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Submission + - Can I buy the Classic interface? 3

Submitted by Max Hyre
Max Hyre writes: LWN almost went under a number of years ago because its volunteer editors couldn't afford to keep it up. The readers rose up and insisted that they be allowed to pay for it.

Can we do the same for Classic?

I'm a nerd. I read. I'm the one in the museum ignoring the display and reading the description. I want text, easily accessible, clearly laid out, and plenty of it. I'll pay to keep the UI I know and love.

The Beta has none of those characteristics. The Beta site is repellent, unusable, and unneeded. I won't use it, and if ``Classic'' goes away, I won't visit /., and it'll be a pity.

How much do you actually receive in revenue for each user? I suspect I'll match it to keep the status quo. Ask us what it's worth to us. I'd certainly pay $1/month, and would think about $5/month. I bet that I'm not alone.

Submission + - Owner: Vote, your choice: Get rid of Slashdot:Beta OR everyone goes elsewhere (slashdot.org) 1

Submitted by Ying Hu
Ying Hu writes: Slashdot Beta is not Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/journal/63...
What was loved about Slashdot does not appear in the new design — those creating the latter, please fire yourself and go work for a commercial consumer site (which we never read, and never will). OUR site should work without JavaScript, and JavaScript that IS used should to do something actually desired by a reader or commenter, not waste our bandwidth and CPU, and electricity, sending CRAP onto our computers. Improvements/ plugins, http://userstyles.org/styles/9..., won't be enough.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Opinion of slashdot beta? 9

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: What are your thoughts about slashdot beta? Post your complaints here so that I don't have to see them elsewhere. Additionally, if the beta is so bad that you don't want to stay, what other news website do you recommend?

Submission + - Slashdot creates beta site users express theirs dislike (slashdot.org) 4

Submitted by who_stole_my_kidneys
who_stole_my_kidneys writes: Slashdot started redirecting users in February to its newly revamped webpage and received a huge backlash from users. The majority of comments dislike the new site while some do offer solutions to make it better. The question is will Slashdot force the unwanted change on its users that clearly do not want change?

Submission + - Slashdot beta sucks 9

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Maybe some of the slashdot team should start listening to its users, most of which hate the new user interface. Thanks for ruining something that wasn't broken.

Submission + - BlackBerry Reportedly Prepping to Slash Workforce by 40 Percent (slashdot.org)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: BlackBerry is preparing to slice up to 40 percent of its workforce by the end of 2013, according to anonymous sources speaking to The Wall Street Journal. The layoffs will reportedly shrink the company’s overall operations and affect every department. A BlackBerry spokesperson refused to comment on the matter to the Journal. BlackBerry bet the company on the success of its new BlackBerry 10 operating system, but its first two “hero” devices running the software—the Z10 and Q10—failed to make much of an impact when they arrived on the market earlier this year. On Sept. 18, BlackBerry also unveiled the larger Z30, which runs an updated version of BlackBerry 10 and features a five-inch AMOLED touchscreen and larger battery. Once a dominant player in the mobile-device space, BlackBerry seemed helpless to respond as Google Android and Apple iOS slowly but surely chewed away its market-share over several quarters. As corporations adopted BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policies, a flood of personal iPhones and Android devices helped displace BlackBerry as a mainstay of executives and office workers.

Comment Re:Embarrasing (Score 5, Informative) 181

I've found that by going into about:config and changing browser.download.useToolkitUI to true will restore the original download manager. There is one bug I've noticed by using the old download manager is that the title of its window will clear out leaving it a titleless window after all downloads are completed. Closing and reopening the downloads window will cause the title to be restored. A warning though that this key might fail to work in the next release or so. Just like the status bar fiasco.

You'll also need to customize the toolbar in order to remove the new downloads icon though. Also the "new" download manager is still accessible via History menu &> Show All History after making the above configuration change.
Google

Google Pledges Not To Sue Any Open Source Projects Using Their Patents 153

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the now-and-forever dept.
sfcrazy writes "Google has announced the Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge. In the pledge Google says that they will not sue any user, distributor, or developer of Open Source software on specified patents, unless first attacked. Under this pledge, Google is starting off with 10 patents relating to MapReduce, a computing model for processing large data sets first developed at Google. Google says that over time they intend to expand the set of Google's patents covered by the pledge to other technologies." This is in addition to the Open Invention Network, and their general work toward reforming the patent system. The patents covered in the OPN will be free to use in Free/Open Source software for the life of the patent, even if Google should transfer ownership to another party. Read the text of the pledge. It appears that interaction with non-copyleft licenses (MIT/BSD/Apache) is a bit weird: if you create a non-free fork it appears you are no longer covered under the pledge.
Science

Interviews: James Randi Answers Your Questions 217

Posted by samzenpus from the you-can't-handle-the-truth dept.
A while ago you had the chance to ask James Randi, the founder of The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), about exposing hucksters, frauds, and fakers. Below you'll find his answers to your questions. In addition to his writings below, Randi was nice enough to sit down and talk to us about his life and his foundation. Keep an eye out for those videos coming soon.
Open Source

The FreeBSD Foundation Is Soliciting Project Proposals 58

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the bsd-confirms-netcraft-is-dead dept.
Professor_Quail writes "Following a successful 2012 fundraising campaign, the FreeBSD Foundation is soliciting the submission of project proposals for funded development grants. Proposals may be related to any of the major subsystems or infrastructure within the FreeBSD operating system, and will be evaluated based on desirability, technical merit, and cost-effectiveness. The proposal process is open to all developers (including non-FreeBSD committers), and the deadline for submitting a proposal is April 26th, 2013." The foundation is currently funding a few other projects, including UEFI booting support.
Patents

Uniloc Patent Case Against Rackspace Tossed for Bogus Patents 76

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the don't-mess-with-red-hat dept.
netbuzz writes "A federal judge in Texas, presiding over a district notorious for favoring patent trolls, has summarily dismissed all claims relating to a case brought by Uniloc USA against Rackspace for [Linux] allegedly infringing upon [Uniloc's] patents. Red Hat defended Rackspace in the matter and issued a press release saying: 'In dismissing the case, Chief Judge Leonard Davis found that Uniloc's claim was unpatentable under Supreme Court case law that prohibits the patenting of mathematical algorithms. This is the first reported instance in which the Eastern District of Texas has granted an early motion to dismiss finding a patent invalid because it claimed unpatentable subject matter.'" You can't patent floating point math after all.

Comment Re:Gift horse = Mouth (Score 2) 104

by TypoNAM (#41981317) Attached to: Oracle Makes Red Hat Kernel Changes Available As Broken-Out Patches

Well, the GPL gives you the right to modify anything as long as you license it under the GPL and include the license, and that would include the copyright notices.

The GPL gives nobody such rights to remove/move copyright notices. You only have the right to append your name and year to such a notice when you contribute changes to the work. Original copyright notices must be left alone as Kjella mentioned for United States in USC 17506(d), and it is required in the GPL as mentioned on the FAQ: I want to get credit for my work. I want people to know what I wrote. Can I still get credit if I use the GPL?.

Otherwise we'd have a problem with something like the BSD advertising clause.

The classic BSD license is incompatible with the GPL as only the so called revised or new BSD licenses that removed the advertising clause are compatible with the GPL as stated in the FAQ: Why is the original BSD license incompatible with the GPL?. So now would you please stop making assumptions and actually read the license you so carelessly claim it allows people to do things it clearly does not.

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