Buzzwords, Openwashing, and Proprietary Software

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jun 03, 2023

• Software licenses masquerading as open source

  I’m normally pretty laid back when it comes to terminology, but there’s been a lot of liberties taken with calling things Open Source in the machine learning community recently. Here I mention a few of the different licenses, draw a clear line between open source and hangers-on that are using the terminology, and try and explain why it’s important to call out the difference. Companies are free to choose how they license their software, but should not be giving the impression that they’re contributing unencumbered open source tools to the community if they’re not.

• Business benefits of artificial intelligence in retail

  The retail industry is going through a period of major upheaval. AI is transforming the landscape at a rapid pace. Grand View Research evaluated the market value at USD 5.79 billion in 2021 and this is expected to grow at a 23.9% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2022 to 2030. For retailers, this translates into a need to adapt to an entirely new paradigm of customer expectations. 

  As customers continue to become more discerning and margins shrink, to remain profitable, retailers are looking towards accelerated digital transformation and new technologies that can improve efficiency and enable differentiation. Innovation is taking many forms, such as virtual dressing rooms, IoT adoption, improved support for mobile e-commerce and, perhaps most crucially of all, artificial intelligence.

• 6 Best Python IDE(s) and Code Editor(s) [Ed: A list that starts with Proprietary Spyware of Microsoft... that is NOT even made for Python specifically]

• Ask Fitis, the Bear: Real Crooks Sign Their Malware

  Code-signing certificates are supposed to help authenticate the identity of software publishers, and provide cryptographic assurance that a signed piece of software has not been altered or tampered with. Both of these qualities make stolen or ill-gotten code-signing certificates attractive to cybercriminal groups, who prize their ability to add stealth and longevity to malicious software. This post is a deep dive on “Megatraffer,” a veteran Russian hacker who has practically cornered the underground market for malware focused code-signing certificates since 2015.

• Download Official Samsung Odin v4 1.2.1 for Linux

  If you are a Samsung Galaxy owner looking to upgrade your device's firmware, you can easily do that using the Odin Flash Tool. But wait, are you a Linux user and feeling left out of the loop because Odin is not available for Linux?

• Linux Action News 295

  How the recent XFS bug was squashed, insights into why Microsoft built their own Linux from scratch, and recent attacks on Archive.org.

• MkLinux: The delightfully weird PowerPC Mac Linux Distro of the 1990s

  Co-Developed by Apple, with Linux running as a user-mode task. Seriously.