Free Software Leftovers

• Zstd 1.4.9 Released With ~2x Faster Performance For Long Mode

  Zstd previously introduced the "--long" mode to analyze large quantities of data in a timely manner and suitable memory budget. The aim in this mode is to improve the compression ratio for files with long matches at a large distance. With Zstd 1.4.9 the long distance mode is much faster thanks to a number of optimizations that preserve the compression ratio while drastically speeding up the compression time. Test cases are showing this long distance mode being 114~154% faster than the prior point release of Zstd. These new algorithms for the long distance mode appear to be a big win based on all of the data published thus far.

• Conditions and Implied Licenses: Bitmanagement v. United States

  An interesting case was handed down by the Federal Circuit on February 25, 2021, discussing some software licensing issues seldom mentioned in case law. Bitmanagement Software GMBH v. United States was a dispute that involved the use of certain proprietary software, BS Contract Geo, a 3D visualization product. The facts surrounding the license of the software are complex, but laid out in detail in the opinion. The owner of the software, Bitmanagement, and the user of the software, the US Navy, never entered into a direct or express software license. The contracting process, which took place via a reseller called Planet 9, stalled, when it was determined that the Navy’s system needs were incompatible with Bitmanagement’s software management keys. In the end, the Navy paid for some copies, but engaged in “massive free copying” (see concurring opinion, p.27) of the software with no express license to do so. Central to the court’s finding, the parties had agreed that as a condition to the license, the Navy would use Flexera’s license-tracking software FlexWrap to monitor the number of simultaneous users of the software. It noted that the Claims Court found that Bitmanagement agreed to the licensing scheme “because Flexera would limit the number of simultaneous users of BS Contact Geo, regardless of how many copies were installed on Navy computers.” (p. 20) But the Navy did not use the FlexWrap tool as agreed. The court held that use of this management software was a condition of the license, even though the license was not in writing. The court said, “This is one of those rare circumstances where the record as a whole reflects that the only feasible explanation for Bitmanagement allowing mass copying of its software, free of charge, was the use of Flexera at the time of copying.” (p.21)

• Sustainability for Open Source Projects: 4 Big Questions [Ed: VM (Vicky) Brasseur, who promotes proprietary software in some contexts, wants to FUD Free software as having that mythical "sustainability" woe (as if it's all about money). GNU developed for 37 years (soon 38) in spite of that "sustainability" nonsense. People can get paid for things other than their per Free software project.]

  What does sustainability look like for open source projects? VM (Vicky) Brasseur considers four key questions to help determine the answer for your project. These days the word "sustainability" gets thrown around a lot with respect to free and open source software (FOSS). What is sustainability, and what does it mean for your project? The concept of sustainability didn't originate in the 1980s, but it gained a lot of mindshare at that time thanks to the Brundtland Report, which was released by the United Nations in 1987 after three years of research by a cross-functional team of scientists, policy makers, and business people. The report defines sustainability as "…development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

• Samuel Iglesias: Igalia is hiring! [Ed: Case of point; you can get paid to do Free software]

  One of the best decisions I did in my life was when I joined Igalia in 2012. Inside Igalia, I have been working in different open-source projects, most of the time related to graphics technologies, interacting with different communities, giving talks, organizing conferences and, more importantly, contributing to free software as my daily job. [...] What we offer is to work in an open-source consultancy in which you can participate equally in the management and decision-making process of the company via our democratic, consensus-based assembly structure. As all of our positions are remote-friendly, we welcome submissions from any part of the world.

Asymmetric Multi Processing with Linux & Zephyr on the STM32MP1

In the embedded world, more and more vendors offer Arm-based System-on-Chips (SoC) including both powerful Cortex-A CPU cores, designed to run a full-featured OS such as Linux, and one or more low-power Cortex-M cores, usually found in microcontrollers, designed to execute bare-metal or RTOS-based applications. [...] While the Linux kernel can run on a wide range of devices, it requires a decent amount of memory (> 4MB), and therefore cannot be used on memory-constrained microcontrollers. Enters Zephyr, a project initiated by Wind River, now developed as a Linux Foundation project.

Geniatech XPI-3288 Raspberry Pi lookalike features Rockchip RK3288 SoC

Geniatech XPI is a family of single board computers following Raspberry Pi 3 form factor. We first covered XPI-S905X SBC in 2018, which was followed by XPI 3128 board last year. The company has now launched another model with Geniatech XPI-3288 SBC powered by Rockchip RK3288 32-bit quad-core Cortex-A17 processor coupled with 2G RAM and 16GB eMMC flash.

Videos/Audiocasts/Shows

• Font Preview Ueberzug: A Better Font Previewer

  A while back I looked at a font preview script but it was kind of annoying to use, but it turns out there's a much better version of that script called font preview ueberzug which is what we're checking out today.

• Ubuntu Voltage

  For a few years we’ve been performing a live version of an Ubuntu Podcast at FOSS Talk Live. This is a lively, nerdy, in-person Linux Podcast event at the Harrison Pub in London. A few shows are performed in front of a live slightly drunk studio pub audience. We are but one troup of performers though, over the course of the evening. The whole thing is organised by Joe Ressington and attended by our friends and/or/xor listeners. Joe has just announced over on episode 114 of Late Night Linux that we’re all doing it again! Go and listen to that show for a small amount of detail.

• FLOSS Weekly 619: Notetaking With Dendron - Kevin Lin and Dendron [Ed: FLOSS Weekly jumping the shark by pushing Microsoft proprietary software instead of actual FLOSS]

  Kevin Lin and Dendron. Kevin Lin joins Jonathan Bennett and Katherine Druckman to talk about Dendron, a note-taking application built on top of VSCode. After many years of taking notes, Kevin found himself with a massive, unmanageable personal knowledge store. None of the existing note-taking applications quite solved his problem, so Kevin did the only reasonable thing, and wrote his own. On this episode of FLOSS Weekly, Lin covers some of his design decisions, including building Dendron on VSCode and Javascript, and helps us understand how Dendron can help tame the jungle of personal knowledge.