Open source software perceptions - (split from copying s/w)

[BillMorrow]

EDIT: Somehow this brings to mind a link I saw posted recently on a Linux forum.
http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/12/l ... -back.html

return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, in the century before this one, when (li chen wang's) palo alto tiny basic was free (for a time) and all who developed software for those new little computers actually shared their intellectual property.. rather than copyright, lock up, bind, license or otherwise restrict its use to the chosen few.....

(ok, so i borrowed a beginning )

my very first operating system if it could be called that was northstar DOS and basic that came on a 5 inch floppy with a 5 inch floppy disk drive..

whoooo, haw, what wonderful technology it was..

hmmm, in the year of out lord, AD 1976 or so..
(google should be your friend, here)
we all shared what we were doing with other computer "geeks" and those working to get our little S-100 systems working and doing something more than just flashing a few front panel LED's..

the point is, that link to the linux blog was very interesting..
and quite on point in that it talks about freeware and gnu and so forth..

in those prehistoric days, there was chaos and the one good thing bill gates did, in my mind, was standardize software and squeeze all these disparate "things" into a narrow and conforming model..

the fact that gates did what he did and the way he did it notwithstanding, we can all now talk to one another online and he did have some part in bringing that into existance..
(remember fidonet!)

(i know there are many other parts to this but i am speaking about making a framework that all vendors adhear to)

linux will come of age and take market share from M$ and what is even better it will teach the children how things work rather than hand them a black box (windows) which is anything but clear..

i just downloaded and used, for the first time, FileZilla, a really neat free FTP app..

what i want to say is , YES, Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus and he is us and you and them.. and part of "them" is those children who grow up using linux and who develop stuff for linux and add to linux because it is open source..
there is much more innovation in a free society than in a constrained society and returning to those days of the homebrew computer club ethos is a good thing, IMO..

[GomJabbar]

I saw this morning another link in that linux thread that "Karen" has been enlightened so to speak.

Check out the Twitter updates on the left side of the blog I linked to in the earlier post, or see the link below.

http://www.contractoruk.com/news/004117.html

[sparta.rising]

what i want to say is , YES, Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus and he is us and you and them.. and part of "them" is those children who grow up using linux and who develop stuff for linux and add to linux because it is open source..
there is much more innovation in a free society than in a constrained society and returning to those days of the homebrew computer club ethos is a good thing, IMO..

This article may make you sad and question the future of our youth:
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/242520/teac ... linux.html

However, while the article does show the ignorance of teachers, it also shows a young student embracing Linux, spreading the good word, and being met with the positive approval of his peers. I mean, that's just shocking!




Oh, and on topic, I'll second CDBurnerXP. Despite its restrictive naming, its quite the light, competent app. I had actually forgotten about it and I'm very happy to be reminded of its existence.

[aldtech]

what i want to say is , YES, Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus and he is us and you and them.. and part of "them" is those children who grow up using linux and who develop stuff for linux and add to linux because it is open source..
there is much more innovation in a free society than in a constrained society and returning to those days of the homebrew computer club ethos is a good thing, IMO..

This article may make you sad and question the future of our youth:
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/242520/teac ... linux.html

However, while the article does show the ignorance of teachers, it also shows a young student embracing Linux, spreading the good word, and being met with the positive approval of his peers. I mean, that's just shocking!

Wow - that is sad. They should have posted her real whole name just so that she could get some continuous enlightenment.

ald

[GomJabbar]

An update: http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2008/12/c ... nt-us.html

Now to the meat of the matter. Many, many of you have pushed for the identification of this teacher.

I cannot or will not relinquish that. Read the comments from slashdot alone or the hundreds on my blog to understand why!

There isn't any amount of money I will accept to throw a human being into that cement mixer.

[rkawakami]

I split this off from the original thread (copying software).

[ajkula66]

One should be reading this story with "The Wall" in the background...at least that was playing in my mind while reading about this little apartchik that has the nerve to call herself a teacher...stuff like this make me want to home school my kids...