An interesting thing is about to happen to home computing—the “Desktop” that GNU/Linux never seems able to liberate from proprietary Windows may be just about to become irrelevant. Three independent, ...
Puru Govind has posted a short article about the controversy over what to call our favorite OS: Linux or GNU/Linux. For many of us here, this is an old controversy and a constant source of angst and f ...
>I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.—Carl S ...
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the visible front of the current standards battle royale: in this corner, at 220 pounds, Open Document Format (ODF)! In the other corner, the 800 pound gorilla, Mi ...
I recently bought a U3 compliant USB key, the hype and packaging was amazing and for the most part the U3 drive lived up to the expectations. Thunderbird was included on the key, and I was excited abo ...
Lessig endorsing Sun’s “Open Source DRM?” You’d better read these interviews on the Register to get the facts. What do you think—is “open source” DRM better somehow than proprietary—or just plain dumb ...
There’s a nice article on Donation Coder today called When Do Users Donate? Experiments with Donationware: Ethical Software, Work Equalization, Temporary Licenses, Collective Bargaining, and Microdona ...
Most IT people seem to have a really bad habit: reinventing the wheel. While sometimes this is “justified” by ethical requirements (see the big Gnome vs. KDE mess), often the problem is caused by igno ...
Recurring themes at this year’s PyCON2006 Python conference, in Dallas, Texas, included quality control techniques for Python (testing methods), and interoperable content management systems. Guido van ...
Now this really sounds interesting. Wired is reporting about a new coding tool called playsh, a coding environment that works just like your favorite MUDs (multi-user dungeons). It combines the collab ...
“Former Soviet Union” is a term that often makes people think of a somehow original concept of freedom and democracy. You can observe some heritage looking, for instance, at the facts of today’s Belar ...
Free Software Magazine is obviously about free software. Many readers may also know that we create our magazine using free software. But, not only do we use free software, we also develop it. I have d ...
Here’s another reason why CC licensing can be effective—it can help get games like this one out to the public so rapidly that plenty of people get the chance to play it before the hammer comes down. T ...
Having read of Microsoft’s white paper on the use of GNU/Linux on legacy hardware, I had to laugh at the conclusions. But, to be fair, I thought it was time to update my own “legacy” laptop, a Toshiba ...
How do you get a new free software project off the ground? It’s all about community. I answer reader questions about free software issues here, and an interesting question came up recently from a read ...
The grassroots efforts of system administrators have brought Linux and other free software into the mainstream. To be an effective advocate for free software at work, you need to speak the language of ...
The third International Forum on Free Knowledge brought together many groups and individuals interested in the development of free software worldwide to the city of Maracaibo. One reason Venezuela cho ...
Here in the US, yesterday (Feb 2) was Groundhog Day. From what I understand, this comes from an old German Pennsylvania ritual of getting up early on a Winter day and observing an animal coming out of ...
>A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as possible. There are no prima donnas in engineering.—Freeman D ...
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