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This is not a commercial site. I'm not trying to sell
you anything. Except maybe the idea that not everything is for sale. |
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This is not a commercial site. I'm not trying to sell
you anything. Except maybe the idea that not everything is for sale. |
Sadly, it looks like Canonical spies on Ubuntu users now.
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"People aren't as dumb as Microsoft needs them to be." -- PJ, Groklaw
Q: You say that "you can bet your business on Free Software"; how do you back up that statement?
A: How can you bet your business on proprietary software? If a company is bought, goes bankrupt or merges or decides to delete a product line you have no choice but to go with whatever product or path they desire. How can you plan when the company keeps changing its licensing terms, and you have no real alternatives? What do you do when the company that makes your software puts its own profits and its values ahead of yours, the customer? When the software company holds back on releasing the latest bug fix so it fits its "release schedule?" When you can't get that one little feature added that would allow you to streamline your business, save a lot of money and beat your competition to market?
What happens if that company (no matter where it is) is embargoed?
Jon "Maddog" Hall,
President, Linux International,
ComputerWorld interview
Why? Why are GNU/Linux users so insistent about "show me the code", ramble incessantly to anyone about "free as in speech", and rail against "proprietary" or "closed" or "secret" source (aka "secret sauce")? Why can't they just go along, to get along, with the status quo? Why do they spend time adapting hardware to work with Linux when that hardware was designed with one monopoly system in mind?
GNU/Linux increases personal computing freedom. We who are enthusiastic about GNU/Linux want to spread that freedom around. Since computers are so deeply involved in the lives of everyone living in a "developed" nation, they have a significant influence on personal freedom. Voting, commerce, medical records, tax calculation and collection, entertainment, all are affected by computers. Such information is too precious to entrust to the imposed secrecy of those who seek their fortunes from renting the software which manipulates that information.
Software is not some mystic magic which must be locked away behind an End User License Agreement (EULA). The copying of source code is not such an awesome, frightful thing as to need the full, armed protection of governments overseeing it on behalf of those who would conceal its workings in order to extract tolls on its use. The world economy will not collapse if creators of software choose to share their work with the world. Quite the contrary, the artisans and artists who craft software which can be shared, improved, and shared again are building an infrastructure at least as beneficial to society and the economy of the world as the infrastructure of bridges and roads.
"To guarantee the free access of citizens to public information, it is indespensable that the encoding of data is not tied to a single provider. The use of standard and open formats gives a guarantee of this free access, if necessary through the creation of compatible free software.
To guarantee the permanence of public data, it is necessary that the usability and maintenance of the software does not depend on the goodwill of the suppliers, or on the monopoly conditions imposed by them. For this reason the State needs systems the development of which can be guaranteed due to the availability of the source code.
To guarantee national security or the security of the State, it is indispensable to be able to rely on systems without elements which allow control from a distance or the undesired transmission of information to third parties. Systems with source code freely accessible to the public are required to allow their inspection by the State itself, by the citizens, and by a large number of independent experts throughout the world. Our proposal brings further security, since the knowledge of the source code will eliminate the growing number of programs with *spy code*."
-- DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NÚÑEZ
Congressman of the Republica of Peru.
[English translation of letter to a Microsoft manager]
Can you trust your computer? a work by Richard Stallman about the so-called "trusted computing" initiatives.
Fix the DMCA: vote the sellers out and boycott the buyers
Not only do they assume they can sell it and still retain
control of it (that's not really selling it, is it?), but they
purchase laws that presume we are thieves so they can
take away our traditional fair use rights!
This site is not optimized for Internet Explorer. It is not optimized for Win-anything. I refuse to exclude others by catering to a particular browser or operating system.
Any "webmaster" who creates a document or site which only works with a particular operating system or a particular browser has created a private document or site. They are essentially agents (PR or sales) for that particular browser or operating system.
Answer this for yourself: Do you want the Internet to be owned and controlled by one operating system or one browser? If that happens, everyone using the Internet would be at the mercy of those who control that operating system or browser. They could change the "standards" at any moment, requiring you to obtain the latest "upgrade".
Consider:
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Concerning copyrights: copyright protection is inherent in the
creation of a work.
You need the author's permission before using his or her property.
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