Academia's Obligation to Software Freedom

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)

How far will they go to kill the internet?

Mainstream media feeds information to the masses and opposes independent voices over democratic-- no, dare i say it-- anarchic mediums. Copyright crusaders want to take our rights to share and sell them back to us. Think tank, Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, says that the future will be free, belonging to what they call, an "anarconomy". Such a future has great potential, and already the internet has peacefully risen as a parallel anarchic society which profoundly impacts the real world. But how far will the powers that be go to stop it? More importantly, how can we fight back?

On one front, they erected the debate, if you can call it that, over network neutrality, a straw man designed to make us believe that bandwidth caps will eventually be necessary in order to restrict video streaming online and keep cable television a monopoly. They also call us pirates and claim that copied digital content is actually stolen intellectual imaginary property. If you thought the prospect of losing network neutrality was frightening, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is far, far scarier.  So long as the internet exists, we will find ways to share; and when it comes down to darknets, they will try to legislate the internet to make it "controlled by and for big business, which can only be accessed by those willing to pay”. Even if we win on all of those fronts, they may have other tricks up their sleeve. They are still the keymasters and the gatekeepers, after all. This is entirely speculation, but without a necessary upgrade from IPv4 to IPv6 which they refuse to support, the internet may very well break down in just a couple of years. Where else could they be waging battles against the internet shaded from sunlight (said to be the best disinfectant)?

It's time to ditch cable TV. It's outdated and the internet can supply everything cable can, and do it better. Why pay pay for cable and internet when you can get everything you need online? Money talks; make a one-time investment in a home theater PC, and kick your cable box to the curb. You can build your own HTPC, that is, if you're savvy enough or, purchase one just as you would a normal computer. I personally recommend the Neuros LINK TVPC as it runs Ubuntu and supports Free and Open Source technology. The first Neuros LINK was Slashdotted three times and sold out pretty quickly, but the new ones are out. In time for the holiday season too, but of course i didn't get to posting this until Christmas Eve. Also, i have to mention the beautiful Boxee Box by D-Link, but the Boxee media center software is not entirely FOSS. The project is a fork from XBMC and uses proprietary additions.

Of course, there's more to do than just cancelling your cable subscription, but it's the first step. Really, if you give the slightest damn about these issues, why are you still giving them money for this?

Myths debunked: YouTube, please use Ogg Theora for HTML 5

It's incredible how many people are sympathetic towards Google and Apple's opposition of Ogg Theora within the HTML 5 codec debate. Of course, nobody expected anything else from Apple, but Google, really? Outside of YouTube, Google seems to be very supportive. YouTube may still be somewhat separated from the rest of Google. The site still looks more like it did pre-aquisition than it looks like a Google project. The Google Chrome web browser, a "pure" Google project, supports Theora, and a blog post Google made on the Ogg Theora book sprint which specifically makes mention of HTML 5 leads me to wonder if they might actually be planning on supporting it. Then again, this claim by a Googler on the WhatWG mailing list makes me worry:

"If [youtube] were to switch to theora and maintain even a semblance of the current youtube quality it would take up most available bandwidth across the Internet." --Chris DiBona

All right, it's time to fight back against this FUD and address every argument made against Ogg Theora for HTML 5 and YouTube. The whole point of the HTML 5 video tag is to eliminate the need for proprietary Flash plugins so are we really going to replace one proprietary piece of technology with yet another piece of proprietary technology? What would be the point of that? Have we not already seen enough of the problems posed by relying on proprietary standards? Then again, HTML 4 didn't mandate support for JPEG and PNG, so gaining support doesn't necessarily depend on becoming the official standard.

1. Video quality (and high definition)
• Firstly, even if Ogg Theora's video quality was less than ideal, this is a web standard we're discussing here. It isn't about the highest quality format of the moment. The purpose of a standard is to allow everyone to take part and rely on it. A patent encumbered format does no good for this. Freedom and transparency are essential for a standard. We wouldn't have the world wide web or TCP/IP networks if competing companies were in a constant battle trying to outdo each other's protocols and hardware. Nobody is forced to use the HTML 5 standard; if Apple is so afraid of Theora's success, they can go ahead and use their format of choice or continue to rely on Flash.
• Secondly, Theroa will continue improving, and will improve faster if it gains more support. Open formats like this can evolve for a reason. Video quality will improve, just like the HTML standard itself has grown and changed. Agreeing on an open format for a standard is done to promote mass adoption which allows for widespread use unencumbered by patents and without similar restrictions. If a proprietary format is used, who will improve upon it? Only the intellectual imaginary property "owners" will be able to, and that doesn't mean they ever will. Theora might not be the very best right now, but it will be.
• Finally, although Theora is not yet at the same level as H.264, claiming that its quality is so inferior is a lie. Not only is it not far behind, but it is already better than what YouTube currently uses. What about high definition, you ask? Although it is still not ideal for HD content, being slightly behind H.264, Theora roughly equals YouTube HD video quality already. Most of the problems it had were inherited from the codec it is based off of, and those problems are disappearing thanks to support from from the Mozilla and Wikimedia Foundations with the upcoming version 1.1 of Theora. This is the overhaul containing a major rewrite bringing big improvements and lots of new features like two-pass encoding and adaptive quantization. Theora has a balance between quality, performance, size, and simplicity which makes it ideal for web video.
2. Patents
• To refuse to implement a royalty free codec under the guise of "patent safety" is ridiculous. Apple wouldn't bundle Samba with OSX if they were that afraid of patents. Yes, submarine patents could possibly exist, but then again they are always a possibility, and not just for Theora, but for many formats. The algorithms Theora uses are not new. If, down the road, some patent-troll does in fact appear, whatever patent they hold would likely expire when brought to light.
3. Hardware Acceleration
• Yeah, yeah, Apple is understandably against using Theora becuse of this, but this isn't much of a reason against it becoming a standard. Again, keep in mind the most important thing is not the absolute best quality and performance, although Theora is already pretty good as it is, but rather freedom and independence from proprietary technologies.
• Most of the affordable portable media players, "MP4 Players", support Vorbis without advertising it. The sole manufacturer of all the chips simply included it. It might take a while, but hardware support for Theora will come, and we could see it sooner if it became more popular. There is already an open source VHDL code base for a hardware Theora decoder in development and it's worth mentioning that decoding Theora is less CPU intensive than decoding H.264.
4. Dirac, On2 and other Open Formats
• Dirac is for high definition video archiving, not streaming. Nothing is wrong with other open formats, but Theora is already the best candidate with the most support.
• Google did recently acquire On2, a company which owns more advanced codecs, and actually created the codec which Theora is based off of. There is speculation that Google will offer them as free formats, and as awesome as that would be, we can't really act on what they might do.
5. Everyone already has Flash
• This is probably the dumbest argument i've heard. Of course, Flash isn't going anywhere overnight, but online video will shift to use the HTML 5 video tag. A quarter of the world's web browsers already support Ogg Theora with no plugins required. YouTube and other sites won't just drop Flash support one day; like Dailymotion, they will begin by offering HTML 5 video in addition to Flash. From there, HTML 5 gives us so many possibilities: no additional software needed, easily created player skins, dynamic content injection, and the ability to manipulate videos, just to name a few.

YouTube already has an HTML 5 demo using MP4 and appears to be preparing to expand it to the entire site. Google could single-handedly make Theora the dominant format for online video distribution and pressure all browsers-- that includes Microsoft's Internet Explorer-- to support it. Hopefully, we can convince them to do so. It's now clear that there is no real reason for them to choose H.264 over Theora, but what reasons are there for them to actively support and push for Theora? Huge positive publicity in the short term and compatability in the long-term. Admittedly, not too much, but Google has always shown great commitment towards open source, and it is strange that the extent of their commitment would be cut short here. YouTube using Ogg Theora with HTML 5 on their site will truly have a huge impact. Come on Google, "Don't be evil".

So far, only one large video host, Dailymotion, supports HTML 5 with Theora, as well as The Video Bay. In addition, there is also Wikimedia Commons, The Internet Archive, and Tinyvid, but it doesn't end there. Ogg Thoera and Vorbis are also supported by big projects like OLPC, Jabber, the Mozilla Foundation, and the Wikimedia Foundation. Their support is vital in showing that these formats are a viable and good choice for multimedia, but we still need the big dogs with the big bucks.

Now, what can we do to push Youtube along with other large video hosts and advertising services to move towards full HTML5 and Theora support? If you use YouTube or another major video host that doesn't offer HTML 5 with Theora, post a video explaining your support. We need organized effective ways for people to convince these sites to publish in free formats. Please post additional ideas and feedback in the comments.

Free Software Activism Guide

We, the greater Free Software community, have to do a much better job of reaching out to everyday people and educating them about software freedom. Now, i know many of you will argue that most people will never care about software freedom, and that we should focus on making a superior product as well as market it well. There's plenty being done on that front, although i do have some criticisms on that i'll post later, but even though it may be true that most people will never care about free software, or any issue, we have done a particularly bad job of educating people. We should not undervalue educating the average person on free software or underestimate the benefits in focusing our activism.

There's a lot we could learn from other activists. There is still a significant number of people who would care about the subject if only they knew. Reaching out to other activists can be very effective in building support. Many activist communities would be eager to join us if only we could explain our movement to them. After all, we usually share the same ethical positions and social interests.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was some guide somewhere on effective activism? Turns out they're everywhere. I went around and compiled information from various sources to create this specific Free Software Activism Guide on the Ubuntu wiki as a resource for individuals and LoCo Teams to help advocate digital rights and software freedom and the adoption of Ubuntu, GNU/Linux, Free Software, and Free Formats as a means of achieving that.

It includes general tips, instructions for converting friends and fundraising, hitting the streets, lobbying government, talking to organizations and educational institutions, gaining industry support, and getting media coverage. I hope you will take a look, pass it on, contribute to it, and get active!

Why Choose "Open Source" for Free Software

At this point, the only reason i still use the term "Free Software" is to align myself with the Free Software movement as opposed to the Open Source movement, but to end this stupid naming controversy and make both movements stronger, not only do we have to, but we should for our own benefit use the term "open source" instead. I did a little rant about this a while ago on YouTube. The argument is really very simple.

The term Free Software is good because it emphasizes freedom, or at least it's supposed to. The problem is obviously that people confuse it with freeware (free as in beer, not as in freedom). Open Source is bad because their movement only focuses on practical advantages, and ignores freedom. The distinction between the disadvantages of both terms, is that one is inherent in the term, whereas the other is only a reflection of the group of people that choose to use it. In other words, Free Software will always be confused with freeware because the English language doesn't distinguish free as in price and free as in freedom, and Open Source just ignores freedom because of the movement currently aligned with the term. This means that the Free Software movement could use the term open source, but make sure to always emphasize freedom, so there wouldn't be the harmful confusion around the word "free", nor the lack of emphasis on freedom by using the term "Open Source".

Now, there is Libre software, which distinguishes free as in freedom from gratis, free as in price, but it still hasn't caught on and it keeps the Open Source and Free Software movement arguing about terminology instead of working together to promote their ideals. I'm glad to see the Free Software Foundation Europe has recognized this, but now who will convince Richard Stallman?

Open Source FriendFeed

FriendFeed, the coolest app no one uses, should be the new Twitter, but i still have one problem with it: it's closed-source. Identi.ca is open source, so i'm using that until FriendFeed releases their code. I posted to their feeback room proposing they adopt APGL (respond if you're in support!) and someone had the idea that as a for-profit, private company, they would never free their source code. I don't see why keeping their code proprietary protects their profits at all since they don't make money by selling it and Reddit is a great example of open sourcing success. So, why don't they? 

Linux needs games, games need you

It's no surprise that gaming is one of the areas lagging most in the Free Software world. Fanatics will say that yes there are good FOSS games, but the truth is, they're nothing compared to the plethora of proprietary options for Windows. The current open source games won't hold over people who crave the latest games that are being cranked out. Free Software emerges and evolves out of necessity and innovation. It's hard to see a real need for gaming, but better games could offer a lot for the spread of GNU/Linux adoption.

Games are already cited as being the only factor holding many many people back from switching over from Windows completely. Think about it-- if FOSS gaming reached the "tipping point" and games were compareable to the newest proprietary titles, the fact that users could have similar games for free would be a huge selling point for Linux.

The world of gamers is HUGE. There are individual players, groups of friends, competitions, and professional gaming leagues. Gamers play on whatever platform has their games. This can be exploited for Linux. Right now, tournaments can be held for games like Nexuiz (donate!), and in the future when games are attractive enough to adopt Linux for the games, the world of gamers will start to migrate. Until then, they won't even budge. We can't hope to even chip at them until Linux gaming improves.

What can you do? Contribute! Linux needs games, and games need you. Of course, it's a good idea to support and FOSS products you use, but games are in serious need of support. If you're a programmer, you can obviously help with that. For the average anybody, you can download and try the game, submit bug reports, or at least send in a donation. Even if it's just $5, it makes difference.

Here's my request to you: Donate $25 to FOSS gaming. You could donate all $25 to one game, or $5 to five different games, or whatever you like. Just google a list of top FOSS games to try. It's easy, and gaming needs a boost...and Linux needs gaming. So spread this far and wide and give Linux the games it so desperately wants and needs!

Update 2009.04.16: I recieved a very insightful email response you can read here.

Intel's EFI: Hidden Threat to Computing Freedom?

Now i'm no expert in this field, but from what i've been reading, the industry is shifting towards Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) and EFI means bad news for the future of fully open machines. First of all, it will make current fully-free BIOS replacements like coreboot useless as well as always requiring a piece of proprietary binary-only code to build a free BIOS on top of EFI. It will trap certain OS operations to an EFI-based control system meaning that the OS doesn't necessarily own the platform. On top of all that, EFI can control many things that effectively make it a "DRM BIOS". All of this comes with added complexity and, as expressed by Linus Torvalds, without real advantages. Linus also refers to EFI as "this other Intel brain-damage (the first one being ACPI)", and this is why i stick to AMD =]

This excerpt from an interview with Ronald G. Minnich from FOSDEM explains in more detail the dangers of EFI:

What are your thoughts on the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI)?

I have spoken with the EFI authors at length. They make no secret of the fact that a "core value" of EFI is the preservation of intellectual property related to chipset programming and internal architecture. To put it another way, EFI is dedicated to the preservation of "Hard" hardware (as defined above), and the provision of binary interfaces and subsystems to BIOS vendors and others.

It is not really possible to build a full open-source BIOS if EFI is involved. The Tiano system, which Intel claims is an open source BIOS, can not be used to build a BIOS unless it is attached to proprietary, binary-only BIOS code provided by a vendor.

Another important thing to realize about EFI is that it also contemplates enabling chipset features that will trap certain OS operations to an EFI-based control system running in System Management Mode. In other words, under EFI, there is no guarantee that the OS owns the platform.

Accesses to IDE I/O addresses, or certain memory addresses, can be trapped to EFI code and potentially examined and modified or aborted. Many see this as an effort to build a "DRM BIOS".

I am not sure what the real intent of this design is, but is is a real concern in secure environments (such as those found in governments, banks, and large search engine companies). A number of vendors and users have told me that they are not sure they can ship an EFI system they are willing to trust in a secure environment.

I've taken this to Dell's IdeaStorm, asking them to resist EFI, but i'm not sure where else to go and how concerned we should all be about this. Thousands of customers called out for Dell to put effort into adopting a free BIOS replacement for a number of reasons, but Dell's john_h has informed us that their "BIOS teams have investigated, but no plans to do this. Most of the industry is moving towards using uEFI", clearly not a pro-consumer move. Please vote on it and let me know in the comments what you think of these issues with EFI.