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French Court Issues Damages Award For Violation of GPL
by Peter Reutemann 04 Mar '24

04 Mar '24

'Some news from "Copyleft Currents", the blog of open-source/IP lawyer Heather Meeker: On February 14, 2024, the Court of Appeal of Paris issued an order stating that Orange, a major French telecom provider, had infringed the copyight of Entr'Ouvert's Lasso software and violated the GPL. They ordered Orange to pay €500,000 in compensatory damages and €150,000 for moral damages. This case has been ongoing for many years. Entr'ouvert is the publisher of Lasso, a reference library for the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) protocol, an open standard for identity providers to authenticate users and pass authentication tokens to online services. This is the open protocol that enables single sign-on (SSO). The Lasso product is dual licensed by Entr'Ouvert under GPL or commercial licenses. In 2005, Orange won a contract with the French Agency for the Development of Electronic Administration to develop parts of the service-public.fr portal, which allows users to interact online with the government for administrative procedures. Orange used the Lasso software in the solution, but did not pass on the rights to its modifications free of charge under GPL, or make the source code to its modifications available. Entr'Ouvert sued Orange in 2010, and the case wended its way through the courts, turning on, among other things, issues of proof of Entr'Ouvert 's copyright interest in the software, and whether the case properly sounded in breach of contract or copyright infringement... The compensatory damages were based on both lost profits of the plaintiff and disgorgement of profits of Orange. Moral damages compensate the plaintiff for harm to reputation or other non-monetary injury.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/03/03/030200 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Rentware Comes To Hardware
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 01 Mar '24

01 Mar '24

You already have companies like Adobe and Autodesk making their software subscription-only, so you have to keep paying to use it; now HP is bringing the same idea to its printers <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hp-wants-you-to-pay-up-to-36-month-…>. You pay a monthly fee (inclusive of ink as well as printer rental), and you get to print a certain number of pages each month. This will require an always-on Internet connection, so HP can monitor your printer. This will allow them to collect information, not just on ink levels, but on what kind of printing you are doing, even the applications you are using. How would you like to “never own a printer again”? (Their tag line.) I suppose you should be grateful they aren’t requiring you to buy their paper as well. At least, not yet ...

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'Paying People To Work on Open Source is Good Actually'
by Peter Reutemann 01 Mar '24

01 Mar '24

'Jacob Kaplan-Moss, one of the lead developers of Django, writes in a long post that he says has come from a place of frustration: [...] Instead, every time a maintainer finds a way to get paid, people show up to criticize and complain. Non-OSI licenses "don"t count" as open source. Someone employed by Microsoft is "beholden to corporate interests" and not to be trusted. Patreon is "asking for handouts." Raising money through GitHub sponsors is "supporting Microsoft's rent-seeking." VC funding means we're being set up for a "rug pull" or "enshitification." Open Core is "bait and switch." None of this is hypothetical; each of these examples are actual things I've seen said about maintainers who take money for their work. One maintainer even told me he got criticized for selling t-shirts! Look. There are absolutely problems with every tactic we have to support maintainers. It's true that VC investment comes with strings attached that often lead to problems down the line. It sucks that Patreon or GitHub (and Stripe) take a cut of sponsor money. The additional restrictions imposed by PolyForm or the BSL really do go against the Freedom 0 ideal. I myself am often frustrated by discovering that some key feature I want out of an open core tool is only available to paid licensees. But you can criticize these systems while still supporting and celebrating the maintainers! Yell at A16Z all you like, I don't care. (Neither do they.) But yelling at a maintainer because they took money from a VC is directing that anger in the wrong direction. The structural and societal problems that make all these different funding models problematic aren't the fault of the people trying to make a living doing open source. It's like yelling at someone for shopping at Dollar General when it's the only store they have access to. Dollar General's predatory business model absolutely sucks, as do the governmental policies that lead to food deserts, but none of that is on the shoulders of the person who needs milk and doesn't have alternatives.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/02/29/0746221 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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HDMI Forum Rejects Open-Source HDMI 2.1 Driver Support Sought By AMD
by Peter Reutemann 01 Mar '24

01 Mar '24

'Michael Larabel, reporting at Phoronix: One of the limitations of AMD's open-source Linux graphics driver has been the inability to implement HDMI 2.1+ functionality on the basis of legal requirements by the HDMI Forum. AMD engineers had been working to come up with a solution in conjunction with the HDMI Forum for being able to provide HDMI 2.1+ capabilities with their open-source Linux kernel driver, but it looks like those efforts for now have concluded and failed. For three years there has been a bug report around 4K(a)120Hz being unavailable via HDMI 2.1 on the AMD Linux driver. Similarly, there have been bug reports like 5K @ 240Hz not possible either with the AMD graphics driver on Linux. As covered back in 2021, the HDMI Forum closing public specification access is hurting open-source support. AMD as well as the X.Org Foundation have been engaged with the HDMI Forum to try to come up with a solution to be able to provide open-source implementations of the now-private HDMI specs. AMD Linux engineers have spent months working with their legal team and evaluating all HDMI features to determine if/how they can be exposed in their open-source driver. AMD had code working internally and then the past few months were waiting on approval from the HDMI Forum. Sadly, the HDMI Forum has turned down AMD's request for open-source driver support.' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/24/02/29/076217 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Cloudflare Makes Pingora Rust Framework Open-Source
by Peter Reutemann 29 Feb '24

29 Feb '24

'Michael Larabel reports via Phoronix: Back in 2022 Cloudflare announced they were ditching Nginx for an in-house, Rust-written software called Pingora. Today Cloudflare is open-sourcing the Pingora framework. Cloudflare announced today that they have open-sourced Pingora under an Apache 2.0 license. Pingora is a Rust async multi-threaded framework for building programmable network services. Pingora has long been used internally within Cloudflare and is capable of sustaining a lot of traffic while now Pingora is being open-sourced for helping to build infrastructure outside of Cloudflare.' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/02/28/2352248 -- github: https://github.com/cloudflare/pingora Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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KDE Plasma 6 Released
by Peter Reutemann 29 Feb '24

29 Feb '24

'"Today, the KDE Community is announcing a new major release of Plasma 6.0 and Gear 24.02," writes longtime Slashdot reader jrepin. "The new version brings new windows and desktop overview effects, improved color management, a cleaner theme, better overall performance, and much more." From the announcement: KDE Plasma is a modern, feature-rich desktop environment for Linux-based operating systems. Known for its sleek design, customizable interface, and extensive set of applications, it is also open source, devoid of ads, and makes protecting your privacy and personal data a priority. With Plasma 6, the technology stack has undergone two major upgrades: a transition to the latest version of the application framework, Qt 6, and a migration to the modern Linux graphics platform, Wayland. We will continue providing support for the legacy X11 session for users who prefer to stick with it for now. [...] KDE Gear 24.02 brings many applications to Qt 6. In addition to the changes in Breeze, many applications adopted a more frameless look for their interface.' -- source: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/02/28/2137237 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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GitHub besieged by millions of malicious repositories in ongoing attack
by Peter Reutemann 29 Feb '24

29 Feb '24

'GitHub is struggling to contain an ongoing attack that’s flooding the site with millions of code repositories. These repositories contain obfuscated malware that steals passwords and cryptocurrency from developer devices, researchers said. The malicious repositories are clones of legitimate ones, making them hard to distinguish to the casual eye. An unknown party has automated a process that forks legitimate repositories, meaning the source code is copied so developers can use it in an independent project that builds on the original one. The result is millions of forks with names identical to the original one that add a payload that’s wrapped under seven layers of obfuscation. To make matters worse, some people, unaware of the malice of these imitators, are forking the forks, which adds to the flood.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/02/github-besieged-by-millions-of-mal… Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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'Open Documentation Academy' Offers On-Ramp To OSS
by Peter Reutemann 28 Feb '24

28 Feb '24

'"Documentation authors at Canonical have launched the Open Documentation Academy to offer an easy way to get started contributing to open-source projects," writes longtime Slashdot reader tykev. From the blog post: Open and inclusive collaboration, and the sharing of ideas, remains the best way to develop software (and to do many other things!), but we also recognise that this "getting involved" step can be difficult. Where do you start? Who do you ask? What needs to be done? We all very much want to help people become open source contributors by building an on-ramp process. It may take some time, and we will need to adapt, but this is exactly why we've started our Open Documentation Academy. To help you get involved, the Open Documentation Academy provides a curated list of documentation tasks. Choose one, let us know, and get started. Tasks include testing and fixing tutorials, updating the outdated, restructuring large documents, and anything else you may want to suggest. Our list is growing, and a big part of the Documentation Academy will be ensuring there's always a wide range of tasks available, across as many projects and technologies as possible. And of course, we're here to help. We'll guide you through your first contributions, provide advice on approaches, and help you build your confidence. ' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/02/28/0024205 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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Tumblr and Wordpress Are Preparing To Sell User Data To OpenAI and Midjourney, Report Says
by Peter Reutemann 28 Feb '24

28 Feb '24

'Tumblr and Wordpress are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI, 404Media reported Tuesday, citing a source with internal knowledge about the deals and internal documents. From the report: The exact types of data from each platform going to each company are not spelled out in documentation we've reviewed, but internal communications reviewed by 404 Media make clear that deals between Automattic, the platforms' parent company, and OpenAI and Midjourney are imminent. The internal documentation details a messy and controversial process within Tumblr itself. One internal post made by Cyle Gage, a product manager at Tumblr, states that a query made to prepare data for OpenAI and Midjourney compiled a huge number of user posts that it wasn't supposed to. It is not clear from Gage's post whether this data has already been sent to OpenAI and Midjourney, or whether Gage was detailing a process for scrubbing the data before it was to be sent. ' -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/02/27/191230 Now's the time to move from hosted to self-hosted Wordpress instances, I guess... Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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US Government Demands Memory-Safe Programming Languages
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 28 Feb '24

28 Feb '24

The US Office of the National Cyber Director has put out a report on “a path towards secure and measurable software” <https://devclass.com/2024/02/27/white-house-demands-memory-safe-programming…>. It talks a lot about memory safety, including hardware techniques such as the old “capabilities” idea being resurrected in the CHERI project. And the Rust Foundation has chimed in with some comments about use of their language which is specifically designed to enforce memory safety. But a group of C++ fans has counterclaimed that memory safety is only “a very small part of security”, and that “C++ benefits from having a formal specification, a fully-specified memory model, and an active community of users and implementers”, and that education can improve the quality of code written in C and C++. It also tries to imply that Rust is somehow less desirable because it lacks a formal specification.

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