Hello readers, and welcome once again to Free Software Magazine's fortnightly newsletter, keeping you up to date with all things free software... AND the top 10 FSDaily announcements for this week! Enjoy!

General announcements

Top ten Free Software Daily stories this week

1. Free Formats vs. Open Formats --"...This isn’t anymore about closed vs. open formats, and you don’t need me to rub it in your face. It’s time to leave those non-free formats behind and look forward for a world of interoperability, a world of doors free to trespass in whatever way you want, and where no one will be able to take that freedom away from anyone else." Read more...

2. Google's festering problem with the AGPL --Google apparently likes open source that lets it "borrow" open-source software while giving comparatively little back, and always on Google's terms. Read more...

3. My Interview With Richard Stallman. --"Last week I got the opportunity to fire questions to unarguably one of the most influential and inspirational people of our time. Read more...

4. Why I Quit Windows and Switched to Linux --It’s funny how some people react when I tell them I use Linux. Sometimes they express the sentiment that I must be very computer savvy. Other’s get caught up in all the brand loyalty hype and still some have never heard of Linux! I kid you not! Read more...

5. With Vistas View Getting Dim Should You Give Linux A Chance? --For years now, Linux has been known primarily only to people in technology fields. While average home users may have heard of it, it is still surrounded in a cloud of mystery for the majority of people. When people think alternatives to the Windows operating system, they usually think of Apple's Mac OSX, but is it time to take a look at Linux? Read more...

6. Hello there, Lovers of Free Culture! --"I’m new to the fold, representing FreeCulture.org up in the, as Gavin and Nelson quickly discovered, still chilly city of Madison, Wisconsin. Nelson just cleared me for Blog take-off and gave me a few questions to kick things off with, so here I go! ..." Read more...

7. 4 months and 10 days without any new Debian developer. Is Debian dying? --"It has now been more than 4 months since the last Debian developer account was created. 18 contributors have been through all steps, and are simply waiting for this simple administrative task to be done..." Read more...

8. Vista SP1 won't install on dual-boot systems: Microsoft --"Are you currently running Windows and Linux in a dual-boot setup? You're going to have major headaches with Vista SP1, Microsoft has admitted."... Surprise, surprise. Read more...

9. 10 common mistakes to avoid when you’re installing Linux software --Installing software in Linux is nothing like it used to be, but there are still some pitfalls to watch out for. If you follow this little guide, your Linux life will be made simpler and safer. Read more...

10. New OOXML Scandal - A Leaked Email Surfaces in France - Updated: New Details from Norway --"... Here's a computer translation of the email: «The project of RGI presented at the time of the last committee of the reference frames of October 12, 2007 had been put on standby, following the step engaged in the ISO by the ECMA concerning the OpenXML standard. Read more...

Thanks to can.axis, Jimbob, mark, sharkswithlazers, and chimera for these stories!

Latest content

Why Microsoft should not lose (and free software will still win) --By Ryan Cartwright. There has always been a section of the free software community which has an anti-Microsoft agenda. It’s almost like their mission statement is “It’s not over until Microsoft is dead”. Certainly there is a lot of feeling that if Microsoft went away, a lot of our problem would be over. But do Microsoft even need to “lose”; is there even a battle to be fought and if so what would constitute winning it? Read more...

Programming languages and "lock-in" --By Terry Hancock. One of the favorite arguments for free software is that it avoids lock-in to a particular manufacturer’s products. Something similar happens due to choice of programming language, though, which accounts for the sometimes-baffling project rivalries in the free software world. While this may be a surprising result to end users, it makes a lot of sense if you think about how developers—especially free-software developers—work. Occasionally, you hear complaints about these “divisions” of the free software world, but is this really a bad thing? Read more...

Interview with Kurt Denke, the man who shut "Monster Cable" up --By Tony Mobily. was lucky enough to catch Kurt Denke for a short interview. Kurt is actually on vacation right now; however, he still found some time to answer my questions. For those who have been living under a rock for the last week, Kurt Denke is the owner of Blue Jeans Cable; Monster Cable attacked Blue Jeans Cable on the basis of “Intellectual Property violations”. You should read Kurd Denke’s response. It’s a very enjoyable read, which makes you realise just how knowledgeable Kurt Denke is, on intellectual property law and on cables (!). Read more...

Tertiary menu in Drupal --By Tony Mobily. By default, Drupal allows you to set a “primary” menu and a “secondary” menu. At this point you should know that if you go to admin-> menus -> settings and pick the same menu for both primary and secondary links, the secondary links menu will contain the sub-menu of the selected item in the primary menu. Read more...

Drigg (the pligg alternative) vs. Pligg: why should people switch? --By Tony Mobily. As some of you already know, I am the main developer for Drigg. I donated probably more than 1000 hours of my life to the Drigg project, because I believed in it. After reviewing existing CMSs out there, I believe that Drigg is the best system available today for people who want to create Digg-like sites (but, in fact, when people deploy Drigg they get fully functional Drupal sites…!). You can see my contributions to Drigg daily. One more programmer has joined Drigg, which is going right ahead. Read more...

OOXML is a standard. What now? --By Tony Mobily. Unless a small miracle happens, OOXML is a standard. What’s next? Read more...

Free Software Magazine Awards 2008 --By Tony Mobily. Nominate your entries for Free Software Magazine Awards 2008! To nominate a project, a person or a site, just leave a comment under this story or send an email with subject “Awards” to: Read more...

Latest content continued

Advocating free software in the real world --By Ryan Cartwright. Recently, in this column, I spoke about how we can lose our free software choices if we don’t use them. Sticking with that choice is not always easy so how do we get others to make it, particularly in a world where the choice is often made for them. How can we advocate free software in a world where others don’t seem to care? Read more...

Free software is not politics: petitions for the Italian elections --By Marco Marongui. I have been saying this for many years: free software must not be associated with an ideology or political party. Doing that would: Read more...

Free software alternatives: What good is choice if you don't use it? --By Ryan Cartwright. Look through a list available packages for any free OS and you’ll find a sometimes bewildering choice of browsers, mail readers, editors, desktops and tetris-clones available. Despite this many will just blindly install the first one they’ve heard of. Is this a good policy? What good is all this choice if we don’t use it and what are those choices? Read more...

A world of beautiful broken toys --By Terry Hancock. Proprietary culture dumps a lot of disappointing experiences on me. I really had this brought home to me by a couple of toys my daughter received for Christmas this year, which just refused to work with our family’s Debian-based computers, and I have to wonder: what are these experiences teaching our children? Read more...

My OpenDiameter Experience, Part I, Build and Installation --By Gong Cheng. Diameter is a AAA protocol that is supposed to be the successor to RADIUS, and OpenDiameter is an open source implementation of the Diameter Protocol. I recently started playing around with OpenDiameter and, to my surprise, the online resources and documentations on how to use it are very hard to find, if there is any. I figured out my way to get the basics running, and I am here to share my initial experiences, hoping to help other OpenDiameter beginners. I also hope that the OpenDiameter community could contribute more Read more...

Virgin Mobile Australia: the path Google doesn't (yet?) follow --By Tony Mobily. There are companies we love and respect. Google is one of them. Regardless of their mistakes, their jet, their priorities in terms of software releases, there is an “innate” trust. Read more...

Free software magazine allows readers to create community posts! --By Tony Mobily. There is some news. This is important news about Free Software Magazine, and it affects the community. Please spread the word far and wide, in your blogs, news hubs, social networking, and so on. Read more...

Latest book reviews

Linux Thin Client Networks Design and Deployment by David Richards --By Richard Rothwell. Thin client solutions bring together the display features of a personal computer and the low support requirements of dumb terminals. The client machine handles the user interface, while the servers provide the processing power for the applications. Thin clients offer considerable savings in staffing and capital costs. GNU/Linux lends itself to thin clients for reasons that are explored in this book. The book’s author, David Richards, clearly has experience of explaining and implementing thin client solutions. Read more...

Reminders

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