Dear Microsoft Corporation,
July 2007 Archives
Today the BBC made it official -- they have been corrupted by Microsoft.
With today's launch of the iPlayer, the BBC Trust has failed in its most basic of duties and handed over to Microsoft sole control of the on-line distribution of BBC programming. From today, you will need to own a Microsoft operating system to view BBC programming on the web.
****** http://www.defectivebydesign.org/blog/BBCcorrupted *******
Please Digg: http://tinyurl.com/3dzo57
Please Reddit: http://reddit.com/info/2a0qt/
Also, if you're in the North of England and would be interested in a potential protest at BBC Manchester on the same day, please considering joining 'Manchester Free Software'. As you may know, the BBC is soon to move large amounts of its London operations to Manchester and Salford.
http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsuk-manchester
If you're a British citizen or resident, you can also sign this petition:- http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/iplayer/
You can also leave comments about the service, and demand a service that works on free software systems, such as GNU/Linux, on the BBC iPlayer Messageboard - http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbiplayer/F7357542
GNU Press publishes affordable books on computer science using freely distributable licenses. ;)
According to The Register, Red Hat are doing something about the proliferation of non-free software trying to claim itself as 'Open Source', merely because source code is available.
It looks like Michael Tiemann (one of the guys behind Cygnus - one of the first Free Software companies) and his plan to clean this mess up is working. Better, Michael spoke of 'freedom' when talking about this in a recent blog entry.
Things are starting to come together. Now, we just need a patch to remove ESR from the tree.
At the O'Reilly Open Source Convention today, Software Freedom Law Center director Eben Moglen threw down the gauntlet to O'Reilly founder and CEO Tim O'Reilly. Saying that O'Reilly had spent 10 years making money and building the O'Reilly name, Moglen invited O'Reilly to stop being "frivolous" and to join the conversation about software freedom.
However, Moglen took O'Reilly to task about promoting open source over free software, and got rather heated at several points during the exchange, telling O'Reilly that his premise that Web 2.0 had rendered software licenses unimportant was faulty.At the close of the session, just before the midday break, Moglen told O'Reilly to "use this 10 years" for less frivolous purposes, and that he'd "just bought you enough time with GPLv3 to address this [free software] like a grownup." When O'Reilly suggested that Moglen had made a personal attack, Moglen replied, "I invited you to a conversation you'd been avoiding."
Complete article
As performed by the wonderful Jez.
- No Gas - MP3 - a reading of 'Introducing Hammers'
- Bob Carolgees - MP3 - a reading of 'An Evening with Dustin Eyejuice'
Both of these written by myself, and recorded and produced by Mark Stephenson.
In this series of segments, local man (thick Plymouthian accent, aged about 29.. not a janner as such) Dustin Eyejuice offers helpful advice to listeners as well as complaints about the show. Each segment should be recorded in the style of a message he left on an answering machine.
In this sixth segment, Dustin calls to let listeners know this week's events at Hammer's.
---
[FX: Beep]
DUSTIN
Hammer's News. On Monday, Rick and Simon will be doing the pub quiz. Top prize this week is a nearly new drum of Swarfega provided by that bloke who works with Les. MC at Hammer's returns on Tuesday night, with Terry's brother Les, doing some blue material that he picked up from a Geordie. Wednesday night is Roast night as usual. This week's roast is veal. Get your three quid to Chris at Bishop's on Clyde Road by Monday night. Thursday night is ladies night, with Terry's daughter Rosie running the show. Drinks for all ladies are free, providing you can get a man to buy them for you. Trish and Julie will be giving a brief excerpt from their new avant garde stage show, 'Butterflies On The Hoe' and Amanda will be doing the raffle. Friday night is Fright Day Night, with the latest European video nasty courtesy of that bloke who works with Les - entrance is two quid, but you get a free Bloody Mary. Saturday night sees the return of 'Something for the weekend' and this week it's 'Hammer's and Thongs' which sees two of Rosie's mates offering lap dances for the lads. Entrance is invitation only, though Terry says invitations will be on offer for fifteen quid each, or free if you're in the police. Sunday night wraps up the Hammer's week with the usual lock in till 2am with a buffet of sausage rolls and breaded mushrooms courtesy of that bloke who works with Les.
In this series of segments, local man (thick Plymouthian accent, aged about 29.. not a janner as such) Dustin Eyejuice offers helpful advice to listeners as well as complaints about the show. Each segment should be recorded in the style of a message he left on an answering machine.
In this fifth segment, Dustin calls with an plea to the landlord of Hammer's as well as an update on his ongoing mission to get a local butcher's shop closed down after they sold him a bad pasty. He also thinks Plymcast would benefit from having more of him and less music and other things. He also suggests a name change, to Dustcast.
---
[FX: Beep]
DUSTIN
A couple of things I need to get off my chest - firstly, the show seems to be getting a little better, but only due to all the fan mail I'm getting. I think you guys would do well to cut your losses, get rid of all the music and other stuff and rename the show to 'Dustcast' and just let me be. Speaking of which, I have this message for the landlord of Hammer's on Sebastian Avenue - Terry, I had no idea the boy was your nephew and I certainly had no idea the cat was a rare breed or worth several thousands of pounds. I would have thought that the repeated mentions on my award winning segments on this show alone were driving ample new business your way, but if you must persist with this foolish vendetta, then you should know that Chris from Bishop Butchers on Clyde Road has been selling bad pasties to your patrons and been slipping a bit of extra meat to your daughter, Rosie, if you get me. It's time to let bygones by bygones. Bye.
In this series of segments, local man (thick Plymouthian accent, aged about 29.. not a janner as such) Dustin Eyejuice offers helpful advice to listeners as well as complaints about the show. Each segment should be recorded in the style of a message he left on an answering machine.
In this fourth segment, Dustin calls to put out a plea for the lady he spoke to last week to ring him again. He also offers some sympathy to the boy he saw in the road playing with a rat.
---
[FX: Beep]
DUSTIN
This is Dustin Eyejuice. Firstly, a please to Lesley from the North Sea Libaries Association who spoke to me last Wednesday. I think you might have got the number of the phone box down wrong. I will try and call you back, but I didn't write down the number I rang you on, as I was trying to get any lady on the line, using my 0800 system. Anyway, on Thursday, annoyed that Lesley hadn't called back, I took a walk around Plymouth when I saw a small boy sitting by the side of the road, just off Sebastian Avenue. He was playing with a rat that he has befriended. In my dreary haze, confused and hormonal, I found myself kicking the rat to a premature death. To the boy, and to the boy's father who proceeded to claim it was actually a cat, I offer this message of sympathy - when you've got your own podcast, and you're getting offers from Hollywood to appear in films and the bloody North Sea Libraries Association haven't rung back, it can all get on top of you and until you're in the same place, I suggest you let it drop and stop asking the barmaids at Hammer's where I live or when I'm going to buy you a new cat. Bye.
In this series of segments, local man (thick Plymouthian accent, aged about 29.. not a janner as such) Dustin Eyejuice offers helpful advice to listeners as well as complaints about the show. Each segment should be recorded in the style of a message he left on an answering machine.
In this third segment, Dustin calls to tell listeners about a series of lectures he'll be putting on at Hammer's, plus a clever way he's found to avoid expensive phone calls to his friends.
---
[FX: Beep]
DUSTIN
Hello boys and girls - Dustin Eyejuice here again with some great news for all my many fans. Terry, the landlord of Hammer's on Sebastian Avenue has agreed to let me put on my own evenings. They'll be called 'An Evening With Dustin Eyejuice' but won't be as flashy as those shows you get on ITV. Also, it's quite unlikely that Bob Carolgees will be there, but Bob, if you're listening, I would love you to come. Entrance is a pound, or 50p if you're Bob Carolgees or willing to pretend you are to impress the barmaids. While we're talking about money, here's a great way to save money on expensive phone calls - simply go to a phonebox and rings random 0800 numbers until a lady answers, then talk to her for a bit about yourself and hope she asks for your number. If she does, give her the number of the phonebox and say 'I'm like the littlest hobo my dear..' but you might like to qualify that statement but clarifying that you're not a German Shephard. You don't have to, and maybe she'll like you more if you don't. Bye.
In this series of segments, local man (thick Plymouthian accent, aged about 29.. not a janner as such) Dustin Eyejuice offers helpful advice to listeners as well as complaints about the show. Each segment should be recorded in the style of a message he left on an answering machine.
In this second segment, Dustin calls to complain that the first Plymcast wasn't really what he expected. Also, it seems his address got cut off and nobody bought his surfboards or his CD, and the gas board came over and cut him off, so he's been having to eat all his food uncooked and simply imagine it was warm, which has made him feel quite unwell.
---
[FX: Beep]
DUSTIN
Is this Plymcast? Dustin Eyejuice here... I would like to voice my opinion that your first show was in fact, rubbish. You barely touched on some of the wonderful architecture in the city of Plymouth, you didn't mention the Mayflower steps and least of all, you failed to mention my favourite pub, Hammer's, on Sebastian Avenue. Come to Hammer's on a Friday and get two for one Egg and Chips with a pint of any soft drink for an extra 30p. Also, my address seemed to get cut off, and as a result nobody bought my pens or my greatest hits CD, which coupled with the fact you never paid me has meant I've been cut off by the gas board and I've spent the last week having to eat all my food cold and uncooked and then trying to imagine it was cooked. It's harder than it sounds too, and the girl I met in the hospital hasn't written back to me since I served her a bowl of cold soup and made her think it was warm and that she was just going a little bit mad. Anyway, please make your show more locally relevant, and if you can send me any gas, that'd be useful. Bye.
In this series of segments, local man (thick Plymouthian accent, aged about 29.. not a janner as such) Dustin Eyejuice offers helpful advice to listeners as well as complaints about the show. Each segment should be recorded in the style of a message he left on an answering machine.
In the first segment, Dustin bemoans the fact that the Plymcast appears to be taking well over six months to get a single episode made, and the fact that he still hasn't been paid for any of the work he did in the pilot episode of the podcast. In further episodes, Dustin will be a guest but always in the form of a phone call left during the odd hours of the night.
---
[FX: Beep]
DUSTIN
Hello? Hello? Hello... This is Dustin. I've been meaning to call for a couple of days, but my phone got cut off. Remember when you said you'd pay for me all the work I did for the pilot of your webcast thing? Well, the money never arrived... and your show seems to be taking about six months to be made! Anyway, I had an idea earlier, so please put this in your show too.. it's a way for a way people could make money quite easily. Remember those adverts you'd used to get on TV at about 3am, for records called things like 'Classic Rock Ballads Volume 5' or devices to get the yolk out of an egg? They were never available in shops and you always had to send money to some random address in Plymouth. Well, why not harness the enormous potential of being on something people might listen to and sell your own random thing. I've got a couple of products your listeners would enjoy and I would like you to sell them for me. First up is a special kind of pen that can write invisble messages on paper and the other is a CD of songs I've made on my keyboard. Both are just 6 quid each, plus postage. Send money to Dustin Eyejuice, Flat 19, 12 We... [cut off]
Manchester Free Software
Manchester Free Software was formed in response to a growing apparent need for a group based in the Manchester area that focuses on Free Software and GNU/Linux primarily, but also on issues such as Digital Restrictions Management and other issues which infringe on the freedoms of computer users.
Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks
Was on #lugradio, chatting and Cillian asked for a recipe for Sweet and Sour sauce. A quick web search reveals there are now free as in freedom recipes on Wikibooks.
Go go go!
From Reddit.
Click the image to make it big enough to read.
Just when science is making it possible to copy music perfectly, record companies are trying to make it impossible again, with government-enforced copy protection.The invention of the phonograph created a situation where the best way to copy audio signals was by mass production. This temporary situation made record companies necessary and useful. It also made copyright a fairly harmless way of encouraging activities that benefit the public. (That was the original purpose of copyright.)
Digital audio tape machines will change all this. Mass produced copies will no longer be better than you can make. Record companies may still have customers, but they will be partly obsolete.
But obsolete institutions don't peacefully accept being ignored. So there is a bill before Congress to require specific copy-protection equipment in every digital audio tape machine.
The proposed technical method involves degrading the quality of prerecorded music by eliminating a narrow frequency band. When the recorder notices that band is empty, it will shut off. Even if the signal comes over the radio, copying it will be impossible.
If this law passes, we can expect more of the same. In the past, there were many natural obstacles to copying information, and surmounting the obstacles was a business. The overall thrust of the information revolution is to remove these obstacles; to make information easy to copy and transform. Each time technology makes things easier, businesses that depend on obstacles demand a man-made obstacle--required by law--to replace the natural one.
A few general-purpose I/O devices can turn your computer into a digital audio tape recorder. Will there be a law to make this impossible? Perhaps a law that you can't have source to your kernel, lest you patch around the government-imposed access control?
Oh, btw.. this is 20 year old news. The GNU project opposes DRM in 1987.
Seagull becomes crisp shoplifter
The seagull, nicknamed Sam, has now become so popular that locals have started paying for his crisps.
Personal names around the world
People who create web forms, databases, or ontologies in English-speaking countries are often unaware how different people’s names can be in other countries. They build their forms or databases in a way that assumes too much on the part of foreign users.
There's only one question you need to ask. What is your name?. That's what we ask in myExperiment?
Mark Radcliffe, General Counsel for the Open Source Initiative's take on GNU GPL v3.
Gobuntu is an upcoming official derivative of the Ubuntu operating system, aiming to provide a distribution consisting entirely of free software.
You can try it out, as well:- http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/gobuntu/daily/current/
Yesterday someone asked me why gNewSense doesn't use Launchpad. Simple! Launchpad is not free software. When it is, I suspect the gNewSense developers will use it in some form. Maybe if the software is good enough, we will run a Launchpad installation for the GNU project, or maybe we will all use the main one for public stuff and run internal installations for private things.
Canonical are starting to release pieces of Launchpad as free software, however. Which is a good thing.
- I use gNewSense, a GNU/Linux distro. I chose that distro because it has the policy of rejecting non-free software. There are two other installable distros that are entirely free: Ututo and BLAG. The FSF sysadmins prefer to maintain gNewSense because it is familiar to them, being similar to Debian, which is what we used to use.
- I occasionally use GNOME for tasks that need graphics, but mostly I use a text console.
- I spend most of my time editing in Emacs. I read and send mail with Emacs.
- I have several free web browsers on my laptop, but I generally use my own machine only to talk with a few sites operated for or by the GNU Project, FSF or me. I will fetch web pages from other sites by sending mail to a program that runs wget.
- The programming languages I use are Lisp and C. They are also my favorite languages. However, since around 1992 I have been very busy with free software activism, too busy to do much programming. As a result, I have not had time to learn newer languages such as Perl, Java, Python or Ruby.
This link is somewhat hidden away on his website. I hope by blogging it I can help put the rumour that Richard only uses a text console and that he doesn't use the web at all, to rest.
A great article talking about how technology writers are spreading FUD about the GPLv3.
AT&T need to be laughed out of business.
How about a phone that respects your freedom, instead?
Mashable files on The Internet Archive now.
Sadly, only encumbered formats for now. Add your support to Theora, MPEG-2 and DV files.
Jono posted about how he had started using Banshee. I generally tend to use Amarok, but it's a KDE application and not quite as integrated with GNOME as I'd like.
Banshee seems good. This is on a machine with 50 songs. I wonder how it'll fair on my iMac with a few thousand songs?
More good news - The Samba project have adopted GPLv3 as the license for future releases of Samba. This move strengthens the position of the project and will protect the freedoms it offers for many years to come.
I'm never sure how much Samba I use - I don't talk to Windows boxes, but then I do occasionally talk to odd printers, and Macintoshes and Samba probably 'just works' under there, somewhere. I met Jeremy Allison at LinuxWorld London last year and it was great to meet someone so passionate about free software and freedom, over and above 'open source'
Sign this - http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/iplayer/ - to protest the BBC iPlayer using proprietary software.
