FUD, for those who are unaware, is an acronym for "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt." Instilling FUD in people has often been a tactic of proprietary vendors, seeking to scare their customer-base away from other vendors or freer, non-proprietary alternatives. It has often been used to describe Microsoft's tactics of denigrating free and open source solutions, for example. Essentially it is a scare-tactic which operates on people's fear and ignorance.

Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis are emerging technologies used for compressing video and audio, respectively. The Ogg formats are free and open formats that do not belong to any particular corporation, nor do they require any royalties to use.

As it stands, most video sites on the internet require proprietary browser plugins to be installed, for example Flash, or RealVideo. The fact that the Ogg formats are free, however, means that support can be built right in to the web browser. Mozilla Firefox, among others, has announced that they plan to support the Ogg formats right out of the box in the upcoming version 3.5. At one point, Ogg was expected to become part of the HTML5 standard.

For more details on HTML 5, Ogg, test videos, and what this could mean for the future of the internet, read my blog post titled, "Free Video is Coming to the Internet."

A few big names have jumped on the bandwagon to support Ogg, such as Dailymotion, Wikipedia, and Mozilla. Some media sites, like Democracy Now! and Archive.org, have already been using Ogg Theora for years.

Not everyone has been so supportive though...

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• Topic: Technology
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Freeing Your Computer from Microsoft

If you aren't sure what Linux is, I've written a brief explanation in my blog, titled "What exactly IS Linux?" - Andy

I took the time recently to test drive the Kubuntu Linux 9.04 Alpha release Live CD. Kubuntu is a branch of the Ubuntu distribution that is based on the KDE desktop. Ubuntu in turn is based on the Debian GNU/Linux distribution.

Over the last few months in particular, a lot of cumulative technological efforts have really come to fruition. Just to name a few, the KDE 4.2 desktop, improved webcam and wifi support, and the EXT4 filesystem. You can read more about other recent Linux innovations in my blog post, The Rise of Linux and the Death of Microsoft.


The KDE 4.2 Desktop. Pretty slick eh? No wonder Microsoft is ripping it off for Windows 7...

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I'm working on a MySpace/Facebook-like social networking module for the site. I have been doing some programming work on it and don't have many testers, so I want to put the word out. I call it Personal Pages, and I've released the code to the community as free software. (As a module for DragonflyCMS)

Features supported so far:

Customizable personal page, allows users to see your online status, send a message, leave comments, or read your latest blog posts.

The personal pages use bbcode like this forum, which allow embedding links, videos, images, etc.


Features not yet implemented:

Friends list. I have been looking at integrating another module that handles this, stay tuned...

-Andy

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Version 2.6.27 of the Linux kernel has been released, among the more notable changes:

Most webcams are now supported.

Many additional Atheros wifi and networking devices are supported.

ChangeLog

Kernel.org

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Free and Open Source Word Processing and Office Productivity Software:

AbiWord: AbiWord 2.6.3 is an award winning, small, fast, featureful and crossplatform word processor. Runs on Linux, Windows and Mac, and has Spell-Check dictionaries for over 30 languages.

Official Website

AbiWord Downloads

OpenOffice.org: The free and open productivity suite

OpenOffice.org 2 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.

Official Website

Downloads

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Linux kernel version 2.6.26 has been released.

The Linux kernel is a free and Open Source operating system core.

Announcement on the Linux Kernel Mailing List

Changelog at KernelNewbies.org

Downloads and more at kernel.org

On a related note, I've written a guide to utilizing multiple processors for compiling, and also for creating Debian kernel packages:
Linux SMP Tips

I've posted a blog on some of the parallels between free software and anarchism.

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The most recognizable name in the open source community talks about why he didn't go the proprietary route for Linux and how it could easily have been just another of his 'random small projects'

Linus Torvalds was only 22 when he decided in 1991 to share with friends and colleagues the code of Linux, the new OS he had created. The computer science student at the University of Helsinki could not imagine the revolution his decision would cause through the IT industry in the years to come. In this interview, he talks about why he released the code, offers his views on Microsoft Corp. and says the future belongs to open source.

TB: Lots of researchers made millions with new computer technologies, but you preferred to keep developing Linux. Don't you feel you missed the chance of a lifetime by not creating a proprietary Linux?

LT: No, really. First off, I'm actually perfectly well off. I live in a good-sized house, with a nice yard, with deer occasionally showing up and eating the roses (my wife likes the roses more, I like the deer more, so we don't really mind). I've got three kids, and I know I can pay for their education. What more do I need?
The thing is, being a good programmer actually pays pretty well; being acknowledged as being world-class pays even better. I simply didn't need to start a commercial company. And it's just about the least interesting thing I can even imagine. I absolutely hate paperwork. I couldn't take care of employees if I tried. A company that I started would never have succeeded -- it's simply not what I'm interested in! So instead, I have a very good life, doing something that I think is really interesting, and something that I think actually matters for people, not just me. And that makes me feel good.
So I think I would have missed the opportunity of my lifetime if I had not made Linux widely available. If I had tried to make it commercial, it would never have worked as well, it would never have been as relevant, and I'd probably be stressed out. So I'm really happy with my choices in life. I do what I care about, and feel like I'm making a difference.

ITB: Didn't you fear you would lose intellectual property when you released Linux?

LT: I didn't think in those terms (and still don't). It was never about intellectual property, it was about all the effort I had put in, and it was about the project being something personal. But yes, I was a bit worried that as a totally unknown developer in Finland, somebody would decide to just ignore my licence, and just use my code and not give back his changes. So it worried me a bit. On the other hand, what did I really have to lose?

Read the full interview here.

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