free code

EFF wins enormous victory against DRM: legal to jailbreak iPhones, rip DVDs for mashup videos

From the Owning What's Yours dept.:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation drove three deep wedges into the US prohibition on breaking DRM today. EFF had applied to the Copyright Office to grant exemptions permitting the cracking of DRM in three cases: first, to "jailbreak" a mobile device, such as an iPhone, where DRM is used to prevent phone owners from running software of their own choosing; second, to allow video remix artists to break the DRM on DVDs in order to take short excerpts for mashups posted to YouTube and other sharing sites; finally EFF got the Copyright Office to renew its ruling that made it illegal to unlock cellphones so that they can be used with any carrier.

Auto manufacturers want to put brakes on Mass. right-to-repair law (Open Source Car Tech)

From the Buy Once, Get Reamed Everywhere dept.:
Mom-and-pop repair shops in Massachusetts are pushing a bill that would require auto manufacturers to provide, at a price, all the diagnostic and software information they make available to their dealerships.

Massachusetts would become the first state to approve the so-called auto right-to-repair law. The Senate recently passed it, and it's pending in the House. Industry observers say passage of the bill in Massachusetts could drive similar legislative efforts in other states.

Rackspace Opens the Cloud with OpenStack

From the Cloudiness, Chance of Openness dept.:
OpenStack is an open-source cloud platform designed to foster the emergence of technology standards and cloud interoperability. The initial components being offered through this project include the code that powers our Cloud Files (available today) and Cloud Servers (expected available late 2010). Leaders in the technology industry and other stakeholders support the project and are expected to help us drive a deployable, completely open cloud solution.

What does an open cloud mean for you?
Prevents vendor lock-in
Increases flexibility in deployment for a highly elastic commodity cloud
Offers a bigger, more robust ecosystem for more tools, better capabilities and a stronger platform
Gives you the freedom to decide how you want your cloud
Drives greater industry standards
Increases the speed of innovation in cloud technologies

Microsoft opens source code to Russian secret service

From the uh huh dept.:
Russian publication Vedomosti reported on Wednesday that Microsoft had also given the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) access to Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft SQL Server source code, with hopes of improving Microsoft sales to the Russian state.

The agreement will allow state bodies to study the source code and develop cryptography for the Microsoft products through the Science-Technical Centre 'Atlas', a government body controlled by the Ministry of Communications and Press, according to Vedomosti.

Microsoft Russia president Nikolai Pryanishnikov told Vedomosti that employees of Atlas and the FSB will be able to share conclusions about Microsoft products.

Brazil Forbids DRM On the Public Domain

From the Hands Off! dept.:
Brazil has just created the best-ever implementation of WCT. In Brazil's version of the law, you can break DRM without breaking the law, provided you're not also committing a copyright violation. And what's more, any rightsholder who adds a DRM that restricts things that are allowed by Brazilian copyright laws ("fair dealing" or "fair use") faces a fine.

Python 2.7

From the dept.:
On behalf of the Python development team, I'm jocund to announce the final release of Python 2.7.

Python 2.7 will be the last major version in the 2.x series. However, it will also have an extended period of bugfix maintenance.

2.7 includes many features that were first released in Python 3.1. The faster io module, the new nested with statement syntax, improved float repr, set literals, dictionary views, and the memoryview object have been backported from 3.1. Other features include an ordered dictionary implementation, unittests improvements, a new sysconfig module, auto-numbering of fields in the str/unicode format method,
and support for ttk Tile in Tkinter.

Mozilla Updates Firefox To Appease FarmVille Users

From the FoxVille dept.:
Just three days after adding plug-in crash protection to Firefox, Mozilla rushed out another release because people playing FarmVille on Facebook complained that their browser was shutting down the game. Although complaints about Firefox's quick killing of hung plug-ins were not limited to FarmVille, that game was the squeaky wheel that got the update grease.

Firefox 3.6.4 - Less Flash Apocolypse

From the Haters Gonna Mitigate the Hate dept.:
Mozilla Firefox 3.6.4 went to general release today. The big new feature in this release is out-of-process plugins (OOPP). This means things like Flash, Java, QuickTime, etc., all run in separate processes, so when Flash decides to crash, it won't take your browser out with it. If Flash starts consuming all the CPU it can find, you can kill it without nuking your browser session. I've been using this feature since it was in the 'nightly build' stage, and it was still more stable than 3.6.3, just because Flash was isolated."

SCO Recurring Nightmare Lawsuit Finally Closed

From the Good Riddance dept.:
udge Ted Stewart has ruled for Novell and against SCO. Novell's claim for declaratory judgment is granted; SCO's claims for specific performance and breach of the implied covenant of good fair and fair dealings are denied. Also SCO's motion for judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial: denied. SCO is entitled to waive, at its sole discretion, claims against IBM, Sequent and other SVRX licensees.
CASE CLOSED!

Maybe I should say cases closed. The door has slammed shut on the SCO litigation machine. The judge writes in the Memorandum Decision and Order about SCOsource, "Finally, while SCO's witnesses testified that the copyrights were 'required' for SCO to run its SCOsource licensing program, this was not something that SCO ever acquired from Novell." He totally got it. He noticed Darl McBride admitted that SCO didn't need the copyrights.

Canonical developing Ubuntu OS for tablets

From the MUbuntu dept.:
Canonical is preparing a version of the Ubuntu OS for tablet computers as the company looks to extend its presence in the mobile space, a company executive said.

Tablets with the Ubuntu OS could become available late in winter 2011, said Chris Kenyon, Canonical's vice president of OEM services. The OS will be a lightweight version of Linux with a simplified, touch-friendly user interface.