[Fsfe-uk] Fwd: SchNEWS 560, Friday 15th September 2006

[Paul Mobbs]

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Subject: SchNEWS 560, Friday 15th September 2006
Date: Sunday 17 September 2006 20:28
From: SchNEWS <address@hidden>
To: address@hidden

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This week's SchNEWS: www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news560.htm
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15th September 2006, Issue 560

WAKE UP!! WAKE UP!! IT'S YER COMEDY PRODUCT...

SchNEWS

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GATES-CRASHER

AS SchNEWS GETS ROUND TO WIPING THE WINDOWS...

"To try to own knowledge, to try to control whether people are allowed
to use it, or to try to stop other people from sharing it, is sabotage."
- Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Movement.

This Saturday is International Software Freedom Day, so SchNEWS is
donning cyberpunk mirror shades and jacking into the world of
pony-tailed sandal-wearing geek warriors battling to keep information
free from the grip of ruthless corporate monopolies, and creating an
alternative world of free software based around Linux...

We are living in an age where fewer corporations own larger and larger
chunks of the media - from Rupert Murdoch owning vast swathes of print,
film and TV media, to others like Clear Channel, the Bush-funder whose
stake in the US media includes a large slice of radio stations, concert
venues, 39 TV stations, half a million billboards and more - and they'd
like to do the same in the UK (See SchNEWS 541). Fortunately the
internet has become a good outlet for independent media, albeit without
the mega publicity budgets.

The world of computers is dominated by one belligerent monster -
Microsoft (M$) - who have steamrollered their way on to 93% of the
world's PCs, and are worth an amount equal to the gross domestic product
of Spain. They have built their empire using a combination of stamping
on, or buying-out, competitors and making sure their patented
technologies become defacto standards, pocketing billions from worldwide
license fees. And they didn't get where they are today without political
persuasion - in the form of big donations to both major US parties, as
well as creating front lobby groups to influence policy - even setting
up bogus grassroots groups and paying off newspaper columnists.

And in case you think Bill Gates, M$ CEO, might be giving some of it
back with his $26 billion Foundation - consider this: while he's tossing
$100m into health initiatives in Africa over the next ten years, in the
past three years M$ has spent $421m trying to eradicate its emerging
rival, Linux. $200,000 was used to set up the 'Grand Challenges in
Global Health' initiative in Africa - its agenda exposed by the presence
on the panel of Dr Florence Wambugu, a bio-tech expert from Monsanto.
Being pro-GM, Gates spent $25m on a research programme into bio-tech for
African agriculture. During his 2002 trip to India, Gates dropped a
generous $100m for AIDS research - yet spent $400m on training people in
government and education in using M$ products, and putting M$ Windows
into Indian schools...

However M$ don't always get their way and in April last year they lost a
European Commission anti-trust ruling which said they had abused their
dominance for commercial gain. It ordered them to release technical
information so that third-party software could work properly on Windows
servers, and hit them with $586m in fines. More recently the new version
of Windows - Vista - is delayed because the EU Competition Commission
are saying it can't be sold in the EU as it breaks more anti-trust rules.

FREE FOR ALL

But despite or because of all that, a software revolution has begun to
bypass the monopolies. A whole new way of creating and distributing
intellectual property and media, and protecting it from commerical
exploitation, has emerged. The concept which underpins this is
'copyleft'. Put simply, if your work is copyleft, you still own it, but
others can use it, distribute it, modify and improve it, and whatever
results stays copyleft - kept in the public domain. Copyleft was first
created as the legal back-bone of the Free Software Movement by founder
Richard Stallman in 1984, who showed that it's better to let others use
a program for free and allow them to contribute to it, and then make the
improved version available to all as a commonly shared resource.

The participatory, anarchic and decentralised copyleft way of working
has already given rise to several important success stories outside its
initial use - such as the free online encyclopaedia Wikipedia. It now
has four million entries, all written and edited by readers who make
changes which appear instantly on the site. A recent study found that
Wikipedia is at least as accurate as any commercial encyclopaedia, while
also much larger (and still rapidly expanding). Another example is
Indymedia, the global independent news network which is also built on
the postings of text, photos and video from readers using a system
called 'open publishing'.

But how do they stop it all turning into a clearing house for nutty
ranters? Wikipedia safeguards its content from sabotage by keeping all
previous versions of an article, which can be restored, and has panels
of experts monitoring and adjudicating in conflicts of opinion.
Indymedia sites use editorial collectives to monitor postings and
promote 'feature' articles. The free/open-source software movement also
uses this way of working - smaller groups feeding into larger projects,
which are refined by a myriad of extra contributors - to build up the
operating system and key programs it needs to take on the mega software
companies.

MARCH OF THE PENGUINS

"Under NO circumstances lose against Linux" said the 2003 email
circulated to M$ senior execs by the head of worldwide sales, who also
talked of a special fund to offer bribe-like discounts or even free
software to government bodies thinking about switching to Linux.

But despite M$'s intimidation tactics and sweeteners, many organisations
and individuals worldwide are switching over. Being free helps, but it's
not just a matter of cost - it's also about security. Not only are Linux
and Mac un-plagued by the viruses of the Windows world, but like
Coca-Cola, M$ keeps its software recipe secret and away from scrutiny.
So it's no accident that countries like Brazil, Russia, India and China
are now going Linux when the US company holds the keys to unknown hidden
back doors into Windows with which they can do who knows what.

Despite M$ putting $750 million into promoting itself in China, that
country is clearly moving towards Linux. In India, it is to become the
standard in universities, as well as in several states including Madhya
Pradesh, and schools across India, Chile, Brazil, China and the EU are
changing over as well. As it stands M$ is running a virtual extortion
racket, taking money for nothing from every school, hospital and
organisation across the world to pay for licenses to run the computers
they depend on - but with a free alternative why should they? In Brazil,
President Lula has publicly shunned M$, with plans to switch the
nation's IT infrastructure away from it - meaning $120m a year less
going into Gates's coffers. Linux could soon be on a third of Brazil's
computers, with other Latin American countries set to follow.

LIVE AND LET LINUX

What is Linux then?
It is an 'operating system' - like Windows or Mac - which comes with its
own set of key applications, eg web browser, word processor etc. Many of
these 'open source' programs are also available for Windows or Mac, and
in fact are considered as good as, if not better than, M$ products - eg
Firefox and Open Office, which replace Internet Explorer and Office
respectively. If you mostly use a computer for web surfing, writing,
watching films and burning CDs, then you could safely turn your computer
over to Linux.

One of the best things about Linux, apart from sticking two fingers up
to another nasty corporation, and being virus and spyware free, is
downloading software you want but not having to muck around with cracks
because it's all totally legal for a change. However as the programs are
often being written by small teams with limited resources, some of the
software is not as slick as the corporate products: Glitches can appear
- but the whole process relies on people using these progs and reporting
bugs and suggestions back to the development teams, so they can make it
all more luddite-proof. So while Linux is not yet ready to compete as a
high end multimedia platform - though it is improving rapidly - proof of
its reliability is that over 70% of the internet is run using the 'open
source' file server programme called 'Apache', mostly on Linux.

If you want to see Linux in action but don't want to delete Windows
quite yet, it comes free for download and burning to CD, which when
booted runs a working version of Linux and it's major applications. Or,
you can make your PC 'dual boot' - that is both Windows and Linux are
installed, giving you the choice at start-up. Even if you're stuck with
Windows or Mac you could ditch M$ Office and Internet Explorer and use
Open Office and Firefox.

As SchNEWS moves our raggle-taggle bunch of skip-bin PCs away from the
'dark side', this edition is being done using free open-source software
running on Linux. The articles were written in Open Office, the issue
layout done in Scribus, and website updated with NVU. Linux is a bit
like Soya milk - it tastes funny at first but you soon prefer it and you
know it's good for you.

* Which Linux? Because anyone can legally make and release their own
'distro' of Linux, many do: ranging from hacker communities to slick
corporate versions (for more see http://distrowatch.com). SchNEWS
recommends Ubuntu - free to download at www.ubuntu.com, which you burn
to make a 'live CD', or if you don't have broadband we will post Ubuntu
CDs free to the first 20 people who email in requests.

* For an introduction to Linux, and how to change over to it, see
www.schnews.org.uk/diyguide/howtolinux.htm

* September 16th is International Software Freedom Day with events in
over 100 countries. In London there will be a march from Regents Park at
12pm to Westminster University where there will be a range of talks,
information sharing and free Ubuntu CDs to distribute. For more info see
http://gllug.org.uk

Other links
Ubuntu help - http://ubuntuforums.org
Kubuntu help - http://kubuntuforums.com
Richard Stallman - The Free Software Movement's guru www.stallman.org
General Linux info www.linux.org
Linux Forums - www.linuxforums.org

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-- 

"We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government,
nor are we for this party nor against the other but we are
for justice and mercy and truth and peace and true freedom,
that these may be exalted in our nation, and that goodness,
righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity with
God, and with one another, that these things may abound."
(Edward Burroughs, 1659 - from 'Quaker Faith and Practice')

Paul's book, "Energy Beyond Oil", is out now!
For details see http://www.fraw.org.uk/ebo/book.html

Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations
3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN, England
tel./fax (+44/0)1295 261864
email - address@hidden
website - http://www.fraw.org.uk/mobbsey/index.html

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