This page permanently redirects to gemini://gemini.techrights.org/2017/03/07/linux-4-11-rc1/.

● 03.07.17

● Links 7/3/2017: Linux 4.11 RC1, ROSA Fresh R8.1

Posted in News Roundup at 7:05 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Desktop

=> ↺ Linux? Not on our hardware, say Microsoft and Lenovo

• Both Microsoft and Lenovo appear to be wary of having operating systems other than Windows run on their own hardware: in the former case, the Surface Book and in Lenovo’s case, its Yoga line of laptops.

=> ↺ Razer looking to improve Linux support on their ‘Blade’ series of laptops

• It seems Razer have been getting a lot of requests for Linux support on their ‘Razer Blade’ laptop line, so they are looking for feedback.

=> ↺ Running The Ryzen 7 1700 At 4.0GHz On Linux

• Many Phoronix readers appear rather intrigued by the AMD Ryzen 7 1700 on Linux as it offers good multi-threaded performance with eight cores / 16 threads and retails for just $329 USD. Making the Ryzen 7 1700 even more appealing to enthusiasts is that it overclocks well. For those curious, here are benchmarks of the Ryzen 7 1700 on Ubuntu Linux running at 4.0GHz.

=> ↺ The Linux Club Guide

• This guide tells some of our story, but mostly tries to give you ideas on how to make a Linux club work where you are.

=> ↺ Review: The Endless Mission One is a gorgeous Linux-powered desktop with a tempting price tag

• Companies that exclusively manufacture Linux computers are few and far between. The few that exist tend to focus on the “prosumer” or developer market niche. Endless, however, has tread a different path. The San Francisco-based manufacturer is known for its quirky line of affordable machines, all running its own bespoke Linux-based operating system, Endless OS.

• Announced at CES earlier this year, the Endless Mission One is the latest in the company’s burgeoning stable of computers. And compared to the rest of Endless’ lineup, it’s a bit of an aberration.

=> ↺ Dell doubles down on high-end Ubuntu Linux laptops

• CEO and founder of Dell, Michael Dell, has long been a Linux supporter. By 2007, under his guidance, Dell became the first major OEM to offer a laptop with pre-installed Linux. His Linux of choice? Ubuntu Linux. Ten years later, Dell is still selling Ubuntu Linux-powered laptops.

=> ↺ Razer Is Turning Razer Blade Into The “Best Linux Laptop”

• Razer founder and CEO Min-Liang Tan has announced that Razer is soon going to support Linux distros on its Razer Blade laptop series officially. To welcome the suggestions from the community, Razer has created a new Linux Corner hub. In a Facebook post, Tan revealed that their work would start with making sure that all the drivers are working and properly optimized.

=> ↺ Litebook launches $249 Linux laptop

• The market for Linux-equipped laptops continues to expand, whether crowd-funded or DIY or just replacing Windows on an existing notebook on your own. Another entrant has emerged that’s more powerful than the Kickstarter-backed Pinebook but less expensive than the KDE Slimbook.

=> ↺ Litebook Launches Cheap, Chromebook-Like Linux Laptop Powered by elementary OS

• Litebook, a small hardware manufacturer that we never heard of before, has recently released a new Linux-powered laptop that’s cheap, slim, fast, elegant, light, and designed to rival Chromebooks.

• The Alpha Litebook is a 14.1-inch Full HD (1920×1080) laptop that runs the Ubuntu-based elementary OS distribution and ships with some of the most popular open source applications, including Google Chrome, Steam for Linux, Spotify, Skype, PlayOnLinux, WPS Office office suite, and much more.

=> ↺ Litebook Linux Laptop Launches From $249

• A new Linux laptop has been launched this week and is available to purchase from $249 in the form of the Litebook, which is equipped with a 14 inch display offering users a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels.

• The Litebook is powered by an Intel Celeron N3150 quad-core Braswell processor supported by 4 GB of RAM and loaded with an Elementary OS Linux software. Although there are a few points that that need to be discussed before you part with your hard owned cash.

Server

=> ↺ How Linux Conquered the Data Center

• Some of the people who worked to create the original Linux operating system kernel remember this time with almost crystal clarity, as though a bright flashbulb indelibly etched its image on the canvasses of their minds.

• It was the weekend before the 18th anniversary of the first moon landing: July 20, 1998. Red Hat was continuing to gather together names of new allies and prospective supporters for its enterprise Linux. Several more of the usual suspects had joined the party: Netscape, Informix, Borland’s Interbase, Computer Associates (now CA), Software AG. These were the challengers in the Windows software market, the names to which the VARs attached extra discounts. As a single glimpse of the Softsel Hot List or the Ingram Micro D sales chart would tell any CIO studying the market, none of these names were the leaders in their respective software categories, nor were they expected to become leaders.

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Kernel Podcast for March 6th, 2017

• In this week’s kernel podcast: Linus Torvalds announces Linux 4.11-rc1, rants about folks not correctly leveraging linux-next, the remainder of this cycle’s merge window pulls, and announcements concerning end of life for some features.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ The New Features Of The Linux 4.11 Kernel

=> ↺ Linux 4.11 Doesn’t Change The Game For AMD’s Ryzen

• Linux 4.11 is worthwhile in that it’s bringing ALC1220 audio support, the codec used by many Ryzen (and Intel Kabylake) motherboards, but this next kernel version doesn’t appear to change Ryzen’s performance.

• I didn’t see anything notable this Linux 4.11 merge window with regard to Ryzen for potentially affecting its performance, but I ran some benchmarks this weekend just to confirm.

=> ↺ Linux 4.11-rc1

• So two weeks have passed, the merge window is over, and 4.11-rc1 has been tagged and pushed out.

• This looks like a fairly regular release. It’s on the smallish side, but mainly just compared to 4.9 and 4.10 – so it’s not really unusually small (in recent kernels, 4.1, 4.3, 4.5, 4.7 and now 4.11 all had about the same number of commits in the merge window).

• It does feel like there was more stuff that I was asked to pull than was in linux-next. That always happens, but seems to have happened more now than usually. Comparing to the linux-next tree at the time of the 4.10 release, almost 18% of the non-merge commits were not in Linux-next. That seems higher than usual, although I guess Stephen Rothwell has actual numbers from past merges.

• Now, about a quarter of the patches that weren’t in linux-next do end up having the same patch ID as something that was, so some of it was due to just rebasing. But still – we have about 13% of the merge window that wasn’t in linux-next when 4.10 was released.

• Looking at the sources of that, there’s a few different classes:

• • fixes.

• This is obviously ok and inevitable. I don’t expect everything to have been in linux-next, after all.

• • the statx() systen call thing.

• Yeah, I’ll allow this one too, because quite frankly, the first version of that patch was posted over six years ago.

• • there’s the quite noticeable linux/sched.h split-up series

• This one was posted and discussed before the merge window, and needed to be merged late (and even then caused some conflicts). So it had real reasons for late inclusion.

• • a couple of subsystems. drm, Infiniband, watchdog and btrfs stand out.

• That last case is what I found rather annoying this merge window.

• In particular, if you cannot follow the simple merge window rules (this whole two-week merge window and linux-next process has been in place over a decade), at least make the end result look good. Make it all look easy and problem-free. Make it look like you know what you’re doing, and make damn sure the code was tested exhaustively some other way.

• Because if you bypass the linux-next sanity checks, you had better have your own sanity checks that you replaced them with. Or you just need to be so good that nobody minds you bypassing them, and nobody ever notices your shortcuts.

• Saying “screw all the rules and processes we have in place to verify things”, and then sending me crap that doesn’t even build for me is not acceptable.

• You people know who you are. Next merge window I will not accept anything even remotely like that. Things that haven’t been in linux-next will be rejected, and since you’re already on my shit-list you’ll get shouted at again.

• Linus

=> ↺ Linus Torvalds Announces the First Release Candidate of Linux Kernel 4.11

• Just a few moments ago, Linus Torvalds announced the availability of the first Release Candidate (RC) development build of the upcoming Linux 4.11 kernel series, which users can download, compile, and test on their GNU/Linux distributions.

=> ↺ Linux 4.11-rc1 Kernel Released

• Linus Torvalds has announced the first test release of the upcoming Linux 4.11 kernel.

• Torvalds’ release announcement that just hit the mailing list mostly talks about the size of the merges and a fair amount of material that was merged but hadn’t been staged in linux-next, upsetting him some. Beginning with Linux 4.12, Linus will become more strict about seeing that big changes be staged in linux-next for testing.

=> ↺ VMware Becomes Linux Foundation Gold Member, Pledging Increased Support for Open Source Development

=> ↺ VMware affirms its open source commitment by becoming Gold Linux Foundation member

• Linux and other open source projects are changing the world. If you don’t believe it, just think of Android — the most used mobile operating system is a Linux distro. Not to mention, many consumer products license open source code. Heck, even major companies like Microsoft and Apple are embracing open source nowadays.

• Today, VMware shows its commitment to the open source community by becoming a Linux Foundation Gold Member. The company joins many other successful companies at that level, such as Facebook, Toshiba, and Toyota, to name a few.

=> ↺ The Companies That Support Linux and Open Source: VMware

• VMware is a global leader in cloud infrastructure and business mobility and has been active in open source development for many years.

• The company has steadily increased its open source involvement through Linux Foundation projects such as ONAP, Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), Cloud Foundry, Open vSwitch and others. And it has just increased its commitment to open source and The Linux Foundation by becoming a Gold member.

=> ↺ Torvalds calls out developers who ‘screw all the rules and processes’ in place for Linux merges

• Linus Torvalds has taken aim at developers who ‘screw all the rules and processes’ in place for Linux merges.

• The founder and long-time principal developer of Linux never minces his words. In the past, Torvald’s been called out for ‘verbally abusing’ his programmers with expletive-ridden language, and in response, has said: “I’m not going to start wearing ties, I’m also not going to buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics, and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords. Because THAT is what ‘acting professionally’ results in.”

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ SWR Software Rasterizer Now Supports Geometry Shaders

• Intel’s “SWR” software rasterizer living within Mesa now has support for OpenGL geometry shaders.

• Thanks to work that landed today by Intel’s Tim Rowley, there is now support for OpenGL geometry shaders in this software rasterizer. The code amounts to over 700 lines of new code to implement GL GS support.

=> ↺ Mesa’s Shader Disk Cache Now Enabled By Default

• With the recent roll-out of Mesa’s on-disk shader cache, an initial limitation was that the entire cache would be erased if a user switched between 32-bit and 64-bit applications. That’s now been fixed. And now the OpenGL GLSL shader cache is enabled by default.

=> ↺ The Mesa GLSL shader cache is now enabled by default

• I’m sure plenty of you will be happy with this, as Mesa now has the shader cache enabled by default in Mesa-git to allow for wider testing. It may be turned off for Mesa 17.1, if wider testing shows issues with it.

=> ↺ Collabora’s Focus on Advancing the Performance of Open Source Graphics in Linux

• Collabora’s Mark Filion is informing Softpedia about some of the latest developments the company has been working on to improve graphics support in the open source Mesa 3D Graphics Library, as well as the Wayland and Weston technologies.

=> ↺ Mesa 17.0.1 Adds Better Support for “The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth,” Other Games

• Collabora’s Emil Velikov was proud to announce this weekend the availability of the first point release to the recently released Mesa 17.0 3D Graphics Library stable series.

• The development cycle of Mesa 17.0.1 was small, and a Release Candidate (RC) build was announced just a few days ago, so we could give you a heads up on what’s coming. Looking at the appended shortlog, we can notice that there are a little over 60 improvements implemented in this maintenance update.

=> ↺ X.Org XDC2017 Happening From 20 To 22 September

=> ↺ Intel Pushes Out More Early DRM Testing Code For Linux 4.12

• Intel’s Daniel Vetter has updated their drm-intel-testing tree with early code to begin testing that should end up being queued for the Linux 4.12 kernel.

=> ↺ An explanation of what Mesa is and what graphics cards use it

• You’ve most likely heard the term “Mesa” thrown around a lot, but you might not quite understand what it is. This is an attempt to clear up the question of “What exactly is Mesa and do I need it?”.

Benchmarks

=> ↺ Core i7 6800K Linux CPU Scaling Benchmarks With Ubuntu 16.10

• Earlier today I posted some Linux game CPU scaling benchmarks using a Core i7 6800K Broadwell-E For showing how current Linux games make use of (or not) multiple CPU cores, which originated from discussions by Linux gamers following the AMD Ryzen CPU launch with how many cores are really needed. While going through the process of running those Linux game CPU scaling benchmarks, I also ran some other workloads for those curious.

• For those wondering how other Linux CPU-focused workloads are scaling across multiple CPU cores with recent versions of the Linux kernel and distributions, such as Ubuntu 16.10 with Linux 4.8, you may find these additional data-sets interesting. Some of the used tests are also in common with this weekend’s AMD Ryzen CPU Core Scaling Performance article.

=> ↺ CPUFreq Governor Tuning For Better AMD Ryzen Linux Performance

• Our latest Ryzen Linux benchmarks are looking at the impact of the CPUFreq scaling driver’s governors have on the performance of the Ryzen 7 1800X, including a look at the power consumption and performance-per-Watt when changing the governors.

Applications

=> ↺ RcppSMC 0.1.5

=> ↺ RcppGSL 0.3.2

=> ↺ VidCutter 3.0 Released with New Features, MPV Backend

• VidCutter, the open-source video trimmer app we mentioned back in January, is back with a new release — and it’s a big one. The cross-platform Qt5 app lets you quickly and easily trim, split and join video clips without needing to re-encode.

=> ↺ Green Recorder 2.0 Released, Lets You Screen Record Wayland

• A new version of Green Recorder Among the new features this simple desktop screen recorder picks up is screen recording in Wayland sessions (more on that further down) plus a couple of advanced screen recording options.

=> ↺ Green Recorder 2.0 Released, Adding GNOME’s Wayland Support

• Green Recorder is a simple recording program for the Linux desktop. It was written using Python and utilizes ffmpeg as its core. It also uses the GTK+ library. The initial version of the program was released around 1 month ago.

=> ↺ That Was The Week That Was (TWTWTW): Edition 3

• This is the third edition of TWTWTW, a weekly blog observing the latest developments in the open source world. TWTWTW aims to give a summary of the most important open source news of the week. For this edition, we present a succinct catchup covering hardware, software, and book roundups.

• [...]

• The Wine development release 2.3 is now available. Wine (originally an acronym for “Wine Is Not an Emulator”) is a compatibility layer capable of running Windows applications on several POSIX-compliant operating systems, such as Linux, macOS, & BSD.

• Lennart Poettering has announced the release of systemd 233. This is a suite of basic building blocks for a Linux system. It bootstraps the user space and manages all processes subsequently.

• There’s a new release of exGENT, a Linux distribution based on Gentoo. This 64-bit distro adds Xfce 4.12.1 and kernel 4.10.1, as well as replacing the boot loader Grub Legacy with Grub2. Linux Lite saw a new beta release. And Q4OS published a third maintenance update to the Q4OS 1.8 Orion.

=> ↺ Top 4 JavaScipt code editors

• JavaScript is everywhere, and its ubiquitous presence on the web is undeniable. Every app uses it in one form or another. And any developer who is serious about the web should learn JavaScript. If you already know it, be sure to continue learning new frameworks, libraries, and tools, because JavaScript is a living, evolving language.

• The JavaScript community has a great open source environment, and that has led to some excellent open source JavaScript IDEs (Integrated Development Environments). The open source movement is strong, and there are many IDEs that you can use to code your JavaScript program.

=> ↺ GNU Screen or tmux?

• If you’ve spent a fair amount of time working on the command line, chances are you’ve tried out a terminal multiplexer. These helpful tools let users easily switch between applications in the terminal, save sessions to come back to later, and manage connections to many machines at ones from one location.

=> ↺ Monday March 6th 2017 – “qBittorrent is the best BitTorrent client”: a guide by TurboLab.it

• The Italian techzine TurboLab.it published a new long-form BitTorrent tutorial titled La Grande Guida a BitTorrent (literally: The big guide to BitTorrent). The author recommends qBittorrent as “the best BitTorrent client for Windows”, citing the lightweight footprint, the no-crapware bundled installer and the clean interface among the top reasons for his choice.

=> ↺ qBittorrent 3.3.11 Is Last Update in the Series, Next Release Drops Qt 4 Support

• The developers of the open-source and cross-platform qBittorrent BitTorrent client have released a new maintenance update to the qBittorrent 3.3 stable series for all supported platforms, including GNU/Linux, macOS, and Microsoft Windows.

• qBittorrent 3.3.11 is now the latest and most advanced version of the free BitTorrent client, but it also looks like it’s the last point release in the series as the developers plan to bump the application’s version to a new major build that should introduce a brand-new icon theme and deprecate support for the Qt 4 GUI toolkit.

=> ↺ CoreFreq – A Powerful CPU monitoring Tool for Linux Systems

• We have wrote many articles about CPU monitoring Tool in past. Today we are going to teach you about CoreFreq, is a powerful CPU monitoring software designed for the 64-bits Processors which i came to know recently.

=> ↺ Phoronix Test Suite 7.0 Released

• The Phoronix Test Suite 7.0-Ringsaker update is now available as the latest version of our cross-platform, open-source benchmarking software particularly for Linux, macOS, and BSD systems. Phoronix Test Suite 7.0 has many user-facing updates over Phoronix Test Suite 6.8 and all users are encouraged to upgrade to this latest release of our GPL benchmarking software.

=> ↺ HandBrake 1.0.3 Open-Source Video Transcoder Improves 2-Pass x265 Encoding, More

• A new maintenance update to the major HandBrake 1.0 release of the open-source and cross-platform video transcoder application has been released recently for all supported platforms, including GNU/Linux, macOS, and Microsoft Windows.

• Coming a little over a month after the previous point release, HandBrake 1.0.3 is the third in the stable series, bringing a bunch of bug fixes to improve the video and audio performance, but also to address some platform-specific issues and implement a few enhancements that’ll make HandBrake the best free video converter utility.

=> ↺ News is a Promising New RSS Reader for the Linux Desktop

• It’s been a little while since we last heard anything about News, a GTK RSS reader app for the GNOME desktop. But, a few weeks ago, the feed reader app’s developer shared a short video of how the app is looking — and it’s fair to say there’s little else like it currently available on the GNOME desktop.

=> ↺ Wireshark 2.2.5 Is Out as the World’s Most Popular Network Protocol Analyzer

• While Wireshark manages to keep its title as the world’s most popular network protocol analyzer, the development team always tries to improve the application by fixing major security issues and enhancing the protocol support.

• Wireshark 2.2.5 is now out as the latest and most advanced version of the open-source and multi-platform application used by numerous network administrators around the globe for network analysis, development, troubleshooting, and education purposes.

Proprietary

=> ↺ Using proprietary services to develop open source software

• It is now pretty well accepted that open source is a superior way of producing software. Almost everyone is doing open source these days. In particular, the ability for users to look under the hood and make changes results in tools that are better adapted to their workflows. It reduces the cost and risk of finding yourself locked in with a vendor in an unbalanced relationship. It contributes to a virtuous circle of continuous improvement, blurring the lines between consumers and producers. It enables everyone to remix and invent new things. It adds up to the common human knowledge.

=> ↺ Why doesn’t Microsoft just give up on Skype for Linux?

=> ↺ Microsoft wants to spy on (record) everyone

• Microsoft released a beta client of Skype for Linux last week but even basic problems with the alpha client — which was around much longer than an alpha client should be — still appear to be dogging the software.

• Every time a new release takes place, I give it a twirl to see what, if anything, has changed.

=> ↺ What’s new in the Skype for Linux beta

=> ↺ Skype Lite Gets Brings Kannada Language Support, Skype for Linux Moves to Beta

=> ↺ Spotify on Fedora 25 using Flatpak

• Spotify is a great application where the web version just isn’t as useful as the Desktop app. Spotify has a debian installer and no support for rpm distros, typically we’d be SOL on Fedora. But with flatpak it’s easy to install Spotify on platforms like Fedora, CentOS, Ubuntu, etc without deb or rpm!

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ Aptly API over Unix Sockets

=> ↺ Get the most out of GNOME notifications

=> ↺ How To Save Commands In Terminal And Use Them On Demand

=> ↺ What’s the Point? Adventures with Pointers in C

=> ↺ How to set up a personal web server with a Raspberry Pi

=> ↺ Andy Wingo: it’s probably spam

=> ↺ How to secure your LEMP stack

=> ↺ 7 Ways to Determine the File System Type in Linux (Ext2, Ext3 or Ext4)

=> ↺ Visualizing threads in QDebug output

=> ↺ Setup Xfce desktop on remote ubuntu 16.10 server and access it via VNC

=> ↺ How to install and configure MariaDB Galera as master to master replication cluster on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

=> ↺ Configure exim4 smtp relay to use tls on connect (smtps)

=> ↺ issue #70: GitHub, Kompose, Usql, tmux-cssh, HAProxy, icdiff, GlusterFS & more

=> ↺ How to edit ownCloud documents using ONLYOFFICE online editors

=> ↺ Getting started with Neo4j on IBM Power Systems running Linux

=> ↺ Practical Guide: Bash for Loop with examples

=> ↺ How to enable the gzip/deflate in nginx server on Linux or Unix system

=> ↺ time scrolling

• The hovertext for Friday’s xkcd Borrow Your Laptop asks for scrolling mapped to undo and redo. How hard can it be? There’s more than one way to do this, but the other ways are boring. What if we’re using a program that doesn’t allow rebinding keys or buttons?

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi 3 as desktop computer

=> ↺ Netops with Emacs and Org mode

=> ↺ Disabling NetworkManager on Servers and Workstations

Games

=> ↺ Deep Sixed, a very unique looking space survival roguelike will have Linux support

• Deep Sixed is a pretty unique looking space survival roguelike that will be heading to Kickstarter soon and the developers confirmed it will support Linux.

=> ↺ How Well Modern Linux Games Scale To Multiple CPU Cores

• With all the discussions about AMD’s Ryzen 7 processors that boast eight cores plus SMT, there has been much discussion in our forums and elsewhere the past few days about how many cores most modern Linux games actually utilize… That plus with looking at how well Ryzen’s CPU cores scale, I have carried out some fresh Linux CPU core scaling benchmarks with an Intel Core i7 6800K Broadwell-E to see if most Linux games can end up using 4+ cores right now.

=> ↺ Hidden Folks, a fantastic and relaxing ‘where’s wally’ game

=> ↺ World of One, a fantastic looking and dark indie puzzle platformer

=> ↺ Ama’s Lullaby, a point & click adventure with hacking plans Linux support

• Ama’s Lullaby is currently on Kickstarter with the interesting premise of being a point & click adventure with hacking.

• They say they have been inspired by Westwoods Studios’ Blade Runner (1997) and it features a command-line hacking system. An asteroid is on a collision course with earth, so you embark on a mission led by an AI to the first human colony on another planet. Sounds good to me!

=> ↺ id Tech 4 / Doom 3 Is Being Rewritten In Ada

• For fans of the Ada programming language, id Tech 4 / Doom 3 is being rewritten by an open-source enthusiast in this structured, statically-typed language.

• AdaDoom3 is an effort to rewrite Doom 3′s code-base in Ada. The id-Tech-4-BFG open-source code-base is being used as the starting point. Planned goals are Doom 3 BFG level loading support, native ports for SDL, Xbox 360 controller support, multi-monitor windowing, working multi-player, and more.

=> ↺ A look at how much RAM you might need as a Linux gamer

• I had a chat on reddit about RAM use and it inspired me to check out multiple games to see just how much RAM you should be looking to have as a Linux gamer. Part of my thought pattern here is that I tend to leave a bunch of applications open when gaming (Discord, Telegram, IRC, Chrome) and I imagined other people did too. So I wondered: Just how much RAM will games use up and is 8GB still okay for now?

=> ↺ Roguelite action rpg ‘Unexplored’ will come to Linux after the Mac build

• I like the simplistic art style, makes it look quite inviting for sure. Looks like a game that’s easy to get into, but likely hard to master.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Kube, a new KDE email/PIM app, sees first tech preview release

• Heard about KDE Kube? It’s a promising new project building a KDE mail and personal information manager suite built around QtQuick and a high-performance data access layer called ‘Sink’.

• Kube 0.1.0 was released this weekend and is the first pre-production tech preview release of the app. While it’s still (very) rough around the edges, it’s still a promising glimpse at what could mature to be a standout KDE application.

=> ↺ Using Krita Without a Keyboard

• Recently we added a custom hotkey file to Krita to work with a hotkey application called Tablet Pro. Tablet Pro allows you to use your tablet without a keyboard by replacing the keyboard shortcuts with custom onscreen hotkeys. For our Krita users our goal has been to give digital artists the power to create at a professional level without a huge expense. Tablet Pro is working with us on that goal. We were happy to work together on this and are excited to share the results. The hotkeys they provide will give you a very similar experience to a Wacom Cintiq with expresskeys.

=> ↺ KDevelop 5.0.4 Open-Source IDE Released with over 60 Improvements and Bug Fixes

• The developers of the KDevelop open-source integrated development environment (IDE) software announced this past weekend the release and general availability of the fourth maintenance update to the KDevelop 5.0 stable series.

• [...]

• According to the release notes, it’s a major update that appears to add a total of 66 changes across the kdevelop, kdevplatform, kdev-php, and kdev-python components. The full changelog is attached at the end of the article for your reading pleasure.

=> ↺ Interviewing Thomas Pfeiffer, member of the Board of Directors of KDE e.V.

• We asked Thomas Pfeiffer (member of the Board of Directors of KDE e.V.) some questions about the KDE Community ongoing projects and future plans.

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ GNOME Builder 3.24 Open-Source IDE Promises an Out-of-the-Box Flatpak Experience

• As part of last week’s Beta 2 milestone of the forthcoming and highly anticipated GNOME 3.24 desktop environment, the development team behind the GNOME Builder IDE released a new Beta version.

=> ↺ GNOME Recipes App Is Now Available to Install On Ubuntu 17.04

• GNOME’s Matthias Clasen recently blogged about the upcoming release of GNOME Recipes 1.0. It’ll be the first formal release of the desktop recipes app for Linux, which has been in development for less than 6 months, and is set to arrive freshly out of the oven alongside GNOME 3.24.

=> ↺ Looking for a Mac OS X GTK Theme? Try This One

• Looking for a Mac theme for Linux? Try GNOME OS X II, an Apple inspired GTK theme for Ubuntu and other Linux desktops.

Distributions

=> ↺ Linux distributions: Rolling releases vs point releases, which should you choose?

• My recent experiences with installing a number of different Linux distributions on a new ASUS notebook have provided an interesting illustration of the differences between “rolling release” and “point release” distributions. I would like to go into a bit more detail about that here.

• First, for those who might not be familiar with the two release models, I will explain each of them — and to avoid boring most others, I will keep the descriptions very brief.

=> ↺ Best Linux distros

• While it may not be as popular as Windows or MacOS, Linux is often the operating system of choice for those in the know. A combination of power and versatility has made Linux a firm favourite among developers and self-professed tech geeks over the years.

• Contrary to popular belief, however, you don’t need to be a programmer or a lifelong tech head to start using Linux. Most of the more popular distros are exceedingly easy to use, with heaps of documentation and guides available online. Best of all, Linux is classed as ‘open source’ software, meaning that it’s completely free!

=> ↺ This Week In Solus – Install #41

• Ikey has spent considerable amount of time this week dedicated to shaping up our Linux Driver Management tool, which will be responsible for our switchable graphics solution. The initial version of LDM will enable always-on Optimus, as that is the highest priority item, before moving on to switchable graphics itself.

=> ↺ Solus’ Linux Driver Management Tool Enables “Always-On” Nvidia Optimus Support

• Joshua Strobl from the Solus Project has managed to publish a new weekly newsletter to inform users of the independently-developed Solus operating system about the latest developments.

• It would appear that Solus’ development team is still working hard these days to improve the upcoming Linux Driver Management (LDM) tool, which is now capable of detecting multiple system configurations, including hybrid Intel and AMD Radeon or Intel and Nvidia GPUs, but also computers with AMD APUs by automatically configuring the graphics stack.

Reviews

=> ↺ Fatdog64 Linux review

• Do not be mislead by the use of “fat” in the name, Fatdog64 is a very lightweight Linux distribution. It is only “fat” compared to Puppy Linux, which Fatdog originally derived from. The first release of Fatdog was as an expansion package for Puppy Linux before becoming a distribution in its own right. As such, Fatdog releases ship with more pre-installed packages than Puppy Linux, so by comparison it is “fatter.”

• Fatter, of course, is a relative term, so Fatdog64 710, the latest release, is much, much smaller than many other distributions. The ISO is a meagre 377MB. Despite the small download size, it still comes with a decent selection of software packed into the image. It uses Openbox as the default desktop environment with JVM being an alternative option, so no weighty GNOME or KDE, which really helps trim the proverbial fat.

New Releases

=> ↺ Kwort 4.3.2 is out

• Kwort 4.3.2 is available for download

=> ↺ CRUX-Based Kwort 4.3.2 Linux OS Is Out with GTK3 Support, Improved Look and Feel

• David Cortarello from the Kwort project, a GNU/Linux distribution that’s fast, lightweight, modern, and based on CRUX Linux, announced the availability of the second point release to the Kwort 4.3 stable series.

=> ↺ [Trenta OS] March 2017 Update

• We would like to start this update by thanking our dedicated fans and community members who have shown us nothing but support over the 3 years that we have worked on Trenta OS and Trenta.io. Today we will make some possibly unpopular announcements. Our goal of providing you with the best looking open-source desktop experience has not changed. Though, we do need to make some critical changes at this time.

• [...]

• TL;DR: Trenta OS ISO release schedule has been put on hold. Rainier UI and Trenta OS testing packages will be installable on existing Ubuntu Gnome installations and possibly more distros for testing. There will be more community interaction.

=> ↺ Maui 17.03 “Cuba Libre” Linux OS Has KDE Plasma 5.9.3, Qt 5.7.1 & Calamares 3.1

• The Ubuntu-based Maui operating system has been updated this weekend to the 17.03 version, a major release that appears to add many of the latest GNU/Linux technologies and Open Source applications.

=> ↺ 4MLinux 21.0 Distro Hits Stable Channel with Support for Windows Shares, More

• 4MLinux developer Zbigniew Konojacki informs Softpedia today about the promotion of the 4MLinux 21.0 independently-developed operating system to the stable channel.

=> ↺ [Stable Update] 2017-03-06 – Mesa, Xorg-Server, Deepin, Tesseract, Plasma5

• Some more updated Deepin, Bluez and Haskell packages round-up this update for today. Please test and give us feedback as usual

=> ↺ Latest Weekly Build of Black Lab Linux Improves Microsoft Surface Studio Support

• Black Lab Software’s CEO Robert J. Dohnert is informing Softpedia today about the availability of a new weekly snapshot of the Ubuntu-based Black Lab Linux operating system.

• At the end of February, we informed you that Black Lab Software decided to release weekly builds of Black Lab Linux, keeping users up-to-date with the latest GNU/Linux technologies, but also patching security flaws and fixing some of the most annoying bugs.

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva Family

=> ↺ The next step towards Mageia 6 is here, announcing sta2

• Everyone at Mageia is delighted to announce the release of our latest development milestone, our second stabilisation snapshot (sta2). We are now one step closer to the release of Mageia 6!

=> ↺ A New Development Build Of Mageia 6 Emerges

• Mageia 6 is running months behind schedule while today the project was able to announce their second stabilization snapshot.

• Mageia 6 STA2 is now available as the second stabilization snapshot for this Mandriva-derived Linux distribution. This new release incorporates eight months worth of bug fixes and polishing. Mageia 6 STA2 also now provides Xfce live ISO images.

=> ↺ The Road to Mageia 6 Linux Continues, Second Development Build Adds New Updates

• It’s been a little over eight months since the upcoming Mageia 6 Linux operating system got its first development build, and a new one is now available for early adopters and public testers with some of the latest GNU/Linux technologies and applications.

• Before we delve into the new updates of the Mageia 6 Sta2 release, we’d like to tell you the big news. Starting with this development build, you can now download a 32-bit variant of the OS with the lightweight Xfce desktop environment if you want to install Mageia 6 on computers from 10 years ago.

=> ↺ ROSA Fresh R8.1 release updated.

• Here we are happy to present the next correcting release of ROSA Fresh R8 platform by launching updated ROSA Fresh R8.1 version.

• This ROSA Fresh R8.1 release is primary purposed for users who need stable LTS platform on modern hardware.

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Red Hat expert: OpenStack May Not Be As Complex As You Think

• OpenStack is perhaps best known for its complexity. It’s not a single open source project but a framework meant to contain several projects with the different pieces able to work together. Different teams are working, each at their own pace, on each subsystem.

• There’s Cinder for block storage and Swift for object storage, Quantum for networking and Nova for compute. There’s also Keystone for identity management and Glance for system image management, along with Horizon for dashboard monitoring information.

=> ↺ Red Hat helps enterprises embrace DevOps at scale

• Red Hat has announced the general availability of Ansible Tower 3.1, the latest version of its enterprise-grade, agentless automation platform.

=> ↺ HPE, Red Hat collaborate to offer more choices for NFV deployments

=> ↺ Red Hat 2017 Women in Open Source Awards finalists

• The 2017 Women in Open Source Awards seek to honour women who make important contributions to open source projects and communities, or make innovative use of open source technology. Voting closes today, 6 March 2017.

Finance

=> ↺ Today Red Hat, Inc. (RHT) Upgraded to Buy by Evercore ISI

=> ↺ Wells Fargo & Company Begins Coverage on Red Hat, Inc. (RHT)

=> ↺ Successful Earnings Option Trading: Red Hat Inc (NYSE:RHT)

=> ↺ Today Red Hat, Inc. (RHT) Lowered to Buy at Vetr Inc.

=> ↺ Average Brokerage Rating Of Red Hat, Inc. (RHT), Principal Financial Group, Inc. (PFG)

=> ↺ Performance of Red Hat, Inc. (RHT) Compared to Index

=> ↺ Large Buying Action and Inflow of Money Witnessed in Red Hat, Inc. (RHT)

Debian Family

Derivatives

=> ↺ Release Notes for siduction 2017.1.0

• Today we are proud to release siduction 2017.1.0 with the flavours KDE, LXQt, GNOME, Cinnamon, MATE, XFCE, LXDE, Xorg and noX. The fact that Debian is in deep freeze for Debian 9 »Stretch« allows us to release the whole stack. As I posted before not too long ago, we planned the release before going to CLT-Conference on 11./12. of March, and voila – here it is.

• The released images are a snapshot of Debian unstable, that also goes by the name of Sid, from 2017-05-03. They are enhanced with some useful packages and scripts, a brand new installer and a custom patched version of the linux-kernel 4.10, accompanied by X-Server 1.19.2-1 and systemd 232-19.

=> ↺ Debian-Based siduction 2017.1.0 OS Gets Linux Kernel 4.10, Drops 32-bit Support

• To kick off the new year, the developers of the Debian-based siduction GNU/Linux distribution have announced the release and immediate availability of version 2017.1.0.

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Canonical Releases Snapd 2.23 Snappy Daemon with GalliumOS & Linux Mint Support

• Michael Vogt from Canonical’s Snappy team was pleased to announce the immediate availability of version 2.23 of the Snapd daemon that provides support for Snap packages in Ubuntu and other GNU/Linux distributions that have adopted Snappy.

• Snapd 2.23 is supposed to be a major release, and we can’t help but notice that there are quite some new features implemented, starting with support for GalliumOS, a fast and lightweight GNU/Linux distribution designed for Chromebooks, as well as the new Linux Mint 18.1 “Serena” operating system, which is based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Low-cost COM/baseboard combo taps power-sipping -A5 SoC

• MYIR’s Linux 4.1 driven, $49 “MYC-JA5D2X” COM offers a Cortex-A5 SAMA5D2 SoC and -40 to 85°C support, and is available as part of a $129 development kit.

• MYIR’s SODIMM-style, 200-pin MYC-JA5D2X module has the same 67.6 x 45mm dimensions as its MYC-JA5D4X computer-on-module, and similarly runs Linux on an Cortex-A5 based Atmel SAMA5 SoC. Instead of tapping the SAMA5D42 or SAMA5D44, however, the MYC-JA5D2X moves to the newer, more power efficient SAMA5D2.

=> ↺ Flash ROMs with a Raspberry Pi

• I previously wrote a series of articles about my experience flashing a ThinkPad X60 laptop with Libreboot. After that, the Libreboot project expanded its hardware support to include the ThinkPad X200 series, so I decided to upgrade. The main challenge with switching over to the X200 was that unlike the X60, you can’t perform the initial Libreboot flash with software. Instead, you actually need to disassemble the laptop to expose the BIOS chip, clip a special clip called a Pomona clip to it that’s wired to some device that can flash chips, cross your fingers and flash.

=> ↺ MontaVista updates CGX Linux distro for 5G and IoT

• MontaVista has upgraded its Yocto Project based Carrier Grade eXpress embedded Linux distro to add 5G, IoT, and NFV technology.

• Cavium-owned MontaVista Software has advanced its Carrier Grade eXpress (CGX) Linux development platform to version 2.2 with features aimed at 5G, NFV, and IoT. The two-year old CGX is a somewhat scaled down, easier to use version of Carrier Grade Edition Linux, and it’s similarly registered for the Linux Foundation’s Carrier Grade Linux 5.0. However, it has a broader audience than CGE’s high-end networking focus, and offers an option for a minimal build aimed at the Internet of Things.

=> ↺ 3.5-inch Skylake SBC offers 4x SATA, 4x PCIe, and 5x USB 3.0

• ADL’s Linux-friendly, 3.5-inch “ADLQ170HDS” SBC offers Intel’s 6th Gen Core CPUs with extended temp support and plenty of of SATA 3, PCIe, and USB 3.0.

Phones

Android

=> ↺ Why Android 2.0 won’t save the smartwatch

• Over the past few months, there has been a discussion among tech gurus about whether the smartwatch, so hyped a few years ago, is doomed. Optimists can point to the success of the Apple Watch, which dominated the smartwatch market in the 2016 4Q as it accounted for half of smartwatch sales and over 75 percent of revenue. Pessimists can point to the fall of smartwatch startup Pebble, Fitbit, and other manufacturers’ ongoing struggles, and observe that many people still are uncertain about what a smartwatch is for.

• The future of the smartwatch may be up for debate. But the Android Wear 2.0 software, which was supposed to be a big competitor against the Apple Watch, is not going to move the needle one way or the other. Android Wear 2.0 is an improvement compared to its previous version, but it is not enough and there are problems with the two watches it will be on. The smartwatch is going to live and die not on Android, but on Apple as well as its competitors’ ability to distinguish itself by going into specific niches.

=> ↺ Turkey Is Latest to Investigate Google’s Android Bundling Requirements

• The focus of the investigation is on whether the practice unfairly prevents other developers from getting their apps on Android handsets. The government in Turkey has become the latest to open an investigation into Google’s business practices.

• The Turkish Competition Authority on Monday said it will examine whether Google’s application bundling requirements for Android handset makers are consistent with the country’s fair competition rules.

=> ↺ Another painful reminder of Android’s most infuriating problem

• That’s right, it’ll be two years before the majority of Android phones gain access to some version of Android 7, and by then Android 9 will have been released. According to Google’s own data, the most common version of Android right now is Android Lollipop, which was first released two years ago back in 2014. Meanwhile, the six-month-old Android Nougat is currently installed on a whopping 1.2% of active Android devices.

=> ↺ Verizon is now pushing Android Nougat to its Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge

=> ↺ Here’s when the LG G4 and V10 will get Android 7.0 Nougat

=> ↺ March 2017 Android security updates now available for Pixel and Nexus devices

=> ↺ Android Studio 2.3 Brings Build Cache, Improved Constraint Layout, and More

=> ↺ From Android Market to Google Play: a brief history of the Play Store

=> ↺ LG G4, V10 will still get Android 7.0 Nougat this year

• Planned, some say forced, obsolescence is nothing new in business but it has become a rather thorny subject in the mobile industry. Devices, especially Android ones, are usually given only two years’ worth of major software updates, leaving them to become stale and “encourage” consumers to jump on more updated hardware. With the launch of the LG G6 and the release of Android 7.0, LG’s 2015 flagships, the G4 and the V10, were initially left by the wayside. LG has apparently had a change of heart and will be bringing Nougat to these two after all.

=> ↺ GE, Siemens Vie to Reinvent Manufacturing by Harnessing the Cloud

• A battle of industrial titans is shaping up as the Android-versus-iOS of manufacturing.

=> ↺ How to turn off AMBER alerts on Android and iOS

=> ↺ Android Wear 2.0 – is it finally time to buy a smartwatch?

=> ↺ Here’s another quick video showing the Samsung Galaxy S8

=> ↺ As Nokia relaunches with new Android phones and a recast classic 3310, would you go back to the brand?

=> ↺ Samsung Pay early access officially launches in India

=> ↺ Android Smartphone Guide: Step-By-Step On How To Recover Photos From Android Phone, Google Smartphone, And IPhone

=> ↺ How to Disable Bluetooth Automatic Playback on any Android Phone

=> ↺ How to install Kodi on an Android tablet or smartphone

=> ↺ LG To Update G4 and V10 to Android 7.0 Nougat After All

• Another year, another flagship iteration. With every such step, a product that was once the top of its game gives way to a newer generation. Consumers who purchased the previous flagship now have to live with their product not being first priority anymore.

=> ↺ Must read: top 10 Android stories

=> ↺ Android smartphone users more likely to download malware than iPhone users

=> ↺ UMIDIGI Z Pro International Giveaway

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ Automotive supply chain and Open Source: a personal view

• The automotive industry has treated software like any other component, as part of the traditional, well structured and highly controlled supply chain. Tier-1′s has been providing software to car auto-makers for some years now and both together have done what they have could to prevent consumers or downstream players in the supply chain from manipulating it, improving it, customising it nor from adapting it. It didn’t matter if the software was Open Source or not, they have treated it as if it was proprietary, promoting locked-in practices. Only very few stakeholders with the right kind of agreement could manipulate it in a very limited way. Consumers and third parties didn’t have a say.

• [...]

• I do not believe automakers will be able to achieve that same level of control being only a Open Source consumers in a connected world, by restricting access to your platform to anybody but those who are part of your supply chain. not even if they become Open Source contributors. And no, the Android model does not apply to a single hardware (car) vendor.

• I am obviously no guru so take all this as nothing but a personal opinion from an Open Source geek. But if you think it is feasable for an automaker to achive similar levels of control with Open Source based platforms than Google or Apple has over their ecosystems in the mobile industry, I think you are at least as crazy as you claim I am.

=> ↺ UK GDS: ‘Give IT staff time to work on open source’

• Public administrations that want to maintain open source software solutions should give their IT staff time to work on these and other open source projects, recommends Anna Shipman, the Open Source Lead at the UK’s Government Digital Service (GDS). Developers can then apply patches, look at outstanding issues, or deal with pull requests, all tasks that “don’t necessarily fit in the schedule of work you have for your team”, said Shipman, speaking at the GOTO conference in Berlin last November.

=> ↺ 9 Reasons to Contribute to an Open Source Project

• More individuals and organizations than ever before are contributing to open source projects. According to the Black Duck 10th Annual Future of Open Source Survey, “65 percent of companies are contributing to open source projects, up from 63 percent in 2015.” In addition, 67 percent of enterprises actively encourage their staff to work on open source projects.

• Similarly, the most recent report on Who Writes Linux found that 5,062 developers had contributed to the open source operating system in the past 15 months, and since 2005, 13,594 developers have written code for the project.

=> ↺ Tax Your Brain: Open Source Takes on Government Black Box Economics

• Thanks to the Open Source Policy Center, however, the citizens of this great nation may now get a glimpse into the data, and the methods used to derive and analyze that data, that drive public policy and the creation of new laws. In short, this DC-based nonprofit organization seeks to let a little open source sunshine into the black box of government data modeling. Part of the American Enterprise Institute, the OPSC launched in April 2016 with the mission of making public policy analysis transparent, or at least a bit more accessible.

=> ↺ Why open source is like a team sport

• As director for Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV) — a role she alternatively describes as coach, nerd matchmaker and diplomat — she oversees and provides guidance for all aspects of the project, from technology to community and marketing. At the recent Linux Foundation Open Source Leadership Summit, she headed up a session titled “Open Source as a Team Sport” with and OPNFV’s Chris Price and OpenStack’s Jonathan Bryce.

=> ↺ Open Source Solutions for Your Automotive Projects and Prototypes

• The Macchina M2 board was announced on February 21st as the newest addition the Arduino’s AtHeart program, an initiative for companies and organizations to use the Arduino platform for their products. The Macchina M2 allows the user to read their vehicle’s electronic signals and reverse engineer them.

• Embedded systems are now an essential part of the modern car, and the Macchina M2′s aim is to allow users to do more than play with the mechanics; the device will let the user get down into the software and electronics. Not only is this sort of access invaluable for tuning and diagnostics, but it opens up a wide range of possibilities for projects or products through customization and prototyping.

• [...]

• AGL is an open-source project which focuses on utilizing the Linux kernel to develop open-source software for automotives. Currently, it can be used for development of in-vehicle-infotainment systems, but there are plans to continue developing it for use with telematics and instrument clusters. The project strives to provide a way for developers, hobbyists, and entrepreneurs to take advantage of onboard electronics and create better software.

=> ↺ How to make release notes count

Events

=> ↺ The OpenStack Summit is returning to Vancouver in May 2018

• Back by popular demand, the OpenStack Summit is returning to Vancouver, Canada from May 21-24, 2018. Registration, sponsorship opportunities and more information for the 17th OpenStack Summit will be available in the upcoming months.

=> ↺ Flatpak at SCaLE 15x

• A decade ago I lived on the west side of Los Angeles. One of my favorite conferences was Southern California Linux Expo. Much like Karen, this is the conference where I performed my first technical talk. It’s also where I met and became friends with great people like Jono, Ted, Jeff, the fantastic organizing staff, and so many more.

=> ↺ foss-north 2017: Call for Papers

• The Call for Papers for foss-north is open for another week (until the 12th). This gives you an opportunity to speak in front of a great crowd. Looking at the results from last year’s questionnaire, more than 90% are users of open source software and more than 50% are contributors. One thing that surprised me, is that more people actually contribute as a part of their profession than as hobbyists. Looking at the professional vs hobbyist proportions, 45% of the visitors stated that they had their ticket paid by their employer/school, while 42% paid them out of their own pocket.

Web Browsers

Chrome

=> ↺ Speed of GNU/Linux Web Browsers

• The reason I gave up on Chrome was that it got a big share of its speed by preloading pages.

=> ↺ Which is the fastest web browser for Linux PC/laptops

• Web browsers are one the most important constituents of any computer in today’s world. Without web browser, there can be no Internet and surfing. So which web browser is most popular among Linux users. According to a survey done by LinuxQuestions, Mozilla’s Firefox was all time favorite among Linux users with nearly a 51.7 percent of them using Firefox. Google’s Chrome came in second with a mere 15.67 percent. The rest of the vote being divided between a multitude of obscure browsers.mostly in single percentages.

=> ↺ Linux: Is Chrome the fastest web browser?

• Linux offers a great range of choices when it comes to web browsers, there really is a browser out there for everybody. But which Linux browser is the fastest?

Mozilla

=> ↺ Firefox 52.0 Released as ESR Branch, Will Receive Security Updates Until 2018

• Back in January, we told you that the development of the Mozilla Firefox 52.0 kicked off with the first Beta release and promised to let users send and open tabs from one device to another, among numerous other improvements and new features.

• Nine Beta builds later, Mozilla has pushed today, March 7, 2016, the final binary and source packages of the Mozilla Firefox 52.0 web browser for all supported platforms, including GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows. The good news is that Firefox 52 is an ESR (Extended Support Release) branch that will be supported until March-April 2018.

=> ↺ Mozilla Statement on Immigration Executive Order

• These restrictions are significant and have created a negative impact to Mozilla and our operations, especially as a mission-based organization and global community with international scope and influence over the health of the internet.

SaaS/Back End

=> ↺ Bouncing Back To Private Clouds With OpenStack

• There is an adage, not quite yet old, suggesting that compute is free but storage is not. Perhaps a more accurate and, as far as public clouds are concerned, apt adaptation of this saying might be that computing and storage are free, and so are inbound networking within a region, but moving data across regions in a public cloud is brutally expensive, and it is even more costly spanning regions.

=> ↺ Reflections on the first OpenStack Project Teams Gathering

=> ↺ Improved container support, PTG recap, and more OpenStack news

• Are you interested in keeping track of what is happening in the open source cloud? Opensource.com is your source for news in OpenStack, the open source cloud infrastructure project.

=> ↺ What If Mesos Metrics Collection Was a Snap?

=> ↺ Google’s microservices protocol joins Kubernetes in cloud foundation

• Google’s gRPC protocol was originally developed to speed up data transfer between microservices, proving faster and more efficient than passing around data encoded in JSON.

• Yesterday the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), which oversees the development of Kubernetes, announced it would also become the home for gRPC’s development.

Databases

=> ↺ ‘Baby, I know your database needs upgrades tonight’

• And now, here’s MongoDB’s effort. Yep, that’s MongoDB as in the company that ships its wares in less-than-optimally-secured configurations and therefore keeps finding itself at the centre of incidents like enabling the leak of data that kids generate when talking to their Bluetooth teddy bears.

Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

=> ↺ Getting Started with LibreOffice 5.2 Official Guide Now Available for Download

• The Document Foundation’s Documentation Team was pleased to announce today, March 6, 2017, the general and immediate availability of an updated Getting Started with LibreOffice.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

=> ↺ A WebAssembly Back-End For The GNU Toolchain

• The WebAssembly efforts so far have been centered around making use of the LLVM compiler infrastructure, but now there are patches for providing partial WASM support atop the GNU toolchain.

=> ↺ GNU Binutils 2.28 Released, Adds RISC-V Support

• Binutils 2.28 brings new options (–remove-relocations=SECTIONPATTERN and nm –with-version-strings), improvements to the ARC and PowerPC ports, Gas adds support for the RISC-V architecture, Gas also now supports the Cortex-M23 and Cortex-M33 processors, and GNU ld also adds RISC-V support, and other new options. The RISC-V architecture support was also recently merged for the GCC 7 compiler stack.

=> ↺ FSF Certifies Three More Devices For Respecting Your Freedom

• The Free Software Foundation has announced three more devices that are certified for “respects your freedom” (RYF), including a laptop, motherboard, and USB sound adapter. But don’t get too excited quite yet.

• The devices certified are from Vikings GmbH and include their D16 motherboard, X200 laptop, and a USB stereo sound adapter. Their D16 motherboard is flashed to run Coreboot/Libreboot but it’s not the first time this board has seen such treatment or even been certified… This board is the ASUS KGPE-D16 that is quite common in Libreboot/Coreboot circles for being an AMD Opteron board that can still be purchased through retail channels and plays nicely with a free software stack.

=> ↺ Three devices from Vikings GmbH now FSF-certified to respect your freedom

• The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today awarded Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certification to three devices from Vikings GmbH: the Vikings D16 Mainboard, the Vikings X200 libre-friendly laptop, and the Vikings USB Stereo Sound Adapter. The RYF certification mark means that the product meets the FSF’s standards in regard to users’ freedom, control over the product, and privacy.

Public Services/Government

=> ↺ Munich might still stick to Linux agreement

• The poster child for the use of Linux by government authorities, the City of Munich, might stick to its commitment to the operating system after all.

• There had been ructions in Munich over whether its move to Linux had been such a good idea and if it had saved as much as it thought it had.

• Most media have reported that a final call was made to halt the LiMux and switch back to Microsoft software, but the Free Software Foundation Europe says this is fake news.

=> ↺ Greenland’s public records system will be open source

• Greenland’s next generation public records system is being built as open source. Last autumn, a contract was awarded to Denmark’s Magenta, an open source IT specialist, the company announced in January.

=> ↺ EU Catalogue of ICT Standards: draft contents and consultation launched

• The European Commission is happy to launch a public consultation to improve the draft contents of the Catalogue. At this stage, the consultation aims at collecting feedback on the contents, and at receiving advices on possible catalogue structure improvements.

Openness/Sharing/Collaboration

=> ↺ ISA² reveals Sharing & Reuse Awards shortlist

• The European Commission has published a list of 17 digital government projects that are shortlisted for its ‘Sharing and Reuse Award’. Of these projects, 8 will win a total of EUR 100,000. The winners will be announced at the Sharing & Reuse Conference in Lisbon (Portugal) on 29 March.

Open Data

=> ↺ City of Malaga shares open data portal extensions

• The city of Malaga (Spain) has announced that it is making available several extensions that it developed for the town’s open data portal, which is based on CKAN. The extensions include one to create a corporate look and feel, a contact-module, and another that makes it easy for the CKAN portal to be federated to Spain’s central open data portal.

Programming/Development

=> ↺ IBM adds new API to quantum computing cloud service

• IBM announced today that it was updating its Quantum Experience cloud with a new API that it hopes will increase the abilities of researchers and other interested parties to build more sophisticated applications with its experimental quantum computing system.

=> ↺ IBM Expands Quantum Computing Efforts

• IBM is moving forward in its effort to enable the era of quantum computing, with a new Application Program Interface (API) that gives developers the ability to build quantum programs that could interface with current computing systems, via the IBM cloud.

• [...]

• As such, the actual quantum hardware is not physically managed using IBM’s cloud technologies. In a cloud model, systems are set up as multi-tenant environments with many different services and applications running concurrently.

=> ↺ Top 20 Most Popular Programming Languages in 2017

• The software engineering craft has been steadily growing in popularity for the past couple of decades. The innovations in technological startups and companies depending on digital sales, along with groundbreaking research in AI and the latest developments in Internet of things, are promising for technical professionals considering long-term opportunities in the software development industry.

=> ↺ C++17 Is Near, A Look At The New Features

• Reports out over the weekend indicate that C++17 is “done” as the next version of the C++ ISO standard.

• While no official announcements have been made yet about the state of C++17, previous communications have signaled that C++17 should be considered technically complete by the time of the ACCU conference happening at the end of April.

=> ↺ Zapcc 1.0 Compiler Announced

• Several times in the past we have covered Zapcc as an LLVM Clang based compiler focused on very fast compilation speeds. Zapcc 1.0 has been released today.

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ W3C Completes Bridge between HTML/Micro-fomats and Semantic Web

• The World Wide Web Consortium completed an important link between Semantic Web and microformats communities. With ‘Gleaning Resource Descriptions from Dialects of Languages’, or GRDDL (pronounced “griddle”), software can automatically extract information from structured Web pages to make it part of the Semantic Web. Those accustomed to expressing structured data with microformats in XHTML can thus increase the value of their existing data by porting it to the Semantic Web, at very low cost.

Leftovers

=> ↺ True confessions of IRC mishaps

• Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a scary tool for those who have never used it. There are all these weird commands that are completely new and aren’t intuitive. Luckily, everyone faces the same struggles when they get started. Yes, folks; even cores, Project Team Leads (PTLs) and your favorite community members have made––and continue to make––IRC mistakes.

Science

=> ↺ Christopher Allan Webber: CRISPR drive as a Thompson hack?

• I listened to this episode of Radiolab on CRISPR last night (great episode, everyone should listen), and I couldn’t stop thinking about this part discussed at the end of the episode about a CRISPR gene drive… the idea is, you might want to replace some gene in a population, so you might use CRISPR to edit the gene of a single parent. Then that parent might reproduce, and there’s a chance that its child might have it in the population. Natural selection whether it stays or not… it could, very well, peter out of a population.

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ Despite Federal Law, Some Rural Hospitals Still Turn Away Women in Labor

• The young woman’s water broke late one morning in August 2014, as she stood in the bathroom of her home in rural Kentucky.

• Her mother rushed her to the emergency room at Jewish Hospital Shelbyville. She signed a slip at the front desk, listing her chief complaint as “labor.”

• But Jewish Hospital had closed its obstetrics department eight years earlier. “We don’t deliver babies here,” the nurse told the woman over the phone, not realizing that she was calling from inside the emergency room, a government inspection found.

=> ↺ First Access To Vaccines Index Published

• An “Access to Vaccines Index” was released today in the Netherlands that claims to “reveal the first landscape of vaccine company actions to improve immunisation coverage.”

• The index “finds a high level of diversity in how vaccine companies are improving access to vaccines for people living in poorer countries. This diversity is generally linked to the size of their portfolios and pipelines,” according to the report website.

• The new report was published by the Access to Medicine Foundation, which is known for its Access to Medicines Index ranking companies on their performance.

Security

=> ↺ Arbitrary code execution in TeX distributions

• Many out there use TeX or one of its distributions like TeX Live, LaTex, MiKTeX or teTeX. Sharing TeX files between authors is common, and often conference organizers, journal editors or university institutions offer TeX templates for papers and diploma theses. So what if a TeX file can take over your computer?

=> ↺ The working dead: The security risks of outdated Linux kernels

• Linux kernel security vulnerabilities are often in the headlines. Recently it was revealed a serious kernel vulnerability remained undiscovered for over a decade. But, what does this mean in a practical sense? Why is security of the Linux kernel important? And, what effects do vulnerabilities have on older or obsolete kernels that are persistent in many devices?

=> ↺ Security firm issues patch for Windows zero-day

• A security firm has released a patch for a remotely exploitable vulnerability in Windows that Microsoft is expected to patch on 14 March.

• 0patch team member Luka Treiber said this was the first time the company had issued code to fix a zero-day exploit.

• He has provided a detailed rundown of his methodology on the firm’s website.

• Anyone wishing to use the patch has to download 0patch’s patching agent and the obtain the code.

=> ↺ Third-Party Vendor Issues Temporary Patch for Windows GDI Vulnerability

=> ↺ so negligent when it comes to patching

• A vulnerability discovered by Google Project Zero security researchers and left without a patch by Microsoft received a temporary fix from third-party security vendor ACROS Security.

• The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2017-0038, is a bug in Windows GDI (Graphics Device Interface), a library that Windows uses to process graphics and formatted text, for both the video display and when sending data to local printers.

• According to Google researchers, attackers could leverage malformed EMF files to expose data found in the victim’s memory, which can then be leveraged to bypass ASLR protection and execute code on the user’s computer.

=> ↺ WordPress 4.7.3 Security and Maintenance Release

• WordPress 4.7.3 is now available. This is a security release for all previous versions and we strongly encourage you to update your sites immediately.

=> ↺ Important Linux Kernel Security Patch Released for CentOS 7, Update Now

• An important Linux kernel security patch has been released today, March 6, 2017, for users of the CentOS 7 operating system series, addressing a total of four vulnerabilities discovered recently.

=> ↺ HackerOne opens up bug bounties to open source

• HackerOne is bringing bug hunting and software testing to open source developers to help make open source software more secure and safer to use.

• A lot of modern tools and technologies depend on open source software, so a security flaw can wind up having a widespread impact — the Heartbleed flaw in OpenSSL, for example. Many open source projects still rely on the “thousand eyes” concept when it comes to software security — that anyone being able to see the source code means defects are found and fixed faster. While it’s true to some extent, it doesn’t apply if no one is actually looking at the code, as we’ve learned repeatedly over the past few years.

=> ↺ HackerOne Offers Free Bounty Programs for Open Source

=> ↺ HackerOne Offers Free Service For Open Source Projects

=> ↺ HackerOne sets hackers on open source projects to improve internet security

=> ↺ Cloudbleed Bug Impacts Large Swath of the Internet

=> ↺ Security updates for Monday

=> ↺ Google Engineers Patch Java Bug in 2,600 Open Source Projects

• Today’s topics include a Google volunteer team patching thousands of open-source projects, Google’s progress on teaching computers to diagnose cancer, Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s decision to realign its technical services unit and Symantec’s tool that helps users identify Cloudbleed risks.

• A Google security researcher last week offered the first details on an effort by a 50-member volunteer team at the company last year to help patch more than 2,600 open-source projects against a critical vulnerability in a widely used Java process.

• The demonstration prompted vulnerability disclosures from multiple vendors, including Oracle, IBM and Cisco, and led many security researchers to estimate that millions of applications—commercially developed, custom-built and open source—were susceptible to the issue.

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Bomb Threats to Jewish Community Centers and Organizations

• Since Jan. 1, at least 91 locations of Jewish organizations in the United States — including schools, Jewish Community Centers, and offices of the Anti-Defamation League — have received a total of 116 bomb threats. The majority have come in five of what the JCC Association of North America calls “waves” — groups of robocalls coming on a single day. So far, none of the threats have been carried out.

=> ↺ I Cover Hate. I Didn’t Expect It at My Family’s Jewish Cemetery.

• When it comes to death, my family honors all of the Ashkenazi Jewish traditions: We name our children after dead relatives, we sit shiva for a week, we gather around trays of fruit and lox and cream cheese, we cover the mirrors, we say the Kaddish prayer, we each toss three shovelfuls of dirt into the grave, and we wait a year to put a stone on top of it. When I got my driver’s license at 16, my mom asked me not to sign the organ donor card because Jews are supposed to be laid to rest in one piece. When I turned 18 and signed it anyway, I couldn’t stop imagining her face when she found out after I’d died in a car accident.

• But traditions don’t protect you from death, or the life of anxiety in preparation for it. When I told my grandmother — her mother called her Malka, her sisters called her Mollie — that I had an opportunity to teach English abroad, I knew what to expect in response: “That’s nice, baby, but why don’t you find a teaching job around here where it’s safe?” That, and a $20 bill she couldn’t necessarily afford to give.

=> ↺ Nigeria rejected British offer to rescue seized Chibok schoolgirls

• British armed forces offered to attempt to rescue nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, but were rebuffed by Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria’s president at the time, the Observer has learned.

• In a mission named Operation Turus, the RAF conducted air reconnaissance over northern Nigeria for several months, following the kidnapping of 276 girls from the town of Chibok in April 2014. “The girls were located in the first few weeks of the RAF mission,” a source involved in Operation Turus told the Observer. “We offered to rescue them, but the Nigerian government declined.”

=> ↺ Man shot dead in car in Malmö

• One man was killed and another seriously injured in a shooting incident in Malmö on Saturday night.

• Police sources told news agency TT that no suspect has yet been arrested.

• Police received several reports at around 10pm on Saturday of a suspected shooting on Malmö’s Kronetorpsgatan. An injured man was found by police in a car on arrival at the scene and first aid was attempted.

• A second injured man was found in a nearby apartment. Both men were taken to hospital.

=> ↺ Donald Trump’s new NSA’s lessons from Vietnam War

• The appointment of lieutenant general H.R. McMaster as national security adviser (NSA) to Donald Trump has been widely welcomed. In the wake of Michael Flynn’s resignation, McMaster is seen as an ideal candidate to introduce a modicum of order and structure in Trump’s national security council (NSC). He is not the first serving military officer to be inducted as NSA for these purposes. Few seem to recall the deeply dysfunctional NSC under Ronald Reagan. No fewer than six NSAs passed through the White House during Reagan’s eight years in office. The most notorious of these was the first serving officer to be appointed as NSA: rear admiral John Poindexter.

• [...]

• When McMaster was commissioned into the US army in 1984, the disastrous experience of the Vietnam War was a haunting, if unspoken, presence. The most popular analysis in the military was the one offered by colonel Harry Summers in his book, On Strategy: A Critical Analysis Of The Vietnam War. Contrary to its subtitle, the book was an attempt at soothing the nerves of the military. Summers implausibly argued that the US had been fighting the wrong war: They were waging a counter-insurgency campaign in South Vietnam instead of fighting a conventional war against the North.

=> ↺ North Korea fires four missiles three of which land in Japanese territory

• Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said North Korea fired four ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan on Sunday, with three landing in his country’s exclusive economic zone.

• REUTERS: US stock index futures fell on Sunday amid news of North Korea’s firing of four ballistic missiles and President Donald Trump’s accusation that his predecessor, Barack Obama, wiretapped him.

• North Korea has launched the missile at the same time as South Korea and the US organise joint military exercises to prepare for conflict.

=> ↺ Trump May Choose “Alternative Intelligence” to Support His “Alternative Facts,” Former Agents Warn

• A former CIA analyst assigned to work on the Bush administration’s attempt to link Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda is warning that the Trump’s administration may be adopting the same model of “alternative intelligence” that led to the Iraq war. “They weighed false information. They also took raw reports and cherry-picked those from sources that we didn’t deem reliable, and gave those to the president,” said Nada Bakos, who worked at the CIA from 2000-2010, in an interview with Jeremy Scahill.

=> ↺ A Path Forward on North Korea

• Mainstream U.S. media depicts North Korean Kim Jong-Un as crazy and his country as an insane asylum, but there is logic in their fear of “regime change,” a fear that only negotiations can address, says ex-U.S. diplomat Ann Wright.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ In the US, added wildfires due to carelessness, not just climate change

• The United States spends billions of dollars every year fighting wildfires. A recent paper published in PNAS finds that human-started conflagrations account for 84 percent of all wildfires in the US in recent years. These human-started wildfires have tripled the length of the annual fire season, and have dominated a geographic area that is seven times larger than the region affected by lightning-started fires. Overall, human-started fires were responsible for nearly half of all the land that was burned over the two-decade period of study.

• The study analyzes wildfire data from 1992 to 2012, focusing only on wildfires that needed an agency response to manage or suppress, and were a threat to ecosystems or infrastructure. The fire data came from the publicly available US Forest Service Fire Program Database, which includes US federal, state, and local records for both public and private lands. Some fires are burns set intentionally for agricultural purposes, but the researchers excluded these. They also excluded fires with an unknown cause, and only concentrated on fires that were started either by humans or by lightning.

=> ↺ Global Warming’s Threat to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago

• There’s another reason – besides escaping the rising rancor of Washington – that it made sense for President Trump to hop on Air Force One and visit his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, three times during his first five weeks in office: he needs to enjoy it while he can. If global warming continues apace, in just 30 years, its ritzy grounds will be flooded most of the year due to rising sea levels, according to an analysis by Coastal Risk Consulting.

Finance

=> ↺ Gove calls on May to guarantee EU citizens right to remain in UK

• Michael Gove and other Tory Brexit campaigners on Sunday called on Theresa May to unilaterally guarantee the rights of 3.2 million EU citizens to remain in the UK, as they back a parliamentary report that brands the government policy as “unacceptable”.

• Gove is one of several pro-Brexit Tories on the all-party select committee on exiting the EU who say that May’s approach is causing great “anxiety” and “uncertainty” to people who work hard in the UK, pay their taxes and deserve immediate reassurance about their futures.

• The committee says, in a report published on Sunday, that EU citizens should not be used as “bargaining chips” in negotiations over Brexit.

=> ↺ Trump Said He Made $21 Million in Income From His New York Contracts. He Actually Made a Lot Less.

• When he was running for president last May, Donald Trump released 104 pages of details about his finances, including a claim that he earned nearly $21 million through contracts with New York City to run two skating rinks in Central Park and a Bronx golf course.

=> ↺ MPs take 13 minutes to double Royal family income and approve £360m Buckingham Palace refurbishment

• A tiny, temporary committee of MPs set up explicitly to consider doubling the publicly funded income of the Royal Family took thirteen minutes to decide that, yes, the Royal Family should indeed have its income doubled.

• The “Seventh Dedicated Legislation Committee” was only established to consider raising the so-called ‘Sovereign Grant’ from 15 per cent to 25 per cent of the Crown Estates income, in order to fund the estimated £360m upgrade to Buckingham Palace, and now it has done so, it will be disbanded.

=> ↺ China’s Communist billionaires accused of getting richer, faster, while GDP slows

• An elite group of Communist billionaires whose combined worth is near $700 billion are being accused of holding China back as they profit from bloated state enterprises.

• Findings released by Shanghai-based Hurun Report have shown that top-ranking members of the National People’s Congress (NPC) are still enriching themselves at a greater rate than ever before.

• It reported that 100 members of the NPC were billionaires, with a combined wealth of nearly $700 billion — about the GDP of Belgium.

• “State-owned companies lack vitality, but the leaders keep them open because they belong to them, they own them,” respected government critic and historian Zhang Lifan told AM.

=> ↺ Why China’s mixing of regulation and politics is a recipe for financial disaster

• What makes a successful company? If you are a customer, a successful business is one that sells you goods or services that you want at a price you can afford. If you are an employee, a good company offers a stimulating workplace that pays you well. If you are a shareholder, it delivers you handsome returns through capital gains or solid dividends. And if you are an economist, a successful company is one with a return on capital that comfortably exceeds its capital cost.

• To all these definitions, add another. If you are a mainland Chinese regulator, a successful company is one that focuses first and foremost on “party building”.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ The Four Stories You Can Write About Trump

• It is nearly-impossible to write anything that purports to be objective about Trump. No one wants to read it. Instead, there are only four basic stories you can do.

=> ↺ Republican Senator Sends Cease-and-Desist Letter to Constituent for Calling Too Much

• Wisconsin GOP Senator Ron Johnson has been avoiding his constituents lately. Last week, a group of constituents even held a town hall about health care without him, after he declined to attend. (He held a telephone town hall instead).

• Now one of Johnson’s constituents has received a cease-and-desist letter from the senator’s office, demanding that he stop calling the senator and stop trying to meet with his staff. The letter to Earl Good of Milwaukee instructs him to only contact the office in writing from now on.

• Good is a Vietnam veteran and attentive constituent who, in an interview with his local CBS station, acknowledged that he has been very persistent in his attempts to get through to the office and talk to the senator’s staff about issues that concern him, including the possible privatization of the Veterans Administration.

=> ↺ Palantir Provides the Engine for Donald Trump’s Deportation Machine

• Immigration and Customs Enforcement is deploying a new intelligence system called Investigative Case Management (ICM), created by Palantir Technologies, that will assist in President Donald Trump’s efforts to deport millions of immigrants from the United States.

• In 2014, ICE awarded Palantir, the $20 billion data-mining firm founded by billionaire Trump advisor Peter Thiel, a $41 million contract to build and maintain ICM, according to government funding records. The system is scheduled to arrive at “final operating capacity” by September of this year. The documents identify Palantir’s ICM as “mission critical” to ICE, meaning that the agency will not be able to properly function without the program.

=> ↺ Trump wire tap: FBI chief Comey ‘rejects’ allegation

• FBI director James Comey has rejected President Donald Trump’s claim on Saturday that his predecessor, Barack Obama, tapped his phone, US media say.

• Mr Comey reportedly asked the US justice department to reject the allegation Mr Obama ordered a wiretap during last year’s election campaign.

• He is said to have asked for the correction because it falsely insinuates that the FBI broke the law.

• The development was reported by the New York Times and confirmed by NBC.

• The justice department did not issue any immediate statement in response to Mr Comey’s reported request.

• US media quoted officials as saying that Mr Comey believed there was no evidence to support Mr Trump’s allegation.

=> ↺ With No Disclosure, Comcast-Owned Vox Runs Commercial for Comcast’s $500M Snapchat Investment

• It appears the standard for disclosure—such as there is—is whether Vox Media is writing explicitly about Vox Media, not when it’s writing about the corporations that own most of Vox Media. Though this standard seems to shift as well: After getting pushback in 2015 for writing a fawning defense of Comcast with no disclosure (FAIR.org, 9/9/15), Vox did ultimately add one.

• When asked in December 2016 what its disclosure policy was, Vox managing editor Lauren Williams told FAIR, “That’s something we’ve been thinking about, and we plan to post one in the new year.”

• A follow-up email Saturday asking if that disclosure policy had been drafted yet has not been answered as of publication. If it is, we will update accordingly.

=> ↺ How the Trump Administration May Be Skirting Its Own Ethics Rules

• The Trump administration appears to be either ignoring or exempting top staffers from its own watered-down ethics rules.

• As we have detailed, President Trump in January issued an order weakening Obama-era ethics policies, allowing lobbyists to work at agencies they had sought to influence. The Trump order did limit what lobbyists could do once they entered government, banning them from directly handling issues on which they had lobbied.

• But the administration may not be even following that.

=> ↺ White House Power Player Jared Kushner Is Keeping Parts of His Real Estate Empire

• Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and the heir to a family real estate empire, has emerged as perhaps Donald Trump’s closest adviser. A near constant presence by Trump’s side, his portfolio includes business, tax, political, and foreign policy matters.

• Last month his lawyers outlined a plan under which they said Kushner would avoid any possibility that his White House work would overlap with his business interests.

• The plan didn’t have much detail. But newly released documents and statements from the White House are making the picture clearer: Kushner is keeping parts of his family business.

• Kushner retains some real-estate holdings associated with Kushner Companies, a White House spokesperson said in an email.

=> ↺ PR-Stupid JetSmarter Will Charge Journalists $2000 If They Don’t Write Positive Reviews

• Uber, but for private jets. That’s JetSmarter’s pitch. But just as Uber has engaged in some questionable behavior in its quest for marketshare, so has JetSmarter. You won’t be able to find many negative reviews of the service because any journalist taking a test flight without delivering a puff piece is going to see their bank account take a hit.

• The Verge received this highly-questionable offer to “review” JetSmarter.

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Feminist Group Gains Support, Detractors After Censorship

• The official Sina Weibo account of prominent Chinese feminist group Feminist Voice (女权之声) has been temporarily banned for 30 days after the group posted a Guardian article on a women’s strike planned in the U.S. on March 8, which allegedly “violated the state’s laws and regulations.” Netizens’ response to the ban has been mixed, with some criticizing the group and others expressing support. At The Diplomat, Lotus Ruan looks at why everyone should support the group, arguing that the it is ultimately about standing up to China’s arbitrary system of censorship and information control.

=> ↺ From protest to censorship

• As the co-author of one of the 1990s’ most controversial works of scholarship, Charles Murray is no stranger to angry protesters.

• Over the years, at university lectures across the country, the influential conservative scholar and author of The Bell Curve says he’s come face-to-face with demonstrators dozens of times.

• But none of those interactions prepared him for the chaotic confrontation he encountered on Thursday night at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont.

• “When The Bell Curve came out, I’d have lectures with lots of people chanting and picketing with signs, but it was always within the confines of the event and I was eventually able to speak,” Murray told The Washington Post. “But I’ve never experienced anything like this.”

=> ↺ In the Conference Hall or on the Pavement

• Apparently the trustees of Leeds University Union will decide during the day whether I should be permitted to speak in a university building this evening. Being a polite sort of chap, I spoke with a very friendly lady for a considerable while this morning clarifying my views on Israel. I remain appalled by the process, but believe the outcome is likely to be positive. I expect the meeting will go ahead. This is the email I sent yesterday evening in response to the demand to pre-vet my speech:

=> ↺ Censorship, sex and films

• I have very often been asked (mostly by men) how I like being called a feminist. And my reply is, “well, compared to the other names I’ve been called, I like it very much”. These are people who have never understood the definition of the word “feminist”, which is just the radical notion that women are human. Feminism believes that women are treated differently and unequally, simply because they are women and for no other reason and that, society needs to remedy this inequality.

=> ↺ Is censorship freedom in the prison yard?

• The CBFC or the Central Board of Film Certification has once again been in the eye of the storm with the film Lipstick Under My Burkha and the Malayalam film, Ka Bodyscapes for being refused a certificate citing various cinematograph guideline violations.

• As soon as an event like this takes place all of us rush to Twitter or the other socia medial platforms like Facebook to voice our strong objection against the regressive attitude of the board or then to read the vitriol others may be pasting there.

=> ↺ Healthy Domains Revisited: the Pharmaceutical Industry

• Users scored an exciting victory over copyright-based censorship last month, when the Domain Name Association (DNA) and the Public Interest Registry (PIR), in response to criticism from EFF, both abruptly withdrew their proposals for a new compulsory arbitration system to confiscate domain names of websites accused of copyright infringement.

• But copyright enforcement was only one limb of the the DNA’s set of Registry/Registrar Healthy Practices [PDF]. One of the other limbs of these practices was a process for “streamlining complaint handling from illegal or ‘rogue’ online pharmacies.” Although the target is different, the mechanism is much the same: allowing a self-interested private entity to request the cancellation of domain names associated with websites that it alleges infringe its rights.

=> ↺ Bolivia Initiates Diplomatic Action With France Over Portrayal In Fictional Video Game

• There’s been something of a trend recently in which the digital realm of video games have begun penetrating reality. This has taken several forms, from many countries attempting to dress up their real world military capabilities using video game footage, to infractions within the gaming realm resulting in real world criminal charges. This has come to be in part because gaming has become a dominant form of entertainment for so much of the population and in part because of how realistic games have become.

• But neither seems to be much of a factor in what I think is a first: Bolivia has filed a dipolomatic complaint with France in response to the country’s fictionalized portrayal in Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands.

=> ↺ Reddit BTC Mod Resigns, Cites Censorship in Both Subreddits

• Reddit BTC moderator “Jratcliff63367” officially resigned from the subreddit due to its dysfunctional operations and limited discussions. In his official statement, Jratcliff stated emphasized the censorship on both the Bitcoin subreddit and BTC subreddit, expressing his concerns over two of the largest bitcoin discussion communities.

=> ↺ A New Low For Indian Censors: Banning “Lady Oriented” Films

• If you’ve been keeping up with stories pertaining to Indian censorship, you’ll know how arbitrarily regressive some of the decisions tend to be. Words are taken out of context or even misheard by the Central Board of Film Certification, leaving producers little choice beyond bowing to their whims. You can catch up on all my articles on the history and progress (or lack thereof) when it comes to censorship here (including my frustrating interview with the head of the CBFC), though something I haven’t yet touched on in detail is the board’s outright refusal to certify, as has recently been the case with Alankrita Shrivastava’s Lipstick Under My Burkha.

=> ↺ Cancellation of book session an act of self-censorship: Teesta Setalvad

=> ↺ Cancellation of book session an act of self-censorship: Teesta

=> ↺ Act of self-censorship: Teesta Setalvad reacts to cancellation of book session

=> ↺ Delhi: Oxford bookstore cancels discussion on Teesta Setalvad’s memoir citing ‘volatile situation’

=> ↺ Oxford Bookstore in Delhi cancels activist Teesta Setalvad’s book discussion

=> ↺ The big news: Sushma Swaraj speaks to family of Sikh man shot in US, and nine other top stories

=> ↺ Talk on Teesta’s book scrapped

=> ↺ Delhi bookstore cancels discussion on Teesta’s memoir

=> ↺ Facebook Adds Disputed Alert to Fight Fake News

=> ↺ Facebook Rolls Out its Fake News Tool

=> ↺ Facebook Debuts Tool To Flag Fake News

=> ↺ Facebook launches tool to fight fake news — but is it censorship?

=> ↺ Violence on Facebook Live presents censorship dilemma

=> ↺ Music, censorship and the industry

• Music—we all love it, in various forms and degrees. Some just enjoy a casual radio buzz in the background, while others need to listen to albums in their entirety to get any pleasure. This broad spectrum has led to a wide variety of music, from introspective concept albums to simple, catchy, so-called “radio tunes,” crafted to set an upbeat mood and stick in one’s head.

• [...]

• However, radio still finds the need to censor this music. This censorship ranges from the changing of lyrics (Cee Lo Green’s claim to fame, “Forget You,” comes to mind) to the outright removal of words deemed inappropriate (as in the chorus of “Starboy,” by The Weeknd). This is done for one reason: to sell the song to radio, and to people who feel that foul language is a legitimate sign of immorality.

=> ↺ RSS Backing Makes Modi More Dangerous Than Trump: Teesta Setalvad

=> ↺ RSS, which doesn’t believe in Constitution, is in power today: Teesta Setalvad

=> ↺ ‘Gujarat riots did not happen all of a sudden’

=> ↺ Cancellation of book session an act of self-censorship: Teesta Setalvad

=> ↺ Iowa Pro-Life Leaders: The Funnel Is a Self-Imposed Deadline

=> ↺ House committee approves bill targeting student press rights

=> ↺ House Committee Approves Bill Targeting Student Press Rights

=> ↺ Students journalists gain protection against censorship

• A House panel voted 10-1 Monday to protect student journalists despite objections by one lawmaker who feared giving too much power to “children.”

• SB 1384 would limit the ability of administrators to censor university, community college and public school papers. About the only time they could block publication would be in cases of libel, unwarranted invasions of privacy, violations of law of where there is “imminent danger” of inciting students or disruption of operations.

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ Fortinet hires NSA veteran as company’s first CISO

=> ↺ Yahoo News Now: Former head of the NSA Michael Hayden on Trump’s wiretapping accusations

• On Monday, March 6, 2017, former director of the National Security Agency, Michael Hayden talks with Yahoo News and Finance Anchor Bianna Golodryga regarding President Trump’s accusations that the Obama administration tapped his phones during the 2016 campaign.

=> ↺ NSA whistleblower shows how candidate Trump could have been wiretapped

=> ↺ BONOKOSKI: Maybe Donald Trump was wiretapped after all

=> ↺ NSA Whistleblower: Spy Agencies Eavesdrop On Americans Without Warrants All The Time

=> ↺ NSA Whistleblower Binney: Trump No Exception to Surveillance State

=> ↺ US spies have ‘considerable intelligence’ on high-level Trump-Russia talks, claims ex-NSA analyst

=> ↺ Ex-NSA analyst: Intel community thinks Trump’s wiretapping paranoia about Obama is a ‘kooky fantasy’

=> ↺ Trump Wiretap Claims: Do NSA Powers Extend All The Way to the White House?

• US President Donald Trump has accused his predecessor, President Barack Obama, of tapping the former’s phones over the 2016 presidential election period. Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear speaks with NSA whistleblower William Binney about whether Trump’s accusations have merit, and the capabilities of America’s surveillance state.

=> ↺ If anyone bugged Trump Tower, here’s the shadowy court to OK it

=> ↺ White House wants spy law renewed, but won’t say how many Americans it spies on

=> ↺ Trump Administration Wants A Clean Reauthorization For NSA Surveillance

• Section 702 has dodged reform efforts, thanks in part to the intelligence community’s unwillingness to discuss anything about it. Repeated requests by representatives for the NSA to come up with an estimate of how many US persons’ communications are swept up “inadvertently” have been met with shrugs and stalling. Five years after he was first asked, James Clapper promised to have something put together “soon.” We’re still waiting.

• Not helping the matter is the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board’s evaluation of the program. After finding the Section 215 phone metadata program both useless and illegal, it had very little to say about the NSA’s internet backbone dragnet. The best it could offer was that it was likely legal and any collection of US persons’ communications was probably “inadvertent.” It agreed the massive collection program ran right up against the edges of the Fourth Amendment, but didn’t cross it — at least as far as it was willing to examine.

=> ↺ Another Hatchet Job on Snowden

• In depicting National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden as a Russian spy, author Edward Jay Epstein acknowledges his debt to the CIA’s famously paranoid counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton, who specialized in counterintuitive thinking that surely smeared more honest CIA officers than it snared actual spies.

• [...]

• But Angleton, like other counterintelligence sleuths, assumed the carte-blanche right to smother a slender fact with weighty assumptions and then weave upon them a hefty garment of allegations, speculation and imagination fitting with the occupational predisposition to detect a spy.

• Over the decades, it’s conceivable that this “methodology” may have caught a spy or two (although Angleton is perhaps best known for missing the notorious Soviet spy Kim Philby). But creating a counterfactual, evidence-free scenario seems an irresponsible way to write about Edward Snowden, a whistleblower responsible for the most consequential intelligence leak in U.S. history.

=> ↺ NY City Council Measure Would Require Transparency for NYPD Electronic Surveillance

• Two members of the New York City Council introduced a bill on Wednesday, March 1 to enact long overdue transparency rules for the NYPD’s procurement and deployment of electronic surveillance technology. It is the latest in a series of similar proposals around the country modeled on a Silicon Valley law adopted in 2016, which was crafted to impose municipal checks and balances to constrain on executive power and address the metastasis of surveillance.

• The Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology (POST) Act, introduced by councilmembers Dan Garodnick and Vanessa Gibson, would require important disclosures by the NYPD before it buys electronic surveillance gear. It would also require an opportunity for public comment on its proposed use policies.

=> ↺ Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Pick Is on the Wrong Side of Surveillance

• President Donald Trump’s pick for Director of National Intelligence has laid out his vision for the country’s surveillance, and it’s not good for technology users.

• In his confirmation in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee this week, former-Sen. Dan Coats, a Republican from Indiana, said there need to be continued conversations about legal authorities to undermine encryption and called reauthorizing an authority that the government uses to spy on Americans’ Internet activities without a warrant his “top legislative priority.”

=> ↺ California Supreme Court Rules Public Records Act Covers Government Communications on Private Email and Personal Devices

• In a major victory for transparency, the California Supreme Court ruled today that when government officials conduct public business using private email or personal devices, those communications may be subject to disclosure under the California Public Record Acts (CPRA).

=> ↺ New FCC Chairman Begins Attacks on Internet Privacy

• Newly minted Republican FCC Chairman Ajit Pai just granted the telecom industry its wish: he has blocked new requirements that Internet service providers (ISPs) like Comcast apply common sense security practices to protect your private data. By suspending the FCC’s proposed data security rules for ISPs, Pai is pitting Internet users against the very companies we trust to get us online. And the ISPs will continue to win—unless we fight back.

=> ↺ If Trump Tower Was Wiretapped, Trump Can Declassify That Right Now

• If in fact Trump Tower was wiretapped during the 2016 presidential campaign, as President Trump claimed in several tweets Saturday morning, he can do much more than say so on twitter: Presidents have the power to declassify anything at any time, so Trump could immediately make public any government records of such surveillance.

• What Trump is saying seems to be a garbled version of previous reporting by the BBC, among other news outlets.

=> ↺ An Illinois Court Just Didn’t Get It: We Are Entitled to Expect Privacy In Our Smart Meter Data, Which Reveals What’s Going On Inside Our Homes

• Cities across the country are switching to wireless smart meters. You may even have one in your home. Utility companies say the new technology helps consumers monitor their energy use and potentially save money. But smart meters also reveals intimate details about what’s going on inside the home. By collecting energy use data at high frequencies—typically every 5, 15, or 30 minutes—smart meters know exactly how much electricity is being used, and when. Patterns in your smart meter data can reveal when you are home, when you are sleeping, when you take a shower, and even whether you cook dinner on the stove or in the microwave. These are all private details about what’s going on inside your home—details that should be clearly within the bounds of Fourth Amendment protection.

• But a federal district court in Illinois has held—in a lawsuit alleging that smart meters installed in Naperville, Illinois, put the privacy of the city’s citizens at risk—that Americans can’t reasonably expect any privacy in the data collected by these devices. According to the court, smart meter data is completely beyond the protection of the Fourth Amendment.

=> ↺ Data Brokers: Don’t Let Your Data be Used For Human Rights Abuses

• EFF, Amnesty International, Color of Change, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and our other coalition partners are urging data brokers to take a stand against government surveillance and discrimination based on religion, national origin, and immigration status.

• As explained in a joint statement released today, data brokers collect and analyze huge amounts of personal data that could easily be used to identify and profile and track people in violation of their basic human rights.

=> ↺ Consumer Reports to Begin Evaluating Products, Services for Privacy and Data Security

• One day in August 2015, Jared Denman got a frightened phone call at work from his wife, who was home with their 2-year-old daughter. A song was playing through the couple’s baby monitor—the Police’s “Every Breath You Take.” The monitor was the kind that connects to the internet so that parents can see and talk to their baby or caregiver when they’re away from home. The device had been taken over by a malicious hacker, and the song’s lyrics were particularly ominous: “Every game you play, every night you stay, I’ll be watching you.”

=> ↺ Announcing A New Open-Source Privacy Standard For The Internet Of Things

• At Consumerist, consumer privacy and data security have been growing areas of coverage over the past few years. We regularly write about policies, corporate and government alike, that either threaten or help safeguard your privacy. We cover data breaches big and small, and investigate tips from you, our readers. We offer advice about good practices that can help protect you and your data, and try to give you a heads-up when a company changes something that might affect you. And when your kid’s doll is recording what you say and sending the information to a defense contractor — Consumerist is there.

=> ↺ National Pupil Database event report

• Last weeks highly entertaining talk was full of tales of how the Department of Education misleads on answering questions about it’s plans for pupil data, such as by failing to make clear that the collection of nationality information is entirely optional!

• We learnt of the scale of the problem, with over 20 million kids involved, and anyone under the age of around 36 being on the database too.

=> ↺ To keep Tor hack source code secret, DOJ dismisses child porn case

• Rather than share the now-classified technological means that investigators used to locate a child porn suspect, federal prosecutors in Washington state have dropped all charges against a man accused of accessing Playpen, a notorious and now-shuttered website.

• The case, United States v. Jay Michaud, is one of nearly 200 cases nationwide that have raised new questions about the appropriate limitations on the government’s ability to hack criminal suspects. Michaud marks just the second time that prosecutors have asked that case be dismissed.

=> ↺ US police agencies with their own DNA databases stir debate

• Dozens of police departments around the U.S. are amassing their own DNA databases to track criminals, a move critics say is a way around regulations governing state and national databases that restrict who can provide genetic samples and how long that information is held.

• The local agencies create the rules for their databases, in some cases allowing samples to be taken from children or from people never arrested for a crime. Police chiefs say having their own collections helps them solve cases faster because they can avoid the backlogs that plague state and federal repositories.

=> ↺ F.C.C., in Potential Sign of the Future, Halts New Data Security Rules

• The Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday halted new government rules related to data security from taking effect this week, in a potential prelude to a broader repeal of privacy protections for users of high-speed internet.

• After a 2-to-1, party-line vote by the Republican-led commission, Ajit Pai, the chairman, announced that a portion of privacy rules passed in October would be temporarily stayed.

=> ↺ A nude photo scandal has shaken the entire Marine Corps

• The U.S. Marine Corps is investigating allegations an unspecified number of military personnel and veterans allegedly distributed nude photos of female colleagues and other women as part of a perverse social media network that promotes sexual violence.

=> ↺ The US military is investigating a secret Facebook group that spread naked pictures of service women

• Yesterday, The Center for Investigative Reporting published a report that revealed that the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) has launched an investigation into hundreds of Marines following the discovery of a secret Facebook group that was used to spread naked pictures of service women.

• The report, authored by Thomas Brennan, founder of a non-profit news organization called The War Horse, revealed that pictures of the service women were shared on a private Facebook group called Marines United, either posted to the site itself, or via links to a Google Drive folder. The group consists of nearly 30,000 members, some of whom posted comments on the images.

=> ↺ ePrivacy at the European Parliament : La Quadrature publishes its analysis

• The nomination of Marju Lauristin last Tuesday, MEP of the “Socialists&Democrats” group, as a rapporteur of the ePrivacy regulation on “the respect of privacy and personal data protection in electronic communications” kicks off negotiations at the European Parliament. It is an opportunity for La Quadrature du Net to publish its arguments and recommendations, which it will promote loud and strong during the upcoming months with MEPs of all political sides.

• [...]

• Yet the battle is far from won. As we said in early January, the Commission’s proposal turns out to be far below what the speeches say, and the attacks from some conservative Members of European Parliament (MEP) against even the usefulness of the text are extremely disquieting.

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Arab world’s first ordained female pastor is historic

• Her ordination was “an act of love and justice”, those present at the ceremony heard in the sermon, and her comment to journalists after the ceremony was “Christ’s justice has been finally fulfilled”.

• Rola had shown signs of cautious optimism in 2012 about her ordination: “It is not something that I dream of day and night. Whatever happens, I will not be discouraged.” But she tells me that she never imagined this day would come. She was very (pleasantly) surprised with the result of the Synod’s vote of 23-1 in favor of her ordination.

=> ↺ Software engineer detained at JFK, given test to prove he’s an engineer

• Donald Trump’s temporary immigration ban and the ensuing heightened security procedures for travelers from outside the U.S. have caused a great deal of trouble for visitors to the country.

=> ↺ Ahok makes it to run-off in Jakarta governor race

• Stakes in the vote have been raised by allegations that Ahok – the city’s first non-Muslim governor for half a century and its first ethnic Chinese leader – insulted the Koran.

• The claims drew hundreds of thousands of conservative Muslims on to the streets of Jakarta in major protests in 2016 but the case has been criticised as unfair and politically motivated.

=> ↺ TSA’s Airport Gropedowns To Get More Invasive

• How can they get more invasive — rectal checks, like before you get processed into the prison population? (All without probable cause, under cover of this “administrative search” used to separate us from our constitutional rights.)

=> ↺ U.S. Airport Pat-Downs Are About to Get More Invasive

• While few have noticed, U.S. airport security workers long had the option of using five different types of physical pat-downs at the screening line. Now those options have been eliminated and replaced with a single universal approach. This time, you will notice.

• The new physical touching—for those selected to have a pat-down—will be be what the federal agency officially describes as a more “comprehensive” physical screening, according to a Transportation Security Administration spokesman.

• Denver International Airport, for example, notified employees and flight crews on Thursday that the “more rigorous” searches “will be more thorough and may involve an officer making more intimate contact than before.”

=> ↺ These Stories Are Very Sad. But Why Should People Who Are Here Illegally Be Allowed To Stay?

• That said, please tell me why illegal immigrants should be allowed to jump the line and stay here — and as a reward for not respecting our laws. The fact that they’ve gotten away with it for a number of years…should that really be the standard for staying?

=> ↺ Detroit-Area City Clerk Retires In Anti-Muslim Controversy

• A city official in metro Detroit has retired after being accused of posting anti-Muslim remarks on social media.

• Linda Langmesser retired Friday after more than 25 years as Plymouth city clerk. City Manager Paul Sincock declined further comment. The city had been conducting an internal review.

• Activists had accused Langmesser of writing Muslims “don’t tell the whole truth” in response to a recent story about a Muslim woman who resigned from President Donald Trump’s National Security Council.

=> ↺ Hyderabad: 2 Muslim women divorced over WhatsApp by US-based husbands

• Two Muslim women in Hyderabad have been divorced over WhatsApp by their husbands living in the US. The two women have lodged complaint with the police.

=> ↺ Did Angela Garcia Kill Her Own Daughters — Or Did Prosecutors Cover Up a Wrongful Conviction?

• Before I left the prison, I asked Garcia what she would do if she were to win her freedom. She joked that she wanted to use a cellphone. But mostly, she said, she wants to take care of her family as they have taken care of her, especially her mother, who is getting older. She’d like to cook for her, make her breakfast in bed. “You know what I really want? I want to lay in bed with my mom and just snuggle with her,” Garcia said. “That’s all I want.”

• Finally, she wants to meet the family of Cameron Todd Willingham, the Texas man wrongly executed for killing his own daughters in a fire. “That’s one of the first things I want to do,” Garcia said. His death was a horrible tragedy, she said. But she was certain it had convinced many people to revisit other arson cases, to help people like her.

• “I want to tell his mother: Your son didn’t die in vain.”

=> ↺ TSA Now Making Its Intrusive Searches Even More Gropey & Assaulty

• Got that? I love the way they dance around the fact that this is randomly allowed sexual assault on people who just want to travel somewhere. But it’s described as “physical touching” that is more “comprehensive” and “may involve an officer making more intimate contact.”

=> ↺ Former GCHQ spy who claimed warnings were ignored before shooting of WPC Yvonne Fletcher charged with harassing police officer

• A former spy who claimed warnings to “cover the streets with blood” were ignored before WPC Yvonne Fletcher was murdered, has been charged with harassing a police officer.

• Ex-British spy Michael Arnold, 59, was a technology officer at GCHQ when the 25-year-old officer was shot and killed outside the Libyan Embassy in 1984.

• Thirty years after her death, in 2014, Arnold claimed top security bosses failed to act after an order was issued by Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi to “cover the streets of London with blood”.

• Now Arnold, of Worcester, has been arrested by police for allegedly harassing a Midlands-based police officer.

=> ↺ Utah Judge Won’t Let The Constitution Get In The Way Of A Little Prior Restraint

• For reasons unknown, a federal judge has said the hell with free speech and steered the court into the First Amendment-troubling waters of prior restraint.

• It’s another defamation lawsuit that doesn’t spend too much time dealing with defamation, preferring to focus on Lanham Act violations and tortious interference. Purple Innovations, maker of a (purple) bed-in-a-box mattress, is suing the Honest Mattress Reviews website, along with Ryan Monahan, former “Chief Brand Officer” for Purple Innovations competitor, Ghostbed, and creator of the site.

DRM

=> ↺ What’s up at the W3C: further reading for Reply All listeners

• The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is a standards body: they work to create open standards, rules for connecting up the web that anyone can follow, guaranteeing that anyone can make a web browser, web server, or website.

• In 2013, the W3C gave in to pressure from a few entertainment companies and big tech companies to make a new kind of standard: a standard for limiting how people could use the videos that they watched in their browser. These controlling technologies are called “Digital Rights Management” (DRM), and the W3C’s DRM standard is called “Encrypted Media Extensions” (EME).

Intellectual Monopolies

=> ↺ A Review Of ‘Standard Essential Patents Within Global Networks – An Emerging Economies Perspective’ By Dieter Ernst

• Dieter Ernst claims in this study that the FRAND regime remains shackled with transaction costs and that the licensing of SEPs is prone to a host of different market failures associated with information asymmetries, market power and free riding as well as externalities (both positive and negative).

=> ↺ Ask Hackaday: How Should Hackers Handle IP Agreements?

• My buddy Harold recently landed a new job at a great technology company. It came at a perfect time for him, having just been laid off from the corporate behemoth where he’d toiled away as an anonymous cog for 19 years. But the day before he was to start, the new company’s HR folks sent him some last-minute documents to sign. One was a broad and vaguely worded non-compete agreement which essentially said he was barred from working in any related industry for a year after leaving the company.

• Harold was tempted not to sign, but eventually relented because one needs to put food on the table. Thankfully he’s now thriving at the new company, but his experience got me thinking about all the complications hackers face with the day jobs that so many of us need to maintain. Non-competes and non-disclosures are bad enough, but there’s one agreement that can really foul things up for a hacker: the Intellectual Property Agreement.

=> ↺ U.S. Withdrawal from TPP Impact on Intellectual Property

• Recently, President Donald Trump has withdrawn the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an international agreement negotiated among twelve countries including Canada, the United States, Mexico, Peru, and Chile in the Americas; Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Brunei in Asia; and Australia and New Zealand in Oceana. President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the TPP as the fulfillment of one of his major campaign promises.

Trademarks

=> ↺ Kobe Bryant Files Opposition Over “Black Mamba” Trademark

• Former Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant’s nickname, the “Black Mamba”, has landed him in a legal battle to defend the right to use the nickname. Bryant and a California based online retail company named 47 / 72 Inc. have filed trademark applications for variations of “Black Mamba.”

• Bryant was drafted directly from high school in 1996 and played in the NBA for 20 years before retiring after last season. Nike declared April 13, 2016, which was the date of Kobe Bryant’s last game, “Mamba Day” because over the course of his career he had been given the nickname the “Black Mamba.”

=> ↺ Florida City Sends Bogus Trademark C&D To Blogger Because It Doesn’t Like Its Logo Parodied

• You’d think city lawyers would talk to other lawyers before sending cease-and-desist letters to citizens. Or, at the very least, page through a few pamphlets on intellectual property law before threatening people with legal actions completely unmoored from statutory authority. But if they all did this, what would we write about?

• The city of Tamarac, Florida, is the latest participant in the long-running MMO we call “The Streisand Effect.” Apparently, the city doesn’t like its logo being used by someone who has little respect for the city’s governance. It would presumably approve of its logo being adjacent to more respectful writing, but the lack of legal threats directed at home-teamers makes it difficult to gather test cases.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Prenda’s John Steele Pleads Guilty, Admits To Basically Everything

• Remember all the bravado behind John Steele and his copyright porn trolling? I’ve noted in the past that Steele reminded me of some guys I knew in college who believed that they were so smart that they could do whatever they wanted, and talk their way out later if they got into trouble. And, for many years, it seemed that Steele was fairly successful in doing exactly that. Remember all his big talk right after Judge Otis Wright referred Steele and his partners to law enforcement over his copyright trolling efforts? At the time, he yelled and screamed about how it was unfair and unprecedented, and insisted loudly that he would prevail.

=> ↺ Film Company Launches Fake KickassTorrents to Convert Pirates

• A Costa-Rica based film distributor has launched its very own KickassTorrents look-a-like site with a mission to convert would-be pirates. None of the listed torrents provide pirate copies of the movies in question, but they are worth obtaining as they contain two free tickets to watch the movie in a local theater.

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink  Send this to a friend

=> Techrights

➮ Sharing is caring. Content is available under CC-BY-SA.