jrepin writes "Free Software Foundation president Richard M. Stallman announced the winners of the FSF's annual Free Software Awards at a ceremony held during the LibrePlanet 2013 conference. The Award for the Advancement of Free Software is given annually to an individual who has made a great contribution to the progress and development of free software, through activities that accord with the spirit of free software. This year, it was given to Dr. Fernando Perez, the creator of IPython, a rich architecture for interactive computing. The Award for Projects of Social Benefit is presented to the project or team responsible for applying free software, or the ideas of the free software movement, in a project that intentionally and significantly benefits society in other aspects of life. This award stresses the use of free software in the service of humanity. This year, the award went to OpenMRS, a free software medical record system for developing countries."

hypnosec writes "GCC 4.8.0 has been released (download), and with it, the developers of the GNU Compiler Collection have switched to C++ as the implementation language, a project the developers have been working for years. Licensed under the GPLv3 or later, version 4.8.0 of the GCC not only brings with it performance improvements but also adds memory error detector AddressSanitizer, and race condition detection tool the ThreadSanitizer. Developers wanting to build their own version of GCC should have at their disposal a C++ compiler that understands C++ 2003."

jrepin writes "After nearly 9 years of seeding The Pirate Bay's oldest working torrent is still very much alive. Interestingly, the torrent is not a Hollywood classic nor is it an evergreen music album. The honor goes to a pirated copy of Revolution OS, a documentary covering the history of Linux, GNU and the free software movement."

New submitter ikhider writes "Trisquel, a 'libre' version of Ubuntu GNU/Linux, is now available for download and install (or update for those who already have it). It's one of the easiest 'libre' versions of Gnu/Linux to install and run. This version includes: Linux-Libre 3.2, Xorg, Abrowser 19 (a Firefox derivative that does not recommend non-free software), GNOME 3.4, and LibreOffice 3.5. They're also simplifying their release schedule: 'This release is a Long Term Support one, meaning that bugfix and security updates will be published until 2017. Along with this we have decided to change our release schedule from this point on: we will no longer publish short term support versions every 6 months, but focus on giving the best possible support to the LTS release, providing backported improvements to core packages like the kernel, the browser and the xorg server among others.'"

sfcrazy writes "Netflix is using HTML5 video streaming instead of using Microsoft's Silverlight on Chromebooks (which now supports DRM for HTML5). Recently Google enabled the much controversial DRM support for HTML5 in Chrome OS to bring services like Netflix to Chromebooks using HTML5." Still no word on general support for GNU/Linux, but x86 or ARM, what's the difference? (If you're ok with DRM at least.)

TrueSatan writes "Miguel de Icaza, via his blog, has explained his gradual move to the Apple Mac platform. 'While I missed the comprehensive Linux toolchain and userland, I did not miss having to chase the proper package for my current version of Linux, or beg someone to package something. Binaries just worked.' Here is one of his main reasons: 'To me, the fragmentation of Linux as a platform, the multiple incompatible distros, and the incompatibilities across versions of the same distro were my Three Mile Island/Chernobyl.' Reaction to his announcement includes a blog post from Jonathan Riddell of Blue Systems/Kubuntu. Given de Icaza's past association with Microsoft (CodePlex Foundation) and the Free Software Foundation's founder Richard Stallman's description of de Icaza as a 'traitor to the free software community,' this might be seen as more of a blow to Microsoft than to GNU/Linux."

On the heels of their December release, the 13.02 release of the Genode multi-server microkernel OS framework continues to deliver major new features. Under the hood, there's support for the IOMMU, bringing safe bus master DMA to userspace drivers (overcoming one of the final advantages monolithic kernels had). They've also added full virtualization support, good enough to boot Linux as an application. In the cool department, they've added a new low latency audio interface that could very well pave the way for something akin to JACK, and right now provides a lightweight way for the system to beep at you in real time . A few more libraries have been ported (libssh, curl, iconv) in preparation for a port of git to the Noux native GNU runtime. There are also a bunch of other improvements to their NOVA microkernel, support for running on the Exynos 5250 and Freescale i.MX53, a new console multiplexer, improvements to the display server, simplification of the base libraries, and more. I'll be attempting to build it and give it a spin to see how well it works in practice sometime soon.

An anonymous reader writes "With work done by ARM and Linaro, there is now a bootable image of Debian/Ubuntu that works for ARM64, the new 64-bit ARM architecture. There are still some caveats and work ahead, but Linux is once again the first platform that has software ready to run on a new architecture when released. This 64-bit ARM Linux support also includes the ability to run 32-bit ARM software side-by-side." You can grab a bootable rootfs, but there's no hardware to actually run it on now (the developers are using the free-as-in-beer simulator from ARM). Kernel support for the architecture was released around a year ago; this is more a tale of getting from a bootable kernel to a bootable operating system.

sfcrazy writes "Quite a lot of people raised their eyebrows the way ex-Red Hat developer Matthew Garrett made Microsoft the 'universal' control of any desktops PCs running with UEFI secure boot. Though the intentions of Garrett were clear — to enable GNU/Linux to be able to run Linux on Windows 8 certified PCs with secure boot; it was clearly putting Microsoft in a very powerful position. Linus, while a supporter of secure boot, exploded at Garrett and Howells when they proposed its inclusion in the kernel. Linus responded: 'Guys, this is not a d*#@-sucking contest. If you want to parse PE binaries, go right ahead. If Red Hat wants to deep-throat Microsoft, that's *your* issue. That has nothing what-so-ever to do with the kernel I maintain. It's trivial for you guys to have a signing machine that parses the PE binary, verifies the signatures, and signs the resulting keys with your own key. You already wrote the code, for chissake, it's in that f*cking pull request.'" Update: 02/25 17:24 GMT by U L : The headline/article are misleading, since mjg seems to agree that the patch is a bit complicated : "(I mean, *I'm* fine with the idea that they're *@#$ing idiots and deserve to be miserable, but apparently there's people who think this is a vital part of a business model)". The issue at hand is a set of patches to load and store keys inside of a UEFI PE binary which is then passed to the kernel, which then extracts the keys from the binary. It's absurd, it's messy, and it's only needed because Microsoft will only sign PE binaries so not supporting it makes restricted boot even more difficult to support.

Kagetsuki writes "There's a project on KickStarter for a Free and Open set of emoji [the graphical emoticon glyph set which has a block reserved in Unicode]. Currently there are no full sets of Emoji that are completely free (as in beer and and freedom), so if this project gets funded it will be the first and only set of emoji that can, say, be distributed with FLOSS Linux/BSD/GNU systems. Not to mention anyone will be able to incorporate them into any project without any restrictive conditions." And lest you think emoji devoid of literary value, reader coondoggie points out that the Library of Congress has just welcomed (or at least allowed) onto its vaunted shelves an all-emoji version of Melville's Moby Dick, created with the help of translators working through Amazon's Mechanical Turk.

Two years ago Guile Scheme, the official extension language of the GNU project, released version 2.0, a major upgrade to the implementation. As part of the two year anniversary, the maintainers organized a challenge to hack a small project using Guile in 30 days as part of a birthday software potluck. The two coolest dishes appear to be OpenGL support using the FFI, and XCB bindings built using the XML specification for XCB: "guile-xcb is a language implemented in the Guile VM that parses the XML files used by the xcb project to specify the X protocol and compiles them into Guile modules containing all the methods and data needed to send requests to the X server and receive replies/events back. If new X extensions are added to the xcb library, guile-xcb can compile and add them with no additional work. " See the release announcement for details on the other dishes.

Four years after the last release, version 5.0 of Texinfo, the GNU documentation language, has been released. The primary highlight is a new implementation of makeinfo info in Perl rather than C. Although slower, the new version offers several advantages: cleaner code using a structured representation of the input document, Unicode support, and saner support for multiple output backends. There are over a dozen other improvements including better formatting of URLs, improved cross-manual references, and a program to convert Perl POD documentation to Texinfo.

New submitter karijes writes "Evil is a new Emacs major mode intended to implement full Vim emulation for Emacs editor, and it's reached its first stable release. Evil implements many Vim features and has support for plugins, so there is port for rails.vim, NERDCommenter and mapleader among others. You can find details about this release on the mailing list."

MojoKid writes "AMD has yet to make an official statement on this topic, but several unofficial remarks and leaks point in the same direction. Contrary to rumor, there won't be a new GCN 2.0 GPU out this spring to head up the Radeon HD 8000 family. This breaks with a pattern AMD has followed for nearly six years. AMD recently refreshed its mobile product lines with HD 8000M hardware, replacing some old 40nm parts with new 28nm GPUs based on GCN (Graphics Core Next). In desktop, it's a different story. AMD is already shipping 'Radeon HD 8000' cards to OEMs, but these cards are based on HD 7000 cores with new model numbers. RAM, TDP, core counts, and architectural features are all identical to the HD 7000 lineup. GPU rebadges are nothing new, but this is the first time in at least six years that AMD has rebadged the top end of a product line. Obviously any delay in a cutthroat market against Nvidia is a non-optimal situation, but consider the problem from AMD's point of view. We know AMD built the GPU inside Wii U. It's also widely rumored to have designed the CPU and GPU for the Xbox Durango and possibly both of those components for the PS4 as well. It's possible, if not likely, that the company has opted to focus on the technologies most vital to its survival over the next 12 months." Maybe the Free GNU/Linux drivers will be ready at launch after all.

An anonymous reader writes "Hurd, the GNU micro-kernel project that was founded by Richard Stallman in 1983, may finally be catching up with Linux on the desktop... Plans were shared by its developers to finally bring in some modern functionality by working on support for Serial ATA drives, USB support, and sound cards. There are also ambitions to provide x86-64 CPU architecture support. GNU Hurd developers will be doing an unofficial Debian GNU/Hurd 'Wheezy' release this year but they hope for the Debian 'Jessie' release their micro-kernel in Debian will make it as part of some official CDs."

Michael Ross writes "Web designers, graphics artists, and others who create and edit digital images, have a number of commercial image-manipulation packages from which they can choose — such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Fireworks (originally developed by Macromedia). Yet there are also many alternatives in the open-source world, the most well-known being GNU Image Manipulation Program. GIMP is available for all major operating systems, and supports all commonly-used image formats. This powerful application is loaded with features, including plug-ins and scripting. Yet detractors criticize it as being complicated (as if Photoshop is intuitively obvious). Admittedly, anyone hoping to learn it could benefit from a comprehensive guide, such as The Book of GIMP." Keep reading for the rest of Michael's review.

First time accepted submitter aNonnyMouseCowered writes "One of my favorite freeware Android applications has been pulled from the Google Play app store. While I found a replacement for the app, I've decided to install only apps that won't become obsolete merely because of the developer's whim or lack of interest. With the exception of games, which I don't deem essential for work, I don't want to install potential abandonware even if they cost the pauperly sum of $0.00. My decision has thus far meant installing a relatively crude text editor like BusyBox's version of vi, rather than any one of those full-blown mobile office suites. I've found a short list of open source Android apps at Wikipedia, including the usual suspects, Firefox and the VLC media player. There are also links to two other sites at the end of the article. But even the more comprehensive listings have large gaps in them even when compared 'merely' to the programs available in a typical GNU/Linux repository. So can anyone recommend useful or even just fun Free, Libre and Open Source Software for an Android smartphone or tablet? Free virtual beer to those that can find links for FLOSS programs for editing audiovisual media (Blender for Android?) and documents more sophisticated than HTML."

WebMink writes "Microsoft seems to have been in combat against the GNU GPL throughout the history of free and open source software. But that may be changing. They have recently updated the terms of use for software developers in their Windows Phone app store to allow any OSI-approved open source license — even the GPL. They include extraordinarily broad language that gives the open source license priority over their own license terms, saying: 'If your Application or In-App Product includes FOSS, your license terms may conflict with the limitations set forth in Section 3 of the Standard Application License Terms, but only to the extent required by the FOSS that you use.' Could it be that the most open source friendly app stores will be the ones run my Microsoft?"

An anonymous reader writes "The Arch Linux distribution has been modified to run off the FreeBSD 9.0 kernel as an alternative to using Linux. The developer of Arch BSD explained his reasoning as enjoying FreeBSD while also liking the Arch Linux philosophy of a 'fast, lightweight, optimized distro,' so he sought to combine the two operating systems to have FreeBSD at its core while being encircled by Arch. The Arch BSD initiative is similar to Debian GNU/kFreeBSD."

ultranerdz writes "Fedora 18 has been released. Featuring a new installer UI, GNOME 3.6, Clojure, DragonEgg, KDE Plasma Workspaces 4.9, MATE Desktop, Samba 4, Secure Boot, and updated major packages versions, this is one of the most anticipated Fedora versions yet. After more than two months of slips and delays, Fedora 18 is finally here." I'm glad to see MATE becoming more widely available; it suits me, as a GNOME 2 fan but not a complete troglodyte.