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Submission + - Linus on branching practices (blogspot.com)

Submitted by rocket22
rocket22 writes: Not long ago Linus Torvalds made some comments about issues the kernel maintainers were facing while applying the "feature branch" pattern. They are using Git (which is very strong with branching and merging) but still need to take care of the branching basics to avoid ending up with unstable branches due to unstable starting points. While most likely your team doesn't face the same issues the kernel development does, and even if you're using a different DVCS like Mercurial, is worth to take a look at the description of the problem and the clear solution to be followed in order to avoid repeating the same mistakes. The same basics can be applied to every version control system with good merge tracking, so let's avoid religious wars and focus on the technical details.
Businesses

Submission + - Linux Foundation Makes Open Source Boring (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by superapecommando
superapecommando writes: According to Glyn Moody:

In the early days of free software, the struggle was just to get companies to try this new and rather unconventional approach, without worrying too much about how that happened. That typically meant programs entering by the back door, surreptitiously installed by in-house engineers who understood the virtues of the stuff — and that it was easier to ask for forgiveness after the event than for permission before.

[The Linux Foundation tries] to take all the fun out of free software. They are about removing the quirkiness and the riskiness that has characterised free software in business for the last decade and a half, and seek to replace it with nice, safe systems that senior management will instantly fall in love with. In a word, they seek to make open source boring for the enterprise. That's not only good news for companies, it's a really important step for the Linux Foundation.
Security

Submission + - Feds storing checkpoint body scan images (cnet.com) 2

Submitted by AHuxley
AHuxley writes: The US Transportation Security Administration claimed last summer, that "scanned images cannot be stored or recorded."
It turns out that some police agencies are storing the controversial images.
The U.S. Marshals Service admitted that it had saved ~35,314 images recorded with a millimeter wave system at the security checkpoint of a single Florida courthouse.
The images where stored on a Brijot Gen2 machine. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy group, has filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to grant an immediate injunction to stop the TSA's body scanning program.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft gets its FAT Patent back in Germany (h-online.com)

Submitted by Dj
Dj writes: The German appeals court has overturned a 2007 ruling by the German Federal Patent Tribunal that Microsoft's patent on the FAT file-system with short and long names was not enforceable.
Wikipedia

Submission + - Wikipedia's Assault on Patent Encumbered Codecs (videoonwikipedia.org) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Open Video Alliance is launching a campaign today called Let's Get Video on Wikipedia asking people to create and post videos to Wikipedia articles (good, encyclopedia style videos only!). Because all video must be in patent-free codecs (theora for now), this will make Wikipedia by far the most likely site for an average internet user to have a truly free and open video experience. The campaign seeks to "strike a blow for freedom" against a wave of h.264 adoption in otherwise open html5 video implementations.
Government

Submission + - The Death of the US-Mexico Virtual Fence (npr.org)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: A couple years ago it was announced that the Boeing built virtual fence didn't work. Started in 2006, SBInet has been labeled a miserable failure and finally halted. A soon to be released GAO report is expected to tear SBInet a new one causing DHS Chief Janet Napolitano to announce yesterday that funding for the project has been frozen. Sad that $1.4 billion had to be spent on this before the discovery that this poorly conceived idea would not work.

Comment Re:Interesting how fortunes turn (Score 1) 144

by rs232 (#31346972) Attached to: Hedge Fund Offers $2 Billion For Novell
i still deal with UNIX people sometimes and they want to write scripts for the simplest things that Windows will let you do in a GUI in seconds

Yea, these uNIX people don't know nothing .. but how long did it take you to read this one hundred page document. And what would a 'UNIX/Novell admin' be even doing migrating to a Windows box. And why can't you type the personal pronoun in upper case. It gets curiouser and curiouser .. :)

Submission + - Leak Shows U.S. Lead Opponent of ACTA Transparency (michaelgeist.ca)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Throughout the debate over ACTA transparency, the secret copyright treaty, many countries have taken public positions that they support release of the actual text, but that other countries do not. Since full transparency requires consensus of all the ACTA partners, the text simply can't be released until everyone is in agreement. A new leak from the Netherlands fingers who the chief opponents of transparency are: the United States, South Korea, Singapore, and Denmark lead the way, with Belgium, Germany, and Portugal not far behind as problem countries.

Comment most reliable companies on the planet (Score 1) 306

by rs232 (#30847886) Attached to: Jeremy Allison Calls Microsoft Dangerous Elephant
"If I were, however, a little girl who felt betrayed by my corporate overlords making a deal with one of the most reliable companies on the planet, thus giving me and my fellow employees more job security, so I quit and .."

Novell gave away the family silver for a buch of vouchers. They also took to uttering vague IP protection threats against the Open Source community on their web site. They also stoped promoting their own desktop and recommended Windows instead. At least one of their technical people has the personaly integrity to resign. Person abuse from some a******e is not required.
--

reliable at what exactly?
Microsoft

Submission + - Groklaw Putting Comes v. Microsoft Docs Online (groklaw.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: PJ of Groklaw is working on putting the documents from Comes v. Microsoft online, to make them searchable and accessible to everyone. If you don't remember their history, the plaintiffs got these documents from Microsoft during discovery after fighting the lawyers tooth and nail. After realizing how embarrassing the documents were to Microsoft, they put them online and later got a very large settlement from Microsoft by agreeing to take their website down. The web being what it is, these documents had already been mirrored and were later (legally) made available on the Pirate Bay. Now Groklaw has put them online and is looking for people to help transcribe them, so that documents like the infamous Evangelism is War presentation will not be forgotten.

Comment Microsoft undocumentation :) (Score 1) 139

by rs232 (#30413584) Attached to: Documentation Compliance Means MS Can Resume Collecting Protocol Royalties
"OK. So the government order Microsoft to document the protocols. Microsoft then does what the government asks. Now the government acknowledges that Microsoft has done what was asked. Somehow, the comments here make it seem like Microsoft made yet another mistake. Wasn't this what they asked Microsoft to do?

No, they were asked to open the specs not, after much delay, publish a mishmash of source code and API calls and then charge other compamies to connect their computers to their-own customers computers. What's difficult about producing an RFC. No doubt this undocumentation will be as deliveratly obscure as their previous efforts in that department ...

Comment the debate about Net neutrality (Score 1) 215

by rs232 (#30402640) Attached to: AT&T's Net Neutrality Doublethink
Early on, the debate about Net neutrality centered on the issue of tiered or metered pricing .. The argument now is much more complex and centers on control of content and applications on both the wired and wireless Internet.

If a carrier can pick and choose among different types of content and different types of applications, its competitors (and, ultimately, the users) are severely disadvantaged.

Comment the opposite of Net neutrality (Score 1) 249

by rs232 (#30309744) Attached to: Net Neutrality Seen Through the Telegraph
"Imposing net neutrality may very well violate the takings clause of the US Constitution"

Net neutrality isn't about restricting the telecoms, it's about preventing them in restricting my rights under the US constitution. And 'net neutrality' came about in response to the telecoms attempt to close off access to the networks in favour of their own offerings. Blacking access to third party telephone companies, skype for instance.

"Spin on all you want about government subsidies to telcos, but the fact is those telcos went and spent their own money on their infrastructure, and based how much they spent on charging for traffic across their networks in certain ways"

Fair enough, the telcos build the infrastructure and we pay for it. We don't require them to decide how we use it. I pay for my electricity, but I don't let the power company decide what I watch on television.

"Now, if the government imposes net neutrality, the government will be significanly reducing the revenue-producing value of the telco's property"

It hasn't stopped them making money up to now. Indeed if 'net neutrality' was in place, the Internet/Web would never have come about.

"And never forget - the only one who will win if net neutrality is imposed are the lawyers"

And never forget how the teleco lawyers are attempting to spin the term 'net neutrality' into something that means the exact opposite. A bit like the canSPAM act, that didn't :)

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