Open Source Computing

Week 12, Apr 13

Individual Assignment 2

On Sakai, due Wednesday of Week 14

RMS apology


https://www.fsf.org/news/rms-addresses-the-free-software-community


ZDNet describes it as a "defensive non-apology apology", though I think that's a bit over the top. Still, while RMS addresses the Minsky issue, his discussion of the harassment issues did fall short. And there remains the fact that the FSF has largely lost the war vis- à-vis "open source".

Signal updates open-source server code after it failed to for nearly a year

Signal

So just how "open source" is Signal? Their app is certainly a walled garden, barely sending strict SMS to Apple phones. What was the server-code delay? One theory is that they were not releasing code because they were working on a new "payments feature", which is true, but releases to the branch without that feature would still have been in order.

Take that, Elastic Search!

Amazon OpenSearch official announcement: aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/introducing-opensearch.

This is in response to what I reported in Week 1:

Elastic is changing their license because they are really annoyed with Amazon

elastic.co/blog/why-license-change-AWS

The very next day, Amazon made their preliminary announcement: aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/stepping-up-for-a-truly-open-source-elasticsearch.

Linux security

    Pick up at Heartbleed code

Open-source security issues:

See also "Three Issues"

But let's not forget the structural reasons why MS Windows security has been so difficult: hard-to-audit settings, license restrictions on backup installations, compromises to address user revolt