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 of "integrity", or they are but do not value them highly, choosing "interoperability with their friends and businesses" as "more important". Or worse, they agree that integrity is important yet are forced into making decisions to use - and stick with - proprietary software. In such instances, the level of experience of (and thus the offerings available from) Free Software developers in a particular area of specialist expertise that the users absolutely must have before being able to consider migration, is close to or literally zero.

As Free Software developers, is it therefore ethical for us to ignore these people whose lives are blighted by lack of choice, or is it more ethical for us to remain in our integrity, by providing non-interoperable Free Software alternatives (with no means of conversion between the free and proprietary software)?

To put that another way: should Free Software developers serve themselves and their own needs, or should they look to serve others? This article highlights these quite important questions that every Free Software developer should be asking themselves, and advocates a way to proliferate, protect, enjoy and benefit from Free Software principles: that of the "Social Business".

Arrrgh !

I'm not a PiRRRate, I'm a PRRRivateeRRR !!!

(I've got them letters of mark, from me uncle Sam !)

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?

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.

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 source usability is a technical problem we can solve on our own
Cook's Collaborative Edge

However, all of these articles miss a fundamental point: what are computers for?  The original definition of a "Computer" was a title - like "Professor" or "Doctor", and Asimov's book entitled "The End of Eternity" was written at the time when the title was still in use.  The title was given to someone who "performed computation".  Before valves, transistors and silicon chips existed, many "Computers" were given the job, often in parallel, of hand-calculating a complex mathematical task, with mental arithmetic, pencil, paper and slide rules as their tools.  Fast forward to the 21st Century and we have "Computers" that can perform billions of calculations per second, and communicate millions of words per second (although it definitely doesn't seem like either of these things are true!).  Yet, all that speed helps humanity not one bit if we don't know what "Computers" are actually for!  How can "Computers" actually help us "humans"?

So, this article will ask - and attempt to answer - the questions listed below. It will also outline where things stand at the moment; outline what the author believes people really could do with help from technology; what technology the author believes will be useful to people; and finally, provide a roadmap outlining what technologies need to be sythesised together, improved or developed entirely from scratch to actually and reliably meet people's needs.

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.

The combination of BusyBox, GPL, and SFLC proves itself unbeatable once again. The FSF has relaunched their website with a shiny new homepage. They've also set up a new free software job database. We have reports on rms speeches in Virginia and Berlin. Harald Welte and Groklaw win FSF awards. Gold goes Gold. Do I even need to mention that more software packages switched to GPLv3 this month? We have the latest news from the Free Software Foundation Europe and the Free Software Foundation India. We even have meta news this month; after more than a year of FSF news reports here at Advogato, the FSF itself seems to be getting into the swing of things by launching their own FSF newsletter.

With the introduction of the Internet, vast amounts of information became available - and, rather than help people of the planet to become useful in a globalised world, it has deluged them. Peeking through the morass of software and hardware is the occasional light (hopefully not an oncoming train). This article will outline those technologies. briefly, for later expansion.

The "Executive Summary" is that for computer technology to be useful, we need modular portable hardware with wireless mesh networking as well as standard internet access, and for the software applications to sit on top of distributed and peer-to-peer technology.

None of the technology outlined here is new (in fact, some of it has existed for many decades): it's just not being brought together. It should be pretty clear that in the current world climate, there is some degree of urgency to making this "Tech Fusion" happen.

As the majority knows we now have two FOSS implementations of java runtime library: OpenJDK from Sun Microsystems and the parallel GNU Classpath project. There are various opinions on how this situation will be resolved in the future. Hence there is a natural interest to compare these two implementations.

The following questions were posed by someone on LinkedIn and I answer them here. I think they are timely, interesting and important: "About the future of the web: what do you miss, what do you hate? 1. What would you like to change on the web? 2. What would you really want to keep? 3. What are the technological chances for internet? 4. What are the threats?"

AUTOTOMY

In danger, the holothurian splits itself in two:
it offers one self to be devoured by the world
and, in its second self, escapes.

Violently it divides itself into a doom and a salvation,
into a penalty and a recompense,
into what was and what will be.

The Free Software Foundation wants your help to end software patents and boycott Trend Micro. The GNU Project is going to be participating in Google's Summer of Code again this year. Rumor has it that Microsoft may be planning a GNU Project killer with its own recursive acronym. For the fourth time in its history, rms has passed Emacs on to new maintainers. A new version of GCC is out. The Mozilla Foundation and GNOME Foundation are in kahoots to bring you new and improved software.

Did the Free Software Foundation meet their 2007 pledge drive goal? Will DefectiveByDesign try to stamp out DRM at the Boston Public Library? Does Stallman like the OLPC Project enough to replace his thinkpad with an XO? Will the SAMBA team finally get to see Microsoft's top-secret networking protocols? Where's RMS this month? Is the micro vs monolithic kernel debate back again? The answers to these and other mind-boggling questions that are on everyone's mind can be found in this month's GNU and FSF news summary.

Welcome to the new year and another monthly installment of news about the Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project. This month we have news from the FSF Europe, the latest numbers on GPLv3 conversions, the annual Gfortran report from the GCC folks, a GLib development release, Stallman commenting on the GNOME's alleged support of OOXML, GNU Hurd news, and more.

( note: links are out of service until i figured out what caused this surge of net traffic with an ave. 6423.50 kbits/s for the past 48 hours, )

'The Pacific' ( a third movement )

Sparkle my scenery
With Turquoise waterfall
With beauty underneath
The ever free

Tuck me in beneath the blue
Beneath the pain,
Beneath the rain
Goodnight kiss for a child in time
Swaying blade my lullaby

On the shore we sat and hoped
Under the same pale moon
Whose guiding light chose you,
Chose you all

Licenses are in the news everywhere this month. The SLFC takes on Verizon for violating the GPL. The FSF releases the Affero GPL and a handy new guide to the GPLv3. The FSF, Creative Commons, and the Wikipedia Foundation agree to make the GDFL compatible with the CC BY-SA. GNOME is the other big newsmaker. A new GNOME Journal, a D-Bus debugger, GUADEC video, GNOME Foundation elections, and GNOME news about FOSDEM 2008. All the usual topics are covered as well.

NetBeans works perfectly on IcedTea, but the installer doesn't.

In this month's update, the FSF tries to block a patent-encumbered standard from slipping through the IETF, the FSF Europe reports on the latest court decisions in the Microsoft case, and the FSF India meets with their government to coordinate the promotion of free software. Meanwhile, the SFLC vs Monsoon GPL lawsuit has been dismissed after Monsoon agreed to generous terms with the BusyBox developers. GCC and the Hurd both make incremental progress this month and there's a new GNOME roadmap full of things you can look forward to in GNOME 2.22 and 2.24.

One year ago, in October of 2006, Advogato was transferred into new hands for its care and maintenance. As we come to the end of October 2007, I thought it would be appropriate to take a look at where we are one year later. Many bugs have been fixed. A few new ones have cropped up. Many of the requested features have been added but the ToDo list is still dauntingly long. Account creation by spammers is down. Account creation by real users is up. Overall, I think we've made a good start at making Advogato relevant again but there's still much to do. I'll try to lay out a general roadmap of the work to be done. And, of course, this is an ideal time to chime in with more bug reports, feature requests, and general comments you may have about what sucks and what rocks on Advogato.

Weeks ago I started a new path in my life, I joined Mandriva! I think this is the biggest step I have done because is a great company to work with and I'm doing what I like the most: programming. So, now I'm proud and happy to say I'm a Mandriva developer.

By the way: Mandriva 2008 is out, you just can download it and try it as a live CD, after when you're really sure you can install it :-)