Opinions

opinions

A new front?

Google's new “My Maps” is one of the coolest new web technologies I've come across in a long time – I love it! But this, combined with an off-hand remark in a blog, got me thinking: where are all the ...

by Jonathan Roberts – 4/9/2007

opinions

Learn netiquette - from a book!

Sometimes, somebody does something courageous. Dave and I could have started a magazine about anything, targeting a much wider audience. Creating a magazine about free software, and calling it Free So ...

by Tony Mobily – 4/6/2007

opinions

Transcript: Stallman on GPLv3, April 1st 2007 in Brussels

A transcript is now online of: RMS’s April 1st GPLv3 talk. Audio and video recordings will be online later today. Topics covered in the talk include: * What is free software? * The GNU project * Free ...

by Ciaran O’Riordan – 4/4/2007

opinions

FOSS fight in the UK

Last fall a slightly ambitious project to test the uptake of Ubuntu Linux in the volunteer community of eastern England showed positive results, so why has the funder pulled the plug? The East of Engl ...

by Chris Holt – 4/4/2007

opinions

Power to the people

What do a super secret ultracapacitor and a recent Supreme Court ruling have to do with providing viable clean electric energy to the masses? Well, if things are allowed to gravitate toward their logi ...

by Jabari Zakiya – 4/4/2007

opinions

Give the BBC a kickin'

When I checked my feed reader at one point today I noticed that there was an interesting sounding article from the BBC available - “Tiny files set for a big future” was the heading. It did actually tu ...

by Jonathan Roberts – 4/1/2007

opinions

Save time – Buy a hard drive pre-loaded with porn!

A new hard drive manufacturer, Sextor, is entering the market (pardon the pun!) by pre-loading all of it’s 120+ gig drives with porn and music MP3s to save users the time and effort in downloading the ...

by Steven Goodwin – 4/1/2007

opinions

Selling our own dogfood

Free software advocates, including myself, like to pontificate about how free software is a good business model. We like to hold up companies like Red Hat and show them off like a bright cliff-top lig ...

by Edward Macnaghten – 3/31/2007

opinions

“GNU”, “Linux”, or neither...?

I’m sure everyone reading this has heard the debate over whether that top dog free operating system should be called “Linux” or “GNU/Linux”, but how big a contribution _is_ GNU _or_ Linux to that oper ...

by Terry Hancock – 3/29/2007

opinions

Cure cancer with your PS3

Two weeks ago Sony released a program for its PS3 game box which just might help find cures for Cancer, Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and other diseases [1]. As we all know, the PS3 has a very powerful pr ...

by Chris Holt – 3/27/2007

opinions

GPLv3 draft 3 to be released Wednesday March 28th

According to Bruce Perens, discussion draft 3 of GPLv3 is due to be published on Wednesday March 28th: >At the FSF general meeting today, Richard Stallman announced that thethird discussion draft of G ...

by Ciaran O’Riordan – 3/26/2007

opinions

Non-free repositories!?

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 distri ...

by Jonathan Roberts – 3/26/2007

opinions

Is Practice Fusion in a partnership with Google?

Several blogs and newspapers recently reported that Practice Fusion is partnering with Google, which will provide targeted ads for Practice Fusion's EHR solution. However, while everyone is wondering ...

by Fred Trotter – 3/23/2007

opinions

Many lights make hard work - or, why we don't need two office formats

This week, I have been forced, through threat of domestic misery, to sacrifice a section of one my shelves on what I like to call my “Computer Rack”. No longer can that area be used to house a masterp ...

by Edward Macnaghten – 3/23/2007

opinions

GNU/Linux on the desktop: a modest business proposal

With the bickering about what Dell will and won’t do to provide Linux on their desktop machines, it seems to me there’s a much easier way to introduce GNU/Linux into the world. Scrap it! GNU/Linux is ...

by Steven Goodwin – 3/22/2007

opinions

GPLv3: Simplicity and Length

Everyone wishes that free software licences were shorter. The good news from the GPLv3 process is that by changing the LGPL from being a whole licence to being an additional permission that can accomp ...

by Ciaran O’Riordan – 3/21/2007

opinions

Open source, terrorism, politics and Zen

This is a slightly different post this week. I haven’t found anything of technical note to talk about and only discovered some of the power of Ruby on Rails this week, but have not had the chance to e ...

by Chris Holt – 3/21/2007

opinions

Why GPLv3 says additional permissions are removable

As with any copyright licence, software developers who use any version of the GPL can also grant additional permissions to recipients for code that they hold the copyright of. That is, they can say th ...

by Ciaran O’Riordan – 3/19/2007