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FSF Gives Nod to ThinkPenguin VPS Router

By FOSS Force on March 11, 2016 |

Hardware, Internet, News and Security

FSF Gives Nod to ThinkPenguin VPS RouterFSF Respects Your Freedom Mark

A router designed to ease the use of multiple devices through a virtual private network is the latest hardware project to receive FSF’s official blessing.

The people at the Free Software Foundation aren’t only working to keep software free and accessible, they’re also concerned with hardware freedom as well. We mention this because the FSF announced on Thursday that it’s awarded the Respects Your Freedom certification to ThinkPenguin’s Free Software Wireless-N Mini Router (TPE-R1100). On a post on the FSF website, Joshua Gay, the foundation’s licensing and compliance manager, wrote that the certification has been given to three other ThinkPenguin products, including another router. The certification signifies that the product meets FSF’s standards concerning “users’ freedom, control over the product, and privacy.”

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LibreOffice 5.1.1 Released With New Features AddedLibreOffice Writer 5.1.1

LibreOffice 5.1.1 Released With New Features Added

By FOSS Force on March 10, 2016 |

News and Software

Version 5.1.1 of LibreOffice includes numerous bug fixes and adds many new features.

The Document Foundation today announced the release of LibreOffice 5.1.1, the first minor release of the LibreOffice 5.1 family, with a number of mostly bug fixes over the last major release, version 5.1.0 which was released on February 10. According to a press release from The Document Foundation, today’s release includes a long anticipated feature in Writer, the office suite’s word processor, that has been requested since 2002. The feature allows users to hide white spaces between pages to provide a continuous flow of text — considered useful for laptop users.

LibreOffice Writer 5.1.1
A screenshot of Writer in LibreOffice 5.1.1 which was released today.
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OpenBSD 5.9 Set for May 1 Release; Pre-orders AvailableopenBSD logo

OpenBSD 5.9 Set for May 1 Release; Pre-orders Available

By Larry Cafiero on March 10, 2016 |

News and Operating Systems

Larry the BSD Guy

The upcoming release of OpenBSD’s latest and greatest comes with plenty of upgrades and improvements — plus the sound of music….

First things first: My German isn’t great. In fact, it would be completely nonexistent except for the fact that it interests me that in the German version of Scrabble you could essentially get 238 points with one word without using a double-word score.

openbsd logoHowever, the German online publication Pro-Linux.de this week reported (in German, but Google Translate works wonders) that pre-orders are ready to be taken for OpenBSD 5.9, scheduled for a May 1 release.

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Eclipse, SQL Server & Debian Based OS: How Microsoft Sells Linux and Open SourceMicrosoft's one way street

Eclipse, SQL Server & Debian Based OS: How Microsoft Sells Linux and Open Source

By Christine Hall on March 10, 2016 |

Business, News, Operating Systems and Software

Microsoft’s use of open source continues to be a one-way street to drive business Redmond’s way.

Microsoft this week continues it’s quest to become respected as an open source player.

I have a colleague who takes exception whenever I use the phrase “open source player” because he thinks we need to stress the concept that open source is a community endeavor. Those who participate in the process, he says, should be encouraged to see themselves as “citizens,” whose work is for the greater good.

Microsoft's one way streetI wholeheartedly agree. However, there are entities like Microsoft whose open source endeavors are based solely on greed and who don’t deserve to wear the mantle of open source citizenship. They’re players, pure and simple. Microsoft only “loves” Linux because it has figured out a way to sell it. Maybe one day…but not today.

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India Nixes Software Patents, Linux Foundation Embraces Diversity & More…Women Who Code logo

India Nixes Software Patents, Linux Foundation Embraces Diversity & More…

By Christine Hall on March 4, 2016 |

Community, Distros, News, Patents and Software

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:

Continue readingIndia Nixes Software Patents, Linux Foundation Embraces Diversity & More…
A February Wrap for the Raspberry PiRaspberry Pi

A February Wrap for the Raspberry Pi

By Isaac Carter on March 2, 2016 |

Distros, Hardware and News

The Raspberry Pi Report

The Raspberry Pi managed to cram a lot of history into only 29 days this February, even without mentioning the introduction of the Pi 3 on Monday.

The month of February kept up with the trend of bigger and better things happening in the Raspberry Pi world. From new games to updates from the International Space Station, things keep moving on for the Raspbery Pi and the Raspberry Pi community. While quite a few things happened this past month, here’s a summation of the biggest stories.

Raspberry PiMore distros to choose from – February marked the arrivial of several new distros that Raspberry Pi users can now install. Tizen 3.0, Chromium 0.4 and Manjaro-ARM are available to download for the Raspberry Pi 2. The Manjaro-ARM project now allows Raspberry Pi users to enjoy Arch Linux without having to do an Arch install and is also broken down into four different editions. Media, Server, Basic and Minimal editions all cater to situations that most Raspberry Pi users fall into. Tizen users will be excited to see that Tizen 3.0 is now fully functional on the Raspberry Pi 2. This is a great move, since more users will be introduced to the Tizen platform who might not have had a chance to experience it before. Last, but not least is the release of Chromium 0.4. Chromium was already available, but with kernel improvements and more memory storage, version 0.4 is leaps and bounds ahead of Chromium 0.3

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It’s Official! The Raspberry Pi 3 Is Here!Raspberry Pi 3

It’s Official! The Raspberry Pi 3 Is Here!

By Isaac Carter on February 29, 2016 |

Hardware and News

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has officially announced the launch of the Raspberry Pi 3, which is the first Pi to come with built-in wireless capabilities and a 64-bit processor.

The Pi Podcast was able to get an exclusive interview with Raspberry Pi founder Eben Upton on what exactly is the Raspberry Pi 3 and how it stacks up to the rest of the Raspberry Pi lineup. Here’s the takeaway from the interview.

Raspberry Pi 3
Top view of the Raspberry Pi 3
Photo source: FCC
New processor: The previous processor was quad-core 32-bit Coretex ARMv7 at 900mhz. The Pi 3 brings to the table a quad-core 64-bit Coretex ARMv8 1200mhz. This processor was picked not so much because it was 64-bit, but rather because it was a better 32-bit core, which will allow users to still run 32-bit images on the new Pi 3. With the new processor, the Pi 3 is expected to show a 50-60 percent performance improvement over the Pi 2, which is quite impressive given the release time of the Pi 2 to the release time of the Pi 3.

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Software Freedom Conservancy, Others, Makes Case for FOSS at NY City HallKaren Sandler Free Software Conservancy

Software Freedom Conservancy, Others, Makes Case for FOSS at NY City Hall

By Christine Hall on February 24, 2016 |

Community, News and Politics

On Tuesday, representatives of four FOSS friendly agencies testified before a New York City committee considering bills that would mandate the use of FOSS by city government.

“Free and open source software has many advantages over proprietary software,” Karen Sandler, the executive director of the Software Freedom Conservancy, testified Tuesday before the New York City Council Committee on Contracts. “Studies show that, over time, free software is safer from vulnerabilities. Free software is auditable — security and functionality can be verified upon inspection. Anyone can independently assess the software and its risks. Developers can more easily and quickly repair discovered vulnerabilities or bugs (and bugs are very common in all software – the Software Engineering Institute estimates that an experienced software engineer produces approximately one defect for every 100 lines of code). Free software removes dependence on a single party, as anyone can make changes to their version of the software. And municipalities can hire any contractor on the open market to work on the software.”

Karen Sandler Free Software Conservancy
Karen Sandler, executive director of Software Freedom Conservancy and others at Tuesday’s hearing before the New York City Committee on Contracts.
She was speaking in support of two bills: the Free and Open Source Software Act, which “would minimize city contracts for proprietary software in favor of free and open source software that can be shared between government agencies and bodies,” and the Civic Commons Act, which “would encourage the collaborative software purchasing of free and open source software among agencies, cities and states to pool resources, avoid duplicated effort, create portable expertise, grow jobs, and reduce costs.” Both bills are sponsored by New York City councilman Ben Kallos, and both were originally introduced on May 29, 2014.

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Linux Mint: Anatomy of a HackLinux Mint compromised download page

Linux Mint: Anatomy of a Hack

By Christine Hall on February 22, 2016 |

Distros, News and Security

The hackers who compromised the Linux Mint site on Saturday were evidently not the brightest stars in the dark web, but they managed to create a mess for the Mint crew to clear away.

Everybody understands that none of a stage magician’s tricks are real. The one thing that is real, and which a successful illusionist must practice to perfection, is the art of misdirection — which evidently turned out the be the trick under the sleeves of the cracker/hackers who were responsible for compromising ISO downloads of Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon on Saturday.

In the FOSS Force news article on the hack which ran Sunday, we said “the hackers modified the ISO of the Cinnamon edition of Linux Mint 17.3 (Rosa).” We now know that’s not quite true, or at least not in the way we meant. The hackers didn’t bust into the Mint server and modify the binaries waiting to be grabbed by the mirror sites for downloads. Instead, this was a case of misdirection.

The hackers had a copy of Mint with their malicious payload in place, packaged as an ISO image and sitting on a Bulgarian server they controlled, waiting to serve downloads of what is arguably the worlds most popular version of GNU/Linux. The intrusion at Mint was a quick in-and-out to change the URLs in the anchor tags on Mint’s download page for the 64-bit Cinnamon version of Linux Mint 17.3 “Rosa.” Afterwards, users who clicked on a link to download from, say, the Internet Solutions mirror in South Africa, were taken to the hackers’ server in Bulgaria. Let the download begin. Wham, bam, thank you mam.

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Linux Mint Hacked: ISO for 17.3 Cinnamon Edition ModifiedLinux Mint Logo

Linux Mint Hacked: ISO for 17.3 Cinnamon Edition Modified

By FOSS Force on February 21, 2016 |

Distros, News and Security

An intrusion of the Linux Mint server on Saturday makes downloads performed on Saturday of version 17.3 Cinnamon potentially vulnerable.

Linux Mint project leader Clem Lefebvre revealed in a blog post today that the popular Linux distribution’s servers were hacked on Saturday. During the “brief” intrusion, the hackers modified the ISO of the Cinnamon edition of Linux Mint 17.3 (Rosa) and also gained access to the distro’s forum database. Only this particular ISO is affected; other editions or releases are considered safe. Only ISO’s downloaded Saturday are potentially vulnerable.

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