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.

"The latest volume of the magazine Index on Censorship focuses on issues related to free speech online. I'm among the contributors. Here's a snip from the issue overview: «The Internet was supposed to spell the end of censorship – instead governments now have unprecedented possibilities for controlling what we do and what we read. But this is a revolution in free expression that can’t be stopped. Index examines the explosion in communication, the rise in new forms of censorship (and the ways to get round them) and the impact on social attitudes.» ..."

I’ve largely stopped reporting bugs to Ubuntu because of the condescending and dismissive attitude from their developers.

"In an exclusive report, Wikinews has learned that on Wednesday, January 16, 2008, two users, one anonymous and the other only known as MODX added code onto Wikipedia for a computer virus known as the LoveLetter virus or the ILOVEYOU virus..."

"...«Creative Commons founder and Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig is giving his final presentation on Free Culture, Copyright and the future of ideas at Stanford's Memorial Auditorium on January 31st, 2008 from 1pm-2pm. After 10 years of enlightening and inspiring audiences around the world with multi-media presentations that inspired the Free Culture movement, Professor Lessig is moving on from the copyright debate and setting his sites on corruption in Washington.»

"The GNU/Linux naming controversy is a dispute among members of the free and open source software community relating to the normative branding of the computer operating systems commonly referred to as Linux.

GNU/Linux is the term promoted by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), its founder Richard Stallman, and its supporters, for operating systems that include GNU software and the Linux kernel.[1] The FSF argues for the term GNU/Linux because GNU was a longstanding project to develop a free operating system, of which the kernel was the last missing piece..."

Reading Marc Fleury's post on the subject of open source and proprietary software (a response to my post on Benchmark's investment in Engine Yard), you'd be tempted to believe that the world is growing more proprietary. Reading InfoWorld's response to Marc, you'd be certain that yes, the world is definitely closing off.