Comment Re:Burn it? (Score 2, Interesting) 134
Funny you should say that, they have another field that's been on fire for decades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Submission + - Replicant hackers find and close Samsung Galaxy back-door
gnujoshua writes: Paul Kocialkowski (PaulK), a developer for the Replicant project, a fully free/libre version of Android, wrote a guest blog post for the Free Software Foundation announcing that whlie hacking on the Samsung Galaxy, they "discovered that the proprietary program running on the applications processor in charge of handling the communication protocol with the modem actually implements a back-door that lets the modem perform remote file I/O operations on the file system." They then replaced the proprietary program with free software.
While it may be a while before we can have a 100% free software microcode/firmware on the the cellular hardware itself, isolating that hardware from the rest of your programming and data is a seemingly important step that we can take right now. At least to the FSF anyhow. What do others think: is a 100% free software mobile device important to you?
While it may be a while before we can have a 100% free software microcode/firmware on the the cellular hardware itself, isolating that hardware from the rest of your programming and data is a seemingly important step that we can take right now. At least to the FSF anyhow. What do others think: is a 100% free software mobile device important to you?
Comment Re:Yes, but have they fixed the crashes? (Score 2) 167
Had this as well in Firefox 26 on Linux with Nvidia drivers, but Firefox stopped crashing when I updated to Nvidia driver 331.38.
Submission + - Cisco to release pre-licensed open-source "binary module" for H.264 in WebRTC (brendaneich.com)
SD-Arcadia writes: Mozilla Blog: "Cisco has announced today that they are going to release a gratis, high quality, open source H.264 implementation — along with gratis binary modules compiled from that source and hosted by Cisco for download. This move enables any open source project to incorporate Cisco’s H.264 module without paying MEPG LA license fees.
Of course, this is not a not a complete solution. In a perfect world, codecs, like other basic Internet technologies such as TCP/IP, HTTP, and HTML, would be fully open and free for anyone to modify, recompile, and redistribute without license agreements or fees. Mozilla is fully committed to working towards that better future. To that end, we are developing Daala, a fully open next generation codec. Daala is still under development, but our goal is to leapfrog H.265 and VP9, building a codec that will be both higher-quality and free of encumberances."
Link to Cisco's announcement: http://blogs.cisco.com/collaboration/open-source-h-264-removes-barriers-webrtc
Of course, this is not a not a complete solution. In a perfect world, codecs, like other basic Internet technologies such as TCP/IP, HTTP, and HTML, would be fully open and free for anyone to modify, recompile, and redistribute without license agreements or fees. Mozilla is fully committed to working towards that better future. To that end, we are developing Daala, a fully open next generation codec. Daala is still under development, but our goal is to leapfrog H.265 and VP9, building a codec that will be both higher-quality and free of encumberances."
Link to Cisco's announcement: http://blogs.cisco.com/collaboration/open-source-h-264-removes-barriers-webrtc
Submission + - 1.8 million-year-old skull suggests three early human species were one (nature.com)
ananyo writes: A 1.8 million-year-old human skull dramatically simplifies the textbook story of human evolution, suggesting what were thought to be three distinct species of early human (Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis and Homo erectus) was just one. 'Skull 5', along with four other skulls from the same excavation site at Dmanisi, Georgia, also shows that early humans were as physically diverse as we are today (paper abstract).
Submission + - Open Well-Tempered Clavier: a Kickstarter campaign for open source Bach (kickstarter.com) 1
rDouglass writes: The Open Goldberg Variations team has launched a new project to make an open source, public domain version of J.S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. The work is significant because of it's enormous influence on musicians and composers throughout history. A new studio recording, a new digital MuseScore score (with support for MusicXML and MIDI), as well as all source materials (multitrack WAV, lossless FLAC) will be provided as libre and gratis downloads. New to the project are publisher GRIN Verlag, as well as record label PARMA Recordings. GRIN and PARMA will produce and distribute the physical score and double CD, even though the digital versions are to be widely available and in the public domain. Their enthusiasm for the project runs counter to the general publishing and music industry's fear of digital file sharing, and shows growing momentum for finding new models to make free music commercially sustainable.
Comment Re:To be fair to China (Score 5, Funny) 325
Blocking an album containing Alanis Morissette, Garbage, Moby and Sting is probably preventing human rights violations as much as it contributes to them. Isn't that ironic?
It's like rain on your wedding day,
It's a free ride when you've already paid,
It's the good advice that you just didn't take,
Who would've thought
