Culture Matters
,----[ Quote ]
| We were reminiscing last night that scarcely 10 years ago, whilst KDE 1.0
| provided basic desktop manager features and functionality, it was thoroughly
| fugly and light years behind Microsoft Windows (then the market leader). But
| it was pretty much the best we had then (GNOME, at that point, was buggy to
| the point of being unusable). KDE 4.0 available today shows how
| technologically far KDE has come since those early days. It really is at the
| forefront of the GUI revolution, and Microsoft Windows Vista doesn’t even
| come close in comparison. Such rapid development and innovation could have
| only taken place in a culture which celebrated the ethos and creativity of
| hackers; and, it’s important to emphasize this, the only culture that can
| facilitate this today is the liberal free software culture which allows
| hackers full development control over their software.
`----
http://ditesh.gathani.org/blog/2008/04/25/culture-matters/
Watching the watchers of the GPL
,----[ Quote ]
| The true watchers of the watchers are the users and developers. One of the
| greatest aspects of the open source community is the community itself. In no
| other aspect of the IT industry (or any other industry I would wager) do you
| find community so bent on watching each other’s back. Many times I have
| reported violations of a GPL license to the developer of a GPL software
| simply because I feel that if you take advantage of my open source brethren,
| you take advantage of me. And I know there are thousands of others just like
| me who would stand up for an open source developer (most likely someone they
| don’t even know) simply because that developer is the creator of something
| that belongs to the community.
`----
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/opensource/?p=199
The GNU Left
,----[ Quote ]
| For developers of software the issue of having access to the uncompiled
| computer source code (instructions in non-binary human readable form, i.e.
| the trade secrets) and the ability to modify this code are paramount.
|
| For discriminating users, weary of the fragile Windows, a stable, reliable
| operating system is critical.
|
| For most, these issues meld together into a common belief that Microsoft is
| not only ethically challenged but unable to produce viable software.
`----
http://binaryfreedom.info/node/322
South America is a good example of an area which saw exploitation (using
intellectual monopolies) and responded accordingly.
Recent:
Deploying KDE to 52 million young people
,----[ Quote ]
| By the end of this year 29,000 labs serving some 32,000,000 students will be
| fully deployed and in active use.
|
| By the end of next year (2009) those numbers will have swelled to 53,000 labs
| serving some 52,000,000 students.
`----
http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2008/04/deploying-kde-to-52-million-young.html
The brazilian Election Supreme Court migrates 430 thousand voting machines to
GNU / Linux
,----[ Quote ]
| The brazilian Election Supreme Court announced at April 4th 2008, that the
| 2008 elections at Brazil will use GNU / Linux electronic voting machines with
| software digital authentication.
|
| The Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (the brazilian Election Supreme Court),
| officially announced on April 4th, 2008, that the brazilian 2008 elections
| will use 430 thousand electronic voting machines migrated from VirtuOS and
| Windows CE to GNU / Linux and open source softwares for security and auditing
| defined by proper law.
`----
http://techforce.com.br/index.php/news/linux_blog/tse_migrates_to_linux
Linux Voting Machines Save US$ 8 Millions in Brazil
,----[ Quote ]
| Brazilian Goverment will save US$ 8 Millions in election between 2008 and
| 2018. The economy is due to the use of Linux in the eletronic voting
| machines, made by Procomp-Diebold,
`----
http://www.brnews.info/index.php/2008/04/06/linux-voting-machines-save-us-8-milions-in-brazil/
ODF is now a Brazilian Standard: NBR ISO/IEC 26300 !!!
,----[ Quote ]
| On the afternoon of last Tuesday (08/04), the final translated version of the
| ISO/IEC 26300 was approved by members of the ABNT’s committee responsible for
| that activity.
|
| According to the Brazilian laws, a National Standard needs to be written on
| our native language (Brazilian Portuguese) and this is why we need to
| translate and approve the translated text of any International Standard that
| is adopted as a Brazilian Standard (called here NBR). ABNT is the Brazilian
| National Body (NB) and handles all standardization efforts in Brazil.
`----
http://homembit.com/2008/04/odf-is-now-a-brazilian-standard-nbr-isoiec-26300.html
South America warms to Open Source
,----[ Quote ]
| In South American countries, as in most other areas of the world, the
| government is by far the biggest purchaser of software. Thus the Open Source
| trend that is now established in the government sector across the continent
| will doubtless spur Open Source adoption in the private sector.
|
| There are a variety of motives for Open Source adoption in play in there,
| from the reduction in software costs to the desire to provide a "leg-up" to
| the local software industry. However, the motivation of the Peruvian
| government is unique in that the Peruvian supporters of the bill see "Open
| Source" as a citizen's right. The ownership and responsibility for the use of
| data and software have become a political issue in Peru.
|
| This is an idea that is unlikely to go away.
`----
http://argentinadiscovery.page.tl/South-America-warms-to-Open-Source.htm
|
|
