World’s Fair Use Day

The concept of fair use of copyrighted intellectual property is probably under more strain now than ever before. The long term effects on a free, creative people are not known, but I can’t think it’ll be anything good. Public Knowledge is producing World’s Fair Use Day tomorrow, January 12, to draw attention to this issue.… Continue reading World’s Fair Use Day

Without free software, there would have been no Web

And open — that is, non-proprietary — standards, too. No secret blend of herbs and spices here. We’d certainly no Web as we know it. Not even close. Today is the sixteenth anniversary of the deed of software by CERN — “the supercollider people” — for the software that makes the Web work. Here’s the… Continue reading Without free software, there would have been no Web

Bible for Android?

No, I’m not preparing for a robotic mission. But after years of rejecting having a cell phone, I gave in — and did so with an Android phone. (After reading how a significant plurality of homeless persons have a cell phone, and how it is a leading entry-point for Internet technologies for persons in developing… Continue reading Bible for Android?

Watching GA from a Linux machine (and open formats)

(Please read to the end; I have something to ask you.) UU Mom was looking to watch tonight’s opening session of the Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly (UUA GA) online, but it is only available in a proprietary Windows format. She noted: It would be nice if they’d use an Open Source program. We missed… Continue reading Watching GA from a Linux machine (and open formats)

OpenOffice.org training

Michelle Murrain (Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology) presented an OpenOffice.org — the free and open source productivity suite — training (or “untraining”) for Google as a part of their TechTalk series, and you can watch it here. Details at NOSI.

Download Firefox 3, break record

The Mozilla Foundation is try to break a 24-hour software download world record — or rather, establish a mark — with its release of the newest version of its browser: Firefox 3. Having used it a while, I really like it. Ubuntu Linux users have been getting updates of the preliminary versions (release candidates) and… Continue reading Download Firefox 3, break record

Open media formats for Unitarian Universalists

Are there any Unitarian Universalists — or keen open codec advocates who read this blog — who use Ogg Vorbis (audio) or Ogg Theora (video) to play, share, stream or store media? These are free and open-source media formats. I may have a project. In related news, I bought a refurb digital audio player (“MP3… Continue reading Open media formats for Unitarian Universalists

NYT: Lessig on orphan works copyright

Stanford Law professor and Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig had an opinion piece in the New York Times today worth reading, even if copyright issues aren’t your first concern. (“Little Orphan Artworks“) The problem is that there quite a few mature works that are not old enough to be in the public domain but where… Continue reading NYT: Lessig on orphan works copyright