:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::
"Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough." -Walter Cronkite, RE TV news. The Web has changed that for many, however, and here is an extra dose for your daily news cocktail. This prescription tends to include surveillance and now war-related links, along with the occasional pop culture junk and whatever else seizes my attention as I scan online news sites.:: 1.31.2005 ::
:: Don't Do Windows! ::
Open-source software urged for poor nations
From The Seattle Times
Activists at the World Social Forum, where Microsoft is viewed as a corporate bogeyman, urged developing nations yesterday to leap into the information age with free, open-source software.
John Barlow, a lyricist for the Grateful Dead, told a gathering that poor nations can't solve their problems unless they stop paying expensive software-licensing fees.
Open-source software includes programs that are not controlled by a single company. The software can be developed by anyone, with few restrictions. The best known such software is Linux, which can be downloaded free from the Internet.
"Already, Brazil spends more in licensing fees on proprietary software than it spends on hunger," said Barlow, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a cyberspace civil-liberties group.
The World Social Forum has drawn tens of thousands of people to an annual protest against the World Economic Forum, a gathering of world leaders under way in Davos, Switzerland.
ALSO
World Social Forum Puts Linux in Spotlight
And meanwhile...
Gates Proposes Open Source Forum with Brazilian President
posted by me
:: 12:59:00 AM [+] ::
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