After more than 5000 complains of costumers about Vista in a month of time, the Dutch Consumers’ Counsel decided to talk with Microsoft. The goal of the negotiations was to give consumers the possibility to downgrade from Vista to XP if consumers had serious complaints about Vista.

"...Digital rights management (DRM) refers to technologies typically used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, and copyright holders to attempt to control how consumers access and use media and entertainment content. Among other issues, the workshop will address the need to improve disclosures to consumers about DRM limitations.

Deploying Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology restricts access to content to users who have not been specifically authorized by the content owner. However, these protections sometimes prevent users from using the content in ways they would expect to be entitled, such as playing music on their computers and their portable MP3 players.

"At least 5000 consumers have added their digital signatures to an anti-iPad campaign that's currently petitioning Apple CEO Steve Jobs to remove digital rights management, or DRM, from the device's content..."

"One of the largest surveys of music consumers to closely examine the question of Digital Rights Management (DRM) has an important two-part message for the music industry."

Does the idea of "advocacy" make you nervous? It does sound a bit scary, doesn't it, like those annoying door-to-door religious people. But it's not that way. If you're interested in helping people learn to speak Linux, here are a few easy, non-scary tips.

We live in turbulent times, that’s for sure and the financial crisis is the one to blame. There is a very difficult situation in my country these days and lately there is much anger and discord among people. The Free Software Community is a part of the society, so it is affected by these phenomena. Many people don’t realize one thing.

"...What needs to happen is that people need to see beyond these bureaucracies and determine the rights that they wish to have and see others have. If - and only if - the majority of people view their human rights as encompassing their ability to create and imagine - will there be a change. They can wear the colors of the FSF, they can contribute to the Wikipedia, or they could have their own 15 megabytes of fame somewhere. There is no name for this other than deciding the future. You can throw money at any organization and expect them to do things for you - but that is the same mentality which created the present system..."

A competitive market, in which a number of producers offer a variety of similar products that all have their own unique selling points, is good for consumers. That's because producers gain customers only by tailoring products to match consumers' demands. Or put another way, consumers can look at a selection of competing products and choose the one that's best for them.