Dave Mohyla is the president and founder of dtidata.com, a hard drive recovery facility based in Tampa, Florida.
TM: Where are you based? What does your company do?
DTI Data recovery is based in South Pasadena, Florida which is a suburb of Tampa. We have been here for over 10 years. We operate a bio-metrically secured class 100 clean room where we perform hard drive recovery on all types of hard disks, from laptop hard drives to multi drive RAID systems.
Since the very beginning, directories (of any kind) have had a very central role in the internet. (I have recently grown fond of Free Web Directory. Even Slashdot can be considered a directory: a collection of great news and invaluable user-generated comments. As far as software is concerned, doing a quick search on Google about software directories will return the free (as in freedom) software directories like Savannah, SourceForge, Freshmeat and so on, followed by shareware and freeware sites such as FileBuzz, PCWin Download Center and All Freeware (great if you're looking for shareware and freeware, but definitely less comprehensive than their free-as-in-freedom counterparts).
Mark Shuttleworth is the founder of Thawte, the first Certification Authority to sell public SSL certificates. After selling Thawte to Verisign, Mark moved on to training as an astronaut in Russia and visiting space. Once he got back he founded Ubuntu, the leading GNU/Linux distribution. He agreed on releasing a quick interview to Free Software Magazine.
I read David Jonathon's article Anybody Up To Writing Good Directory Software? the other day, which got me thinking about software directories in general. As David mentioned, many of the software directories one finds when doing a quick google search are free as in beer, not as in freedom. But what interests me is the software directories that already exist, providing a combination of both free as in beer software, and open source software. Sites such as Freeware Downloads and Shareware Download don't advertise themselves as providing free as in liberty software, but each of them have a good selection of open source software available... if you know where to look.
If you’ve ever spent hours at work doing mailings, cursed your printer for printing outside the lines on your labels, or moaned “There has got to be a better way to do this,” here’s the solution you’ve been looking for. Working smarter, not harder! Worldlabel.com, a manufacture of labels offers Open Office / Libre Office labels templates for downloading in ODF format which will save you time, effort, and (if you want) make really cool-looking labels
A little while ago, while talking in the #drupal mailing list, I showed my latest creation to one of the core developers there. His reaction was "Wow, I am always surprised what people use Drupal for". His surprise is somehow justified: I did create a site for a bunch of entertainers in Perth, a company set to use Drupal to take over the world with Entertainers.Biz.
Update: since writing this article, I have updated the system so that the whole booking process happens online. I will update the article accordingly!
More and more people are discovering free software. Many people only do so after weeks, or even months, of using it. I wonder, for example, how many Firefox users actually know how free Firefox really is—many of them realise that you can get it for free, but find it hard to believe that anybody can modify it and even redistribute it legally.
When the discovery is made, the first instinct is to ask: why do they do it? Programming is hard work. Even though most (if not all) programmers are driven by their higher-than-normal IQs and their amazing passion for solving problems, it’s still hard to understand why so many of them would donate so much of their time to creating something that they can’t really show off to anybody but their colleagues or geek friends.
Sure, anybody can buy laptops, and just program. No need to get a full-on lab or spend thousands of dollars in equipment. But... is that the full story?
It dawned on me the other day, as I was shopping for the dozens of gifts it seems I have to buy every December, that Santa Claus is the most successful open source project in history. (Bridget @ Illiterarty would agree with that). Santa Claus is essentially a marketing development that is embodied by everyone who stuffs a sock, gives a gift, hosts a dinner or wishes Merry Christmas over the holiday season.
When I first started thinking about Free Software Magazine, I was feeling enthusiastic about the dream. I had Dave, Gianluca, and Alan willing to help me, I had established members of the free software community willing to help me out, I had writers volunteering their time and energy for free, and I had a generous offer from OpenHosting for servers, all before I'd proved myself. There was a sense of excitement in the air, and I thought maybe, just maybe, I could make this work.
Comments
Microsoft at it again
Okay so you've probably heard by now that Microsoft are at it again. They're saying that free software applications infringe on their patent portfolio. But this time they're getting more specific: they've told us how many patents they think are being infringed. Not which ones. Just how many. Let us know how many of Microsoft's patents you think are being infringed upon by free software.
I'll leave you with this (in case you haven't already heard it):
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” - Mahatma Gandhi
Close to zero
I expect it's probably more than zero, but it's probably closer to that than the others. I don't particularly care how many software idea patents they have in the US or elsewhere, or how many are broken by free (as in freedom) programmes, because I don't think software idea patents should exist at all. They definitely don't do what patents are supposed to do, which is to benefit the public. Some people have suggested that if Microsoft actually start trying to sue anyone for infringing on any of those patents (if anyone actually does), then that might just end up causing a big overhaul of the US patent system.
--
GNU - free as in freedom
Liars; every one of them
Maybe we need another poll to try and work out who is the greatest liar over at M$.
Naw...
Naw, the poll would be too long.
--
Andrew Min
M$ Software Patents
I would have to guess that the answer to your poll would be about half as many Micro$haft patents are being infringed upon as the FOSS GNU/CreativeCommons/BSD innovations that Micro$haft has stolen from the Open Source Community, Apple, Xerox, Mosaic, IBMdos, etc........ no, 33 1/3% ............ no 25% ....... no 10% ..... Oh well, as long as Micro$haft continues to spread FUD, instead of going to court, ...... it's probably more like 1%.
I would have to guess that
I would have to guess that the answer to your poll would be about half as many Micro$haft patents are being infringed upon as the FOSS GNU/CreativeCommons/BSD innovations that Micro$haft has stolen from the Open Source Community, Apple, Xerox, Mosaic, IBMdos, etc........ no, One third ............ no 25% ....... no 10% ..... Oh well, as long as Micro$haft continues to spread FUD, instead of going to court, ...... it's probably more like 1%.
Helena, Montana, site of the Northernmost Monument to the Confederacy, and Virginia City Montana, originally named Verena City, for the wife of President Jefferson Davis of the CSA.
How can you steal free? Free
How can you steal free? Free does not mean free just for those who have the same opinion as you.
Patents, not source
You can infringe on patents, and still not be using the same source. Some of the code in Linux is patented too.
http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/about.php
Some other patents pledged to Open Source: http://www.patentcommons.org/
Frankly, I don't like the idea of software patents, but as long they're there, developers who write Free Software need to have their 'rights' under those too.
Given the vague nature of MS Patents, All of Them
My guess would be all of them. Of course when you patent things that are vague, minor variations of things already accomplished by other people, that happens. Whether MS will ever identify any of the patents they think are infringed and where they are infringed is another story. My guess is they won't, if they identify the patents, someone in the FOSS community will challenge the patents, and they wouldn't want that.
Does it really matter?
Because the real question is are the patents enforceable? Microsoft hasn't said which patents because it knows as soon as it does the Free Software patent hunters will work to show that what Microsoft got a patent on either:
A. Existed in some other form prior to their patent. (Prior art defense)
B. The patent is on something that is "obvious" and should not have been granted because of that.
Microsoft who?
From an Insiders point of view, Microsoft infringe quite a lot of "Patents" actually.
Microsoft, Microsoft
First, to make it clear, I think that software patents are a bad idea. It's
just absurd. But to get to the point: Microsofts claims. One/three word(s):
FUD. Microsoft is (finally?) seeing GNU/Linux as a threat. I mean, come on!
They advertise in Linux magazines... which is actually quite funny. Why do I
think it's FUD?
1. they don't tell exactly which and where their patents are
infringed, because they could not get to money if they would. As far as I know, the patent law sais that if a patent is infringed _without_ knowing, then a certain time is allowed in order for the programmers to fix it. How much time would the Open Source community need in order to fix 200 and whatever patents? [Notice: that number is provided by Microsoft, as-is, without any further information]. Ok, so Microsoft would not want that. So what do they do? They only say patents are infringed and wait for (big) companies to fear of being sued for using Open Source software and sign a Novell- and Dell-like deal with them (I think they said that themselves). That way, the (indirectly) make money with Open Source! That's just
disgusting.
2. They won't _dare_ to sue anybody for patent infrigement, because bigs like IBM, Sun and the sort will back Open Source up, making Microsoft small. This is why I don't see any danger in Microsofts claims, empty words and FUD, the sort of stuff we're used to hear from them. Their whole strategy and campain just makes me sick and disgusted. The opposite is what attract me at Open Source software: the spirit of Freedom and the love of good programming practices.
Developers, developers, developers........ (hint: so a search on Youtube for the words: "Ballmer developers"
Enough said...
If it came from the free then locked that would be stealing
This could be the egg getting taken, then used in another hen house to have more chickens. The egg started out free for the public but a private ownership took a batch and then hatched the eggs on the private farm and said this breed of chickens can't be sold any where else. This is a gross over simplification of a issue that is really complex. The software that hard working programmers put out as open source and could be free too. Nice . Then the code is looked by a lock down company and then a patent is pubished with the opens source code right in it shows someone in the patent office is not doing their homework and or they are asked to look the other way.
It's an enigma shrouded in mystery
I answered zero on the poll not because I know anything specific about Microsoft patents, who does ? I answered zero because having seen nothing from Microsoft, I must presume there's nothing there. But I'm open minded. I'll accept whatever the courts state as the case.
It's 235....days left at M$
It's 235....days left at M$ for Mr Bullmer?
Oh well, we can dream can't we? :-)
42?
No entry for 42?
In Europe the answer is
In Europe the answer is still (and hopefully forever will be) zero patent infringements. And since Microsoft hasn't proven any patent infringements by free software the answer is still zero in the US too. Actori incumbit probatio...
But Microsoft may always publish their sourcecode to prove that free software infringes their patents :)
I guess this matter shows it again: software patents are a bad idea.
Have you come accross this site?
http://www.aaxnet.com/topics/msinc.html