Software Freedom Day 2007 – Bigger than ever!

September 15th marks Software Freedom Day, the world’s largest celebration and outreach effort about why transparent and sustainable technologies like Free & Open Source Software are so important. Community groups in more than 80 countries organise local activities and programs on Software Freedom Day to educate the wider public about free software: what it is, how it works and its relationship to human rights and sustainability. We already have over 140 teams around the world registered: join them in spreading the word! Registrations for Software Freedom Day teams that want to receive a free SFD team pack close in two weeks, so register now!

“Software Freedom is about creating a digital platform for trust and longevity, particularly in a future where more and more of our lives are dependent upon technology” explains Pia Waugh, President of Software Freedom International, the organisation behind Software Freedom Day. “It is important we can participate in and trust the software we use in the same way we need to be able to participate and trust in a political system. Ultimately our basic freedoms are only as free as the tools we use, and thus our commitment to Software Freedom.”

Support for this year’s Software Freedom Day event is fantastic with Google, Mindtouch and the Free Software Foundation coming on board as sponsors as well as long term sponsors the Danish Unix User Group and Canonical. The event also has support from The Open CD, OsCommRes and the International Open Source Network.

“Software Freedom Day is a fantastic event that demonstrates the global reach of open source software.” says Jane Silber, COO of Canonical. “We at Canonical are proud to sponsor the event and encourage everyone in the Ubuntu community, as well as the open source community writ large, to participate in this important global event.”

Registrations of teams participating in SFD will continue right up to the event however teams who wish to receive a free SFD team pack, including stickers, tshirts, CDs and balloons must register before the 31st July! So get in quick! There is also an online shop where anyone can purchase tshirts and packs of The Open CD. Teams get a 50% discount on all prices marked. Teams that have difficult circumstances can write to the Software Freedom International Board with special requests for additional goodies.

Already this years event is looking bigger and better than ever before, so what will you do to help take Software Freedom to the world. After all, freedom isn’t just for geeks 🙂

Contact officer: Pia Waugh pia @softwarefreedomday.org

This new video is a more concise version of the previous “Live Data Services” video. We’re now referring to this as extensions. This more accurately describes the new feature. Enjoy!

The Jeff Pulver Blog: Goodbye LinkedIn. Hello Facebook.
This morning I made the decision to focus all of my professional business social networking contacts to be on Facebook. That means that I am no longer going to accept new LinkedIn requests. After spending the past few months using Facebook, I no longer see the value of LinkedIn. Why use a static site where the fun stops at the profile when there is a wealth of opportunity for vibrant interaction between users and groups of users on Facebook? And since I come from the world where “an introduction is an endorsement”, I wasn’t all that helpful most of the time when someone was trying to use me to connect to someone else on LinkedIn.

I’m with Pulver. Have you ever met a LinkedIn founder? D-I-C-K. Listen to these guys talk some time. “Your friends are your social capital for you to leverage, blah blah blah”. Please. Goodbye LinkedIn. I just got done inviting everyone to Facebook. Shouldn’t this be a message to any social network? It’s just a matter of time before Facebook falls too. I predict an Open Web in which the social network is baked into the fabric of our blogs, wikis, and personal home pages thanks partially to OpenID will eventually take down all these walled gardens. Until then, I’ll Facebook. Don’t bother requesting me at LinkedIn.

Tara, Ashby, and I visited Cabrillo National Monument last Sunday. The park is located at the tip of the Point Loma peninsula, west of San Diego. In case you didn’t know, in Spanish, “loma” means “hill”. It costs $5 for admittance. Your pass is good for 6 days. Our first visit we stopped by the visitor center and the monument to Cabrillo. He was the first European explorer to set foot on the West Coast of, what is today, the United States. We returned yesterday and reused our pass and this time we hiked about the tidal pool. The park is gorgeous.

After Cabrillo we drove to Ocean Beach, which is near, and grabbed brunch at a restaurant across from the beach that has a children’s play area inside. Ocean Beach is where all the old hippies settled. I dig the town. It reminds me of Santa Cruz. Most folks feel it’s a tad too grungy for their taste and frequent Pacific Beach or La Jolla shores instead.

Activities at Cabrillo National Monument:

Learn about the 16th century explorer that the park is named for.

Hiking. The two-mile Bayside Trail affords spectacular views of San Diego Bay and the city beyond, and takes you through one of the last remaining remnants of coastal sage scrub habitat in the world.

The rocky intertidal area at Cabrillo National Monument is one of the best protected examples of these unique ecosystems in Southern California.

The Lighthouse. It has been reported that it can be seen up to 39 miles away while at sea. It is one of the original eight lighthouses on the West Coast, restored and refurnished to reflect what life was like in the 1800s.

And more…

Resources

• Directions to Cabrillo National Monument
• Official park site
• SDSU resource
• Juan Rodriquez Cabrillo

Where’s mine? I would gladly buy one. I saw one of these last year in Minnesota. The Li-Ion batteries they use have a many year warranty. If I recall correctly it was like a five year warranty. The engines last considerably longer because they run so much cleaner. It’s simply common sense.

• RechargeIt.org
• Google.org

Damien lost a battle over 5 pixels in a recent design decision..errr argument. He was so sad he put together this graphic.

I had to inform him typically it’s spelled “Commie”. I think it’s supposed to be Roy. Kim Jong Il would be more fitting for Roy though.

UPDATE 7/11/07:

Ha! Roy Kim Jong Il:

Provided by some dude at Roy’s blog. Also, of note is Roy’s assessment of our decision making process here at MindTouch

At MindTouch, battles are not won by superior arguments or rank; they’re won simply when the other side is too tired to continue. This is how we design features, how we design UI, and generally how we function as a company. We call this “consensus by exhaustion.” 😉

Okay, let’s take 70 Web 2.0 developers, put them all in a room for 48 hours, and have them make a startup. Yup, no potential problems here. Business as usual for the Ajaxified circlejerk. – uncov / VoSnap: An Overnight Delivery Of Fail (vosnap)

Hilarious.

Steve’s brief REST introduction.

“Just apologize to the American people and to the families of the troops for not doing your job four years ago. We wouldn’t be in this war if you had done your job. Come on. Just admit it. Just apologize to the American people.”

The corrupting effects of corporations on the American political system, the media, and society is becoming more and more evident.

Demand an apology from CNN for Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s biased report on ‘SiCKO’ and for helping the Bush administration lie us into a pointless war.

Feel free to use this letter by copy/pasting it:

I demand an apology and a correction of the record for the biased and ridiculous report provided by Dr. Sanjay Gupta regarding Moore’s movie “Sicko”. Moreover, I demand an apology for the concerted effort to marginalize people like Moore for professing the truth; specifically as Blitzer did regarding 9/11 and the war in Iraq. If CNN refuses this and continues to intentionally and willfully mislead the American people I will boycott CNN and its sponsors.

Deki Wiki just broke the top 100 projects at SourceForge.net! We’re #95 out of 152,449 projects. We’re not even a year old! Holy crap! This is a small thing, but it is validating and is evidence of our growing momentum. Ok, and quite frankly I think it kicks ass. I sent Ethan Galstad an email, who is the author of Nagios and ranked #93, to tell him we're goooona geeet hiiim! 😉 In case you're wondering SourceForge.net bases it's project rank on downloads, site traffic, and various other factors. Thanks to all the Gardeners who are helping to spread the word.