Free Software in Ethics and Society – Richard Stallman – Manchester 1st May
June 27, 2008 by Chris · Leave a Comment
Visit the link below.
Free Software in Ethics and Society – Richard Stallman – Manchester 1st May.
Another excellent presentation by Richard Stallman. Download this one and share it with others.
What you do makes me cry at night
Severn Cullis-Suzuki on Wikipedia.
Severn Cullis-Suzuki (born November 30, 1979 in Vancouver, Canada) is an environmental activist, speaker, television host and author. Born to writer Tara Elizabeth Cullis and geneticist and environmental activist David Suzuki, she has spoken around the world about environmental issues, urging listeners to define their values, act with the future in mind, and take individual responsibility.
She’s 12 yrs old in the video, I thought her delivery was excellent. Unfortunately in nearly all schools these days computers running proprietary software are used to teach children that sharing is wrong and its ok if your forbidden from learning how things work in that environment because apparently thats the way the world works. Its not something I agree with but its not something I try to change anymore. Sometimes I still hang out with teachers online but its not really the same as working with them.
I met Dean Groom on Secondlife. He makes things happen.
Enter a conversation with Jokaydian Gnu Curry. A week or so later, our OpenSim is operational, all be it in a testing phase. Right now we’re reading as much as we can … and using the SL Client to view OpenSim…Read more
Though perhaps those students can cut even more costs using open source games like nexuiz, tremulous, Flightgear, Scorched 3D, GNU Chess and Frozen Bubble.
Its late, I’m tired, thanks for reading.
Live internet radio with talk back and conference
June 13, 2008 by Chris · 3 Comments
I moved house again and this time I have access to the router settings so I can have some fun. Its nice to be able to use my own box to host stuff online. I recently installed Ubuntu 8.04 on a new drive, I feel sorry for people who use those incomplete restrictive proprietary systems, they never know the joy of things like apt.
I wont go into the details, hopefully I will have the documentation finished soon. If you want to check it out visit this link, the link will be broken sometimes, thats because my computer is turned off. At the moment I’m streaming a random playlist of music licensed under creative commons licenses, fal and other free licences, ocassionally chatting if a friend checks it out. Its best to open the stream with a media player rather than rely on that applet.
Im using icecast, ices2 for the stream and asterisk for the conference/talk back. I’ve also installed voiceone and I think I’ll checkout Web-meetme.
We’ve been using asterisk and moziax for voice chat on opensim and I was one of the original crew of people experimenting with Wikiveristy campus radio which used pretty much the same software, its a shame we didnt get much support considering how useful it is for educational purposes. I know a bunch of musicians that seem interested in the concept so we’ll see what happens. Another really nice program Im using is called Internet DJ Console. It makes it so easy to dj.
I think its a nice setup and would pass as a cool project for school radio or a decent training environment for some TAFE course to do with radio. Its free and libre too.
Anyway, i hope you enjoy the tunes, feel free to mention your favourite CC licensed tracks. I’ll probably be up late tonight so that I can catch up with my friends in other time zones. So check it out and leave a message.
EU Commission Study Finds OSS Saves Money
January 15, 2007 by Chris · 4 Comments
From Slashdot:
“Groklaw has up a story about an EU Commission’s recent findings on the costs savings available from using Open Source Software. From the article: ‘Costs to migrate to an open solution are relevant and an organization needs to consider an extra effort for this. However these costs are temporary and mainly are budgeted in less than one year. The major factor of cost of the new solution – even in the case that the open solution is mixed with closed software – is costs for peer or ad hoc training. These are the best example of intangible costs that often are not foreseen in a transition.’”
Spanish Region Goes Entirely Open Source
August 2, 2006 by Chris · 3 Comments
More Blockquote Goodness from Slashdot.
Spanish Region Goes Entirely Open Source
greengrass writes to tell us TechWorld is reporting that the Spanish region of Extremadura has decided to go completely open source with their day-to-day operations. While the region has long been a supporter of open source software, within a year it will be a requirement that all officials use the ODF and PDF formats for all documents. From the article: “Extremadura, Spain’s poorest region, made headlines following a 2002 decision to migrate about 70,000 desktops and 400 servers in its schools to a locally tailored version of Debian called gnuLinEx. The government has estimated that the total cost of this project was about 190,000 euros (£130,000), 18 million euros lower than if the schools had purchased Microsoft software. “
Dutch city of 175,000 people drops Microsoft Office for OpenOffice.org
July 25, 2006 by Chris · Leave a Comment
From Digg.com
Dutch city of 175,000 people drops Microsoft Office for OpenOffice.org
This link is in German, but basically says that the Gronigen, the capital city of the Province by the same name, will save a net of 140,000 Euros by the move in the first year. I’m sure someone can translate the full article and post it in the comments section.
Croatian government adopts free software policy
July 21, 2006 by Chris · Leave a Comment
I have a few Croatian/Australian friends so check it out guys time to break out the Velebitsko and Ozujsko Pivo.
Croatian government adopts free software policy
The Croatian government has decided to adopt a free software policy and move entirely to Open Source. Proprietary software leads to too much dependence on suppliers, which can damage the market competition..OSS makes the government’s business more transparent, it will save tax payers huge amounts of cash and strengthen domestic industry.
EdNA Online and GNU/Linux in Australian education news
From EdNA Online News Feed(ICT in Curriculum Recent Items)
Ubuntu
Ubuntu is a complete Linux-based operating system, freely available with both community and professional support. “Ubuntu” is an ancient African word, meaning “humanity to others”. The Edubuntu community is built on the ideas enshrined in the Edubuntu Manifesto: that software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local language and despite any disabilities, and that people should have the freedom to customise and alter their software in whatever way they see fit. These freedoms make Edubuntu fundamentally different from traditional proprietary software: not only are the tools available free of charge, but users have the right to modify software until it works for them the way they want it to work.
From EdNA Online News Feed(Higher Ed Recent Items)
Linux.com
Linux.com is an independent Web site that provides Linux information, news, tips, and reference material. Linux.com represents a community of Linux users that share and contribute knowledge of the Linux and make such information freely available.
From LinuxWorld.com.au
RedHat sticks Canberra feather in its cap
The Red Hat empire is spreading with Canberra TAFE signing up as the latest academic institution to partner with the Linux vendor to offer training to its students and prepare them for the Red Hat Certified Technician exam (RHCT).
Lots of good news. The thing thats special about this for me is that EdNA Online is a joint initiative of the State and Territory governments, and the Australian Government, through their education departments. Back in early 2005 a very nice teacher librarian gave me the opportunity to share my work with professional educators using a free service called EdNA Groups that uses a libre software called moodle.
EdNA Groups is a free service for communication and collaboration between members of the Australian education and training community. Why not register to join an existing group or start your own online group!
My group is called Libre Software and Libre Knowledge in Education. Teaching people about libre software and libre knowledge is very diificult and challenging. Recently I’ve disbanded from all other groups and unsubscribed from their mailing lists so I’m just going work on superuser projects and contribute to the EdNA group when I can. Thanks for your help.