Categories
Mozilla Open Source Software

Without Spyware there’s no such thing as free software

But some users of iMesh didn’t seem to be troubled by the actions of Marketscore. Users at iMesh forums chided those who complained, posting messages stating that “without spyware there’s no such thing as free software.”

[Source: Wired.com @ 12/6/2004 9:55 AM EST]

SpreadFirefox anyone? This is a common mindset among average internet users. Something that needs to be debunked.

Challenge

Formulate a campaign that SpreadFirefox can use, which would also raise awareness to the fact that Spyware is not required to make software free. Make users realize they don’t have to jeopardize their privacy to get something free. Make them realize privacy is important. And of course, Spread Firefox. Perhaps if someone comes up with a good one it can be the next campaign.

Categories
Politics

The Politics of Tech

I’m not political, so here’s my political analysis geek style:

Republicans

Analysis

  • Prefer proprietary technology
  • Invalid HTML is universal across sites, minimal web standards)
  • Choice in media players (QuickTime, Windows Media, Real)

Cases
Republican National Committee
GOP
GeorgeWBush.com

Democrats

Analysis

  • Prefer Open Source (most of the time, especially DNC website)
  • Prefer Web Standards at times
  • Choice in media (Windows Media, Real, Quicktime)

Cases
Democratic National Committee
JohnKerry.com
Democratic National Convention 2004

Others

Analysis

  • Varied, platforms but better than Republicans
  • Web Standards seems more important
  • Choice in media players (QuickTime, Windows Media, Real)
  • Lower budget websites

Cases
Nader
Cobb (Green Party)

Seems Contributors tell quite a bit about what to expect in the parties tech, as well as their policies [Republican | Democrat | Nader]

Sidenote: Of these, only the Bush Campaign seems to be using lots of negative campaign tactics. Even on the website it’s very obvious. Third parties use virtually none. Kerry has one ‘politically correct’ worded message on ‘Why Bush is wrong for America’. Bush makes it the focal point of his website these days. There seems to be more on Kerry than George. An interesting observation on tactics.

This isn’t scientific, or an endorsement of any candidate, just a quick little analysis on how parties view the internet, and web standards as well as open source platforms and comments as I feel appropriate..

Categories
Mozilla

14k new users

This article is inspirational. With another city on the way!

A big win for Open Source, and Linux.

And guess what browser is mentioned… that’s right. Mozilla got a little part of the action. No doubt a quality internet experience helped influence the decision. πŸ˜‰

Categories
Open Source

Sun to open-source Java

According to a ZDNet article Sun Microsystems will open source Java.

Quite interesting. This could really change many things. From PDA applications, cell phones, to web applications.

Only time will tell what happens. Will it happen soon? Or in a decade? What will the license be? And what will be the end result?

Categories
Software

In search of

Looking for Free (prefer Open Source) software that can create flowcharts, in particular for use with designing user interfaces.

Also in search of project management software.

Any insight/suggestions welcome.

Categories
Mozilla

Mozilla Licensing ”Crack down”

I think it’s important to take a moment and address the recent reports of a “crack down” on Merchandise sellers using Mozilla trademarks.

Once upon a time (earlier today), Gerv Markham posted an Open Letter copied below for you to read as well.

First off. As most who read this website know my only affiliations with Mozilla.org are some patches I’ve written, debugging, and being a part of the Mozilla community.

I firmly back the Mozilla Foundations decision to enforce it’s trademarks for the good of the community. It is essential to the growth, security, and reputation of the Mozilla community as well as the foundation. Allow me to explain, and I promise that I won’t rant for to long.

While many of the vendors selling Mozilla products are said to be of high quality (I’ve yet to own a non-software Mozilla product myself though), all it takes is one person abusing the trademark, and delivering inferior, or lack of goods to give the name “Mozilla” a bad reputation. Many people mistakenly assume that having a logo on a shirt means an endorsement. Which it’s not. The Mozilla Foundation would face a losing battle providing quality assurance to ensure that the Mozilla name is tarnished by a bad merchandiser, or scam. That name would very likely in the minds of the potential target market be associated with scam, rather than “superior browser”. THAT is not good for the browser as a viable alternative to IE. The Mozilla Foundation can not put itself in a position where the Mozilla name could be tarnished, removing it’s software’s reputation. Remember Mozilla is about quality software. That’s the goal.

Secondly, the Mozilla Foundation does a lot for the community. From all the servers (tinderboxes, lxr, bugzilla, www, ftp), to organizing, and paying some of the most talented programmers in the United States (seriously, interact with these guys on Bugzilla or IRC and you know your dealing with pro’s). All of this costs money. It’s a vital role to the community that the Foundation as a core entity provides. The AOL money won’t last forever. Not by a long shot. Yes, Mozilla has other interested partners helping. Lots of programmers from other companies are seen around the community. But it’s essential as a community we keep Mozilla Foundation afloat. Mozilla Foundation should be receiving licensing fees for use of trademarks. It’s only appropriate that the foundation, and in turn the community benefits from the use of the trademarks. For those about pure benefit, imaging funds from good merchandise being able to fund the hiring of another programmer full time? Just a thought.

It’s essential that Mozilla ensure that it’s name be used on it’s products, and only it’s products, or products it officially sanctioned. It’s for the good of the community. The Mozilla community owes it to the end users to ensure that it’s name is pure, and it protects end users from bad products in it’s name.

On another note, think about the idea of someone distributing a Mozilla browser compiled with Spyware, or adware bundled in. That wouldn’t be good. Do we want them to be easily doing so with the Mozilla trademark? I think not.

To address the Debian situation very briefly, I do believe a solution will be reached. Mozilla is a key product to the Linux community, and the Linux community is a key audience of the Mozilla browser. It is my personal belief that the browser should be branded as “Firefox, Debian Edition” or something to that effect, to let it be known that it’s acknowledged by Mozilla, but it’s got some changes to it. The source is said to be available in “a separate file”, so it would be possible to know what is Mozilla’s source, and what isn’t. This is, all IMHO.

So once again to reiterate, I back the Mozilla Foundations decision to enforce it’s copyright, and product the community from the hazards abuse can bring, and ensure it’s viability as the core foundation of this community. And no, I wasn’t threatened by a family of rabid monkey’s to say this. I am writing this at my own will, and have no obligation to even touch the topic, much less have some open dialog about it.

Dear Mozilla supporter,

We note that you are selling Mozilla-branded merchandise in your web shop/fashion house/bazaar stall (delete as appropriate.) While we are pleased that you want to support Mozilla in this way, the Mozilla Foundation enforces its trademarks and requires permission to sell merchandise that includes our artwork or name.

The Mozilla project uses Mozilla, Firefox, the fox-on-the-globe and other names and logos to brand its products and goods. We like to think that it’s a mark of quality. (That’s not to say that what you’re selling is necessarily poor quality; we make no claims either way.) We’d like to be certain that what’s being sold with our logos on is the good stuff. And (let’s be honest here) it’s only fair that we get a cut, to contribute towards keeping the Foundation going.

So we’d ask you, please, to stop selling Mozilla-branded merchandise and get in touch with icensing@mozilla.org to discuss how to proceed. We’ll talk business plans, quality guarantees, percentages and so on. We’re really open to coming to a fair arrangement.

The Mozilla store (http://store.mozilla.org) is our chosen vendor for the US, Canada and Mexico. OK, there’s not much stuff there now, but we hope to have more soon. So we’re unlikely to allow general Mozilla merchandise aimed at the general public to be offered by anyone else in those territories.

However, people in other countries, get in touch as outlined above and we’ll see if we can work something out. You want to support us, and we want to be supported – so it shouldn’t be too hard πŸ™‚

Gerv

P.S. Our lawyers asked us to specify that the Mozilla Foundation reserves the right to take legal action to stop infringements of our trademarks.

Categories
Software

Random Desktop Fun

Interesting question came today, and I thought I would hand code this one.

Want to display a random desktop on startup (Windows).

I decided on a Free, Open Source, simple, and HTML 4.01 Strict valid. It also has an option to reload on a defined interval, or just when loaded (boot time).

It’s released under typical MPL 1.1/GPL 2.0/LGPL 2.1 Tri License (FREE).

If you don’t like anything free, click here, and I will adjust it for you. πŸ˜‰

Download Now (2 KB)

Categories
Programming

Open Sourcing some goodies

Over the years, I’ve written quite a few scripts, and other fun goodies. Some are used, some I’ve got in production for years, and literally forgot about. And some have never been used. I’m looking in my vault of code, and have quite a few of these little things hanging about.

I’m seriously considering publishing what I have for all who want to use (mostly under a typical Mozilla Tri-license scheme).

Biggest problem is that some need some cleanup, and a few could be written a bit better. So it is a time investment. Perhaps when I get some free time and feel like coding a bit, I’ll put them all together.

Also look for a new XHTML version of this site to come soon. I’ve been lazy, and never finished it after I started, but I do think I”m going to get to it sooner than later. A lot slimmer. And that’s what we all like. Not to mention I want to add some new alternative stylesheets.

Categories
Software

Open Source Screen Saver (Hack away friends)

I know many readers of this blog are space fans. Look at other blogs on Mozilla and Open Source software and it’s very evident. If you are, your in luck. I’ve just put together somewhat of a mess of scripting that will give you semi-modern video of space as your screen saver.

Looks like the Green one in this image, though moving. Could easily change to get the others.

The inspiration is this Slashdot article. I love the video of the sun, and thought it would make a good screensaver. But I wanted it to update periodically. So I decided to make it do just that.

Because everyone shares so much information with me, I feel inclined to do the same, so this is rough documentation. Feel free to hack it up more, make it pretty, new video source, etc. Share and lets make this a decent product. My way of saying thank you. Isn’t Open Source loving in that non-sexual sort of way? Can’t get a VD from Open Source, but it feels good.

Note: This is for Windows 98,ME,2000,XP… though this should easily be adapted for Mac OS X, Linux users. I’m sure someone will do it quick. I’m short on time, but at some point, will be hacking this up for OS X, provided I can find the means to do video screen savers (perhaps someone will help, don’t remember if QuickTime SS is provided with Jaguar and later).

One last note: There are of course other ways to go about this. This method is an attempt to use as much free software as possible, with minimal coding. CURL is free open source, Scheduled Tasks comes with Windows (Crontab is free on UNIX, as well as unix itself). Media players are free downloads, or even open source.

Anyway. Here we go…

Categories
Mozilla

Consensual Downloads

I’m a little concerned by some linkage brought by Mozillazine.

Two possible uses here, one inferred is not so good. I’m a bit concerned about this idea being spread around the community. We do NOT want to download Open Source products behind the users back. Doing so would not be a good idea. It will associate fine products like Mozilla, OpenOffice, and Gaim with Spyware and Trojans. If the user wants the files, that’s a different story.

One thing all these products share, is the promise to fight such evils (Mozilla doesn’t download ActiveX, OpenOffice is more secure than Microsoft Office).

An individual who uses such an app for anything such as downloading without the computer owners consent should be well aware that this contradicts the ideas of Open Source, and the values the community holds. Open Source is about freedoms. Freedoms don’t need to happen behind someone back.

While it’s great to see enthusiasm in getting Open Source projects into the world. Don’t do so with unethical means. All it will do is put a negative spin on a good thing. It will hurt, not help Open Source.

Perhaps someone can turn this little Gem into a convenient App so that a user can learn about Open Source alternatives, download and install them from 1 nice little App.

It’s great to be an open source zealot (tell all your friends and family). But don’t do anything that puts open source projects in a negative light. Thousands of programmers have made these projects what they are. They love people promoting their products. But they don’t like people making their products look bad.

I hope others will make a mention of this as well on their blogs, and open source projects. Don’t ruin Open Source.