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Submission + - Debian Founder Ian Murdock Has Died

Unknown Lamer writes: After a Twitter meltdown yesterday, it has been confirmed that Ian Murdock has died. From the Docker blog: "It is with great sadness that we inform you that Ian Murdock passed away on Monday night. This is a tragic loss for his family, for the Docker community, and the broader open source world; we all mourn his passing. ... Ian helped pioneer the notion of a truly open project and community, embracing open design and open contribution; in fact the formative document of the open source movement itself (the Open Source Definition) was originally a Debian position statement. It is a testament to Ian’s commitment to openness and community that there are now more than 1,000 people currently involved in Debian development."

Comment Re:Typo: Digital Rights Management (Score 1) 371

I like Silverlight in that it sucks and makes DRM hard to use, which helps hasten the demise of digital restrictions management by pissing off users and causing the bastards pushing it to lose revenue. Free Software based companies have to resist -- who else will? We've taken over the entire computing world, and now we should use our power for good by refusing to support DRM or anti-features of any kind. If Linux doesn't support RestrictedBoot for example, Dell couldn't sell any servers with it enabled.

Comment Re: Typo: Digital Rights Management (Score 2) 371

If all of us good programmers refuse to participate in the DRM culture, then it will die from a lack of anyone with the skill required to work on it. If everyone on the street refused to accept DRM, market forces would have to change. It worked for music (but seems to be coming back with Spotify and the RIAA's amazing nearly billion dollar judgment against the only competitor...).

This is the last grasp for profit and power by a dying industry. They should just have the decency to go ahead and die.

In the mean time, the pirate bay exists.

Submission + - Cyanogenmod Partners With Microsoft To Replace Google Apps (arstechnica.com) 1

Unknown Lamer writes: Microsoft and Cyanogenmod Inc have announced a partnership to bring Microsoft applications to Cyanogenmod. "Under the partnership, Cyanogen will integrate and distribute Microsoft’s consumer apps and services across core categories, including productivity, messaging, utilities, and cloud-based services. As part of this collaboration, Microsoft will create native integrations on Cyanogen OS, enabling a powerful new class of experiences." Ars Technica comments "If Cyanogen really wants to ship a Googleless Android, it will need to provide alternatives to Google's services, and this Microsoft deal is a small start. Microsoft can provide alternatives for Search (Bing), Google Drive (OneDrive and Office), and Gmail (Outlook). The real missing pieces are alternatives to Google Play, Google Maps, and Google Play Services. "

Rather than distribute more proprietary services, how about ownCloud for Drive, K-9 Mail for Gmail, OsmAnd for Maps, and F-Droid for an app store? Mozilla and DuckDuckGo provide Free Software search providers for Android too. With Google neglecting the Android Open Source Project and Cyanogenmod partnering with Microsoft, the future for Free Software Android as anything but a shell for proprietary software looks bleak.

Submission + - KDE Plasma 5.3 Beta Brings Lot of Improvements

jones_supa writes: The KDE project today announced the release of KDE Plasma 5.3 beta. It brings better power management, improved Bluetooth support, improved widgets, Wayland support, new media center, and nearly 350 bugfixes. The power management improvements include settings that can be independently configured per activity, there is a new energy usage monitor available in KInfoCenter, and a battery applet identifies applications that hog power. Bluetooth applet brings added support for blocking and unblocking devices. New touchpad module has been added as well. The combined window manager and compositor KWin is now able to start a nested XWayland server, which acts as a bridge between the old X11 and the new Wayland world.

Submission + - NVIDIA's New GPUs Are Very Open-Source Unfriendly (phoronix.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The Nouveau driver developers bringing up open-source support for the GeForce 900 Maxwell graphics cards have found this new generation to be "very open-source unfriendly" and restricting. NVIDIA began requiring signed firmware images, which they have yet to provide to Nouveau developers contrary to their earlier statements. The open-source developers have also found their firmware signing to go beyond just simple security precautions. For now the open-source NVIDIA driver can only enable displays with the GTX 900 series without any hardware acceleration.

Comment Re:Conservation and smart practices (Score 1) 652

Now look at how many people in the world have no access to reliable power, and think about what happens when they want it. It's unfair to tell them "sorry, but you and your children and their children unto the end of time get to live in a hut because you were born in an area without an established industrial base."

Comment Re:Good luck with that. (Score 1) 652

You know how the U.S. economy is in shambles? The cost of living is skyrocketing? Well, we have less energy available. Energy is the fundamental limiter all economic development, and cutting to 1/10th of current consumption would destroy modern technological society. And there's no reason... just build tons of nuclear, work on fourth gen reactors, and dump what is effectively a pittance (I mean, how much do we blow on securing an oil supply? Trillions and trillions.. for what?) into fusion research in the hopes that it is feasible. And then everyone can enjoy a high quality of life.

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