Planet Knio

Help EFF stop copyright bullyies intimidating children

2009-05-28T17:38:58+00:00

Are you looking for a good cause to donate to? Introducing a new program ofthe Electronic Frontier Foundation to counterbalance the intimidating tactics used by the copyright bullies, like MPAA and RIAA. The bullies go to schools spreading their perception that copying is bad for society: their vision is one where kids that help each other sharing information are criminals. EFF, instead,

knows that the creators and innovators of tomorrow don’t need more intimidation. They need solid, accurate information to make smart choices about how to use new technologies. That’s why EFF launced the free, Creative Commons-licensed “Teaching Copyright” curriculum and website to help educators explore copyright issues in their classrooms.

via Electronic Frontier Foundation:.

© Stef for ][ stefano maffulli, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: copyleft, copyright, mpaa, riia

Free!

2009-05-28T09:49:45+00:00

(via Indizi dell’avvenuta catastrofe)

BlogBabel tags: freespeech

Parasols

2009-05-26T18:04:19+00:00

(da Big Picture di boston.com dedicata alle elezioni in India)

BlogBabel tags: india, elezioni, fotografia

Fotografia di un’Italia

2009-05-22T19:52:40+00:00

Al di là di quelle che è il clima elettorale, penso non faccia mai male ribadire che non sono questioni strettamente politiche quelle sul tavolo di ogni discussione che riguarda il Sig.B.
Un paese in cui si parla sempre e soltanto di lui, non della politica, non delle cose da fare, di quelle fatte, di quelle da rifare.
Il suo progetto mediatico è pienamente realizzato.

Abbiamo bisogno di rimettere noi al centro dei problemi e delle discussioni.
E’ quindi la fotografia dell’Italia telenarcotizzata che spero di poter consegnare (al più presto) alla storia come uno dei periodi più mediocri della nostra società.
Giovani e giovanissimi che non solo non ne vogliono sapere della politica, ma nemmeno di fare cose che riguardino cultura, progetto, socializzazione.
L’effimero festaiolo da happy hour è il “godersi la vita“, come ho sentito dire da un quindicenne a me vicino (mio fratello).

non ditemi che la Chiesa Cattolica non fa politica

2009-05-21T15:49:15+00:00

da “Testamento biologico, legge e arte - La Svizzera fa i conti con la morte“:

E neppure i vescovi, così interventisti nel dibattito italiano, qui in Svizzera hanno avuto da obiettare. “La Chiesa cattolica - spiega il professor Andrés-Marie Jerumanis, membro della Commissione di bioetica dell’episcopato svizzero - non è voluta entrare nel merito, anche se per noi l’alimentazione assistita non rientra tra i trattamenti assimilabili alle cure. Prendiamo atto che le ‘direttive anticipate’ sono il frutto della società nella quale viviamo, per noi si tratta di far sentire la voce profetica della Chiesa ed evitare che questo primo passo ci possa portare alla deriva”.

Gli interessi secolari del clero in Italia portano la CEI a schierarsi politicamente e a far prendere posizione ai politici di turno in manovre di allineamento opportunistiche.
La stessa chiesa, fuori dall’Italia, questi interessi non li ha e non interferisce con la vita politica e civile della nazione, ma si limita a indirizzare i fedeli.
Quindi, al prossimo che mi dice “avranno diritto pure i vescovi di dire la loro” gli do dell’ipocrita, con tanto di esempio concreto.
… Il ragionamento fila?

my political compass

2009-05-21T12:30:18+00:00

Political Compass - the test

numeri di maggio

2009-05-20T20:41:21+00:00

domani sono 33 anni
Qualche giorno fa, correvano i tre anni di vita da solo
Ogni maggio é sempre stato il mese dei compleanni di un lato della mia larga famiglia, quest’anno il rito é definitivamente soppresso
Tutto cambia
Non sempre ci seguono le cose più gradite
Possiamo saltare direttamente al 22 maggio?

blog >> facebook

2009-05-20T07:00:26+00:00

Mi chiedo e vi chiedo, quanto porta o quanto toglie, in termini di frequentazione del blog (intesa non solo nel numerino di visitatori, quanto piuttosto per il tipo di interazione, di interfaccia, di discussione), il fatto di importare il feed RSS del proprio blog nelle Note di Facebook ?

Caccia il Leghista

2009-05-19T22:33:09+00:00

dall’articolo “Caccia libera, blitz della Lega - in Aula le norme bocciate“:

ROMA - Proposta, ritirata dopo una rivolta all’interno della stessa maggioranza, la caccia no limits torna in Aula, per un voto decisivo, grazie agli emendamenti della Lega. Uccidere animali protetti dalle direttive comunitarie sembra proprio una tentazione irresistibile per i parlamentari legati al partito di doppietta selvaggia. …

E se noi cacciassimo loro?
Pensateci ;)
Non serve nemmeno sparare.

Locked devices, GPLv3 and the path to mobile freedom

2009-05-19T14:12:38+00:00

In a recent discussion with friends I realized that tivoization is a sub-optimal world to describe the problem that the Free Software community has with freedom being controlled by those that control the hardware. The word clearly targets one specific company, so the problem gets somewhat reduced in scope. The real issue is not limited to companies exploiting the hard work of free developers, removing with hardware constraints the very freedom that developers wanted to grant to all users. There is more than that, and this is especially visible in the mobile environment.

Almost all existing handsets require applications to be signed before they can be executed. Depending on the mobile platform, these signing keys can be cheap or expensive and given to all or only to selected people. All of them are personal and they’re not supposed to be shared with third party. GPLv3 and its sister licenses, Affero GPLv3 and Lesser GPLv3, require developers to release the full installation instructions which include the private keys to sign the application. This is not requested by the license only to the manufacturers of User Products, like the word tivoization seems to suggest, but to everybody distributing GPLv3 software on locked down devices, like iPhone or BlackBerry.

Free Software Developers that want to re-use or release new code under the GPLv3 licenses face a dilemma: decide not to support locked devices or circumvent the GPLv3 requirement to distribute the signing keys with an additional permission. Option one means that almost all of cell phone users out there (over 2 billion people in 2005) won’t get to know Mobile Free Software. Option 2 means surrendering to the power of AT&T, Verizon, Apple, Microsoft and the like. Funambol requires copyright assignment for all contributions, so it can distribute the source code of its mobile clients under the vanilla AGPLv3 license, and the binaries are under a different license. It’s a hack that works as long as developers trust the company not to breach the social contract and it has limitations.

On the other hand, the GPLv3 anti-lock provision is there to protect Free Software Users from the risk to be bullied by the network operators, since you can lose the warranty or be kicked out of the network if you run software that is not blessed by the gate keepers of the mobile cloud.

Is there a third option? Does relaxing the GPLv3 provision really mean surrendering to the powers of the telecom operators, who twist the arms of the proprietary manufacturers? How can the Free Software community change the broken rules dictated by the Evil Lords of the Wireless Cloud?

© Stef for ][ stefano maffulli, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cloud, community, funambol, gplv3, locked devices, mobile, mobile cloud

cineLatest

2009-05-19T13:13:35+00:00

tre cose ho visto, dopo tante settimane di astinenza dal cinema, una così così, l’altra di nicchia, e l’ultima un’americanata senza capo nè coda

san valentino di sangue 3d
film “splatter” un po’ prevedibile e un po’ all’acqua di rose, alla fine l’unica cosa che noti sono gli effetti 3d (splatter) attraverso gli occhialini

star trek - il futuro ha inizio
una chicca per nostalgici, forse nulla di trascendentale o di epocale, ma non è solo una collezione di citazioni
è qualcosa che per gli appassionati del genere costituisce un massaggino romantico al cuore

angeli e demoni
se con il codice da vinci dal cinema uscivi esclamando “che americanata!“, con questo aggiungi che “… che solenne cavolata!”
certo, il marketing, la curiosità e forse la noia hanno spinto contro l’intuito personale, ma certo prima di stroncarlo era necessario vederlo
imbarazzante.

Insieme, blog, email

2009-05-18T09:47:01+00:00

Informazioni di servizio della Lista Civica “Insieme Nel Territorio“
Indirizzo emal: insieme.fombio@gmail.com
Weblog: http://insiemenelterritorio.blogspot.com/

myP

2009-05-17T22:51:44+00:00

nonostante il crollo del ponte, fare un po’ più di strada e di fatica per passare una domenica pomeriggio di primavera nella mia piacenza, ne vale la pena

che trovi in piazza cavalli degli americani che suonano e cantano blues da far venire i brividi

che trovi il bravo alessandro che ascolta, sotto il gotico, parlare boiardi e fassino, alla conclusione di una giornata di dibattito e promozione elettorale del presidente della provincia

che trovi un ristorantino pizzeria gestito da campani, proprio dietro al gotico

che mentre mangi, scoppia la festa per la squadra di pallavolo maschile del copra piacenza, che ha vinto finalmente lo scudetto

e una passeggiata nei profumi di una città che in modo molto discreto non mi allontana mai dalla voglia di tornare a viverci

think Yellow

2009-05-15T08:09:10+00:00

Mi segnalava Lazzaro Pietragnoli questo pezzo di giornalismo:

Lambertow fa incetta di consensi tra i musi gialli giapponesi. Va infatti a Lamberto Dini (nella foto) un premio che Tokyo riserva ai cittadini stranieri: il Gran cordone dell’Ordine del sol levante. (…)

per il quale non si è fatta attendere la risposta dall’ambasciata giapponese.

Silvio non può farci niente, ci ha rassicurati che non è xenofobo, ma quel Giornale mica è suo, no?

co-housing

2009-05-13T20:55:57+00:00

é un periodo in cui lavori in casa - imbianchini, tende, mobilieri - mi sento un po’ disorientato. Ammetto che per cert versi mi smuova un po’ cerebralmente dal nido che mi sono creato in tre anni che vivo da solo. Il rinnovamento parte da dentro, e generalmente porta nuove energie

Ho un Amico a Tripoli

2009-05-12T14:50:54+00:00

… Che da quando gli ho dato un po’ di soldini, ha cominciato a mandare e a riprendersi barconi colmi di persone.
A tempo debito, ovviamente.
Tempo elettorale.

U [Flickr]

2009-05-11T14:35:37+00:00

sbarrax posted a photo:

u-U [Flickr]

2009-05-03T22:40:39+00:00

sbarrax posted a photo:

Back from school, Funambol community grows

2009-04-29T15:00:58+00:00

I haven’t been writing too much here because I was spending whatever leftover energy from my real job on myMBA project work. With that put to bed, it’s time to celebrate the end of two long years studying topics that I fell in love with. I feel so good, I’d start over (just kidding).

I have received satisfaction not only from school, but also from work. Funambol community is growing real fast, but it’s not just the pure numbers that rock. The quality of some contributions are just stunning. Recently, there has been a new release of the Funambol connector for LDAP, which now makes it easier to write DAO classes for different DirectoryServers. Also, Mailtrust developed a new special connector that syncs directly from server to server. For example, say you have your contacts in Google Mail and you also use an MS Exchange server, with Gnome Evolution on the desktop and an old syncml-based Nokia phone: before the Server-To-Server sync you would have to orchestrate the synchronization between the Exchange and Google accounts through the clients, being careful not to mess up. Now the S-t-S connector can take care of keeping all the accounts in the cloud in sync. That’s not the only scenario, there are more and all go in the same direction: empowering users of cloud based services to keep their data with them. I think Mailtrust contributed s a very important building block of freedom in the cloud.

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Post tags: community, connector, funambol, growth, ldap, myfunambol, s-t-s

Dell Mini 9: ottimizzare Ubuntu Hardy 8.04

2009-04-24T14:51:20+00:00

Ho ripristinato di recente l’ installazione del mio Dell Mini 9 con la versione di Ubuntu fornita da Dell. Per avere un ambiente di lavoro più confortevole, più spazio sul disco SSD (8gb totali non sono poi molti) e software aggiornato ecco i passi che ho seguito. Eliminare i pacchetti inutili La prima cosa da fare consiste nell’ [...]

Get the facts of DRM, don’t buy CRAP

2009-04-17T08:42:59+00:00

Did you think Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) can be good for society? If that’s your opinion, you better start looking at facts. Ars Technica reports that

Some Kindle users are angry because Amazon blocked them from their Kindle accounts, thereby blocking them from accessing their already-purchased media. Even if these stories are exaggerated, they once again highlight the caveats that come with DRMed media. You don’t own your content—Amazon does.

Do you think this sort of problem never happened before and it’s an exaggeration? Well, look again at facts because those tell a different story. When Yahoo Music ceased to exist so did the files that people bought. And to get music bought from iTunes liberated from DRM, people had to buy it again.

Facts say that DRM are constantly being used to extort money from customers, and to artificially create scarcity in order to inflate prices. DRM should really be called CRAP as in Cancellation Restriction and Punishment (or Content Restriction Annulment and Protection, if you prefer). Think better and don’t buy CRAP.

via Kindle owners find out about DRM’s ever-present threat - Ars Technica.

© Stef for ][ stefano maffulli, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: amazon, crap, drm, itunes, kindle, yahoo

links for 2009-04-16

2009-04-16T18:22:10+00:00

Join Amazon authors' "drmfree" effort | DefectiveByDesign.org

DefectiveByDesign activists have been tireless in finding and labeling DRM-infected products on Amazon with tags like "defectivebydesign" and "drm". There's another new tag to watch for when you're shopping,
"drmfree". The use of the tag is obvious but the story behind it is important — it's being applied and promoted by authors who want to advertise the fact that they don't like Digital Restrictions Management and don't want it applied to their works.

(tags: drmfree drm dfd defective+by+design amazon)
European Elections and the Free Software Pact - Free Software Foundation

Free Software advocacy associations April (France/Belgium) and Associazione per il software libero (Italy) have launched a joint campaign aimed at the European Parliament elections in early June. The campaign invites citizens to ask candidates to sign the Free Software Pact.

(tags: fsf politica assoli april campaign election)

Don’t call it Scrum

2009-04-09T06:51:09+00:00

Gianugo Rabellino has given me more food for thoughts about my research on Free/Libre Open Source software development and Agile/Scrum methods. His latest post contains a sentence that summarizes my key finding so far:

At the end of the day, this means that the customer is there - it just happens to coincide with the community as a whole.

Talking with my Funambol colleagues, the pragmatic agilists, and looking at Ross Gardler presentation below, I have the confirmation that the Pentaho guys are on the right track with Open Scrum. I also learned that it’s better not to use the word Scrum if it’s not The Scrum you’re talking about. With that in mind, I’m now focusing on best practices for communication between developers distributed around the world (more in latest posts).

Agile And Open Development

View more presentations from Ross Gardler.

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Post tags: agile, community, development, floss, funambol, open source, openscrum, scrum

Mobile phone markets are designed to split our community

2009-04-06T07:16:57+00:00

Apple’s iPhone biggest innovation is its mobile app store: for the first time it allowed installing software on the mobile device with the convenience of any modern GNU/Linux distribution. Like in Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, installing software is just a matter of browsing a repository and click on a button. It’s such a good idea that now every mobile phone manufacturer has created its own mobile app store version. Nokia has Ovi Store, RIM/BlackBerry has App World, Android has its Market. I’m sure that more will come, also from the network operators.

Differently from GNU/Linux software repositories, though, these markets only allow non-free software. The manufacturers together with the network operators act as strict gatekeepers, allowing to reach the users only binaries signed with developers keys. Even if there are many free/libre software projects distributed on the mobile stores (Funambol, Wordpress, and many other), the users cannot practically enjoy the freedom to modify the software autonomously because of tivoization. So we have in our hands powerful computers, always connected to the network but its users are deprived of one significant freedom. The worst effect of these mobile stores is that they split our community, forcing free developers to choose between distributing their software while compromising their morality or not distribute at all.

Given the sad news about OpenMoko ceasing development of the new phone, it’s necessary to gather up and think of alternatives. Jailbreak and Cydia on iPhone is a start, and other phones will need similar liberation. But these are just short-term palliatives. In the long run, I hope we’ll have more OpenMoko-like devices, with full freedom attached.

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Post tags: android, cloud, cydia, freedom, google, iphone, jailbreak, market, Nokia, openmoko, ovi, rim, store, tivoization

I want my health data with me

2009-04-02T08:54:05+00:00

The debate on health records data is starting also in US with the new federal government plan to spend $19 billion to spur the use of computerized patient records.

In Milan, where I live, the regional health system requires me to carry around a digital ID card that allows for doctors and farmacists identify me. Until now I refused to activate it though, because I don’t trust digital technology and engineers enough. I’m not comfortable with the system. Yesterday I learned that I have to activate that card now and all my health records will be stored on a remote super-secure system. The complex security will make sure that only the relevant data will be showed to the appropriate actors, from the farmacist to the specialist doctor.

What concerns me is that all the data will be stored in the same place and only some software logic will be in charge of filtering who can see what and when. That’s scary. I prefer having to carry around my past exams when I walk from doctor to doctor. Why are we being forced to surrender all our health data this way? Wouldn’t it be better if they agreed on a set of standard digital formats and gave all the details to me, to carry on an encrypted memory stick (for example)? I will resist until I can.

Funambol engineers apply iPhone ergonomics to cars

2009-04-01T07:51:48+00:00

Check this out: Funambol’s R&D department just released a prototype user interface for driving cars. According to my colleagues that drove it in Redwood City, it’s so easy to use, even a caveman can drive it. The vehicle smashes driving age limit with “snap” finger-powered steering; integrates cruise control with Google Latitude to automatically get friend. See it in action:

Full press release

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Post tags: fun, funambol, icar, iphone

links for 2009-03-31

2009-03-31T16:03:57+00:00

Settled, But Not Over Yet - Software Freedom Law Center

The huge cash-stuffed MS bullied TomTom to settlement, but according to SFLC "The FAT filesystem patents on which Microsoft sued are now and have always been invalid patents in our professional opinion." I can't wait until somebody erases the smile off of Ballmer's face.

(tags: microsoft tomtom patent Lawsuit settlement SFLC)
TomTom Caves; Will Microsoft Start Charging for Mono Next? | Boycott Novell

Schestowitz has some pretty harsh words, but I tend to agree with him: copycat is not going to pay off in the long run.

(tags: novell microsoft tomtom patents software+patents settlement mono)

Cramming unnecessary features is not innovative

2009-03-30T15:00:33+00:00

I’ve been waiting for many years for a cheap all-in-one desktop computer, something like an iMac that would look good in a home office without carrying the Apple-tax of an operating system I don’t like and the premium price of the Mac cult.

That’s why I’m speechless looking at the Asus Eee Top: touchscreen and only 15″ monitor? Why? And most of all, who decided that people want to touch their monitors? Sure, we all have computer monitors full of fingerprints but everybody I know hates to notice them. Do Asus designers think that we’ll like to watch our movies and pictures from the distance of an arm and on a monitor full of nasty firngerprints? I’m not going to. In fact, Apple added a remote control to its iMac, not a touchscreen: you can enjoy your multimedia content from the distance, laying back on the chair or from the couch and without stressing your upper shoulder.

With these desktops Asus managment is missing another opportunity after failing the netbook disruption. On the Eee series they started well with a very innovative low tech yet effective model, but then they started cramming hardware features in it resulting in higher prices. HP and Acer had to go on that segment, because it was getting too close to their market and now Asus has a tougher competition. If Asus focused on the software experience (like prof. Fuggetta keeps saying), with GNU/Linux and ‘cloud based’ services they would have done a better job for their investors. They would have also got rid of Microsoft, since Vista is such a failure.

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Post tags: acer, asus, computer, disruption, eee, hp, microsoft, netbook, software

L’onorevole Carlucci non mi preoccupa

2009-03-26T09:27:23+00:00

Mi è piaciuto molto il trasporto e la passione di Riccardo Luna, caporedattore di Wired Italia, presentando il progetto Amo Internet. È un luogo che

riassume le idee e le posizioni di un gruppo di persone, professionisti, appassionati, cittadini che ritengono che Internet e l’innovazione in generale facciano parte del futuro dell’Italia.

Con l’aria’ che tira nella società italiana è encomiabile che una testata con tanta credibilità si spenda a favore di un’interpretazione positiva di Internet, delle nuove tecnologie in particolare.’ In Italia si sta parlando molto nei circoli online delle nuove leggi, emendamenti, proposte dei nostri parlamentari e tutti sembrano molto preoccupati. Io no, non mi preoccupo della proposta dell’onorevole showgirl Carlucci, dell’emendamento D’Alia e di tutte le altre panzane che sparano i piccoli parlamentari italici in cerca dei riflettori di Vespa. Sono stupidaggini inapplicabili. Sono parenti strette del divieto di portare a spasso i cani con guinzagli a molla o l’obbligo di raccoglierne gli escrementi.’ Come sono coperti di merda i marciapiedi d’Italia, così resteranno lettera morta le sciocchezze delle showgirl incompetenti. Dice giustamente Riccardo Luna

Battere la mafia è molto più difficile, forse per questo la politica si accontenta di battere Facebook. O youTube.

Ecco, io sono preoccupato a monte: mi rattrista l’inapplicabilità delle leggi esistenti in questo paese. Sapere di non poter riscuotere un credito dovuto, se non dopo una causa civile di almeno due anni è davvero triste. I tribunali scoppiano di cose serie, volete che mi preoccupi di una legge italiana che cancella l’anonimato su Internet? Mi viene da ridere.

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Post tags: amointernet, carlucci, leggi, politica, tribunali, wired

Blur - DSC_7288 [Flickr]

2009-03-20T18:48:41+00:00

sbarrax posted a photo:

SCRUM and volunteer developers

2009-03-20T09:45:34+00:00

SCRUM development process

Funambol engineering team uses the SCRUM methodology to develop software. It’s a very interesting method that seems highly compatible with free/libre open source software development habits. It mandates fast release cycles (like the release early/release often mantra), teams that can self-organize. SCRUM also mandates fixed time (2 to 6 weeks) to complete a development cycle (called iteration or sprint). This last part doesn’t seem to be very compatible with contributions by volunteers.

I’ve been looking for other free software projects that use SCRUM internally to understand how they involve external contributors, volunteers, in strictly time constrained release cycles. Pentaho wiki has a very interesting paper on the topic, but I still don’t understand if they have established a process to assign user stories to volunteer contributors.

I wonder if some have tried and failed or nobody has ever tried this at all.

© Stef for ][ stefano maffulli, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: agile, community, development, floss, funambol, open source, openscrum, scrum

Will Nokia become FLOSS best friend?

2009-03-17T11:12:07+00:00

Google’s power is making more people concerned that their motto ‘do no evil’ is not reassuring enough. Fabrizio Capobianco’s blog post summarizes the concerns of the Winston Smith Project. Google is scary because it controls the access point to the internet for 90% of users and because it’s expanding its reach to the mobile network. But G is not the only one trying to blend the separation between your desktop computer and your cell phone: it just happen to be a very visible one. Look at the chart on Funambol’s white paper on mobile sync opportunities and strategies: everybody is doing the same.

Microsoft is not less scary, because with its monopoly on the desktop computers it controls the users’ applications and data. Extending their power from the desktop to the mobile environment is within their reach: after all, they succeeded expanding from the desktop to the server. They can do it again, if they play it right. Apple controls and has access to data for millions of desktop+mobile users: maybe MobileMe is not yet widely used but nonetheless the closed and proprietary nature of all Apple things and the quantity of iTunes+iPod users makes them scary enough.

Nokia is peculiar: it has a huge market share on mobile phones, but its Ovi services don’t have a strong companion on the desktop. With all the other operating systems controlled by competitors, Nokia could start collaborating more with the free software community to better integrate Ovi with Gnome or KDE for example. I think it would be a wise move since there are many GNU/Linux desktops out there, and more will come during 2009.’ Will Nokia become the next Free Software community Best Friend Forever, now that Google has become scary?

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Post tags: apple, funambol, google, microsoft, Nokia, ovi, privacy, strategy, sync

DSC_7277 [Flickr]

2009-03-12T19:10:58+00:00

sbarrax posted a photo:

tilt-2781744139_2273cdfbd3_o [Flickr]

2009-03-09T15:55:30+00:00

sbarrax posted a photo:

New Maemo UI and new Funambol Code Sniper

2009-03-05T08:00:47+00:00

Nokia has shown the new UI framework for the next Maemo SDK, codename Freemantle. They finally are getting rid of the stylus keyboard and a lot of very cool new features. Ars published an overview and more up to date details. I’m a fan of the N8xx devices but I’m still waiting for devices with phone capabilities. Speaking of which, I think it’s time for a Funambol client to also run on Maemo. There is already Syncevolution, a powerful syncml client compatible with Funambol, but it’s missing a GUI. Funambol can offer $750 to develop a full graphic user interface for Syncevolution to run on the stable Maemo 4 or on the new Maemo 5. Do you know somebody interested in developing on Maemo? Go to the Funambol Code Sniper community for the details.

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Post tags: codesniper, community, development, funambol, maemo

Distribuzione Telecamere AMT Genova

2009-03-04T13:38:12+00:00

Ecco la mappa (disponibile anche su Google Maps e Google Earth) delle telecamere AMT a Genova.
Sto cercando di tenerla aggiornata meglio che posso, ogni suggerimento e/o correzione sarà notevolmente apprezzato :)

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Processo a PirateBay: grasse risate in aula

2009-03-04T09:22:10+00:00

Stoccolma - Risate in aula al processo contro The Pirate Bay, quando John Kennedy - amministratore delegato di International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) - ha sostenuto che coloro che hanno scaricato canzoni tramite il file sharing le avrebbero acquistate se non avessero avuto la possibilità di averle gratuitamente. fonte: Wired News Tags: humour piratebay

It’s (a)live: new Funambol Forge layout

2009-03-03T08:14:22+00:00

After a lot of effort to develop a new and improved home page, we can finally say:

Thanks to Alessandra for the new graphic layout and Davide for some crucial css workaround, the home page of the Funambol Forge is now more informative and rich. Directly from the home page you can see reach not just the community pages but also the search box and latest Funambol news. In addition, you can see the latest messages posted to the most active mailing lists of the Forge, the latest twits about Funambol and latest messages from Funambol blogs. Enjoy the new site (and the new Funambol version 7.1).

© Stef for ][ stefano maffulli, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: collabnet, community, forge, funambol

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Liberating the cloud one block at the time

2009-02-27T10:08:31+00:00

The issue is how to bring the values of free software community to the cloud. According to reports from Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE), Bradley Kuhn’s speech has addressed the issue.’ I hope he will include it in the next episodes of the Software Freedom Law Show, the interesting podcasts he runs with SFLC counsel Karen Sandler.

The problems of the cloud range from data ownership and portability to service interoperability and ultimately to software freedom. There is no simple solution, but building blocks to build a liberated cloud are available. Bradley mentioned Laconi.cat in his speech, for its federate microblogging service. I add Funambol to the pile because I believe it brings freedom to the other (often forgotten) cloud: the cell phone networks. With Funambol you own your data and you can take them with you, when you change operator or when you change device.’ I like the MobileWe marketing pitch for Funambol: freedom is a ‘we’ issue, not just a ‘me’. You can’t be free if you’re allowed to do what you want only in a limited space, like you are now if you buy the Pear meCell from DudeMobile. It’s like saying that a lion in a zoo is free, because he can move around as he wants … within the boundaries of the cage. A society made of non-free ‘me’ makes a non-free society. WE have to be free for the MEs to be free, too.

© Stef for ][ stefano maffulli, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: cloud, community, freedom, funambol, identica, interoperability, laconica, open standards, standards

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Pimp your addressbook with Avatargrabber

2009-02-17T11:38:14+00:00

Who said that syncing is boring? Alfredo Morresi developed the ultimate time-wasting-syncing-social-tool to pimp your addressbook. Did you know that your phone and desktop addressbook can associate an icon to any of your entries? But, honestly, who has ever wanted to spend time associating a name with a picture? I didn’t, until Avatagrabber was released, that is. Now it’s become a perfect time wasting machine. All you need is a myFunambol account (or another SyncML compliant server). Here is how it works: Avatargrabber grabs the list of contacts from myFunambol; you can pick a name you want to ‘pimp’ with an icon and let Avatagrabber scout the web in search of images of your contact on various social networks or Google image. It’s only a matter of seconds before you become addicted :)’ Not bad for a Funambol Code Sniper application. Grab it here: isn’t it cool?

© Stef for ][ stefano maffulli, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: avatargrabber, code sniper, community, funambol, morresi, social network

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How long will it take for spammers to harvest this address?

2009-02-12T08:15:06+00:00

Collabnet updated its discussion service on Funambol Forge so that now the archives hide the full email addresses of members using a simple obfuscation in the html code through a javascript function.’ Apparently there is no silver bullet to stop 100% of spammers, but as in many cases ‘good enough’ is enough.’ For curiosity and to test the method, I created an email account on gmail and posted a message to the Forge forums. After a month I still haven’t received any spam message on that account.

Today I setup another gmail address as control group. Lets see how long it takes for spammers to pick this secondparenchima@gmail.com. Bets accepted I think it will take 5/7 days for the first spam message to come. What do you think?

UPDATE: It took about 2 hours before I got the first spam message sent by a spammer (not by Mauro).

Delivered-To: secondparenchima@gmail.com
Received: by 10.140.207.6 with SMTP id e6cs5143rvg;
        Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:08:48 -0800 (PST)
Received: by 10.65.197.16 with SMTP id z16mr383901qbp.25.1234433327837;
        Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:08:47 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path: <edge@nb.sympatico.ca>
Received: from simmts12-srv.bellnexxia.net (simmts12-srv.bellnexxia.net [206.47.199.141])
        by mx.google.com with ESMTP id s31si1516262qbs.34.2009.02.12.02.08.32;
        Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:08:47 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of edge@nb.sympatico.ca designates 206.47.199.141 as permitted sender) client-ip=206.47.199.141;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of edge@nb.sympatico.ca designates 206.47.199.141 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=edge@nb.sympatico.ca
Received: from simip10-ac.srvr.bell.ca ([206.47.199.89])
          by simmts12-srv.bellnexxia.net
          (InterMail vM.5.01.06.13 201-253-122-130-113-20050324) with ESMTP
          id <20090212100552.CKPM1599.simmts12-srv.bellnexxia.net@simip10-ac.srvr.bell.ca>;
          Thu, 12 Feb 2009 05:05:52 -0500
X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true
X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AooIAIR9k0nOL8eg/2dsb2JhbACBboswiEPAbIFCBg
Received: from simfep5.bellnexxia.net (HELO smtpacout.sympatico.ca) ([206.47.199.160])
  by simip10-ac.srvr.bell.ca with SMTP; 12 Feb 2009 05:02:19 -0500
X-Mailer: Openwave WebEngine, version 2.8.10 (webedge20-101-191-20030113)
X-Originating-IP: [219.136.252.120]
From: Mrs Sarah Wood <edge@nb.sympatico.ca>
Reply-To: mrchristophermorgan@btinternet.com
To: <info@uknl.org>
Subject: claims of =?iso-8859-1?B?ozEsMDAwLDAwMC4wMA==?= pounds
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 5:05:34 -0500
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Message-Id: <20090212100552.CKPM1599.simmts12-srv.bellnexxia.net@simip10-ac.srvr.bell.ca>

send the following: Name,Age,Sex,Country to Email: mrchristophermorgan@bt=
internet.com for the claims of =A31,000,000.00 pounds which was won by YO=
UR ID in our Recent Compaq Bonanza for the use of internet service

Regards
Mrs Sarah Wood

smaffulli’s status on Thursday, 12-Feb-09 07:48:49 UTC - Identi.ca.

Twitter / smaffulli: lets see how long it takes ….

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Everybody loves forums… or do they really?

2009-02-10T08:12:48+00:00

I often find web-based forums difficult to participate to. Most of the times the graphic interfaces are too rich, clogged with unnecessary information, visually tirening and distracting. Usually they have too many categories to chose from the start page, threads are difficult to follow, most of the time you can’t really tell who’s answering to what. And they force to stay online to interact with others, there is no ‘offline’ support.

Method of Ubuntu Community Support

Compared to a local email archive from mailing lists I think that web forums are suboptimal for collaboration. That’s one of the reasons why I like Collabnet’s discussion services (as in Funambol Forge), that integrate a mailing list with a simple web forum UI: you can have the best of the worlds.

Reading Canonical’s Survey Results I was surprised to notice that their community prefers to use web-based forums to mailing list for community support. Is that because Google indexes forum archives better than mailing list archives? The’ Ubunty forums entry page doesn’t look too inviting, so I imagine that the most common entry point is a search. From there on the user is engaged and starts posting. My feeling is that web forums have a lower barrier to entry and mailing lists have a higher retention rate of contributors. Does anybody have pointer to scientific studies about this topic?

© Stef for ][ stefano maffulli, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: community, forum, mailing list, support, survey, ubuntu

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Two days to comment on TLS-authz standard to IETF

2009-02-09T06:42:11+00:00

Patent encumbered standards are the worst because they seem legit, but instead they can easily become incompatible with Free/Libre Open Source Software.’ Free Software Foundation campaign is alerting the community to act fast:

Last January, the Free Software Foundation issued an alert to efforts at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to sneak a patent-encumbered standard for “TLS authorization” through a back-door approval process that was referenced as “experimental” or “informational”. The many comments sent to IETF at that time alerted committee members to this attempt and successfully prevented the standard gaining approval.

Unfortunately, attempts to push through this standard have been renewed and become more of a threat. The proposal now at the IETF has a changed status from “experimental” to “proposed standard”. The FSF is again issuing an alert and request for comments to be sent urgently and prior to the February 11 deadline to ietf@ietf.org. Please include us in your message by a CC to campaigns@fsf.org.

© Stef for ][ stefano maffulli, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: campaign, fsf, ietf, open standard, standards, tls

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links for 2009-02-05

2009-02-05T16:04:37+00:00

Monty says: Time to move on

MySQL founder leaves Sun. "The main reason for leaving was that I am not satisfied with the way the MySQL server has been developed"

(tags: sun opensource development monty mysql)
A job does not give life meaning | Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk

People would be a lot happier with the job they had if they were happier with themselves outside of their job.

(tags: carriera job career hbr work)

links for 2009-02-03

2009-02-03T16:04:22+00:00

Stimulus stimulates crowdsourced oversight, activism - Ars Technica

We should setup something like this in Italy.

(tags: government democrazia stimulus transparency democracy)
Italian red-light cameras rigged with shorter yellow lights - Ars Technica

Italians do everything better, scam included. "Italian red-light cameras rigged with shorter yellow lights"

(tags: privacy italy scam traffic redlight t-red tred)
451 CAOS Theory » The Linux ‘weakbook’ bites back

will the smartphone really kill the netbook, described as a ‘weakbook’ because it’s light and cheap?

(tags: mobile netbook mobility smartphone)
Sun's software results — a mixed bag |Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker | InfoWorld

Java and MySQL are bright spots in the quarter, while Solaris and virtualization sputter.

(tags: business sun open+source)

links for 2009-01-28

2009-01-28T15:59:09+00:00

Ctrl-Z: a return to the Supreme Court's software patent ban? - Ars Technica

Tim Berners Lee on software patents: "the Supreme Court actually declined to extend patent protection to software algorithms, preferring to leave the matter to congress. In this feature, we'll take a close look at the Supreme Court's classic trio of software patent decisions. We'll explore what the Supreme Court originally said about the patentability of software, how the court distinguished between software and non-software patents, and what the consequences would be if lower courts more aggressively applied the limits on software patents that the Supreme Court articulated a generation ago."

(tags: software+patents patents tim-berners-lee)

Papocchio

2009-01-25T15:16:07+00:00

Se vi capita di cercare dei post con argomento Lorenzo Cremonesi, per es. su blogbabel, noterete che nell’arco di un paio di giorni il giornalista viene elogiato in rapida successione da entrambi i versanti della discussione sui fatti di Gaza, per il coraggio dimostrato nel raccontare senza filtri e in presa diretta la situazione sul campo.

Cremonesi ha scritto dei reportage dalla striscia, credo nel nord, mentre le operazioni militari erano ancora in svolgimento, come uno dei pochi giornalisti presenti in loco nonostante il divieto di ingresso alla stampa. Come per esempio questo.

Poi Cremonesi a cessazione degli attacchi avvenuta e alla riapertura degli accessi dall’esterno ha continuato la sua attività sempre come uno dei primi ad entrare credo a Gaza City.

In questa seconda fase ha scritto un articolo clamoroso, che è all’origine di quel ribaltamento delle simpatie che segnalavo all’inizio. Potendo finalmente raccogliere liberamente le voci degli abitanti, dà conto di una serie di testimonianze anonime che descrivono uno scenario molto diverso da quello che è apparso sulla stampa internazionale e che sembra confermare alcune delle affermazioni rese da parte israeliana, in un caso superandole. Tanto per cominciare il numero delle vittime dichiarate potrebbe essere inaccurato e gonfiato, gli confidano una fonte medica anonima e alcuni giornalisti locali. La sensazione che i numeri non tornino, dice il giornalista, è anche immediatamente percepibile da una rapida perlustrazione degli ospedali, che non sarebbero tutti stracolmi di feriti come in una situazione coerente con le cifre di distruzione dichiarate, anzi.

Cremonesi riporta poi dichiarazioni riguardo il clima di intimidazione e omertà provocato da hamas, l’impiego di ragazzi molto giovani come militanti armati che provocano anche volontariamente la reazione dell’esercito israeliano sui civili, la collocazione di basi di lancio dei razzi sui tetti delle case, l’apertura del fuoco dai pressi di installazioni civili e ospedali allo scopo di attirare la risposta dei soldati e provocare un caso, l’efferato regolamente di conti con i sostenitori di al Fatah approfittando della confusione.

L’articolo è clamoroso, in particolare sul numero delle vittime che viene detto potrebbero ammontare solamente alla metà
, sulle 500-600, in contrasto con il consenso unanime fino a quel punto: saremmo in presenza di una scoperta esclusiva del quotidiano italiano. Io l’ho letto il giorno della pubblicazione e ho controllato nei giorni successivi se emergevano altre conferme parallele delle indiscrezioni raccolte.

Niente di tutto questo. Il conteggio del ministero della sanità della striscia che registra i dati dagli ospedali, l’inchiesta indipendente del Palestinian center for human rights, la lista di nominativi compilata dall’esercito israeliano e la valutazione che su questi cifre hanno elaborato gli organismi internazionali, differiscono tra di loro, ma smentiscono nettamente quanto affermato dal Corriere. Che diviene nell’articolo di Cremonesi la fonta autoritativa della notizia, riportata da vari giornali nel mondo.

Mi sembra che la vicenda si avvii ad essere in qualche modo archiviata, la smentita di quella sparata sui numeri è stata riportata da qualcuno anche in Italia, qui Gennaro Carotenuto con giornalismo partecipativo, le cose vanno e vengono ognuno riprende gli articoli che più lo accontentano nelle sue convinzioni e poi tutto bene o male passa. Cremonesi ha anche scritto una precisazione di rettifica, scopro oggi, a risposta immagino dell’attenzione che ha suscitato all’estero.

A me sembra onestamente tutto un po’ troppo semplice, vista l’importanza che l’informazione ha nella copertura di eventi come questi e nella formazione delle opinioni.

links for 2009-01-23

2009-01-23T16:01:03+00:00

On Day One, Obama Demands Open Government | Electronic Frontier Foundation

A good start: The President ordered federal agencies in a memorandum released today to approach the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) "with a clear presumption: in the face of doubt, openness prevails."

(tags: freedom government eff obama usa politics)

Cost saving is the wrong argument, but it may work

2009-01-22T13:27:35+00:00

Scott Mc Nealy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, has been asked by the new Obama administration to prepare a paper about ‘open source’. From what I read on the BBC report, though, he is using a tired losing proposition:

The secret to a more secure and cost effective government is through open source technologies and products.

To me statements like these look too much like a “worn-out dogma” that open source is gratis, costs less, is more secure. These arguments have been demolished by plenty of evidence in real life and by academic research. They can easily sink under the fires of the Microsoft, Adobe, IBM and Oracle of the world.

Probably there is a remote chance that the winds of change blowing in Obama’s sails will make Mc Nealy’s and OSI’s arguments float. What do you think?

via BBC NEWS | Technology | Calls for open source government.

Architecture, Politics, Internet and Open Standards

2009-01-21T09:36:08+00:00

I still have Obama’s inauguration’s speech in my mind, so full of passion and hope. It’s such a powerful word, hope. What most impressed me was his call to politicians to stop bickering and get to work to reform politics. This morning I read a post of Mitch Kapor, about the interconnection between politics and architecture. This paragraph connected in my mind Obama’s speech and the Moonlight/Silverlight fiasco:

The decentralized architecture of the Internet minimizes the role of central authorities and maximizes the ability of any participant to offer or receive any information or service and to develop new capabilities and services. What keeps the Internet from descending into chaos and anarchy is not centralized authority, but that its activities, while decentralized, are highly coordinated through adherence to collectively developed open standards.

Emphasis added. So, just as to have a democracy you need a system architecture that is accountable and transparent, to have a democratic Internet you need to keep its decentralized architecture based on open standards.

Moonlight/Silverlight and Flash are neither open nor standards: they are tools developed by corporations to take and keep control of the Internet. They are gates put in place to discriminate who, when and how we, the citizens, can access the digital archives of knowledge. They are like books written in obscure languages that can be translated only by holy scribes. They’re bad for Internet, they hurt freedom of the citizens.

We need to refuse Moonlight/Silverlight and Flash, we need to reclaim our right to read the books on our own. Because we can! The alternatives are just there, ready to use, developed collectively by the same people that made the Internet, the W3C. The new HTML5 standard is being held back by, quoting Obama’s inauguration speech, “the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.” I wish one day we can too proclaim an end to these and have an Internet powered only by real Open Standards.

Obama Inauguration available also on Moonlight

2009-01-20T15:58:44+00:00

So, in the end, the Mono hackers have worked overnight to make it possible to watch the official Obama inauguration on Moonlight, the free software implementation of Microsoft’s response to Adobe Flash. Good or bad, I don’t really know. I pity the hacker that had to work overnight to overcome the bad choice of the Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC) to use Microsoft’s proprietary tools.

What is really annoying though is this sentence from Ars report of the night of Novell’s employees:

Monday night’s collaborative effort by Microsoft and Novell on defies the assessments of these critics and provides some compelling evidence of the need for an open source Silverlight implementation.

No, dude, that’s not what we need. We need HTML5, we need an open standard to handle multimedia on the web. We don’t need yet another poor’s man implementation of a proprietary non-standard that copies other proprietary non-standards like Adobe Flash. Cloning Silverlight may make sense only for Novell, but for anybody else it’s a waste of time. Hacker’s energy is better spent on GNASH, the free software Flash implementation because at least that’s the dominant player and on Firefox 3.1. And advocacy energy should go on finalizing the specs of HTML5, removing all patent traps. Get it right.

Another brick falls on the US patent system

2009-01-16T08:20:25+00:00

It looks like the US patent system, that the free software movement has been fighting for the past 25 years, is dying.

First academia started questioning its usefulness (back in 1958), then the conservative cultural circles at WSJ. In the recent Blisky case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit put the software patents on shaky ground.

IBM threw the last, heaviest brick on the patent system announcing that it will increase by 50% the number of inventions that it releases in the public domain, instead of patenting them. The press release estimates a total of about 3,000 inventions by IBM during 2009. Even more interesting:

its planned increase in publishing inventions will focus on those technology areas that will increase the build out of a new, smarter infrastructure.

which sounds like that to enable innovation you need to get rid of patents. Another interesting piece of IBM’s press release:

Publication of technological information is one means to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,” the phrase in the U.S. Constitution giving the Congress the power to enact patent laws. Publication protects inventors from allegations of infringement by placing the intellectual property into the body of prior art. Publications also improve patent quality, since they can be cited by patent offices in limiting the scope of patent applications. Publication also helps spur follow-on innovation that ensures dynamic business growth.

Isn’t this what have we’ve been saying for the past 20 years?

IBM full press release

Devolve me: a game to celebrate Darwin’s theory

2009-01-15T10:37:20+00:00

To celebrate 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and 150th anniversary of his book ‘Origins of the species’ the Open University setup a special site. I’ve played with their Devolve me game.

Me, 0 years ago

Me, 500,000 years ago

Me, 1.8 million years ago

Me, 2.2 million years ago

Me, 3.7 million years ago

Nokia and the L of smart freedom

2009-01-14T08:12:05+00:00

The good news today is that Nokia relicensed the Qt (pr: cute) libraries under the GNU Lesser General Public License, demonstrating that the mobile ecosystem is where things happen. The GNU Lesser GPL is a license that allows non-free and free software to co-exist. Yes, with the LGPL the FSF admits that non-free software exists. Confused/surprised? You shouldn’t be: the FSF and Stallman are much less of a fundamentalist than they are painted by the FUD-drones. The LGPL is a strategic tool to allow free software developers to help each other: when a free library doesn’t offer any particular advantages over alternative non-free libraries, then it makes sense to use the Lesser GPL for it, instead of the GPL. Using the LGPL library will give a cost saving opportunity to proprietary software developers, while free software developers will get code contributions and a wider user base. The L stands for “smart freedom”.

Interesting to notice that this is the second license change for the project: from the Q Public License to the GNU GPL. Now they’re under the Lesser GPL, with a more transparent development model, a git repository and, wow, contributors will keep the copyright of their code (no contributors agreement to sign). Nokia seems very aggressive, and they’re right. With Android in town they need to fight with all the weapons they have.

I expect now a tougher competition between the two major toolkits, Qt and GTK+, with a polarization of the battle field. On the Qt side there is Nokia, on the GTK+ side there is Sun, Novell, RedHat, HP and all mobile Linux platforms. Nokia is also supporting GTK+ for its Maemo Internet Tablets, but I guess they’ll pull the plug and switch to Qt in a few months.

Does it still make sense to push the development of the somewhat inferior LGPL GTK+ when you can switch to LGPL Qt? We’ll have to wait and see. What is sure is that free software is definitely here to stay and play a major role in the mobile arena (and I’m betting that Capo wins his bet –Microsoft will offer Windows Mobile as free software).

(via ArsTechnica)

DRM means: pay it again, Sam

2009-01-13T18:38:19+00:00

While I cheered the new iTunes Plus, introducing songs without DRM I wasn’t expecting that Apple would charge its users again the the musing they have already bought. It’s incredibly bad for the customers and it shows once again why DRM is bad for society. From iTunes Plus: a primer:

As Apple goes all iTunes Plus by its self-imposed end-of-Q1 2009 deadline you’ll be able to upgrade your previously purchased iTunes songs for $0.30 video upgrades are $0.60 and albums for 30% of the album price. The gotcha is in the upgrade process. You cannot choose which songs, music videos or albums to upgrade individually. You must upgrade all music at once by using the Buy button

It’s the same old song: Pay it again, Sam.

links for 2009-01-13

2009-01-13T16:01:37+00:00

Christopher Blizzard streaming video in firefox

I love you.

(tags: ping.fm)

links for 2009-01-12

2009-01-12T16:03:33+00:00

Five reasons to seriously consider buying a netbook

Exactly my point: the perfect setup is a all-in-one pretty desktop at home/office and a netbook for the go. Software like Unison will keep everything in sync for you.

(tags: hardware design computer wired ars netbook)
Why the Budget All-in-One Desktop Will Fail | Gadget Lab from Wired.com

Not sure about this. Netbooks are too limited, so consumers will need a desktop. Why not buy a pretty one?

(tags: hardware desktop design computer all-in-one wired)
DOHCS ‘09 — Demonstrating Open Source Healthcare Solutions

Healthcare is a huge battleground and the free software movement needs to pay attention to it.

(tags: development conference health healthcare)
R, the Software, Finds Fans in Data Analysts - NYTimes.com

The New York Times talks about R, failing to mention that it is part of the GNU systems. 'R' aka 'GNU S'

(tags: gnu Programming r nyt statistics)
DSS Announces Open Source Version of vxVistA, Joins Open Health Tools Foundation

We'll need to follow the evolution of "digital health": DSS announced it will open source the code for its vxVistA electronic health record (EHR) framework

(tags: freedom opensource ehr health)
ivan krstić · code culture » How Porsche hacked the financial system and made a killing

Interesting explanation of the 'short squeeze' hack: "one of the most masterful hacks of the financial system in history."

(tags: business porsche finance trading stocks squeeze volkswagen)

(Untitled) [Flickr]

2009-01-09T18:05:29+00:00

MaXeR posted a photo:

(Untitled) [Flickr]

2009-01-09T18:03:57+00:00

MaXeR posted a photo:

Vista is a failure and GNU adoption is ramping up

2009-01-09T08:33:55+00:00

Today is one of those days that starts with a sweet taste. The FSF has declared another victory for its BadVista campaign: Vista is a clear failure for Microsoft and for FSF it’s time to devote energy to something else. (btw: did you donate to FSF?)

Upcoming Windows 7 won’t be any better because it’s on the same awful track of Vista, focused on DRM and depriving freedom to its users. Vista is so bad that hardware manufacturer have switched to GNU/Linux for the new and highly profitable netbook segment. A whole new set of devices, from Asus EEE to HP Mini Mi, all powered by GNU/Linux (not Vista) are introducing innovation (and some freedom) to the desktops.

And the mobile landscape looks promising too, after seeing the first comments about the new Palm Prè. I love the desktop+cards paradigm, but I still don’t know if this is a good device freedom-wise. Way to go: 2009 looks like a happy new year already.