Slashdot Mirror

"In open source philosophy, you share source code. Why not share data?" writes Slashdot reader princelobga. Linux Insider reports on the Linux Foundation's new Community Data License Agreement, "a new framework for sharing large sets of data required for research, collaborative learning and other purposes." CDLAs will allow both individuals and groups to share data sets in the same way they share open source software code, the foundation said. "As systems require data to learn and evolve, no one organization can build, maintain and source all data required," noted Mike Dolan, VP of strategic programs at The Linux Foundation. "Data communities are forming around artificial intelligence and machine learning use cases, autonomous systems, and connected civil infrastructure," he told LinuxInsider. "The CDLA license agreements enable sharing data openly, embodying best practices learned over decades of sharing source code."
A principal analyst at Pund-IT told the site that the new data license "reflects the growing importance of information as a resource for big data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence."

dgharmon writes "The Command Line Interface has its uses, acknowledged Mobile Raptor blogger Roberto Lim, but no piece of technology targeted at the consumer market should ever require that something be done via CLI, he says. Keep it as an option or you can take it out all together. 'If it is there, it should just be there for the IT people or tech support to use when you encounter a problem.'"

itwbennett writes "451 Group analyst Jay Lyman opined in a LinuxInsider column that because of open APIs, 'non-open source software is often open enough.' Not so, says ITworld blogger Brian Proffitt. Sure, open APIs are an easy way for a small developer to 'plug into a big software ecosystem,' but it's a trap. 'If open APIs are the only connector to a software project, the destiny of that code lies solely in the hands of the owners,' says Proffitt. 'Which means that anyone connecting into the application will have to deal with the changes imposed from the top down.'"

Daetrin writes "Last weekend Google received the next statue in the sweets-themed series that commemorates the major updates of the Android OS. In the past this has meant that the release of the next SDK was right around the corner. However this time there's some doubt as to what the version number will actually be. Many sites (including Slashdot) have assumed that 'Gingerbread' was synonymous with '3.0,' but now there's some evidence that everyone may have jumped the gun and the next version will actually be 2.3."

Hugh Pickens writes "Katherine Noyes writes at LinuxInsider that it may be time for Linus Torvalds to share more of the responsibility for Linux that he's been shouldering. 'If Linux wants to keep up with the competition there is much work to do, more than even a man of Linus's skill [can] accomplish,' argues one user. The 'scalability of Linus' is the subject of a post by Jonathan Corbet wondering if there might there be a Linus scalability crunch point coming. 'The Linux kernel development process stands out in a number of ways; one of those is the fact that there is exactly one person who can commit code to the "official" repository,' Corbet writes. A problem with that scenario is the potential for repeats of what Corbet calls 'the famous "Linus burnout" episode of 1998' when everything stopped for a while until Linus rested a bit, came back, and started merging patches again. 'If Linus is to retain his central position in Linux kernel development, the community as a whole needs to ensure that the process scales and does not overwhelm him,' Corbet adds. But many don't agree. 'Don't be fooled that Linus has to scale — he has to work hard, but he is the team captain and doorman. He has thousands doing most of the work for him. He just has to open the door at the appropriate moment,' writes Robert Pogson, adding that Linus 'has had lots of practice and still has fire in his belly.'"

An anonymous reader points us to a story about how the problems with electronic voting mostly stem from one source: the lack of mandated standardization. The LinuxInsider article goes on to suggest that once the issue of a universal voting platform is solved, the way is paved for open-source software to address concerns over accuracy and transparency. Though the article states that "no open source program for voting machines yet exists," it should be noted that such software was successfully tested earlier this month. Quoting: "People debate the merits of e-voting for a variety of reasons, including suspicion of new technologies and a general distrust of politics, according to Jamie McKown, Wiggins professor of government and polity at the College of the Atlantic. 'Reports on e-voting security often de-contextualize the history of voter fraud in this country, as if boxes were somehow assumed to be better. You constantly hear calls for paper trails, and open and free inspection of voting machine source code. But it's a very thorny issue and one that has a lot of facets,' McKown told LinuxInsider."

drewmoney writes "Misconceptions about what 'open source software' means has made elements of the US Defense Department reluctant to deploy in a live environment. DoD proponents of shared-source projects are now working to reverse this trend by educating IT decision-makers and demonstrating OSS usefulness. 'The cost of cleaning up a "network spill" that introduces classified material on an unclassified network is running about US$11,000 per incident on the Navy/Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI), so the free Secure Save tool could produce monetary savings for the Navy. Additionally, it would cover more file formats than the costly commercial redaction product currently available on the NMCI.'"

pfaffman sends us word of a two-part article in LinuxInsider that lays out to an audience of non-tech educators a cogent argument for using F/OSS in schools. The piece was written by a University of Tennessee professor for the education journal TechTrends. It makes the case that proprietary software is inconvenient and that when schools choose to use proprietary products they spend their constituents' money. The article won't contain a whole lot of surprises for Linux initiates (save perhaps some software recommendations for educational use), but it's interesting to see these ideas presented so clearly to a wider, and influential, audience."

pfaffman sends us word of a two-part article in LinuxInsider that lays out to an audience of non-tech educators a cogent argument for using F/OSS in schools. The piece was written by a University of Tennessee professor for the education journal TechTrends. It makes the case that proprietary software is inconvenient and that when schools choose to use proprietary products they spend their constituents' money. The article won't contain a whole lot of surprises for Linux initiates (save perhaps some software recommendations for educational use), but it's interesting to see these ideas presented so clearly to a wider, and influential, audience."

brettlg writes to tell us LinuxInsider is reporting that Utah Democratic hopeful, Peter Ashdown, is hoping to leverage his knowledge of the internet and small business resourcefulness to take down the incumbent Senator Orrin Hatch next year. From the article: "Peter Ashdown is the founder of Xmission, Utah's oldest Internet service provider (ISP). His Web site includes a blog and a monthly live chat session. But Ashdown's site takes public participation on his campaign Web site one step further -- opening his platform to all. The site is based on the "Wiki" open-source model made famous by Wikipedia."

An anonymous reader writes "Sirius Satellite Radio Chief Executive Mel Karmazin announced that his company is in talks with Apple about bringing satellite radio to the iPod. Karmazin met with Steve Jobs Monday and he says the technology is the easy part. The hard part is negotiating just how they will split the profit from equipment and monthly subscriptions." We've covered this before, but now it seems they are getting "more Sirius," or something.

robyannetta writes "Paul Murphy from LinuxInsider.com asks the question What's the difference between Linux and System VR4? From the article: 'If there's a real bottom line here, the one thing I'm clear on is that I haven't found it yet, but the questions raised have been more interesting that the answers -- so more help would be welcomed.'"

An anonymous reader submitted a story about Blake Ross and his involvement in the Firefox project. Just the latest in a steady stream of Firefox PR pieces, although with a more human take than just the 'Firefox is a good browser' stories.

An anonymous reader writes "Richard Stallman has become the latest person to speak-out about Ken Brown's "independent" study of Linux, which accuses it of being a Minix/Unix rip-off. Stallman says Brown deliberately confused the Linux kernel vs the GNU project, although I suspect Brown simply didn't know enough to be able to differentiate between the two."

jbell99999 is the first one to submit news that the Royal Bank of Canada is divesting itself of SCO stock. They're selling part of their preferred stock to Baystar, which has already indicated that they want to redeem their shares, and converting the rest to regular stock, which they can presumably sell on the open market. In other SCO news, Versicherung writes "The Santa Cruz Sentinel is reporting, SCO is laying off 10 percent of its worldwide workforce. The cuts come less than a month after the company brought on a new chief financial officer and just before the company ended its second fiscal quarter April 30." See also stories at Eweek and Linuxinsider.com.

Tin Foil Hat writes "Paul Murphy over at LinuxInsider examines the role IT text books play in business school curriculums and the misconceptions and misinformation that they present to students. If you've ever wondered why your PHB just doesn't get it when it comes to UNIX and Linux, this article is for you."

Tin Foil Hat writes "Paul Murphy over at LinuxInsider examines the role IT text books play in business school curriculums and the misconceptions and misinformation that they present to students. If you've ever wondered why your PHB just doesn't get it when it comes to UNIX and Linux, this article is for you."

tail.man sent in a Linux Insider piece about the difference between Linux and Windows. Quoting the synopsis "So, what's really the difference between a Unix variant like Linux and any Windows OS? It's that Microsoft reacts to marketing pressure to make design decisions favoring running a few processes faster but then finds itself forced first to layer in backward compatibility and then to engage in a patch-and-kludge upgrade process until the code becomes so bloated, slow and unreliable that wholesale replacement is again called for."

Roland Piquepaille writes "If your answer is Windows, you're plain wrong. It's ITRON, a Japanese real-time OS kernel that can be customized for any small-scale embedded systems. According to LinuxInsider.com, it is used by more than 3 billion microprocessors found in mobile phones, digital cameras, CD players and many other electronic devices including even satellites. The article looks at the competition in this market, notably RTLinux, the real-time version of Linux, and T-Linux, an environment for running middleware. This last effort could lead to the eTRON chip, an encryption device that offers secure data transfer across wireless networks and the Internet. One thing is sure for this market: the future is definitively open-source. This overview contains more details and external references."