Articles of interest
The Software Freedom Law Center has taken a look at Microsoft's
Windows 8 certification requirements for the ARM architecture (which
require that the system be fully locked down) and
is
not amused.
"
The new policy betrays the cynicism of Microsoft's initial response
to concerns over Windows 8's secure boot requirement. When kernel hacker
Matthew Garrett expressed his concern that PCs shipped with Windows 8 might
prevent the installation of GNU/Linux and other free operating systems,
Microsoft's Tony Mangefeste replied, 'Microsoft’s philosophy is to provide
customers with the best experience first, and allow them to make decisions
themselves.' It is clear now that opportunism, not philosophy, is guiding
Microsoft's secure boot policy."
Comments (43 posted)
On his blog, Matthew Garrett provides an
update on the UEFI secure boot situation. Unlike what some have said, the Microsoft certification requirements for Windows 8 still place significant barriers in the way of installing Linux—even on x86 systems—which Garrett outlines. "
I wrote about the technical details of supporting the UEFI secure boot specification with Linux. Despite me pretty clearly saying that this was ignoring issues of licensing and key distribution and the like, people are now using it to claim that Linux could support secure boot with minimal effort. In a sense, they're right. The technical implementation details are fairly straightforward. But they're not the difficult bit."
Comments (41 posted)
The New York Times
reports
that Internet protests against anti-piracy legislation (
SOPA and
PIPA) are
working. "
Freshman Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a rising Republican star, was first out of the starting gate Wednesday morning with his announcement that he would no longer back anti-Internet piracy legislation he had co-sponsored. Senator John Cornyn, the Texas Republican who heads the campaign operation for his party, quickly followed suit and urged Congress take more time to study the measure that had been set for a test vote next week."
Comments (10 posted)
The series of interviews with FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Software
Developer's European Meeting) speakers
continues
with:
Comments (none posted)
The 2011-2012 Google Code-in has
ended.
"
Over eight busy weeks, 545 high school (pre-university) students
competed in the Google
Code-in contest completing tasks for 18 open source projects. The Google Code-in contest is designed to introduce high school students to the world of open source software development by having them complete ‘bite sized’ tasks while gaining knowledge and earning prizes along the way."
Comments (none posted)
New Books
The Pragmatic Bookshelf has released "Web Development Recipes" by Brian
P. Hogan, Chris Warren, Mike Weber, Chris Johnson, and Aaron Godin.
Full Story (comments: none)
Calls for Presentations
PGCon 2012 will be held May 17-18, 2012 in Ottawa, Canada. The conference
will be preceded by two days of tutorials taking place May 15-16.
"
If you are doing something interesting with PostgreSQL, please
submit a proposal. You might be one of the backend hackers or work on a
PostgreSQL related project and want to share your know-how with others. You
might be developing an interesting system using PostgreSQL as the
foundation. Perhaps you migrated from another database to PostgreSQL and
would like to share details. These, and other stories are welcome. Both
users and developers are encouraged to share their experiences."
Proposals are due by January 29.
Full Story (comments: none)
The
Open64 Workshop will take place June 15, 2012, in Beijing China.
"
Active Open64 researchers & developers from academia and industry
will report their research projects, experimental results, and development
experiences using the Open64 compiler. The workshop provides a forum for
discussion of your findings and experiences with a broad range of Open64
researchers and developers. " The call for proposals ends February 10.
Full Story (comments: none)
Upcoming Events
SUSE has
announced
the first annual SUSECon, to be held September 18-21, 2012, in Nuremberg,
Germany. "
SUSE will bring together from across the globe its seasoned and knowledgeable experts, its strong partnerships with industry-leading technology vendors, and its showcase of successful customers to deliver a comprehensive agenda that offers both business and technical advice for enterprise Linux practitioners. Content and activities will be announced throughout the year for the September 2012 event - which coincides with SUSE's twentieth anniversary, a milestone that will be reflected at the conference."
Comments (none posted)
SuperCollider is an
audio programming environment. April 12-19, 2012 musicians, artists and
coders will meet in London, UK for a festival showcasing works created with
SuperCollider.
Full Story (comments: none)
Events: January 19, 2012 to March 19, 2012
The following event listing is taken from the
LWN.net Calendar.
| Date(s) | Event | Location |
January 16 January 20 |
linux.conf.au 2012 |
Ballarat, Australia |
January 20 January 22 |
Wikipedia & MediaWiki hackathon & workshops |
San Francisco, CA, USA |
January 20 January 22 |
SCALE 10x - Southern California Linux Expo |
Los Angeles, CA, USA |
January 27 January 29 |
DebianMed Meeting Southport2012 |
Southport, UK |
January 31 February 2 |
Ubuntu Developer Week |
#ubuntu-classroom, irc.freenode.net |
February 4 February 5 |
Free and Open Source Developers Meeting |
Brussels, Belgium |
February 6 February 10 |
Linux on ARM: Linaro Connect Q1.12 |
San Francisco, CA, USA |
February 7 February 8 |
Open Source Now 2012 |
Geneva, Switzerland |
February 10 February 12 |
Skolelinux/Debian Edu developer gathering |
Oslo, Norway |
February 10 February 12 |
Linux Vacation / Eastern Europe Winter session 2012 |
Minsk, Belarus |
February 13 February 14 |
Android Builder's Summit |
Redwood Shores, CA, USA |
February 15 February 17 |
2012 Embedded Linux Conference |
Redwood Shores, CA, USA |
February 16 February 17 |
Embedded Technology Conference 2012 |
San José, Costa Rica |
February 17 February 18 |
Red Hat, Fedora, JBoss Developer Conference |
Brno, Czech Republic |
February 24 February 25 |
PHP UK Conference 2012 |
London, UK |
February 27 March 2 |
ConFoo Web Techno Conference 2012 |
Montreal, Canada |
| February 28 |
Israeli Perl Workshop 2012 |
Ramat Gan, Israel |
March 2 March 4 |
BSP2012 - Moenchengladbach |
Mönchengladbach, Germany |
March 2 March 4 |
Debian BSP in Cambridge |
Cambridge, UK |
March 5 March 7 |
14. German Perl Workshop |
Erlangen, Germany |
March 6 March 10 |
CeBIT 2012 |
Hannover, Germany |
March 7 March 15 |
PyCon 2012 |
Santa Clara, CA, USA |
March 10 March 11 |
Debian BSP in Perth |
Perth, Australia |
March 10 March 11 |
Open Source Days 2012 |
Copenhagen, Denmark |
March 16 March 17 |
Clojure/West |
San Jose, CA, USA |
March 17 March 18 |
Chemnitz Linux Days |
Chemnitz, Germany |
If your event does not appear here, please
tell us about it.
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol