Andrew Hutton of the OLS Needs Your Help, US Debuts World's Fastest Supercomputer, FCC's Repeal of Net Neutrality Goes into Effect Today and More

News briefs for June 11, 2018.

Andrew Hutton organized and ran the Linux Symposium for years (otherwise known as OLS). He is one of the people who helped put Linux on the map through his sheer determination, perseverance and enthusiasm for Linux. Several months ago, Andrew suffered a heart attack and now needs our help. Please remember, a donation of any amount helps tremendously.

Court orders Open Source Security, Inc, and Bradley Spengler to pay $259,900.50 to Bruce Perens' attorneys. See Bruce Perens' blog post for more details on the lawsuit against him, which sought $3 million "because they disagreed with my blog posts and Slashdot comments which expressed my opinions that their policies regarding distribution of their Grsecurity product could violate the GPL and lead to liability for breach of contract and copyright infringement."

The US now has the world's fastest supercomputer, named Summit, reclaiming its "speediest computer on earth" title from China and its Sunway TaihuLight system, OMG Ubuntu reports. And of course, the Summit, which boasts 200 petaflops at peak performance, runs Linux—RHEL to be exact. See the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory's post for more details.

Jarek Duda, inventor of a new compression technique called asymmetric numeral systems (ANS) a few years ago, which he dedicated to the public domain, claims that Google is now seeking a patent that would give it broad rights over the use of ANS for video compression, Ars Technica reports. Google denies it's attempting to patent Duda's work, but "Duda says he suggested the exact technique Google is trying to patent in a 2014 email exchange with Google engineers'—a view largely endorsed by a preliminary ruling in February by European patent authorities."

ownCloud recently announced "the introduction of the Virtual File System within the ownCloud Desktop Client". This allows users to synchronize with the end device only when needed, which will require significantly less local storage space and improve ownCloud user experience. You can download it here.

The FCC's repeal of net neutrality officially goes into effect today. See the New York Times story on how this could affect you, and see also the story on Wired for more information on the fight.

Jill Franklin is an editorial professional with more than 17 years experience in technical and scientific publishing, both print and digital. As Executive Editor of Linux Journal, she wrangles writers, develops content, manages projects, meets deadlines and makes sentences sparkle. She also was Managing Editor for TUX and Embedded Linux Journal, and the book Linux in the Workplace. Before entering the Linux and open-source realm, she was Managing Editor of several scientific and scholarly journals, including Veterinary Pathology, The Journal of Mammalogy, Toxicologic Pathology and The Journal of Scientific Exploration. In a previous life, she taught English literature and composition, managed a bookstore and tended bar. When she’s not bugging writers about deadlines or editing copy, she throws pots, gardens and reads.

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