Free Libre Open Source Lebanese Movement: April 2013

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

FSF-certified to Respect Your Freedom: ThinkPenguin USB Wifi adapter with Atheros chip

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA — Tuesday, April 30th, 2013 — The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today awarded Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certification to the TPE-N150USB Wireless N USB Adapter, sold by ThinkPenguin. The RYF certification mark means that the product meets the FSF's standards in regard to users' freedom, control over the product, and privacy. The TPE-N150USB can be purchased from http://www.thinkpenguin.com/TPE-N150USB. Software certification focused primarily on the firmware for the Atheros AR9271 chip used on the adapter.
ThinkPenguin's founder and CEO, Christopher Waid, accepted the certification: "ThinkPenguin, Inc. was founded with the goal of making free software more easily adoptable by the masses. Today I'm proud to say we are one step closer in achieving that goal. Not only do we have a product catalog that works with free software, but there is a reputable certification process to help users distinguish the good from the bad."
Only a handful of 802.11 wireless devices have both free software drivers and free firmware, so the need for wireless networking cards has been a major obstacle preventing people from running a completely free GNU/Linux operating system. Additionally, because many machines now come with a blacklist in their boot firmware that severely limits what internal wireless cards users can install, external USB devices are sometimes the best or only option.
Furthermore, even when a given wireless device is supported by free software, few sellers of such devices publish that information. The FSF supports http://h-node.org, a database of hardware compatible with free software, as a resource where users can find and share information about compatibility to help their purchasing decisions. But RYF certification goes beyond that. It is reserved for companies who promise not only that their certified device is and will continue to be compatible with free software operating systems, but also to promote this fact to their potential customers.
The TPE-N150USB Wireless N USB adapter chipset, Atheros AR9271, was developed by Qualcomm Atheros (QCA).
FSF's executive director, John Sullivan, said, "The FSF is grateful to the QCA team for publishing the firmware for this device as free software. Much credit also goes to Christopher Waid of ThinkPenguin for his central role in making this collaboration successful. At QCA, we especially want to acknowledge Adrian Chadd for his development work on the firmware and driver, and Luis Rodriguez for his related legal and policy work. We hope others will follow the example set by these two companies working together."
Once QCA published the firmware, free software developers, including Jason Self, Rubén Rodríguez, and Alexandre Oliva, completed the work of packaging it as part of the Linux-libre kernel for Trisquel, Parabola GNU/Linux, and other FSF-endorsed distributions.
The TPE-N150USB is the second product to be awarded RYF certification. The first certification was awarded in October 2012 to the LulzBot AO-100/AO-101 3D printer sold by Colorado-based Aleph Objects, Inc.
To learn more about the Respects Your Freedom hardware certification, including details on the certification of the TPE-N150USB Wireless N USB adapter, as well as information on the driver and firmware for the device, visit http://www.fsf.org/ryf. Hardware sellers interested in applying for certification can consult http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/criteria.
Subscribers to the FSF's Free Software Supporter newsletter will receive announcements about future Respects Your Freedom products.

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software — particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants — and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at http://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.

About ThinkPenguin, Inc

Started by Christopher Waid, founder and CEO, ThinkPenguin, Inc. is a consumer-driven company with a mission to bring free software to the masses. At the core of company is a catalog of computers and accessories with broad support for GNU/Linux. The company provides technical support for end-users and works with the community, distributions, and upstream projects to make GNU/Linux all that it can be.

Media Contacts

Joshua Gay
Licensing & Compliance Manager
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942 x20 licensing@fsf.org
Media Inquires
ThinkPenguin, Inc.
+1 (888) 39 THINK (84465) x703
media@thinkpenguin.com
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FSF-certified to Respect Your Freedom: ThinkPenguin USB Wifi adapter with Atheros chip

About the Free Software Foundation

About ThinkPenguin, Inc

Media Contacts

Joshua Gay
Licensing & Compliance Manager
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942 x20 licensing@fsf.org
Media Inquires
ThinkPenguin, Inc.
+1 (888) 39 THINK (84465) x703
media@thinkpenguin.com

Friday, April 26, 2013

1,000 Firefox Phones In the Wild! | FOSS Force

http://fossforce.com/2013/04/1000-firefox-phones-in-the-wild/

Pascal Fares
http://www.cofares.net
Open source Lebanese mouvement http://oslm.cofares.net

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Anonymous calls for blackout against CISPA

CISPA allows firms and agencies from the private sector to acquire and search sensitive data relating to U.S. citizens. Blanketed under the guise of using such sharing — without court-ordered warrants — in order to combat cybercrime, data including heath records, banking and online activity could be shared without anonymization.

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A number of groups and firms have publicly criticized the bill, including digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Mozilla. Over 800,000 people have signed a petition in an attempt to stop CISPA getting as far as it already has in the U.S. government's law process.

Today, a number of websites have agreed to block themselves voluntarily. A list of websites joining the protest include hacker and Anonymous-based sites, as well as a bunch of Tumblr accounts. Hundreds are joining, but the list is still woefully short of prestigous names and services that would secure at least a passing glance by those with the power to stop the bill going through.

A Stop CISPA group on Facebook has been formed, and hashtags #CISPABlackout and #StopCISPA have trended at various times this morning. It'll be interesting to see if the trends continue to gain traction as the day progresses, but the difference between this and the last 'blackout' is profound
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Harvard Global Grid Computing Project Will Help Create Printable Solar Cells

Computerworld (04/16/13) Lucas Mearian

In June, Harvard University's Clean Energy Project will release a list of the top 20,000 organic compounds that could be used to make inexpensive, printable photovoltaic cells (PVCs). The list could lead to PVCs that cost about as much as paint to cover a one-meter square wall. "We're in the process of wrapping up our first analysis and releasing all the data very soon," says Harvard professor Alan Aspuru-Guzik. The Clean Energy Project uses the computing resources of IBM's World Community Grid for the computational chemistry to find the best molecules for organic photovoltaics. The project is using the surplus processing power of about 6,000 computers around the world to develop the list of photovoltaics that could be used to create inexpensive solar cells. Over the past few years, computational chemists have identified a few organic compounds with the potential to offer about 10-percent energy conversion levels. "Through our project, we've identified 20,000 of them at that level of performance," Aspuru-Guzik says. Harvard also has built data storage facilities to capture the results of the computations. Each molecular computation produces about 20 megabytes of data, and the global grid computing architecture generates about 750 gigabytes of data a day.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9238429/Harvard_global_grid_computing_project_will_help_create_printable_solar_cells

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

For immediate release: Coalition letter urges W3C to keep the Web free

International coalition of Internet freedom organizations urges W3C to reject Encrypted Media Extensions, a proposal to build Digital Restrictions Management into the Web

Read this online at: http://www.fsf.org/news/coalition-against-drm-in-html
BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Wednesday, April 24th, 2013 -- Today a coalition of twenty-seven organizations released a joint letter to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the Web's standards-setting body, condemning Encrypted Media Extensions (EME). EME is a proposal to incorporate support for Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) -- the systems used by media and technology companies to restrict watching, sharing, recording, and transforming digital works -- into HTML, the core language of the Web.
The coalition opposing EME includes the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and its sister organizations FSF Europe, Latin America, and India; the Electronic Frontier Foundation; Creative Commons; Fight for the Future; Open Knowledge Foundation; Free Culture Foundation; April; Open Technology Institute; and several chapters of the Pirate Party. In the letter (full text of which is visible at http://www.defectivebydesign.org/sign-on-against-drm-in-html), these organizations lay out their reasons for opposing EME, and encourage principled Web users to sign Defective by Design's petition against DRM in HTML at http://www.defectivebydesign.org/no-drm-in-html5. On May 3rd, the International Day Against DRM, the Defective by Design campaign plans to hand-deliver 50,000 petition signatures to the W3C's Cambridge, Massachusetts, office.
The letter argues that "DRM restricts the public's freedom, even beyond what overzealous copyright law requires," and warns that for the W3C, "ratifying EME would be an abdication of responsibility; it would harm interoperability, enshrine nonfree software in W3C standards and perpetuate oppressive business models. It would fly in the face of the principles that the W3C cites as key to its mission and it would cause an array of serious problems for the billions of people who use the Web."
EME is sponsored by a handful of powerful companies who are W3C members, like Microsoft, Google, and Netflix. These companies have been promoting DRM both for their own reasons and as part of their close relationships to major media companies.
In order for watching, sharing, recording, and transforming media to be restricted, computer users must be prevented from modifying the plug-in software used to view the media (otherwise people would modify the software to remove the restrictions). This makes DRM by nature incompatible with free "as in freedom" software. The letter argues that by enshrining nonfree software in HTML itself, EME would comparatively diminish the values of freedom, self-actualization and decentralization so critical to the Web as we know it.
FSF executive director, John Sullivan, said, "Building DRM hooks into HTML is another attempt by Hollywood and its friends to gain control over our home and mobile computers in order to restrict the way we use media on the Web. DRM turns these companies into gatekeepers capable of filtering and controlling not just movies and music but also educational materials -- anything digital. The FSF and its partners won't allow these companies to sneak this change into the Web's core language. We want the World Wide Web, not the Hollyweb."
Web expert and W3C HTML Working Group member Manu Sporny has also warned that EME would spur a new proliferation of incompatible proprietary browser plug-ins for playing DRM-encumbered media, harming interoperability on the Web. This would run counter to the W3C's stated principles, which include an explicit commitment to "global interoperability," as part of the Open Stand guidelines to which W3C is a signatory.
The coalition signing the letter is an international group of free software and Internet freedom organizations. Frédéric Couchet, executive director of the French free software organization April, wrote, "DRM is an outrageous threat made by the entertainment industry against its own customers. Accepting the EME proposal would make the W3C complicit in forcing DRM on every computer user."
The W3C hosts the full text of the EME proposal on its site at https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-media/encrypted-media.html.

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at http://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.

Media Contacts

Zak Rogoff
Campaigns Manager
Free Software Foundation
Office: +1 (617) 542 5942 x31
Cell: (202) 489 6886
zak@fsf.org

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Google's Vint Cerf Explains How to Make SDN as Successful as the Internet

GigaOm.com (04/16/13) Stacey Higginbotham

Google chief Internet evangelist and ACM president Vint Cerf believes that software defined networking (SDN) could benefit from some of the Internet's design flaws and lessons learned in creating the Internet. For example, open standards should be implemented, with differentiation stemming from branded versions of standard protocols rather than from patented protocols. Interoperability is essential for stable networks, and that requires standards, notes Cerf. As companies create SDNs, they also should take into account the successful design features of the Internet, including the loose pairing of underlying equipment instead of a heavily integrated solution, the modular approach, and open source technologies. However, he says SDNs can improve on the Internet's traffic routing, which now relies on sending packets to a physical port. Instead of this physical port, the OpenFlow protocol changes the destination address to a table entry, enabling a new type of networking that is better suited to the collaborative Web of the future. Another option could be content-based routing, in which the content of a packet determines its destiny. SDN's basic principal, dividing the control plane and the data plane, should have been incorporated into the Internet's design, Cerf notes. In the future, SDN could improve controlled access to intellectual property to help prevent piracy, and could bring together various existing networks.
http://gigaom.com/2013/04/16/googles-vint-cerf-explains-how-to-make-sdn-as-successful-as-the-internet/

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Tell W3C: We don't want the Hollyweb

Dear ,
Hollywood is at it again. Its latest ploy to take over the Web? Use its influence at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to weave Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) into HTML5 — in other words, into the very fabric of the Web. Millions of Internet users came together to defeat SOPA/PIPA, but now Big Media moguls are going through non-governmental channels to try to sneak digital restrictions into every interaction we have online. Giants like Netflix, Google, Microsoft, and the BBC are all rallying behind this disastrous proposal, which flies in the face of the W3C's mission to "lead the World Wide Web to its full potential."
We're not going to let this happen. Sign the petition to help us reach 50,000 signers by May 3rd, the International Day Against DRM.
On May 3rd, we'll deliver your signatures to the W3C in an eye-catching stunt that's sure to make headlines and make it impossible for the W3C to keep pretending this isn't a big deal.
Some have mistakenly thought this proposal would finally end the use of proprietary browser plugins like Silverlight and Flash. In reality, this would only make it easier for companies to achieve the same purpose via hooks in HTML itself. The difference would only be on paper; in practice, users would experience the very same unethical restrictions, platform incompatibilities, and device limitations as with proprietary browser plugins.
In addition to signing, you can:

Build momentum: use this page to share the petition far and wide.
If you have a Web site, paste in this code to embed our Hollyweb image as a link to the petition:
<a href="http://www.defectivebydesign.org/no-drm-in-html5"><img src="//static.fsf.org/nosvn/dbd/drm_to-do-share.png" alt="Stop the Hollyweb! No DRM in HTML5." /></a>

If you want to learn more about the myths around this issue, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has an excellent write-up which covers all of the misleading discussion around the proposal and how, no matter what platform or browser you use, this puts the Web as we know it at stake. Read it here.
Thanks for speaking up,
John, Libby, Zak, and Kyra
You can read and share the online version of this message at http://www.defectivebydesign.org/we-dont-want-the-hollyweb.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Friends don't let friends use Windows 8

Dear ,
Sometimes, proprietary software actually helps us fight for freedom. Windows 8 is so bad it's almost funny--it's not only proprietary software full of spyware and security vulnerabilities, but it's also confusing for would-be users. Lucky for us, Microsoft's spectacular failure is the perfect time to help people switch to free software.
Today, we're launching a new infographic to encourage everyone to close Windows and open the door to software freedom. Windows 8 is so ripe for parody, we just couldn't resist. Check it out:

Upgrading to free software can be daunting for some people. That's why we need you, the free software experts, to lend a helping hand.
Take our pledge to help a friend or family member upgrade from Windows
Then, share this infographic with every Windows user you know. When your friends or family see the infographic and want to switch, set a date to help them do it. You'd be surprised what a difference a few hours of your time can make in someone else's life.
So, what are you waiting for? Take the pledge and liberate someone from Microsoft's shackles today.
Sincerely, Libby, Zak, John, and the rest of the FSF team
Read this message online at: http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/friends-dont-let-friends-use-windows-8