An introduction to Libre Software and why you should consider using it.

Libre Software Part 1 (An Introduction) on Vimeo

I read a blog post a few days ago where someone who purported to be a Linux user (so as to not be accussed of trolling) claimed that although Linux and its freedoms were great and all - at the end of the day - the user had to return to Windows to get any serious stuff done. Well, I’m here to say, that I think that’s completely bogus. I haven’t had my Windows computer on since last Monday and I’m only turning it on today to work on my photography. All week long I’ve used Linux for everything, even helping to correct my younger brother’s paper by using Open Office.org Writer.

The Inquirer.net reports a boy who is counter-suing the RIAA! Why?

for defamation, violating anti-trust laws, conspiring to defraud the courts and making extortionate threats.

Awesome! It’s about time someone fought back!

They have demanded a jury trial and filing a counterclaim against the companies for allegedly damaging the boy’s reputation, distracting him from school and costing him legal fees. The record companies have engaged in a wide-ranging conspiracy to defraud the courts of the United States, the court documents say. Competitors in the recording industry are a cartel acting together in violation of the antitrust laws by bringing the piracy cases jointly and using the same agency “to make extortionate threats … to force defendants to pay”, our precocious teen wrote.

Well, I’m not sure if Timbaland did it purposely or if he was under the impression that he had permission, but he took music for Nelly Furtado’s song “Do It”. The sampled song is in the MOD format, popular in the early 1990s electronic BBS music scene. Currently it has a pretty decent underground following, as you can see at modarchive.org. You can see the MOD artist’s information here. And you can see some more detailed information at this forum. If you listen to the original file and then the background at the beginning of the Nelly song it is extremely obvious that they are the same song. I hope that Tempest (Janne Suni) gets the compensation he deserves. Tempest did not license his music under a permissive license so if the song makes money, he deserves it. After all, it was his creative genius that came up with the song. Obviously, it was good enough if Timbaland wanted to use it.

Tristan Rhodes has come up with a great analysis of Open Source vs Proprietary software by using fruit. It’s on the same par as Neal Stephenson using the car metaphor to describe Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Here are some of the key arguments that I loved.

Mabolosoft is a company that sells seedless fruit. They have orchards full of fruit trees that they have genetically-altered to be sterile, so that no seeds will be included with the fruit. Consumers want fruit, so they buy it from Mabolosoft. This fruit is seedless, so when people need more fruit they must go back to Mabolosoft.

View it here!

Dell has introduced (or, if it’s been around for a while, it was just recently brought to public attention) the nSeries Desktops. These are computers that have no installed operating system - so you don’t have to pay for windows. It comes with a Freedos disk. So you can install Linux, *BSD, or whatever you want onto that clean machine - without having to first get rid of windows!

Yesterday Democratic Senator Joe Biden was announcing his candidacy for president when someone asked him what he thought of presidential candidate Barack Obama. His response?

[Barack Obama is] “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

This immediatly became a huge race issue. I mean, it just boil’s people’s potatoes to hear educated blacks called “articulate”. Why doesn’t anyone say, “Man, you should vote for Hilary. She’s articulate.” It seems to imply that all blacks speak ebonics and it’s some kind of wonderful achievement for them to speak articulately.

According to “Power Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life” (p17) Steve Jobs created Breakout! That’s right, that wonderfully addictive game, second only to Tetris for most, was created by the man who created Apple, NextStep, Pixar (via financing), and the iPod. Is there anything the black turtle-neck clad man hasn’t had his finger in?

DO NOT UPGRADE! There are many reasons, but here are the most important ones - Norton Antivirus does NOT work with Vista as of now. It will make some graphics and sounds cards work at reduced capacity. Finally, they are ALREADY talking about a Service Pack 1 - meaning there are flaws they know about. Wait until those flaws are fixed. Service Packs mean big flaws, not little ones as are in every piece of software.