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Google’s failed social network is now just another empty storefront on the Boulevard of Abandoned Tech
Excuse the hyperbole, but we’ve always wanted to use a click-baity sort of headline — just to see if they work. That being said, we’re not going to spoil the fun. To find the answer, you’re going to have to watch the video. Don’t worry, however — bad things rarely happen when Linux is involved.
The Screening Room
We found this short eight minute video quite by accident while searching through the FOSS Force News Wire looking for something else. In it, we find the well known open source community manager, Jono Bacon, at home, apparently alone and in his kitchen, recording himself as he plays with his newly acquired Google Home device. This surprised us, as we didn’t know he actually had a home. It seemed to us he spends all of his time in his office, and we figured he lived there. We were also surprised to find him alone. A community manager, we figured, is absolutely always surrounded by his community.
Also included: Libreboot leaves GNU, municipal broadband law proposed, Linux’s second 25th birthday, a new distro release, Vim and Emacs both get upgrades, Google’s hack challenge and Oracle can’t catch a break.
FOSS Week in Review
Yesterday I got a look at some decidedly old tech: Rope beds, pewter being made by hand, ceramic wood burning stoves, a bit of blacksmithing — all at Bethabara, which is a preserved 18th century village that had been established by German Moravians, who were the first settlers around these parts. Fascinating. The event was the annual Apple Fest, with plenty of local orchards offering every variety of apple imaginable, as well as about any kind of food prepared with apples.
The biggest story in FOSS this week was really something of a nonstory about Libreboot suddenly leaving the GNU project. We’ve already covered the initial story, as well as responses by both RMS and the FSF, so no need to flog this horse again.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
FOSS Week in Review
Also, eight new distro releases, CoreOS raises another $28 million, Mint drops codecs and the women of open source.
The most reported FOSS story this week was the beginning of the court fight instigated by Oracle against Google over Android’s Java implementation. Most interesting as the proceedings get going are the once familiar names that are now back in the news.
So far, we’ve heard from Jonathan Schwartz, pretty much a good guy who you might remember replaced Scott McNealy as CEO at Sun Microsystems in April 2006 and was on hand to pass the keys of the kingdom on to Oracle in 2010 after the company was brought down by the so-called Great Recession.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
FOSS Week in Review
India again shows sanity by doing away with “software only” patents, and the Linux Foundation continues to move towards diversity.
The old and the new both made big news on the FOSS front this week. Representing the old was what appears to be the ending of the SCO vs IBM case after something like 13 years, which means that Caldera/SCO now gets to go to its final resting place. For the new was the release of the Raspberry Pi 3, which comes wielding a 64-bit ARM processor with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
But that wasn’t the only news of interest to the FOSS world this week…
Barely a month after putting an end to a Facebook supported scheme, “Free Basics,” in favor of supporting Net Neutrality, India has declared software to be not patentable. According to the Software Freedom Law Centre in India, the patent office will now use a three part test to determine patentability:
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
The tracking policies of the major online advertising networks are threatening the future of free content on the Internet.
Back in the late 1980s, cigarette smoking was permitted in supermarkets where I live, but there was a move afoot — a ballot issue I believe — to put an end to that. At the time I was doing a four hour daily stint at the local newstalk radio station, and the proposed ban was, of course, a major topic of on-air conversation with our listeners. Pretty much, most of our audience was against the ban, as we have a sizable and vocal minority — maybe a majority — of folks here in North Carolina who think they should be able to do whatever they like, whenever they like, without much regulation. There was something of a consensus among our listeners that smoking or no should be up to the store owners.
Officially, the supermarket chains were against the proposal as well, probably both to placate their smoking customers and because North Carolina shares a long history with tobacco and attacking tobacco in any way was akin to attacking mom’s apple pie. Also, in these parts, upper management tends to oppose any regulation as a knee jerk reaction. The supermarket chains’ official support of “smokers’ rights” was, of course, often cited by listeners when they’d call-in to offer their two cents worth.
During that time, I was talking to an acquaintance who managed a Harris Teeter store on the west side of town — a smoker, by the way — who told me that he hoped the ban would be put in place.
“We all do,” he confided.
He told me he had friends who managed stores for Kroger, Food Lion and some of the other chains.
“We’d all like to ban smoking in our stores,” he said. “It’s dirty, it stinks, and careless smokers are always putting burns in packaging or dropping ashes onto the produce. But if one of us makes the first move and establishes a no smoking policy, we’ll make customers mad and lose them to the other chains. If they just pass a law, then we’re good. Smoking won’t be allowed anywhere, so customers who smoke won’t feel compelled to move to the competition.”
That’s exactly how it is with Internet advertising and privacy issues.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux