I have always been a fan of fringe operating systems. Between 1989 and 1992, I learned and used VMS, OS/2 2.0, NeXTStep on those beautiful cubes, GeoWorks, AmigaOS, and probably half-a-dozen others th ...
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 wa ...
I received an interesting note today from the school my children attend. In order to save precious dollars, last school year, I suggested that they begin using OpenOffice and only install Microsoft Of ...
There is a fundamental problem with GNU/Linux—it requires clueful people to exist in the IT food chain. Anywhere in the food chain. It doesn’t take an experienced kernel hacker to install GNU/Linux, r ...
Burnout is the experience of long-term exhaustion and diminished interest (depersonalisation or cynicism), usually in the work context. Any organisation or team that relies on pro-bono efforts from it ...
As a former founder/CEO of a paranoid technology company developingproprietary enterprise software, one would think "free" software and Iwouldn't mix any better than wax and water. After fighting laws ...
This entry is first a plea for help. I enjoy reading and listening to interviews with people who have interesting and exciting things to say about their passions. My attention was recently directed to ...
A few years back, Eric S. Raymond (or, as everyone else calls him, ESR), wrote a lengthy paper about this community. Entitled _The Cathedral and the Bazaar_, he wrote about how the Free/Open Source So ...
There are really two bazaars that fire the boilers for free software: one dominated by talented amateurs who create for love; the other, by professionals who create for money. This creates a curious b ...
In the Debian project they refer to packages that no longer have mantainers as _orphaned_. I think it's a good definition, and I'd extend it to free software packages that are no longer developed. The ...
A few months back on Kairosnews, we had a long discussion with Michael Bruton, a representative of Turnitin, a commercial "plagiarism detection and prevention service." In short, the question was whet ...
Attempts to educate and evangelise to people about the benefits of free software are often frustrasted by the common perception that free software is made 'by geeks, for geeks' and is therefore of lim ...
You know how when people win awards, like an Oscar for example, they get up there and gush things like “I’d just like to thank my parents, and the academy, and my fifth grade drama teacher, and God fo ...
I discovered Virtualdub back in the days when DivX was a ripped-off Microsoft experimental beta codec. Since then, I have used it to do some small captures, but also to recover some bad quality films ...
With internet privacy being invaded more and more by governmental agencies, advertising programs and statistical systems (not to mention ISPs gone bad), personal privacy would seem to be a lost cause. ...
In early 2006, the European Commission began talking about a "final attempt" to fix the European patent system. We heard the standard concerns about Europe's innovation gap. "How can we catch up with ...
As we prepared to open a new Freedom Technology Center in a rehabilitated site in New Jersey, I came to learn that Verizon was capable of offering fiber service at our location. Officially, they only ...
Today marks the rebirth of Java. Sun has announced their intent to release thesource code for Java under the GPL. If this isn't some of the bestnews in a long time, I don't know what is. # The freeing ...
Days ago I read this announcement about Sun moving Java's license to free software, and in particular that some parts of it will be released under the GPL www.sun.com early this morning (GMT+1) Today ...