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FSF Wants Your Vouchers
Ridgelift writes "California residents can help support the Free Software Foundation by donating their Microsoft vouchers to the FSF. In turn, the FSF will be able to convert the vouchers into hardware. There's more information here at the FSF website. With 1.1 billion dollars in vouchers Microsoft is forced to pay through the recent anti-trust court case, it's satisfying to see some of those fortunes being spent to help create good software for a change."
EFF
Attn: MS Voucher
454 Shotwell St.
San Francisco, CA 94110
Something tangible like 273 software packages? Little items like Glibc, GCC, Bash, and the GIMP.
Note that these are GNU packages, meaning that they are provided by the FSF. There are thousands more packages that are merely distributed under the terms of the GPL/LGPL.
-Peter
yup, EFF are also great, but when I can spare cash, it goes to FSF.
.sig:
They've been busting their asses to give us freedom for 19 years now, and with Bradley Kuhn as the Executive Director, they've gone from strength to strenght.
If fighting for freedom is lunacy, you can download thirteen 2hr lunacy recodings (sounds fun) on the GNU audio page. Well worth a listen, IMO
(and as a european, I'm very glad of all the work that Stallman has done, and the work of Hartmut Pilch of FFII who's work is funded by FSF)
and my
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
This might be the dumbest post I've seen this year. The analogy is 'free as in freedom vs free as in beer'. It is meant to distinguish the two meanings of free. FSF cares about free as in freedom, they don't care about free as in beer. They want software with rights. They don't care if you do or don't pay cash for it. So they use the example of being given a free beer (say for instance, the simple example of a friend buying your drink, or a bartender saying this ones on the house). If you want to analyze this even further, your recipe statement is apt as well. Just because something cost $0, doesn't mean you have the right to the recipe. That's the FSF's point, M$ occasionally gives stuff away for $0, but it's not free as in your rights.
Read up before you post.
-t
http://unmoldable.com W:"No one of consequence" I:"I must know" W:"Get used to disappointment"
1. poetic justice, just deserts -- (an outcome in which virtue triumphs over vice (often ironically))
g e=1&word=poetic+justice
http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn?sta
All hail King Douche!
Unfortunally while computers in schools have the potential of being very powerful resources I have yet to see more then a few situations were they have been used effectively. That is also directly tied to why a number of organizations make very poor use of computers.
I understand that this may be different for Universities which already have tremendous levels of funding; but, in public primary education environments, computers are treated as little more then glorified typewriters with the ability to surf the Internet. Since even most teachers do not have the proper skills to find good research on the Internet even these capabilties are essentially wasted.
Another falicy in the educational system is that administrators assume that they must have the newest and best equipment to be able to effectively teach. I have seen a number of school wharehouses stocked full of old equipment that nobody in the system any long feels is useful. This is very unfortunate. Using Linux many of these systems can be revitalized into productive machines. Even the oldest of these machines can be turned into X display terminals to make newer hardware purchases spread further. I have set up serveral library kiosk stations using old PS/2's as Xterms connected to a larger modern machine. I can buy an AMD Duron 1.1Ghz with 128MB RAM that will host several Netscape or OpenOffice sessions remotely for $200US.
Until the education system gets enough initiative to higher teachers that know what computers are cabable of doing and until they start making better use of the computing resources that they already have, I do not feel that donating more hardware to the education system is going to be productive in teaching students how to use computers.
Ok how about just perjury alone. Forged video evidence was also presented in the anti-trust trial in the U.S.
Ok how about the court's decision, upheld on appeal, that the company used illegal methods to maintain a desktop monopoly?
There are also the false and misleading advertising, against palm, novell, and regarding MS-Passport. MS-Passport cannot be secure even in theory, so any claims were clearly known to be falsehoods. And since MS-Office 2003 is tied into that, expect more legal action.
Then there have been a series of fines regarding patent infringements. The most recent being from SPX.
Where I come from, all that's called lying or stealing.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Robertson's response can be found here.
Microsoft has filed legal papers on the matter, which can be found here.
Man, some of you just don't get it. Slashdot is not a news reporting agency. Slashdot does not try to report the news. Slashdot editors are, by no stretch of the imagination, journalists. All Slashdot does is report the existence of news stories. You have to RTFA to see any actual reporting.
Those of you decrying Slashdot's lack of "credibility" are missing the point -- the only Slashdot posts that aren't "credible" are the ones that don't include a link to a news story.
Generally speaking, after a story is posted to Slashdot, people are expected to comment on it. That is the purpose served by editorializing. It serves to incite, inflame, or encourage commentary -- whether you agree with the editorializing or not. Example: If thousands of people agreed that it was not satisfying to see Microsoft vouchers going to the FSF, then they would post here and say so. Thus, the Slashdot model -- the real Slashdot model, and not the one you imagine -- would continue to be a success.
Breakfast served all day!