● 05.27.21

● Links 28/5/2021: TDF Annual Report, VzLinux 8.3, FSF’s Search for Executive Director

Posted in News Roundup at 9:12 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ A Few Of My Favorite Things (Gemini, Mastodon, Odysee)

• I love trying out alternatives to mainstream software, services and social networks. Three alternative platforms that I’ve been using for awhile are Gemini, Mastodon and Odysee. I often get questions about these alternatives, such as “Hey DT, do you still like Gemini?” or “Has your opinions on Mastodon changed?”

=> ↺ Google AMP Is Now Basically Dead: Thank You

• Google AMP is a web framework that from it’s first day of existence has been controversial and finally after all this time Google is now effectively killing, while it won’t be in the Google Graveyard it will no longer have any use case.

=> ↺ Ubuntu Podcast from the UK LoCo: S14E12 – Clinics Lifesaver Yanked

• This week we’ve been making a Linux powered Commodore 64 and coding with BlitzMax-NG. We discuss technology for kids, bring you a command live love and reply to all your wonderful feedback.

• It’s Season 14 Episode 12 of the Ubuntu Podcast! Alan Pope, Mark Johnson and Martin Wimpress are connected and speaking to your brain.

Kernel Space

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ Bridging the OpenGL and Vulkan divide

• Thanks to a new, low overhead extension in Mesa, OpenGL and Vulkan applications can now talk to each other, bringing more flexibility to application developers while easing the transition path between the industry-standard Khronos® APIs.

• After several months of work, I’m excited to present a way for OpenGL and Vulkan applications to talk to each other when using Mesa.

• Quoting from Khronos’s own website, Vulkan promises to be a “new generation graphics and compute API that provides high-efficiency, cross-platform access to modern GPUs”. However, as with all new API’s, rewrites of any graphics applications leveraging Vulkan are going to be slow process. And not all applications might want to make the switch.

• Since Vulkan offers higher efficiency and features missing in OpenGL, an application developer could however choose to rewrite performance critical sections in Vulkan, while keeping other parts in OpenGL for the sake of convenience. This would need a way for OpenGL and Vulkan to talk to each other. As of late 2016, this was formalized in the EXT_external_objects spec that defines primitives for exchanging buffers and syncrhonization primitives between OpenGL and Vulkan.

=> ↺ Intel’s OpenGL Mesa Drivers Now In Good Shape For External Objects

• Over the past year developers from Igalia, Collabora, and others have been involved in bringing up support for the OpenGL EXT_external_objects extension within the Intel open-source drivers. That work is now squared away as one of the pieces for offering better interoperability between OpenGL and Vulkan.

• Last month the EXT_external_objects support for the Intel Iris Gallium3D driver was merged. Additionally, merged a few weeks back was EXT_external_objects support for the aging i965 Mesa driver that continues providing OpenGL support for pre-Broadwell hardware.

Benchmarks

=> ↺ Windows 10 vs. Ubuntu 21.04 On The AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X

• Earlier this month were benchmarks looking at Windows 10 vs. Ubuntu 21.04 on an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X desktop to which Ubuntu came out roughly 8% faster than the Microsoft OS on average. But what about the difference for HEDT systems? Given the more radical performance difference we have seen in the past with Windows vs. Linux for Threadripper systems, here are some recently conducted benchmarks on that front with the 64-core Threadripper 3990X.

• Using the same System76 Thelio workstation (differences in the system table just amount to automated reporting differences) with AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X (64 cores / 128 threads), Gigabyte TRX40 motherboard, 4 x 32GB DDR4-3000 Corsair memory, Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics, and 500GB Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe SSD, the latest Windows 10 and Ubuntu were freshly benchmarked for seeing how the performance stands.

Applications

=> ↺ The 10 Best Accounting Software for Linux

• If you run a business, a farm, or a firm, you have to manage your finances using accounting software. Most people take care of finances by hiring an accountant or manage their finances using accounting software. There are several excellent open-source accounting software out there.

• The article will explore free, reliable, and extendable open source accounting software that you can run in your Linux distribution.

• You can use accounting software to collect accounting information, analyze, generate reports, automate recurring tasks, and govern your accounts. Any accounting software should handle most functions such as the general ledger, accounts receivables, accounts payable, bank reconciliations, and fixed assets. We will identify software that can handle such tasks plus others like billing, budgeting, invoicing, inventory management, payroll management, and project accounting.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to Transfer Files Wirelessly Between Linux and Android With Warpinator

• Want to quickly send files to other Linux or Android devices over your local network? Warpinator might be the solution for you. Today we’ll explore what the tool can do, how to install it, and how you can start putting it to use.

=> ↺ How to install Funkin VS Whitty on a Chromebook – Updated Tutorial

• Today we are looking at how to install Funkin VS Whitty on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

• If you have any questions, please contact us via a YouTube comment and we would be happy to assist you!

• This tutorial will only work on Chromebooks with an Intel or AMD CPU (with Linux Apps Support) and not those with an ARM64 architecture CPU.

=> ↺ Librem 14, Librem Keys, and Qubes OS

• The new Librem Key needs to have its PIN set, and since my Qubes OS configuration uses a USB qube it will be necessary to give my running disposable VM access to the key itself:

• In dom0, where my target vm is disp4632 and my BACKEND:DEVID is sys-usb:2-1:

=> ↺ Important Terraform Commands that we should know (a CheatSheet)

• Terraform is one of the most widely used applications to use the Infrastructure as Code. It is available for almost all the cloud service providers out there & also can be used for in-house solutions.

• Terraform can be used to create a single instance or a complete data center. Not only instances, but we can also perform networking, DNS, or firewall management using the terraform scripts. In this tutorial, we will discuss some of the important Terraform commands that we should know.

=> ↺ How to play Borderlands 2 on Linux

• Borderlands 2 is the second game in the Borderlands franchise. In the game, the player is a vault hunter, hunting for a hidden vault of treasures. In this guide, we’ll show you how to get Borderlands 2 running on Linux.

=> ↺ How To Install Squid Server on Linux Mint 20 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Squid Server on Linux Mint 20. For those of you who didn’t know, Squid is a web proxy caching server that offers proxy and caching services for HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and some other protocols. A proxy caching server works by acting as a gateway between server and client machines and stores frequently used content locally. By storing content locally, it reduces bandwidth while speeds up content delivery and response time.

• This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Squid cache on a Linux Mint 20 (Ulyana).

=> ↺ How to install Inkscape on Deepin 20.2

• In this video, we are looking at how to install Inkscape on Deepin 20.2.

=> ↺ How to use Kali Linux

• Kali is a security distro of Linux derived from Debian. The main objective of Kali is to carry out computer forensics and innovative penetration testing. The OS was developed due to backtrack rewriting by the two developers (Mati Aharoni for backtrack and Devon Kearns of offensive security).

• Security administrators mainly use it to identify security breaches. Kali has several pre-configured tools that enhance its security protection in the operating system. Subsequently, Network Administrators can use the OS to maintain an efficient and secure web framework. This is because the OS supports network auditing.

• Network architects also use Kali to design network environments since the OS assures proper configuration, making their work easier. Other people who can also use this system include chief information security officers, forensic engineers, computer enthusiasts, and hackers.

=> ↺ How to format an SD Card to ExFat in Ubuntu

• The exFat file system is one of the best formats to use on an SD Card, especially if your SD Card is used on Android, as it has a ton of useful features. In this guide, we’ll show you how to format your SD Card to ExFat on Ubuntu.

• Please note that though these instructions focus on Ubuntu, these instructions will work on all Linux-based operating systems. If you need to format in ExFat and don’t use Ubuntu, please feel free to follow along.

=> ↺ How to play BioShock Remastered on Linux

• BioShock Remastered is a re-release of the hit 2007 game BioShock, which focuses on an underwater city in the 1960s. The game runs excellent on Linux, thanks to some tweaks. Here’s how to get it working on your PC.

=> ↺ How to install Firefox on a Chromebook

• If you already have Linux enabled on your Chromebook then you can skip ahead to the next step. If you don’t, the first step is to get it turned on.

• Open up the ‘Settings’ app on your Chromebook and find the ‘Linux’ option in the sidebar. Click ‘Turn on’ and follow the on-screen instructions. You’ll have to give your Linux container a name and decide how much storage you want to hand over to it.

• When you’re happy, hit ‘Install’ and wait for your Chromebook to finish the installation of the Linux container. Once it’s complete the terminal will open.

=> ↺ How to install ONLYOFFICE Docs 6.3 on Ubuntu from snap package

• ONLYOFFICE Docs is an open-source office suite distributed under GNU AGPL v3.0. It comprises web-based viewers and collaborative editors for text documents, spreadsheets, and presentations highly compatible with OOXML formats.

• ONLYOFFICE Docs can be integrated with various cloud services such as Nextcloud, ownCloud, Seafile, Alfresco, Plone, etc., as well as embedded into your own solution. The editors can also be used together with ONLYOFFICE Groups, a free open-source collaboration platform distributed under Apache 2.0 (the complete solution is available as ONLYOFFICE Workspace).

• In this tutorial, we’ll learn how to install ONLYOFFICE Docs on your Ubuntu machine using snap.

=> ↺ How to View System Log Files on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

• A Linux Administrator should be able to read and understand the various types of messages generated by all Linux systems to troubleshoot an issue. These messages, named logs, are initiated by Linux and the applications running on it. Linux continuously creates, stores, and recycles these logs through various configuration files, programs, commands, and daemons. If you know how to read these files and make optimal use of the various commands we will mention in this tutorial, you can troubleshoot your issues like a pro!

• It is important to note that Linux keeps its log files in the /var/log directory in text format.

=> ↺ How to Install Latest LXQt Desktop in Ubuntu and Fedora

• LXQt developed from popular components of LXDE and Razor Qt project, LXQt is a free, open-source, lightweight, and fast desktop environment for Linux and BSD distributions. It comes with several great and well-known features, borrowed from the LXDE desktop such as low system resource utilization and elegant and clean user interfaces.

=> ↺ How to Delete A MySQL User Account – TecAdmin

• MySQL is an relational database management system provide authentication mechanism to prevent unauthorized access. It keeps all the user details in a database named “mysql”. You must have super user access (eg: root) to access this database.

• In this article you will learn to find accounts in a MySQL server and remote unnecessary user accounts.

=> ↺ How to Create a Database in MySQL Using the Command Line

• In this article we will going to show you how just easy it is to create a database in MySQL by executing a simple SQL query.

• In order to create a database, you’ll have to open the mysql command line interface and enter your database commands while the server is running.

• Here is a generic CREATE DATABASE statement syntax.

=> ↺ Linux Essentials – systemd: Using the systemctl command

• In this episode of Linux Essentials, we take our first look at systemd – the init system in quite a few distributions of Linux nowadays. Specifically, we’ll go over the systemctl command and use it to start, stop, restart and enable units on our system.

=> ↺ How to achieve persistent SSH connections with the open source MOSH – TechRepublic

• If you work with multiple wireless (or wired) connections within your company, and you find yourself having to move around the campus to take care of your admin duties, there might be times when you have an SSH connection going and you shift from one network to another. When that happens, your secure shell connection will drop. Or, maybe your single network connection isn’t always the most reliable? That’s all fine if whatever admin task you’re doing isn’t critical. What happens when you’re working on something important and that connection is broken?

• You don’t want that, which is why you should employ a tool like MOSH. MOSH stands for Mobile Shell and makes it possible for you to keep a persistent SSH connection—even if you change networks or your connection momentarily drops. Even better, MOSH usage is almost identical to SSH, at least from the user’s point of view. Under the hood, MOSH logs the user in via SSH and then starts a connection on a UDP port between 60000 and 61000, to keep the connection persistent.

=> ↺ How to Disable Error Logging for a Website In ISPConfig 3

=> ↺ How to Connect a PS4/PS5 Controller to Your Android Phone

Games

=> ↺ Get Company of Heroes 2 and Ardennes Assault free to keep on Steam | GamingOnLinux

• Here’s your quick Thursday tip: right now on Steam you can claim both Company of Heroes 2 and Company of Heroes 2 – Ardennes Assault free and keep it forever. That’s right, this is not a Free Weekend like you usually see. Instead, you can claim the both of them and get a permanent copy added to your Steam account.

• Both were ported to Linux by Feral Interactive too, so you even get a Linux build with each of them. Check out the special page on Steam with them both to claim it easily. The giveaway ends Monday – May 31st at 10am PST / 5pm UTC.

=> ↺ The Steam Open World Sale is now live so go run free with your monies

• Over on the Steam store Valve are running an Open World Sale full of games that let you run around and go exploring. Although, as usual, there’s plenty included in the sale that you wouldn’t expect.

• Looking for something to get your through the weekend, next week or the next month? Maybe they have what you want. Your wishlists are probably nice and full right?

• [...]

• For those that don’t, here’s some picks to take a look at which support Linux both new, old and still in development…

=> ↺ Quake II RTX Performance For AMD Radeon 6000 Series vs. NVIDIA On Linux

• Last month with the Radeon Software for Linux 21.10 driver there was finally Vulkan ray-tracing support added to that proprietary Vulkan driver component, the first time that Vulkan ray-tracing has been available on Linux for any AMD Radeon 6000 series graphics card across the multiple driver options. Last month I posted some initial Vulkan ray-tracing AMD vs. NVIDIA Linux benchmarks while questions were raised how well the driver performs with NVIDIA’s Quake II RTX port. Here are some initial benchmarks for those wondering.

=> ↺ Outbreak: Endless Nightmares arrives on Linux in the latest update

• Outbreak: Endless Nightmares from solo developer Dead Drop Studios has arrived on Linux as of the latest update. The newest game in the Outbreak series, one that takes inspiration from classic Resident Evil games and other similar horror adventures. Dead Drop Studios try to put their own spin on it, while remaining thoroughly inspired by older games.

• “Outbreak: Endless Nightmares twists the series’ survival horror gameplay by adding elements of roguelike gameplay. You’ll need to explore, hunt for supplies, uncover clues, and fight your way through each anomaly – each consisting of semi-procedurally generated instances where both the environment, and the undead, are out to kill you!”

=> ↺ Utopixel blog about porting their title Outer Wonders to Linux | GamingOnLinux

• While off-the-shelf game engines like Unity, Godot and Unreal often make it easy to bring games to Linux – what about developers who roll their own? Utopixel have blogged about bringing their new game Outer Wonders to Linux.

• Outer Wonders is an in-development pixel-art adventure with plenty of puzzles to solve. You play as Bibi, a sweet little round monkey. Exploration is going to be a key part in solving puzzles, as you may need to have a good look around for how to overcome each one as they’re hoping it will be “more elaborate than traditional maze games”.

=> ↺ Northgard expands again with the new Squirrel clan, get ready to cook

• Dipped in Norse mythology, the real-time strategy game Northgard has expanded once again as Ratatoskr, Clan of the Squirrel has now joined the lands.

• Adept cooks and forward-looking gatherers, the Squirrel Clan excel at preparation and striking at opportune moments. Led by the War Chief Cook Andhrímnir and guided by the totem Ratatosk, Northgard’s newcomers always keep foes on their toes. Squirrel civilians can gather specific ingredients, which can be used with the Stove, a clan-specific resource replacing the Brewery, to create extraordinary meals.

=> ↺ Creative Assembly in pre-production for the next Total War: THREE KINGDOMS

• It seems like the current Total War: THREE KINGDOMS is now officially done, with Creative Assembly today putting out a video to explain what they’re doing.

• Notably, Lulu Zhang the Associate Art Director, confirmed that Creative Assembly is now into pre-production on the next entry for Three Kingdoms. So it seems we’re going to see something along the lines of Total War: THREE KINGDOMS 2 perhaps. Something like that anyway, based around a similar setting and theme at least. With a bigger company like CA, they have multiple teams working on multiple games with David Torres, the Designer, confirming they’re going to be a standalone unit in the Total War historical section of CA now too.

• [...]

• Given that game porter / developer Feral Interactive continue to have a great relationship with Creative Assembly, and were responsible for the great Linux port of Total War: THREE KINGDOMS – we can probably expect a Linux port of the next one.

Distributions

=> ↺ Top 8 User Friendly Linux Distributions for Beginners

• Totally new to Linux, and want to give a try? Here are some of the Linux Distributions friendly to beginners.

• Linux is a family of open-source operating systems based on Linux Kernel. As there are so many distributions available, I’ll list the top 8 that are easy to use for beginners.

• Ranking and opinions expressed here are solely my own! As an Ubuntu user for more than 10 years, I’m not new to Linux but new to those in the list. So this could be a Linux review via a beginner!

=> ↺ AppCenter Dashboard Sprint Spring 2021

• Last year we ran a crowdfunding campaign for an ambitious project called “AppCenter for Everyone.” The goal of this project was to move our pay-what-you-want app store from being Debian package based and largely locked in to elementary OS to being based on Flatpak and available for use on any modern Linux-based desktop. Though we successfully met and exceeded our funding goal, we had to postpone the in-person sprint due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over a year later—and with the availability of the vaccine—we decided to split this work up into multiple sprints, starting with one focused on the publishing workflow. This month, I flew out to Denver, Colorado to work with Blake Kostner and Cassidy James, and I’m excited to share with you what we achieved.

SUSE/OpenSUSE

=> ↺ Mesa, Nodejs, Zstd Update in Tumbleweed

• The snapshots updated Mozilla Thunderbird, Mesa, Node.js, PipeWire and compression package Zstd along with several other packages.

• Snapshot 20210524 updated the audio and video package pipewire 0.3.28, which added a new powerful filter-chain module that can be used to created all kinds of filter-chains from Linux Audio Developer’s Simple Plugin API; many more PulseAudio modules were implemented. Node.js 16.2.0 added module support for URL to import.meta.resolve. The text and layout rendering package pango updated to version 1.48.5 and can speed up Emoji classification. The pango update also fixed some hangs and a memory leak. The 21.1.1 Mesa update in the snapshot provided mostly AMD and Intel changes, but had a decent amount of arm fixes. Other packages to update in the snapshot were libstorage-ng 4.4.9 and webkit2gtk3 2.32.1.

• Just two packages were updated in snapshot 20210522. The card gaming package black-hole-solver updated to version 1.10.1 and added a flag for the maximum amount of cards. Packet processing package dpdk 19.11.8 fixed a few Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures and added multiple virtual host patches in its update from version 19.11.4.

=> ↺ Five Days to Value with SUSE Manager | SUSE Communities

• Today’s businesses are far more capable than they were just five years ago. Thanks to advances in technology, companies can scale up and out like never before, virtualize just about everything, automate deployments, manage compliance, and deploy highly available apps and services in ways you couldn’t have imagined.

• Along with the seemingly endless array of new technologies and services at your disposal comes a level of complexity IT admins have either never before experienced or have yet to master. Consider this: Every enterprise business is talking Kubernetes and with good reason. Kubernetes gives admins and businesses heretofore unheard of power over container management. But Kubernetes isn’t easy. Sure, you could deploy a Kubernetes cluster in about 15 minutes. Once you get beyond that, the complexity rises exponentially.

IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

=> ↺ VzLinux 8.3 released

=> ↺ What is your server hardware refresh schedule? | Enable Sysadmin

• “Tech refresh” as we call it is a big deal. It’s such a big deal that company leadership details their refresh plans from three to five years into the future, or further. And some optimistic projectionists might attempt to extend that crystal ball’s (aka spreadsheet’s) capability even further. I’ve seen tech refresh projections as far as ten years into the future and compensation for growth, attrition, and business changes. I think three years, on a rolling basis, is a good start and a good goal for most of us.

=> ↺ What will technology look like in 30 years?

• Can we predict the technology of the future—correctly, this time?

• I finished my article 7 signs you survived the best era of IT with a question to myself: What will be the technology world 30 years from now?

• We need to recognize that we did not do a great job decades ago to predict what would be “the future” of technology. After all, people used to think that by the year 2000, everybody would be driving their flying cars, robots would do all the boring work, and the world of technology would make humanity free of diseases, poverty, and all the little problems like work or taxes.

=> ↺ Red Hat Learning Subscription Premium helps you craft your skill-building strategy

• The Red Hat Learning Subscription has facilitated the delivery of on-demand Red Hat Training courses to professionals across industries and the globe since 2016, and continues to evolve to meet the needs of the market. An all-new Premium tier of Red Hat Learning Subscription was announced recently which expands training modality options to accommodate a variety of learning styles by providing live virtual instruction, recorded video classrooms, or text-based courses. In this post, we’ll highlight some of the enhancements and flexible features you’ll find with the Premium tier.

=> ↺ IBM Cloud suffers second outage in five days

• IBM Cloud was hit by another outage this week, just five days after a similar incident.

• The unidentified “severity-one” incident impacted multiple services across Washington DC, Osaka, London, Dallas, Sydney, Tokyo, and Frankfurt on Tuesday.

=> ↺ Adam Young: QJackCtl and Pipewire

• It took me a few tries, but I finally got a passable demo/tutorial about Pipewire and QJackCtl.

=> ↺ Technically Speaking (S1E05): Weird Data Science

• In this episode, Red Hat’s Chris Wright and Sherard Griffin explore artificial intelligence and machine learning’s relationship to data, the role that open source plays in the development of models, and how projects like Open Data Hub can foster a culture of innovation.

=> ↺ Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 overview | security functionality and performance for IT environments

• In this video, I am going to show an overview of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 and some of the applications pre-installed.

=> ↺ Red Hat Brings Red Hat Universal Base Image to Docker Hub

=> ↺ Red Hat Brings Red Hat Universal Base Image to Docker Hub

=> ↺ Red Hat Universal Base Image and Docker Hub: Why should developers care?

• Red Hat Universal Base Image (UBI) is Red Hat’s container-ready operating system image that allows you to build smaller images for use in container-based systems. With the announcement that UBI images are now “Verified Publisher” images on Docker Hub, developers now have nothing standing between them and their application running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Freely redistributable Linux images that are OCI-compliant (Open Container Initiative) and ready for Kubernetes can be prepared with a simple FROM command in your Dockerfile.

=> ↺ Red Hat’s David Egts on Potential of Edge Computing, Open Hybrid Cloud for Government Data Management

• David Egts, senior director and chief technologist of Red Hat‘s North American public sector business, indicated during a question-and-answer session with ExecutiveBiz the use of edge computing devices and an open hybrid cloud approach could help agencies address data management challenges.

Debian Family

=> ↺ What to expect from Debian/bullseye #newinbullseye

• Debian v11 with codename bullseye is supposed to be released as new stable release soon-ish (let’s hope for June, 2021! Smile). Similar to what we had with #newinbuster and previous releases, now it’s time for #newinbullseye!

• I was the driving force at several of my customers to be well prepared for bullseye before its freeze, and since then we’re on good track there overall. In my opinion, Debian’s release team did (and still does) a great job – I’m very happy about how unblock requests (not only mine but also ones I kept an eye on) were handled so far.

• As usual with major upgrades, there are some things to be aware of, and hereby I’m starting my public notes on bullseye that might be worth also for other folks. My focus is primarily on server systems and looking at things from a sysadmin perspective.

=> ↺ Pavit Kaur: Journey to GSoC

• I am really excited that my Google Summer of Code proposal with Debian for the project “Debian Continuous Integration improvements” has been accepted. Through this blog, I am here to share about my Pre-GSoC journey.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Enhanced Raspberry Pi GPIO Support Added to Ubuntu 21.04

• The dev team for Ubuntu on the Raspberry Pi shared a blog post this week detailing key new features in the latest update for Ubuntu 21.04. The most recent version of Ubuntu is confirmed to officially include enhanced GPIO support on the Raspberry Pi via a new Python library.

• The new Python library is known as LGPIO and it replaces RPi.GPIO which no longer works correctly with Linux Kernel 5.11. If you’re using Ubuntu 21.04, all you need to do is install the LGPIO package to get started. By using LGPIO. The new 21.04 update is optimized to support the GPIO as before by using the new Python library. Controlling components such as LEDs or servos is completely restored and makers again have full control over the GPIO with Ubuntu.

• If you want to use the new LGPIO library yourself, check out the tutorial published by the Ubuntu team for detailed instructions. Read more about the latest update on the official Ubuntu blog and maybe brainstorm some new project ideas along the way.

=> ↺ Downloading Ubuntu via BitTorrent gets Comcast customer a DMCA warning

• This week, Redditor u/NateNate60 got a nasty surprise in his inbox—a DMCA infringement warning from his ISP, Comcast Xfinity. The notice warned him that Comcast had “received a notification by a copyright owner, or its authorized agent, reporting an alleged infringement of one or more copyrighted works.”

• The strange thing about this warning was the “infringed work” in question: Ubuntu 20.04, which is free to redistribute by any means desired. Adding insult to injury, the hash listed on the notice is the same one associated with Canonical’s own torrent for Ubuntu 20.04.2—u/NateNate60 was getting dinged for torrenting an unmodified copy of an open source operating system.

• [...]

• Ars asked OpSecSecurity to expand on its incontrovertible evidence, but we received no further reply. It took a little longer to get an answer from Comcast. The representative we spoke to was aware of the issue, by way of u/NateNate60′s original Reddit post. Unfortunately, the screenshot u/NateNate60 took was heavily redacted—too heavily redacted for Comcast to easily look up the incident.

• We asked Comcast to search for any DMCA warnings sent associated with the hash listed as “Infringing Work” instead—if possible, this would get us closer to the bottom of the story one way or another. Any such warning would either be a bogus takedown for downloading Ubuntu or would demonstrate that a (very unlikely) hash collision had taken place and that the Ubuntu torrent shared a hash with a torrent for something unrelated.

• Comcast’s team found no evidence of sending a DMCA warning associated with the hash in question—but the search effort was seriously hampered by the lack of an associated case number.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Kvarken 4.1.0 brings full Sailfish 64-bit support to Sony Xperia 10 II

• We’re happy to share with you the many firsts in this release: the 1st fully stacked 64-bit ARM Sailfish OS, that you can download and flash onto the Sony Xperia 10 II, which is also the first Sailfish device with AOSP-10 HW adaptation. The commercial Sailfish X package also introduces the 64-bit Android™ App Support for Xperia 10 II. The package is now available in the Jolla Shop with a limited time offer of 29.90 € for existing Sailfish users (log in to see the discount).

=> ↺ Sailfish OS 4.1 Finally Embracing 64-bit, Android 10 App Support API Level

=> ↺ Six-axis manipulation robot based on Raspberry Pi 4B sells for $699

• Elephant Robotics’ $699, 850-gram “MyCobot Pi” is a six-axis manipulation bot that runs Debian and ROS on a RPi 4B. The bot has a 250 g payload, 280mm range, and a LEGO connector for attachments including a suction pump and gripper.

• Elephant Robotics, which found success with its Arduino-on-ESP32 based, six-axis MyCobot M5 robot, has now released a model that runs Debian and Robot Operating System (ROS) on the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B. The MyCobot Pi is on sale for $699, providing a manipulation arm with 6x servos to enable 6 Degrees-of-Freedom (DoF) with a 280mm range. The bot offers fast “response, small inertia, and smooth rotation,” and can carry payloads of up to 250 g, says the Shenzhen, China based company.

=> ↺ Top 10 Linux Compatible Wireless Network Adapters | FOSS Linux

• Many Linux users find it challenging to choose the best network adapter compatible with their devices. The difficulty in selection is due to driver and software compatibility issues. Some of the adapters require drivers, while others do not. This complicates the selection process since users do not know which network adapter best suits them.

• Thousands of ‘fake’ network adapters have dominated the market. Therefore, finding a legit adapter becomes more complicated. If you are looking for a Linux-compatible network adapter, let us help you suggest the 10 best Linux-compatible network adapters.

=> ↺ IAR Systems extends product portfolio for streamlined Linux-based automated workflows

• IAR Systems®, the future-proof supplier of software tools and services for embedded development, today presented the latest addition to its powerful build tools for Linux, which are based on the well-known build tools in the development toolchain IAR Embedded Workbench®. The extended tools now support deployment in Linux-based frameworks for Renesas’ low-power RL78 microcontrollers (MCUs), enabling organizations to streamline building and testing workflows.

=> ↺ Offsetting Transmitter Frequency to Reduce Interference

• Lately I’ve seen a number of discussions about adding a frequency offset to an ATSC 1 signal to reduce interference. The issue came to light when it was discovered that at least one major manufacturer’s transmitters do not meet the manufacturer’s FCC emission mask test when the recommended co-channel ATSC offset is added.

• This month I’ll look at what ATSC has to say about frequency offsets and how they work. The ATSC 3.0 standard also includes options for not only frequency offsets but bandwidth reduction as well.

• Finally, I’ll report on my recent testing of the Hauppauge WinTV quadHD USB ATSC tuner. It uses a different tuner/demodulator chip than I’ve seen used with any other ATSC USB tuner.

• [...]

• The good news is that the tuner works great in Kaffeine (a Linux TV viewer and recorder) and, with four tuners, multiple channels can be recorded simultaneously.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ CatsPi Industrial Lite RPi CM4 carrier board features GbE, RS485, Watchdog MCU – CNX Software

• We’ve seen a fair deal of Raspberry Pi CM4 carrier boards, and here’s another one courtesy of QwaveSystems with CatsPi Industrial Lite board following Raspberry Pi SBC form factor/dimensions, and equipped with Gigabit Ethernet, RS485, USB ports, as well as a watchdog MCU among other interfaces and features.

• Contrary to what the name implies, CatsPi Industrial Lite only works with Raspberry Pi CM4 with eMMC flash, but not the CM4 Lite module since there’s no MicroSD card on the baseboard. It’s not the first Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 carrier board with RS485, however, as we previously covered CM Hunter also including CAN and 1-wire interfaces, but QwaveSystems’ solution is more compact and mostly mechanically compatible with Raspberry Pi model B SBC’s.

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Google Assistant beats Siri again with this incoming Android 12 upgrade | Tom’s Guide

=> ↺ Android 12 Beta survey: Rate the biggest visual changes – 9to5Google

=> ↺ 10 Useful Hidden Settings in Android You Should Know About – Gadgets To Use

=> ↺ Android’s awesome Fast Pair feature for Bluetooth devices is coming to Chromebooks

=> ↺ Lenovo Android tablet apparently supports HDMI input – 9to5Google

=> ↺ How to connect an Xbox controller to Android | Dot Esports

=> ↺ Vodafone Australia Android 11 update tracker & list of eligible devices

=> ↺ Xiaomi Android 11 update tracker: Mi & Redmi devices received beta/stable

=> ↺ Chrome for Android is getting a Material You tweak — here’s how to enable it

=> ↺ A sanity-saving typing trick for Gboard on Android | Computerworld

=> ↺ Samsung Galaxy M51, Samsung Galaxy M31s Receiving May 2021 Android Security Patch: Report | Technology News

=> ↺ OnePlus prepares new TV with camera for Google Duo – 9to5Google

=> ↺ Walmart Android TV box gets the hands-on treatment early – 9to5Google

=> ↺ How to enable one-handed mode in Android 12 | Android Central

=> ↺ Why You Shouldn’t Install the Android 12 Beta Yet

=> ↺ Sony Android 11 update tracker: List of eligible devices & release date

=> ↺ Best Game Boy Advance, GBA, emulators for Android | Articles | Pocket Gamer

=> ↺ Best GameBoy emulators for Android | Articles | Pocket Gamer

=> ↺ Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE revealed — a 12.4-inch Android tablet rivaling the iPad Air | Laptop Mag

=> ↺ The iPhone vs. Android debate took a ridiculous turn you have to see to believe – BGR

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

Web Browsers

Mozilla

=> ↺ Advancing system-level change with ad transparency in the EU DSA

• At Mozilla we believe that greater transparency in the online advertising ecosystem can empower individuals, safeguard advertisers’ interests, and address systemic harms. It’s something we care passionately about, and it’s an ethos that runs through our own marketing work. Indeed, our recent decision to resume advertising on Instagram is underpinned by a commitment to transparency. Yet we also recognise that this issue is a structural one, and that regulation and public policy has an important role to play in improving the health of the ecosystem. In this post, we give an update on our efforts to advance system-level change, focusing on the ongoing discussions on this topic in the EU.

=> ↺ Zeke Smith on internet haters, Survivor and sending support to people online

• The lines between online life and real life practically disappeared in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to replace social platforms and video apps for human contact.

• As part of our mental health awareness month coverage this May, we are talking to people about how their online lives impact their mental health. We connected with Zeke Smith, the comedy writer who was known to fans of CBS’s Survivor as “the goofy guy with the mustache and the Hawaiian shirt” over two seasons of the show until another contestant outed Smith as a trans man. Smith found himself suddenly in the spotlight as an activist and voice of an often-invisible community.

• Smith talked to us about how to think about online haters, when it’s time to log off and why a puppy pic is usually more useful than a hot take.

=> ↺ Mozilla Addons Blog: Manifest v3 update

• Two years ago, Google proposed Manifest v3, a number of foundational changes to the Chrome extension framework. Many of these changes introduce new incompatibilities between Firefox and Chrome. As we previously wrote, we want to maintain a high degree of compatibility to support cross-browser development. We will introduce Manifest v3 support for Firefox extensions. However, we will diverge from Chrome’s implementation where we think it matters and our values point to a different solution.

• For the last few months, we have consulted with extension developers and Firefox’s engineering leadership about our approach to Manifest v3. The following is an overview of our plan to move forward, which is based on those conversations.

=> ↺ The Mozilla Blog: Our approach to advertising on Facebook platforms

=> ↺ Mozilla added several people from Facebook to its management after the CA scandal

• When I joined Mozilla, the organization had made the decision to pause Facebook advertising in light of the Cambridge Analytica privacy controversy. This was a decision that I understand, but I’m changing course.

• For Mozilla, it boils down to this: our mission requires that we empower everyone to protect themselves online, not just the folks that are plugged in to the recent techlash. And a lot of the people that may need our tools the most spend a lot of time on Facebook and Instagram.

• So the question becomes, can we reach folks on these platforms with our ads, while staying true to Mozilla’s values? I believe we can, and it starts with being up front about what we’re doing.

Productivity Software/LibreOffice/Calligra

=> ↺ TDF Annual Report 2020

• The Annual Report of The Document Foundation for the year 2020 is now available in PDF format from TDF Nextcloud in three different versions: low resolution (4.7MB), medium resolution (18MB) and high resolution (24.7MB). The annual report is based on the German version presented to the authorities in April.

• The 54 page document has been entirely created with free open source software: written contents have obviously been developed with LibreOffice Writer (desktop) and collaboratively modified with LibreOffice Writer (online), charts have been created with LibreOffice Calc and prepared for publishing with LibreOffice Draw, drawings and tables have been developed or modified (from legacy PDF originals) with LibreOffice Draw, images have been prepared for publishing with GIMP, and the layout has been created with Scribus based on the existing templates.

• All pictures are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License, courtesy of TDF Members from all over the world. Stock photos are CC0 by Pixabay.

FSF

=> ↺ Apply to be the FSF’s next executive director

• The Free Software Foundation (FSF), a Massachusetts 501(c)(3) charity with a worldwide mission to protect computer user freedom, seeks a principled, compassionate, and capable leader to be its new executive director. This position can be remote or based in our Boston office. The FSF is committed to the notion that users are entitled to control their computing, individually and collectively, and therefore to control the software that does that computing. The executive director will work closely with the president, board of directors, and all Foundation staff to achieve this goal.

• The FSF faces many challenges as software becomes increasingly central in the exercise of all fundamental human freedoms, including speech, association, privacy, and movement, and as software owners seek to exploit their control over us to profit at the expense of those freedoms. The executive director has a vital role in enabling the FSF to continue meeting these challenges, starting from the strong base that has been built in the last thirty-five years. The Foundation has recently reached record-high membership numbers and was awarded a perfect score from Charity Navigator, as well as its eighth consecutive four-star rating. Efforts to improve the Foundation’s governance are underway.

GNU Projects

=> ↺ May GNU Spotlight with Mike Gerwitz: 11 new GNU releases!

• 11 new GNU releases in the last month (as of May 25, 2021): chess-6.2.8 freeipmi-1.6.8 gcc-8.5.0 guile-3.0.7 guix-1.3.0 less-581.2 libidn-1.37 libtasn1-4.17.0 osip2-5.2.1 parallel-20210522 zile-2.6.2

Licensing/Legal

=> ↺ The Audacity: Audio tool finds new and exciting ways to annoy contributors with a Contributor License Agreement

• The saga of the Audacity takeover continued this week with the announcement of a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) by the project’s new owners.

• Contributors to Audacity will be expected to sign the agreement in order to give code to the project. “The purpose of the CLA,” stated the explanation, “is to provide future flexibility in altering (ie, uplicensing, dual licensing) for the entire Audacity project, not just the parts of the code that we have written ourselves.”

• The audio tool is currently licensed under GPLv2 and plans are afoot to update the licence to GPLv3. However, in defence of the CLA, Audacity cited platforms such as Apple’s App Store that have “policies or technical processes that make it difficult or impossible for Audacity to exist on them while it is licensed solely under the GPL (v2 or v3).”

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Jussi Pakkanen: Managing dependencies with Meson + WrapDB

• A recent blog post talked about how to build and manage dependencies with CMake and FetchContent. The example that they used was a simple GUI application using the SFML multimedia libraries and the Dear ImGui widget toolkit using the corresponding wrapper library. For comparison let’s do the same with Meson.

• [...]

• In Meson every subproject is compiled in its own isolated sandbox. They can only communicate in specific, well defined and secured channels. This makes it easy to generate projects that can be built from source on Windows/macOS/Android/etc and which use system dependencies on Linux transparently. This equals less hassle for everyone involved.

=> ↺ Docker introduces developer environments in containers

• Virtual DockerCon kicked off today, at which the company introduced Docker Development Environments, calling them “the foundation of Docker’s new collaborative team development experience.”

• In the past Docker containers have been mainly for deployment of applications, but the Docker Development Environment extends that to… (you guessed it) development as well.

=> ↺ Indie developers created an easier way to try out Fuchsia OS on your computer

• Google officially released their Fuchsia OS earlier this week, starting by rolling it out to some owners of the original Nest Hub. Now, a group of indie developers have created a simpler way of trying out Fuchsia on your own computer.

• From the very beginning, Fuchsia OS has been developed in the open, meaning it’s possible to download the code yourself, build it on your computer, then run it on a compatible device such as the Google Pixelbook or in an emulator. While this is an achievable task — and one we’ve undertaken on more than one occasion — it creates a massive barrier to entry for those who want to get a taste of what Fuchsia OS is all about.

=> ↺ Wouter Verhelst: SReview and pandemics

• The pandemic was a bit of a mess for most FLOSS conferences. The two conferences that I help organize — FOSDEM and DebConf — are no exception. In both conferences, I do essentially the same work: as a member of both video teams, I manage the postprocessing of the video recordings of all the talks that happened at the respective conference(s). I do this by way of SReview, the online video review and transcode system that I wrote, which essentially crowdsources the manual work that needs to be done, and automates as much as possible of the workflow.

• The original version of SReview consisted of a database, a (very basic) Mojolicious-based webinterface, and a bunch of perl scripts which would build and execute ffmpeg command lines using string interpolation. As a quick hack that I needed to get working while writing it in my spare time in half a year, that approach was workable and resulted in successful postprocessing after FOSDEM 2017, and a significant improvement in time from the previous years. However, I did not end development with that, and since then I’ve replaced the string interpolation by an object oriented API for generating ffmpeg command lines, as well as modularized the webinterface. Additionally, I’ve had help reworking the user interface into a system that is somewhat easier to use than my original interface, and have slowly but surely added more features to the system so as to make it more flexible, as well as support more types of environments for the system to run in.

=> ↺ New in Qt 6.1: std::hash Support for QHash

• In the previous blog post of this series, we discussed KDToolBox::QtHasher, a helper class that allows us to use unordered associative containers datatypes which have a qHash() overload but not a std::hash specialization. The majority of Qt value classes indeed are lacking such a specialization, even if they do provide a qHash() overload.

• For our datatypes, having to provide both qHash and std::hash (if you want to store them in either QHash/QSet or std::unordered_map/set without the need of a customer hasher) is…mildly annoying. In a project, I’ve even resorted to using a macro to implement one function in terms of the other one.

• This consideration led me to ask myself, “why can’t QHash itself support std::hash directly?” This would allow me to implement just one hashing function, and not two. Cherry on top: it would allow us to use QHash/QSet datatypes that only offer std::hash and not qHash, such as the ones coming from the Standard Library! (You may want to read here about why it’s actually impossible to reliably add a qHash overload for them.)

=> ↺ [Development] New Qt Multimedia

• After 5 months of work, I am now preparing to merge the new API and implementation for Qt Multimedia back into the development branch.

• You can find the first iteration of a merge commit here: https://codereview.qt-project.org/c/qt/qtmultimedia/+/351108

• With this, Qt Multimedia is probably the module that is changing most between Qt 5 and Qt 6. The reason for that is that we had large issues maintaining Qt Multimedia during the Qt 5 lifetime, and never really got to a point where it offered a consistent experience across all platforms.

• The hope is that we can change that for Qt 6. To make this possible, we have changed not only parts of the public API, but completely redone its internal architecture, especially how multimedia connects to the platform specific backends. Apart from cleaning up the backend API and greatly simplifying it, I also chose to make it private and remove the plugin architecture around it. The backend is now selected at compile time, and we’re now only supporting one backend per platform.

• The architectural cleanup lead to huge simplifications in the code base. The module went from 140k LOC in 5.15 to 73k LOC in Qt 6, while keeping 90% of the functionality we had in 5.15 and adding a few things that were missing there. This should make it significantly easier to maintain and further develop the module over the lifetime of Qt 6.

=> ↺ Qt Multimedia Prepares For Qt 6 With Rewritten GStreamer Backend, Other Big Changes

• Qt Multimedia should return for Qt 6.2′s release later this year and is perhaps the module changing the most in its transition from Qt5 to Qt6.

• Qt Multimedia has been one of the many missing modules currently from Qt 6.0~6.1 while not only has it been ported to Qt 6 now but has been seeing some radical improvements.

Python

=> ↺ The 2021 Python Language Summit

• Every year, a small group of core developers from Python implementations such as CPython, PyPy, Jython, and more come together to share information, discuss problems, and seek consensus in order to help Python continue to flourish.

• The Python Language Summit features short presentations followed by group discussions. The topics can relate to the language itself, the standard library, the development process, documentation, packaging, and more! In 2021, the summit was held over two days by videoconference and was led by Mariatta Wijaya and Łukasz Langa.

=> ↺ Reports from the 2021 Python Language Summit

• Over on the Python Software Foundation blog, the reports from day 1 of the Python Language Summit are available. At the time of this writing, a few from day 2 are ready as well.

Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh

=> ↺ Bash alias to output the current Swatch Internet Time

=> ↺ Text filter in Linux – Linux Concept

• Normally, shell scripting involves report generation, which will include processing various text files and filtering their output to finally produce the desired results. Let’s start discussing the two Linux commands, namely more and less:

• more: Sometimes we get a very large output on the screen for certain commands, which cannot be viewed completely in one screen. In such cases, we can use the more command to view the output text one page at a time.

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ Daniel Stenberg: QUIC is RFC 9000

• The official publication date of the relevant QUIC specifications is: May 27, 2021.

• I’ve done many presentations about HTTP and related technologies over the years. HTTP/2 had only just shipped when the QUIC working group had been formed in the IETF and I started to mention and describe what was being done there.

• [...]

• I initially wanted to keep up closely with the working group and follow what happened and participate on the meetings and interims etc. It turned out to be too difficult for me to do that so I had to lower my ambitions and I’ve mostly had a casual observing role. I just couldn’t muster the energy and spend the time necessary to do it properly.

• I’ve participated in many of the meetings, I’ve been present in the QUIC implementers slack, I’ve followed lots of design and architectural discussions on the mailing list and in GitHub issues. I’ve worked on implementing support for QUIC and h3 in curl and thanks to that helped out iron issues and glitches in various implementations, but the now published RFCs have virtually no traces of me or my feedback in them.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Reading the World With Charles Larson

• Oddly, I never had him for a class, but I was the student rep on the rank-and-tenure committee for a year, which he chaired, and I’m pretty sure I was my normal pain-in-the-ass defending professors who had worn out their welcome and critiquing celebrated ones who seemed to be phoning it in. He never held my contrariness against me and I was very surprised (and very happy) 23 years later when Chuck started emailing me book reviews, usually reviews of novels, most of them international. His specialty was African literature, a field of study which he helped establish and develop in the US.

• My classes from Larson started after I became his editor. His writing is sharpened to the essential elements. Perhaps only other writers realize how very difficult it is to write in a way that reads so fluidly and yet is capable of condensing complex thoughts about challenging novels into a mere 900 words. These little essays were object lessons in how to read a book, how to think and write about what you’d read, and how to evaluate whether it was worth reading. But they aren’t lectures or exercises in academic exegesis. He never lost his excite in discovering a great new book or writer and he wasn’t afraid to let excitement show in his writing. In a very non-obtrusive way, Chuck Larson was able to use his thoughts on a novel to open a portal onto the wider world, from Pamuk’s Turkey to Achebe’s Nigeria. In addition to being a teacher of literature, he was also a mentor of young writers, including his very talented daughter Vanessa, now an editor at the Washington Post. I know, because he sent many of them to CounterPunch and their writing showed all the hallmarks of Chuck’s light touch.

=> ↺ Anger and Dismay

• But the fairer reports dwindled as the media returned to “Israel’s need for self-defense, the right of every country” – with no mention of any similar Palestinian need. It equated rockets fired from Gaza, or those ten percent which pierced Israel’s protective “Iron Dome” and did then wreck homes and cause deaths, with the constant, hour-long torrents of death and destruction blasted by one of the strongest military forces in the world into a small, densely populated confine, which could in no way  deter the fighter-bombers and missiles, the drones circling low, night and day, over homes and families, for Gaza had no “Iron Domes” sent over by US arms producers. The media seemed largely to accept the huge disproportion, showing  the mourning and heartbreak when  a Jewish child was tragically killed by a rocket, but remaining almost silent about Palestinian children.

• Ibrahim al-Talaa, 17, told of feeling it was the end for himself and his family.

Science

=> ↺ Artificial Intelligence (AI) -or- “Look, I’m not stupid. They can’t make things like that yet.”

• As an avid fan of all sorts of Science Fiction, I particularly love stories with machine intelligence, or AI.

• However, businesses like IBM, Intel, and Microsoft cheapen the term to sell products.

• [...]

• I bought a laptop with an Intel processor last year, and of course since it was their latest stuff it’s very fast (at least for several more years and relative to the ones that came before it), but I laughed when Intel was advertising their Tiger Lake platform as having “AI”. It’s just an improved x86-64 processor. Nothing more, nothing less. Instructions get improved and added, efficiency is optimized a bit, clock speeds are finagled with, but it’s definitely not AI. It’s just another von Neumann architecture CPU, and there’s debate over whether such a CPU would ever be able to run a realistic AI even given what we know of the laws of physics.

• Microsoft advertises Bing as AI, or a “decision engine” even though it can’t capture more than about 2% of the search engine market (Roughly where “Windows Live Search” was before the rebranding.), even though it theoretically has a captive audience with everyone who uses the Windows operating system, and as Microsoft buries more crap that opens it up directly into the GUI with security updates, as they did when I installed one this month and had a new MSN toolbar to get rid of in my taskbar.

• IBM promotes everything as AI as their company value continues to crater and the employees (including Red Hat) are being laid off or fearful of it as the company tries to economize due to lack of profits.

• [...]

• However, marketing AI seems to work in this context sometimes too. 15 years ago, when nobody would have argued that we had AI, Bethesda released The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, and marketed a term called “Radiant AI”, in which every NPC in the game had goals and routines. In fact, these games have scripts that assign NPCs some random needs and goals. They managed to get an ex of mine to repeat the term “Radiant AI” when saying why he must buy the game.

• Ask any gamer how Bethesda “AI” works out, and they can tell you that NPCs often end up breaking the game because of script clashes that the “AI” wasn’t smart enough to prevent from happening, which can even make some parts of the game unplayable. Skyrim crashed more than any game I’ve ever played and the crashing even got ported over to the Nintendo Switch. In one patch from Bethesda, they broke the dragon AI and the dragons started to fly backwards. Perhaps they are a good fit as a subdivision of Microsoft.

Health/Nutrition

=> ↺ Watch: Video Starring NY Lawmakers Lampoons Absurdity of For-Profit Healthcare

• The message of the video—which stars New York state lawmakers Jabari Brisport and Zohran Kwame Mamdani—is clear: “We simply cannot afford not to have a single-payer system.”

=> ↺ Pandemic Pounds Have Added To U.S. Obesity––So Has Size Inflation

• The pronouncements of health officials preceded the Covid-19 pandemic in which over half of U.S. adults gained weight according to an American Psychological Association poll; two out of five gained an average of 29 pounds and ten percent gained more than 50 pounds.

• According to the New York Times, the average American man (before Covid) weighed 194 pounds and average woman weighed an astounding 165 pounds. In the years 1976-1980, those figures were 172.2 pounds and 144.2, respectively.

=> ↺ Opinion | When It Comes to Protecting America’s Rivers and Streams, There’s No Room for Compromise on Science

• Michael Regan, President Biden’s EPA administrator, must prioritize science and water quality over the demands of big industry.

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

=> ↺ Docker Expands Trusted Content Offerings for Developers

• Datadog, Red Hat and VMware are the latest three publishers to join a program that has seen 100 companies join in the last six months.

=> ↺ Syxsense Releases New Linux Remote Terminal and Troubleshooting Tools

Pseudo-Open Source

Openwashing

=> ↺ FINOS’ New Silver Members Pave the Way for Further Commercial Open Source Adoption in Financial Services

=> ↺ FINOS’ New Silver Members Pave the Way for Further Commercial Open Source Adoption in Financial Services

Privatisation/Privateering

Linux Foundation

=> ↺ Green software development: Microsoft, Linux Foundation want to make coding carbon-free

=> ↺ joins the greenwashing PR

=> ↺ Green Software Foundation Launched

Security

=> ↺ Security updates for Thursday

• Security updates have been issued by Debian (djvulibre), Fedora (slapi-nis and upx), Gentoo (ceph and nginx), openSUSE (python-httplib2 and rubygem-actionpack-5_1), Slackware (curl), SUSE (curl, libX11, and python-httplib2), and Ubuntu (isc-dhcp, lz4, and nginx).

=> ↺ Have I been Pwned goes open source | ZDNet

• The question isn’t “Does someone have your user IDs and passwords?” I guarantee you someone has. Don’t believe me? Check for yourself at Have I Been Pwned (HIBP). I’ll wait. Now, do you believe me?

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Fifty Years Later: The Forgotten Story of Dissenting POWs

• The best known is Bowe Bergdahl, a 23-year old Army private who was captured by the Taliban in 2009 and held until a prisoner exchange arranged five years later by the Obama Administration.

• Prior to becoming a POW, Bergdahl had emailed his parents in Idaho, expressing disillusionment with  U.S. intervention in Afghanistan and related mistreatment of Afghan citizens. “We make fun of them in front of their faces, and laugh at them for not understanding we are insulting them,” he told his parents. “I am sorry for everything. The horror that is America is disgusting.”

Environment

Energy

=> ↺ Dutch Court Orders Shell to Cut Carbon Emissions by 2030 in Landmark Ruling

=> ↺ As Mobilization Gains Steam, Over 300 Groups Implore Biden to ‘Stop Line 3′

• “Line 3 is a climate bomb waiting to go off,” said one organizer. “This whole project is madness.”

Finance

=> ↺ Opinion | There Is Zero Justification for GOP Ending $300 Federal Unemployment Boost

• The latest state jobs data show the economy has not fully recovered.

=> ↺ Economic Study Shows Why ‘Saving the Planet Is Not a Jobs Killer’

• “It’s not an impossible task to make sure workers in the fossil fuel industry are provided with the skills, training, and opportunities to find other jobs,” the Center for Economic and Policy Research found. 

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Opinion | The GOP Would Rather Nation Crumble Than Give Democrats Political Win on Infrastructure

• There is no outcome, substantive or political, that Republicans would rather have than to see the infrastructure bill go down in flames.

=> ↺ ‘This Is How You Lose Your Majority’: Progressive Warnings Mount as Dems Drag Their Feet on Infrastructure

• “Republicans aren’t interested in compromise. They never were. Let’s meet the scale of this crisis and pass the bold package our nation needs.”

=> ↺ Trump’s Grand Jury Is Fodder for GOP Fundraising But Terrible for GOP Politics

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Reunification Stories Gloss Over Continuing Family Separation and Deportation

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Fedora Magazine: IRC Announcement

• Since its beginnings, the Fedora Project has used the freenode IRC network for our project communications. Due to a variety of recent changes to that network, the Fedora Project is moving our IRC communications to Libera.Chat.

• [...]

• If you are a Matrix user, we ask for your patience as we get bridges setup on the new network. If you were joined to rooms via the generic freenode bridge, you will need to leave them and rejoin the fedora rooms in matrix (which will be plumbed with the Libera channels)

Monopolies

=> ↺ ‘Stop the Monopoly Madness’: Biden Urged to Block Amazon’s $8.5 Billion Purchase of MGM

• “In announcing plans to buy MGM, Jeff Bezos placed a big softball on a tee for the Biden administration to knock over the fence.”

Patents

=> ↺ The global patent market state of play – a clash of courts

=> ↺ Propaganda front of patent trolls and corrupt EPO management

• The results of IAM’s first litigation survey reflect how, as patent disputes become more global, the pros and cons of different national courts can be make or break for both plaintiffs and defendants

=> ↺ How much is needed to find a threat of patent infringement? A respectful dissent

• As any aficionado of American legal history will be well aware, Judge Holmes, the third most cited American legal scholar of the 20th century, was nicknamed “the Great Dissenter.” This was a tribute to the 55 dissenting opinions that he wrote during his 29 years serving at the U.S. Supreme Court. Interestingly, over the years many of his dissenting opinions would end up paving the way for future policies.

• A recent judgment of 26 April 2021 from the Barcelona Court of Appeal (Section 15) illustrates the usefulness of dissenting opinions as food for further thought. The facts of the case relevant to this blog may be summarized as follows:

• A Spanish company filed a revocation action against patent EP 888 289 (“EP ‘289”) and its corresponding SPC, which protects lacosamide, an antiepileptic drug. The patent owner filed a statement of defense together with a counterclaim, in which it requested the Court to prohibit that company from launching its product into the market before the SPC expired. In a nutshell, it alleged that the activities carried out by that company constituted a “threat of infringement.” Specifically, it mentioned the following acts: a) obtaining a marketing authorization many years ahead of the expiry date of the SPC; b) obtaining a price also years ahead of the expiry date of the SPC; c) having filed a revocation action; d) having failed to undertake to wait for the expiry date of the SPC despite having received three warning letters; and e) all the other companies that had obtained marketing authorization and price had undertaken not to launch while the SPC was in force.

• The Court of First Instance, in a judgment of 14 April 2020, dismissed the revocation action. It also dismissed the counterclaim, on the grounds that actions against “threats of infringement” would have no legal basis in Spanish law.

• [...]

• The point is, of course, debatable, as illustrated by the dissenting opinion written by one of the members of the Court of Appeal in this case. The same member also noted that the regulatory context has changed since the judgment of 22 January 2013 (Donepezil). In particular, he mentioned the entry into force of the new Patent Act on 1 April 2017, which introduced, in article 71.1, the right of the patent owner to request the cessation of the acts that infringe its right “or their prohibition if they have not yet taken place.” This latter right had to be introduced to comply with article 9.1 of the Enforcement Directive (Directive 2004/48/EC), which, in turn, had introduced this right to comply with article 50 of TRIPS. The question at issue is how far the preparations to infringe must have reached to allow the patent owner to obtain a judgment prohibiting infringement.

• The judgment did not cite or interpret the contours of the “prohibition action” introduced in article 71.1 of the Patent Act. The dissenting opinion, however, made a contribution to this debate in paragraph 3, where it stated the following: “The purpose of the prohibition action is to restrain future infringement that has not yet taken place when there are serious reasons to believe that infringement is probable.” In paragraph 6, it added: “Therefore, for the prohibition action to succeed, the plaintiff must show rational evidence of the imminence of the acts of infringement.” The latter sentence is, of course, also debatable, since, as the dissenting opinion explains in paragraphs 8 and 9, “imminence” is a requirement for preliminary injunctions aimed at prohibiting acts of infringement that, to be prohibited, the legislature requires be “imminent.” No such requirement was included in article 71.1 for prohibition actions in the main proceedings. This may be interpreted as a sign that the legislature wanted the test for prohibition actions to be less stringent that the strict “imminence” test required for preliminary injunctions. In this regard, the judgment of 22 January 2013, although published before the Patent Act was amended, appears better tailored to the text and spirit of article 71.1 of the new Patent Act.

• All in all, the differing views expressed by the majority of the Court and the dissenting opinion in this case illustrate that, as used to be the case with Judge Holmes’s dissenting opinions, this debate is here to stay.

=> ↺ Federal Circuit Nominee: Judges Should Judge The Cases They Have, Not Seek Cases They Want To Judge

• But there’s one more thing. During her nomination hearing, she was asked by Senator Grassley (R-IA) if it was appropriate for judges to actively seek to create favorable patent venues in their courts. (1:06:58). And her answer summarizes the ideal of a judge—judges should be “bound by the rule of law and just be focused on the facts of each case without really taking into consideration regarding what sorts of cases they might want to appear before them.”

• It’s an answer in stark contrast to the practices of at least one other judge.

=> ↺ China – time is money

=> ↺ IAM

• The ultra-fast speed of proceedings and low legal costs are proving sufficient enticement to overcome stubbornly low damages levels for some plaintiffs. And with injunctive relief on the table, everyone expects China’s patent litigation docket to grow

=> ↺ The global patent market state of play – a clash of courts

• The results of IAM’s first litigation survey reflect how, as patent disputes become more global, the pros and cons of different national courts can be make or break for both plaintiffs and defendants

=> ↺ Germany – at the heart of Europe

=> ↺ Germany openly embraced corruption at the EPO

• Germany has firmly established itself as the continent’s go-to patent venue with speed, relatively low costs and the promise of an injunction firmly at the forefront of litigants’ minds

=> ↺ Tesla structural battery pack patent hints at clever contingencies for crashes, cell failures

• Tesla’s next generation of vehicles like the Cybertruck and the Made-in-Texas Model Y will likely be built with a structural battery pack. Together with the company’s 4680 cells and megacasted parts, Tesla’s integrated battery system is expected to improve its vehicles’ mass and range significantly.

• [...]

• Tesla’s vehicles are famed for their excellent safety ratings. Built without a heavy internal combustion engine in front, Tesla’s EVs feature generous crumple zones that help absorb the impact in a collision. If the EV maker’s structural batteries really make its cars more structurally sound, then Tesla could further establish itself as the maker of the safest cars on the road, bar none.

=> ↺ United Kingdom – clouded in uncertainty | IAM

• Our survey results reveal that some familiar concerns remain with the United Kingdom as a patent litigation venue at a time when Brexit has only muddied the waters further

=> ↺ Brazil Supreme Court rules patent extensions keep drug prices from being affordable.

• The Brazilian Supreme Court has issued a ruling that will make its intellectual property law allowing long-term patent extensions unconstitutional. This could clear the way for lower cost generic versions of certain drugs to enter the market sooner. If generics can enter, drug costs will be more affordable.

• As a result, pharmaceutical patents that were granted an extension will lose the additional time, and no other pharmaceutical patent can be granted an extension. The court has deemed its decision to be retroactive as well, meaning that any existing extensions will be reserved and, moving forward, patent protections will be limited to twenty years following the initial grant.

• Patents are currently protected for twenty years from the date that an application is filed, as well as another ten years at the time it’s granted. The addition time has been put into place because the Brazilian patent office can take a decade or more to review applications and adding ten years of is a form of compensation to the filer.

=> ↺ TomTom overturns Conversant patent with Bardehle’s help

=> ↺ Firm that lobbies for software patents profits from patent trolls litigating in Europe

=> ↺ This patent troll is armed by Microsoft

• The German Federal Patent Court has overturned Conversant patent, EP 17 97 659, which protects mobile communication technology for autonomous transmission in high-speed uplink packet access, and transmission time control.

• [...]

• Bardehle Pagenberg partner Tobias Kaufmann, working with lawyers from his firm, had already represented TomTom as intervener for Daimler in the infringement proceedings. The team is also acting for TomTom in other connected cars suits, for instance against Nokia.

• In addition, the company brought on board Augsburg-based lawyer Maximilian Ernicke. Previously, Ernicke was as an associate for Bardehle.

• Most Conversant patents are filed by German-British law firm EIP, via its London patent attorneys. Its lawyers are also conducting the infringement proceedings for Conversant in Germany and the UK.

Software Patents

=> ↺ $3,000 for Gridley IP prior art

• On May 27, 2021, Unified Patents added a new PATROLL contest, with a $2,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on at least claim 1 of U.S. Patent 8,676,668. The patent is owned by by Gridley IP LLC, an IP Edge entity. The ’668 patent generally relates to mapping population activity by discerning a location, speed, and direction of wireless mobile devices within a geographic region. It has been asserted against Waitr, Route4Me, WorkWave, Instacart, Doordash, NeighborFavor, Cabconnect, Zum Services, HopSkipDrive, SuperShuttle, and Flywheel Software based on their respective delivery and ridesharing services and apps.

=> ↺ The EBoA on computer-implemented simulations

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