14. This means that if you’re happy simply running a system with your own set of signing keys and just want to ensure that your secure boot configuration hasn’t been compromised, you can simply seal to PCR 7 (which will contain the UEFI Secure Boot state as defined by the UEFI spec) and PCR 14 (which will contain the additional state used by Shim) and ignore all the others.

=> ↺ Would you trust Intel, Vodafone, Siemens et al with Internet of Things security? You’ll have to

• A new non-profit foundation dedicated to improving security in the “internet of things” launched on Wednesday.

• More than 30 companies including Intel, Vodafone, Siemens, and BT are the founding members of the foundation, whose mission is to “make the Internet of Things secure, to aid its adoption, and maximize its benefits.”

• The IoTSF will focus on best practices and knowledge sharing. It will host a conference in London in December on IoT security.

=> ↺ Security wares like Kaspersky AV can make you more vulnerable to attacks

=> ↺ Friday’s security updates

=> ↺ Encryption back doors: Is there more to this debate?

• As the the encryption access debate heats up in the United States and abroad, statements like the one above have become commonplace.

• But this is not just another expert giving an opinion. Rather, it’s the potent observation of Michael Chertoff, former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, former Federal Appeals Court judge, ex-Chief of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, and, for almost a decade, a prosecutor.

• Speaking at a conference this summer, Chertoff crystallized what he sees as the risks of heading down such a path (that could likely prevent use of certain kinds of encryption). First, there is increased vulnerability. “You’re basically making things less secure for ordinary people,” he said.

=> ↺ Patch Bugzilla! Anyone can access your private bugs – including your security vulns

• That’s because someone’s found a way to easily access private bugs in your codebase – such as critical security holes you’re still working on to fix. An attacker must be able to register for a normal account via email, before exploiting a programming blunder to gain extra access.

Censorship

=> ↺ FireEye defends researcher injunction as way to protect ‘trade secrets’

• An injunction against a researcher may have protected sensitive data, but will the security community view it this way?

Privacy

=> ↺ EU-US data flows using “Safe Harbour” may be illegal because of NSA spying

• The “Safe Harbour” framework—which is supposed to ensure data transfers from the EU to the US are legal under European data privacy laws—does not satisfy the EU’s Data Protection Directive as a result of the “mass, indiscriminate surveillance” carried out by the NSA. That’s the opinion of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) Advocate General Yves Bot, whose views are generally followed by the CJEU when it hands down its final rulings.

=> ↺ Mapping How Tor’s Anonymity Network Spread Around the World

• Online privacy projects come and go. But as the anonymity software Tor approaches its tenth year online, it’s grown into a powerful, deeply-rooted privacy network overlaid across the internet. And a new real-time map of that network illustrates just how widespread and global that network has become.

=> ↺ Tor becomes extra secure as .onion becomes Special-Use Domain Name

• The dark web browser Tor has now become extra secure as the .onion url has now been assigned special-use status. The Engineering Task Force (IETF) along with Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, part of ICANN, has granted formal recognition to the .onion domain, adding it to the list of Special-Use Domain Names.

=> ↺ A key signing party keyserver as a Tor hidden service

• Key signing parties are a pain and hopefully, one day, we will have better ways to authentication keys than reading hexadecimal strings out loud.

• The Zimmermann–Sassaman key-signing protocol makes them much more bearable already by having only one single hexadecimal string read out loud. That string is the cryptographic hash of a document given to every participant listing all participants and their fingerprints. If everyone has the same hash, then we assume that everyone has the same document. Then, participants in turn will confirm that they fully recognize the fingerprint listed in the document.

• Alexander Wirt wrote a small key server dedicated to receive keys from the participants. There is also a script that will generate the document from the submitted keys and a ready-to-use keyring. The latter can be run automatically using inoticoming when a new key arrives. Finally, it would be nice if participants could confirm that their key has been properly added to the document, e.g. by making the list available on a web server.

=> ↺ Video: Spy Agency’s Open Source Mapping Tool Helps First Responders Save Lives

• GeoQ organizes geospatial data from multiple sources, which prevents redundancy and determines where help is most needed.

• Project leader Raymond Bauer, with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, recently won Nextgov’s 2015 People’s Choice Bold Award for his efforts in spearheading GeoQ.

• It’s the first NGA project to leverage open source code-sharing site GitHub.

Civil Rights

=> ↺ Nigel Farage blames immigrants for Ukip being unpopular in London

• Newly arrived migrants are responsible for Ukip’s underwhelming electoral performance in inner London, the party’s leader has said.

• Nigel Farage argued that it was difficult for his party to beat Labour in the capital because of the city centre’s high proportion of foreign-born residents.

=> ↺ Ukip civil war re-erupts as Nigel Farage accuses Douglas Carswell of ‘residual loyalty’ to Tories

• Ukip infighting has broken out again in a row over which campaign the Eurosceptic party has decided to side with ahead of the EU referendum. Nigel Farage accused Douglas Carswell, the Conservative defector and Ukip’s only MP, of “residual loyalty” to his old party for not backing Arron Banks’s Leave.EU organisation.

=> ↺ Ukip conference: Farage and Carswell in battle over rival anti-EU campaigns

• Ukip is embroiled in a new civil war over the EU referendum at its annual conference, with Nigel Farage accusing his only MP Douglas Carswell of still having residual loyalties to the Conservatives.

• Farage made the comments amid discontent among some senior Ukip figures about his decision to officially endorse the grassroots Leave.EU campaign, which is being bankrolled by millionaire donor Arron Banks.

=> ↺ Nigel Farage mocks David Cameron with ‘piggy in the middle’ jibe

• Nigel Farage has mocked David Cameron over claims he put his genitals in a dead pig’s mouth while at university, referring to the Prime Minister as “piggy in the middle”.

• The prime minister is alleged to have placed “a private part of his anatomy into a dead pig’s mouth” as part of an initiation ceremony, according to a book published by former Conservative party treasurer Lord Ashcroft.

Internet/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Jeb Bush Proudly Promises To Axe Net Neutrality If Elected

• The Jeb Bush campaign this week unveiled a major part of the candidate’s technology platform, and it likely includes taking a hatchet to net neutrality rules. The new policy outline on Bush’s website spends some time butchering the very definition of net neutrality as well, parroting several long-standing incumbent ISP narratives that net neutrality is somehow about content companies not paying their fair share, or that modernization of existing rules is somehow “antiquated.”

=> ↺ Why you should share your Internet connection

• uProxy is a browser extension that lets you share your Internet connection with people living in repressive societies. Much of the world lives in countries that severely censor and restrict Internet access. uProxy makes it a little easier to bring the free and open Internet to some of the darkest corners of the world.

• How does it work? Find out in this interview with Lucy He, Raymond Cheng, and Salome Vakhtangadze.

=> ↺ North America’s IPv4 address supply runs dry

• For the first time, the body responsible for allocating IP addresses in North America says its free pool of IPv4 numerical labels is exhausted.

=> ↺ FCC: Open source router software is still legal—under certain conditions

• With the Federal Communications Commission being criticized for rules that may limit a user’s right to install open source firmware on wireless routers, we’ve been trying to get more specifics from the FCC about its intentions.

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

=> ↺ Pow! Appeals court assigns copyright to the Batmobile

• “Holy copyright law, Batman!” So goes a line in the first paragraph of a federal appeals court ruling announcing that the iconic Batmobile is a character protected by copyright.

• The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals sided with DC Comics in its copyright infringement suit against Mark Towle, the operator of Gotham Garage, the maker of Batmobile modification kits.

=> ↺ Big, Confusing Mess Of A Fair Use Decision Over DMCA Takedowns

• Some potentially good news this morning — which may be undermined by the fine print. After many years of back and forth, the 9th Circuit appeals court has ruled that Universal Music may have violated the DMCA in not taking fair use into account before issuing a DMCA takedown request on a now famous YouTube video of Stephanie Lenz’s infant dancing to less than 30 seconds of a Prince song playing in the background. Because of this, there can now be a trial over whether or not Universal actually had a good faith belief that the video was not fair use.

=> ↺ EPA opposed DMCA exemptions that could have revealed Volkswagen Fraud

• We have written previously about the organizations and individuals who opposed exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) anti-circumvention provisions. These drones oppose the rights of users to backup, modify, and study the software and devices that we own. The DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions create legal penalties for simply accessing your software under your own terms, and raises those penalties even higher should you dare to share the tools needed to do so. It creates real penalties for anyone who wants to avoid Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) controls. The granting of exemptions to these totalitarian rules is a broken and half-hearted attempt to limit the damage these rules bring, granting for 3 years a reprieve for certain specified devices and software.

=> ↺ Appeals court strikes a blow for fair use in long-awaited copyright ruling

• The US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit today issued a ruling that could change the contours of fair use and copyright takedown notices.

=> ↺ Documentarian wipes out Warner’s $2M “Happy Birthday” copyright

• More than two years after a documentary filmmaker challenged the copyright to the simple lyrics of the song “Happy Birthday,” a federal judge ruled Tuesday that the copyright is invalid.

• The result could undo Warner/Chappell’s lucrative licensing business around the song, once estimated to be $2 million per year. The company is likely to appeal the ruling to the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

=> ↺ Happy Birthday Is Finally Public Domain, China’s Official Linux Distro…[Tech News Digest]

• The song “Happy Birthday” finally enters the public domain, a look at the Linux distro the Chinese government is hoping to replace Windows with, people are watching fewer season premiers this year, Pebble’s got an attractive new watch, and a cat that is absolutely up to no good.

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