rants

It seems that it’s not hot just in Milano but also in Portland. At least the debate between Eben Moglen and Tim O’Reilly at the OSCon seems to have heated up.  While giving a speech there, Moglen invited O’Reilly to join the conversation about freedom that he has been avoiding.  From what I read, Eben used his direct (warning: euphemism) style and Tim interpreted it as an attack.  But, all things considered, Eben is right: it’s time to grow up and face the real issues.

Moglen took O’Reilly to task over supporting "open source" rather than free software. "If we’d been worrying about principle instead of open source … You guys were wasting time talking about open source…. We still have serious problems to correct in public policies made by people propping up business models that were dying and wasting time promoting commercial products." 

I couldn’t find the recordings of the speech: are there any?

 It’s recent news that the Italian Camera dei Deputati (the lower chamber of the Parliament) has started a project to offer support for GNU/Linux on desktops for those that ask it.  I hope to see Pietro Folena‘s laptop equipped with Free Sw next time I meet him 🙂  From what I understood also the backend infrastructure of the chamber will also migrate to GNU/Linux. 

The big news, IMHO, is that the technical helpdesk has been prepared to support GNU/Linux, which is an important achievement.  I’m one of those that believe that Free/Libre Software shouldn’t need laws that mandate it. What is most needed IMHO, is that CIO of public administrations are trained and prepared to deal with Free Software acquisition.  Tenders to "buy" software often contain provisions that cut out Free Software based solutions (as it was the case fought and won by Assoli).

We need leadership (as Matt says) but we also need lobbyists and think tanks that are strong and credible to support those leaders because it’s a war out there, as Massachusetts demonstrated.   FSFE’s Freedom Task Force training goes in that direction, but more more more is needed and should be done.  I think that good-will, as Roberto puts it, is the same thing as leadership in this case.

BTW: DoD (Naval Research Lab) does and did "C".  At least one example is the project TOR, The Onion Router. Oddly enough, DoD shared development costs with those liberals of EFF 🙂

Boy, FakeSteveJobs is so funny, even when he calls us ‘freetards‘.  This post is not about rms not getting an iphone, but it’s aimed directly at Gates and about Vista. It’s an interesting read because it could be a post that one of us could have written (and probably did).  I love the advice to get rid of Ballmer: I think that most of the bad in Microsoft comes from him, too 🙂

Because you know what you’ve become? You’ve become the Grinch. You’ve become a tax collector. You’re the guy people hide from when you ride into town. It’s not good. You need to do something about that.