Hello readers, and welcome once again to Free Software Magazine's fortnightly newsletter, keeping you up to date with all things free software... AND the top 10 FSDaily announcements for this week! Enjoy!
General announcements
Top ten Free Software Daily stories this week
India's Final Vote On MS Office File Standard Is 'NO' --Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), has made a final decision on the document file format OXML (Open eXtended Markup Language). Out of 19 members, five of them did not attend the meeting, one of them abstained, five voted in favor of ooxml, and the rest voted against. Read more...
OpenOffice.org 3.0's new features, an early look --OpenOffice.org 3.0 is 167 days away, but who's counting? Maybe the software developers are counting because they have a whopping 2,278 issues targeted for this release. Even though OpenOffice.org 2.4 is not yet out the door, let's see how far they've come with OpenOffice.org 3.0. Read more...
Down with Windows! Russian schools turn to free software --A free online alternative to the Windows operating system is set to be introduced in schools in three Russian regions by 2009. If the pilot project proves successful, all schools across the country will make the switch a year later. Read more...
Microsoft ‘tax’ on Linux in schools must end says Becta --Becta has recently shown that it is unafraid of speaking out on behalf of schools. Unhappy with the value for money schools were getting regarding software licencing they first referred Microsoft to the government’s Office of Fair Trading then sent shock waves through schools when it issued its advice not to upgrade to Windows Vista or Office 2007. Read more...
Windows Vista Incapable --"Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) is shipping and what we know so far is that it is incapable of running on many types of machines. In fact, Microsoft is being sued for putting stickers all over machines claiming that Vista could run on them, when in fact, it cannot. Read more...
Firefox 3 goes on a diet, eats less memory than IE and Opera --Firefox 3 goes on a diet, eats less memory than IE and Opera Read more...
The Internet Archive Keeps Book-Scanning Free --"While Google has made headlines over the last two years for scanning thousands of copyrighted works for its Book Search project, the Internet Archive is quietly digitizing around 1,000 public domain titles every day. Read more...
FSDaily hidden feature: Live Discussions --No doubt many of our regular readers have already discovered this feature of FSDaily, but for those who haven't... Read more...
Boycott Novell Support Bruce Perens' Fight Against "Invasion of the Borgs" --Several months ago we wrote very extensively about Microsoft’s motives in joining the OSI. By following the links, you can locate old posts that obviate the need to repeat old arguments. Bruce Perens, as you are probably aware, is one of the louder and best-known protesters against the Microsoft/Novell deal. He continues to focus on this issue, which he has not forgotten. Read more...
Has Microsoft Disavowed Vista? --Technically, Vista is pure misery. It eats system resources like an elephant does peanuts, Windows applications break and its so-called improved security is a joke. I know it. You know it. Even Microsoft's most devoted yes-men know it--although they won't admit it--and perhaps Microsoft knows it as well. Read more...
Thanks to santhosh, snotbutter, mark, cpoliticas, can.axis, dave, komrad, and dako3256 for these stories!
Latest content
Asus Eee PC (Part Two): Setting up the full KDE GNU/Linux Experience --By Gary Richmond. In Part One of my Eee PC series I looked at the hardware specifications of this miniature marvel. In such a small space Asus have managed to cram in a lot and at a price that is so low that it ought be illegal. However, it is a cliche to recall that hardware without software is junk—unless you have a fetish for silicon Read more...
How do you replace Microsoft Outlook? Groupware applications --By Ryan Cartwright. How do you replace Microsoft Outlook? Do you go for Evolution or Kontact? Can a combination of Mozilla Thunderbird and Lighting do the trick? Do you split the features and are there any compromises to be made? Read more...
If the pen is mightier than the sword, is the touchpad greater than the mouse? --By Gary Richmond. Can you give RSI the boot and let your touchpad take the strain instead? Read more...
Impossible thing #4: Funding community enterprises like Blender and the Orange and Peach Movie Projects --By Terry Hancock. The bazaar development model turns out to be amazingly versatile: it seems that most software, even things you wouldn’t think would be feasible, can be developed using such an approach. Read more...
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Latest content continued
Property and commons --By Mauro Bieg. How do peer productions and free content work out? Read more...
Social inclusion with Xubuntu: A tale of free software changing lives --By Ryan Cartwright. M6-IT, a Community Interest Community in the UK, are part way through a project to equip socially excluded families with computers running Xubuntu. I was recently able to interview Richard Rothwell of M6-IT about this project and its progress. Read more...
Getting the login right: moving from xdm to gdm or kdm --By Terry Hancock. For years now, I have been clinging to xdm as my display manager; years ago, I spent several days tweaking the configuration files of xbanner and xdm to get it to look “just so”, and I didn’t want to change it. Read more...
Making KDE look good --By Colin McGregor. Out with the drab, in with the pretty! Read more...
Twinkle: My favorite SIP program --By Andrew Min. I’ve been looking for an SIP program for a long time. Linphone, OpenWengo, and Gizmo all failed to work with my Logitech AK5370 USB microphone (ah, the joys of drivers!). Eventually, after about half a dozen programs, I gave up. Then, out of the blue came Twinkle, a Qt-based VoIP phone. Read more...
Reminders
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