Apr 26, 2010 5:28pm GMT
I was contacted recently by an organization called the Free Technology Academy (FTA), which offers Masters Level courses across the Internet on Free Technologies. They wanted me to do a video-taped lecture on “Perspectives On the Free Software Market”. I realized that you could parse that topic in at least three different ways: Perspectives on the Free (Software Market)... more »
Clear-text Passwords In Web SitesApr 05, 2010 3:35pm GMT
Recently I had forgotten what password I had used for a web site, and I politely asked them to reset the password so I could log in and change it. Instead the site sent me my old password, in clear-text through email. After I got over the shock of seeing the current password in my email I went onto the site and changed the password to a not-very-flattering noun which had something to... more »
Microsoft To Distribute Their Own Version of BSD/LinuxApr 01, 2010 12:51pm GMT
NEW YORK — April 1, 2010 — Today, CEO Steve Ballmer announced that Microsoft would be releasing their own version of the Linux operating system in twelve months. After years of calling the Free Software movement “communists”, threatening them with patent suits, deprecating Free Software and coercing foreign governments to ship useless, broken Microsoft software packages with hardware program... more »
Happy Re-Birthday, CERN!Mar 31, 2010 9:28pm GMT
I picked up the paper today and read about the CERN Large Hadron Collider and its successful launching, so I had to write a blog about it to congratulate them! It was many years ago that I was at a Linux conference in Wurtzberg, Germany. It was a great conference, held in a medieval fortress at the top of a tall hill. Each day you would walk down the hill into town, and the biggest d... more »
Document Freedom Day - March 31st, 2010Mar 31, 2010 10:58am GMT
Today (March 31st) is Document Freedom Day, and I encourage everyone to talk about Document Freedom with all of your friends, and even your enemies. In 1973 I worked for Aetna Life and Casualty, at that time the “largest commercial user of IBM equipment in the Free World”. We did not know what the government was using, and we did not know what the Russians were using, but other than... more »
Quality In High School Students and Their TeachersMar 30, 2010 1:52pm GMT
A couple of weeks ago I went to Souhegan High School in Amherst, New Hampshire to vote, and while there talked with their computer technical person (they are mostly a windows shop, but also have MACs) and offered to do a presentation to the students and faculty on FOSS and free culture. They asked their Community Service Coordinator, Ms. Maggie Paul to arrange it. Ms. Paul arranged for 1... more »
Quality, Not QuantityMar 29, 2010 8:54pm GMT
Many years ago I was working for Digital Equipment Corporation as a software engineer in New Hampshire. The marketing people and product managers liked taking me to customer presentations because I could often take very technical subjects and explain them in terms the customers (and the marketing people and the product managers) could understand. I was gifted. One particular time Digital's... more »
