The End Of GCJ?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro
GCJ, the GNU Compiler for Java, has been languishing for some time, and
may be about to be put out of its misery.
Unlike the Sun/Oracle compiler, GCJ can compile to native machine code
(thanks to the common GCC infrastructure), it is not restricted to some
intermediate byte code. It originated before Sun open-sourced Java, and
I guess a lot of the need for it went away when OpenJDK appeared.
<http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GCC-Patch-To-Drop-GCJ>
3 years, 6 months
Chromification Continues: Firefox May Use Chrome's PDF and Flash Plugins
by Peter Reutemann
'Mozilla announced today Project Mortar, an initiative to explore the
possibility of deploying alternative technologies in Firefox to
replace its internal implementations. The project's first two goals
are to test two Chrome plugins within the Firefox codebase. These are
PDFium, the Chrome plugin for viewing PDF files, and Pepper Flash,
Google's custom implementation of Adobe Flash. The decision comes as
Mozilla is trying to cut down development costs, after Firefox took a
nose dive in market share this year. "In order to enable stronger
focus on advancing the Web and to reduce the complexity and long term
maintenance cost of Firefox, and as part of our strategy to remove
generic plugin support, we are launching Project Mortar," said Johnny
Stenback, Senior Director Of Engineering at Mozilla Corporation.
"Project Mortar seeks to reduce the time Mozilla spends on
technologies that are required to provide a complete web browsing
experience, but are not a core piece of the Web platform," Stenback
adds. "We will be looking for opportunities to replace such
technologies with other existing alternatives, including
implementations by other browser vendors."'
-- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/09/30/1524238
Cheers, Peter
--
Peter Reutemann
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Waikato, NZ
+64 (7) 858-5174
http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/
http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
3 years, 8 months
Raspberry Pi Foundation Unveils New LXDE-Based Desktop For Raspbian Called PIXEL
by Peter Reutemann
'Until today, Raspbian shipped with the well-known and lightweight
LXDE desktop environment, which looks pretty much the same as on any
other Linux-based distribution out there that is built around LXDE
(Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment). But Simon Long, a UX engineer
working for Raspberry Pi Foundation, was hired to make it better,
transform it into something that's more appealing to users. So after
two years of work, he managed to create a whole new desktop
environment for Raspbian, the flagship operating system for Raspberry
Pi single-board computers developed and distributed by Raspberry Pi
Foundation. Called PIXEL, the new Raspbian desktop offers a more
eye-candy design with the panel on top (not on the bottom like on a
default LXDE setup), new icons, new Applications Menu, and new theme.
"It's actually surprisingly easy to hack about with the LXDE desktop
once you get your head around what all the bits do, and since then
I've been slowly chipping away at the bits that I felt would most
benefit from tweaking," reveals Simon Long. "Stuff has slowly been
becoming more and more like my original concept for the desktop; with
the latest changes, I think the desktop has reached the point where
it's a complete product in its own right and should have its own
name."'
-- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/09/29/1640251
Cheers, Peter
--
Peter Reutemann
Dept. of Computer Science
University of Waikato, NZ
+64 (7) 858-5174
http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/
http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
3 years, 8 months
starving journalists strike back
by Ian Young
As seen on theinquirer.net. While trying to read an article up came a message.
'Incisive Media publications, including INQ, are now blocking ad-blockers'
One or two paragraphs are visible, the rest blurred. First time I've
seen this. They want to be whitelisted.
3 years, 8 months
Government IT Contract Lock-In?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro
The UK Government has an IT policy which says that no single contract
should be worth more than £100 million. The idea is to try to break up
cosy mega-contracts that favour large incumbent companies, in order to
allow a wider range of suppliers to get a look in.
This article
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/28/government_20bn_it_contract_lock_...>
is a result of a bunch of FOIA requests to different departments, to
try to get an idea of how well this policy is being implemented. As you
might expect, the results are somewhat mixed.
Anybody know anything about the NZ situation?
3 years, 8 months
Design For Design’s Sake
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro
Nice commentary
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/28/open_source_insider_peak_web/>
on what constitutes “good” or “bad” design:
... open source software might be the best designed software in
existence.
After all, FOSS software is everywhere. ... No one forced anyone to
use it for all those things. ... Open source was simply,
presumably, the best designed tool for the job. And today every
where you turn open source software is there, which is pretty
impressive for something that's supposedly very poorly designed.
...
On the other hand the world is increasingly awash in software that
looks very "modern" and "well designed" but is inevitably a
functional step backwards from the previous version.
...
I increasingly turn to FOSS software that helps me route around
this damage.
3 years, 8 months
Geek’s Guide To Britain: Cambridge University
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro
Worth mentioning this installment in the semi-regular series on The
Register because of its high computing content: Turing, Sinclair, and
of course Acorn
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/26/geeks_guide_to_britain_walking_tour/>.
Worth watching is “Micro Men”, a dramatization of the heyday of
Sinclair and Acorn, and the rivalry between them. There is one nice
sequence where Hermann Hauser, from a wealthy Austrian wine-making
family, is asked why he wanted to get into the computing business and
invest in Acorn. His reply: “Have you ever tasted Austrian wine?”
3 years, 8 months
