Qooxdoo 4.1.1 and 5.0

The week in qooxdoo (2015-05-22)

Posted on May 22, 2015 by Andreas Ecker

Welcome back to the weekly status update.

Upcoming Releases

We have started to work on the ramp-down for two new releases: a maintenance release qooxdoo 4.1.1 as well as a major release qooxdoo 5.0. They are expected to ship in mid June.

qooxdoo 4.1.1

Currently there already are 70+ issues resolved for qooxdoo 4.1.1.

qooxdoo 5.0

qooxdoo 5.0 has about the same number of add’tl issues resolved. That’s a total of about 140 issues for qooxdoo 5.0, currently. As some API changes are to be part of this upcoming release (in the qx.Website domain of the framework), and acc. to our semantic versioning scheme it will be called 5.0 instead of 4.2.

As said, there’s currently the ramp-down phase dominated by testing and bugfixing. We work towards stable, complete release packages in the next few days. With a number of holidays and absences coming up, we expect to do the actual shipping in about 3 weeks, i.e. in mid June. Stay tuned.

qooxdoo 4.0 released

qooxdoo 4.0 released

We are happy to announce a new release of the framework, qooxdoo 4.0.
Many thanks go to the entire community for making this happen: the team of core developers, 1&1 as the supporting company, all contributors and users who brought in their suggestions and improvements.

A major highlight of the current release covers all three GUI toolkits (website, mobile and desktop). Your qooxdoo-based app can now work with all kind of input devices. This is an awesome feature in this ever-growing multi-device world:

Press Release: Oh, oh, oh! Sabayon 14.01

Sabayon 14.01 is a modern and easy to use Linux distribution based on Gentoo, following an extreme, yet reliable, rolling release model.
This is a monthly release generated, tested and published to mirrors by our build servers containing the latest and greatest collection of software available in the Entropy repositories.
The ChangeLog files related to this release are available on our mirrors.

Linux Kernel 3.12.5 with BFQ iosched, updated external ZFS filesystem support, GNOME 3.10.3, KDE 4.11.4, Xfce 4.10,LibreOffice 4.1.3, UEFI SecureBoot support for 64 bit images (with bundled UEFI shell), systemd as default init system, a greatly improved version of the Entropy package manager supporting concurrent activities (like parallel installation of applications) and PackageKit 0.8.x support with backend parallelization enabled. Last but not really least, the integration of Steam and a new install profile called Steam Big Picture mode (also improperly known as SteamBox on my blog) that turns your computer into a powerful Linux gaming machine.
These are just some of the awesome things you will find inside the box.

Read more: http://www.sabayon.org/latest

qooxdoo 3.0 released

We are happy to announce a new major release of the framework, qooxdoo 3.0.
Many thanks go to the entire community for making this happen: the team of core developers,1&1 as the supporting company, all contributors, and last but not least the users and enthusiasts who brought in questions, comments and suggestions.

The release of qooxdoo 2.0 about a year ago was a landmark in the framework’s ongoing evolution to become a universal JavaScript framework. Now with the release of qooxdoo 3.0 each of the three major application domains, i.e. Desktop, Mobile and Website, ship with substantial if not radical improvements.

Read more: http://news.qooxdoo.org/qooxdoo-3-0-released

Direct3D 9 Support Released For Linux Via Gallium3D, Running Games

Linux desktop systems can now have working support for Microsoft's Direct3D 9 API via a new Gallium3D state tracker. Unlike the earlier Direct3D 10/11 state tracker for Gallium3D on Linux, this new code actually can run D3D9 games and at better performance than what's offered by Wine. 
Back in 2010, Direct3D 10/11 was natively implemented for Linux in the form of a Gallium3D state tracker. While Gallium3D is most often associated with OpenGL, its API agnostic and handles OpenGL ES, OpenVG, and even OpenCL for compute support, among other interfaces. Gallium3D can work just as well with Direct3D, but there has traditionally been not much developer interest in such a state tracker. This isn't to be confused with a translation layer whereby Direct3D commands are mapped into OpenGL.

Read more: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTQxMjk

A Year of the Linux Desktop

Around a year ago, a school in the southeast of England, Westcliff High School for Girls Academy (WHSG), began switching its student-facing computers to Linux, with KDE providing the desktop software. The school's Network Manager, Malcolm Moore, contacted us at the time. Now, a year on, he got in touch again to let us know how he and the students find life in a world without Windows.

A room full of Linux at WHSG (image by WHSG) 

One of WHSG's desktops (image by WHSG)

[Source] Full Article here: http://dot.kde.org/2013/07/04/year-linux-desktop

Take action for free JavaScript

Choosing to run free software on your computer is a powerful statement. Unfortunately, regardless of what you have installed on your desktop or laptop, you are almost certainly running hundreds of nonfree programs as you surf the Web. Web sites often use programs written in JavaScript to expand the capabilities of HTML, adding menus, buttons, text editors, music players, and many other features. Browsers come configured to download and run the JavaScript without ever making the user aware of it. Contrary to popular perception, almost no JavaScript runs "on the Web site" -- it runs locally on users' computers when they visit a site.

Source: 
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/take-action-for-free-javascript
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/05/29/2232224/taking-action-for-free-javascript

Related:
Group:Free Javascript Action Team
Javascript Trap by Richard Stallman

Sabayon 13.04 release

Sabayon 13.04 is a modern and easy to use Linux distribution based on Gentoo, following an extreme, yet reliable, rolling release model.
This is a monthly release generated, tested and published to mirrors by our build servers containing the latest and greatest collection of software available in the Entropy repositories.
The ChangeLog files related to this release are available on our mirrors.

Linux Kernel 3.8.8 (3.8.10 available through updates, 3.9 available in hours) with BFQ iosched and ZFS, GNOME 3.6.3, KDE 4.10.2, MATE 1.6 (thanks to infirit), Xfce 4.10, LibreOffice 4.0, production ready UEFI (and SecureBoot) support and experimental systemd support (including openrc boot speed improvements) are just some of the things you will find inside the box.

Please read on to know where to find the images and their torrent files on our mirrors. Pay attention that there were unreleased 13.04 ISO images previously on our mirrors. Make sure to download images with the correct MD5 checksum though (or just re-download the ISO images).

Source: http://sabayon.org/release/press-release-sabayon-1304

Raspberry Pi at Southampton

SOURCE AND ORIGINAL: http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~sjc/raspberrypi/index.htm

Aaron Swartz

Aaron H. Swartz (November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013) was an American computer programmer, writer, archivist, political organizer, and Internet activist.

Swartz was a member of the RSS-DEV Working Group that co-authored the "RSS 1.0" specification of RSS,^[2] and built the Web site framework web.py and the architecture for theOpen Library. He also built Infogami, a company that merged with Reddit in its early days, through which he became an equal owner of the merged company.^[i] Swartz also focused on sociology, civic awareness and activism. In 2010 he was a member of the Harvard UniversityCenter for Ethics. He cofounded the online group Demand Progress (known for its campaign against SOPA) and later worked with US and international activist groups Rootstrikers and Avaaz.

On January 6, 2011, Swartz was arrested in connection with systematic downloading of academic journal articles from JSTOR, which became the subject of a federal investigation.^[3][4] Swartz opposed JSTOR's practice of compensating publishers, rather than authors, out of the fees it charges for access to articles. Swartz contended that JSTOR's fees limited access to academic work produced at American colleges and universities.^[5][6]

Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

Android SDK is now proprietary, Replicant to the rescue

I just noticed that the Android SDK is now non-free software. If you go to

https://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html#download

and click on one of the files, you are presented with lengthy “Terms and Conditions” which for example say:

In order to use the SDK, you must first agree to this License Agreement. You may not use the SDK if you do not accept this License Agreement.

This sentence alone already violates freedom 0, the freedom to use the program for any purpose without restrictions.

Today, the truly Free Software version of Android called Replicant came to the rescue and released a free (as in free speech) version of the SDK.

MK802 II Mini PC Now Costs as Much as Raspberry Pi Model B. Let’s Compare Them!

MK802 mini PC quickly went viral as it launched in May 2012 for $74 US, and since then many Chinese manufacturers have jumped into the market bringing both new faster devices, and the price down. AllWinner A10s, a low cost version of AllWinner A10 used in MK802, was also launched specifically for this market to bring costs even lower. Today, I’ve been informed an HDMI TV dongle based on AllWinner A10s that sells for $36.55 on Tinydeal.com which is a very good price, but decided to check on Aliexpress to look for comparable deals, and found one shop selling MK802 II for $34.91 including shipping via China Post, which makes it cheaper than the Raspberry Pi model B selling for $35 excluding shipping.

Read more: http://www.cnx-software.com/2012/12/26/mk802-ii-mini-pc-now-costs-as-much-as-raspberry-pi-model-b-lets-compare-them/#ixzz2GN0CBDhy

GNUs trick-or-treat at Windows 8 launch

Yesterday morning, the Free Software Foundation crashed the Windows 8 launch event in New York City. A cheerful GNU and her team handed out DVDs loaded with Trisquel, FSF stickers, and information about our new pledge, which asks Windows users to upgrade not to Windows 8, but to GNU/Linux.

Check out these great photos of the fun, and don't forget to sign our pledge!

Read more and photos: http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/gnus-trick-or-treat-at-windows-8-launch

Vesa Linja-ahon blogi: A group of Finnish math teachers write an open tex...

Vesa Linja-ahon blogi: A group of Finnish math teachers write an open tex...: A group of Finnish mathematics researchers, teachers and students write an upper secondary mathematics textbook in a booksprint. The event s...

Link from: http://science.slashdot.org/story/12/09/29/2158225/teachers-write-an-open-textbook-in-a-weekend-hackathon

Generate SSL self-signed certificate and key, enable https encryption in web2py | Recipe | Web2py Slices - Recipes, Tutorials, Code, Questions

Nice article and nice work. For web2py devs who need SSL. It will automatically generate .crt and .key files. Then, if you gonna run web2py, just add -c generated.crt -k generated.key arguments.

Generate SSL self-signed certificate and key, enable https encryption in web2py | Recipe | Web2py Slices - Recipes, Tutorials, Code, Questions

Press Release. Sabayon 10

We're once again here to announce the immediate availability of Sabayon 10 in all of its tier-1 flavours. If you really enjoyed Sabayon 9, this is just another step towards World domination (yay!). There you have it, shining at full bright, for your home computer, your laptop and your servers, virtualized or not. Linux Kernel 3.5.4 with BFQ iosched, GNOME 3.4.2, KDE 4.9 (4.9.1 available in days), Xfce 4.10, LibreOffice 3.6 are just some of the things you will find inside the box. Gentoo Hardened kernels, Improved Rigo -- a new way of browsing and installing Applications, more ZFS integration work, Mesa 9 stack, Amazon EC2 support, Infinality Freetype patches, and much more.

Source: http://www.sabayon.com/release/press-release-sabayon-10