FSF Richard Stallman reports Spying Ubuntu; Canonical getting offensive

this post was written in a lot of hurry and much more anger by a non-native English speaker and even I find it bad reading again…

one of the readers have been kind enough to proof-read and rewrite it here as comment (thanks): 
http://techiebond.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/fsf-rsm-reports-spying-ubuntu-offensive/#comment-14

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First to let you have the background of what happened recently which annoyed (hopefully many and) me so much that I’m posting on my wtf-happens-in-tech-blog after such long time.

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One of the most (the most for some years) popular Debian-based Linux Distro, Ubuntu has been found to be using a user behavior analyzing feature to serve more user need accurate advertisements.

RSM did compared it to a proprietary malware product doing user surveillance for self-profit. As in selling out there users for money which trusted the software because of it’s promotion by various OpenSource promoters and users (at least me and people I know) tried/use it  under the pretenses of it being on the guidelines of Free Software.

Richard’s report on User Spying Ubuntu:
http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/ubuntu-spyware-what-to-do

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Ubuntu spying Users Activity

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There have been a reply to it by few people, one being from Jon Bacon (some Ubuntu Community Manager) which came to my notice from HackerNews Top List.

He calls RSM being Childish on his stand against Ubuntu Dash sending User data to Canonical Servers. Accuses him for FUD around this issue and nullifying all the factual points in his post asks for facts. F***king **it, dumb software-issues-illiterate fan-clubs.

RMS for most of his life (more than I’ve lived) has been promoting Free Software on the ethics of respecting user’s freedom and privacy on the way user chooses to use it. He is a super dedicated Free Software person loved and respected by entire (ok most of) OpenSource community for his fanaticism; and all the time called eccentric by people seeing him as an obstacle on the road of their marketing the softwares.

And as for FUD, a piece of code on my system that got installed with some service I trusted if starts sending my usage data online to some server for any purpose without informing me….. baby that’s a spyware.
Now it has been for very long that different Organizations have been pulling loads of user data to there server….. nowdays even jargonized as TheBigData to help the users get better service.
That doesn’t make it Ethical in any way unless you are some FB teenager waiting for Likes on your post of new amazing shoes you bought by help of the magical advertisement served to you calculating what your friends bought… which shops are near your home and what kind of places you visit to materialize your credit worth.

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There was an article few months back by Mark Shuttleworth (founder of Canonical) around why this chaos-creating product Ubuntu Dash is so much essential to be pushed in before even maturing to get a turn-on/off choice.

He say the encryption will be placed on queries in release version and setting will be controllable latest by 13.04 release.

But Mr. Space Traveller gives no proper justification for Ads (refuses any ads being promoted on name of Amazon ties), just says he chose Amazon as most of Ubuntu users use that too. Oh! Seriously… was it that easy.

On Amazon ties, there is a very fine reader comment to the same thread on to why not instead use DuckDuckGo search service and there already prepared and popular search goodies to enhance the experience. No reply to that, may be he doesn’t read his own blog.

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Although I no more use Ubuntu since past few years… roaming into other Linux flavors. Would surely not suggest Ubuntu to anyone as I used to for new tux lovers.

So as RMS said….. bold-ifying his own words

to all Free Software supporters….. Ubuntu is shunned for spying.

I smell 3G ~ Gosling, Google & Go

Java’s Daddy, James Gosling after a long break… joined Google some time back.

March’28 2011 : officially joined Google

Suddenly, I come to hear a new spirit & raged promotion for Google’s pretty fine programming language Go.

Blog Release…

March’24 2011 : “Gobs of Data” ~ a language specific encoding

March’31 2011 : “Godoc” ~ Documenting Go code
April’15 2011 : “Gofix” ~ significant API change
April’21 2011 : “Go at Heroku”
May’10 2011 : “Go at Google AppEngine”
May’23 2011 : “Go at Google I/o 2011″…

now, I don’t see any other updates from Google suitable enough from the started braindump by J.Gosling

(and if there were any, I surely missed them… please point them out to me)

so, in a purely hypothetical & 100% guessing format… I smell Gosling, Google & Go

Open Virtualization Alliance ~ noble cause, don’t know about motive

Open Virtualization Alliance ~

{ (Intel+IBM+HP+RedHat+Novell+BMC+Eucalyptus)>VMWare? OpenVirtualizationAlliance:VMWareAppliances }

Open Virtualization Alliance has been setup by IBM, Intel, RedHat, & HP (as Governing Bodies) to promote adoption of OpenSource Virtualization Stack built over KVM Hypervisor.

Novell, BMC Softwares & Eucalyptus Systems are also backing up the cause being members of the alliance.

Alliance’s Link:
http://www.openvirtualizationalliance.org/

KVM’s Link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel-based_Virtual_Machine

noble cause,

their projected motives are
> increase awareness about KVM as an open virtualization alternative to proprietary
> educate users on best practices & provide technical advice
> encourage organizations/developers building a 3rd-party utility base around KVM raising it from commodity of HyperVisor to overall virtualization solution
> Intel is talking about making its chips work with KVM Technology Stack at scale
> IBM overlooks Xen HyperVisor as choice and says it continues support for Xen, but all new development will be in KVM

don’t know about motive

They are trying to catch-up VMWare (in their own words).

But, as they are projecting it ‘FOR THE SAKE OF OPENSOURCE’, doesn’t seem to be such prior concern for all the members… let’s have a look at members

>IBM is ‘IBM’, the (self-)claimed biggest contributor of OpenSource in past & one of the major players in the game of buying organizations… which starts favoring OpenJDK after an organization like ‘Oracle’ overtakes it & an organization like ‘Apache Software Foundation’ leaves JCP… nice new friends, all for OpenSource right

>RedHat, the BIG commercial organization  using the biggest OpenSource Project

>HP, they seem nice {I got nothing against them from what all I know…}

>Intel, was very ‘competition-friendly’ when AMD terrorized it reign… yeah sure, and the alliance still talks about their motive to remove monopoly

>BMC Software, they seem nice too {never read them enough…}

>Eucalyptus Systems, they are a nice open-source cloud contributor who also like to make some money… which is good until just the money part remains

>Novell, no need to comment on them and their patent issues…  the recent famous action by them was acquisition of ‘AttachMate’ and throwing out the ‘Mono’ guy ‘Miguel De Icaza’

They will drive KVM to a new improved level… it will be good if the don’t kill it’s charm for OpenSource lovers.
Biz-ocracy might lead to something good too.
…..

Oracle’s 7 recent deeds as Sun… and what ‘It feels like’

here are 7 recent & yet-to-come needs and deeds by Oracle via Sun… and how it felt being a Java lover from OpenSource community

Oracle’s 7 Deeds As Sun :: without any priority order ::

———-

link:
http://blogs.oracle.com/otn/?msgid=3-3385778423

[1.] Developer Day Workshops
a lot of emphasis being paid on it being free… still free, always free

>>>>>It feels like: The right earned by dedication of OpenSource community, has been trademark-ed as Oracle’s charity work.

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link:
http://blogs.sun.com/arungupta/entry/oracle_user_group_leaders_summit

[2.] Several User Group Leaders Summit 2011 Report
Henrik on why Oracle will strive to make sure Java is successful: “There are 20K developers working on Java inside Oracle, can’t mess with Java.“
Steve Harris on Why didn’t Oracle shutdown GlassFish: “The developer community of 10million downloads is very dear to Oracle.“

>>>>>It feels like: Being Oracle!

———-

link:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/eol-135779.html?msgid=3-3385778423

[3.] Java SE and Java for Business Support RoadMap
Normal Java SE releases are updated with bug-fixes for a period of at least 3-yrs.
Java for Business releases will be supported for upto 8-yrs.
Oracle also provides option of Lifetime Support to corporates with Java for Business reaching their license’s End-Of-Life; covering your entire technology stack from database to middleware to applications.

>>>>>It feels like: Microsoft version of Java Services.
I don’t know why initial news of IBM trying to buy Sun Microsystems make me worried…
I’d have setup a Save-OpenSource-Community-Fund to aid IBM if knew about Oracle’s plans of buying.
Looking at Oracle’s actions, give me a feel-good notion for Microsoft‘s current stage.

———-

link:
http://www.sonatype.com/people/2011/02/hudsons-bright-future/

[4.] Hudson’s Bright Future
Oracle and Sonatype are each putting a number of full-time engineering resources on Hudson.
Oracle’s lead on Hudson, Winston Prakash created a detailed documentation simplifying how Hudson can be improved.

>>>>>It feels like: Gosling left Sun, Apache left JCP… thankfully Koshuke had an option, he left Hudson and got a new butler Jenkins.

———-

link: 
http://blogs.oracle.com/java/2011/01/java_me_enables_facebook_to_run_on_billions_of_phones.html?msgid=3-3385778423

[5.] Java ME enables Facebook to run on billions of phones
Facebook just announed immediate availability of their Java ME version.
Facebook has been working on it with Snaptu.
It works on more than 2500 devices from Nokia, Sony Ericsson and others.

>>>>>It feels like: Sued Google for Android, forked IcedRobot in name of OpenJDK… now helping JavaME version into ventures where it needed no help.

———-

link:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/java/briangoetzchief-188795.html?msgid=3-3385778423

[6.] Looking Ahead to Java SE 7 & 8 : discussion with Oracle’s Java Language Architect
Project Lambda, an element of Java SE 8 providing closures and related language features for Java, as well as upgrades to Core Java libraries to more easily express parallel calculations on collections.
JSR292 – InvokeDynamics would work in making JVM more deeply interactive with other language compilers running over JVM like JRuby, Jython, etc

>>>>>It feels like: if Sun had the same shine as before instead of the new O-Factor, I’d have wanted it sooner… but now, let it come when it has to…

———-

link: 
http://mreinhold.org/blog/jdk7-fc/

[7.] JDK7 is feature complete

>>>>>It feels like: Yay!!! great… but thats not it.

———-

OpenLeaks whistles… when ‘Right’ to Information gets ‘Left’ behind… does it?

another Whistleblower… but not similar another portal like Wikileaks.
Is it GooD_or_BaD, good to have but doubt its effectiveness.

IN   ITS   OWN   WORDS:
It is there to fill the gaps left behind by Wikileaks and not to just mimic the already existing facets. Working to make it more widespread and safer.
It aims to be a democratic portal and not just influenced by one man’s political agenda.

IN   We!rD   THOUGHTS:
[1.] OpenLeaks does promise anonymity (nothing new in it), hope it doesn’t leak the identity too

[2.] It does offer more and better categorized availability of leaked information. The informant can decide when, where and to who-all the information gets leaked.
Now, this is nice in some cases but completely contrast to fundamentals of Wikileaks and the thing we (or at-least I) like it for and that is every information concerning lives is out their to all alive without boundaries.

[3.] OpenLeaks is all Democratic and that is lovely (yes lovely is the best-suited adjective). Because a democratic front with several owners has a better chance of early going bureaucratic and corrupt which is the exact cause to work against.
Its way better to have few separate strict fundamentalist doing good to society with their blunt sense of humor.

so call me a.Lone.Ranger, but it’s how I feel (or say that’s how my emo-sensors pick up worldly vibes)

its good to have it, it’s good to have a new perspective… but in no way it replaces need for Wikileaks… call me paranoid or else, but initially when I heard its launch then I thought that it’s some government reaction to take out Wikileaks by giving faked competition; that would have been real lame of Governement right LOL!!!

Nagios Trademark Issue (in-1-Word: ‘Shameful’)

Nagios, one of the best organization level IT Infrastructure Monitoring solution that I used.
If you don’t know what’s Nagios itself, look here :
http://www.nagios.org/about/overview

Now, on 29-Sep-2010 I saw a post by creator of Nagios, Ethan Galstad telling how a German Company has violated and misused the name of ‘Nagios’ to promote itself. Ethan stated how this German Company, NETWAYS used ‘Nagios’ trademark to promote their stuff by hosting ‘NETWAYS Nagios Conferences’ and registering domains using the trademark. Ethan also states how he has been trying to stop this since he first came to know about this in year 2006… and till date their was no positive response.

He asked for all community believing in him to tweet/scrap/* the matter and make the matter socially more important. I also tweeted, scrapped and talked about the issue. And, just 1 hour back I get a reply from owner of NETWAYS (which other reponders would also have received).

Owner and MD of NETWAYS, Julian Hein just replied with a link to post on his website explaining his part on the story. He discussed there why initially  due to creating Nagios based services and absence of Ethan’s venture in Germany he started using the Nagios Trademark. He also writes why due to the popularity of his domains and integration of his Nagios related services (in several Suse and Debian distros), he was not able to change them. But he has agreed to transfer the Trademark.

Not only this, but he also tells how Ethan did a similar thing with French Nagios Community and Shinken to force them giving up their relation to Nagios Trademark.

Now, I’m in a confused state of which part of whose viewpoint is correct or even if both are correct what could be justified solution.

But, what I know is that there are enough corporates out there ready to hinder opensource by their lawsuits, so we as a community of OpenSource supporters should not indulge in internal fights. Where one should respect creative rights, then at the same place one should encourage other’s creation related to his own… that’s how the open-thought can stay alive.

Ethan’s Appeal:
http://community.nagios.org/2010/09/28/nagios-trademark-truth/

Julian’s Counter:
http://www.netways.de/en/de/info/trademark#Nagios

Its leaving the soul of OpenSource, if anyone’s viewpoint about another is true. I hope its a mis-understanding that they could resolve quickly.

[August 2010] :: 7 Highlights

[] Oracle vs Google
lawsuit for patent-breaking over Java usage in Android

[] Google + Verizon
proposing no Internet Traffic to be prioritized over another… they are calling it  Network Neutrality Proposal

[] DefCon, BlackHat
major Hacking conferences took place successfully making my stand over No-Complete-Security stronger

[] OpenStack
an open-source cloud computing project from RackSpace, accepted by NASA… its cool

[] Outburst of Closed OpenSolaris
Oracle is really great at what it do, making idiotic decisions on killing priceless community support for few dog biscuits

[] node.js
is an evented I/O framework over V8 Javascript built by Ryan Dahl as a Research Project… lets you develop Server level projects using Javascript

[] HTML5
its the next Big Thing in web-development being promised since past few years, now actively integrated in new-generation browsers to test