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Gary Edwards

Breaking the Web: The Document War between HTML+ and OOXML - 0 views

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    Microsoft to the world: Outlook's not broken and we aren't 'fixing' it! Mary Jo has an interesting article over at ZDNet. She points out that Microsoft is refusing to restore support for HTML editing in Outlook. Instead, Microsoft intends on using the MSWord editor. I think that means a Microsoft desktop future based on Office OpenXML (OOXML). We shall see. But if this is the case, then i also think we are looking at how Microsoft will break the Web. I've left an extensive comment to Mary Jo's article in the Talkback section, linked to above. ".... This is for all the marbles. The future of the Open Web is at stake. If Microsoft is successful at carving out and encoding an MS Web based on a document format specific to their platforms, applications and services, the Web will break. "
    "Looks like a plan to me."
    continued here
Gary Edwards

The Education of Gary Edwards - Rick Jelliffe on O'Reilly Broadcast - 0 views

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    I wonder how i missed this? Incredibly, i have my own biographer and i didn't know it! The date line is September, 2008, I had turned off all my ODF-OOXML-OASIS searches and blog feeds back in October of 2007 when we moved the da Vinci plug-in to HTML+ using the W3C CDF model. Is it appropriate to send flowers to your secret biographer? Maybe i'll find some time and update his work. The gap between October 2007 and April of 2009 is filled with adventure and wonder. And WebKit!

    "....One of the more interesting characters in the recent standards battles has been Gary Edwards: he was a member of the original ODF TC in 2002 which oversaw the creation of ODF 1.0 in 2005, but gradually became more concerned about large vendor dominance of the ODF TC frustrating what he saw as critical improvements in the area of interoperability. This compromised the ability of ODF to act as a universal format."

    "....Edwards increasingly came to believe that the battleground had shifted, with the SharePoint threat increasingly needing to be the focus of open standards and FOSS attention, not just the standalone desktop applications: I think Edwards tends to see Office Open XML as a stalking horse for Microsoft to get its foot back in the door for back-end systems....."

    "....Edwards and some colleagues split with some acrimony from the ODF effort in 2007, and subsequently see W3C's Compound Document Formats (CDF) as holding the best promise for interoperability. Edwards' public comments are an interesting reflection of an person evolving their opinion in the light of experience, events and changing opportunities...."

    ".... I have put together some interesting quotes from him which, I hope, fairly bring out some of the themes I see. As always, read the source to get more info: ..... "

Gary Edwards

Google Gets Oracle's Help In War Against Microsoft (GOOG, MSFT) - 0 views

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    Interesting discussion at Business Insider. I disagree with the Eric Krangel somewhat in that Oracle does benefit from working with Google Apps. Check the comments section for my response.

    "If Google (GOOG) is going to get big companies to pay for its Google Apps service, plugging into other enterprise software is going to be helpful. So it's good news for Google that Oracle (ORCL) is willing to play along."

    "This morning the two companies announced a new collaboration between Google Apps and Oracle's Siebel customer care/CRM software. With the new "Oracle Gadget Wizard for Google Apps," it's now easier to port data between Oracle and Google Apps spreadsheets..........." That gives Google a new selling point as it deploys salespeople to the enterprise in its bid to convert Microsoft Office users into paying Google Apps customers.
Gary Edwards

What are the advantages of an Android netbook? - 0 views

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    This is an interesting discussion with lots of good comments, and i had to put in my two cents.
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Putin: Pirate Site Blocking Has Failed to End Piracy | TorrentFreak - 0 views

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    " Andy on March 29, 2014 C: 6 Breaking It was supposed to be the world's toughest anti-piracy regime but Russia's site blocking legislation just isn't working. That's not just the opinion of irate movie and music companies either, but comments from Vladimir Putin himself." [* #Time for a #New #Approach... as #continuously #suggested]
Paul Merrell

European Lawmakers Demand Answers on Phone Key Theft - The Intercept - 0 views

  • European officials are demanding answers and investigations into a joint U.S. and U.K. hack of the world’s largest manufacturer of mobile SIM cards, following a report published by The Intercept Thursday. The report, based on leaked documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, revealed the U.S. spy agency and its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ, hacked the Franco-Dutch digital security giant Gemalto in a sophisticated heist of encrypted cell-phone keys. The European Parliament’s chief negotiator on the European Union’s data protection law, Jan Philipp Albrecht, said the hack was “obviously based on some illegal activities.” “Member states like the U.K. are frankly not respecting the [law of the] Netherlands and partner states,” Albrecht told the Wall Street Journal. Sophie in ’t Veld, an EU parliamentarian with D66, the Netherlands’ largest opposition party, added, “Year after year we have heard about cowboy practices of secret services, but governments did nothing and kept quiet […] In fact, those very same governments push for ever-more surveillance capabilities, while it remains unclear how effective these practices are.”
  • “If the average IT whizzkid breaks into a company system, he’ll end up behind bars,” In ’t Veld added in a tweet Friday. The EU itself is barred from undertaking such investigations, leaving individual countries responsible for looking into cases that impact their national security matters. “We even get letters from the U.K. government saying we shouldn’t deal with these issues because it’s their own issue of national security,” Albrecht said. Still, lawmakers in the Netherlands are seeking investigations. Gerard Schouw, a Dutch member of parliament, also with the D66 party, has called on Ronald Plasterk, the Dutch minister of the interior, to answer questions before parliament. On Tuesday, the Dutch parliament will debate Schouw’s request. Additionally, European legal experts tell The Intercept, public prosecutors in EU member states that are both party to the Cybercrime Convention, which prohibits computer hacking, and home to Gemalto subsidiaries could pursue investigations into the breach of the company’s systems.
  • According to secret documents from 2010 and 2011, a joint NSA-GCHQ unit penetrated Gemalto’s internal networks and infiltrated the private communications of its employees in order to steal encryption keys, embedded on tiny SIM cards, which are used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications across the world. Gemalto produces some 2 billion SIM cards a year. The company’s clients include AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and some 450 wireless network providers. “[We] believe we have their entire network,” GCHQ boasted in a leaked slide, referring to the Gemalto heist.
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  • While Gemalto was indeed another casualty in Western governments’ sweeping effort to gather as much global intelligence advantage as possible, the leaked documents make clear that the company was specifically targeted. According to the materials published Thursday, GCHQ used a specific codename — DAPINO GAMMA — to refer to the operations against Gemalto. The spies also actively penetrated the email and social media accounts of Gemalto employees across the world in an effort to steal the company’s encryption keys. Evidence of the Gemalto breach rattled the digital security community. “Almost everyone in the world carries cell phones and this is an unprecedented mass attack on the privacy of citizens worldwide,” said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a non-profit that advocates for digital privacy and free online expression. “While there is certainly value in targeted surveillance of cell phone communications, this coordinated subversion of the trusted technical security infrastructure of cell phones means the US and British governments now have easy access to our mobile communications.”
  • For Gemalto, evidence that their vaunted security systems and the privacy of customers had been compromised by the world’s top spy agencies made an immediate financial impact. The company’s shares took a dive on the Paris bourse Friday, falling $500 million. In the U.S., Gemalto’s shares fell as much 10 percent Friday morning. They had recovered somewhat — down 4 percent — by the close of trading on the Euronext stock exchange. Analysts at Dutch financial services company Rabobank speculated in a research note that Gemalto could be forced to recall “a large number” of SIM cards. The French daily L’Express noted today that Gemalto board member Alex Mandl was a founding trustee of the CIA-funded venture capital firm In-Q-Tel. Mandl resigned from In-Q-Tel’s board in 2002, when he was appointed CEO of Gemplus, which later merged with another company to become Gemalto. But the CIA connection still dogged Mandl, with the French press regularly insinuating that American spies could infiltrate the company. In 2003, a group of French lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to create a commission to investigate Gemplus’s ties to the CIA and its implications for the security of SIM cards. Mandl, an Austrian-American businessman who was once a top executive at AT&T, has denied that he had any relationship with the CIA beyond In-Q-Tel. In 2002, he said he did not even have a security clearance.
  • AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon could not be reached for comment Friday. Sprint declined to comment. Vodafone, the world’s second largest telecom provider by subscribers and a customer of Gemalto, said in a statement, “[W]e have no further details of these allegations which are industrywide in nature and are not focused on any one mobile operator. We will support industry bodies and Gemalto in their investigations.” Deutsche Telekom AG, a German company, said it has changed encryption algorithms in its Gemalto SIM cards. “We currently have no knowledge that this additional protection mechanism has been compromised,” the company said in a statement. “However, we cannot rule out this completely.”
  • Update: Asked about the SIM card heist, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said he did not expect the news would hurt relations with the tech industry: “It’s hard for me to imagine that there are a lot of technology executives that are out there that are in a position of saying that they hope that people who wish harm to this country will be able to use their technology to do so. So, I do think in fact that there are opportunities for the private sector and the federal government to coordinate and to cooperate on these efforts, both to keep the country safe, but also to protect our civil liberties.”
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    Watch for massive class action product defect litigation to be filed against the phone companies.and mobile device manufacturers.  In most U.S. jurisdictions, proof that the vendors/manufacturers  knew of the product defect is not required, only proof of the defect. Also, this is a golden opportunity for anyone who wants to get out of a pricey cellphone contract, since providing a compromised cellphone is a material breach of warranty, whether explicit or implied..   
Paul Merrell

FBI Flouts Obama Directive to Limit Gag Orders on National Security Letters - The Inter... - 0 views

  • Despite the post-Snowden spotlight on mass surveillance, the intelligence community’s easiest end-run around the Fourth Amendment since 2001 has been something called a National Security Letter. FBI agents can demand that an Internet service provider, telephone company or financial institution turn over its records on any number of people — without any judicial review whatsoever — simply by writing a letter that says the information is needed for national security purposes. The FBI at one point was cranking out over 50,000 such letters a year; by the latest count, it still issues about 60 a day. The letters look like this:
  • Recipients are legally required to comply — but it doesn’t stop there. They also aren’t allowed to mention the order to anyone, least of all the person whose data is being searched. Ever. That’s because National Security Letters almost always come with eternal gag orders. Here’s that part:
  • That means the NSL process utterly disregards the First Amendment as well. More than a year ago, President Obama announced that he was ordering the Justice Department to terminate gag orders “within a fixed time unless the government demonstrates a real need for further secrecy.” And on Feb. 3, when the Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced a handful of baby steps resulting from its “comprehensive effort to examine and enhance [its] privacy and civil liberty protections” one of the most concrete was — finally — to cap the gag orders: In response to the President’s new direction, the FBI will now presumptively terminate National Security Letter nondisclosure orders at the earlier of three years after the opening of a fully predicated investigation or the investigation’s close. Continued nondisclosures orders beyond this period are permitted only if a Special Agent in Charge or a Deputy Assistant Director determines that the statutory standards for nondisclosure continue to be satisfied and that the case agent has justified, in writing, why continued nondisclosure is appropriate.
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  • Despite the use of the word “now” in that first sentence, however, the FBI has yet to do any such thing. It has not announced any such change, nor explained how it will implement it, or when. Media inquiries were greeted with stalling and, finally, a no comment — ostensibly on advice of legal counsel. “There is pending litigation that deals with a lot of the same questions you’re asking, out of the Ninth Circuit,” FBI spokesman Chris Allen told me. “So for now, we’ll just have to decline to comment.” FBI lawyers are working on a court filing for that case, and “it will address” the new policy, he said. He would not say when to expect it.
  • There is indeed a significant case currently before the federal appeals court in San Francisco. Oral arguments were in October. A decision could come any time. But in that case, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which is representing two unnamed communications companies that received NSLs, is calling for the entire NSL statute to be thrown out as unconstitutional — not for a tweak to the gag. And it has a March 2013 district court ruling in its favor. “The gag is a prior restraint under the First Amendment, and prior restraints have to meet an extremely high burden,” said Andrew Crocker, a legal fellow at EFF. That means going to court and meeting the burden of proof — not just signing a letter. Or as the Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez put it, “To have such a low bar for denying persons or companies the right to speak about government orders they have been served with is anathema. And it is not very good for accountability.”
  • In a separate case, a wide range of media companies (including First Look Media, the non-profit digital media venture that produces The Intercept) are supporting a lawsuit filed by Twitter, demanding the right to say specifically how many NSLs it has received. But simply releasing companies from a gag doesn’t assure the kind of accountability that privacy advocates are saying is required by the Constitution. “What the public has to remember is a NSL is asking for your information, but it’s not asking it from you,” said Michael German, a former FBI agent who is now a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice. “The vast majority of these things go to the very large telecommunications and financial companies who have a large stake in maintaining a good relationship with the government because they’re heavily regulated entities.”
  • So, German said, “the number of NSLs that would be exposed as a result of the release of the gag order is probably very few. The person whose records are being obtained is the one who should receive some notification.” A time limit on gags going forward also raises the question of whether past gag orders will now be withdrawn. “Obviously there are at this point literally hundreds of thousands of National Security Letters that are more than three years old,” said Sanchez. Individual review is therefore unlikely, but there ought to be some recourse, he said. And the further back you go, “it becomes increasingly implausible that a significant percentage of those are going to entail some dire national security risk.” The NSL program has a troubled history. The absolute secrecy of the program and resulting lack of accountability led to systemic abuse as documented by repeated inspector-general investigations, including improperly authorized NSLs, factual misstatements in the NSLs, improper requests under NSL statutes, requests for information based on First Amendment protected activity, “after-the-fact” blanket NSLs to “cover” illegal requests, and hundreds of NSLs for “community of interest” or “calling circle” information without any determination that the telephone numbers were relevant to authorized national security investigations.
  • Obama’s own hand-selected “Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies” recommended in December 2013 that NSLs should only be issued after judicial review — just like warrants — and that any gag should end within 180 days barring judicial re-approval. But FBI director James Comey objected to the idea, calling NSLs “a very important tool that is essential to the work we do.” His argument evidently prevailed with Obama.
  • NSLs have managed to stay largely under the American public’s radar. But, Crocker says, “pretty much every time I bring it up and give the thumbnail, people are shocked. Then you go into how many are issued every year, and they go crazy.” Want to send me your old NSL and see if we can set a new precedent? Here’s how to reach me. And here’s how to leak to me.
Paul Merrell

FBI Now Holding Up Michael Horowitz' Investigation into the DEA | emptywheel - 0 views

  • Man, at some point Congress is going to have to declare the FBI legally contemptuous and throw them in jail. They continue to refuse to cooperate with DOJ’s Inspector General, as they have been for basically 5 years. But in Michael Horowitz’ latest complaint to Congress, he adds a new spin: FBI is not only obstructing his investigation of the FBI’s management impaired surveillance, now FBI is obstructing his investigation of DEA’s management impaired surveillance. I first reported on DOJ IG’s investigation into DEA’s dragnet databases last April. At that point, the only dragnet we knew about was Hemisphere, which DEA uses to obtain years of phone records as well as location data and other details, before it them parallel constructs that data out of a defendant’s reach.
  • But since then, we’ve learned of what the government claims to be another database — that used to identify Shantia Hassanshahi in an Iranian sanctions case. After some delay, the government revealed that this was another dragnet, including just international calls. It claims that this database was suspended in September 2013 (around the time Hemisphere became public) and that it is no longer obtaining bulk records for it. According to the latest installment of Michael Horowitz’ complaints about FBI obstruction, he tried to obtain records on the DEA databases on November 20, 2014 (of note, during the period when the government was still refusing to tell even Judge Rudolph Contreras what the database implicating Hassanshahi was). FBI slow-walked production, but promised to provide everything to Horowitz by February 13, 2015. FBI has decided it has to keep reviewing the emails in question to see if there is grand jury, Title III electronic surveillance, and Fair Credit Reporting Act materials, which are the same categories of stuff FBI has refused in the past. So Horowitz is pointing to the language tied to DOJ’s appropriations for FY 2015 which (basically) defunded FBI obstruction. Only FBI continues to obstruct.
  • There’s one more question about this. As noted, this investigation is supposed to be about DEA’s databases. We’ve already seen that FBI uses Hemisphere (when I asked FBI for comment in advance of this February 4, 2014 article on FBI obstinance, Hemisphere was the one thing they refused all comment on). And obviously, FBI access another DEA database to go after Hassanshahi. So that may be the only reason why Horowitz needs the FBI’s cooperation to investigate the DEA’s dragnets. Plus, assuming FBI is parallel constructing these dragnets just like DEA is, I can understand why they’d want to withhold grand jury information, which would make that clear. Still, I can’t help but wonder — as I have in the past — whether these dragnets are all connected, a constantly moving shell game. That might explain why FBI is so intent on obstructing Horowitz again.
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    Marcy Wheeler's specuiulation that various government databases simply move to another agency when they're brought to light is not without precedent. When Congress shut down DARPA's Total Information Awareness program, most of its software programs and databases were just moved to NSA. 
Gary Edwards

Effective Web Typography: Rules, Techniques and Responsive Design - Designmodo - 0 views

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    "Sam Norton  *  Coding, Design  *  February 16, 2015  *  8 Comments Responsive Web Design isn't just about columns, grids, images and icons. All of this will not make sense without text for content. As Bill Gates once said "Content is King." When it comes to content, we need to talk about web typography. Looking at modern web design trends, having responsive typography is a big factor every web designer and web developer shouldn't miss. Here, we will discuss creating responsive web typography and factors you need to know about it. Typography Basics Good typography is all about selecting the right type for web or printed media. From font type, color of the text to the length and font-size on different viewports, good typography ensures that the final letter forms generate the highest quality end result. Before we dive in to the process of creating successful responsive web typography, here are a few terms that you need to understand. "
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

How to access SoundCloud from the command line in Linux - Linux FAQ - 0 views

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    "Posted on July 18, 2014 by Adrien Brochard Leave a comment If you enjoy music streaming and originally-created sounds, you cannot have missed SoundCloud. Based in Germany, this cloud streaming service is now famous and well-established for any music adventurer. And naturally, as a Linux enthusiast, you might wonder how to join your passion for Linux with your love for music. As a solution, I advise you to check out Soundcloud2000, a command line client for SoundCloud born out of the Music Hack Day Stockholm '13."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

5 Best Open Source Web Browser Security Apps - 0 views

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    "The Web browser acts as the gateway for a myriad of online services these days. Computer security problems are far from solved, and technology advances provide new ways for malware to infect our devices and enter our business networks. For example, smartphones and tablets offer fresh new fields for malware-and its malicious cousin, "malvertising"-to exploit" [# ! And don't miss... # ! ... the ( 'my' ;) ) Favorite: # http://noscript.net/ (suggested in the article's readers' comments...)]
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    "The Web browser acts as the gateway for a myriad of online services these days. Computer security problems are far from solved, and technology advances provide new ways for malware to infect our devices and enter our business networks. For example, smartphones and tablets offer fresh new fields for malware-and its malicious cousin, "malvertising"-to exploit"
jorge1985

How to share files between computers over network with btsync - Xmodulo - 3 views

  • BitTorrent Sync, también conocida como btsync para abreviar, es una herramienta de sincronización multiplataforma (freeware) y desarrollado por BitTorrent, el famoso protocolo para el intercambio (P2P) de archivos peer-to-peer. A diferencia de los clientes de BitTorrent clásicos, sin embargo, btsync cifra el tráfico y da acceso a los archivos compartidos basados ​​en claves generadas automáticamente a través de diferentes tipos de sistemas operativos y dispositivos
    • jorge1985
       
      importante 
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    "Last updated on February 13, 2015 Authored by Gabriel Cánepa 2 Comments If you are the type of person who uses several devices to work online, I'm sure you must be using, or at least wishing to use, a method for syncing files and directories among those devices."
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    "Last updated on February 13, 2015 Authored by Gabriel Cánepa 2 Comments If you are the type of person who uses several devices to work online, I'm sure you must be using, or at least wishing to use, a method for syncing files and directories among those devices."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Pursuing adoption of free and open source software in governments - O'Reilly Radar - 0 views

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    "by Andy Oram | @praxagora | +Andy Oram | Comment: 1 | March 26, 2014 Free and open source software creates a natural - and even necessary - fit with government. I joined a panel this past weekend at the Free Software Foundation conference LibrePlanet on this topic and have covered it previously in a journal article and talk. Our panel focused on barriers to its adoption and steps that free software advocates could take to reach out to government agencies."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

How to set up networking between Docker containers - Xmodulo - 1 views

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    "Last updated on March 20, 2015 Authored by Dan Nanni 2 Comments As you may be aware, Docker container technology has emerged as a viable lightweight alternative to full-blown virtualization."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Review: Graylog delivers open source log management for the dedicated do-it-yourselfer ... - 0 views

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    "By Joel Snyder Network World | Nov 9, 2015 3:06 AM PT RELATED TOPICS Open Source Subnet Network Management System Management Comments In most big security breaches, there's a familiar thread: something funny was going on, but no one noticed. The information was in the logs, but no one was looking for it. Logs from the hundreds or thousands of network devices are the secret sauce to problem solving, security alerting, and performance and capacity management. Gathering logs together, analyzing them, "
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

The Top 20 Free Network Monitoring and Analysis Tools for Sys Admins - 0 views

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    "We know how administrators love free tools that make their life easier. Here are 20 of the best free tools for monitoring devices, services, ports or protocols and analyzing traffic on your network. Even if you may have heard of some of these tools before, we're sure you'll find a gem or two amongst this list - and if you know of any others, leave us a comment below!"
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Linux kernel flaw endangers millions of PCs, servers and Android devices | ITworld - 0 views

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    "By Lucian Constantin Follow IDG News Service | January 19, 2016 RELATED TOPICS Security Linux Comments For almost three years, a serious vulnerability in the Linux kernel could have allowed attackers to take full control over Linux-based PCs, servers, Android phones and other embedded devices."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

How to block network traffic by country on Linux - Xmodulo - 0 views

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    "Last updated on December 11, 2015 Authored by Dan Nanni 10 Comments As a system admin who maintains production Linux servers, there are circumstances where you need to selectively block or allow network traffic based on geographic locations. For example, you "
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen on the Microsoft-Red Hat Deal | Techrights - 0 views

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    "Summary: Founder of Free software and author of the GPL (respectively) comment on what Microsoft and Red Hat have done regarding patents WE FINALLY GOT some feedback regarding the baffling patent agreement which seemingly affects every user of GNU/Linux. We got this feedback from Stallman and (indirectly) Moglen, two of the Free software world's most prominent individuals, especially when it comes to the GPL (GNU Public Licence/License)."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Beginner's Guide to the Linux Desktop - Freedom Penguin - 0 views

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    "October 7, 2016 Joe Collins 4 Comments How To There is much talk in the Linux world about the mythical "average user." There is no such thing with Linux. First off, people who use Linux usually are those who know a thing or two about computers to begin with and want to take advantage of all the choices Linux offers. "
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