"...The Free Software Foundation Europe, and the Royal Institute of Technology organized a lecture with Dr. Richard Stallman. Mainly the session was about the free software movement and the GNU/Linux operating system. Richard Stallman spoke about the goals and philosophy of the Free Software Movement, and the status and history of the GNU operating system, which in combination with the kernel Linux is now used by tens of millions of users world-wide..."

The problem with the battle between HD-DVD and BLU-RAY was they were identical standards for high-definition video players. The arguments over high-definition digital video standards has a salutary lesson for the world of document formats. Once the dominant owner of all document formats, the ubiquitous .DOC, .XLS and .PPT file types, Microsoft is attempting to force all computer users to standardize on their latest efforts. This new format goes by the unwieldy name of Office Open XML (OOXML).

"The fight for net neutrality is intensifying with the recent confirmation that Comcast and other internet providers are restricting BitTorrent traffic. ‘Net neutrality’ is the basic principal that all traffic on the internet should be transmitted equally. Unfortunately, corporations like Comcast believe that they should be able to slow down or block certain types of traffic while accelerating other types (including their own)..."

"Before the EU proposal to extend copyright, sound-recording protection from 50 to 95 years becomes law, it “would need approval by the European Parliament and a majority of the EU’s 27 governments, whose votes are weighted by population size.” Of course, whenever copyright extension comes up, Lessig comes to mind. EU citizens and policy makers should read Lessig’s book, Free Culture, before deciding..."

It has long been the case that proprietary software companies regularly engage in FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) tactics against their opponents. This particularly seems to apply to Microsoft’s statements about free software in general and GNU/Linux in particular. Recently I’ve noticed a surge in the amount of FUD going the other way—from the FOSS community towards Microsoft and other proprietary software companies. Why do we feel it is necessary to fight FUD with FUD

"Interesting article in LinuxWorld about the future of free software by Eben Moglen... «...If you’ve become dependent on a commons for whatever role in your business, then what you need is commons management. You don’t strip-mine the forest; you don’t fish every fish out of the sea. And, in particular, you become interested in conservation and equality. You want the fish to remain in the sea, and you don’t want anybody else overfishing. So you get interested in how the fisheries are protected...» ..."

"...The first step towards acknowledging the Free Software Movement is to understand that `Free Software’ and `Open Source Software’ are two different entities. And that we, in the media, have been quite unjust to the movement by using the terms `Free Software’ and `Open Source’ interchangeably..."

Bill Gates welcomed the world to a new breed of "kinder capitalism" at Davos this week. Conveniently forgetting his past, Mr. Gates declared:
"We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well."