Announcements
Brief items
Tracing Summit 2014 videos available
Videos from the Tracing Summit, that was held in Düsseldorf, Germany last month, are available on YouTube. They are also linked from the schedule.Mozilla drops Google in favor of a multiple-search-partner plan
Mozilla has announced that it is not renewing the longstanding arrangement with Google that made Google the default search engine in Firefox in exchange for a sizable payment. Instead, when the current deal ends, Firefox will adopt different default search engines in different regions, a move described as a "more local and flexible approach to increase choice and innovation on the Web
". Yahoo will be the default search engine in the United States, Yandex in Russia, and Baidu in China.
Mozilla CEO Chris Beard frames this change in terms of Mozilla's independence and non-commercial status. "This is why our independence matters. Being non-profit lets us make different choices. Choices that keep the Web open, everywhere and independent.
" The Yahoo deal, at least, lasts for five years, and one of the conditions was that Yahoo will support Mozilla's Do Not Track header. Google will remain a pre-installed search engine option, and will continue to provide Firefox's Safe Browsing and Geolocation features.
Articles of interest
Linux for lettuce (Opensource.com)
Opensource.com covers the founding of the Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI) and its continuing efforts to apply the concepts of open-source to plant breeding, in an increasingly patent encumbered space. "OSSI’s de facto leader is Jack Kloppenburg, a social scientist at the University of Wisconsin who has been involved with issues concerning plant genetic resources since the 1980s. He has published widely about the concept behind OSSI, and his words are now echoed (even copied verbatim) by public plant-breeding advocates in Germany, France, and India. As he explains it, for most of human history, seeds have naturally been part of the commons—those natural resources that are inherently public, like air or sunshine. But with the advent of plant-related intellectual property and the ownership it enables, this particular part of the commons has become a resource to be mined for private gain. Thus the need for a protected commons—open source seed. Inspired by open source software, OSSI’s idea is to use “the master’s tools” of intellectual property, but in ways the master never intended: to create and enforce an ethic of sharing."
New Books
Lauren Ipsum: A Story About Computer Science and Other Improbable Things -- New from No Starch Press
No Starch Press has released "Lauren Ipsum: A Story About Computer Science and Other Improbable Things" by Carlos Bueno.
Calls for Presentations
[CFP] FOSDEM 2015 Embedded Devroom
The Embedded Devroom at FOSDEM has opened a call for participation, with a deadline of December 1. "The embedded devroom seeks topics related to automotive, mobile, autonomous, and generally small systems. Related areas are of course of interest as well and our definition of "embedded" is elastic. Are you controlling and launching rockets, made your own set-top box, built some heating control for your house, hacked your mobile phone or just built a small gadget using FOSS software then you might have exactly what we're looking for. This year the automotive devroom has been merged into the embedded devroom so automotive projects are for sure on topic here too." FOSDEM, and the Embedded Devroom, will take place January 31-February 1, in Brussels, Belgium.
CFP Deadlines: November 20, 2014 to January 19, 2015
The following listing of CFP deadlines is taken from the LWN.net CFP Calendar.
| Deadline | Event Dates | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| November 30 | January 13 | Linux.Conf.Au 2015 Systems Administration Miniconf | Auckland, New Zealand |
| December 1 | February 6 February 8 |
DevConf.cz | Brno, Czech Republic |
| December 1 | March 11 March 12 |
Vault Linux Storage and Filesystems Conference | Boston, MA, USA |
| December 7 | January 31 February 1 |
FOSDEM'15 Distribution Devroom/Miniconf | Brussels, Belgium |
| December 8 | February 18 February 20 |
Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit | Santa Rosa, CA, USA |
| December 10 | February 19 February 22 |
Southern California Linux Expo | Los Angeles, CA, USA |
| December 14 | January 12 | LCA Kernel miniconf | Auckland, New Zealand |
| December 17 | March 25 March 27 |
PGConf US 2015 | New York City, NY, USA |
| December 21 | January 10 January 11 |
NZ2015 mini-DebConf | Auckland, New Zealand |
| December 21 | January 12 | LCA2015 Debian Miniconf | Auckland, New Zealand |
| December 23 | March 13 March 15 |
FOSSASIA | Singapore |
| December 31 | March 17 March 19 |
OpenPOWER Summit | San Jose, CA, USA |
| January 1 | March 21 March 22 |
Kansas Linux Fest | Lawrence, Kansas, USA |
| January 2 | May 21 May 22 |
ScilabTEC 2015 | Paris, France |
| January 5 | January 12 | Linux.conf.au 2015 Multimedia and Music Miniconf | Auckland, New Zealand |
| January 5 | March 23 March 25 |
Android Builders Summit | San Jose, CA, USA |
| January 5 | February 11 February 12 |
Prague PostgreSQL Developer Days 2015 | Prague, Czech Republic |
| January 9 | March 23 March 25 |
Embedded Linux Conference | San Jose, CA, USA |
| January 10 | May 16 May 17 |
11th Intl. Conf. on Open Source Systems | Florence, Italy |
| January 11 | March 12 March 14 |
Studencki Festiwal Informatyczny / Academic IT Festival | Cracow, Poland |
| January 11 | March 11 | Nordic PostgreSQL Day 2015 | Copenhagen, Denmark |
| January 16 | March 9 March 10 |
Linux Storage, Filesystem, and Memory Management Summit | Boston, MA, USA |
If the CFP deadline for your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.
Upcoming Events
LCA 2015 Penguin Dinner - A Theme
The 2015 Penguin Dinner at linux.conf.au will have a Steampunk theme. "We encourage you to dress for the occasion - in fact we insist. It adds a certain air of mystery to the evening. Costumes are suitable, gadgets will be welcome, the more quirky and fantastical the better - but do come wearing something! We know you're among the cleverest, most inventive and imaginative people to be found (not that we're biased!) so we can't wait to see you as futuristic and anachronistic characters and marvel at your latest inventions and innovations!" LCA 2015 will be held in Auckland, New Zealand, January 12-16.
Events: November 20, 2014 to January 19, 2015
The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
| Date(s) | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| November 16 November 21 |
Supercomputing 14 | New Orleans, LA, USA |
| November 17 November 21 |
ApacheCon Europe | Budapest, Hungary |
| November 18 November 20 |
Open Source Monitoring Conference | Nuremberg, Germany |
| November 19 November 21 |
CloudStack Collaboration Conference Europe | Budapest, Hungary |
| November 21 November 23 |
Debian Bug Squashing Party in Munich | Munich, Germany |
| November 22 November 23 |
AdaCamp Bangalore | Bangalore, India |
| November 25 | New Directions in Operating Systems | London, UK |
| November 29 November 30 |
OpenPhoenux Hard and Software Workshop | Munich, Germany |
| December 5 December 7 |
SciPy India | Bombay, India |
| December 27 December 30 |
31st Chaos Communication Congress | Hamburg, Germany |
| January 10 January 11 |
NZ2015 mini-DebConf | Auckland, New Zealand |
| January 12 | Linux.conf.au 2015 Multimedia and Music Miniconf | Auckland, New Zealand |
| January 12 January 16 |
linux.conf.au 2015 | Auckland, New Zealand |
| January 12 | LCA Kernel miniconf | Auckland, New Zealand |
| January 12 | LCA2015 Debian Miniconf | Auckland, New Zealand |
| January 13 | Linux.Conf.Au 2015 Systems Administration Miniconf | Auckland, New Zealand |
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol