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Free Software Day Around The World
depechemodem writes "In a follow-up to Microsoft Leaves U.N. Standards Group, it appears that it may have been in reaction to the UN's sponsorship of the 1st annual Software Freedom Day in which its International Open Source Network (IOSN) will educate Asian users on the benefits
of Free and Open source Software (FOSS). FOSS promotes several high-profile applications including OpenOffice, Mozilla, MySQL, and Apache." An anonymous reader says of the U.N. effort, "Events will be organised in Bangladesh, Brunei, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam on Saturday, August 28th." According to another anonymous reader, "Go Open Source, funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation and HP, expects up to 10,000 visitors at the various Linux install-fests around South Africa this Saturday, says the Mail & Guardian."
I instinctively cringe whenever I see something like this:
1st annual software Freedom Day
It might end up being a total flop, and not be bothered with again.
(I do of course hope its a success)
Next year I would be willing to consider it the 2nd Annual software freedom day, but lets get past the first one ummmmm first.
Its just one example of illogical phrases.
liqbase
there will be an Indonesia Goes Open Source Award (IGOS) 2004.
-- budi
One name is especially missing - Singapore, the country with the second fastest technological adaptation in the world, close seconds to the United States and Japan.
And that's the problem - everything in Singapore runs on Microsoft (our "world's first" automated train system [blue screen...!], traffic surveillance, etc etc). Nobody has a plausible explanation, but as a citizen I'm sorely disappointed.
What I don't like is to be forced into giving my work away for free.
... and it is this fact which brings about the free software movement; the notion that expensive computer hardware is essentially useless without a second, easy-to-produce (and duplicate) commodity, namely software.
... and involves a degree of ignorance, nay naivete, on the part of the purchaser, like all capitalist systems ...
Nobody is forcing you to do anything. If there was force involved in "Free Software", then it wouldn't be "Free", it'd be "Enforced" software.
What you should be saying is, "I don't like being forced to pay out the nose for software that should be free", such as the operating system, without which your hardware is essentially useless. When you buy hardware, it does nothing until you've "bought" software to make it run.
Ideas are cheap to duplicate, but expensive to invent (cost of doing research vs. buying a book).
This is not an absolute. Some idea's are extremely cheap, some are very difficult (and thus costly) to realize. In the end, though, software idea's don't go anywhere without the hardware
Software is easy to produce. Compare what it takes to write software with what it takes to fabricate silicon. This comparison cannot be made without the conclusion that software is *always* going to be cheaper than hardware. It is simply a natural law, alongside the other 'obvious' natural law that states that software is useless without something to run it on.
Free software is an attempt to embrace that natural law. $oftware which co$ts is an attempt to refute it
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
'A United Nations-funded organization has produced a Linux desktop manual for novice PC users as part of an effort to encourage developing countries to use open-source software.' - ZDNet (http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5322002.html)
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