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‘Sunday Times’ Files DMCA Takedown Against ‘The Intercept’

By Christine Hall on June 15, 2015 |

Copyright, Internet, Media, News and Politics

Sunday Times
Yesterday’s ‘Sunday Times’ front page.
The Rupert Murdoch controlled Sunday Times of London finds itself embroiled in controversy today, over both a front page article that appeared in the paper yesterday and a related DMCA Notice it issued against the U.S. based political website The Intercept.

The Sunday Times article, with the headline “British Spies Betrayed to Russian and Chinese,” carries the byline of Tom Harper, Richard Kerbaj and Tim Shipman and expands on a news story spreading across the UK on the pulling of some intelligence operators from Russia and China by the UK government over fears that they might have been compromised by information leaked by Edward Snowden.

Continue reading‘Sunday Times’ Files DMCA Takedown Against ‘The Intercept’
CFP Jam & LinuxFest Northwest Goes HollywoodTexas Linux Fest logo

CFP Jam & LinuxFest Northwest Goes Hollywood

By Larry Cafiero on June 12, 2015 |

Community, Desktops, Media and News

FOSS Week in Review

As we get ready for a wild weekend of Linux, barbecue and guns at SouthEast LinuxFest — and FOSS Force’s Christine Hall will be on the scene reporting from Charlotte — we should first go to our eye in the sky to see what the traffic is like during FOSS rush hour for presentation proposals.

Texas Linux Fest logo
The stars at night are big and bright (clap clap clap clap) . . . Texas Linux Fest is in August.
CFP Jam: Yep, looking down from the FOSS Force traffic chopper, they’re bumper to bumper on the Call for Papers highway today in what can best be described as a rare CFP rush hour in the FOSS realm. In order of closing, down in the Lone Star State, Texas Linux Fest‘s CFP has a deadline looming on June 28, with the festivities at the San Marcos Convention Center is beautiful downtown San Marcos, Texas on Aug. 21-22. Then Ohio LinuxFest has a deadline of July 17, since OLF is held on Oct. 2-3 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center (begging the question, is there a Lesser Columbus Convention Center?) in downtown Columbus, Ohio. To add to the mix, the Southern California Linux Expo — that’s SCALE 14x in 2016 — is a month early in January this time around and, as such, the CFP was moved back and opened yesterday. Deadline for the SCALE 14x CFP is Oct. 30 for the Jan. 21-24, 2016, event at the Pasadena Convention Center.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Continue readingCFP Jam & LinuxFest Northwest Goes Hollywood
Linux Mint in June, Matt Hartley’s Goodbye & More…Linux Mint Logo

Linux Mint in June, Matt Hartley’s Goodbye & More…

By Larry Cafiero on May 8, 2015 |

Browsers, Distros, Media, News and Operating Systems

FOSS Week in Review

Well, as they say, TGIF: Thank God it’s FOSS. As folks get settled in this weekend in beautiful downtown Orem, Utah, at OpenWest — the expo formerly known at one time as the Utah Open Source Conference — here’s a look at some of the things that transpired during the course of the week.

Linux Mint LogoHello, Rafaela: According to a Softpedia article, Linux Mint announced this week that it will release its next version of Linux Mint 17 — 17.2, which was given the release name Rafaela. Not much else was released in the way of information, other than the release candidate would be available next month, as well as lead developer Clement Lefebvre saying that Linux Mint 18 will be available sometime next year.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Continue readingLinux Mint in June, Matt Hartley’s Goodbye & More…
Animals Set FOSS ApartOctocat GitHub

Animals Set FOSS Apart

By Larry Cafiero on April 8, 2015 |

Media, Potpourri and Software

We’re going to take the scenic route in getting to the point today. If you don’t want to wait, you can go down to the bottom where it says, “The moral of the story…” But the point of today’s exercise is that we in the decentralized FOSS realm are a creative bunch, and in that creativity is our strength.

PostgreSQL logo
I’ll take FOSS logos for $500, Alex: The PostgreSQL elephant’s name is this…
Here’s why.

The Starbucks in San Jose near James Lick High School seems to always be abuzz — kids from the school come in for coffee and other Starbucks treats, all the while being served by a quick and helpful staff, one of whom couldn’t stop talking in loud tones about his new opportunity in a nearby, more prestigious Starbucks.

The after-school high school crowd seems to be supplanted, eventually, by moms picking up their elementary school-aged children and bringing them to Starbucks. While I’m sitting in a way-too-comfortable chair, two girls walk up to me.

They stare. I look up, smile, and go back to work. I can still feel them staring at me.

One points and says, “elefante,” which is Spanish for “elephant.”

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Continue readingAnimals Set FOSS Apart

Net Neutrality Clears Hurdle & Other Things

By Larry Cafiero on February 27, 2015 |

Community, Internet, Media and Politics

FOSS Week in Review

Net Neutrality symbolWell, much of the focus for the week was on the Federal Communications Commission vote on increased net neutrality protections, and according to rational news sources reporting on the issue (e.g., just about everyone but Fox News and their wannabes), this is a good thing.

Enough has been written about it, but I did want to point out a post by Mozilla’s Mitchell Baker, where she says, “We just accomplished something very important together. Today, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted for strong net neutrality protections. This happened because millions of people — including many hundreds of thousands
in Mozilla’s community — joined together as citizens of the Web to demand those strong protections.”

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Continue readingNet Neutrality Clears Hurdle & Other Things
‘Linux Advocates’ Throws in the Towel

‘Linux Advocates’ Throws in the Towel

By FOSS Force on January 10, 2015 |

Internet, Media and News

The website Linux Advocates is no more. The site, which focused on a variety of Linux issues, went offline on January 7th with little fanfare and no advance notice. The site had been being published for two years, having gone live in early 2013.

Before taking the site down, a notice was posted by site owner Dietrich Schmitz, which can still be read on the site’s Facebook page.

Continue reading‘Linux Advocates’ Throws in the Towel
Pono Is Here, High Def Open Source Codec (Sort of) & AllPono music player

Pono Is Here, High Def Open Source Codec (Sort of) & All

By Christine Hall on January 8, 2015 |

Hardware, Media and Mobile

Neil Young’s long promised high def music device, Pono, is out and I am jammed. Not that I’m ever going to be able to buy one, mind you. But if I were entrenched middle class, the type of person who can shell out 500 bucks for a new Coach purse, I’d have one of these babies in a Texas heartbeat, which should be quicker than a regular heartbeat given the Lone Star State’s rate of high blook pressure and all. The latest news is that they’ll be available in your not-so-friendly neighborhood electronics store on Monday for $399. The Pono Music Store already went online a few days back.

Pono music playerTo be sure, the naysayers are everywhere, saying this pony can’t fly. They may be right.

There’s been a lot of concern over the price of the player itself, which I don’t think is valid. Although it’s way out of my price range, four hundred bucks isn’t all that much, especially if you compare it to the twelve hundred dollar price tag on the latest Walkman unveiled by Sony at this year’s CES. If it delivers as promised, it’s worth every penny.

Evidently, it does deliver, according to Gizmodo which has tested one.

Christine Hall

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

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingPono Is Here, High Def Open Source Codec (Sort of) & All

Sony & North Korea: Dumb & Dumber

By Christine Hall on December 22, 2014 |

Business, Copyright, Humor, Media, News, Politics and Security

Hacking, hacking, everywhere hacking. And not the good kind either. We’re talking cracking hacking.

Take the Sony hack for instance. Bunches of movies set for Christmas release are now available online for free, for those willing to break the law and invoke the displeasure of the MPAA while firing up the ol’ BitTorrent. Worse than that: even more bunches of Sony employees have had their financial lives turned upside down, with all of their personal information leaked. Not so bad, however, is the news that “The Interview” won’t be making an appearance on a screen near you anytime soon.

Oddly, it’s that last tidbit that’s been getting the most press. That, and the ongoing argument on who’s to blame for the Sony crack hack.

At first, U.S. authorities said that the North Koreans didn’t do it. Then they said they did. The North Koreans countered with a “no-way-Jose” and offered to help in the hunt to find the real culprit, which elicited an adamant “no-way-back-atcha” from the U.S.

Christine Hall

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

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingSony & North Korea: Dumb & Dumber
MPAA Wants to Use DMCA to Effectively Bring Back SOPAMPAA logo

MPAA Wants to Use DMCA to Effectively Bring Back SOPA

By Christine Hall on December 18, 2014 |

Business, Copyright, Internet, Media and News

In “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” Winston Smith’s job was to rewrite the past for the Inner Party. Mainly, he made people vanish from the pages of history. Anyone who came under the party’s bad graces suddenly disappeared from all media; from all newspaper articles, books, television archives and any other mentions. In Orwell’s world, anyone declared a nonperson was completely erased. S/he never existed.

According to memos leaked from the recent hack on Sony, the big studios would like to employ a Winston Smith to remove domain name listings from ISPs DNS directories, effectively removing entire websites from the Internet for most users, as if they never existed.

MPAA logo
MPAA Logo
The movie moguls want to do this in the name of fighting their old monster-under-the-bed, content piracy. Not surprisingly, they plan on evoking an old enemy of a free and open Internet in the process, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), while attempting to revive at least a part of the ghost of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which was killed back in 2011.

Christine Hall

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

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingMPAA Wants to Use DMCA to Effectively Bring Back SOPA