Opinions

opinions

Free the Xbox 360!

Well, here’s the latest violation of DMCA Anti-Circumvention that’s sure to get an cheer from the boys and girls fighting the good fight: Free60 is struggling to port GNU/Linux and Darwin to the Xbox ...

by Matt Barton – 11/29/2005

opinions

I read the news today, oh boy

I spent several years of my childhood in a remote corner of bush Alaska. When thinking about those times, I remember one village in particular: Point Lay, mid-way between Point Hope and Barrow. In Poi ...

by John Locke – 11/25/2005

opinions

Towards a free matter economy (Part 3)

>Space is open to us now; and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share.—John. F. ...

by Terry Hancock – 11/23/2005

opinions

Where's the Xbox 180?—getting kids involved in free software

I’m sure I’ll be running across a flood of news today about Microsoft’s new Xbox 360. Of course, like everyone else I know who is into games, I’m curious about this new box (and Sony’s eventual respon ...

by Matt Barton – 11/22/2005

opinions

Open standards for new Microsoft Office

Here’s some interesting news. Microsoft is reportedly opening up the file formats of its new suite, promising folks that they won’t be locked into a proprietary file format. The move reminds me strong ...

by Matt Barton – 11/22/2005

opinions

IBM and totally free Linux

In a recent issue of the newsletter “The Linux Executive Report from IBM”, Ubuntu is discussed in an article titled “Moving Beyond Red Hat and Novell SUSE”. From the newsletter: >“Since its launch in ...

by Maria Winslow – 11/21/2005

opinions

Music in free software

As a member of two a cappella vocal ensembles, I have been searching for several free software projects to fit some of my musical needs. The first need is a way to print out scores of vocal music. My ...

by Jeremy Turner – 11/19/2005

opinions

What is code?

_The two of us wrote this article together. Since each of us was several, there was already quite a crowd. We have made use of everything that came within range, what was closest as well as farthest a ...

by David Berry – 11/18/2005

opinions

Giving, sharing, copying and piracy

I am a free software advocate and, to a much smaller extent, a free software producer. As such, copyrights are important to me—I rely on them to stop people proprietarising free software and protectin ...

by Edward Macnaghten – 11/14/2005

opinions

Patents Kill

On the third of September 2005, I was diagnosed with cancer—testicular cancer. The pain started during a party (Dave Guard, our Senior Editor, was there as well). In just one night, I went through a s ...

by Tony Mobily – 11/10/2005

opinions

Open Source Bubble

Ben Rockwood has a brilliant discussion about the supposed OpenSource bubble, which is itself a response to this piece by Martin LaMonica. Many of us have been through bubbles before, the dot.com bubb ...

by Matt Barton – 11/9/2005

opinions

At times there’s too much freedom in free software...

November has come, the winter nights are drawing in (here in the UK), time for some indoor activities. One of these activities is a long overdue housekeeping exercise in the `home` directory of my GNU ...

by Edward Macnaghten – 11/6/2005

opinions

Secret standards

Is it an oxymoron, or just moronic? In the free-wheeling world of free software, we are accustomed to _free_ standards, published _freely_, defined by _freely_ distributable (if not necessarily freely ...

by Terry Hancock – 11/4/2005

opinions

Free art and copyleft conflicts 2: The rationalizations strike back

To re-cap, the problem is that I have a project which (at least formerly) used the now-defunct “Design Science License”. I want to go forward with a more widely accepted license, probably a dual “GPL ...

by Terry Hancock – 11/3/2005

opinions

The blind leading the blind in Massachusetts

For the moment, I will ignore the false statement of some that specifying ODF requires one to run OpenOffice. In fact, there are many products which already do so, including Koffice, AbiWord. Anyone t ...

by David Sugar – 11/1/2005

opinions

Oracle is feeling the pressure

Oracle is expected today to announce a free (yes, free) limited version of its database called Oracle 10g Express Edition. This is clearly a reaction to pressure from the open source databases MySQL a ...

by Maria Winslow – 11/1/2005

opinions

Publishing Wikipedia

I doubt there is anyone reading this blog who hasn’t heard of wikipedia. I imagine that most of you are like me—it’s often the first place I turn when I want a quick “lowdown” on subjects as disparate ...

by Matt Barton – 11/1/2005

opinions

The internet trap my daughter is falling into...

I think when a parent tells a child that something is “good” or “cool” their immediate reaction is to disbelieve it. I guess I must have done that to my parents, though I cannot remember any specifics ...

by Edward Macnaghten – 10/29/2005

opinions

Free art and copyright conflicts

In 2000, I was a much more naive person when it came to both free software and the legal environment in which it exists. To be fair, I suppose I was far from alone. At that time, the idea of applying ...

by Terry Hancock – 10/27/2005

opinions

Don’t like the DMCA Anti-Circumvention Clause? Speak now.

Newsforge is running a story that ought to concern everyone here at Free Software Magazine. Every three years, the Library of Congress pulls down the DMCA’s Anti-Circumvention Clause (the one that mak ...

by Matt Barton – 10/26/2005