freedom

Will the internet really improve the way we think?

Write a full post in response to this!

In a recent interview with the British Sunday Observer, Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, claimed that “it’s the next billion [internet users] who will change the way we think”. Such a big claim deserves some critical house room. Will the internet really change the way we think? Or are we just getting carried away?

For many years, there has been a growing concern about the emergence of a “digital divide” between rich and poor. The idea is that people who don’t meet a certain threshold income won’t be able to afford the investment in computers and internet connectivity that makes further learning and development possible. They’ll become trapped by their circumstances. Under proprietary commercial operating systems, which impose a kind of plateau on the cost of computer systems, this may well be true. But GNU/Linux, continuously improving hardware, and a community commitment to bringing technology down to cost instead of just up to spec, has led to a new wave of ultra-low-cost computers, starting with the One Laptop Per Child’s XO. These free-software-based computers will be the first introduction to computing for millions of new users, and that foretells a much freer future.

Non-free repositories!?

Write a full post in response to this!

There’s a discussion going on on my LUG mailing list today which seems to have diverged from its original topic to the question of the inclusion of officially supported non-free repositories in distributions: is this merely facilitating freedom or does it have more sinister implications for free software?

Is better education the key to finding better software?

Write a full post in response to this!

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.

Wot! Not Vista?

Write a full post in response to this!

My Windows XP machine went “phut” the other day. I think it isa hardware problem as it had been “phutting” more and more over the pastmonths, but now it is unusable. This is not the disaster it mayappear to be!

The philosophy and spirit of FOSS

Write a full post in response to this!

My last two blogs dealt with issues that illustrate to me that some people have a functional disconnect with the philosophy, and spirit, of what I feel is really what the Free Software movement should be about. For many “freedom” seems merely to be mostly a slogan, not a guiding principle to consistently adhere to, and a reality to produce. Here’s what I think many people are missing.

Involving the community: my podcast experience

Community and freedom

Write a full post in response to this!

I recently started a new podcast where people like you and me have the chance to put questions to key people in our community. While doing that I discovered some aspects of our community that I feel are often over looked in the drive to find new users.

Why I did it

Free software New Year's resolutions

Write a full post in response to this!

As the New Year swiftly approaches, it’s time to write those resolutions. From exercising more, eating fewer snacks, or remembering to call your mother on her birthday, we all think of various ways we can improve our lives, by starting good habits or ending bad ones. I’d like to suggest some resolutions that will assist you in your pursuit of free software.

Contribute to a free software project

File formats: approaching the freedom crossroad

Write a full post in response to this!

When I first began to use GNU/Linux, I didn’t really care about free software, I just thought it was exciting to be able to mess around with code like that and see what could happen. I felt that it was fantastic that you could get under the bonnet; so to speak, and play with the code which powered everything.

I thought that was what I loved about the system. I was wrong, what I really fell in love with was freedom.

Ethics, employment and free software

Write a full post in response to this!

Like most people around the world, I have to work to earn a living. And again, like the vast majority of these people, often my work requires me to carry out tasks that I might otherwise find ethically problematic. As a supporter of free culture, I have often found it difficult to reconcile my own convictions on issues such as copyright and DRM with those of my employers. In my current job, this has not been a regular problem.

What’s wrong with Free Beer?

Write a full post in response to this!

Freedom. It’s such a loaded term. It represents so many things: the ability to do stuff unfettered, letting the press say whatever they want, invading foreign nations to pass the time, a glorious ideal. I started thinking about it recently because there’s a furniture chain in Australia called “Freedom” and I always get a kick out of signs in shopping centres with arrows that direct shoppers to the food court, toilets, and freedom… “Free” also means lots of things. Free as in libre… Free as in beer… Interestingly enough, they aren’t as different as you might think! In fact, there is a new kind of beer sweeping Denmark, and it is like free software BUT BEER! How fun!

Freedom, freedom...

Write a full post in response to this!

A few years ago, when you wanted to use a GNU/Linux distribution for your desktop computer, you still needed to concede a part of your freedom to open some PDF files, run most Java programs, or all Flash animations.

Not anymore.

It’s all about freedom

Freedom is free software’s competitive advantage

Write a full post in response to this!

Maybe it’s true that a “Rose by any other name still smells as sweet,” but not being able to easily pronounce the name of software is a big turn off to exploring it.

That’s true whether the name of your word processing program is “Espronceda” or “Microsoft Word” or “OpenOffice.org Writer”.