Portuguese Ministry of Education Goes Free

The Portuguese Ministry of Education is doing the sensible thing and giving away a CD full of free (Windows) software to 1.6 million students, saving itself (and the taxpayers) around 300 million Euros. Nothing amazing about that, perhaps, since it's a sensible thing to do (not that everyone does it).

What's more interesting, for me, at least, is the set of software included on the CD:

* OpenOffice.org
* Firefox
* Thunderbird
* NVU
* Inkscape
* GIMP

These are pretty much the cream of the free software world, and show the increasing depths of desktop apps. Also interesting are the specifically educational programs included:

* Freemind and CmapTools
* Celestia
* Geogebra
* JMOL
* Modellus

Some of these were new to me, notably Geogebra:

GeoGebra is a free and multi-platform dynamic mathematics software for schools that joins geometry, algebra and calculus.

and Modellus (which isn't actually free software, just free):

Modellus enables students and teachers (high school and college) to use mathematics to create or explore models interactively.

It's always surprised me that that more use isn't made of free software in education, since the benefits are obvious: by pooling efforts, duplication is eliminated, and the quality of tools improved. (Via Erwin Tenhumberg.)

Firefox as Commons

Interesting post here from Mozilla's Mitchell Baker, which shows that she's beginning to regard Firefox as a commons:

Firefox generates an emotional response that is hard to imagine until you experience it. People trust Firefox. They love it. Many feel -- and rightly so -- that Firefox is part "theirs." That they are involved in creating Firefox and the Firefox phenomena, and in creating a better Internet. People who don't know that Firefox is open source love the results of open source -- the multiple languages, the extensions, the many ways people use the openness to enhance Firefox. People who don't know that Firefox is a public asset feel the results through the excitement of those who do know.

Firefox is created by a public process as a public asset. Participants are correct to feel that Firefox belongs to them.

Absolutely spot-on. But I had to smile at the following:

To start with, we want to create a part of online life that is explicitly NOT about someone getting rich. We want to promote all the other things in life that matter -- personal, social, educational and civic enrichment for massive numbers of people. Individual ability to participate and to control our own lives whether or not someone else gets rich through what we do. We all need a voice for this part of the Internet experience. The people involved with Mozilla are choosing to be this voice rather than to try to get rich.

I know that this may sound naive. But neither I nor the Mozilla project is that naive, and we are not stupid. We recognize that many of us are setting aside chances to make as much money as possible. We are choosing to do this because we want the Internet to be robust and useful even for activities that aren't making us rich.

Only in America do you need to explain why you prefer to make the world a better place rather than making yourself rich....

Thunderbird Is Not Go

Here's a worrying development over in the Mozilla community:

Mozilla has been supporting Thunderbird as a product since the beginning of the Foundation. The result is a good, solid product that provides an open alternative for desktop mail. However, the Thunderbird effort is dwarfed by the enormous energy and community focused on the web, Firefox and the ecosystem around it. As a result, Mozilla doesn't focus on Thunderbird as much as we do browsing and Firefox and we don't expect this to change in the foreseeable future. We are convinced that our current focus - delivering the web, mostly through browsing and related services - is the correct priority. At the same time, the Thunderbird team is extremely dedicated and competent, and we all want to see them do as much as possible with Thunderbird.

We have concluded that we should find a new, separate organizational setting for Thunderbird; one that allows the Thunderbird community to determine its own destiny.

Mozilla is exploring the options for an organization specifically focused on serving Thunderbird users. A separate organization focused on Thunderbird will both be able to move independently and will need to do so to deepen community and user involvement. We're not yet sure what this organization will look like. We've thought about a few different options. I've described them below. If you've got a different idea please let us know.

What's worrying about this is that it seems to demonstrate a tunnel vision, where Firefox (and making money from it) are foregrounded above everything else. The fact is, email is a critical application, even if more and more people use Web-based mail (as I do - but I still use Thunderbird too). Moreover, Mozilla is a foundation, and that implies looking at the bigger picture, not concentrating - as a company might - on the success of its main "product".

The open source world needs Thunderbird - indeed, the wider software community needs it. Although I accept that it lacks the community that Firefox has generated, that is not a reason to jettison it, and hope for the best. On the contrary: the very difficulties that Thunderbird has in firing up a community and in moving forward are precisely why the Mozilla Foundation should keep it under its wing.

The Word on the (Dutch) Street: OpenTaal

This is obviously good news, but I can't help finding the idea of an "official" spelling list rather quaint:

The OpenTaal project (Dutch for "OpenLanguage") has published the first open source word list to be certified by the Dutch Language Union as corresponding to official spelling. Simon Brouwer, project leader of OpenTaal, says, "This is a milestone. Users of open source software can trust their Dutch spell checker now. They have the guarantee that their word list is consistent with the official spelling."

...

In 2005, the Dutch language area got new spelling, which consists mainly of corrections to the spelling of 1995. Starting in August 2006, the new spelling would be mandatory for the government and schools. This revived the project of creating an open source word list. At the end of 2005 the Dutch government program Open Standards and Open Source Software (OSOSS) initiated the OpenTaal project to coordinate the various Dutch open source projects that had an interest in the new spelling, with the aim of developing a Dutch word list conforming to the new spelling. This would give users of open source software like OpenOffice.org, TeX, Thunderbird, and Firefox an up-to-date spell checker. OSOSS contacted the Dutch Language Union, which agreed to assist the project.

Thunderbird 2

There was always something rather exciting about Thunderbird 2 that the other Thunderbirds were unable to match. Perhaps it was that interchangeable pod thing, which fitted inside inside the outer frame, that lent it an extensibility and thus unpredictability the others lacked.

Anyway, Thunderbird 2 (Mozilla's email program) has landed and is very cool.

Thunderbirds Are... Synched!

I'm a big fan of Thunderbird, so details of how to synch up its emerging Lightning calendar extension to Google Calendar is big news for me. Here's a handy step-by-step guide.

Could This Be the Key to the Open Desktop?

A la rentrée 2007, le conseil régional d'Ile-de-France distribuera près de 200 000 clés USB équipées de logiciels libres.

[For the return to school in 2007, the regional council of the Ile-de-France will distribute 200,000 USB drives containing free software]

More specifically, OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird and VLC, all wrapped up in Framakey:

Experience Freedom wherever you go

The FramaKey is a package of ready to use Free Software, mounted on a USB key, that makes the life of the nomad user a lot easier.

Its goal is to provide you with the best of windows Free Software, already installed and set to run directly from your FramaKey. In doing so, there is no need for an installation, you can not only experience the software safely, but you do so without leaving any personal information on the host computer.
Running FramaKey:

The main advantage is that you can experience the freedom of not only moving anywhere with your documents and files, but also with your own, known and customized software environment.
A “Home Sweet Home” feeling anywhere, without leaving your prints and data on the computer hosting your FramaKey.
Examples:

The FramaKey will let you:

* Take your web browser with you, already set to your needs (skins, extensions, favourites, etc.), for safer browsing when on the move (FireFox).
* Manage your email accounts from the host computer without any need to modify its settings (Thunderbird).
* Work on your text documents, spreadsheets, and slideshows from the best fully-integrated office application suite of the Free Software world (OpenOffice.org).
* Play just about any format of multimedia file, either audio or video, from the host computer without any player installation process (VideoLAN).
* Listen to your favourite tunes, either from .mp3 or .ogg files, from an easy, efficient and fast player (CoolPlayer).
* Save time by quickly and efficiently editing your files, no matter what the size, using a powerful editor with enhanced capabilities (SciTe).

Why can't more places do this?

Am I Dreaming?

Dreaming in Code: a book about Chandler.

Chandler? Out of several hundred thousands pieces of free software he choose Chandler??? A project that after nearly four years still has not yet got to a 1.0 release? A project that, though started with the best intentions (which I applaud) is essentially irrelevant now that we have Lightning, based on a program (Thunderbird) that is already widely used?

Great title: pity about the subject-matter.

The Other Thunderbird

No, not that one, this one:

Sandia National Laboratories’ 8960-processor Thunderbird Linux cluster, developed in collaboration with Dell, Inc. and Cisco, maintained its sixth position in the Top500 Supercomputers by achieving an improved overall performance of 53.0 teraflops, an 18.5 percent increase in efficiency from last year's performance.

(Via Technocrat.)

Second Life Opens up the Client

Fantastic news: Linden Lab has released the source code for the Second Life client under the GNU GPL v2. Nice historical context, too:

In 1993, NCSA released their liberally licensed, but proprietary, Mosaic 2.0 browser with support for inline images arguably heralding the start of the web as we know it today. In an act of either acceptance of the inevitable or simple desperation, Netscape Communications released the bulk of the Netscape Communicator code base to form the foundation of projects as Mozilla, Firefox, and Thunderbird.

We are not desperate, and we welcome the inevitable with open arms.

Stepping up the development of the Second Life Grid to everyone interested, I am proud to announce the availability of the Second Life client source code for you to download, inspect, compile, modify, and use within the guidelines of the GNU GPL version 2.

This is a great move by the Lindens, and a major step towards an open, standards-based virtual world. It will be interesting to see what comes of this. Sad, though, to see the deeply ignorant comments on the Linden Lab blog post lamenting this move because of the increased griefing they claim it will cause - as if security by obscurity ever worked.

Coders of the (virtual) world, unite!

Pegasus Flies Into the Sunset

Sad news: David Harris, creator of the Pegasus email client, has ceased development of the software. During Web 1.0, Pegasus was my preferred email software, running on Windows 3.1 and using good old Trumpet Winsock. It was free, too - at least, free as in beer. I suspect that had it gone free as in freedom early enough the hacker community would have picked it up and turned it into an early Thunderbird. Unfortunately that didn't happen.

Open Source-y Gift Guide

Here's a handy list from Make, with a bunch of open source-y things, many of which have been mentioned before in these posts. Still, I'd like to single out the PortableApps Suite - happiness on a thumb drive:

PortableApps Suite (Standard Edition): ClamWin Portable (antivirus), Firefox Portable (web browser), Gaim Portable (instant messaging), OpenOffice.org Portable (office suite), Sudoku Portable (puzzle game), Sunbird Portable (calendar/task manager) and Thunderbird Portable (email client) and runs comfortably from a 512MB drive.

Installation and use are easy.

Will Lightning Strike OpenOffice.org?

I've written elsewhere about what I call the FOOGL concept - Firefox, OpenOffice.org and GNU/Linux. Basically, the idea is that once everyone is using Firefox and OpenOffice.org on Windows, it's much easier to slip them across to GNU/Linux, because nobody really cares about platforms if the apps are the same.

The only fly in the ointment in this argument is that you need a good email client. Thunderbird, I here you say: to which I reply, OK, but what about the calendaring? If you're going to replace Outlook, you need to match its basic functionality, and for businesses that means calendaring.

Enter Lightning, an add-in to Thunderbird that brings it up (down?) to Outlook's level. Here's an interesting interview with the Engineering Director at Sun Microsystems, Michael Bemmer, on this very subject. What's particularly significant is that it hints at a day when Lightning will be more closely integrated with OpenOffice.org too.

Now that would be seriously fooglicious.

Aunt Eudora Goes Open

For old-timers such as myself, the Eudora email client has connotations of pure Web 1.0-ness. During the 1990s it was more or less the definitive piece of Windows software for sending email if you didn't want to besmirch your name by using Outlook, once that existed. Times have changed, of course, and Thunderbird has now taken over that role.

So the announcement that future versions of Eudora will not only be open source but based on Thunderbird, seems to close the circle nicely. (Via LWN.net.)

OpenOffice.org Gets Them - and It

Good - if belated - news on the OOo front:

First, OpenOffice.org shall get Firefox-like extensions capabilities by the 2.0.4. This release should be ready somewhere between the coming week and the end of the month. What this means is that besides the fact that OpenOffice.org could include extensions before, now the way to develop, include, select and manage them will be made easy. Aside the traditionnal .zip and unopkg extensions packages, a new and definitive extension format, .oxt, shall be used across the extensions that can be developed using a breadth of languages ranging from StarBasic to Java. New wizards and configuration tools shall be added for the benefit of our endusers.

Second, and I think that although we have no clear roadmap for this yet (besides, our version naming scheme is going to change once again ), OpenOffice.org and StarOffice shall include the Mozilla Foundation's Thunderbird and Sunbird (calendaring application) in the future. Besides the inclusion of those two softs inside the office suite, connectors to Sun Calendar Server and Microsoft Exchange will also be developed accordingly.

Great, but why not Lightning instead, and then we'd be in complete harmony? (Via Slashdot.)

More Microsoftie FUD

Another comparative "analysis" of security flaws in Windows and Red Hat. The result: Windows is better - the figures prove it. Well, yes, but let's look at those figures at little more. The giveaway is this paragraph:

Because of the nature of the Open Source model, there seems to be a higher tendency (unscientificly speaking) to just copy a piece of code and reuse it in another components. This means that if a piece of code turns out to be flawed, not only must it be fixed, but also that maintainers must find every place they might've reused that blob of code. A visual inspection showed me that many of these were the multiple vulnerabilities affecting firefox, mozilla and thunderbird. In a typical example, firefox packages were fixed, then mozilla packages were fixed 4 days later, then thunderbird was fixed 4 days after that.

Note that it says "In a typical example, firefox packages were fixed, then mozilla packages were fixed 4 days later". So one reason why Red Hat has more vulnerabilities is that it has far more packages included, many of which duplicate functions - like Firefox and Mozilla. The point is, you wouldn't install both Firefox and Mozilla: you'd choose one. So there's only one vulnerability that should be counted. Not only that, but Red Hat is penalised because it actually offers much more than Windows.

I don't know what the other vulnerabilities were, but I'd guess they involved similar over-counting - either through duplication, or simply because Red Hat offered extra packages. By all means compare Windows and Red Hat, but make it a fair comparison.

PortableApps.com - Open Source on a Stick

One of the many benefits of open source is that it allows people to experiment. In particular, it lets people try out all sorts of whacky ideas that would simply be stifled at birth had they involved closed source. A good example is Portable Firefox, which consists of a slightly-modified version of the free browser such that it can be placed on a USB drive and run from it, without needing any further installation.

I knew that this had spawned things like Portable Thunderbird, which does the same thing for Mozilla's email client, but I hadn't realised that things had gone much further. For there is now a site called PortableApps.com, run by the person behind Portable Firefox, John Haller.

And what a cornucopia of a site it is. In addition to portable versions of Firefox and Thunderbird, you also find "ports" of OpenOffice.org, the IM client GAIM, the Web site editor NVu and the anti-virus program ClamWin. There's even a mini LAMP stack - though this is without the GNU/Linux part. However, the PortableApps site indicates that portable operating systems are on their way.

The software on this site represents quite a significant achievement, because it means that you can literally carry around in your pocket all the main apps that you need on a USB drive. Provided you can find a PC with a USB socket you can start working as if it were your machine.

At the Top of the Stack

The Inquirer has an interesting story about the quaintly-named "China Rural PC", which seems to be Intel's bid (a) to make some dosh out of the huge Chinese market and (b) to prove that a Lintel duopoly is just as nice as the Wintel one.

But what really caught my attention was the software line-up that this system - whether it ever gets made or not - will/would run at the top of the stack:

Mozilla
Evolution
Gaim
Gnomemeeting, aka Ekiga
OpenOffice.org

along with some interesting extras like Moodle (what a great name: now I wonder why I like it so much...?). The only things I'd change are to swap out Mozilla for Firefox and Evolution for Thunderbird, especially once the latter acquires the Lightning calendar extension.

What this list shows is the range and maturity of GNU/Linux apps on the desktop, and the fact that the technical obstacles to broader take-up are diminishing by the day.

That only leaves the users.

Spreading Spread Firefox

Most computer users by now have heard of the Firefox browser. This is hardly surprising given the extraordinary rate at which it is still being downloaded and diffused around the world well over a year since its formal launch.

Given that there have now been nearly 150 million downloads (converting that into a meaningful number of users is probably impossible), it is only natural that people think of Firefox as an incredibly successful free browser. It is that, certainly, but it is also much more.

After all, the open source community has shown time and again it can write great code: Linux, Apache, The GIMP, OpenOffice.org - choose your own favourite. But Firefox has done something else - something that has never been done before by a free software project.

It has translated the secret of open source's power - a huge, distributed and connected development team - into the sphere of marketing. The Spread Firefox site has mobilised tens of thousands of users - not as beta testers, as has been the custom previously, but as a guerrilla marketing force.

Most famously, that force was mobilised to pay for the double-page ad in The New York Times. Through the aggregation of many relatively small donations it was able to take out some high-price advertising. In other words, the approach scales.

But the real achievement of Spread Firefox is much subtler, and more diffuse. The tens - hundreds? - of thousands of active Firefox supporters are Microsoft's worst nightmare: a completely invisible - because distributed - team of product evangelists that it can never hope to pin down, let alone match.

This is such an important step beyond the traditional open source process that it is tragic not more has been done with it. For example, although there is a Spread OpenOffice.org, it is only now that a Spread KDE site has been created; both seem in their early stages. But where are all the others? Where are Spread Linux, Spread Thunderbird, Spread GIMP, Spread Audacity and the rest?

All these programs have enthusiastic users who could be directly mobilised across the Internet to spread the word about how good these applications are. Relying on old-fashioned, uncoordinated word-of-mouth is simply to throw away everything that has been learned from Spread Firefox - and to discard one of the strongest trumps in the free software hand.

Boons and Banes of Firefox and Thunderbird

Among the many boons of Firefox and Thunderbird are the powerful keyboard shortcuts; among the banes - trying to remember them.

Now you don't have to. Thanks to the selfless work of Leslie Franke, you can download two indispensable cheatsheets, which conveniently fit all the main commands on one page each. There's one for Firefox and another for Thunderbird; both are available as HTML or PDF. Thanks, Leslie.