Liberals now support net neutrality
Written by Jason Wallwork   
Monday, 22 June 2009 15:32

Two stories here. The Conservatives have introduced new legislation covering lawful access to ISP subscriber information:

The bills would dramatically change the Internet in Canada, requiring Internet service providers to install new surveillance capabilities, force them to disclose subscriber information such as name, address and email address without a court order, as well as grant police broad new powers to obtain Internet transmission data. (Globe and Mail, June 22, 2009)

I love the bit about being able to do it without a court order. Yikes. I'm sure the real reason behind the bill is the media companies being able to pull names of those sharing movies and music but they probably don't want you to think that.

The related story here is that Liberals have now given notice that they support Net Neutrality:

Hours later, the scene shifted to question period, where Liberal Industry critic Marc Garneau surprised Internet watchers by emphasizing the importance of an open Internet and declaring that the Liberal party now firmly supports net neutrality. The party has adopted a position opposing the management of Internet traffic that infringes privacy and targets specific websites, users and legitimate business applications.

The move represents an unexpected shift in policy direction just weeks before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is scheduled to conduct hearings on network management practices. For months, the NDP has stood virtually alone among the major Canadian political parties in its support for web neutrality.

Welcome to the party, Liberals. You're late arriving but it's still good to have you.

 
Google launches Chrome for Mac, Linux
Written by Jason Wallwork   
Tuesday, 09 June 2009 17:00

CDsAs promised, Google has released versions of its Chrome browser for Linux and the Mac. However, these are very early versions, not anywhere near as complete the early Windows release. To quote the developers in the Chromium blog,

... please DON'T DOWNLOAD THEM! Unless of course you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software.
How incomplete? So incomplete that, among other things , you won't yet be able to view YouTube videos, change your privacy settings, set your default search provider, or even print.
If you're still interested, you can find the Linux version here and the Mac version here.
 
New Open Source Magazine Needs Submissions
Written by Jason Wallwork   
Saturday, 06 June 2009 03:54

Links iconFibonacci is the annual magazine of the Students’ Forum for Free/Open Source Software running under ABV-Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management Gwalior. The magazine aims to:

  • Spread awareness about Open Source Software and the Politics of Openness among college students
  • Provide technical knowledge for those working in engineering and technical sectors
  • Provide a forum for launching and describing international open source initiatives
  • To cultivate interest of students towards Software Development through Open Sourcing
  • Inculcate and support the ethics and philosophy of Open Source.

The magazine will be free to read and articles will be released under a Creative Commons “Attribution, Share-alike” license. Theyre' inviting all members and supporters of FLOSS to submit articles or spread the word. Articles should be submitted by 15th June, 2009.

For more information, please visit http://sf-foss.iiitm.ac.in/fibonacci/.

 
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