The Silent Number

Last chance to fund Tube, an upcoming Blender-animated film

2012-05-12T17:32:00.000-04:00

Blender's Open Movie Projects have already proved that it's possible to produce stunningly high-quality 3D animated films exclusively using free software in a studio setting. Now, a new animated short film called Tube, inspired by the ancient epic poem of Gilgamesh, is expanding on that work to bring free culture to the masses. The Tube project is not merely evidence of the technical capabilities of free software tools like Blender, PiTiVi, and Fedora GNU/Linux, but living proof of their viability for independent filmmakers. The most impressive aspect of the project is that it has managed to come together through distributed collaboration between 56 artists from 22 countries — some of which are at war. Tube truly highlights the incredible unifying power of free software tools and a free culture model.

Within the first few days, Tube's Kickstarter campaign reached the minimal baseline goal of $22K and subsequently hit Slashdot. As the film enters the final stages of production, the Tube team needs as much support as they can get to make this story a huge success for free software, free culture, and independent animators everywhere. With the production funding target of $50K in sight and just a couple days left in the campaign, this is your last chance to support this ambitious undertaking and get your name in the film as a backer. There is enormous potential here; as Mashable questions, 'Will This Open-Source Animated Film Change the Movie Industry Forever?'

The film's public release is scheduled for 7 months from now along with all the assets, source, and project files under the free culture and copyleft Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) licence. For an in-depth discussion with the team, check out this interview with the Tube project founders on Libre Graphics World. It's up to us now to help Tube affirm the legitimacy of producing free cultural works in a fully free software workflow.

Join the FSF Now for a New Membership Benefit: Credit Union Eligibility!

2011-09-28T17:28:00.000-04:00

During my 2010 summer internship at the Free Software Foundation I was able to bring lots of new ideas to the table, get involved with campaigns and publicity, and take on leadership roles like organizing the Massachusetts LibrePlanet Team.

One project of mine was to find a Credit Union for the FSF to partner with in order to bring eligibility to their membership base. Why? Banks have too much power. They've destroyed economies. Credit unions are basically banks (they offer all the same services and often more), but they are structured democratically and don't have to potential to do the kind of damage big banks do. Credit unions are not-for-profit, member-owned cooperatives rather than profit-driven corporations. Members elect a volunteer (unpaid) board of directors, and profits don't go to shareholders but instead go into lower rates on loans, higher rates on savings, and better services. If you're still letting big banks hold your money, see what credit unions you're eligible to join!

Finally, over one year after my internship, I've finally finished my project. If you are a card-carrying member of the FSF, you are now eligible to join Digital Federal Credit Union. Some neat benefits include being able to deposit checks online, and DCU is one of the very few credit unions that has that allow you to cash checks via your Android or iPhone using an app (disclaimer: zero-cost proprietary software). For more information check out the announcement and join DCU today!

Chaos: Some clarifications on Novacut

2011-07-28T23:44:00.002-04:00

My post on the Novacut project stirred up quite a shitstorm, pardon my language. I can't even attempt to explain the whole point of my post—something that seemed to be misunderstood by anyone who didn't already agree—better than Jeff "Nekohayo" Fortin has in his blog post, which I have included below:

Chaos

No matter how I try to write this, it will come out wrong. I have basically no chances of improving anything at all, especially since I’m no Shakespeare. I’m good at singing the praise of contributors, but I’m terrible at handling delicate situations. I’ll still try clarifying my thoughts into this post, which I’m quite certain will be perceived as an attack, propaganda or be subjected to attack. That’s fine. All those things are normal and to be expected after what I’ve done. By linking to Danny’s post I officially endorsed it as an individual. Since I’m a volunteer contributor to pitivi, the result was akin to a napalm strike to clear a beach for surfing.

I underestimated the consequences and hurt Jason so badly he was trembling with anger. It is only when I chatted with him once more on IRC tonight that I came to realize how deep the wound was. Even though I have my doubts they can pull it off, deep inside I’m rooting for them to succeed.

I am not here to ask forgiveness as it sounds impossible, but I am however very sorry for any pain caused by my actions. Not sure how to phrase this properly, basically I don’t think forgiveness is something you can request.

Somehow this reminds me of Ran, although I should be careful in personifying anyone as Saburo or Hidetora in this (I’m probably both, anyway). After that chat, now that I’ve been banished from the kingdom and I’m nothing more than a beggar, perhaps I can tell you the story that made me break the bundle of arrows.

The end goal was not to attack the person or the core idea behind a distributed video editor focused on making videographers more efficient at what they do, but a last attempt at preventing another tragedy.

Let me tell you (the public) the story of one of those failed video editors projects. In November 2008 I received an email from the guy who was launching his video editor project, Saya. Just as I did with Jason, I wrote lengthy emails and had endless conversations trying to make him see the hardship he was to face. Since pitivi was dormant at the time, I was cautious in my predictions that he would crash and burn, and accepted to be part of his project as an advisor. In the process I have accumulated tons of inside knowledge, and what you can see on the surface is only the tip of the iceberg. The ambitious goals, the mislead technical decisions and autocratic management attitude of the leader paled in comparison to his delusions of grandeur.

Then, just as I had predicted, this guy went into nervous breakdown (his own words) as well as complete financial disarray after alienating every contributor around him. He now came back as an empty shell of a man wandering the remainders of the castle that was burned to the ground. When he came back in that state, I asked if he would swallow his pride (much like Danny wrote here) and join an existing project—any project—which he refused. On his blog, you can see some saddeningly meaningless posts about writing playback GUI controls or an “image reading plugin”.

After so many years and seeing such a spectacular failure still occuring, I thought that next time, I would try as hard as possible to prevent it from reoccuring, by insisting much more on the forewarning part and avoiding to ever have to say “I told you so” again. I prefer to be banished first for having done my public duty rather than after the unfolding of yet another tragedy.

Wait, I know this, you know this, and Jason obviously knows this because I’ve been warning him incessantly for a year, until a point where he said “We’ll have to agree to disagree”. That doesn’t answer the question that burns on your mind, “Why did you break the bundle of arrows?” Why suddenly rock the boat on which we’re all standing?

I’m generally immune to marketing in the media in the “real world”, but not as much in open source. I had this belief that it was a completely separate world, a belief that was shattered by events of the past few months.

Seeing the first few videos posted for the 2nd kickstarter, I was annoyed. Then,seeing the latest artist video posted, my jaw dropped on the floor. What I felt at this moment is beyond words and can only be understood by someone who has been observing the tireless, daily struggle of all the open source video editors for over six years. Particularly with a claim like this going unedited: “This thing exists! It’s called Novacut”.

I immediately posted a comment on YouTube, in which I did not mince my words. You can now have a better idea why I found it logical to link to Danny’s post afterwards. I linked to it with the shortest post summary I could think of, because:

I could not condone his post: I was agreeing with what he presented.
I could not add arguments in the same direction, since

I could not think of a better way to say what he said, although his point about “this is a trend to be stopped” was certainly misunderstood as a personal attack.
You can guess from the tone of my YouTube comment, I was not in a good disposition at that time.

I am not the best writer there is (it took me over 9 hours just to write the post you’re reading right now).

And all hell broke lose.

Did breaking the bundle of arrows do any good? Does trying to prove the point in public achieve anything but suffering?

I need to say that I ideologically still stand behind my endorsement of that blog post and the comments I have posted. Sometimes, even when you know that saying such things out loud can’t possibly be seen in a good light, you still have to say it, for the sake of exposing to the public at large the situation as you have analyzed it to be. Open source is also a matter of dealing in public as much as possible. Leave your dissent buried in your IRC channel and private discussions, and you do not achieve anything for you, for the person you disagree with, for the world.

As improbable as it may seem, to me this is not about money. 25 000$ is peanuts. I’m not saying this because I’m a rich businessman or rockstar developer—I’m a student who spends most if not all his free time contributing to open source. I don’t make a dime on it and I’ve never been into this for the money. If it was about money I would have bought myself a copy of Sony Vegas years ago and called it a day, because I’ve spent so many years working on getting pitivi back on track that I am at a net loss in terms of unpaid work. I even wrote the user manual in secret while I was working in a summer job, and this year I had to take time away from supervising 23 employees while I spent all the rest of my free awake time mentoring SoC students for pitivi (and I still think the amount of mentoring I could provide was insufficient). My weekly paycheck was smaller because I spent less time working “in the real world”. Hang on, where was I heading towards when I started this paragraph?

Ah right: Jason, I don’t mind you getting 25 grand. That’s not the point.

I spoke the truth when I said that I knew you guys would reach the goal a few days ago, it was not even a question in my mind. Deep down, I knew that for sure as soon as you passed your previous milestone of 11K$.

I am still a bit dumbfounded that, in the comments on that blog post, there were accusations of actively “threatening the financial security of [Jason's] family”. I hope I can make that clear. It has never been something as outlandish as trying to bankrupt your family.

I’ve juggled with the ideas for years and I still haven’t found a definitive answer to what could be achieved if we threw money at pitivi. It’s not like I’m seeing a financial loss here, it has been going on for years without any budget. I rather wished you’d have got 250 000$ instead of 25 000$. I am unable to imagine, as others pointed out, what you can do in the long run with a mere 25K without quickly implementing a more permanent business model that regularly brings in significant amounts of money. I sincerely hope you get your financial situation sorted out.

Yes, of course I had that moment of “What is this? How unfair is this to all the other video editor projects out there? Imagine fulltime paid developers on kdenlive, I’d finally be able to ditch pitivi!”. That comes back to my section above: I felt compelled to share that link because not doing so would have been “refraining from giving any credibility to naysayers” and passively nodding in front of misleading statements such as “it exists”.

Jason basically went about it in a completely opposite direction to all open source software development models, with insane risks involved. After seeing what happened of Diaspora, one can’t help but to be worried. I think that was the main point behind Danny’s article, where he said enough about these macro-socio-economic issues, in much better words that I could try to convey myself. Frankly, the more I write on this subject, the more I’ll drift on a tangent and look like I’m bent on dismissing your project. Let’s shift my point of view for a minute.

What would I think of Novacut, if I was not a cautious cynical old fart?

I’d have drank the cool-aid. Back in 2005-2007, I would have killed for the realization of such a promise as Novacut’s. I would have thrown hundreds of bucks into the kickstarter. 25K, in the grand scheme of things, is breadcrumbs. I would have been their most vehement fan. I would even have called the CBC and written articles for the local newspapers or tech magazines.

Yesterday, seeing as they were merely a few hundred dollars away from the goal, I even pledged a couple of bucks myself (before I had the chat and realized how much I hurt Jason).

What will happen in the future?

If Novacut succeeds, PiTiVi dies. Hang on a minute. This statement is not to be interpreted as a threat or warning. This is me publicly saying that if Novacut manages to rapidly reach feature parity with pitivi, then pitivi becomes technologically irrelevant and *I* will join the Novacut project (if they ever let me in). These are my thoughts and do not necessarily reflect those of others, though I know that many probably feel the same as I do on this one.

And without me, I can pretty much assure you that pitivi will slow back to a crawl and fade out from my cladogram and my life. And thus will Novacut be the new heir. The king is dead, long live the King. Such transmutations are a curious fact of the cycle of life in open source.

In short, there are two possible outcomes that I can see in the long term:

Novacut succeeds and produces the FOSS editor that people have been awaiting for so long (simple in the beginning, but usable with more coming over time). In that case, join Novacut since it is the way forward.
Novacut manages to produce some code that others will use and useful lessons are provided for others (eg design decisions, workflows, etc.)

Either way there will at least be some benefit.

Everybody in life secretly wants to start a revolution and write history. In the grand scheme of things, I am a speck of dust, I’m happy to just go back to the stage of my life where I was only a cineast who wanted a “friggin editor that works”. Tell you what, you build it as awesome as you promised in the next decade, and if you don’t want me I’ll “go find a new hobby” as you suggested. Software is a big part of my life right now, but in the end I’ll be a pack of bones in a grave and until then, maybe I should go fly a kite — literally.

My feelings towards Jason could be summarized by this quote from Randy Pausch:

“When you’re screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they’ve given up on you.”

And this is why I feel this way…

…history…

Novacut: Not just vaporware.

2011-07-25T23:09:00.001-04:00

I am not here to be a cynic and say that Novacut's funding efforts will fail (again). I am writing to say that the only way for the ideas behind Novacut to be realized is to stop pretending that throwing $25K worth of funding at it could possibly save the project. Over the past year, Novacut has put almost all effort into soliciting money. In the amount of time it would've taken to implement these features in existing software, Novacut has mainly been producing advertisements for itself.

What Novacut is doing is harmful to free software, especially existing video editors. While the broader goals of the Novacut project, like decentralized collaboration, are admirable and deserve support, the project's current course will only serve to further splinter an area of free software that has already suffered enough from people thinking they can make something better from scratch.

Graph illustrating the current state of free software video editors.

I don't like writing about this, especially knowing how much an individual has poured into this effort, but it needs to be said. I don't think that Novacut should disappear, but its current path needs serious reevaluation.

Kickstarter is a very cool platform for funding all sorts of great projects. The problem is that sometimes, maybe even often, successful funding depends on making high quality videos to advertise the project, rather than the actual ability to complete the project. Even if we let that slide, is Novacut a worthwhile project? When all existing free software projects for some purpose (like video editing) are fundamentally flawed in some way, unable to incoporate a major innovation, or simply has an unwelcoming community, then starting a new project or forking an existing one may be necessary. This is not one of those times.

Jason Gerard DeRose, the one-man show behind Novacut, wants to reinvent the wheel and the axel, build a self-powered vehicle on them, open up a mobile ice cream shop, and have you fund it for him. Don't get me wrong, Jason has some cool ideas, but the project as it exists (or is envisioned to exist) today, is doomed to failure. A list of things you wish your video editor would do is not deserving of $25K worth of funding. Novacut displays an impressive combination of setting ridiculous goals, being unwilling to collaborate with existing projects, and deceptively marketing toward artists that are not intimately familiar with the ecosystem of free software video editing.

If Novacut gets the funding Jason is asking for, the money wasted isn't even the biggest issue. Novacut is distracting from worthwhile projects and promoting a development model that doesn't work, building a bad reputation for projects that really do deserve support.

Novacut is all talk and marketing and no code. All there is to show are some simple HTML5+JavaScript video demos: a video player/scrubber does not make a desktop video editor. Spending so much time on identity and branding, and having no code beyond the tiny demos to show for it, is becoming a trend that needs to be stopped.

What even is the Novacut project? Let's try not to feel too uncomfortable while we go through their awkward buzzword-inflated infomercial-style videos.

In their first Kickstarter video, they talk about a few ideas. Jason describes his vision to create video project "source code" to let you see all the files and editing done to produce a final cut. This is commonly known as the combination of the input media files and the project or save files from the video editing tools used. Nothing magical about it. You can't create a video editor without "video source code". Every video editor has this. It's simply up to the people doing the work whether they actually share their source files. Jason describes it as if this "source code" would also be contained in the actual video file you watch, but personally, I don't want to download 50GB of source files just to watch an episode of a show.

Next, he talks about a distributed workflow. This seems to be the only "unique" idea behind Novacut, and it's a good one, but we'll get into that later. This will be powered by a piece of software Novacut is writing called dmedia, the Distributed Media Library. The demo of Novacut's reimagining of the classic video timeline, equivalent to Final Cut's storyboard mode, is rather elegant, but there is not even a mockup to illustrate how collaborative editing will look, or even any aspect of editing other than this "slice and sequence" prototype.

He closes with a brief remark mentioning a "better business model" for artists, without describing what that entails. Next, Tara Oldfield appears to discuss creating a community of "teachers and learners" again, without giving out any details, but that would require some sort of web distribution platform. Oh yes! In this interview with OMG! Ubuntu!, Jason describes the plan for monetizing Novacut:

"After the initial editor development, we'll be building an online marketplace though which artists can distribute their work to their fans, and through which fans can support the artists they love.

Our business model is for artists to make money, and when they do, we take a cut to cover the costs of the infrastructure we provide. As we won't require exclusivity and artists will retain ownership of their work, artists will always be free to seek other venues. This puts good pressure on us to truly take care of artists, to constantly earn their business. The marketplace will allow us to fund the video editor's long-term development."

So Novacut will be tied to this online marketplace? This is turning into a rather large project. Still, the idea of an online marketplace to fund the development of a free software video editor isn't a bad idea, and it is especially nice that all videos will be required to use a copyleft license approved for free cultural works. But what about that distributed workflow? In the video for their current Kickstarter campagn, 100 tickets for their "Novacut cloud" are advertised for anyone who gives them $300 or more. So wait, even the video editing will be tied to a web service? I'm willing to bet hosting all those source files won't be cheap.

So, the Novacut project aims to build an unilateral, top to bottom, storyboarding, script writing, video editing, and distribution platform consisting of three major components: the collaboration-enabled editor itself, the community platform for distributed production, and the distribution venue. Let's ignore the last two, since the video editor itself needs to exist before those can even begin.

What has the Novacut video editor promised us? Video source code and distributed/decentralized workflows. Again, this is something every video with a "save" button already has. Novacut's solution to this seems to be storing or at least tracking all resources remotely, allowing multiple people to make changes, and then resynchronizing the changes. Not only is that not actually real-time collaboration, but this sounds like a whole mess of added complexity to both the user interface and the video "source code". Somehow, after writing yet another video editor from scratch, they will also be able to build complicated functionality to support their cloud service, a service that is not truly decentralized as you will have to host it yourself, or likely pay someone to host it for you. Jason has admitted that he has no idea how the user interface will look to support this. There are no mockups or even informal descriptions of how it could look, only a mishmash of feature ideas he wants Novacut to have and how he wants it to be perfect.

Even if they get funded, where would the money go? What can you do for 25K a year? You can barely feed one person in the USA. Developers are typically paid $90K per year. So, you manage to feed 1 person for a year, and then what, another fundraiser every few months? This is precisely why the trend of putting all efforts into Kickstarter funding needs to end. It's sad how desperate they've become, and no free software contributor should go through this:

"We've thrown ourselves into Novacut completely, and in the process have maxed out all our credit cards, burned through every drop of savings, and borrowed basically all the money we can."

"We're desperate. We were about a week from having to pull the plug on Novacut when FCPX was released, so we thought we'd try one last ditch effort. The sacrifices we've made to work full time on Novacut the last year... have left our lives in shambles."

In public discussions on IRC channels, Jason has repeatedly refused to build upon existing video editors for a series of wishy-washy reasons along the lines of 'I don't want to be hampered in design', when he doesn't even have concrete design plans, nevermind actual mockups, and he never even attempted to work with other projects, dismissing them as projects that would not be interested in such revolutionary changes. Yet, for one thing, PiTiVi already shares the same goals as Novacut (collaborative editing has been an idea they've been interested in for a while), and a few years ago someone already started a patch that enabled realtime collaboration. There are also plans to create a storyboard mode like in the demo. Jason has failed to provide one good reason for needing to create a separate project.

In all of Novacut's videos, the project is described as if it is the first free software video editor ever, and as if it already exists. In the most recent video, they again utter all the abstract things Novacut hopes to be, and they actually say, "This thing exists". It doesn't. In a beautiful fusion of hipness and cheesy advertising speak, this entertaining infomercial goes over all of the ideas Novacut has, as if throwing money at it will suddently make them come true: automatically syncing audio, switching clips between speakers, regular backups, checking file integrity, distributed libraries of tagged media, etc. Yet, in their own words, Novacut should be adding these on to existing projects! Pros and cons? Pros: "It's open source, so any functionality that doesn't exist right now can easily be implemented in the future by the fact that any programmer can come along and...and add that functionality." Cons: "It doesn't exist yet".

Brilliant.

So, what should Novacut do?

Simple: narrow their focus.

For the video editor, Jason needs to just swallow his pride and join forces with PiTiVi, as he has been invited to again and again. It uses the same powerful backends that Novacut planned to use, but real-time collaborative editing is something that could could actually be implemented soon. PiTiVi has just implemented audio sync and multi-camera alignment, and surely the rest of Jason's revolutionary ideas can be implemented as well. Novacut's main purpose could shift from creating a new video editor, straight to building the web platform for sharing source files and distributing final projects to their audiences.

Novacut has been gaining momentum, and that should not go to waste. There are some good ideas that really deserve fruition, but unless Jason can get over the need to build his own fantastical media sharing and editing megaplatform, he won't be contributing to the advancement of free software video editing.

Delete Your Facebook for Your Birthday

2011-07-21T02:35:00.004-04:00

As the need for free (as in freedom) tools to communicate and socialize becomes increasingly urgent, more projects have been popping up to take up the challenge: GNU social and StatusNet, Crabgrass, Apache Wave, and more. The list goes on, and on. If you're not yet familiar with the issue, or even if you are, you should watch this excellent talk by Eben Moglen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gORNmfpD0ak

The first step towards digital autonomy is of course to stop using services that restrict your freedom, whether they do so through unfair terms of service, disregard for your privacy, locking you in, and/or any other means. Facebook is the biggest and baddest right now, so it's a great place to start. If you're like most Facebook users, you're probably thinking something along the lines of "This is great, but I could never afford to delete my Facebook account". Really though, it isn't that bad. Instead of just having one central web service you rely on, you'll just be spread out on what you're already using (phone, text, IM, email), and perhaps picking up some new tools. It is a small sacrifice, but sometimes, what's slightly more convenient to you as an individual, is extremely harmful to society on a large scale.

So, if you're willing to do it, there's really no better time to delete your Facebook account than on your birthday. All your friends will be coming to your page to post a quick "happy birthday" note on your wall, only to find that they can't, and that you'll be leaving. It's a great way to maximize your impact, and make sure everyone has other ways to contact you.

It's easy:

Step 1: A while in advance (a week or more before your birthday) - Create a Facebook event for your birthday alerting people of your decision and why. Go ahead and copy the text I used for my event:

For my birthday, I am permanently deleting (not decativating, so I won't be able to restore) my Facebook account. The day after this event, I will export all of my data and my account will be gone!

If you want to keep in touch, here's how you can:

Email: [your email here]
Phone/text: [your number here]
IM (Jabber/Google Talk): [your Jabber ID here]
[other]: [your other contact here]

Why I am leaving:
Facebook is bad for the world -
They've plainly declared war on privacy, they lock users in, and they're trying to take over every aspect of our online lives (and dumb it down).
http://gizmodo.com/5530178/top-ten-reasons-you-should-quit-facebook
Facebook is homogeneous and unilateral -
What we use to communicate shapes us. As more and more stuff goes on Facebook, the more everything we do online has to conform to Facebook's platform. It's not adding to our online presence; it's sucking it up.
Facebook is annoying -
The groups, the apps, the "likes", the marketing and advertising, the constant stream of immutable noise.
Will i ever come back?

My requirements for an acceptable social networking tool are simple. It must be free software (also known as "open source"), and should be federated (think about email: you don't need a Gmail account to send mail to a Gmail account, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail users can email each other, etc). Since Facebook will likely never meet those simple requirements, I will likely never come back.

If you want to leave too:

Read about how to delete your account, get the word out, and export your information here:
http://blog.thesilentnumber.me/2011/07/delete-your-facebook-for-your-birthday.html

Invite all your friends to the event by using this Chromium/Google Chrome extension which adds a "select all" option to the invite window of Facebook events:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/npnaoebelpbmmcdoboinnphhoakdnaah

Then, if you want to increase your chances of people actually reading the event, click the "Message Guests" button and either paste in the same text, or write your own.

Step 2: Shortly (a few days) before your birthday - Go to your Facebook privacy settings, select custom, and click the "Customize settings" link. On that page, under the "Things others share" section, uncheck the "Friends can post on my Wall" option. Then, go to your event page, hit the "Share" link to post it on your wall, and add a message like "For my birthday, I am leaving Facebook permanently".

Step 3: On the day or the day after your birthday - Backup all of your account data then delete! Some tools for this are:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ficlccidpkaiepnnboobcmafnnfoomga Chromium and Google Chrome extension that will copy all of your friends contact info and allow you to import them into Gmail.
https://www.facebook.com/download/ Go to "Download Your Information" towards the bottom of your Facebook account settings.
http://facebookexport.com/ Get even more info.
http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/12/how-to-mass-export-all-of-your-facebook-friends-private-email-addresses/ Create a temporary Yahoo mail account that will allow you to import Facebook contacts.

Then delete your account! The "Deactivate Account" option doesn't delete your account and Facebook will keep your data. To delete, use this link: http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

Now, you can bask in the freedom.

The Free Game Lag

2011-07-19T15:06:00.000-04:00

My article in the Free Software Foundation's Fall 2010 Bulletin, The Free Game Lag, was just posted online. In it, I explain why proponents of software freedom should not and need not dismiss gaming as a hopeless effort for free software. The version here includes a section on Blender's free game effort, which was not included in the FSF Bulletin due to space constraints, but you can read that version here. Printed copies of the Bulletin are sent out to FSF members twice a year. If you would like to support free software and the work of the FSF, you can learn more about membership and benefits here: http://www.fsf.org/associate/

There is one category of software that many see as being unsustainable as free software. Free video games have lagged behind other areas of free software, and the reasons behind this are fairly simple.

Nexuiz

Still, even many free software proponents may fail to provide an answer to those who are skeptical about the viability of free gaming. While it is true that software should be ethical, video games need not suffer for it. The business models for production simply need to change, and just like they have for other software, they will for gaming as well. When people ask you how gaming as we know it can exist in a free software world, you should open with your response with, “It can't, but it can be better.”

There is a natural tendency for free software to take on more essential aspects of computing first. While subjective, it is clear that gaming is not a top-priority and, as such, has not advanced as rapidly as say, web browsers or word processors. That isn't to say that no progress has been made. Indeed, free gaming has certainly been catching up, but it will take a while to surpass the quality of proprietary games. This should not be surprising or alarming. We will get there in good time.

Ryzom

It's always funny to face the same arguments that have been presented to the free software movement and completely disproven in practice (e.g. Why would anybody produce free software?). The possible incentives for creating free games are as numerous as the motivations for producing other free software. Perhaps a graphics hardware company wants to fund the development of a game to show of the capabilities of their hardware. Perhaps a hospital wants to fund an enjoyable way for surgeons to improve their dexterity. Perhaps a school wants to fund a suite of educational games for students. Perhaps a competitive gaming league wants to fund their own game for tournaments. There are already a few notable examples of free games that are proving business models can be built around free games.

Through a partnership with the Free Software Foundation, Winch Gate Properties Ltd released Ryzom, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game, as free software under the AGPL, and its artwork as free cultural works under the CC-BY-SA license. As an online game, they fund development through subscriptions, so releasing as free software can only help them.

Yo Fankie!

Blender, the free software 3D media creation suite, organizes the production of films which are released as free cultural works and also organized the development of a free game based off of one of their films. These efforts help foster the development of Blender and showcase its abilities. They are able to successfully fund these efforts with DVD pre-orders and donations from people who support them. When you have a reputation for producing quality work, people will be willing to support you in making more. The game they produced, Yo Frankie!, may not be actively developed, but it does serve to prove that this model can be very successful. In less than one year and with a very small crew of people, they were able to make a fully functional game with impressive graphics. This is a testament to the viability of free gaming.

The possibilities don't end there, and hopefully with these examples it becomes clearer how free gaming can advance with enough interest. Free gaming will never look like the world of proprietary games today. They won't use DRM to prevent you from sharing them, and they won't limit your freedom otherwise. We can look forward to games which are not crippled by antifeatures, and are able to build upon each other to develop faster than they would have otherwise. We should in fact take it as a great sign when critical questions that were once raised against free software as whole are now just pinned on one subset of software. Now, next time anyone asks, we should have a good answer for them.

Interview with Libre Graphics Magazine at Libre Graphics Meeting 2011

2011-07-05T19:53:00.000-04:00

I was recently able to attend the 2011 Libre Graphics Meeting in Montreal, and there i had a blast meeting lots of people and founding out about so many great projects. One of these, is Libre Graphics Magazine and the fantastic people behind it: ginger "all lowercase" coons along with Ana Carvalho and Ricardo Lafuente of Manufactura Independente.

The magazine is all about free cultural works made with free software, as the entire magazine itself is and was (you can even see all of the revisions ever made to the magazine in their git repository)! I had the pleasure of interviewing them and video has been blogged over at Creative Commons labs. It's truly an outstanding project, but to find out more either see the blog post or watch the interview below!

View on YouTube or archive.org / ( CC BY-SA 3.0 | FAL 1.3 | GFDL 1.3 )

Do you work on a free software desktop app? Do you want more contributors?

2011-04-05T01:20:00.000-04:00

You'll see it in virtually every free software project: lots of users would love to get involved with contributing to the project, yet they haven't for one reason or another. It definitely isn't due to a lack of demand for help. OpenHatch, the awesome community participation engine, is working to identify and address the obstacles in free software projects which hold users back from joining the development community. We work toward this goal through the website and through events, continuing to find more ways to approach the new mission of lowering the barriers of entry for new contributors to free software.

One such barrier is that many people simply haven't gotten through the first step of compiling the program. That's not to say there aren't other places where new contributors get stuck, just one that's significant enough to require attention and provide an opportunity to bring new people into the community.

So as part of OpenHatch, I'm helping an event: five sessions to help free software projects teach potential/wannabe contributors how to compile the app and turn them into community members who feel comfortable following discussion on the project's development lists. Soon-to-be contributors can have a dedicated time to be walked through the compile process and engage with members of the development community. Simple, but very useful!

Over one week, the target is to have five projects email their mailing lists to announce that experienced people will be on their IRC channel at a particular time, waiting to help you compile the app. If you are a member of the development team for a free software desktop app and you want more prospective contributors to join in, please email us and pick a day and time for you and others to be helping people in your project's IRC chat room.

Sound interesting? Here's what you do:

If you're a free software contributor and know how to compile a program you work on, we want you to run this event within your project.

Email starling@openhatch.org with one sentence or shorter answers to each of these questions:

Your project's name
What you like about this outreach event
How you heard about the "Build it" week

Remember that space is limited, and we'll get back to you to let you know if there are still slots available. We're particularly looking for projects with plenty of users, which means a healthy pool of people to draw from.

If you want to read more, check out our wiki page about the event: http://openhatch.org/wiki/Build_it

If you want to chat, I'm reachable as dpic@identi.ca for StatusNet and as sarvodaya in #openhatch on irc.freenode.net. Asheesh (paulproteus on IRC) is also helping organize.

Reflections on the Students for Free Culture conference 2011 in NYC

2011-03-05T04:26:00.000-05:00

I can't believe this was my first Students for Free Culture conference-- I've been missing out! Firstly, wow. Running a conference is a lot of work. The board deserves serious props for all the time and effort they put into making this event happen and be awesome!

Learning about the long history of “Who let the dogs out?” was wildly entertaining, and listening to the fashion panel discuss how the industry is able to thrive thanks to a lack of copyright restrictions (as introduced by the TED Talk) was insightful. It was great being able to closely inspect a single work, revealing how every creative piece has a story, that everything is a remix, and also to be able to zoom way out and see how there are thriving industries that would not be possible with Intellectual Property restrictions. Seeing other industries unrestricted by IP that we take for granted would be useful in contrasting and comparing to those that are, and painting analogies that will help unfamiliar folks understand what we stand for. The ideals of the free culture movement are reflected through so many aspects of everyday life, and this was a great reminder of that.

I saw lots of friends and made many more. Everyone, from all different backgrounds and political persuasions, clearly wanted to do everything in their power build a freer culture, a freer society. The people at this event filled me with hope, something I am always struggling to sustain. I'll be sure to carry this on to the Free Software Foundation's similarly-themed LibrePlanet conference, which is specific to free software.

I was especially glad that web services were a major focus, as the Diaspora team gave a keynote presentation. Non-free, centralized, “walled-garden” web services like Facebook are an especially problematic and challenging issue, and it's great to see people interested in the up and coming alternatives. It was slightly frustrating, though, when the question and answer session became a ranting session for audience members who demanded that the Diaspora team use their New-York-Times-acquired fame to spread some loosely-defined ideals of “open source” to everything imaginable. As someone entirely committed to software freedom, I sympathize with anyone who wishes we had louder voices on our side. I am even lovingly critical of the Diaspora project, as I support them entirely, but also fear for their success and regret that other projects like GNU social don't receive anything near the same amount of attention. As they said in their attempt to respond, they use MacBooks, they don't use Gitorious, they are pragmatists before idealists and probably not the best people in the room to talk to about making everything free. Still, I would not use their Q&A time to tell them to be the megaphone for my ideals. I can only be thankful for the work they are doing. It was still a great keynote, and the conference would not have been complete without the remix panel and education panel, two essential parts of today's free culture movement.

The unconference was a blast! It was almost an entire day run by the attendees! The breakout rooms talked about everything from gender issues in the free culture community to FreedomBox and the importance of free network services. It was great to learn about cool projects like LibreProjects.net which lists free software web services like BeWelcome, an alternative to CouchSurfing, and lots more. For almost everyone, it was their first time hearing about free web services like Diaspora and StatusNet/Identi.ca, so I hope that many SFC followers begin migrating from Facebook and Twitter and resolve to delete their accounts there. I also gave a quick lightning rant on how free culture supporters should pay closer attention to licenses and talk about free ones instead of Creative Commons ones, as there are not only licenses for free cultural works that are not Creative Commons like the GNU Free Documentation License and Free Art License, but also Creative Commons licenses that are not for free cultural works, like those with the NoDerivs or NonCommercial clauses. I don't think it went too bad for my first public speaking experience!

The entire conference covered lots of reasons why free culture rocks, but next time, I would love to see more dedicated discussion on action and organizing. I've certainly strengthened my commitment to boycott Facebook, and been inspired and motivated to start my own project which will someday be ready at www.freeingculture.org (or check the wiki in the meantime). A dedicated space for people to share their own or their favorite free software and free culture projects would also be great, whether it's a physical space at the conference or a space online. The lightning talks didn't seem to be enough to cover projects in addition to the other interesting opinions, facts, and stories people shared. Also for next time, the more the merrier. Let's make these conferences huge-- tell everyone about the next one when it rolls around!

As a strong free software / free culture activist, I've long been concerned with bringing these movements into the public eye, and it was at this conference that I really saw it for the first time: we, as a society ever-adapting to our technology, are becoming aware of the implications of ownership and control on how we are able to express ourselves, speak freely, and communicate in a digital world. And what's more? We care profoundly. That's not something to be taken lightly.

Benjamin "Mako" Hill to do a Reddit AMA video interview

2011-02-18T13:29:00.002-05:00

Benjamin "Mako" Hill has agreed to do a Reddit AMA (ask me anything) video interview on his work for free software and free culture where he will answer the top ten questions on this post...in a 12 foot Igloo i built.

http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/fnw13/free_software_leader_benjamin_mako_hill_has/

Mako works on issues of technology, intellectual property, and society and is a key person in the free software and free culture movements. He is a core-developer, active contributor, and founding member of the Ubuntu Project, and he continues to serve on the Community Council board that oversees all non-technical aspects of the project. For nearly a decade, he has also been an active member of the Debian GNU/Linux Project, which Ubuntu is based on.

Mako is an Associate Member and a member of the Free Software Foundation's Board of Directors. Reddit just became a corporate patron of the FSF, and you can support software freedom by becoming an Associate Member yourself. Together with Erik Moeller from the Wikimedia Foundation, Mako founded the Definition of Free Cultural Works based on the Free Software Definition. This definition is agreed upon and used by the Wikimedia Foundation, Creative Commons, and Students for Free Culture.

Mako serves on the advisory board of the Wikimedia Foundation and the One Laptop Per Child project. Currently a researcher and PhD Candidate in a joint program between the MIT Sloan School of Management and the MIT Media Lab, and a Research Fellow at the MIT Center for Future Civic Media, Mako looks at social scientific analyses of social structure in free software and free culture communities.

Another fun fact: Mako's apartment is where Reddit was founded, and there is spray paint on the roof to prove it.

Ask him anything!

Spread the word:

Ubuntu Maverick Post-install Guide is late, but on the way.

2010-12-11T04:56:00.000-05:00

I've felt bad about not having the post-install guide ready really early on, so i decided to not post anything until i do. It turns out this is an ineffective technique for pressuring myself into getting things done. I've done the same thing with the Noam Chomsky interview which should've been posted 9 months ago, but a tiny little bug in PiTiVi has been blocking me, and i'm just about ready to throw money i don't have at someone to fix it. Anyway.

What should you do if you're looking for the new post-install guide? Use the last one. It hasn't been completely obsoleted by the new version of Ubuntu!

But why is it so late?

Lame reasons:

Because i've been busy. I'm just finishing up two computer science classes at Harvard Extension (one of which was not only the "intensive" version, but also a prerequisite of the other).
These guides are a ton of work. I have to go through an installation of Ubuntu from scratch, test a ton of software, take and edit screenshots, and write up the whole guide.

Better reasons:

The list of software i'll be featuring has probably doubled in size, maybe more, and that doesn't include the many new apps i try but decide not to feature. So, hopefully all the new stuff will make up for it's lateness!
It can take a bit of time for PPA's and other repositories to catch up to the latest version of Ubuntu. There's lots of cool new software and i'm still finding out about more! Surely you'd want me to be able to provide you the repos for them, wouldn't you?
I was hoping to make the new guide available in nice downloadable formats, and allow for nice typesetting (which is not my area of expertise). This should also make the work of translators much easier.

So, how much is done, and more importantly, how long do we have to wait? A lot has been done, but there's still lots to do. I'd estimate having about half the work done at this point. Half the software tested and screenshots taken, and most of the guide written. After those are all done, i still have to edit, format, add links, and do all the things i'm surely forgetting. I really don't know how long it will take, and i can't make a promise. A rough estimate is two months, and i will aim for less than one month, but there's a lot of others things i need to worry about!

All new videos uploaded to YouTube in WebM will be viewable in WebM

2010-10-12T23:50:00.000-04:00

YouTube has slowly but surely been expanding the availability of WebM in their HTML 5 open video beta, but uploaders have so far had no control over whether their videos would be available in a free format. Videos deemed popular enough by Google would be made available in WebM, but other than that, only videos which happened to be HD (720p or greater) would definitely be viewable in WebM. Scaling up the resolution of a video was simply not an acceptable workaround. Back in June, i posted to the WebM Discussion list suggesting that all videos uploaded in WebM be made available in WebM, regardless of resolution or popularity.

Things got pushed back a few times, but now, as announced in a new thread, all new videos uploaded to YouTube in WebM will be available in WebM, finally giving uploaders the ability to make sure their videos can be viewed in a free format using HTML5. This is an important step, and hopefully it will serve to increase the use of free formats for video offline as well. Towards that end, perhaps they can also make sure videos uploaded in other free formats like Ogg Theora are viewable in WebM too.

If you're a YouTuber, make sure your your videos don't use annotations,don't display ads, and are uploaded in WebM to ensure they will be viewable in without Flash or h.264. Additionally, it may take a while after the video has reportedly finished processing before the WebM version is available.

Beyond Diaspora: Another Facebook alternative has a head start

2010-09-27T14:21:00.000-04:00

I just wrote a piece for Google Blogoscoped about Facebook and the problems with it, Diaspora and the obstacles it's created itself, and another effort that probably deserves some more attention. Please check it out and let me know what you think!

Here are a couple of teasers. On Facebook's battle for complete control over our online lives:

In the mind of Facebook, locking in users by holding their data captive is equally legitimate to actually making them want to stay, and it means more power for them. The problem is very simple. They own every piece of information about you that either you or your friends knowingly or unknowingly submit to them. They control who can see every bit of it, and they control how you can access it. You can bet when you delete something, it isn’t actually gone, that when you set something to private, there’s nothing to keep it that way, that when you want to see anything on Facebook, you’ll have to do it the way Facebook wants.

...and this on a promising alternative:

There are many such projects, but thus far Diaspora seems to be the only one to garner widespread attention. The developers were able to achieve instant popularity and raise twenty times their initial goal of $10K because to most people, Diaspora is the only project working towards this goal. It’s main asset right now seems to be mindshare, but it’s uncertain how much promise it holds beyond that. With the recent release of their pre-alpha source code, it immediately became apparent just how many security holes and problems are blocking the project. It will take a lot of work to fix and will almost certainly be impossible to make their public release as planned. Still, that isn’t to say the project isn’t worth supporting. It absolutely is, but it is not the only one you should know about.

What if there was another effort underway to create a federated social network, but based on a project that has already successfully been incorporated into the business of a Fortune 500 company, implemented in multiple public instances with tens of thousands of users, received funding which totals at a cool $2.3 million, and most importantly, already works with federation?

Know of a cool app that deserves more attention? Nominate it for the next Ubuntu post-install guide!

2010-09-23T23:07:00.001-04:00

A year ago i saw a lack of easy to understand yet comprehensive getting started guides for new users, so i decided to make one. I spent hours reviewing software, taking screenshots, and other exciting stuff in order to make a post-install guide which helps new users get used to and understand Ubuntu, and also recommend all sorts of apps that may be of interest to users of any level of experience. Please subscribe if you want to catch my next one!

My guides for Karmic and Lucid have gotten way more attention than i could've anticipated, and while some people have shown great appreciation with donations (thanks for the support!), nothing makes me happier than the hundreds of comments and even private thank yous about hear how these guides have helped them spread free software, or open source as you may have it, to their friends and family. Here are some of my favorites:

"Danny, you're a marvel. I'm going to try out some of those suggested apps this weekend and have some fun. I read this article just in time to share it with a friend who's trying out ubuntu on his new laptop. Thanks!"

- Anonymous

"Thanks for posting this guide! I've been thinking of getting my parents off Windows for a while and this is the ammunition that I needed. Thanks!"

- Carlos Rodriguez

"Awesome post, I installed most of them. I converted an old Dell Inspiron 8600 to a Ubuntu box because my Mother-in-law has a old PC from her job with Ubuntu on it. I have to be able to support her and it's been years since I lived in linux\unix since my Unigraphics & CATIA days in Automotive. This story rocks, thanks for sharing."

- Carl Brooks

"Really brilliant well done :)

So many apps and methods that I had no clue about and I've been using Linux for 6 years!"

- Mike

"Wow. This is what a release post should look like."

- Anonymous

"So as pretty much everyone else said, this writing is quite excellent and entertaining! I've bookmarked this as you've pretty much reviewed every other application I've never heard about before"

- sergiusens

"Awesome. Been using ubuntu since the start, and you introduced me to a heck of a lot of new things. Rock On!"

- Anonymous

Now it seems only appropriate to let all of you to nominate your favorite apps to be featured in the next iteration of my Ubuntu post-install guides. Just post a comment with as much information about the app(s) as possible: name, link, description, your opinion, etc. and i'll check it out!

I'm back!

2010-09-21T05:20:00.000-04:00

Sorry for leaving you all hanging for so long! Between working at the FSF and making friends with awesome people in free software, i hadn't made much time for writing. If you haven't already seen it, please check out the relaunched LibrePlanet project. LibrePlanet is an effort to establish local teams around the world promoting free software. If you're in Massachusetts, join us!

Now, i will be helping out with OpenHatch, applying to schools, and finding some ways to generate an income (suggestions welcome). I started a site for my sinister business: http://libreops.com/. I'm also taking two insanely overpriced courses at Harvard University's Extension School: Intensive Introduction to Computer Science, and Building Dynamic Websites. A new version of Ubuntu is coming out soon, so i'll be working on my next even more kickass post-install guide, with more delicious free software~ yum.

I spent all my the money i earned last summer on my first laptop (which wasn't borrowed or lent to me), a Thinkpad x201 Tablet with multi-touch. I'm hoping this could enable me to do some design stuff later on, and if you have any suggestions on awesome apps for touch-screens, do post a comment!

Here are some links to satisfy you (you may have seen these if you're in the related Reddit communities, or are subscribed to me on identi.ca):

Free software needs free tools
Great analogy: Free software will make Facebook the next AOL
The four freedoms of free culture
In defense of free knowledge: "I see no system of moral philosophy generated by the economy of the past that could evolve a principle to explain the moral legitimacy of denial in the presence of infinite profusion."
The Debian FreedomBox project
The talk which inspired it: We can use technology to fix politics, or we can wait forever for politics to fix technology. On freedom, privacy, and net neutrality
Life is not read-only

My first day at the FSF!

2010-06-14T18:27:00.000-04:00

I'm writing to you now from the Free Software Foundation headquarters! Today is my first day on the job as a campaigns intern. I've had my first experience with Trisquel (a purely free OS), played around with GNU Emacs, and made a quick blog post about the new anti-DRM sticker from Defective By Design. I even have a sweet little bio page:

Danny is an FSF campaigns intern and free software advocate from Newton, Massachusetts.

During high school he worked to raise interest in free software and successfully made GNU/Linux and other software like OpenOffice.org available on public computers as well as gained the support of a number of educators.

He has compiled a comprehensive free software activism guide available on LibrePlanet to help individuals and teams work effectively to spread free software.

For years Danny has worked with the Ubuntu community to make it more freedom friendly and bring more people to free software, gaining lots of experience in community organizing. Now he's working to establish a state LibrePlanet team for Massachusetts and encourage the formation of more local groups.

He is also an outspoken free culture supporter, as an extension of the free software movement, and is generally interested in issues concerning the control and distribution of information.

Today was mostly about getting settled in, but tomorrow, we'll have have a campaigns team meeting and Steve DuBois, the other intern, should be in the office as well. Two projects of mine i'll be able to work on while i'm here is getting the LibrePlanet Massachusetts Team fired up (please join!) and making FSF members eligible to join a credit union.

I'll keep you posted!

10 Killer Improvements YouTube Needs

2010-06-13T22:38:00.002-04:00

YouTube's recent new look has brought on some great usability improvements, and their adoption of VP8/WebM video codec/format released by Google is even better. Still, there is much more to be done to increase YouTube's openness, foster a respectable community, more fairly promote quality content, fill the remaining gaps of missing features, and further improve and clean up the interface.

Do not be like MySpace

Nobody misses that atrocious monstrosity. Firstly, do not push this "new" bulletins feature back out. Spamming is not a feature.
Secondly, stop covering the homepage with advertising, especially all the deceptive sponsored content with fake video players, "close" buttons, and other misleading imagery. If more ads are needed, the partner program shouldn't be so exclusive (mentioned below). Take a look at this screenshot of a common occurrence, labeled with YouTube's #1 most popular comment, which leads us to the next idea.

Fix commenting

Promote better comments through a cleaner user interface. YouTube has improved slowly since being acquired, but still isn't what would be expected from Google. Site designs that waste space and don't make efficient use of screen real estate encourage short mindless posts.
Repeated comments could be filtered based on their length and uniqueness in the same vein as ROBOT9000. Short and common posts like "GAY" could be prevented entirely or at least made very inconvenient by requiring a captcha and displaying a prominent warning. Perhaps a minimum comment length should be adopted, at least temporarily.
Posting URLs should be allowed, but requiring a captcha would prevent spam.

Specify copyright

Allow publishers to specify their level of copyright with licenses like Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-BY-SA), GNU FDL, Kopimi, Creative Commons Zero (CC0), which is a "stronger" Public Domain dedication that functions even in countries without a public domain, etc.
Allow us to search for such videos by what we want to be able to do with them: share, remix, and/or use for commercial purposes
Provide a directory of music for publishers to use in their videos, perhaps partnering with Jamendo

Sensible accounts, contacts, and messaging

Now that YouTube uses Google Accounts, there is no excuse to separate channels and users. The current system is like if Blogger limited a each account to one blog. One should be able to have multiple channels and channels should support multiple admins. Another Google Account shouldn't be needed to create another channel for a different purpose.
It is entirely redundant to import contacts from GMail instead of simply using Google Contacts to begin with.
At the very least, YouTube's messaging interface needs to be fixed and cleaned up. It might even be better off eliminated. Neither Blogger or Picasa Web Albums have a special messaging interface, and YouTube's inbox seems to mainly collect spam. Instead, a contact form could be used much like on Google Profiles.

Automate featured videos

Replace the hand-picked "featured videos" system with something automated. Featured videos are unfair, impractical, and against the Google way. You can do much better to promote quality content from lesser-known YouTubers with algorithms.

Expand monetization

Let viewers easily donate to producers they like on YouTube using Google Checkout without forcing them to pay to download or rent the video. This will be especially useful for free culture works or anyone using the pay-what-you-want model.
Most people who apply to for the YouTube Partner Program get an email which opens with this: "Thank you for your interest in the YouTube Partner Program. Our goal is to extend invitations to as many partners as we can. Unfortunately we are unable to accept your application at this time. The current level of viewership of your account has not met our threshold for acceptance." If YouTube really wanted to extend this program to as many partners as possible, why is there even a viewership threshold? Anybody eligible for an AdSense account should be able to make money off of ads displayed with their videos. It's mutually beneficial.

Live streaming

YouTube has done a few live video streams for the past couple years but it hasn't been a standard feature available to anyone. It looks like that might finally change as an image on the Moderator help page shows a "Live Stream" button at the end of the bar (not the circled button towards the middle). When this feature become available, it would be cool to be able to broadcast to YouTube live from Jabber (Google Talk) with a video call.

Downloads and video blogging

If a publisher wants to allow free video downloads, this should be allowed. For videos where downloading is allowed, they should be available to download in WebM but also whatever the original file was.
Viewers should be able to subscribe to channels using RSS and Atom feeds like blogger. These should be easily accessed instead of requiring any special knowledge of how to find them.
Video files should be linked to directly as enclosures in channel feeds to enable proper video blogging. I understand YouTube may begin allowing audio uploads, so this would be an absolute must for podcasts, but it should be added now for videos to enable videocasts that can be listed on Miro for example.
If Blogger's reading list could by moved to Google Reader or some independent social subscription management site, then YouTube subscriptions might be better moved there so that people could follow channels using Google Friend Connect.

Publishing options

A video should not be published upon upload. The uploader should be given the chance to add captions, change video settings, allow encoding to finish in HD, wait for monetization approval, set a future publish date, etc, before having it pushed to their subscribers. Publishers are currently forced to set a video to private and change it to public once all the changes are made which pushes based on upload time, resulting in videos being buried in users' subscriptions.
Lift the ten minute limit which forced longer videos to be broken into segments.

Edit: Make HTML5 with VP8/WebM default

A number of you have pointed out that basic counting skills reveal that there were only 9 ideas here, so i'm adding a tenth. YouTube should work on making sure that all of the features used in their flash interface (ads, annotations, etc), are also supported by their HTML5 interface.
The HTML5 interface should then be defaulted to with Google's free and open video codec and format, VP8 and WebM, respectively. The proliferation of a free video standard for the web is damn exciting, and this will help make VP8 and Ogg Theora dominate video and audio offline as well.

Edit: Add your support here

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/youtube/thread?tid=3177f94981a8ec05

Is Ubuntu committed to free software?

2010-06-09T12:57:00.000-04:00

Of course we are! At least according to our philosophy.

Still, many people don't think that Ubuntu is truly committed to free software in practice. I raised an interesting debate which took place on the Anarchism Reddit about whether it is better to be a purist or not. It started out by talking about Facebook and moved on to Ubuntu. The purist side made a very good argument with this:

If Ubuntu made a point of saying how non-free software was bad, and offered ways to easily purge all non-free software from one's system, that would be different. But they don't.

This sentiment seems very reasonable to me, and people who feel this way can and should be our allies. The concerns are valid and not difficult to appease, so to act in accordance with our philosophy, we should make a couple simple changes to Ubuntu:

Offer a way to easily purge all non-free software from one's system.

This would require supporting the Linux-libre kernel (it doesn't have to be default, but the option should be available)

Make a point of saying why and how non-free software was bad, but also why the option is given to install it

This would need to be shown every time Ubuntu recommends proprietary software like restricted drivers

Simple as that! I'm sending an email to the devel-dicuss list now.

For those interested in the "to be or not to be a purist" debate, the crux of the argument for me, as someone who does support Ubuntu, is here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/c7vfw/to_be_or_not_to_be_a_purist/c0qunme

Why Ubuntu LoCo's should move to LibrePlanet

2010-06-08T17:00:00.000-04:00

In the debate over whether it is worth supporting projects like Ubuntu which are not purely free software, my opinion thus far remains that Ubuntu does help further the free software movement. Arguments against this are welcome, but that is a discussion for a future post. The reason that Ubuntu's local community teams should move to LibrePlanet is because having one of the worlds strongest FLOSS advocacy networks centered around one piece of software and sponsored by one company is a disservice to the greater free software community.

I have been heavily involved in Ubuntu advocacy for years, but for a while now, i've been considering the prospect of local teams operating independent of Canonical. This would not be a move to abandon Ubuntu, but simply to open up more possibilities and reach our full potential. Most people in LoCos are not loyal to Ubuntu, but to free software (aka open source). We are united by a set of ideals and work together to promote software which helps further these ideals. Why then, must all of our advocacy revolve around one GNU+Linux distribution? There are two main reasons for why it currently does.

Firstly, because Ubuntu is seen by most people as the best way to introduce new people to a (mostly) free desktop environment. It is certainly much easier to simply promote one operating system than a family of them. Still, this is no reason to limit ourselves. A team not entirely exclusive to Ubuntu can just as easily choose to promote Ubuntu exclusively for events aimed at the general public. Ubuntu may be the best now, but if something better came along or if Ubuntu went downhill, we should be able and ready to adapt. Being an Ubuntu LoCo does not provide this flexibility.

Secondly, because the infrastructure is there. Canonical provides a wiki and mailing lists to their teams and in exchange, the teams work for them, albeit loosely, as part of the Ubuntu LoCo project, under its name and banner. Canonical also provides printed install discs to officially approved teams, but there is no reason why Canonical should not provide sponsorship to any team of people who will be promoting Ubuntu. It's mutually beneficial. In the meantime, to continue receiving materials only provided to officially approved teams, LoCo's can continue to operate alongside LibrePlanet groups. This isn't all to say that Canincal has been working to actively lock teams in, but this is the effect it now has. Creating the LoCo project, providing the structure needed to establish global network of local advocacy teams, was a great service, but the time has come to grow beyond its current scope.

LibrePlanet is inspired by Ubuntu's LoCo Project, but it's instead organized around ideals, not any particular piece of software. Surely there are some who only care about what tools work best, but let's not forget the ideals which made these better tools possible. Most of us imagine a world where these ideals are universal and see an incredible amount of potential in that. LibrePlanet isn't yet another social group for GNU+Linux users, but a team of activists. These groups are more open to users of any free software who may be interested in advocacy. Sponsorship could come from Canonical, Mozilla, or whoever. Isn't this much more in line with the nature of FLOSS?

Being a LoCo does in many ways lock you in to promoting Ubuntu. You may promote other software and welcome users of other distros, but by their very title, LoCo teams exist for Ubuntu. The very reason i began taking this idea seriously is because some non-Ubuntu users wanted to get involved with an event organized by my local community team, but did not want to work under an Ubuntu banner (literally). I don't blame them. I went on to discover many people who lurk on our mailing list and even IRC channel simply hadn't gotten involved because they were put off by the exclusive nature of the group even though they do happen to use Ubuntu themselves. There is an incredible network of people out there who want to help, and we shouldn't box them out.

Many people have some badly tainted perceptions of the FSF, but being a LibrePlanet team does not require strict adherence to FSF rules. Teams could work on would be creating a voice for free software that doesn't have the (in my opinion mostly wrong) reputation of the FSF to be too extreme, and this is coming from someone who often doesn't agree with their approach. To provide an example and get the ball rolling, i'd like to announce the LibrePlanet Massachusetts Team.

Mailing list: http://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-us-ma
IRC: #libreplanet-us-ma on FreeNode

The LibrePlanet Massachusetts Team is a group of volunteers and activists organized around furthering the ideals of free software and related issues concerning digital rights and free culture.

This group is working towards a free society through free software, but we are not a local Free Software Foundation team. We share the same end goals as the FSF, but some of us may find it necessary and more effective to make some temporary compromises with proprietary software in order to better spread free software. Some of us may not necessarily say GNU+Linux or always say "free software" instead of "open source", and some of us may use pragmatic benefits to advocate free software with the understanding that freedom is the underlying concern and principle which makes it all possible. We are open to people of all levels of interest in free software and welcome new participants. We are all united in the fight for software freedom as an important and necessary means for the prospect of a free society.

You can start your own LibrePlanet chapter here: http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/Form:Group

Free culture projects need a ubiquitous funding system

2010-06-04T01:16:00.003-04:00

The free culture movement, which is of a whole with the free software movement, has made a lot of great progress but is still struggling to prove itself to be economically viable in the mainstream. I might even go so far as to say that a lack of a better funding system is the single biggest thing holding back many existing and many more prospective free culture projects. Imagine if Add/Remove Applications and the Ubuntu Software Center prompted downloaders with a "Donate" button that enabled users to easily support projects. Imagine if last— ahem— libre.fm displayed the same button for artists. Imagine if the idea of giving in order to support the production of work you appreciate went from public appeal to the public's expectation.

Currently the Software Freedom Conservancy exists as a fiscal sponsor for free software projects which "provides member projects with free financial and administrative services, but does not involve itself with technological and artistic decisions." In short, member projects get the protections of a corporate entity without actually having to form and maintain one.

By joining the Conservancy, member FOSS projects obtain the benefits of a formal legal structure while keeping themselves focused on software development. These benefits include, most notably, the ability to collect earmarked project donations and protection from personal liability for the developers of the project. Another benefit of joining the Conservancy is that projects can use it to hold assets, which are managed by the Conservancy on behalf of and at the direction of the project. The Conservancy is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization, so member projects can receive tax-deductible donations to the extent allowed by law.

The grander vision that is needed for free culture would require the infrastructure to scale plus provide more features. The primary motivation for this system would be more broad: to support free culture by providing free financial and administrative services to projects. This pay-what-you-want app store of sorts would differ from what the Software Freedom Conservancy offers in two ways.

Firstly, it would not be exclusive to software, but any free cultural works. It might even make sense to welcome non free culture projects to join, but perhaps only provide full benefits to verified free culture projects. For example, donations to non free culture projects may not be tax deductible, and/or a 10% fee on donations could apply to donations towards unverified projects while verified and approved free culture projects receive the full benefits of the program for free. Then again, an approval system might be hard to scale, and this being a funding system project, it could of course be used to fund itself.

Secondly, and this is the ambitious part, the platform would need to make the process streamlined so that any project could join. It should be developed as a free and, if possible, federated service. This service should allow projects to collect donations through a variety of means. Projects should be able to display buttons or widgets on their own website, and it should be possible, as mentioned at the beginning of this post, for desktop applications like Add/Remove Applications and the Ubuntu Software Center to display "donate" buttons. Beyond basic one-time donation functionality, support could also be added for fundraising campaigns with a set goal (think Kickstarter) and repeating contributions for subscriptions.

If such a system were in place which provided programmers, writers, and artists a platform to easily accept donations directly from their followers, free culture projects will be able to expand and prove viable on a much, much larger scale. So, who do you think has the resources for such a project? Which organizations would be interested in contributing? We need this yesterday, so let's get started.

In related news, the reason i was compelled to finally write up this post, is because i recently received my first donation to this blog! It was a nice token of appreciation from Ketil Nordstad, so thank you and thanks to any future donors i may have. I added the Google Checkout widget without displaying it prominently just as an experiment to see if anything would happen. Now that something has happened and i am more determined to prove that people will want to contribute to works they appreciate, i am taking the idea more seriously. I have added Paypal buttons as well, one of which enables subscriptions (repeated donations), but sadly doens't support pay-what-you-want. There are also Flattr buttons on all of my posts, but i can't throw 100% support behind it because it's a non-free service. Still it's very useful, and i'm happy to see someone trying to shake up the market. I have three free Flattr invitation codes for whoever wants them, but be aware that you can't use it unless you put at least €2 ($2.46) in your account each month which will be distributed evenly to the things you "flattr". Please do not use these invites unless you are ready to spend money!

Three free Flattr invites:

36c9206e7cfba696b
b9775863e193437a8
824ce1901ba161593

Ubuntu 10.04 Post-Install Guide: What to do and try after installing Lucid Lynx!

2010-04-29T19:55:00.012-04:00

Now that you've installed Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid Lynx, a kickass GNU+Linux based free desktop operating system, there's a lot of fun stuff waiting for you to try! This guide lists good things to do after installing Ubuntu, explains new concepts for beginners, and doubles as a very complete list of great software to use aimed at Ubuntu's GNOME desktop environment. Feel free to pick and choose; enjoy!

Table of Contents

Managing Applications
Basics
Eye Candy
Desktop Functionality
Web Browsing
Multimedia Creation & Editing
Multimedia Playback
Learning
Time Management
Donating CPU Power
Images and Publishing
Games
Filesharing
Communication
System Utilities
Security & Privacy
Proprietary & Restricted Software
Explore, Customize, Personalize!

Managing Applications

Repositories

Ubuntu uses directories of available software called repositories (repos) which are read by your system to make it easy for Ubuntu to keep all of your software updated, allow you to easily install applications from a convenient catalog of all available apps, and provide a high level of security. You can say, "Good riddance!" to the days of searching the web for programs and downloading questionable executables. Ubuntu has a few default repos, but you may want to add others for one of two reasons: either the software you want isn't (yet) in Ubuntu's repos, or you want newer versions of software without waiting for the next version of Ubuntu.

Repositories can be added in Software Sources (System ⟶ Administration ⟶ Software Sources) simply by clicking the "Add..." button in the "Other Software" tab and entering the provided APT line. This guide will provide APT lines for repositories, referred to as Personal Package Archives (PPA) if hosted on the Launchpad website, when available or required.

Ubuntu Software Center

The main place to manage your installed apps and add or remove programs is the Ubuntu Software Center (Applications ⟶ Ubuntu Software Center). It's very easy to find what you need and with one click you can download and install it!

Simply type into the search bar in the upper-right corner, and you'll see the results update live as you type. You can double click on a result or hit the "More Info" button for a description of the application and a screenshot if available.

Clicking the install button does exactly what you'd expect.

Then you should be able to access the program in menu under the most logical section. A select few apps may appear under (System ⟶Preferences) or (System ⟶ Administration) like backup utilities.

Alternatively you may install any package via Synaptic Package Manager (System ⟶ Administration ⟶ Synaptic Package Manager), or Terminal (Applications ⟶ Accessories ⟶ Terminal) with this simple command:

sudo apt-get install example-package

APT links and package names will be provided for everything in this guide.

Now, let's get started!

Basics

Download Mirror & Updates

After every major Ubuntu release (beta, release candidate, and especially the final), the official servers may get sluggish. To select an alternative server, just launch Software Sources (System ⟶ Administration ⟶ Software Sources) and click the drop-down menu next to "Download from:" and select "Other..." at which point the "Choose a Download Server" window should pop up. If you know of a fast local server you may select it from the list, or you can try clicking the "Select Best Server" button to launch a tool that will test all the servers for the fastest connection and hit the "Choose server" button when it's done.

Optionally, jump to the "Updates" tab. If you'll always be running the newest version of Ubuntu and are using third-party repos, which we will be, then leaving the defaults should be fine. "Unsupported Updates (lucid-backports)" gives you, as the name implies, newer but unsupported versions of packages which you probably don't need or even want. Packages may contain new features, introduce new interfaces, and not be sufficiently tested for inclusion in the 'proposed' repository. "Pre-released Updates (lucid-proposed)" is just the testing area for updates, recommended only to those interested in helping to test updates and provide feedback. Check that Ubuntu is scheduled to automatically find available updates daily and to download all updates in the background if you want to save yourself some time when it comes time to install them. You should also change "Show new distribution releases" to "Normal releases" to be notified when the next version of Ubuntu comes out instead of waiting for the next Long Term Support (LTS) release.

Before you go, head over to the "Statistics" tab and check it if it isn't already. This anonymously sends the list of software you have installed and how often you use them to help collect statistics on which apps are the most popular.

When you click close, you will likely be prompted to reload the list of available software. Click reload. If you're prompted with available updates when it finished reloading, follow the instructions to install them. If not, you can always manually check for updates and install them via Update Manager (System ⟶ Administration ⟶ Update Manager). You should always keep your computer up-to-date.

Folder and Printer Sharing

If you want to be able to share files, folders, and printers with Windows machines, you'll need Samba. You can set it up graphically by right clicking on any folder and selecting "Properties" and going straight to the "Share" tab. Check "Share this folder" and you should be prompted to install the Windows networks sharing service. After that's installed, you'll need to restart and you can click "Create Share" to be able to view the folder and it's contents from other machines through the network.

Click here to install samba

Time Synchronization

Ubuntu can keep your computer's time accurate by syncing up with atomic clocks through tiers of servers while factoring out communication delays, and adjusting the time without upsetting the other processes that are running. The protocol for this is called Network Time Protocol (NTP). To set up NTP time synchronization graphically, launch Time &Date (System ⟶ Administration ⟶ Time & Date). Click the keys to unlock settings. Now, you can select your time zone, and configure it to "Keep synchronized with Internet servers", at which point it will prompt you to Install NTP support.

Click here to install ntp

After that, click "Select Servers" and go to http://www.pool.ntp.org/zone/@ to find the address for your country zone (or just use the continent zone if there isn't a specific one for your country) and enter that into the empty field and hit the "Add" button. Make sure it is checked and you can hit close.

Eye Candy

GNOME Shell

The upcoming version 3.0 of the GNOME desktop environment uses GNOME Shell which is a new interface for interacting with your desktop. If you'd like to try it, there is a version in the Ubuntu repos. Launch it by hitting Alt+F2 to open the "Run Applicatoin" dialog and enter "gnome-shell --replace". Switch back by doing the same thing but enter "metacity --replace" instead.

Click here to install gnome-shell

Simple Compositing

Some of you may not need or want superfluous Compiz visual effects running when you're not making it a point to show them off. Perhaps you lack the hardware or restricted drivers for accelerated graphics necessary for Compiz or maybe you just don't want to use as many system resources but still want basic compositing which some applications depend on. In that case, Metacity, the default window manager for GNOME, works great! You can enable it graphically, or with a simple command, but make sure to disable Compiz effects in Appearance first.

To enable it graphically, hit Alt+F2 to open the "Run Applicatoin" dialog and enter "gconf-editor" to launch the GNOME Configuration Editor. In the left-hand sidebar, navigate to Apps ⟶ metacity ⟶ general and in the main box check "compositing_manager" which will go into effect instantly. If you prefer the Terminal, you can run this quick command:

gconftool-2 -s  '/apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager' --type bool true

Advanced Desktop Effects

If you want a Custom option in Visual Effects settings in Appearance (System ⟶ Preferences ⟶ Appearance) for some fancier features to play around with and show off, you'll want extra Compiz-Fusion plugins and need a settings manager like Simple CompizConfig Settings Manager or, if you want some extreme customization, Advanced Desktop Effects Settings.

APT Line: ppa:compiz/ppa
Click here to install compiz-fusion-plugins-extra
Click here to install simple-ccsm
Click here to install compizconfig-settings-manager

Extra Themes

If you want more themes, there are several packages you can install. Hopefully many of these packages can be merged in the future and have a more refined selection. The themes from the Bisigi Project requires the PPA. You can download individual themes from various websites like GNOME-Look and install them in Appearance.

APT Line: ppa:bisigi/ppa
Click here to install bisigi-themes community-themes gnome-backgrounds gnome-colors gnome-themes gnome-themes-extras gnome-themes-more metacity-themes shiki-colors

Fractal Screensaver

Electric Sheep displays fractal frames as a screensaver, but on top of that it downloads new popular ones through a distributed computing network so that the "gene pool" of animations, or "sheep" as they're called, is constantly evolving. You can download a starter pack from here and just extract them into ~/.electricsheep

Click here to install electricsheep

Desktop Functionality

Dock

For a beautiful dock inspired by Mac OS X, try Avant Window Navigator (AWN). It has support for launchers, task lists, and third party applets.

Click here to install awn-settings

Application Launcher

For a simple and lightweight launcher heavily inpired by Quicksilver, Kupfer should do the trick quite nicely.

APT Line: ppa:kupfer-team/ppa
Click here to install kupfer

For something a little prettier with plugins and a dock, you can also try GNOME+Do.

APT Line: ppa:do-core/ppa
Click here to install gnome-do

Clipboard Manager

There is an annoying bug from 2004 in which copy/paste doesn't work if the source is closed before the paste. Parcellite is a clipboard manager that works around that problem along with providing some other useful features.

Click here to install parcellite

Universal Applets

After the death of Screenlets and gDesklets, a promising new widget framework called Universal Applets was born with the goal of producing applets that can be dynamically "plugged" into any application. Sadly, the main developer doesn't have time to work on it right now and is currently looking for a new owner. You can still try the early version which is available in a third party repository.

APT line: deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/some-guy:/screenlets/xUbuntu_9.10/ ./
Click here to install universal-applets

Web Browsing

Epiphany

Mozilla Firefox feels to heavy for many people. If you want something faster and more standards-compliant, WebKit browsers are the way to go. Webkit is the layout engine that Epiphany and Chromium use to render pages faster than Gecko which is used by Firefox. If you prefer something that integrates more with GNOME, and is in fact the default web browser for it, try Epiphany. You may also add the Epiphany and WebKit PPAs to keep them up-to-date.

APT Line: ppa:webkit-team/epiphany

APT Line: ppa:webkit-team/ppa

Click here to install epiphany-browser

Chromium

Google Chrome is based off of the free software (aka open source) Chromium project. For those of you who need more than what Epiphany currently offers, plugins being a major thing, go with Chromium.

APT Line: ppa:chromium-daily/beta

Click here to install chromium-browser

Desktop Webmail

This is going here for lack of a more appropriate section. For those of you who use webmail and prefer that interface over using a desktop application, Desktop Webmail is for you. Now, when you click on email links, you don't be directed to configure your desktop client; you'll be directed straight to your webmail.

Click here to install desktop-webmail

Multimedia Creation & Editing

Audio Recording & Editing

Jokosher is a simple yet powerful non-linear, multi-track audio editor. The interface, which was designed from the ground up, provides an integrated environment to create and record music, podcasts and more.

Click here to install jokosher

Video Editing

PiTiVi is an intuitive and featureful movie editor that was actually designed with the user interface in mind instead of just slopping on one feature after another. It is able to import and export video files in any format supported by the powerful GStreamer framework. It's now included with Ubuntu by default, but you may still want to add the repository for updates.

APT Line: ppa:gstreamer-developers/ppa

Video Screen Capture

If you want to make screencasts to show off your awesome desktop, Instanbul is a nifty desktop recording tool which, unlike gtk-recordMyDesktop, uses GStreamer. You can install it through Synaptic or Terminal.

Click here to install istanbul

Webcam

If you have a webcam, you need Cheese. It's a Photobooth-inspired application for taking pictures and videos from a webcam also based on the GStreamer back-end.

Click here to install cheese

Multimedia Playback

Media Center

Moovida is a beautiful media center which is perfect for setting up a Home Theater PC (HTPC) or TVPC like the Neuros Link and it uses the GStreamer multimedia framework to support playing almost any kind of file.

APT Line: ppa:moovida-packagers/ppa
Click here to install moovida

Video Feeds

Miro is an Internet television application developed by the Participatory Culture Foundation whose mission is to "enable and support independent, non-corporate creativity and political engagement."

APT Line: ppa:pcf/miro-releases
Click here to install miro

Media Player

Most people are satisfied by Rythmbox, the default music manager for Ubuntu, but if you're not, you may want to try Exaile or Banshee.

APT Line: ppa:exaile-devel/ppa
Click here to install exaile

APT Line: ppa:banshee-team/ppa
Click here to install banshee

Learning

Brainwave Entrainment

As seen in Linux Journal, you can synchronize your brainwaves to that of an external stimulus like pulses of sound in order to easily induce brain states like sleep for example. Think of it as assisted meditation which is effective at treating conditions like ADD, insomnia, and much more. Gnaural is brainwave entrainment software available through the GetDeb repos. GetDeb can be added to your sources by installing the GetDeb package.

Click here to install gnaural

Flash Cards

Digital flash cards are even more effective because they can accurately use spaced repetition to help you more efficiently retain information. Mnemosyne and Anki are two programs worth giving a try. Anki is not in the Lucid repos but a .deb installer can be downloaded from here.

Click here to install mnemosyne

Time Managment

Getting Things GNOME!

Playing on "Getting Things Done", Getting Thing GNOME (GTG) is a simple yet powerful organization tool built on a very solid set of design principles.

APT Line: ppa:gtg/ppa
Click here to install gtg

Time Tracking

The Hamster Time Tracker applet helps you track and analyze how much time you spend on different tasks and activities with a graphical overview to make you feel bad for all that time you waste. It can only be installed through Synaptic or Terminal.

Click here to install hamster-applet

Alarm Clock

If you keep your computer on at all times and want to toss out your boring alarm clock, or even if not, Alarm Clock provides a lot of nifty scheduling and alert options.

Click here to install alarm-clock

Donating CPU Power

Distributed Computing

You can volunteer to participate in grid computing and donate your computer's spare CPU power to charitable projects like protein folding. Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) is a great way to use your computer to give.

Click here to install boinc

Images and Publishing

Photo Management

Sadly, F-Spot was not replaced in Lucid, but on the bright side you get this wonderful section of the guide to let you know of the alternatives. The most promising of which is Solang. It lets you manage your collection of photos by tagging them and searching through them based on various criteria: tags, EXIF data, dates, etc; and offers a limited set of editing functionalities. Solang uses Tracker which allows it to automatically detect all the photos on your computer and publishes the tags all across the desktop. Sorry to tease, but Solang is not packaged for Ubuntu anywhere yet! Will update when available. In the meantime, try gThumb and Shotwell.

APT Line: ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8

Click here to install gthumb

Click here to install shotwell

Vector Graphics

Inkscape is an awesome vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X. It supports many advanced SVG features and puts them into a well-designed interface. Anybody working with vectors needs this tool.

APT Line: ppa:inkscape.testers/ppa

Click here to install inkscape

Bitmap Graphics

While GIMP was previously included with Ubuntu by default, it was a bit overboard for what the average user needs. It's still a very useful tool so many of you will probably still want it.

Click here to install gimp

3D Graphics

Not exclusive to still imagery, Blender is an amazing 3D imagery creation suite that has already been used to create films such as the Open Movie Projects.

Click here to install blender

Desktop Publishing

Scribus is a desktop publishing (DTP) application designed for flexible layout and typesetting and the ability to prepare files for professional quality image setting equipment like writing small newspapers, brochures, newsletters, posters and books.

APT Line: ppa:scribus/ppa

Click here to install scribus

Games

PlayDeb

What good are games when you're stuck with the same versions for 6 months? PlayDeb is a repository of games which provides you with the latest and greatest that are either not at their newest version in the Ubuntu repos, or not included at all. Installing games is extremely convenient by searching through the PlayDeb.net website and installing games with just a click. You can add it to your sources automatically by installing the PlayDeb package.

Nexuiz

For those of you who prefer fast-paced first-person shooters, Nexuiz is a very decent Free game every Linux gamer should try at least once. GameStop even held a Nexuiz "PC gaming challenge" in which interactive kiosks were set up in 10 different stores in 8 US cities and users were given 2 minutes to earn the high score for a $100 gift card by doing the most damage possible to their AI opponents.

Click here to install nexuiz

Yo Frankie!

While it runs quite heavily, this is a beautiful and important Free game— that is, free software and free content— which was created with very limited time and resources to show off what can be produced using free software. It was made using Blender, mentioned above, as part of the Blender Institute's first Open Game Project, and based off of the film, Big Buck Bunny, which was the foundation's second Open Movie Project. It validates the viability of free games and is now in the official Ubuntu repos!

Click here to install yofrankie

PlayOnLinux

If you desire proprietary games that only run natively on Windows, PlayOnLinux is a front-end for Wine which enables you to easily install many such games.

Click here to install playonlinux

Filesharing

Secured P2P

Gnunet framework for decentralized, secure, peer-to-peer networking for anonymous, censorship-resistant file-sharing. You may have heard of Freenet, but you probably haven't seen how they compare.

APT Line: ppa:teamgnunet/ppa
Click here to install gnunet-gtk

Direct Connect

A great way to share files for students in college networks is using direct connect; sadly, there is no DC client designed for GNOME, nor is there an available port of Shakespeer from Mac, so it seems like the best option is DC++

Click here to install linuxdcpp

Usenet

Although it isn't free, Usenet downloads are crazy-fast and files show up there first. Possibly even more noteworthy, however, is that for whatever reason it remains unregulated by pirate hunters. Read this guide for more info, but install LottaNZB for your client instead— they're working to replace HellaNZB with SABnzbd for their back-end.

APT Line: ppa:lottanzb/ppa
Click here to install lottanzb

BitTorrent

I once recommended Deluge without ever having given Transmission a fair shot. After doing so, it has quickly become my client of choice. If you haven't already, give it a try and you should see how it packs a lot into a clean and simple interface. You may add the repos for updates.

APT Line: ppa:transmissionbt/ppa

Deluge is always still an option if you still prefer it.

APT Line: ppa:deluge-team/ppa
Click here to install deluge

Communication

Instant Messenger

Horray! Empathy is now included with Ubuntu, but if you want the latest version with additional features like geolocation and audio/video chat for MSN, you'll need to add the Telepathy repos to your software sources.

APT Line: ppa:telepathy/ppa

Microblogging

Gwibber is a cute little microblogging client for those of you who frequently use sites like Identi.ca, Twitter, Jaiku, Facebook, Digg, and more. It's now included with Ubuntu as well, but you can add the repos for updates.

APT Line: ppa:gwibber-team/ppa

System Utilities

Backup

I don't have any strong feelings as to which backup utility you should use, but take it from someone who learned the hard way, you should always have a backup. Back In Time should do everything you need.

Click here to install backintime-gnome

Partition Editor

You can partition you other storage drives, your external hard drive, you USB drive, your iPod, and basically any other writable storage drive you can plug into your computer using the GNOME Partition Editor.

Click here to install gparted

Virtual Machine

If you want to be a good user and get testing on the next version of Ubuntu, that's 10.04 LTS, the Lucid Lynx, but you want to do it safely, get VirtualBox. There's version that is fully open source (vboxgtk), but you'll likely want the proprietary features too. It's installable via Synaptic or Terminal.

The repos requires that you add the security key with this command:

wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/sun_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

APT Line: deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian lucid non-free

Click here to install virtualbox-3.1

Security & Privacy

Firewall

If you feel the need to have a firewall, Firewall configuration is a graphical front-end for Uncomplicated firewall (ufw).

Click here to install gufw

Antivirus

You generally don't need antivirus with Linux, but if you'd like to play it safe, you can install the ClamTK Virus Scanner, a graphical front-end to ClamAV.

Click here to install clamtk

On-The-Fly Encryption

Many people use TrueCrypt believing that it's FOSS, but although the source code is available, it's development is kept secret and it isn't considered Free Software by the FSF nor Open Source by the OSI. ScramDisk for Linux (SD4L) is a great OTFE alternative that also supports TrueCrypt containers. Unfortunately, it is not yet included in the default repos, and there isn't a PPA either, but you can download a .deb to install from their website.

http://sd4l.sourceforge.net/

Onion Routing

If you don't wan't to pay $5 a month for a VPN like IPREDator but still want to be able to use the web anonymously, you can try The Onion Router, more commonly referred to as TOR, but it is significantly slower and requires additional setup. It's available from their repository.

Their repos requires that you add the security key with this command:

gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv 886DDD89 && gpg --export A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89 | sudo apt-key add -

APT Line: deb http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org lucid main

Click here to install tor-geoipdb

Proprietary & Restricted Software

Nonfree Chromium Codecs

Many HTML5 sites are still using h.264 instead of Ogg Theora, including YouTube. Hopefully this will change soon since Google has acquired On2 and their VP8 codec, but in the meantime, if you'd like to avoid Flash on YouTube with HTML5 video, you'll need to install the codecs.

Click here to install chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-nonfree

DVD Playback

Most commercial DVDs are encrypted with Content Scrambling System (CSS), which attempts to restrict the software that can play a DVD. You'll need to install libdvdcss if you want to play them. You can do so by first installing the libdvdread4 package via Synaptic Package Manager or Terminal.

Click here to install libdvdread4

Then, within a Terminal window, enter:

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

Restricted Extras

The ubuntu-restricted-extras package includes a bunch of things Ubuntu isn't legally allowed to ship with, namely unrar for unarchiving .rar files, Microsoft TrueType core fonts, Sun Java Runtime Environment (JRE), restricted codecs, and finally Adobe Flash Player. Like the rest of the packages and applications in this list unless noted otherwise, it's available in the new Ubuntu Software Center (Applications ⟶ Ubuntu Software Center).

Click here to install ubuntu-restricted-extras

Adobe Flash Player

While it is included in the restricted extras package, you should give a fair chance to Gnash, an open source flash player on the list of high priority Free software projects. To install, you'll first have to make sure you don't have Adobe's flash player installed. You can do this in the Ubuntu Software Center, Synaptic Package Manager, or Terminal with this command:

sudo apt-get purge flashplugin-installer nspluginwrapper

Then you can install the Gnash plugin.

APT Line: ppa:gnash/ppa
Click here to install mozilla-plugin-gnash

For those of you running 64-bit Ubuntu who need the proprietary flash player, Adobe has released the only 64-bit version for Linux! It currently isn't in the repositories because it's still in alpha, but it's still easy to install. Just download the .tar.gz file at the bottom of this page, extract the file to your home folder, and enter this into a terminal window:

sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

Explore, Customize, Personalize!

Now it's time to play around with all the new apps you have and make your desktop, well, yours. You can try experimenting with a cool panel-less desktop; you can explore with all your new apps; you can try different themes and modify them in Appearance; you can set your preferred applications and explore all your system preferences. My desktop background comes is by David Revoy of Sintel, the Blender Foundation's latest Open Movie Project.

Don't forget to show off your shiny new Ubuntu installation to your friends, spread Ubuntu, and contribute to your favorite projects!

My mom was planning on buying an iPad...

2010-04-23T23:27:00.000-04:00

I told her if she did, i'd have to move back out (i'm in the process of moving back in). This wasn't quite enough to convince her, so i did some Googling and sent this quick response:

Subject: What iPad? Is that a sanitary device?

iPad - $500-$700

Webcam? No.

Flash? No.

Multitasking? No.

USB!? ...No.

Freedom? HA!

Damn, even the developers are getting pissed off. And just look at all of the competition that isn't trying to rape their users with digital restrictions management and their developers off of other platforms~

WePad http://wepad.mobi/en

Comparison: http://wepad.mobi/en/product-comparison

Bigger and faster!

OpenTablet 7 http://www.openpeak.com/OpenTablet7.php

Even faster!

TouchBook http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/

Attachable physical keyboard!

$299-399

Notion Ink http://www.notionink.in/

~$300-500

Vega http://convergeddevices.net/products/vega.html

MSI Tegra http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/08/msi-shows-off-10-inch-android-tablet-running-new-tegra-chipset/

$500

Quanta Tegra 2 http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/08/quanta-tegra-2-prototype-hands-on/

Google's Android/Chrome OS Tablets

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/04/nyt-google-android-tablet-imminent/

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/googles_tablet_versus_apples_ipad.php

JooJoo https://thejoojoo.com/

Web-tablet (very sleek, but probably not everything you need)

iWonder http://www.be-mine.info/gadget/iwonder-100-marvell-powered-tablet

$100

iFreeTablet http://www.ifreetablet.com/indexEN.php

$400-$550

And SO MUCH MORE

Taiwan makers displaying 10 iPad clones

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/192839/taiwan_makers_to_display_10_ipadlike_devices_at_computex.html

50 slates to come this year on ARM

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9168418/ARM_sees_over_50_new_iPad_like_devices_out_this_year

So, you can buy an iPad, which has an Apple logo on it, or you can buy a real computer and stick an ugly apple sticker on it if you like.

Thank you for Ubuntu's success at Anime Boston 2010!

2010-04-21T01:14:00.004-04:00

It's hard to believe how well this has all come together. If there's one thing we would like to say coming from this, it's that Ubuntu and other free culture and free software (aka open source) groups need to participate in similar events to reach out to non-techie folks. Any convention more tech-focused than this shouldn't need our presence. Let's go over what we accomplished: live installs, dancing games, free kopibon, and more!

We successfully made Ubuntu highly-visible to thousands of convention goers. We kept hearing from people that our booth was very eye-catching and really stood out! We can thank the Ubuntu MA team leader, Martin (DoctorMO), for the awesome banner and posters we had up. On display, we had four machines by System76: a Starling Netbook, Pangolin Performance, Bonobo Performance, and a 32" HDTV hooked up to another Pangolin Performance under the table. Using the big screen, we lured in the crowed. Blasting techno and showing off crazy compiz-fusion effects, we caught the attention of passersby who were very impressed. It wasn't hard to hear outbursts such as, "Who needs Windows 7!?" and other comments on how awesome the Ubuntu desktop looked. The response we generated was incredible-- people were genuinely amazed!

Over and over, people approached us with great reactions. Lots of them were already using Ubuntu, some knew someone who loved Ubuntu, many had heard of Ubuntu, and just as many were curious to find out what it was! The reactions we received were a testament not only to how far Ubuntu has spread already but also how extremely receptive still-unaware individuals are.

FireFox posing in front of our booth!

Costumed characters stopped by to cheer us on including Zero who rushed past, snatched a CD, and shouted "Zero uses Ubuntu!" which we were very glad to hear, seeing as he ends up uniting the entire world! There were also plenty of common citizens drifting through the vast sea of cosplayers, unadorned in any costume aside from their own personal style, who excitedly approached us. People were openly expressing their appreciation to others with exclamations they made on their way from our booth like, "Sweet, I just got a new operating system!" Some were asking how they could get more involved with advocacy and our group and we even picked up another booth helper! This is what we love about the community.

Many still were the people who came on behalf of someone they knew who loved Ubuntu, grabbing materials and goodies to give them later. Most important to us, though, was everyone who had never heard of Ubuntu but grew excited to learn more upon seeing our display. People took around 500 double-sided flyers about Ubuntu, Free Software (aka Open Source), and the many powerful design tools available: Blender, Inkscape, Synfig, GIMP, and MyPaint. An additional 550 live CD's and 1000 copies of the Ubunchu manga were taken (extra comic books available at request). We even did 5 live-installs, right there at our booth! That number would be higher but people just didn't have their machines with them. Our booth visitors came with curiosity and left eager to pop in their new LiveCDs.

We did live demonstrations of apps like Inkscape, GIMP, and Blender (well, we showed off some files from Sintel, the foundation's latest Open Project). We played videos like production cuts from the Morevna Project sent to us for the event along with The Matrix Runs on Windows, and open projects, Elephant's Dream and Big Buck Bunny. We played games like Savage2 and StepMania 4.0, breaking out the dance pad which drew in a good crowd of dancers and spectators very quickly.

That's not all. Our presence wasn't limited to the Dealer's Room. We also had our flyers and manga on the freebie table and, just like last year, they seemed to be the only thing people were really interested in! If we could've kept up with how fast they were being taken, we could've distributed a lot more. On top of all of this, Martin went up to the Artist's Alley armed with our flyers and talked to everyone up there about all the tools available for their needs. The artists there were very receptive and it definitely helped that we made the effort to reach out to them personally.

This being our first event of this size, we did learn a few good lessons as well, and have some new ideas for the future. You didn't think we were done, did you? Overall, we don't feel there was anything missing, but we've learned a lot about what this kind of project involves and can do even better! Next time we will organize more ahead of time knowing which things require more or less time and be better prepared to handle it all more efficiently. We'll assemble a team earlier on, and give time to go over the good and bad talking points for different kinds of people. It isn't that our booth people weren't amazing; it's that we can always work on perfecting the art of hooking in as many people as we can, as quickly and effectively as we can. One thing which could've been handled better by myself was documentation of the event in pictures and video. There was no way for me to be behind the camera when the booth was at its busiest because I needed to keep the demos going. As a result, all of the pictures in our album are from the quietest times at our booth. I did leave the camera rolling during some periods, so hopefully I'll be able to churn out a decent video with that footage, but next time we will dedicate a lot of time to filming and photographing.

Hopefully this have given you a decent picture of how well everything went. We were even invited to some other conventions! If you have any ideas, want to get involved with the team, or just have questions, please get in touch. This all started out as a little idea, and thanks to the help of many, it grew into the super-successful Ubuntu @ Anime Boston project!

Thank you to everyone who helped:

YOU!

Our biggest thanks goes to all of you, the entire community, for all the generous support you've given us with banner hosting, donations, and all the other help we've gotten. None of this would have happened without all your support!

The beautiful high-quality laptops and netbook lent to us by System76 were an essential part of this event and their help with promotion was invaluable.

One thousand flyers courtesy of ProdPromo was one of our most valuable resources at the convention.

Three thousand copies of the Ubunchu Manga in gorgeous quality by Red Sun Press, a truly environmentally friendly worker-owned union shop dedicated to social justice.

Fiscal sponsorship and guidance from Linux Fund helped keep this project going.

LiveCDs, flyers, and other Ubuntu goodies like hats, t-shirts, silly putty, mouse pads, pens, and books from Canonical made our booth complete.

ASCII Media Works provided us with copies of the Ubuntu Magazine Japan which includes the Ubunchu Manga.

A huge thank you to Arturo "C-quel" Silva of Pigux for being our biggest donor and providing incredible artwork used throughout our booth.

The Morevna Project covered us in a blog post and provided us a video of production cuts. Synfig, the main tool behind the project hosted a prominent banner on their website.

Banners hosted by PlayDeb and GetDeb, the popular third-party Ubuntu repos, have helped raise awareness of our fundraiser.

Academia's Obligation to Software Freedom

2010-04-06T02:05:00.003-04:00

So, for my high school senior year project last year, i wrote about...well, i think you get it from the title. I've uploaded it to the Internet Archive here:

http://www.archive.org/details/AcademiasObligationToSoftwareFreedom

You can also just download using these direct links:
Abstract - PDF, ODT
Paper - PDF, ODT

Let me know what you think!

Abstract

The Free Software philosophy is founded in the ideals of freedom, openness, and sharing. Producing software based on these ideals has great pragmatic benefits. Free Software is developed in the interest of its users instead of the owner of the software. This method of producing software benefits the entire community, and the software is of much higher quality due to the huge number of volunteer and paid contributers.

Educational institutions support the same ideals within academic freedom and the open dissemination of knowledge and information common in academia. For this reason, school systems have a special obligation to serve Free Software to their students other than the technological and ethical reasons that can apply to anyone. In addition, taxpayer money should not be spent to serve the interests of proprietary software vendors, nor should students be forced to use proprietary software at home in order to be able to get their work done. If students are to be prepared for the future, they should be exposed to Free Software, which continues to gain momentum at an increasing rate.

In working with the Newton Public Schools, specifically within Newton North High School, a number of ways to encourage and assist the adoption of Free Software have been considered. The Free Software community can be taken advantage of to gain support from those working within the school system. Once there is support from within, the task of upholding the values of academia by adopting Free Software can soon be achieved.

Academia's Obligation

to Software Freedom

The case for Free Software within
educational institutions

By Danny Piccirillo

The Free Software Movement is revolutionizing the way software is made based on the ideals of freedom and openness. The sharing of software is as old as computers themselves, but now it is done in a concerted effort to completely transform the software world, and in fact has spread so much that the same principles are now being applied to content like writing, music, and other artwork, hardware designs, business models, journalism, school systems, and even politics and governance (Definition 2008). The Free Software Movement is built upon the free exchange of ideas, open sharing of knowledge, actualizing goals together, and working in a way that benefits the community as a whole. The parallels between this movement and the role of educational institutions in our society are clear. If schools are true to this philosophy, they have an obligation to be a part of the movement. Speaking with tech staff at Newton North High School and diving into the local Free Software community, I have found a number of ways to encourage and help schools to adopt Free Software.

The details of the inner workings of computers may be intimidating to most people, but to understand Free Software, only an easily-grasped, basic understanding of some technical jargon is necessary. These definitions are more than enough for one to be able to fully understand the philosophy of Free Software:

Hardware: The physical, tangible machine (hence, "hard"), components, and devices like mice, keyboards, monitors, printers, and the computer itself, are all examples of hardware. They are the things that either the software runs on, or allow you to interact with the software.

Software: Everything that runs on the machine. Microsoft Windows, Mozilla Firefox, and all other programs and operating systems are software.

Operating System (commonly abbreviated to OS): The interface between the hardware and user. Ubuntu, Mac OS, and Windows are popular examples.

Source Code: All software is made up of code written in programming languages. The code that makes up software is called the source code. Free Software leaves this source code open, as opposed to proprietary software, which keeps the source code secret. Imagine software as a slice of pie. If you can see, modify, and change the recipe, it's Free. If not, it's proprietary.

Copyleft: The ingenious method of using copyright law to prevent copyright restrictions. It grants permission to use, modify, and share, as long as derivatives preserve the same freedoms.

GNU (Gnu's Not Unix): Refers to the GNU Project, an effort to make a Free operating system based off of Unix, a style of operating systems, or to the GNU Operating System itself.

Linux Kernel: If operating systems, like Windows, were apples (the fruits), the kernel would be the core. Linux is the name of the core of the GNU/Linux Operating System.

GNU/Linux: Commonly called Linux, refers to the family of Linux-based distributions. Distributions are like different flavors of the GNU/Linux OS, the most popular being Ubuntu.

The Free Software Definition, first published in 1986 by Richard M. Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, lists the four fundamental freedoms any piece of software must have to be considered Free:

The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0)
The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1)
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2)
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3)

(Stallman 2002)

When unfamiliar people first hear the term Free Software, they usually assume that Free refers to price as in "free beer", but instead the "free" in Free Software refers to liberty as in "free speech" and "free market". Software that is available for no cost is called freeware, but isn't necessarily Free. Naming controversy has arisen around a parallel movement that chooses to use the term "open source" which doesn't regard freedom and only cites practical values. Sometimes the term Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is used, to combine the terms. To resolve the ambiguity of the word "free", some replace it with "libre", which distinguishes it from gratis software (zero cost), and that has led to some using the term Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS). However one refers to it, it still means the same thing.

Those freedoms may seem very basic on the surface, but the consequences are huge. In order for these freedoms to exist, access to the source code is a necessary condition (Stallman 2002). Proprietary software keeps the source code secret, and restricts people from viewing, modifying, and sharing it. Vendors who produce such software make money directly from the software itself, and so they depend on keeping their control over it. The company who owns the software allows others to use the software under license agreements, usually for a price. In other words, users must pay for a license that allows them to use software that is owned and controlled by someone else, and only use it in whichever ways are allowed by the end-user license agreement (EULA). Not having the freedom to examine the source code makes it impossible to determine what the software does or how it works. Most people don't know how to modify their software, so why should it matter to them? Even if one has no need to access the source code themselves, it is still essential that it is open because there are others that can. It could be spying on you, or doing anything without your knowledge or consent. Instead of the user being in full control of their software, it is really the software owner who controls it. On top of that, any problems with the software can only be handled by the software creators so if they neglect to address them, the users are helpless. Proprietary software also tends to use unfair tactics to lock users in and keep them from switching. Often, they will use proprietary, non-standard formats that can only be used with their software, so users are stuck with it and forced to pay for upgrades over time. These issues are non-existent with Free Software.

There is just as much pragmatism as idealism in the Free Software philosophy. Free Software encourages people to examine, share, and modify the source code, and in fact it thrives upon this. The Free Software model is much more effective at producing higher quality software, faster. Instead of development resting on the shoulders of whoever owns the software, anyone is welcome to contribute. Free Software is examined and developed by hackers and programmers around the world. People working on improving Free Software are most often volunteering, but many organizations with a financial interest in the software will invest money or hire developers to work on it. For example, Canonical, which makes money offering paid support for Ubuntu, hires developers to improve it so that it will gain more users and Canonical will have a larger potential customer base (Moody 2008). All of this results in rapidly evolving software that develops exponentially (Deshpande 2008). This means that the software improves faster, bugs and security vulnerabilities are fixed sooner, and innovation is fostered. The Free Software model produces software that is quantitatively much better than the proprietary alternatives in virtually every conceivable way. It has a lower total cost of ownership (TCO), is safer, faster, more flexible, scalable, secure, stable, and reliable (Wheeler 2007).

A common myth about Free Software is that it is maintained by a community of people and not by a corporate entity, the quality of the product is greatly reduced (O'Reilley 1999). It is actually the openness and transparency of the the Free Software development process that makes the resulting software better, and, as mentioned before, many Free Software projects are funded and developed by companies and paid programmers. When new code is submitted to be included in a free software project, it will first be scrutinized by several people before it can be approved, so there is no risk of malicious modifications. The pace at which a Free Software project evolves is proportional to the popularity and usefulness of the software. This means that any successful Free Software project is almost guaranteed to be very reliable.

Another misconception is that Free Software is only secure because less people use it so it is less of a target. The truth is that the Free Software model inherently produces more stable and secure software. With the code open and available for so many people to examine, bugs and security vulnerabilities are found and responded to immediately. As the notion of Linux's Law by Eric S. Raymond states, “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow” (Raymond 1997). Proprietary software relies on "security by obscurity" or hiding the code to prevent the exposure of flaws, which has been shown over and over again to fail. It is frequently the case that a patch to fix one security problem in closed-source software has created another problem or even failed to fix the actual problem, and other times a vendor may leave a known flaw unresolved for months or even years at a time (Wikipedia 2009). The open source software model doesn't have these issues because it does not serve the interests of the software owners. It exists for its users and will always improve in their interest.

Other arguments against Free Software usually say things like, there is no way to make money with open source software, or open source software is anti-business, but Free Software is commercial software as well (O'Reilley 1999). These lies are propagated by huge marketing campaigns of fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) to smear Linux funded by software giants like Microsoft (Asay 2009). These companies are incapable and unwilling to adapt to the changing software world, and cannot compete with Free Software. The proprietary software model is dying, and Free Software is unstoppable.

Linux is far more widespread than most people are aware. Businesses, governments, schools, scientific institutions, and homes have all adopted Linux on a variety of platforms. Linux is used on servers and desktop computers, is the most popular choice for supercomputers, and, being open source, is included on many embedded systems from mobile devices like phones, to gaming devices, to media appliances like TiVo.

Aside from these technological and ethical reasons to adopt Free Software, schools should immediately recognize the parallels of the philosophy of this movement with academic freedom and the open dissemination of knowledge and information common in academia. Free Software is about sharing information. Free Software is about learning from each other. Free Software is about community. This is consistent with the function of schools, so they should be using Free Software. "The advances in all of the arts and sciences, indeed the sum total of human knowledge, is the result of the open sharing of ideas, theories, studies and research. Yet throughout many school systems, the software in use on computers is closed and locked, making educators partners in the censorship of the foundational information of this new age." (Vessels 2001)

Schools also owe it to their community to adopt Free Software. The financial advantage of Free Software is especially important for schools since taxpayer money should not be given to serve the interests of proprietary software providers when open source software is available. On top of that, by using proprietary software at school, students and their parents are forced into having the same proprietary software at home, further propagating proprietary software's control and suppressing Software Freedom. Finally, since all trends indicate that Free Software will continue to grow at a faster pace than proprietary software as it always has, there is an ever-increasing demand for skills using Free Software. If schools are supposed to prepare students for the future, they should be the first to abandon proprietary software. Schools should be independent of corporate control over their software.

In my work with Newton North High School, I've found that the same roadblocks that stop people from adopting Linux personally exist for schools as well. The main obstacle is simply that students, teachers, and most importantly system administrators are reluctant to change, but that quickly goes away once they have had time to warm up to it. Another significant problem is government contracts requiring schools purchase new hardware from certain companies that might only sell machines with Windows installed. These roadblocks are inconvenient but can be dealt with without too much trouble.

I've found a number of ways to promote Ubuntu, a free operating system, to the Newton Public Schools. As long as you have one person from within the school system who is willing to work with you, you can make progress. Firstly, it is best to start from the top and work down from there. I contacted the Head of Technology for the Newton Public Schools, Ms. Chamberlain, and she told me to start by working to implement a test lab at North. I've worked with Chris Murphy and Phil Golando to get two demonstration computers set up in the school library and helped Mr. Golando install Ubuntu on his own machine to get familiar with. Once the success of this lab is recognized, other labs may be converted to Ubuntu as well.

Diving into the Free Software community around Ubuntu, I have seen how local advocacy teams run and develop, and I've been able to start a global team focusing on marketing and activism for Free Software gaming. from my experience, I plan to take advantage of the Free Software community and start an activist team to advocate Free Software to schools and write a Free Software statement which schools can sign to pledge their commitment towards adoption.

Free Software protects users' freedoms, all the while producing better software that's more stable and safe and improves faster. Instead of software being made by them for the usage rights to be sold to us, it is software owned by everyone, for everyone. Schools would save money by adopting it, as well as prepare their students for the future by adopting Free Software. Despite some obstacles that educational institutions and school systems face migrating to Free Software, they have an obligation to promote the fundamental philosophy of freedom, openness, and sharing that the Free Software Movement and academia share.

Bibliography

Stallman, Richard M. 2002. Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman. Boston, Massachusetts. GNU Press. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fsfs/rms-essays.pdf (accessed May 6, 2009).

Moody, Glyn. 2008. Interview: Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/may/22/internet.software (accessed May 13, 2009).

Wheeler, David A. Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS, FLOSS, or FOSS)? Look at the Numbers! http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html (accessed May 8, 2009)

Deshpande, Amit and Dirk Riehle eds. 2008. The Total Growth of Open Source. http://dirkriehle.com/2008/03/14/the-total-growth-of-open-source/ (accessed May 10, 2009).

O'Reilley, Tim. 1999. Ten Myths about Open Source Software. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/opensource/news/myths_1199.html (accessed May 10, 2009).

Asay, Matt. 2009. Facts behind Microsoft's anti-Linux campaign. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10145332-16.html (accessed May 2, 2009).

Vessels, Terry. 2001. Why should open source software be used in schools?http://edge-op.org/grouch/schools.html (accessed May 8, 2009).

Wikipedia contributors. 2009. Comparison of open source and closed source. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Comparison_of_open_source_and_closed_source&oldid=261647655 (accessed January 2, 2009).

Definition of Free Cultural Works contributors. 2008. Definition. http://freedomdefined.org/index.php?title=Definition&oldid=5437 (accessed May 16, 2009).

Raymond, Eric S. 1997. Release Early, Release Often. http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ar01s04.html (accessed May 15, 2009)

Final push for Ubuntu @ Anime Boston

2010-03-08T20:49:00.002-05:00

Thanks to all of you who've made tax-deductible donations so far. We're so close! We still need help to reach and, better yet, push past our fundraising goal. This is the most important time for this project as our deadline is almost upon us. We have a lot we're excited to announce once we finish fundraising, so stay tuned and thank you so much for your generous contributions.

We have a first draft of one side of our tri-fold flyer by Martin Owens and we'd love to hear what you think of it! We want to do the best we can to showcase Ubuntu and promote free culture, software, and content, to people who might not understand the benefits of being able to edit code when they're not coders.

Lastly, we're in need of a couple more volunteers who would like to help us out at the booth. If you're interested, please get in touch.