Massimo Tartaglia(Berlusconi attacker) Facebook page goes viral

Massimo Tartaglia(Berlusconi attacker) Facebook page goes viral

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Free as in Freedom, is it clear?

"Linux is a really good anti virus", this is what I was reading this morning on Twitter.

Although it would be funny to see people installing this anti virus software on windows 7, I'm not sure this would help more to bring the free software to the masses.

It's not really important that end users know what is an operating system, what is an anti virus and so forth. These kind of informations are for who wants to know, for who wants to learn.

An Operating System is just an operating system and has to do its job as better as possible.                                                                                      

This crappy thing of the virtualization will soon finish, the cloud will take over it and we will need just a browser to do almost everything we need. So why to pay minimum X$ just for an operating system and a browser?                                                 

The battle is already won and I'm sure Balmer is already thinking to prepare the resignations, Eric Raymond, you won!                                                                     

What we are missing is the kernel of the question, the freedom... Yes, because what we will earn if we will just substitute Windows with another OS? Windows for Gnu Linux? One tyrant for another one?                                                                     
NO! We must keep the freedom, and maybe at this stage is important that people even understand some of that not so important details.                                             

As I already reported Gnu Linux owns 32 percent of netbooks market, this is not because people demanded Linux, but because companies like Dell, used Linux to cut the overall cost of their netbooks, to have an attractive offer for developing countries.

Someone could argue that I'm unhappy about this Gnu Linux growth, on the contrary I'm excited like a kid in front of a candies shop. What I'm highlighting is the fact to keep the control over our freedom.

This freedom must have a wider range, what it must be clear is that the knowledge must be free, free as accessible to anyone, must be a humanity heritage.
Companies, states and normal people has to collaborate voluntarily, together as a sole mouthpiece.

If GM would stop to patent technologies, spending billions for just papers, and start to collaborate with Fiat, Kia and all the others they could use that money for pure research and to provide new interesting and amazing services.

The same for the software, if IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Adobe and friends would stop to trash their money, they could start to build this big cloud computing providing their services.

In this Google is a pioneer, not as friend as they say, but he is on the good direction.

This is not communism, that failed already too many times, and this is not an "against capitalism manifesto". We must open our eyes and see that to evolve we need to cooperate globally.

Yet another embarrassing patent.

Around the 1980 Bob Coggeshall and Cliff Spencer released for free the first version of sudo, Sudo was developed for Unix systems (Like GNU Linux  and BSD) to allow normal users to executed some specific Unix commands (chosen by the Unix admin) with root privileges. I.E. in systems like Mac OS X and several Linux distributions, Sudo is used by default to hide to the normal users the technical aspects of a Unix system administration.

I learn from Groklaw that, thanks to the incompetences of the USPTO, Microsoft has been able to patent the behavior of the Sudo command.

This is an additional prove that patents are an obstacle to the innovation and an absurdity.

 

A patent is an obstacle to innovation for the next most important reasons:

1. It oblige others to research again an alternative to solve the same problem.
2. It oblige other to spend money to research again a way to solve the problem.
3. It oblige other to do an early research in the patents field to avoid a patent's infringement.
4. And above all patents limit the right to innovate to small groups of entities.

To quote Faré:

The EC now EU was created to promote free markets within Europe, to remove the barriers to free enterprise, so that Europe would become a peaceful place where industry can grow and prosper and people can be free. Patents are the very essence of what the EU and the EC were created to fight: protectionism.
Historically, economically, philosophically, morally, technically, psychologically, socially, patents are but privileges that have no justification. They are harmful to the public at large, as customers, workers and investors alike.
Like all political frauds, patents are based on showing large benefits that are seen for a few, visible because of the focus, without showing the immense costs for everyone, that largely surpass the benefits, but are not seen because they are spread over so many people.
The EU should not extend protectionist patent laws so as to cover software. On the contrary, it should free the industry from the protectionist barriers of patents, and from the parasitism of industrial property lawyers.

So, again, stop to support the M$ (and friends) Mafia. Chose to be free.

Linux owns 32 percent of netbooks market, says study

We have 2 good news of the day, the first is "It's Friday" and one that change much more my mood:

Linux owns 32 percent of netbooks market, says study: "ABI Research is projecting that in 2009 Linux will represent 32 percent of netbook sales, far higher than the seven percent figure claimed by Microsoft, says a report. ABI estimates that Linux will overtake Windows on notebooks by 2013, largely due to sales in less-developed countries."

So, run to buy your new laptop with GNU Linux! You don't have excuses anymore!

Windows 7 sins

The new version of Microsoft's Windows operating system, Windows 7, has the same problem that Vista, XP, and all previous versions have had -- it's proprietary software. Users are not permitted to share or modify the Windows software, or examine how it works inside.
The fact that Windows 7 is proprietary means that Microsoft asserts legal control over its users through a combination of copyrights, contracts, and patents. Microsoft uses this power to abuse computer users. At windows7sins.org, the Free Software Foundation lists seven examples of abuse committed by Microsoft.
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