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● 05.07.22

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● Links 07/05/2022: SparkyLinux 6.3 and Wine 7.8

Posted in News Roundup at 6:10 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

Desktop/Laptop

=> ↺ China Orders Government, State Firms to Dump Foreign PCs

• China has ordered central government agencies and state-backed corporations to replace foreign-branded personal computers with domestic alternatives within two years, marking one of Beijing’s most aggressive efforts so far to eradicate key overseas technology from within its most sensitive organs.

=> ↺ China intends to transfer state institutions and state-owned enterprises to Linux and PCs of local manufacturers

• According to Bloomberg, China intends to stop the use of computers and operating systems of foreign companies in state institutions and state enterprises within two years. It is expected that the initiative will require the replacement of at least 50 million foreign-brand computers, which are ordered to be replaced with equipment from Chinese manufacturers.

• According to preliminary data, the prescription will not apply to components that are difficult to replace, such as processors. Despite the development of China’s own chips , most Chinese manufacturers continue to use Intel and AMD processors in PCs. Microsoft software is recommended to be replaced with Linux-based solutions developed by Chinese manufacturers.

Server

=> ↺ AlmaLinux, Popular CentOS Alternative, Now Available on Oracle Cloud

=> ↺ AlmaLinux Now Available on Oracle Cloud

• AlmaLinux OS Foundation, the nonprofit that stewards the community owned and governed open source CentOS replacement AlmaLinux, today announced AlmaLinux is now available on the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) marketplace, continuing AlmaLinux’s penetration into the cloud. With this addition to the Oracle Cloud Marketplace (OCM), enterprises can now add AlmaLinux into their Virtual Cloud Network (VCN) with the simple click of a button for both x86_64 and Aarch64.

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Install Arch Linux The Easy Way With The Official Install Script – Invidious

• I’ve always argued that the standard command line installation of Arch Linux is easy and anyone can do it (seriously!). But many people fear command line installations, so Arch Linux now comes with a guided menu-based install script that is as easy-to-use as the Ubiquity installer or the Calamares installer.

=> ↺ Welcome To My New House & Studio Planning – Invidious

• It’s finally happening, I’m finally moving out of my current place and into a place with one of my good mates, here I’ll have so much more space but right now nothing is finished. My room/studio isn’t finished is neither is most of the house but it will be soon enough.

=> ↺ Steam Deck unboxing and hands-on initial impressions [VIDEO]

• Generally speaking, we unbox and review Chromebooks, ChromeOS tablets, Chromeboxes and Chromebases around here. If it runs ChromeOS in any way, shape or form, we’re interested. If it is #madebyGoogle, we’re interested. If it works with a Chromebook, we’re interested. But there are outliers, too, and some of those devices have direct impact on the wider ChromeOS ecosystem. The Steam Deck from Valve is one such device, and there are some good reasons why we’re keenly interested in this handheld gaming machine.

=> ↺ Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Released | The BIGGEST Update To Ubuntu Yet! – Invidious

• The most popular Linux distribution in the world gets a massive update, that is packed with stunning new features and major improvements like Dynamic Triple Buffering, Gnome 42, advanced customization options and so much more. A new interface style, amazing performance boost, better customization options, and a host of new features make Ubuntu 22.04 LTS noteworthy. Yes this is the biggest update to Ubuntu yet. So let’s jump right in and see what’s new in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, the new tech that enables a boosted performance, the stability, the deal with snap apps, the UI changes, gaming, installation and everything else.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Latest Linux Kernel Not Working Right? So you can go back – LinuxStoney

• In this tutorial we are going to learn how to degrade Linux kernel version if latest version didn’t work fine, We always recommend updating Windows, Linux and programs to the latest versions available. Thanks to them, we can correct errors, improve the performance and general functionality of the PC and be able to use it in the safest way possible. However, there are times when problems appear as soon as the Kernel or any system component is updated. And when this happens, what can we do?

• The first thing we want to make clear is that, whenever possible, it is better to use the latest version of the Linux Kernel . The why is very simple. Just like other operating systems, or other programs, when the kernel is updated, bugs and problems are corrected, both in terms of operation and security, which allow the computer to work in the best possible way and, above all, in the safest way possible.

=> ↺ Intel wants to fix sleep malfunction on Linux laptops

• That Linux doesn’t shine on laptops is pretty well known. Problems with energy management have been a constant in its history, which have sometimes led to significant regressions . Fortunately, Intel seems to be willing to do its part to at least get better at carrying out the suspension process.

• It seems there are models of laptops with Intel processors that run hotter than they should, leading to battery drain that can occur even when the computer goes to sleep . With the problem on the table, Intel has decided to take action on the matter to introduce a solution in the Linux kernel, since the origin is apparently a bug in S0ix caused by overheating of the PCH, but before getting into the flour, let’s briefly explain what S0ix and PCH are.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ 2 ways to find my IP address on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy JellyFish

• Let’s learn the GUI and Command ways to find the IP address on Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy JellyFish to identify the local Internal address, Default Gateway, MAC address, or DNS server.

• If you are into system administration or installing some program that requires your system’s IP address, then this tutorial could help you.

=> ↺ How to Install Maven on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy – Linux Shout

• Learn the steps to install Apache Maven on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy JellyFish using the command terminal to manage Java-based projects.

• Apache Maven is an open-source Java tool for the standardized creation and management of Java-based projects. As per the developers of Maven, it is intended to facilitate the daily development work by trying to automate as many steps as possible in the development cycle from the creation of a software project to compilation and testing to the distribution of the software. Based on the specified standards, only a few configuration settings have to be stored for most build management tasks to map the life cycle of a software project.

=> ↺ How to Convert HEIC to JPG | PetaPixel

• Photographers have to deal with a variety of image types and new file formats appear from time to time, usually offering benefits that, while helpful, might not be immediately obvious. This can lead to frustration and hours lost when simply trying to complete a project. That’s particularly true when a new camera or device saves images that can’t be opened or edited in the normal workflow.

=> ↺ How to Use the SSH Config File – ByteXD

• The SSH Config File is a text file that contains configuration information for your SSH client. This file is usually located in your home directory, and the path is ~/.ssh/config.

• It is used to store configuration information for your SSH client, such as the hostname of the server you are connecting to, your username, and your private key file. It’s useful for keeping your SSH client’s configuration organized and for sharing your configuration with others, and also for automating your SSH client’s configuration.

• In this tutorial we will learn by examples how to use the SSH config file to modify and simplify our networking needs using Linux.

=> ↺ How to Install Python 2 on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Linux – Linux Shout

• Get the easy steps to install Python2 or 2.7 on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy JellyFish using the command terminal to run old applications that need this version.

• Python is an object-oriented programming language that offers clear syntax and easy readability; it is easy to learn and very versatile. The language was released in 1991 and is similar to PERL. Available to use on UNIX, Linux, Windows, and Mac OS.

• The programming language is standard equipment in many Linux distributions. Python can also be used on many mobile operating systems. For web servers, WSGI (Web Server Gateway Interface) is a universal interface between the server and Python.

=> ↺ How To Install Remmina Desktop Client on Manjaro 21 – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Remmina Desktop Client on Manjaro 21. For those of you who didn’t know, Remmina is a free and open-source remote desktop client that allows users to access remote machines from a distance. It supports the following protocols X2Go, RDP, SSH, SPICE, and VNC.

• 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 Remmina remote desktop client on a Manjaro 21.

=> ↺ What is /dev/null in Linux and How to Use It – ByteXD

• The null device in Unix systems is /dev/null.

• Its purpose is to immediately discard anything sent to it.

• It’s known also as a bucket or a blackhole. Like throwing something in a thrash bucket or sending it to a blackhole never to be seen again. In this guide we will discuss what is the purpose of /dev/null, why it exists, and how to use it.

=> ↺ 10 ways to check ports in Linux to help troubleshoot systems | TechRepublic

• System and network troubleshooting often involves checking and obtaining information about ports to ensure functionality and determine the source of problems. Learn some handy tips to help keep systems running smoothly.

Wine or Emulation

=> ↺ WineHQ – Wine Announcement – The Wine development release 7.8 is now available.

=> ↺ Wine 7.8 is out now with X11 and OSS drivers converted to PE | GamingOnLinux

• Wine is the compatibility layer that allows you to run games and applications developed for Windows – on Linux (plus also macOS and BSD). A new biweekly development release is out now with Wine 7.8. It’s a major part of what makes up Steam Play Proton and enables a ton of games to work on the Steam Deck. Once a year or so, a new stable release is made.

Games

=> ↺ More than 2600 Games On The Steam Deck, with Corpse Party as Verified – Boiling Steam

• It did not take too long to move from 2500 to 2600 games: there are now 2624 games at the time of writing working on the Steam Deck – in two categories as usual…

=> ↺ Quieter Fans With The Latest Steam Deck Beta

• One of my biggest complaints in my initial Steam Deck impressions (and I know I’m not alone) was the fan noise. While I don’t think I have a particularly whiny unit, the small fan has a sound profile that’s been described accurately as a distant hairdryer.

• I noted that a better fan curve would help as the Deck was constantly starting and stopping the fan at a very audible level, even for simpler games and desktop usage. There’s also the issue with some Deck users having a much more audible whine, from what appears to be the design of one of the fans used in the Deck (looks like random chance which yours has). Some have taken to using electrical tape to alter the fan noise, though I wouldn’t necessarily suggest it.

=> ↺ System76 Scheduler seeks to improve and optimize the execution of games and applications – LinuxStoney

• System76 , the well-known American Linux computer assembler and the one responsible for the Pop!_OS distribution, has published version 1.1 of its programmer, developed with the purpose of improving the response of the software in your operating system and obviously your computers, although it shouldn’t of having problems for its reimplementation on the part of others seeing that it is published under the MPL 2.0 license.

• The scheduler, whose official name is System76 Scheduler , is written in Rust and is responsible for automatically adjusting the Linux processor scheduler to prioritize processes and thus improve responsiveness. This component takes into account whether the computer is connected to power or running on battery power for further optimization purposes. Version 1.1 has introduced a full level kernel priority under the responsive profile and voluntary level in case of running on battery power.

Desktop Environments/WMs

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ This week in KDE: New features and many bugfixes for Plasma 5.25

• This week Plasma 5.25 reached its “soft feature freeze” date, at which point we don’t add any large new features or major code refactorings. This reduces risk and gives us a longer period of time to polish those changes before the final release. So as you can imagine, everyone rushed to merge their big stuff right before the deadline! As a result, this week I can present are tons of new features and important refactorings that fix multiple bugs. Check it out…

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ #42 Numerous Emojis · This Week in GNOME

• Update on what happened across the GNOME project in the week from April 29 to May 06.

=> ↺ Builder GTK 4 Porting, Part III

•  Another week of porting Builder which ultimately sent me on a few fun tangents. I especially enjoyed the work on Template-GLib which brought me back to my days working on languages and runtimes.

• I would like to specify how wonderful the new shortcut components are in GTK 4, particularly if you’re writing complex applications that have to manage layered shortcuts, user overrides, and such. I’m thinking applications in the class of Inkscape, GIMP, Builder, Darktable, and such will really benefit from this someday.

=> ↺ Bottles developers join the GNOME Foundation

• Bottles, the application that allows you to create and manage Wine environments, has been gaining popularity in recent times thanks to the fact that it is easy to use and offers many possibilities. Bottles’ prominence has ended with its developers making the decision to officially become part of the GNOME Foundation.

• The membership of the Bottles developers within GNOME will allow them, as explained by the corresponding website of the foundation behind the environment, “to run for the election of the Board of Directors, to vote in the elections for the Board of Directors and to suggest referendums. The membership process is supervised by the Membership and Elections Committee”.

Distributions

IBM/Red Hat/Fedora

=> ↺ Fedora Linux to Keep Legacy BIOS Support, For Now

• Fedora Linux to continue support of Legacy BIOS as the decision for Fedora 37 is rejected by the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo) due to several factors.

=> ↺ The Hyperscalers Point The Way To Integrated AI Stacks – The Next Platform

=> ↺ IBM announces first major update to Power9 servers in three years

• IBM will launch the first major update to its i operating system for Power CPU-based servers in three years. The enhancements are largely hardware-oriented, supporting both the older Power9 and the newer Power10, which has been available since last September.

Debian Family

=> ↺ Published deb-get utility, offering apt-get-like functionality for third-party packages

• Distributions generally allow the integration of so-called third-party repositories. these are repositories that do not come from the distribution and are therefore not protected by their keys. Opinions differ greatly as to whether such repositories should be included at all.

=> ↺ SparkyLinux 6.3

• The 3rd update of Sparky 6 – 6.3 is out.

• It is a quarterly updated point release of Sparky 6 “Po Tolo” of the stable line. Sparky 6 is based on and fully compatible with Debian 11 “Bullseye”.

=> ↺ Tails 5.0: the Linux distro that protects your privacy makes the leap to Debian 11

• Tails 5.0 is the new version of the amnesic incognito live system , the most popular of the Linux distributions focused on the protection of privacy on the Internet and, as you can see, it comes with round numbers, which is worth dedicating a space exclusively to it , instead of, as we do more often, relegating it to PING .

• releases in a timely manner Tails is that they happen pretty often and the changes are usually minimal. The secret of Tails to offer the high level of privacy that it offers is to be based on the Tor network and for greater guarantee, it is essential to have each new version of Tor that appears and that incorporates security and other patches. Thus, Tails is updated every time Tor is updated.

• Of course, Tails is a Linux distribution and it also has other components apart from Tor, so it receives other types of updates. Tails 5.0 is an unbeatable example of this, since the major version jump corresponds to the base system jump, since Tails 5 moves its foundations to Debian 11 ‘Bullseye’ , with all the new features that this entails.

=> ↺ Charles Fussell, Jonathan Cohen & Debian SLAPP microsite, resignations

• A large sum of money from Debian funds is now paying for Jonathan Cohen, a lawyer at Charles Fussell & Co LLP, to purse a SLAPP lawsuit and try to shut down the Debian Community News and the Uncensored Debian Planet web sites.

=> ↺ Leader adds PBX hardware vendor Call4tel – Distribution – CRN Australia

• The US-based company specialises in small-sized plug and play PBX appliances preinstalled with 3CX’s V18 software and Debian 10.

=> ↺ Leader wins distie deal with UC vendor Call4tel – ARN

• Call4tel appliances come preloaded with 3CX Version 18 and Debian 10, allowing users to load their licensing and configure their SIP accounts and IP phones. The appliances can also be converted for use as a Session Border Controller (SBC) in a hosted 3CX environment.

Canonical/Ubuntu Family

=> ↺ Download Ubuntu 16.04 LTS – DVD ISO Images – TecAdmin

• Ubuntu 22.04 LTS Jammy Jellyfish is released and available for download. This tutorial will provide you the download links to DVD ISO Images of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS with different desktop flavors. You can find the Ubuntu 22.04 release notes on its official website.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Radxa offers affordable Rock Pi 4 C+ equipped with Rockchip RK3399-T processor

•  Radxa recently unveiled details about their newest SBC (Single Board Computer) Rock Pi 4 C+. At first sight, the Rock Pi 4 C+ seems to have implemented a slower Rockchip processor (up to 2.0GHz w/ overclock) compared to their previous models, however the board ships for an affordable price (~59$-69$).

• For this Rock Pi model, Radxa opted to integrate the Rockchip RK3399-T SoC which consists of 4x Cortex-A53 (up to 1.5GHz w/ overclock) and 2x Arm Cortex-A72 (up to 2.0GHz w/ overclock). The SoC also comes with a Mali T860MP4 GPU that supports OpenGL ES, Vulkan and Open CL. As in previous models, the Rock Pi 4 C+ has 4GB of RAM LPDDR4 with clock speeds up to 3200Mb/s.

• The company has a Wiki to provide documentation regarding hardware, OS installation and Linux/Android development. Radxa also has a forum for additional support.

=> ↺ Khadas VIM4 Review – Part 2: Android 11 preview and benchmarks – CNX Software

• Raspberry Pi 4 outperforms both Amlogic platforms for 2D graphics, but Khadas VIM4 really shines when it comes to 3D graphics with over twice the performance of ODROID-N2+ and 6.4x faster performance than Raspberry Pi 4. So Khadas VIM4 and Amlogic A311D2 processor in general should be a pretty good platform for gaming or other applications that require fast 3D rendering capabilities.

• That will be all for Android 11 on Khadas VIM4 SBC for now, I’ll have a bit more to test on Ubuntu 22.04 Desktop with WiFi 6 and GbE networking, storage performance, Linux benchmarks, GPU and VPU support, etc… I’d like to thank Khadas for sending the board for review. It’s scheduled to launch on May 10, and we’ll know the price at that time. You can register your interest on Khadas website to get notified of availability.

=> ↺ RISC-V edges closer to reality: Alibaba close to porting Android to RISC-V

• In order for RISC-V to become mainstream, it needs to be able to run modern operating systems, have accessible compilers, and be compatible with mainstream applications. Recently, Alibaba announced that it is getting closer to porting Android to RISC-V, which marks a major milestone in the widespread adoption of RISC-V.

Open Hardware/Modding

=> ↺ Rock Pi 4 Model C+ is more of a minus (less powerful than the Model C, but also cheaper) – Liliputing

• Usually when a company sticks a plus sign on the end of a product, it’s because it’s better than the normal version (or because it’s a streaming service). But when it comes to Radxa’s new Rock Pi 4 Model C+ single-board computer, the updated model is actually a bit less powerful than the Rock Pi 4 Model C that launched a few years ago.

• At least it’s also cheaper. Perhaps more importantly though, it’s actually in stock. You can pick one up for $60 from AllnetChina or pay $65 at Ameridroid.

=> ↺ Codasip adopts Siemens’ OneSpin tools for formal verification

• Codasip, the leader in processor design automation, has expanded its adoption of formal verification solutions for comprehensive and thorough processor testing with the addition of OneSpin IC verification tools from Siemens EDA. Codasip has continually invested heavily in processor verification to underpin the company’s ability to deliver the industry’s highest quality RISC-V processor IP. [sic]

Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

=> ↺ Android starts playing Nintendo Switch games

=> ↺ Urgent Google Android Security Patch, Attacks Underway, Samsung, Pixel

=> ↺ Urgent warning for Android users that apps may be spying on them – the symbols on your phone to watch out for

=> ↺ [Working] How to Completely Delete and Uninstall Apps on Android

=> ↺ 5 Android apps you shouldn’t miss this week – Android Apps Weekly

=> ↺ I prefer Android face unlock to Apple’s Face ID for one simple reason

=> ↺ 5 Great Samsung Apps That All Android Users Should Download

=> ↺ 12 Best Uses For Old Android Phones

=> ↺ Android Circuit: Galaxy Z Flip Leak, Oppo Find N Review, Genshin Impact’s Massive Impact

=> ↺ How To Change Your Default Apps On Android Phones

=> ↺ How to merge duplicate contacts on Android – Phandroid

=> ↺ Android 13 Beta 1 for Android TV is ready for developers

=> ↺ Samsung continues the Galaxy A series Android 12 rollout – PhoneArena

=> ↺ AVMultiPhone is a peculiar MATE-on-phone desktop spin

• After SXMO, the DWM-on-phone mod that became popular for its practical minimalism with the PinePhone, and the lesser known ExpidusOS XFCE-based shell, many of the traditional lightweight Linux desktops are receiving touch-friendly adaptions. A relatively new project, AVMultiPhone, is loosely based on the popular MATE desktop, which continues the GNOME 2 legacy experience with modern libraries such as Gtk3.

• However, there is more to this than standard MATE. First and foremost, the touchscreen experience appears to be nearly complete, and generally usable. Secondly, a series of applets and configurations was added to ease the integration of details such as touchscreen keyboards.

=> ↺ Google Releases Android Update to Patch Actively Exploited Vulnerability

• Google has released monthly security patches for Android with fixes for 37 flaws across different components, one of which is a fix for an actively exploited Linux kernel vulnerability that came to light earlier this year.

• Tracked as CVE-2021-22600 (CVSS score: 7.8), the vulnerability is ranked “High” for severity and could be exploited by a local user to escalate privileges or deny service.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

=> ↺ Small-Scale Fab: Make Parts with Free/Open Source Software – The New Stack

• There’s tremendous interest in small-scale fabrication and manufacturing these days. The topic is constantly covered in trade journals and the news. I think it’s the best time ever to be in tech and there is a bright future for anyone leaping into the “small-scale” sector.

• Lots of techies understand the basic concepts. Say you want to make a bracket. Just buy a 3D printer, sit it on your desk, maybe whip out a quick CAD model on your notebook, push the button on the printer and poof… out comes a super ultra-cool physical part.

• Yaaaahhh, well… technology is still complicated and nuanced complexity markedly affects expectations, from family members and friends, all the way up through organizations and the general public. I typically maybe just get a “that’s nice, what’s it good for?” response.

• Like everything else, you have to know stuff to answer their question.

• This new series aims to help you fearlessly step into small-scale fabrication and inspire you to help guide it into practicality. Here’s a hint: Curiosity, willingness to learn, Free/Open Source Software and a modest bit of cash will put you solidly in the game.

=> ↺ Why enterprise and medium-size companies should consider using Sandstorm

• Sandstorm is an open source project built by a community of volunteers with the goal of making it really easy to run open source web applications.

=> ↺ VTENEXT is the Open Source CRM and BPM solution

• VTENEXT is released and distributed under the GNU AFFERO GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 3.0.

=> ↺ Track your nutrition with this amazing free Android app: Energize

• Energize is a fairly new food and nutrition for Android systems. It is totally a free and open-source application that you can download, build, install for free, and even examine the source code.

• [...]

• The project is released under The GNU General Public License v3.0 only

=> ↺ How to continue the growth of open source in the UK

• Open source adoption rates are growing globally, with non-propriety code proving to be both efficient and cost-effective for a variety of organizations. Approximately 82 percent of IT decision-makers are more likely to choose a vendor that actively gives back to the open source community, according to a recent report from Red Hat. ­In the UK in particular, much of the reason for this open source drive is down to increased public cloud usage, the growing demand for rapid digital transformation and a greater understanding of open source’s cybersecurity resilience.

• To help continue this open source upsurge in a sustainable manner, organizations utilizing the technology need to be contributing back to the community, to best enable the development of the technology.

=> ↺ Meet Logseq, an open-source knowledge management system that ‘stores data like a brain’

• With support for markup languages such as Markdown and Emacs’ Org-mode, Logseq enables users to create tasks, manage and store notes or to-do lists, embed pages, annotate PDFs and create links between all the information contained within, to create a free flow of information.

=> ↺ Open-source OS is a low-cost alternative to Windows for IPCs – Drives and Controls Magazine

• FreeBSD supports both 32- and 64-bit platforms, providing scalable implementation from ARM CPUs up to powerful Xeon CPUs. It has a small footprint, taking up less than 300MB of RAM.

=> ↺ Open source and liability

=> ↺ Open source – the gift that keeps on giving

• In a world in which conflict, crime and chaos dominate mainstream news and social media channels around the world, there’s one global project that proves that people of vastly different backgrounds, cultures and creeds can work together for the betterment of humanity, everywhere.

• [...]

• The roots of the open source project can be traced back to the 1960s and the development of Unix, which grew into a collection of standalone operating systems for mainframe computing. But it was only when Finnish student Linus Torvalds released Linux, a version of Unix, as a new, free operating system kernel in September 1991, that open source was truly accelerated. The open source label, however, only came to the fore in 1998 after the release of the Netscape source code.

=> ↺ UsTaxes is an open-source free tax filing app for USA

• UsTaxes is a free, open-source tax filing application that can be used to file the Federal 1040 form. It is available in both web and desktop versions. It is provided free of charge and requires no sharing of personal data.

Events

=> ↺ Linux App Summit 2022

• A week ago I attended Linux App Summit (LAS) 2022 in Rovereto, Italy. It was great to finally travel and meet people again, after more than two years. At the same time it would be naive to think the pandemic is over, and it’s still a few days too early for the final verdict on whether we managed to meet safely, but things look very promising so far.

Web Browsers

=> ↺ Missing the classic Opera browser? Try Otter

• Otter is a free open-source web browser that recreates the old Opera 12 browser experience. It is completely open-source project as it is released under the GPL-3.0 License.

• Otter is written primarily in C++ and leverages Qt5 framework. The project receives constant updates that include new features, improvements, and bug fixes

Mozilla

=> ↺ Firefox 100: technological resurrection, popular death

• Recently appeared Firefox 100, an event that is more symbolic than anything else, although Mozilla has emphasized it with a thank you message shown to all those who have executed it. Do not misunderstand, when I speak of symbolism, I am referring only to the psychological impact that the number 100 has, nothing more.

• Firefox 100 maintains the good progress that the browser has shown in recent months, a good job that, unfortunately, is not helping it to rise in user quota, since it is currently behind the current Microsoft Edge , based on Chromium and with official version for Linux .

• It’s no secret that I’m a staunch supporter of Wayland, so I use Firefox almost out of obligation because it’s the only major web browser with mature support for the graphics protocol. Until January 2022 I used the RPM version provided by Fedora , which has Wayland support enabled by default, and from that date I started using the Flatpak build hosted on Flathub , whose Wayland support can be easily enabled with Flatseal .

=> ↺ Mozilla Releases Firefox 100

MongoDB

=> ↺ Why your open-source project definitely should not be the next Kubernetes

• Take Firecracker, an open-source, micro-virtualization project that AWS released in 2018. Firecracker was almost universally hailed as cool technology … and then mostly disappeared from public view. I wrote about some early community success, but even that (Weave Ignite to improve Firecracker’s ease-of-use, among other things) came from a close AWS partner. To give Firecracker more community heft, I suggested that AWS follow Google and open up governance around Firecracker, not just its code.

• AWS didn’t listen but, not for the first time, my opinion didn’t seem to matter. (That’s a polite way of saying maybe I was wrong.)

• Fast forward to 2022, and Firecracker is quietly getting used in lots of cool places. I say “quietly” because, well, why would anyone shout their infrastructure from the rooftops? But when I asked, some interesting users surfaced, like Stripe, Fly.io, System Initiative and more. Of course, it’s still true that most contributors to Firecracker are employed by AWS.

• But even if Firecracker would have remained a community of one (AWS), it arguably would have been worth it. In fact, that’s essentially what I argued while I worked for AWS, indicating that there were clear customer-oriented reasons to open-source Firecracker, regardless of community involvement. Open source ensured Firecracker would play nicely with the Linux community and enabled tighter “compounded product gains” for customers.

=> ↺ Build community engagement by serving up Lean Coffee

• I recently started a new job at MongoDB as a Principal Community Manager, spearheading the MongoDB Community Champions program. In that role, I faced two challenges.

• First, I was joining a brand new, fully remote team. Not only was I new myself, but the team as a whole was just beginning to form, with new members coming on board a couple of times per month. This team was also spread across several time zones, with about half of them older, established members who’ve been with the company for a long time and know each other pretty well, and the other half entirely new faces.

• Second, the Community Champions program started during the pandemic. As a result, program participants from around the world had very little opportunity to meet each other and meld as a group. I wanted to find out more about what they wanted to discuss and learn, so I could use that to plan out the first few months of programming. I also wanted to give them a chance to talk with each other about their interests.

• I ran these scenarios past a friend of mine, the fabulous Donna Benjamin, and she suggested an extremely useful tool from the Open Practice Library: Lean Coffee.

=> ↺ Appwrite’s new open-source fund could offer a novel path to sustainability | TechRepublic

• “While some projects are used by millions, they might still struggle to find a reasonable way to monetize and sustain themselves. This is where we believe we can help,” Fux said. Open-source projects need all sorts of support, he continued, but in his experience, “financial support was my biggest concern” as a maintainer. Sometimes, however, there’s no intent to ignore cash-strapped maintainers. “Companies benefit from your work but are not always aware of the challenges you need to face to deliver it,” he suggested. Therefore, Appwrite’s open-source fund is as much designed to raise cash as “awareness of the challenges required to deliver high-quality, open-source products.”

FSF

GNU Projects

=> ↺ 10 Professional-Level Web Design Tools to Get the Ideal Website

Programming/Development

=> ↺ Git for Mainframe: Back to the Future

• Software delivery modernization should be done with care, especially with mission-critical mainframe apps. But for some, modernization will feel like a trip back to the future.

• Mainframe applications are typically systems of record with high-value transactions, significant compliance risk and an essential need for stability and security. They’ve been running reliably, often for decades, with code changes made by teams of dedicated developers using time-tested interfaces like ISPF (green screens) and Eclipse integrated with mainframe-based source management tools—Endevor is the most widely used example.

=> ↺ Top 10 Trending Open-Source Python Projects on GitHub

=> ↺ Top 10 AI Skills that will Get You a Job in FAANG Companies in 2022 – Analytics Insight

=> ↺ Top 10 Python Jobs Developers Should Apply for in FAANG Companies

=> ↺ 15 Best Coding Games for Kids – Kids Programming Classes & Websites

• Simply put, coding is telling a computer or machine how to perform a task. As a rep from Raspberry Pi Foundation explains, “Coding is one aspect of digital making. When you write code, you are writing instructions for a computer to follow.” As complex as they may seem, computers are actually simple devices, so that’s why you have to give them really simple instructions that you then build into a complex set of rules. And learning how to provide those instructions isn’t just helpful for computers — it challenges programmers to communicate with computers in a way that makes sense. Why is coding good for kids? Teaching your kid how to code won’t just make them a computer whiz — it will teach them plenty of other valuable skills as well. “When young people are given opportunities to learn and create with code, they can do incredible things, from expressing themselves creatively, to highlighting real-world issues or controlling a robot,” the Raspberry Pi Foundation rep says. “Coding also helps develop young people’s resilience and problem-solving skills, as debugging is a key part of the process to ensure their code works correctly.” Yes, they may get frustrated at times, but it’s all part of the process!At what age can a child start coding? Just like when learning a new language, it’s both better and easier to learn coding skills from a young age. “There is research into children being able to learn aspects of coding from the age of three, as well as during kindergarten and early elementary school,” the Raspberry Pi Foundation rep explains.

=> ↺ RProtoBuf 0.4.19 on CRAN: Updates

• A new release 0.4.19 of RProtoBuf arrived on CRAN earlier today. RProtoBuf provides R with bindings for the Google Protocol Buffers (“ProtoBuf”) data encoding and serialization library used and released by Google, and deployed very widely in numerous projects as a language and operating-system agnostic protocol.

• This release contains a pull request contribution by Michael Chirico to add support for the TextFormat API, a minor maintenance fix ensuring (standard) string are referenced as std::string to avoid a hickup on Arch builds, some repo updates, plus reporting of (package and library) versions on startup. The following section from the NEWS.Rd file has more details.

=> ↺ SpiderMonkey Newsletter (Firefox 100-101) | SpiderMonkey JavaScript/WebAssembly Engine

• SpiderMonkey is the JavaScript engine used in Mozilla Firefox. This newsletter gives an overview of the JavaScript and WebAssembly work we’ve done as part of the Firefox 100 and 101 Nightly release cycles.

Python

=> ↺ 7 Best Free and Open Source Python Object-Relational Mapping Software

•  Object–relational mapping (ORM) is a programming technique for converting data between incompatible type systems using object-oriented programming languages. This creates, in effect, a “virtual object database” that can be used from within the programming language.

• In essence, ORM is a design pattern for converting (wrapping) that data stored within a relational database into an object that can be used within an object oriented language. It creates a layer between the language and the database, helping programmers work with data without the OOP paradigm.

=> ↺ Learn how to program with this Python Humble Bundle for as little as $1 – News Azi

• Looking to improve your Python programming skills? Humble Bundle and No Starch Press have put together the Python Book Bundle with up to 18 books.

• The Humble Bundle is all in the name of charity, so the minimum payments for each tier are suggestions, but if you like the cause you can always give more. The beneficiaries for this bundle include the Python Software Foundation and the Hacker Initiative. Here’s what’s available.

=> ↺ Python Basic Electronics Control with the Raspberry Pi | Developer.com

• The Raspberry Pi device, beyond just being a low-cost introductory computing tool, also provides a robust electronic controller interface that enables programmatic control of external electronic systems. These systems can be as simple as turning on or off an LED, or as complex as being able to control a robotic arm or other, more elaborate, electronic devices. This Python and embedded programming tutorial will show the reader how to use Raspberry Pi-specific Python libraries to control basic electronic components. Many similar Python tutorials presume extensive knowledge in the use of such components, but this article will not make that presumption. Instead, programmers will be shown a “gentle” introduction into the electronics concepts needed to get this project going, in the hopes that this foundation will encourage the reader to do more experimentation beyond the simple experiment to be presented within this two part programming series.

Standards/Consortia

=> ↺ VESA Launches Industry’s First Open Standard and Logo Program for PC Monitor and Laptop Display Variable Refresh Rate Performance for Gaming and Media Playback

Leftovers

Science

=> ↺ Four Columbians Elected to the National Academy of Sciences | Columbia News

• Computer scientists Alfred Aho and Toniann Pitassi, mathematician Michael Harris, and sociologist Mario Small join this year’s class of new members.

=> ↺ Good Products and Bad Businesses

• Over the past 15 years, clever digital ideas have captured imaginations, transformed habits and reshaped industries and economies.

• It might seem surprising, then, that so many great digital products in this generation have come from bad businesses.

• Spotify has reshaped music, but the company is still figuring out how to turn a consistent profit. Uber has altered cities and become a way of life for some riders and drivers. The company has also spent far more cash than it has brought in over its 13-year life.

• App companies like DoorDash, Instacart and Gopuff have hooked some Americans on deliveries of restaurant meals, groceries or convenience items, but hardly any company that brings fresh food to our doors has made it work financially. Robinhood helped make investing accessible and fun, but it hasn’t made free stock trades profitable. Twitter is a cultural force, but it’s never been a good company.

=> ↺ How sleep-deprived see and evaluate others’ faces | NSS

• Acute sleep loss increases the brain’s reactivity toward positive and negative affective stimuli. Thus, despite well-known reduced attention due to acute sleep loss, we hypothesized that humans would gaze longer on happy, angry, and fearful faces than neutral faces when sleep-deprived. We also examined if facial expressions are differently perceived after acute sleep loss.

=> ↺ Turing Distinguished Leader Series: Ashu Garg, General Partner, Foundation Capital

• In this Turing Distinguished Leader Series session, we conversed with Ashu Garg, General Partner at Foundation Capital. Ashu is an early investor in several unicorns, including Turing.

=> ↺ Taking back control: new 3D printed bracelet empowers the hand-impaired to play video games – 3D Printing Industry

• Researchers at the University of Sydney have developed a 3D printed sensor bracelet that allows those with hand impairments to more easily use computers and play video games.

• By detecting vibrations in users’ wrists as they move their fingers, the wearable is said to be capable of picking up inputs, before relaying these to a machine learning (ML) program that converts them into computational commands. Once they’ve perfected this process, the team intends to make the bracelet open-source, with the aim of improving smart device access for disabled people across the world.

=> ↺ Sensor bracelet designed to give back control to hand-impaired – The University of Sydney

• Australian researchers are developing a 3D printed bracelet to allow people living with hand-impairment to easily use computers and play video games.

=> ↺ Software Heritage: the software Library of Alexandria – Hello Future Orange

• The Software Heritage project aims to build a software Library of Alexandria: a perennial, universal source code archive to serve society, science, and industry.

• In today’s information society, software is everywhere. It is at the heart of scientific research, technological developments, and ever more industrial processes. Software plays a pivotal role in the everyday life of our society. It gives us access to humanity’s knowledge and cultural heritage, of which it is also a part. However, software is fragile: it can be altered or made unusable.

=> ↺ Purdue, Ivy Tech partner on next-generation microelectronics workforce – Purdue University News

• Purdue University and Ivy Tech Community College are partnering to help meet the future workforce needs in microelectronics, a field that is expected to add more than 100,000 workers over the next decade.

• The agreement will provide a variety of collaborative educational opportunities for faculty and students in microelectronics and will explore ways to attract more talent to this area.

Education

=> ↺ Indigenous language key piece in province’s education overhaul

• Manitoba’s latest education reform action plan is calling for tangible actions to support Indigenous students in the classroom through access to language and culture.

• The provincial government announced its action plan Wednesday responding to recommendations provided by Manitoba’s kindergarten to Grade 12 education commission.

=> ↺ Huawei launches ‘Digital Bus’ project to level up education sector in Thailand

• Huawei launched a new project entitled ‘Digital Bus’ to turn the education sector towards technology in Thailand. The company took this step to enhance the knowledge of digitalization and new techs among the Thailand citizens.

Hardware

=> ↺ Panasas Debuts New Products, Continues Software Focus

• Panasas started off specializing in storage hardware, but more than 20 years on, the company is placing a big bet on its software stack to meet storage needs for high-performance applications.

• The company on Wednesday introduced new storage products called ActiveStor Ultra XL and ActiveStor Flash for high-performance computing and artificial intelligence applications. The products are built on the company’s PanFS file system, which orchestrates data movement in large clusters deployed over a network.

=> ↺ Panasas Debuts New Products as It Emphasizes Storage Software in Business Shift

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ Real Problems, Real Solutions to the Long-Term Care Crisis

• Making at-home care work for America starts with tackling these 6 challenges

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

=> ↺ Microsoft Tells Users to Uninstall Windows 11 Update That Causes Apps to Crash

=> ↺ Microsoft advises users to uninstall Windows 11 update

=> ↺ CloudCasa by Catalogic to Feature Cyber-Resilient Kubernetes Backups at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2022

=> ↺ TurboTax will pay $141 million for scamming taxpayers

• TurboTax will pay $141 million to residents in every state and Washington D.C. for misleading claims that its tax preparation services are free, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Wednesday.

• Under the agreement, a total of 4.4 million taxpayers who used TurboTax’s free edition for tax years 2016 through 2018 will get a direct payment of approximately $30 for each year. These users were told that they had to pay to file, even though they were eligible to file for free using the IRS Free File program, which the Intuit withdrew from in 2021. In New York, 176,000 residents who were “tricked into paying to file their federal tax return” will receive a total of more than $5.4 million.

=> ↺ MacOS Server, Adieu

Security

=> ↺ Security Bulletin 04 May 2022

• SingCERT’s Security Bulletin summarises the list of vulnerabilities collated from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)’s National Vulnerability Database (NVD) in the past week.

=> ↺ 25+ Vulnerable websites to practice your ethical hacking skills

• In recent times as the field of information is on the rise a new term ‘Ethical Hacking’ has emerged and opened many different avenues for IT and cyber security professionals. Now more and more people are getting familiar with the field of information security and are getting interested in learning about hacking skills.

• For budding hackers, these are often the best way to hit the ground running in case of career choices towards penetration testing or also known as vulnerability assessment and pen testing (VAPT).

=> ↺ What are the Best Automated Penetration Testing Tools in 2022? – TechStory

• The process that identifies and resolves security issues within a network or a system is known as automated penetration testing and it can be a rather time-taking method, especially if done manually. This is where automated penetration testing tools come in. They automate the process of pentesting, making it easier and faster for you to find and fix vulnerabilities. We will discuss the best-automated penetration testing tools available today.

=> ↺ Threat Actor Increases Dwell Time By Targeting Opaque Devices | Decipher

• Researchers have uncovered a threat actor that is targeting the emails of employees at various companies – including ones that focus on corporate development, mergers and acquisitions and large corporate transactions – for suspected espionage purposes.

• The group, UNC3524, turned researchers’ heads by having a longer-than-average dwell time on victim networks, due in part to the group’s installation of backdoors on opaque network appliances like SAN arrays, load balancers and wireless access point controllers that do not support security tools like antivirus or endpoint protection. Victims have been located in the U.S., Germany and Singapore, said researchers.

=> ↺ Understand the 3 P’s of Cloud Native Security

=> ↺ Dependency Issues: Solving the World’s Open-Source Software Security Problem – War on the Rocks

=> ↺ This is a proprietary software problem, too

• The idea of a lone programmer relying on their own genius and technical acumen to create the next great piece of software was always a stretch. Today it is more of a myth than ever. Competitive market forces mean that software developers must rely on code created by an unknown number of other programmers. As a result, most software is best thought of as bricolage — diverse, usually open-source components, often called dependencies, stitched together with bits of custom code into a new application.

• This software engineering paradigm — programmers reusing open-source software components rather than repeatedly duplicating the efforts of others — has led to massive economic gains. According to the best available analysis, open-source components now comprise 90 percent of most software applications. And the list of economically important and widely used open-source components — Google’s deep learning framework TensorFlow or its Facebook-sponsored competitor PyTorch, the ubiquitous encryption library OpenSSL, or the container management software Kubernetes — is long and growing longer. The military and intelligence community, too, are dependent on open-source software: programs like Palantir have become crucial for counter-terrorism operations, while the F-35 contains millions of lines of code.

=> ↺ Cyberespionage Group Targeting M&A, Corporate Transactions Personnel

• Security researchers at Mandiant are documenting the discovery of a new hacking group focused on cyberespionage targeting employees responsible for corporate development, large corporate transactions, and mergers and acquisitions.

• Referred to as UNC3524 – Mandiant uses ‘UNC’ to track uncategorized hacking groups – the threat actor does not appear interested in immediate financial gain, given that it manages to remain undetected for an order of magnitude longer than the average dwell time of 21 days in 2021.

• [...]

• To keep the malware footprint low, the attackers relied on built-in Windows protocols. Lateral movement was obtained through a customized version of Impacket’s WMIEXEC tool, which employs Windows Management Instrumentation to create a semi-interactive shell.

Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation

=> ↺ This unpatched DNS bug could put ‘well-known’ IoT devices at risk | ZDNet

• uClibc stopped being maintained in 2012 after the release of version uClibc-0.9.33.2, while the uClibc-ng fork is designed for use within OpenWRT, a common OS for routers “possibly deployed throughout various critical infrastructure sectors”, according to Palanca.

=> ↺ Nozomi Networks Discovers Unpatched DNS Bug in Popular C Standard Library Putting IoT at Risk

• Nozomi Networks Labs discovered a vulnerability (tracked under CVE-2022-30295, ICS-VU-638779, VU#473698) affecting the Domain Name System (DNS) implementation of all versions of uClibc and uClibc-ng, a popular C standard library in IoT products. The flaw is caused by the predictability of transaction IDs included in the DNS requests generated by the library, which may allow attackers to perform DNS poisoning attacks against the target device.

=> ↺ Zero-day bug in uClibc library could leave IoT devices vulnerable to DNS poisoning attacks | The Daily Swig

• A zero-day vulnerability in uClibc and uClibc-ng, a popular C standard library, could enable a malicious actor to launch DNS poisoning attacks on vulnerable IoT devices.

• The bug, tracked as ICS-VU-638779, which has yet to be patched, could leave users exposed to attack, researchers have warned.

=> ↺ DNS bug found in C standard library used in popular IoT products

• Researchers on Monday reported they discovered a vulnerability affecting the DNS implementation of all versions of uClibc and uClibc-ng, a popular C standard library in many well-known IoT products.

• In a blog post, Nozomi Networks Labs said the flaw was caused by the predictability of transaction IDs included in the DNS requests generated by the library, which may let attackers perform DNS poisoning attacks against the targeted devices.

• The researchers reported that major vendors such as Linksys, Netgear, and Axis, as well as Linux distributions such as Embedded Gentoo use uClibc. The researchers explained that uClibc-ng was specifically designed for OpenWRT, a common OS for routers possibly deployed throughout various critical infrastructure sectors.

=> ↺ Unpatched DNS Related Vulnerability Affects a Wide Range of IoT Devices

• Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed an unpatched security vulnerability that could pose a serious risk to IoT products.

=> ↺ Gear from Netgear, Linksys, and 200 others has unpatched DNS poisoning flaw | Ars Technica

• Vulnerability in 3rd-party libraries can send devices’ users to malicious sites.

=> ↺ Industrial cybersecurity researchers, looking for help, go public with unpatched IoT bug – The Record by Recorded Future

• The Record by Recorded Future gives exclusive, behind-the-scenes access to leaders, policymakers, researchers, and the shadows of the cyber underground.

=> ↺ Open-source security: It’s too easy to upload ‘devastating’ malicious packages, warns Google

Environment

Energy

=> ↺ Wikipedia doesn’t want your crypto donations anymore

• The Wikimedia Foundation will stop accepting crypto donations after months of pressure from members of the Wikipedia community. The foundation said on Sunday it will close its BitPay account, which facilitated crypto gifts.

• Members of the community had asked for the foundation to end crypto donations last month following a debate among 400 Wikipedia users. The group opposing the foundation’s crypto policy was primarily concerned with the negative climate impacts of crypto mining and the foundation’s reputation.

=> ↺ Wikipedia Stops Accepting Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) – Benzinga

=> ↺ The Wikimedia Foundation won’t accept crypto donations anymore

=> ↺ California is pushing for its own ‘transparent’ crypto regulations

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Super Predator Megaraptor – Largest known dinosaur fossil from the raptor family found in Argentina

• A News that would get the makers of Jurassic Park excited – Paleontologists in Argentina have discovered the remains of the largest dinosaur from the Raptor family – the Megaraptor. The new species has been named ‘Maip macrothorax’ by the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research.

• Raptors, popularized by the movie – Jurassic Park, were not huge in size but aggressive and intelligent. Megaraptors, were much bigger with most species ranging 20-26ft in length and couple of feet taller than humans in height. The ‘Maip macrothorax’ found in Argentina measures 33ft long and weighed over 5tons.

=> ↺ Edinburgh zoo welcomes two new endangered penguins

• Edinburgh zoo has welcomed two new baby penguins, after the first eggs of the season hatched. Both are endangered Northern rockhoppers. Rockhoppers are endangered due to climate change and overfishing. Zookeepers are keeping a close eye on the new arrivals, as the first 30 days are critical – they are also hopeful that the gentoo penguin eggs will begin hatching soon. Dawn Nicoll, senior penguin keeper at Edinburgh Zoo, said: “Northern rockhopper penguins are endangered due to climate change, changes in marine ecosystems and overfishing, so it is really exciting to welcome these new chicks.

Finance

=> ↺ Gas, diapers, essential items will be tax-free in Florida

=> ↺ Come Home Montana recruitment campaign draws mixed reception

• Gov. Greg Gianforte’s signature pledge to bring home Montana’s kids and grandkids, now backed by a $700,000 marketing campaign, has run headlong into angst over Montana’s ‘crazy real estate market.’

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ Online Censorship of Ukraine Dissent Is Becoming the New Norm – scheerpost.com

• Big Tech and the corporate media are ushering in an ominous era of intense censorship over Ukraine.

=> ↺ Musk gets help from tech titans and a Saudi prince in Twitter bid

• Two weeks ago, business leaders publicly questioned whether Elon Musk was serious in his bid to take Twitter private. Now, some of the top investors in the world are lining up to backstop his ambitions.

=> ↺ Elon Musk gets help from techies, Saudi prince and crypto king in bid to own Twitter

• Two weeks ago, business leaders publicly questioned whether Elon Musk was serious in his bid to take Twitter private. Now, some of the world’s top investors are lining up to backstop his ambitions.

=> ↺ India isn’t a safe place for comedians either, writes Anil Singh

• Why cite the Reporters Without Borders report on the lack of press freedom in India when your humourists are being targeted?

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Supreme Court revisits prayer in school in football coach case

=> ↺ Why the Dobbs Leak Is Dangerous

• his week’s leak of the draft majority opinion in Dobbs, the Mississippi abortion case, is unprecedented. Leaks from the Court have occurred before, but this leak is different, a potentially shattering event, both because of the leaker’s probable motives and the leak’s probable effects. Most likely, the leaker set out to intimidate one or more of the justices and affect the outcome of the case. Alternatively, the leaker hoped to destroy the Court as an institution—in the approving phrase of one progressive commentator, to “burn this place down.” The long-term consequences of the leak may be severe.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ Big ISPs just gave up on blocking net neutrality law in CA

• On Thursday, major internet service providers (AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, et al.) dropped a lawsuit challenging a California law requiring broadband networks to treat traffic and content from all websites and services equally. The ISPs’ legal challenge had already lost three times in California Federal courts. Network neutrality proponents are calling the abandonment of the suit a huge win for digital rights and the open web.

• The ISP trade groups revealed their decision in a brief filed Wednesday in the Federal District Court of California, Eastern District. “When they lost last time around . . . they really lost,” says Evan Greer of the grassroots tech-rights group Fight for the Future, which has long advocated for net neutrality but was not directly involved in the case. “The court all but said that if you take this case to the Supreme Court you will lose.”

Monopolies

=> ↺ EU accuses Apple of violating competition laws – Protocol

• The European Commission sent Apple a “preliminary view” that the company is violating competition laws.

=> ↺ Google just fired another AI researcher

• Google fired Satrajit Chatterjee, an AI researcher in the company’s Brain group who criticized a research paper on computers designing computer chips that was published in the scientific publication Nature last year and involved work from researchers in Google’s chip and Brain teams.

• The paper presented a method for automatically generating parts of a computer chip more efficiently than humans. Chatterjee disputed parts of the paper, and was fired in March after Google told his research team that he couldn’t publish a rebuttal of some of the claims made in the paper, sources told The New York Times. Researchers who had worked on a rebuttal argued that Google broke its own AI principles by rejecting the paper.

=> ↺ Facebook, Google Face Regulatory Reckoning That May End Big Tech Dominance

=> ↺ Competition Law in the Digital Space: A Study of Exclusionary Conduct by Tech Conglomerates

• At the heart of any competition law regime is the promotion of free markets and the elimination of anti-competitive practices. India, for example, established the Competition Commission of India under the Indian Competition Act (2002), to protect and promote competition in markets, prevent practices that hinder competition, and protect the rights and interests of consumers.[1] In the United States (US), two key antitrust laws are in place—i.e., the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act—to curb anti-competitive activities.[2] Similarly, the Treaty for the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) is aimed at penalising offenders that disrupt healthy competition in the local markets. Articles 101 to 106, which form the basis of the antitrust regime of the European Union (EU), outlaw agreements that lead to cartelisation, monopolistic practices, and abuse of dominance.

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