free software category archive

Power of Example (and the Long View)

Martin Sexton

Power of example
My mama said it and I heard
She says one ounce of action
Beats a ton of words.

– Martin Sexton, “Hallelujah”

Richard Stallman

[…] I didn’t write a whole free operating system, either. I wrote some pieces and invited other people to join me by writing other pieces. So I set an example. I said, “I’m going in this direction. Join me and we’ll get there.” And enough people joined in that we got there. So if you think in terms of, how am I going to get this whole gigantic job done, it can be daunting. So the point is, don’t look at it that way. Think in terms of taking a step and realizing that after you’ve taken a step, other people will take more steps and, together,

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On the Sharing of Free Software

Hi, loyal readers. I’m still here. Last week was busy at work, and getting up at 3:30am tends to make my evenings shorter. Any time I’ve had, I’ve been working on writing a Java utility to help with naming and sorting my pictures. It’s always a battle between finding time to write blog entries and finding time to write code. I like doing both, but writing articles tends to crowd out programming time. It hasn’t been as often that writing software has crowded out blogging time. And since I really want to write free software as well as write about it, I’m going to have to work on that balance.

I’ll be sharing my program here, with some trepidation. It’s not perfect; nothing ever is. …

At Night, the Robot Slept

Blame it on Luis Villa. He wrote about his Roomba and got me thinking. I had also previously heard good things. Hmm…

Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto, doing the jobs that I don’t want to?

The wife was skeptical at first, but I mentioned the good things I was “hearing,” that the prices were coming down, and likewise got her thinking. If it works, it might be one of those things like TiVo that you wonder how you lived without. (Later we found out they offer a money-back guarantee after a month trial, including shipping charges in both directions, so it becomes much less risky to at least give it a try.) She came back a few days later with a model that she said I could buy. “Really? I can bring him …

Citibank: You’re on Notice

Updated, 29 September 2007: See below…

Citibank: Support free software–by supporting open standards and making your web site accessible–or become dead to me.

Free software users: please take the time to complain loudly but politely when you are prevented from using web sites that “require” Microsoft Windows plus Internet Explorer or Macintosh plus Safari or whatever combination of proprietary operating system plus web browser. Insist that they should support open standards.

I was having trouble this weekend with the login page for bill payments on citicards.com, probably because of their use of Flash. I first complained to my (long suffering) wife about this. I said now I was going to have to write and complain about it, and that it’s a challenge because I don’t want to spend that much time drafting …

Brian Behlendorf: Open Source as a Business Strategy

I just finished reading Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution, which is a collection of essays about free and open source software edited by Chris DiBona (and others) and published by O’Reilly in January of 1999. It’s an interesting snapshot of free software at the time and it still reads very well today. Much of it is well-tread ground, but there were things new to me, and there is this good passage explaining why we should prefer free and open software and standards over proprietary platforms (emphasis added by me):

There are businesses built upon the model of owning software platforms. Such a business can charge for all use of this platform, whether on a standard software installation basis, or a pay-per-use basis, or perhaps some other model. Sometimes platforms

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For the Love of Problem Solving…

I’ve had a StarTribune op-ed piece by Garrison Keillor sitting on my desk for the past month (or two), waiting to be commented on here. Sometimes if I have an item age that much, I just toss it in the recycle bin, but this one still wants to be written about.

Picture of anthillcourtesy of Global Voices.

Keillor wrote about the passing of Fortran creator John Backus:

These days I’m indifferent to militance and more inspired by the worker ants of science. The patient accumulation of data, the dry formulation of theory, the countless little defeats, then the big leap forward that changes the world. I don’t have the mind for it but I appreciate those who do, such as John W. Backus, who died recently at

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