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Comment Re:No different from the GPL. (Score 1) 549

by kungfoofairy (#34060162) Attached to: Pay Or Else, News Site Threatens

The GPL is a PERMISSIVE license. This thing is a RESTRICTIVE license, and it's applied retroactively. Neither of which happens with the GPL.

GPL is a non-permissive copyleft license. GPL does not permit you to distribute copies under a more restrictive license. MIT and BSD licenses are examples of permissive (copyfree) licenses.
Government

Submission + - US govt Launches Web Site to Track IT Spending

Submitted by andy1307
andy1307 writes:

According to this article in the Washington Post, Vivek Kundra, the federal chief information officer, on Tuesday announced a new Web site designed to track more than $70 billion in government information technology spending, showing all contracts held by major firms within every agency. The site shows detailed information about whether IT contracts are being monitored and budgets being met. The data also show which contracts were won through a competitive process or in a no-bid method, which has been criticized by good-government advocates for excluding firms from business opportunities. Each prime contractor is listed as well as the status of that project; sub-contractors are not yet shown on the site.

The website is http://usaspending.gov/. The view dashboard link has already been slashdoted.

Mozilla

Submission + - Firefox 3.5 Reviewed (slate.com)

Submitted by
johndmartiniii
johndmartiniii writes: "Farhad Manjoo has a review of Firefox 3.5 at Slate.com this week. From the article:

"Lately I've been worried about Firefox. Ever since its debut in 2004, the open-source Web browser has won acclaim for its speed, stability, and customizability. It eventually captured nearly a quarter of the market, an astonishing achievement for a project run by a nonprofit foundation. But recently Firefox seemed to go soft." The worried tone in the beginning of the review gives way to excitement over the HTML5 features being implemented, saying that thus far Firefox 3.5 "offers the best implementation of the standard--and because it's the second-most-popular Web browser in the world, the new release is sure to prompt Web designers to create pages tailored to the Web's new language.""
Social Networks

Submission + - Amazon Gift ordering patent revoked

Submitted by
Elektroschock
Elektroschock writes: "The Amazon gift ordering patent was revoked today by the European Patent Office. A 100% victory. In a press release they write: "The so-called "Gift Order Patent" has been revoked by the EPO in an opposition proceeding today after a hearing involving three opposing parties and the patent proprietor, Amazon Inc. The patent relates to a method for purchasing goods over the Internet to be sent as gifts." Santa did not have lodge opposition against the patent. The opponents were Fleurop, the FFII and the German computer science society. What strikes me is that so many parties benefit that infringed upon the patent but you just need very few organisations that file an opposition. Why are not more patents opposed?"
Biotech

Submission + - Nanotube-Excreting Bacteria Allow Mass Production (eurekalert.org)

Submitted by
Invisible Pink Unicorn
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "Engineers at the University of California, Riverside have found semiconducting nanotubes produced by living bacteria — a discovery that could help in the creation of a new generation of nanoelectronic devices. According to the lead researcher, 'We have shown that a jar with a bug in it can create potentially useful nanostructures.' This is the first time nanotubes have been shown to be produced by biological rather than chemical means. This research began when they observed something unexpected happening while attempting to clean up arsenic contamination using the metal-reducing bacterium Shewanella. In a process that is not yet fully understood, the bacterium secretes polysacarides that seem to produce the template for the arsenic-sulfide nanotubes. These nanotubes behave as metals with electrical and photoconductive properties useful in nanoelectronics. The article abstract is available from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
Books

Submission + - Group hopes to rename street after Douglas Adams.

Submitted by
interstellar_donkey
interstellar_donkey writes: "After the recent brouhaha over the renaming of 4th Ave after César Chávez, a Portland group is pushing to rename a local street after the late writer Douglas Adams. The street? Why, 42nd Ave, of course. According to their website, the renaming will reflect Portlanders' commitment to the arts, respect for the environment, desire to provide technological access to all, their passion to further education to all people, and most importantly remind Portlanders DON'T PANIC. This appears to be a serious movement, with preliminary paperwork already in the works."
Security

Submission + - Blast-Proof Fabric Resists Multiple Car Bombs (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Zetix is a fabric so strong it will resist multiple car bomb blasts without breaking. It absorbs and disperses the energy from explosions thanks to an inner structure so adamantiumtastic it can be used in body armor, window covering, military tents and hurricane defenses — it might even be able to fend off my ex-wife. When not shielding from explosions, it can be used as medical sutures that won't damage body tissue. All of this is thanks to a property that apparently defies the laws of physics: helical-auxetics, objects that actually get fatter the more you stretch them. The concept makes my head want to explode, but when you see it in action it actually makes sense.
Books

Submission + - Book copies Wikipedia; Publisher aggressive on IP. (wikipedia.org) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Two pages of a book, Black Gold: The New Frontier in Oil for Investors, consist of a direct copy from the English Wikipedia article on the Khobar Towers Bombing. The book is published by John Wiley and Sons, the same publisher who, earlier this year, threatened a blogger with legal action over a clear case of fair use commentary.
Security

Submission + - Man hacks 911 system, sends SWAT on bogus raid. 5

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Orange County Register reports that a 19 year old from Washington state broke into the Orange County California 911 emergency system. He randomly selected the name and address of a Lake Forest, California couple and electronically transferred false information into the 911 system. The Orange County California Sheriff's Department's Special Weapons and Tactics Team was immediately sent to the couple's home. The armed officers surrounded the home.Inside the home lived a couple with two toddlers who were asleep and unsuspecting of what was going outside the home. The SWAT team handcuffed the husband and wife before deciding it was a prank.
Space

Submission + - Sputnik at 50: An improvised triumph (yahoo.com)

Submitted by
caffiend666
caffiend666 writes: "According to an AP News article, "When Sputnik took off 50 years ago, the world gazed at the heavens in awe and apprehension, watching what seemed like the unveiling of a sustained Soviet effort to conquer space and score a stunning Cold War triumph. But 50 years later, it emerges that the momentous launch was far from being part of a well-planned strategy to demonstrate communist superiority over the West." "At that moment we couldn't fully understand what we had done," Chertok recalled. "We felt ecstatic about it only later, when the entire world ran amok. Only four or five days later did we realize that it was a turning point in the history of civilization." "And that winking light that crowds around the globe gathered to watch in the night sky? Not Sputnik at all, as it turns out, but just the second stage of its booster rocket...""
The Internet

Submission + - Rural broadband crisis hurts residents & compa (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by
Ian Lamont
Ian Lamont writes: "Thanks to profit-oriented telco industry in the U.S., rural residents don't have as much access to broadband services as those who live in urban or suburban areas. According to the federal government, just 17% of rural U.S. households subscribe to broadband service. But the problem is more than a conflict between Wall Street and small-town residents wanting to surf the 'Net or play Warcraft — the lack of broadband access prevents many businesses from growing and diversifying rural economies, as it's expensive or impossible to get broadband:

Soon after moving to Gilsum, N.H. (population 811), [Kim] Rossey learned that he couldn't get broadband to support his Web programming business, TooCoolWebs. DSL wasn't available, and the local cable service provider wasn't interested in extending the cabling for its broadband service the three-tenths of a mile required to reach Rossey's house — even if he paid the full $7,000 cost. Rossey ended up signing a two-year, $450-per-month contract for a T1 line that delivers 1.44Mbit/sec. of bandwidth. He pays 10 times more than the cable provider would have charged and receives one quarter of the bandwidth.
The author also notes that larger businesses are being crimped, from a national call center to a national retailer which claims 17% of its store locations can't get broadband."
Power

Submission + - Solar power headed for 45% annual growth (usatoday.com) 1

Submitted by
mdsolar
mdsolar writes: "USA Today is running a pretty good article on solar power that gives an overview of the current state of the industry. Highlight include production costs of $1.19/Watt for First Solar, 40% annual cost reductions over the last five years, revenues expected to triple in three years, and it predicts 2014 as the year when solar photovoltaic power plants become cheaper than other forms of generation."
Space

Submission + - Borexino, the Sun neutrino hunter

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "An international team of more than 100 researchers has used the huge Borexino detector to detect low-energy solar neutrinos for the first time. These results confirm recent 'theories about the nature of neutrinos and the inner workings of the sun and other stars.' In particular, it's now almost certain that neutrinos oscillate between three types, namely electron, muon and tau neutrinos. The Borexino detector used for these discoveries is located near L'Aquila, Italy. It is a 18-meter-diameter dome shielded by 2,400 tonnes of purified water and lying more than a kilometer underground to block interferences with cosmic rays. Read more for additional references and a diagram showing the various components of the Borexino detector, one of the deepest laboratories in the world."
AMD

Submission + - AMD Backs openSUSE with Huge New Infrastructure (opensuse.org)

Submitted by
apokryphos
apokryphos writes: "AMD has helped sponsor the progress of openSUSE with leading-edge hardware and development expertise. "AMD is helping to ensure that the openSUSE Build Service continues to be an important collaboration and development platform for developers of all distributions," said Terri Hall, AMD vice president of Commercial Systems Marketing. "AMD recognizes the value of the open source development model, and by providing hardware for the openSUSE Build Service, we are able to actively participate in the continued innovation for which the open source community is known."

Are these continued announcements of huge support from large OEMs an indication of a new era?"

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