Tag: RICHARD STALLMAN

Fortune Magazine has a detailed article examining Microsoft's relationship to free and open source software. Although the story reads mostly as a history of Microsoft, Linux, and GNU, there are a few interesting new tidbits, including the number of patents Microsoft claims Linux and other free software infringes on: 235. Microsoft holds thousands of patents for its software, and won't say exactly ...

Say you want to introduce people to the benefits of free (as in speech and sometimes as in beer) culture. What better way than to take a whole bunch of freely distributed files, pack them together onto a DVD and give it away? The Free Me! DVD packs an awful lot onto a single disc. You get: An Ubuntu Linux LiveCD A bunch of movies that will play in a DVD player A whole slew of public domain ...

The Haz-Mat suited activists of DefectiveByDesign gained quite a bit of exposure when they waltzed into Apple stores across the country carrying signs and informing customers about the rights they give up when buying DRM controlled music from the iTunes Music Store. Our sister site, The Digital Music Weblog (she prefers to be called TDMW for short) caught up with the crafty folks at ...

As reported last month, this year will see the first update of the GNU General Public License—the license employed by, depending on who you ask, half to three-fourths of all free software—since 1991, and the Free Software Foundation has posted the first draft of the new GPLv3. It's no easy read, but luckily there's a Rationale Document that describes all of the changes in the new ...