Twenty Years of Free Software: What Now? -by Richard Stallman. It was twenty years ago on Monday that I quit my job at MIT to begin developing a free software operating system, GNU. While we have never released a complete GNU system suitable for production use, a variant of the GNU system is now used by tens of millions of people who mostly are not aware it is such. Free software does not mean "gratis"; it means that users are free to run the program, study the source code, change it, and redistribute it either with or without changes, either gratis or for a fee. My hope was that a free operating system would open a path to escape forever from the system of subjugation which is proprietary software. I had experienced the ugliness of the way of life that non-free software imposes on its users, and I was determined to escape and give others a way to escape. [GrokLaw]

6:29:05 PM    

The Economist on Coffeehouses, Blogs and Freedom. The Internet in a Cup lays out the similarities between the coffee-houses of the 17th and 18th centuries and the free flow of information across the Internet. I'm going to go warm up my cup before I finish the article,... [Channeling Cupertino]

4:38:22 PM    

This last week has been incredible. I put up a new application, so many cool people contributed their subscriptions to create a "commons" of unparalleled utility. I found at least 20 good feeds through this community. And even better was developing something that users loved. It's been a while since I've been there. This is the best thing for me, that connection, where I roll out a feature, get feedback, roll out another, etc. Today I tried to write some more stuff, but I was too tired. But it has been an incredible collaborative week. Thanks to all who participated! [Scripting News]

7:09:51 AM    

Blogger Code of Conduct, Ethics. As promised, the proposed Bloggers Code of Conduct/Ethics is inside. [Blogcritics]

6:50:41 AM    

Technology Review weblog - now with RSS.

Technology Review has a blog. Well, it's 3 months old now, but I didn't know that MIT's Technology Review -- featuring the brilliant Henry Jenkins and the equally brilliant Simson Garfinkel -- had a daily weblog. I've just blogrolled it.... [JD's New Media Musings]

It also now has an RSS feed, although a truncated one with what looks to be the title plus the first 50 characters or so. Better than nothing, but still trapped in the notion that I should somehow be forced to go to the site to extract the full value.

[McGee's Musings]

6:49:38 AM