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Murdock On The Birth Of Debian
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Jan '16

06 Jan '16

Noted Free Culture rapporteur Glyn Moody recalls his 1999 interview with late Debian founder Ian Murdock about the genesis of the project: <http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/01/the-birth-of-debian-i…>. As Murdock told me in 1999, the problems arose from the fact that "the fellow who was doing [SLS] was trying to do everything himself. And so I looked on that and I thought, well, you know, if Linux has taught us anything it's that that kind of model is sub-optimal. What we really ought to do is we ought try to take the model that Linux has pioneered, intentionally or not, and try to get the same benefits from that for building the system around it."

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Microsoft's Latest Patent Aggression Comes Under Fire From the EFF, Former GNU/Linux Company the Patent's Target
by Peter Reutemann 04 Jan '16

04 Jan '16

'MICROSOFT, which is connected to many patent trolls (includingIntellectual Ventures, the world’s biggest), is still busy suing companies. Microsoft has a long history of patent aggression, including patent litigation against Linux (not just threats thereof). As longtime readers of this site may know, this and only this was the raison d’être of this Web site. “…since winning a case for infringement of design patents can lead to a damage analysis based on “lost profits,” which can theoretically lead to a patent owner getting all of a defendant’s profits.” –Joe MullinAs we noted the other day, referring tothe original from the EFF, Microsoft is now attacking a company that once dominated word processing. Microsoft allegedly engaged in competition crimes against this company, leading to decades of expensive litigation. This company also pioneered some important GNU/Linux efforts until Microsoft shut these down with a mysterious deal (which we wrote about on several occasions around 2007). Well, Microsoft is now trying to drive this company into bankruptcy, using patents. What’s the name of this company? Corel. We have a whole category about Corel (with 51 articles, as well as leaked court documents). History is important here and it’s imperative that people properly study Corel to truly grasp how severe this situation really is.' -- source: http://techrights.org/2015/12/31/patent-aggression-against-corel/ Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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A Leap of Faith -- Replacing Ubuntu Server with openSUSE Leap
by Peter Reutemann 04 Jan '16

04 Jan '16

"I run a local file and media server, which is a very important part of my digital life -- it hosts all of my files. Everything. I have been using an Ubuntu 14.04 server running on a self-assembled PC. But, it’s a big, noisy system and generates too much heat. So, I planned to move to smaller form factor, such as System76's Meerkat." -- source: http://www.linux.com/news/enterprise/systems-management/874378 -- Meerkat link: https://system76.com/desktops/meerkat Cheers, Peer -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Debian mourns the passing of Ian Murdock
by Peter Reutemann 31 Dec '15

31 Dec '15

"With a heavy heart Debian mourns the passing of Ian Murdock, stalwart proponent of Free Open Source Software, Father, Son, and the 'ian' in Debian." source: https://bits.debian.org/2015/12/mourning-ian-murdock.html Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz

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Inside Red Star OS
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 30 Dec '15

30 Dec '15

North Korea has developed its own Linux distro, chock-full of features to allow every action of its users to be tracked. Some researchers have been taking it apart to see how these features work. <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/29/north_korea_red_star_os/>

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The Guardian Project
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 25 Dec '15

25 Dec '15

Just been watching the latest in the “Rebel Geeks” series on Al Jazeera. Today the episode was called “A Bigger Brother” <http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/rebelgeeks/2015/12/bigger-brother-15121…>, centred around the use of an open-source Android app called CameraV. The aim of this app is to record video along with a whole heap of corroborating metadata (GPS coordinates, local wi-fi networks etc) to make the footage credible enough, in particular proof enough against accusations of tampering, to be used as evidence in court. This is particularly important where the video is documenting crimes committed by people in positions of power and trust, such as the police. They used a nice term for this: “sousveillance” (watching done by ordinary people from below), as compared to the more usual “surveillance” (watching by those in privileged positions from above). One interesting comment made in the program was that the phone needs to look like it is not capturing video while the app is running, because in a place like Rio De Janeiro, the cops will grab phones away from people who they think are filming them. I did some digging around on GitHub, and found that this app is part of the Guardian Project, and they have a whole bunch of other useful-looking tools related to encryption, privacy and so on <https://github.com/guardianproject> They also have a website <https://guardianproject.info/>.

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HTTP Error Code 451 Approved For Censored Web Pages
by Peter Reutemann 21 Dec '15

21 Dec '15

'The Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) has finally approved the new 451 status code for HTTP error messages involving web pages which have been repressed or removed for legal or political reasons. The initiative was proposed in 2013, and gained interest from various groups, such as Lumen (formerly Chilling Effects), who see the potential of the Bradbury-inspired code to help develop comprehensive indexes of censorship on the internet. Mark Nottingham, chair the IETF HTTP Working Group, says, "It'll be an RFC after some work by the RFC Editor and a few more process bits, but effectively you can start using it now."' -- source: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/12/21/1549258 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Raspbian Levels the Field With Latest Update
by Peter Reutemann 18 Dec '15

18 Dec '15

"During all the Pi Zero hype and showcasing, most of us probably didn't realize that the Raspbian OS got a much needed update. While this update isn't a major release, it still contained some amazing features. If you are running Raspbian Jessie, then take a moment to read over this article so you won't be left out in the cold. I'll go over the best parts of the update and also provide install instructions on how to get all this on your current Raspbian install." -- source: http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/raspbian-levels-the-field-with-lat… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Items From Blender Conference 2015
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Dec '15

17 Dec '15

I saw from Peter’s posting that Blender got one of the “top 10 open source projects” awards on opensource.com this year. And they had their Blender Conference 2015 about a month ago. A couple of notable related articles I found on opensource.com are “Teaching Teens 3D Animation With Blender” <https://opensource.com/life/15/12/blender-interview-tom-haines-3dami> where this nonprofit called 3Dami offers a free, intensive 7-day course to selected students. Quote on the (much-maligned) Blender interface: Many do prefer to use Blender outside our events. Once you have got over the bump of its interface being different to other software, you soon learn just how insanely fast it is—its interface is different for a very good reason, and its hard to accept the slow down of using other software. Some students actually learn that lesson during our event: More than a few have turned up moaning that we aren't using a certain piece of software beginning with "M," but they usually get why we use Blender by the time they leave. I do know that one of our students is making money using Blender, and I expect others to join them given time. Another one, relevant to a University research setting, is “Visualize Astrophysics Data With Blender” <https://opensource.com/life/15/11/blender-conference-interview-jill-naiman-…>. Besides Blender, this also builds on a Python-based astrophysics simulation framework called “yt”. (Aside: the more we become accustomed to being able to use keyword searches to find everything online, the more annoyed some of us become with short names that are hard to search for. Is this good or bad? Discuss.) I suspect there are bits there that could be adapted to other kinds of physical simulation. More presentations to see here: <https://www.youtube.com/user/BlenderFoundation/videos>

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end of year: best of open source
by Peter Reutemann 16 Dec '15

16 Dec '15

Top 10 open source projects of 2015 https://opensource.com/business/15/12/top-10-open-source-projects-2015 Bossies 2015: The Best of Open Source Software Awards http://www.infoworld.com/article/2984437/open-source-tools/bossies-2015-the… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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