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OSS in the Empire State, LibrePlanet 2016 & More…

FOSS Week in Review

While New York State contemplates offering a tax break to open source projects and Massachusetts prepares for LibrePlanet 2016, Opera adds built-in ad blocking to its browser.

It may be a digital world, but the weather is still analog.

Around my parts, this is the time of year when the weather can’t seem to decide whether to act like winter or spring. In other words, it’s a couple of days of tee shirts and shorts followed by a couple of days of dressing in layers and running the heat. Last week it was in the 80s, but next week they’re saying to expect frost and maybe freezing rain. I’m not complaining. This is still better than the dog days of summer.

We’ve already covered quite a bit of the FOSS news this week. Here’s some items left uncovered:

Verizon Case Illustrates Why We Need a Linux Phone

There are plenty of reasons to be anticipating the arrival of GNU/Linux phones and tablets. Verizon Wireless has given us another.

On March 7, the FCC slapped a $1.35 million fine on Verizon in a privacy case, a move that’s being hailed as a victory by some privacy advocates. If so, it would seem to be a hollow victory. For starters, the fine is too low to be much of a deterrent against a company which last year had annual gross income of over $63 billion. But there is much more wrong with the agreement the carrier reached with the FCC than merely the price tag.

Verizon logoThe case revolves around Verizon’s use of a supercookie — a cookie that uses a variety of techniques to make it nearly impossible to remove or disable — which the carrier began placing on its customers’ phones in 2012. The cookie gathered information that combined a person’s Internet history — whether through browsers or apps — with their unique customer information. The company ran afoul of the law because of the way it shared the information it gleaned with third parties.

FreeBSD Foundation Logo, Website Get New Look

Larry the BSD Guy

Sometimes you have to quit cleaning your code long enough to clean your room. The people at the FreeBSD Foundation have already been doing some spring cleaning. They’ve even called the decorator.

Drumroll, maestro…

There’s a new look at the FreeBSD Foundation, with a new logo and website. The changes are intended to highlight “the ongoing evolution of the Foundation identity and ability to better serve the FreeBSD Project,” according to the post announcing the changes.

FreeBSD Foundation logo
The new FreeBSD Foundation logo marks a new step forward for the foundation.
Logo used with permission from the FreeBSD Foundation.
“Our new logo was designed to not only reflect the established and professional nature of our organization, but also to represent the link between the Project and the Foundation, and our commitment to community, collaboration, and the advancement of FreeBSD,” the announcement continues.

Great Wide Open Day One in Twitter Pics

Although the second Great Wide Open conference in Atlanta comes a full two years after GWO number one, the wait doesn’t seem to have spoiled the fun.

If there was ever an open source conference that doesn’t need any help from the press, it’s this year’s Great Wide Open in Atlanta. In spite of getting very little media attention, IT-oLogy, the nonprofit behind the event, was able to announce nearly two weeks ago that tickets to the second day of the two day conference were already sold out, with less than 200 remaining tickets for day one. Day one was Wednesday, and as logic would dictate, day two is today.

Great Open early morning registration.
According to the time stamp, this pic was posted around 7 or 8 Wednesday morning by the Great Wide Open team. The conference has begun!

This comes as something of a surprise, as this isn’t an established conference with a history like, say, OSCON, SCALE or even All Things Open, which these days is probably the flagship event of the same IT-oLogy that’s putting on this show down in the land of magnolia blossoms.

Top Websites Hit With Malware Ads

Some of the biggest online advertising networks this weekend served malware laden ads to some of the Internet’s highest trafficked websites.

Some of the most visited sites on the Internet began delivering malware laden ads this weekend. The sites affected included The New York Times, the BBC, MSN, and AOL. Those who visited a site delivering the ads are not at risk unless they clicked on an infected ad. After clicking, users are taken to another website which attempts to infect them with either Cryptowall ransomware or a trojan that gives the attackers control of the infected computer. The good news for FOSS Force readers is that the malware seems to only work against Windows, so GNU/Linux users are considered safe.

Cyber Security Malware

Linux Forums Through the Eyes of a New User

The Heart of Linux

Ken Starks throws down the gauntlet and puts a hundred bucks on the line in an attempt to see if civility can be brought to the forums and a particular change made to LibreOffice.

It was last Wednesday that I dropped into one of the forums where I lurk on occasion and even on fewer occasions might post. One of our newer Reglue kids had emailed me with a question about something I’ve been teaching our kids for a while now, but even though I had explained this to her just a month ago, I had to ‘splain it to her again.

"Save Document" LibreOffice Linux

I had to remind her how to change the format in Writer before she sent her document off to a Windows user.

Go ahead and roll your eyes, you who are all-knowing. It’s an easy thing for us, but I want those of you who care to see things through the eyes of a new Linux user.

Microsoft Does to Oracle What Oracle Tried To Do to Red Hat

In 2006, Oracle began trying to abscond with RHEL’s paying user base. On Thursday, Microsoft announced that it’s now going to give Oracle a similar treatment. What’s that they say about paybacks?

Microsoft has declared war on Oracle, which is the type of story I wish was on Netflix. If it were, I’d make some popcorn, mix it with some M&Ms, sit back and binge watch. As it is, I’ll have to watch it unfold the old fashioned way, as it happens.

Microsoft seeking Oracle customers
Screenshot from Microsoft website encouraging Oracle customers to switch to SQL Server

Some of you might remember the hostilities which broke out between Red Hat and Oracle after Red Hat acquired JBoss. Until then, the two companies had worked hand in hand in something of a partnership which saw Red Hat helping its customers get Oracle’s business stack up and running on RHEL servers. According to news reports of the day, Oracle’s head honcho, Larry Ellison, thought he had Red Hat in his back pocket and happily referred clients who were interested in migrating Oracle’s stack to Linux from Unix or Windows to the Raleigh, N.C. based company.

Dangerous TLDs, Ballmer’s Linux Love & More…

FOSS Week in Review

Two big open source conferences are coming up next week, while this week an automaker said it doesn’t have to pay attention to the GPL and the man credited with inventing email passed.

Although Microsoft mainly succeeded in its attempts to hijack the FOSS news scene this week by spreading open source love — better than spreading FUD, I guess — there was plenty of FOSS news happening away from the Redmond campus. Even Microsoft with all its billions, it seems, isn’t large enough to monopolize all of the news in the big, wide and wonderful world of FOSS.

Edward Snowden LibrePlanet 2016
Edward Snowden will be the opening keynote speaker, with Daniel Kahn Gillmor, at LibrePlanet 2016.

For starters, it’s conference season. Well, except for a lull in the dog days of summer, Linux and open source conferences are always in season, but there are a couple of big ones on the slate for next week.

FSF Gives Nod to ThinkPenguin VPS Router

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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