rants

Roberto is asking a very difficult question: is OGG/Theora a standard, after all?  Since it is not documented in anything else but the source code, and the code is distributed under BSD license, what will make sure that nobody will start predatory practices on the format? 

I understand Richard’s request though, based on practical terms as usual: there are no other formats for audio/video that aren’t encumbered by nasty patents.  

Is OGG a standard?  Probably not.  Is it an open unencumbered format? I think so.  Will my data be safe for future use?  This is the most difficult question to answer: one can say that since the code is out there you can always write the decoder.  But real life is more complex than that.

A very interesting story from CNN:

Chile’s Mapuche Indians allege that Microsoft translated Windows software into their native language without getting tribal leaders’ permission. The tribe went so far as going to court accusing Microsoft of ‘intellectual piracy’.

Somebody should tell them that it would be simpler and easier not to buy Microsoft products and promote Free Software since it can come in their language with all freedoms attached.

Link

Things are going wild these days and it seems that there is never enough time to blog.

 Yesterday I met with Simon Phipps in Milano at a Sun event here: charming chat, as usual, but this time with more spin because the Java-trap is finally disarmed and we had only to talk about positive things to do together.  He was happy to hear about the Freedom Task Force, for example. 

Besides that, this morning it was special also because FSF and FSFE are both on boingboing: FSFE for its Italian activity to free the postcodes and FSF for being quoted on Newsweek with DefectiveByDesign.  It’s a sign that today will be a good day 🙂

Back from Bolzano, back from the First International Meeting of the Fellows, lots of important news in my (and yours) mailbox.  First of all: thank you to all participants, it was a wonderful experience.  There were at least 40 Fellows from all over Europe in the same room for the first time, and that only was worth the efforts.  But that all of them were so interested in the Advocacy project and willing to participate in it was probably the best part of the day… at least for me.

In the next days we will put together a page with pictures and recordings of the event, but for now let me just announce that Alejandro and Ekke added the planet aggregator during the eZ Publish workshop: you find the rss feed here and the page will be ported in production in the next days.  Thank you again everybody, stay in touch for more news.

Here we are in Bolzano.  I’m excited: there are many Fellows here.  We have also new Fellows to welcome.  There will be soon pictures and recordings of the SFSCon, too.

 The presentation of the Fellowship was appreciated: the advocacy project has attracted the interest of the audience. Tomorrow it will be a very interesting day: we will get ready to shape the future of our community.