A metaphor for free software?

I feel that this tale may serve as a useful metaphor for free software too.

And if you listen to Mark Watson makes the world substantially better... sing along... "Exemplum exemplum, an example from your own life, except in this case it's from a theme park employee, so it's probably a themeparkempluuuum". And if you don't, give it a go.

Ah Drugs Specials....

This just replaced the "Just Say No" song as the worst drugs special ever.

I want that one... big flash drives...

I want that one.... 64TB of flash, 64GB of cache... Mmmmm...

A Pondering....

For the people who think Linux should be referred to as GNU/Linux to properly credit the GNU software used in Linux distributions;

If the attribution of credit is so important, shouldn't the GPL have had an attribution clause?

And a supplementary ponder.... Why GNU/Linux and not Linux/GNU? Answer for that found at the gnu site... fair enough... now back to the primary ponder.

What I look for in a phone...

Oooh I said, a new release of OpenMoko OM2008.8 ....

I wonder..... Looks down page .... Ah Known Issues....

"GSM not working properly after x hours"

Ok... well that can be work....

"Can not make phone call after GSM on/off/on"

Right, well at least we got the source and....

"No Pin-Dialog is showing up and so GSM is not usable at all"

Oh for goodness sake... at least there's the Wifi...

"WiFi can only connect once"

..... Still maybe there's another distro for the OpenMoko eh?

Yes, I've been quiet.... There's a good reason...

You can see what I'm doing during the day by following Heise Online UK's Open Channel. Look out for some useful, interesting and possibly fun stuff about open source and the community around it coming up on there. And if you think I should be writing about something, drop me a mail on djwm [at] heise-online.co.uk.

It Strikes Me....

It strikes me that a phone that uses Linux inside but has locked down DRM is a far greater offence than say a phone with a proprietary OS and locked down DRM. I'm reading here about the motorola Linux based phones... But then I am also finding it very hard to track down info on how to develop for those phones. 95% of what I seem to be finding is how to unlock these phones... Which again strikes me with the thought that "hey, wasn't it also some sort of heinous offence to sell a locked phone too?"... Oh my head hurts with all these strikes....