"Derek Sivers, quite the Rails champion when he decided to rebuild his CD Baby e-commerce site using Rails two years ago, has now admitted defeat. After two years of wrestling with Rails while building the new site, Sivers along with coder Jeremy Kemper, decided to face up to reality. Kemper went off to 37signals and Sivers rebuilt the entire site in PHP in just two months.

Not only do you not own that copy of Microsoft Word, that video game, or even that MP3 player, but like most people using commercial software (be it pirated or paid for in a shop), you also don't own any other way of accessing your information...

A video on olpc in google-video watch it.

"...The modernization of our Public Administration imperative and because this modernization will only come to be if we can control our own information system, the need for a resolute and informed policy on the use of Free Software within Quebec’s public administration is long overdue..... "

To GPL or not to GPL: What Would Dostoevsky Do?

"Thou wouldst go into the world, and art going with empty hands, with some promise of freedom which men in their simplicity and their natural unruliness cannot even understand, which they fear and dread- for nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom."

Make no mistake -- due to the energy that the Ubuntu community and Canonical, its corporate arm, have put into improving the desktop, this popularity is well-deserved. Yet, at the same time, I find myself wondering whether user-friendliness must inevitably mean discouraging users from exploring their systems or taking firm control over them.

Revolutions are often thought of as loud, lenthy and noisy affairs. They are also perceived as an event where one could, if passionately engaged, suffer major tissue trauma. Many in revolutionary fevor have taken it as far as to assume room temperature for their troubles.