In a recent court ruling Microsoft has been forced to pay $1.52 billion for patent infringements relating to MP3 technologies. This is one of those rare occasions when we get to see the dangers of sof ...
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 mayapp ...
This year’s Python Convention [1], being held this weekend in Dallas Texas, started off with an inspiring presentation by an engineer from the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project [2], Ivan Krstić, sho ...
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 ...
I spend most of my time doing Web programming - basically, tinkering and cleaning up some professional websites that require maximum accessibility, and efficient coding while remaining very simple. Th ...
_Click [here for an expanded, updated version of this blog entry which hasnow been published in issue 17 of Free Software Magazine!]_ Programmers. The system administrators worship their bit twiddling ...
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 a ...
For most of our home computing needs, I've long since transitioned from a Window's environment to FOSS alternatives. Edubuntu as our operating system with the standard list of applications. However, I ...
“The open source software movement has been one of the successes of the digital age” or so says Clay Shirky of New York University's Graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program in the latest issue ...
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 coll ...
I am lurking on the OpenMokomailing lists. This is an educational experience for me. Although Ihave participated in many heated discussions concerning Free software, I have never watched such a high-p ...
Microsoft have published an open letter entitled "Interoperability,Choice and Open XML" [1]. I often like to think that I am neversurprised by the exaggerations, obfuscations and general untruths that ...
KDE will soon be releasing version 4.0 of its desktop environment. But KDE has a deep, dark secret – it engages in slavery. Actually it's not a secret, they tell you straight up, they use slaves throu ...
Percy Shelly averred that poets were the unacknowledged legislators of the world. That was a hope rather than a fact. It might have been true in earlier centuries but the inexorable rise of scientific ...
So Microsoft's Vista is being launched out now to overtake the world. The massive marketing machine is finding its way into reports, blogs and interesting TV commercials. I've had a look at its fancy ...
I assume that people who read freesoftwaremagazine.com will most likely be aware of the fact that the Free Software Foundation is working on an update to the GPL version 3. If you're not, a number of ...
I’ve been telling Tony for a long time now that we need to be more transparent. You know... let our readers know what’s really going on behind the scenes. But he gets so busy with all his work (until ...
Recently, there seems to be an abundance of articles on failed Linux evaluations in corporate environments. Most of them point out why Linux didn't make the grade for one reason or another. As Linux b ...
Issue 16 of FSM came out a few days ago. The PDF version went out as well, but... out of the window! A lot of people, including myself, cried and asked for it to come back. I am now writing this open ...
Drink was the first great leveller, as it brings everyone to the floor eventually. The second was the Internet. Everyone can be published, listened to, and promoted giving freedom of expression to the ...