Open Source Subnet: An independent Open Source community

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  Google Reed-er

  Tech's original Great Satan calls out Google for being evil by Brad Reed

  My, how the tables have turned!  Microsoft is apparently placing ads in major newspapers this week (I say "apparently" because no one reads newspapers anymore and I thus have no way of fact-checking) that call out Google for being too evil and not "putting people first."  Yes, it's pretty amusing that Google, which has long branded itself as the good-guy tech company, is now under fire from Microsoft, which happens to be tech's original Great Satan.  Let's take a look at the post...

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  Open Source Matters

  Who's Afraid of Night of the Living Maps? by Rikki Endsley

  "It's a LAN-party like feeling for map enthusiasts, and because you may have blood-shot eyes after 8hrs of non stop mapping, we decided to give it a zombie theme," the wiki announcement says. The mapathon is open to experienced "OSMers" and novices alike.To participate, join a party near you or start your own. And it might not even be necessary to BYOB! "The OSM Foundation and the FOSSGIS e.V. will support your local party with a small amount of money, so you can buy junkfood and drinks," the...

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  Google Reed-er

  The Internet: It ain't designed to protect your privacy by Brad Reed

  Over at Forbes, Scott Cleland has a pretty good column examining why there aren't more social networks and email services that fully protect user privacy, despite the fact that users always get up in arms whenever companies such as Google and Facebook make changes to their services that could harm our ability to keep our data to ourselves.  Cleland uses a lot of econospeak in his column (which I'll do my best to translate for people without econ degrees), but his argument basically boils...

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  Google Reed-er

  "We ain't backin' down," says defiant Google by Brad Reed

  Google is pushing back on some of the criticism many in the press have tossed its way over the past few days.  Google policy manager Betsy Masiello has taken to Google's public policy blog to clear some of the air about what the company's new unified privacy policy means for its users.  Let's take a look:A lot has been said about our new privacy policy. Some have praised us for making our privacy policy easier to understand. Others have asked questions, including members of...

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  Google Reed-er

  Google's new privacy policy attracting attention from Congress by Brad Reed

  This isn't entirely surprising, but Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) is calling for the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Google's sweeping new privacy policy that will extend to most of its major services:"All consumers should have the right to say no to sharing of their personal information, particularly when young people are involved," Markey said. "Google's new privacy policy should enable consumers to opt-out if they don’t want their use of YouTube to morph into YouTrack.  Consumers...

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  Open Source Fact and Fiction

  NYSE Takes Stock of Open Source CMS by Alan Shimel

  Few global organizations can match the size, scale and importance of NYSE Euronext. (NYX). The leading global operator of financial markets, NYSE Euronext's markets represent fully one third of the entire world's equities trading-and the company is a major player in derivatives and technology services. NYSE Euronext is in the S&P 500 index and Fortune 500. With all of that of course goes tremendous responsibility for systems integrity and security. That is why it might surprise some to find...

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  Open Source Fact and Fiction

  Is Security An Afterthought For NoSQL? by Alan Shimel

  There has been a not so silent debate going on in the security world about the security profile of the NoSQL database products. While no one can argue that NoSQL has seen a dramatic rise over the last few years, there are those who say that in the rush to capture market things like security have been neglected (of course there are also those who say that NoSQL is nothing more than a passing fad and will soon be consumed back into the larger database market.).    Any time you...

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  Open Source Matters

  Meet the Gentlemen Behind Gentlemint by Rikki Endsley

  You might be surprised by how many high tech happenings we see in Lawrence, Kansas. For example, does the Django web framework ring a bell? A new quirky site, Gentlemint — a masculine response to Pinterest — recently went live. In this interview, Lawrence local Brian McKinney explains the inspiration behind the masculine site he and co-conspirator Glen Stansberry rolled out last week.RE: Tell me about the idea behind Gentlemint. What or who inspired it? BM: Gentlemint was inspired by a lot of...

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  Open Source Fact and Fiction

  Sourcefire Stays True To Its Roots by Alan Shimel

  Sourcefire is a security company that had its genesis in founder Marty Roesch's Snort open source intrusion detection system. Along the way Sourcefire has taken over the stewardship and introduced several other open source projects. One of the best known was the ClamAV anti-malware project.  While Sourcefire has grown beyond Snort and ClamAV to a full range of commercial solutions, they have always stayed true to their open source roots.  A little while back they bought Immunet,...

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  Open Source Matters

  Shuttleworth Offers a Heads Up on Head-Up Display by Rikki Endsley

  The next long term support (LTS) release of Ubuntu is scheduled to roll out in April of this year, and users should expect to see "the first step in a major new approach to application interfaces." In his blog post announcement, Shuttleworth introduces HUD, which he says will eventually replace menus in Unity applications. See his post for a video demo of HUD in action.Shuttleworth calls HUD the "intenterface," saying, "It’s a way for you to express your intent and have the application respond...

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