Free Republic

GIMP 2.7.3 has added one of the most requested features in the program’s history: a single window mode. Version 2.7 is part of the development branch, so unfortunately, the feature won't hit most distro repositories for a while. As I said, because 2.7 is a development branch, most distributions won’t add it to their repositories, and this means that you’ll have to build it yourself. It’s a shame, in a way, because the new window mode might be viewed as a ease of use feature that less advanced users would appreciate. According to this(link) page, it looks like version 2.8...

According to database pioneer Michael Stonebraker, Facebook is operating a huge, complex MySQL implementation equivalent to “a fate worse than death,” and the only way out is “bite the bullet and rewrite everything.” Not that it’s necessarily Facebook’s fault, though. Stonebraker says the social network’s predicament is all too common among web startups that start small and grow to epic proportions. During an interview this week, Stonebraker explained to me that Facebook has split its MySQL database into 4,000 shards in order to handle the site’s massive data volume, and is running 9,000 instances of memcached in order to keep...

I have been reporting on Microsoft all my journalistic life, and believe me, that's quite some time. To give you an idea how far I go back with Microsoft, let's just say I remember the occasion when I was given a personal demo of a hot new product that Microsoft was about to launch – a graphical spreadsheet for the Macintosh, later known as Excel. I was particularly impressed by the evident passion of the person demonstrating the beta code – he clearly really enjoyed his job. But perhaps that wasn't so surprising, since his name was Bill Gates.Of course,...

An interesting discussion started on tor-talk about Iran cracking down on "web dissident technology" before Cryptome posted, "TOR Made for USG Open Source Spying Says Maker." There is an interesting post on Cryptome, TOR Made for USG Open Source Spying Says Maker, in which one of Tor's creators, Michael Reed, says to look at why the government created Tor from a common sense point-of-view instead of as conspiracy theory. The Tor Project is free software that lets people be anonymous online but it's not an invisibility cloak that's meant to protect privacy. People use Tor to be anonymous for all...

Chapter 1Chapter 2Prepare yourself for a surprise ending. Do that now to avoid confusion later. Around 1990, I met with an industrial engineering professor who had been working for years with artificial intelligence technology. We had a long chat about the possibility of completely automated factories. This was still a decade before frequent online purchasing and customer management systems. But it seemed reasonable to contemplate a future in which everything from initial customer contact, sales, accounting, instructions to the factory floor, robotic manufacturing on demand, packaging, right out to the shipping dock would be fully automated. Even if you've never...

Open...and Shut For years Microsoft has raged — and whined — against the open source machine, once going so far as to castigate open source as being "un-American". Something must be wrong with a development model, as Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Jim Gray once lamented, that evaporates the possibility of profit in software sales. And yet open source has marched on, eventually claiming mainstream acceptance as it helped highly capitalistic companies such as Google create hugely profitable businesses. While these companies thrive, however, Microsoft remains cautious, as evidenced in its product strategy and in its hiring patterns. As Microsoft has watched...

NOTE The following text is a quote: Virginia Man Accused of Providing Material Support to Terrorists ALEXANDRIA, VA—Zachary Adam Chesser, 20, of Fairfax County, Va., was arrested today on charges that he provided material support to al Shabaab, a designated foreign terrorist organization. Neil H. MacBride, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Shawn Henry, Assistant Director in Charge (ADIC) of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, made the announcement after Chesser was arrested and the charging documents were made public. “This case exposes the disturbing reality that extreme radicalization can happen anywhere, including Northern Virginia,” said U.S. Attorney...

I am sick and tired of this site being taken over by Catholics ( of which I am one ) stories or proverbs. This is a news site not a religion site. Go do that somewhere else. I am not opposed to your prostilazion(sp), just not here. We lose credibility if any religious group dictates or can be quoted from this site. As a long term member of this site I regret posting this information, but the site has been buried in Catholic stuff recently and it should be shunted to some separate page.

INFURIATING Scott G. McNealy has never been easier. Just bring up math textbooks. Mr. McNealy, the fiery co-founder and former chief executive of Sun Microsystems, shuns basic math textbooks as bloated monstrosities: their price keeps rising while the core information inside of them stays the same. “Ten plus 10 has been 20 for a long time,” Mr. McNealy says. Early this year, Oracle, the database software maker, acquired Sun for $7.4 billion, leaving Mr. McNealy without a job. He has since decided to aim his energy and some money at Curriki, an online hub for free textbooks and other course...

An article published by the BCS was brought to my attention, and it was full of such glaring omissions and implicit attacks on free software that it had to be dealt with. initially written as a comment, it quickly extended way beyond the length of the original article...i am very confused. the BCS is supposed to be a reputable organisation, yet this article - every paragraph - is complete horse-****. i thought about saying otherwise, so that the chances of this comment not being censored are reduced, but i cannot think of any other words to choose which express clearly...

here is a fervent debate going on in the open source community about cloud computing. Will the cloud kill open source? [2] Will multi-tenancy services make cloud providers need to hide the source, as a recent Forbes article [3] suggests? I recently went to the best expert I could find on the matter to ask: Marten Mickos [4]. Mickos is the CEO of "private cloud" software (aka virtualization) maker Eucalyptus Systems [5]. He earned himself Open Source Hall of Fame status as the charismatic former CEO of MySQL. Mickos was adamant that open source not only won't kill the cloud,...

Dell reckons Ubuntu offers more protection than Windows online as it convinces consumer PC shoppers they shouldn't be scared of Linux. In a statement flagged here by TheVarGuy.com, Dell picked on security as one of ten reasons why people should buy PCs running Canonical's Linux rather than Microsoft's operating system. According to Dell's site (here, and a PDF here (pdf) in case the page is moved): 6) Ubuntu is safer than Microsoft Windows: The vast majority of viruses and spyware written by hackers are not designed to target and attack Linux. Dell does not provide further details, but continues to...

Just when the H.264 video codec is starting to take over a large portion of new Web videos, along comes Google to shake things up again. Today, along with Mozilla and Opera, it is launching the WebM Project, an open, royalty-free codec that can run in HTML5 browsers without the need for Flash. Up till now, the battle between Flash and HTML5 video has centered around the H.264 codec, which is gaining broad adoption. Apple supports H.264 in all of its devices such as iPads and iPhones, and it is one of the technical reasons Steve Jobs cites for why...

It's over. The jury has found that the copyrights did not go to SCO under the APA or anything else. The verdict is in. Novell has the news up on their website already, but I heard it from Chris Brown also. Here's the brief Novell statement:Today, the jury in the District Court of Utah trial between SCO Group and Novell issued a verdict. Novell is very pleased with the jury’s decision confirming Novell’s ownership of the Unix copyrights, which SCO had asserted to own in its attack on Linux. Novell remains committed to promoting Linux, including by defending Linux on...

Ubuntu is Linux for the rest of us. It is simple to install and use. Despite that, not that many users are on board with estimates of 1-2% of all computer users running various Linux operating systems. But with the release of Ubuntu 10.04, there might be a few reasons to give it a try. It is currently in beta, so you may not want to install it on your primary computer. The stable release will come on April 29 according to the Ubuntu web site. You can download a live DVD image to give it a try. A live...

These graphics processors may not be as powerful as the discrete ATI/AMD and NVIDIA offerings, but they're low-power and there is no limit to how many can be connected to a single system (besides USB 2.0 bandwidth deficiencies). This is also running a fully open-source driver stack. AMD previously showcased a 24 monitor setup on Linux using their Eyefinity Technology, but that required four high-end ATI Radeon graphics cards and their proprietary driver stack in an unreleased form.

I don't know how many of you ever play Freeciv, but I made a flag template replacement for those interested.

The Government Is Monitoring Facebook And Twitter By Noel Sheppard Created 2009-12-14 11:59 "The government is increasingly monitoring Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites for tax delinquents, copyright infringers and political protesters." So ominously began an editorial [1] in Sunday's New York Times. Those with accounts at such websites should pay attention, for according to the Times, and other sources, Big Brother is watching you: The Wall Street Journal reported this summer that state revenue agents have been searching for tax scofflaws by mining information on MySpace and Facebook. In October, the F.B.I. searched the New York home of...

Hacktolive.org announced today, December 29th, yet another version of their Ubuntu-based Linux distribution... with "super powers." Super OS 9.10 (formerly known as Super Ubuntu) includes patches, tools and technologies that are missing from a standard Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) default installation. Among the applications present in the brand-new Super OS 9.10 we can notice powerful web browsers such as Google Chrome and Opera; a version of the Mozilla Firefox web browser with the Moonlight and Flash plugins; the VLC player with support for DVD playback and most of today's video and audio formats; a Live USB creator; support for portable...

One of the unusual aspects of open source is the fact that the software development philosophy spills over into the way that the project is run. This means that how and why things are done, and by whom, is plain for all to see. Contrast that with Microsoft's approach, which mimics the black box of its software: mostly, all we ever get to view are the results, and rarely the cogs and gears behind those results. Sometimes, though, some apparently obscure document grants us a rare insight into what is happening deep in the bowels of the Microsoft machine. Here's...