I'm Matt Lee, Campaigns Manager at the Free Software Foundation. Here
with another month of news from the world of GNU and the FSF.
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I'm Matt Lee, Campaigns Manager at the Free Software Foundation. Here
with the first of what will be a regular posting each month of news from
the world of GNU and the FSF. Thanks to Steven for giving us the
opportunity to post this here.
Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software
Foundation's monthly news digest and action update -- being read by you
and 7,824 other activists.
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There's an ongoing debate about whether
a free/open source project needs to be "organic" to be worthwhile,
where "organic" is (arguably) defined as a project which the first
release included source, and is generally characterized as by a
distributed development team with no single company truly in control,
and "inorganic" is generally code that started off life as a proprietary
effort. I'd like to argue that making "inorganic" open source work is a
big challenge worth tackling.
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The Myth
Content Management is easy. You download one of the numerous systems
available, plug-in your data. Something magical happens (???) and out
comes a professional looking and operating website. This obviously
manages all of your content from all different sources with ease. All
you have to do is make a template and you’re done! If this sounds like
something you’ve heard and are suspiciously weary of. You should be,
because it’s all snake oil! If it was that easy I would probably quit my
job and go study law. Since it is not, let us continue first by giving a
brief background on what content management is.
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Skype fought the GPL and the GPL won. The OLPC XO project abandons free
software just as RMS switches to an XO; RMS not happy. New monthly
newsletters from the FSF and FSFE. GNOME and KDE want to have a joint
development conference in 2009. GNOME and GCC conferences coming up
later this year. Plus all the usual news: more GPL v3 conversions, HURD
news, GNOME news, GCC news, and more.
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Rsync is an incredibly
powerful tool that synchronises anything from a single file to an entire
hierarchical filesystem, over a network. Unlike many other
synchronisation methods, rsync will use the outdated copy of a file to
save on network traffic (resulting in anything up to 99% optimisation).
Rsync the implementation
however is restricted to only Posix systems (such as Linux, Cygwin and
*BSD), and, worse, its implementation can only perform operations on
Posix-based filesystems. This seems somewhat puzzling, and, as part
of the continued Tech Fusion series, this
article will outline some of the amazingly powerful things that could be
done with rsync... if it had a VFS layer.
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informal though this is, it's important enough to say as an article.
i've been keeping an eye on the series currently being written and some
of my comments - most notably to Pizza - indicate that i'm "jumping up
and down". so Pizza - many apologies! :)
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As part of the Tech Fusion Outline Series,
this article describes some additions to the Debian Distribution model
which, if implemented, would have the benefits of making Debian,
the Debian Development and deployment entirely independent of
Server-based Infrastructure.
The brief outline will be expanded in this dedicated article, pointing
out how tieing together components and technology that already exists
would be useful not only for Debian but also for other purposes, such
as video and audio media distribution. (A method of payment for
work on Debian or other media is not within the scope of this article
but is easily conceivable). This article therefore explains how
and why Debian Distribution Development could go "Distributed".
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Free Software developers fall into two main categories: those that
stand by the principles behind free software - patent-free,
license-free and unrestricted distribution (for example, Richard
Stallman's admirable stance); and those that are simply happy to
compromise to some extent, for example to download libdvdcss to watch
DVDs, or to install proprietary software such as Skype, on the basis
that there is simply no (or no better) alternative (for example, Ubuntu
which supports all kinds of proprietary firmware and binary drivers, and
gets itself into enormous difficulties as a result).
These "level of integrity" choices are decisions that we, as Free
Software developers, are free to make. Yet the average person is
simply unaware of these issues...
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Arrrgh !
I'm not a PiRRRate, I'm a PRRRivateeRRR !!!
(I've got them letters of mark, from me uncle Sam !)
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Are free software users particularly bad at the basics
of running an interest society, have I been spoiled
by cooperatives with
their friendly Member Services departments or secretariats,
or what?
Is this why so many free software orgs seem to include
self-perpetuating leadership groups?
Is this a serious problem if, as reported,
Software
Development is a Team Sport [etbe]?
Are there fully-working free software mass participation
groups out there?
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In How
Technology Almost Lost the War: In Iraq, the Critical Networks Are
Social — Not Electronic the deployment of Technology assists
soldiers to be more effective - providing the commander with real-time
information on their location and status. Additionally, the local
people are recruited to assist (including guarding the major of the
town, who was funnelling money to insurgents).
This article will outline the benefits of providing local people
with
access to the same kind of technology as that provided to the military,
illustrating that a combined teaching, life-changing enabling
opportunity and intelligence-gathering could very quickly make it
difficult for insurgents to gain momentum.
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Computer Technology is not serving our needs, or if it is, it is
vulnerable to
failure at every level. Outlined in this article is a clear
articulation
of the failings of technology. Importantly, this article describes the
solutions
required to mitigate against failure and attack, and how to overcome
some of the
shortcomings that would, if implemented, make computer technology actually
"useful" to the human race.
Muhammad Yunus'
book Creating
a World without Poverty advocates the use of IT to solve the problem of
poverty
(Chapter
9, page 184 onwards ). Many articles have already been written
that
outline or hint at the problems:
About
the Future of the Web
Top
10 Linux Desktop Hurdles
Open
...
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Muhammad Yunus book, Creating
a World without Poverty envisions a world in which everyone is
useful and leads fulfilling lives (following Mother Theresa's example,
who is on record famously for stating that she would not
attend anti-war rallies but only "Peace" rallies, and at the acceptable
risk of offending Professor Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, I
would urge people to consider instead of focussing on "ending poverty"
to focus instead on "Creating Wealth").
An excerpt - Chapter
9, from page 184 onwards - describes his vision - the creation of an
organisation to bring the right kind of I.T. infrastructure into being.
Tech Fusion Outline: Organising the World's
Knowledge describes exactly that infrastructure.
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