"The openSUSE-Education team is proud to present a special, 64-bit edition of openSUSE Edu Li-f-e with the MATE desktop environment. Li-f-e MATE edition came about to support schools in Gujarat, India. They needed a synfig studio: a very simple-to-use C and Java IDE, apart from standard fare of complete office suite and other applications. Gujarat now starts teaching OpenOffice (LibreOffice) in the 9th grade, and the Linux operating system all the way to shell scripting in 10th, and Java, C, HTML, JavaScript in the 11th and 12th grades. This Li-f-e edition tries to get everything they need in an integrated bundle which they can use on a stand-alone PC."

The openSUSE project is a community program sponsored by Novell. Promoting the use of Linux everywhere, this program provides free, easy access to openSUSE, a complete Linux distribution. The openSUSE project has three main goals: make openSUSE the easiest Linux for anyone to obtain and the most widely used Linux distribution; leverage open source collaboration to make openSUSE the world's most usable Linux distribution and desktop environment for new and experienced Linux users; dramatically simplify and open the development and packaging processes to make openSUSE the platform of choice for Linux developers and software vendors.

"This release of Clonezilla live (2.2.3-10) includes major enhancements and bug fixes. Enhancements and changes: the underlying GNU/Linux operating system has been upgraded, this release is based on the Debian 'Sid' repository as of 2014-05-18; Linux kernel has been updated to 3.14.4; the drbl package has been updated to 2.8.25 and Clonezilla has been updated to 3.10.11; added diskscan; added option '-batch' for ocs-restore-mdisks and it's the same function as '-b' or '--batch'. Bug fixes: this release fixes a bug in live-boot 4.x which is not patched and which caused live-betty to not work; when in 'restoreparts' mode, the '-t' option should now be set by default...."

Clonezilla Live is a Debian-based live CD containing Clonezilla, a partition and disk cloning software similar to Norton Ghost. It saves and restores only used blocks in hard drive. With Clonezilla, one can clone a 5 GB system to 40 clients in about 10 minutes.

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"Team Tiny Core is pleased to announce the immediate availability of piCore-5.3. Changelog: Linux kernel updated to 3.14.4; Raspberry Pi firmware updated to 2014-05-12 version; e2fsprogs updated to 1.42.10; util-linux updated to 2.24; official BusyBox patches applied; curaga's wget3 BusyBox patch applied, setting default timeout to 10s; tce-load - don't show an error when extension contains multiple modules; tce-load - use sudo when unmounting meta-extensions; patched to enable HDMI sound at 192 kbit/s rate; patched rtl8192cu driver to disable power saving; enabled CMA and FIQ-FSM by default."

Tiny Core Linux is a 12 MB graphical Linux desktop. It is based on a recent Linux kernel, BusyBox, Tiny X, Fltk, and Flwm. The core runs entirely in memory and boots very quickly. The user has complete control over which applications and/or additional hardware to have supported, be it for a desktop, a nettop, an appliance or server; selectable from the project's online repository.

Nice people, but not IP folk ...

This Kat was up till 1 am rewriting his paper for today's programme of the MAPPING Extraordinary General Assembly (on which see yesterday's Katposts here, here, here and here) after he realised that there were hardly any IP folk present and that his audience was to consist almost entirely of information law, surveillance and privacy experts. To remind readers, this EU-funded event is conducted under an optional Chatham House Rule, so speakers can agree to be quoted by name if they like. The Assembly is set to review issues relating to internet governance, security, surveillance, privacy and IP -- but the emphasis is very much on all the bits that aren't IP and this Kat had the most unusual experience of looking through the list of over 130 participants and recognising only four names on it, one of which was his own.

Secure -- but is it a sitting target ...?

This morning's discussions began with a thematic session on privacy, economy and security. The first speaker gave a keynote address. He spoke of the experiences of his company, which provides both products and services for the secure purchase of physical and digital goods on the internet -- a sector which is not regulated, even though it is vulnerable to threats of fraud. The company has grown despite being in hostile competition with banks and credit card businesses, but has been assisted by the fact that the national competition authorities opened antitrust proceedings against these competitors. Now trading in 11 countries within the EU, the company plans ultimately to offer a pan-European payment system and is already accepted by over 25,000 traders.

Security and choice: two major priorities in the EU

Non-cash-based secure payment is a sector that is largely dominated by US-based companies: is this something to worry about, and why does it happen? Google, Amazon, Facebook and PayPal have all established payment services, the first three of which already know through their software what sort of things consumers are prepared to pay for.  The large and homogeneous local market, with a single language, makes it easier for such businesses to gather momentum in the US than elsewhere, and knowledge achieved through experience in the US -- where there is also a more liberal regulatory approach -- gives experience that can be easily transferred to the more fragmented markets across Europe. Some foreign enterprises are based in EU member states which take a less interventionist view of regulation and they also have aggressive lawyers, so they tend to be left alone.

In the EU, having to deal with 28 separate national regulatory authorities is inconvenient, particularly where they employ different standards, and this militates against setting up a single pan-European e-payment system: the EU only needs one regulatory authority.  Also, while data protection authorities are inconsistent, some have now begun employing people with technical expertise as well as legal knowledge -- a real improvement when engaging them in dialogue as to the security of a specific software system.

Data protection, security and other legal priorities can be used by larger businesses as a pretext for keeping small start-ups out of the market, or at least of delaying their entry into it -- but that does not mean that these priorities can be ignored.  Allegations of failure to maintain proper standards must be examined to see if they are evidence-based or simply a shot at foreclosing the market. It's also important to prevent a situation arising in which the sector is governed by a multiplicity of rules but where the big businesses already playing in that sector are not complying with them. Regulation should also be aimed at real issues and not at theoretical problems, so that the regulatory structure does not overburden the sector.  In any event, regulatory standards for internet-based payment systems should be global, given the reach of the internet, not parochial.

In the ensuing discussion session, attention was drawn to the dearth of authoritative case law in this area, to the intermediary platforms offered by Alibaba for such transactions, to the burden of compliance with data protection requirements and whether it represents a disproportionate burden on SMEs (answer "yes, especially since some data protection laws appear to be drafted on the basis that data is recorded physically on paper"). It was also suggested that it was unfair to to regulator-bashing, since regulators were sometimes blamed by SMEs for their failure to comply with regulatory standards.

The conclusions? Data protection regulation is a hindrance and an expensive one -- but a necessary one, particularly now that it has become apparent that some regulated businesses invest time and money in seeking to circumnavigate it. Also, it can be more difficult to sign up for an online magazine than to buy a car on the internet: are we getting our priorities right, and the balance between them?