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

Issue 21 is out! Get in there and start reading!

Top ten Free Software Daily stories this week

1. Teachers becoming Free Software advocates as GNU/Linux finds its perfect home in Kerala's schools --I am inviting you to see the schools in my district. There you can see how reachers handling linux. Of course there is some problems in Printer Driver but it can be solved in the new versions. You must realise the Propreitory Rights. It is a new OS it will take some time to establish. Read more...

2. lies and statistics --Secunia have reported that more flaws were found in Redhat Linux (633) than in Windows (123), but even a blind man can see it is nowhere near a fair comparison. Read more...

3. Shuttleworth leads global open education drive --Today sees the launch of the Cape Town Open Education Declaration which aims to make learning and teaching materials freely available online, to improve the quality of education in schools in South Africa and the rest of the world, leveraging the potential for open collaboration on the Web. Read more...

4. GNU/Solaris - When the fun begins... --Sun Microsystems has purchased MySQL and released Java under the GPL. Chief executive Jonathan Schwartz has also speculated that there could be a future release of Solaris under the GPL, but what would be the implications of such a move? Read more...

5. Hard facts on free software with RMS --RMS: "...My advice is don’t make the mistake of thinking about software only in terms of practical convenience. Don’t forget about freedom. Don’t forget about social solidarity. Anyone trying to stop you from sharing information, is trying to tax society. Don’t let them get away with it. If you develop software, respect the freedom of the user. Don’t try to subjugate other people and don’t let anybody subjugate you. You deserve to be free." Read more...

6. I wouldn't steal --Whenever you rent a movie, the multinational media industry forces you to watch their propaganda. They claim that downloading movies is the same as snatching bags, stealing cars or shoplifting. That’s simply not true – making a copy is fundamentally different from stealing. Read more...

7. The Free Software hardliner, the corporation, and the shotgun wedding --We called it Free Software at first. It wasn't until we started calling it Open Source that the punditry line counts began creeping up higher than the code line counts. We had this baby and we were proud of it, and the deep rooted insecurity born of being the ridiculed and utterly misunderstood underdogs made us require the approval of business and Grandma Bessie before we could ourselves be satisfied. Read more...

8. Bill Gates Invades the Land of Linus, Uses Dumping Techniques --One of the most FOSS-friendly countries in the world, where Firefox boasts a market share of almost 50%, has just heard about a little visit involving Mr. Gates himself. As I’ve argued for about a year, his retirement will involve a great deal of lobbying, which makes it not truly a retirement per se but more of a role change. Read more...

9. How to log in to FSDaily with OpenID! --"Your claimID URL is an OpenID URL. This means that you can use your claimID URL to log into websites that support OpenID. Some great OpenID-enabled sites include..." FSDaily ;) Read more...

10. Top 50 Linux Quotes of All Time --I have collected 50 of my favorite "Linux quotes" of all time. Feel free to add yours. Enjoy! Read more...

Thanks to mads, can.axis, serdar, giantrobot, akf, cendrars, komrad, greengrass, and pravi for these stories!

Latest content

Hotmail doesn't work with Firefox 2.0: Microsoft answers to GNU/Linux users "Switch to Outlook Express" --By Mitch Meyran. "I’m the increasingly discontent owner of an Hotmail account (don’t laugh, I subscribed back when Hotmail wasn’t owned by Microsoft). Recently, in order to compete with Google on the Web, Hotmail’s interface was overhauled: it now has a “classic” interface, which works reasonably well but is still rather limited, and a supposedly “Full” interface that should make it the equal of sites like Google Apps and Yahoo Mail/Calendar/etc." Read more...

Impossible thing #1: Developing efficient, well engineered free software like Debian GNU/Linux --By Terry Hancock. "With any paradigm shift, it is difficult to see the new world from the old one, even though it is glaringly obvious once you’ve crossed over. Empirical evidence is one way to bridge the gap. To that end, I want to show some solid evidence for the “impossible” things that commons-based peer production (CBPP) has already accomplished—things that the old conventional wisdom would tell us “can’t be done”. This week, I’ll look at what is probably the most obvious case: free software." Read more...

Interview with Eric S. Raymond --By Colin McGregor. "Eric S. Raymond is author of one of the definitive books of the open source world “The Cathedral and the Bazaar”. In this interview Mr. Raymond talks about a number of the projects he is involved in." Read more...

Interview with Richard M. Stallman --By Colin McGregor. "Richard M. Stallman has been a pivotal, and sometimes controversial figure in the free software movement. Mr. Stallman’s accomplishments have included, but are not limited to, the creation of the GNU Public License, the Free Software Foundation, and the GNU C compiler. Here Mr. Stallman shares his thoughts on a number of topics." Read more...

The world does not need a "conversion nightmare": a standard office file format already exists --By Tony Mobily. "This is an editorial about file conversions. It starts with a story about Free Software Magazine and our struggle with article formats, and continues explaining why the world needs to get rid of Office Open XML, which could create more problems than the Microsoft monopoly itself." Read more...

Latest content continued

Can OpenOffice.org do the job? --By Ryan Cartwright. "To continue my look at how non-profits and the free software community can engage, I’ve decided to look at some popular free software products and see how well they fit the need of an average charity—namely my employer. I’ll start with OpenOffice.org." Read more...

Free software conference in Colombia --By David Jacovkis. "The first International Conference on Free Software, Technological Literacy and Solidarity Economy took place in Bogotá (Colombia) from 13th to 15th of November. More than 80 speakers and 600 assistants attended at the the Tequendama Hotel, a traditional meeting point in the city." Read more...

Love your bugs: a zen guide to keeping your sanity while managing a free software project --By Tony Mobily. "Over the last few years, I’ve come to accept the fact that regardless of my attempts to quit this job, I am fundamentally a programmer. I wrote a book about security, I am the Editor In Chief of Free Software Magazine, but in the end I am still just a programmer. A lucky one, I must admit." Read more...

Interview with Thomas Hansen, organiser of the Gaia Programming Contest --By Tony Mobily. "I had the chance to interview Thomas Hansen, who recently announced the Gaia Programming Contest (€10,000 reward). Here are his enlightening answers!" Read more...

Free software will win. Eventually. --By Tony Mobily. "Free software (eventually) works better than proprietary software; why?" Read more...

How to Install the latest (and last?) Netscape Navigator --By Gary Richmond. "Before you start shouting at me, I know. Nestcape Navigator will soon be no more. After many years of faithful service, and before Firefox and Flock were a mere twinkle in a web developer’s glinting eye, AOL has announced that the browser will be retired at the beginning of February and put out to pasture in its nonage. You might be thinking that installing a browser with a death sentence hanging over its head is about as sensible as a portable defibrillator in a funeral parlour, but read on." Read more...

Latest book reviews released

Security Data Visualization by Greg Conti Graphical techniques for network analysis. Reviewed by Alan Berg. Read more...

Linux Firewalls: Attack Detection and Response with iptables, psad, and fwsnort by Michael Rash Security in depth. Reviewed by Alan Berg. Read more...

Reminders

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