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Now THIS is Canonical working to make a difference!

kwjr — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:45:42 +0000

… not that they haven’t made a difference otherwise. Canonical has done (IMHO) more than any other organization to push the Linux desktop into the mainstream through their sponsorship of the Ubuntu project. This, though, goes beyond supporting the development of a single Linux distribution. This is throwing serious support and energy behind development of the entire Linux desktop environment across ALL distributions.

“We focus most of our effort on integration. Our competitors turn that into ‘Canonical doesn’t contribute’ but it’s more accurate to say we measure our contribution in the effectiveness with which we get the latest stable work of upstream, with security maintenance, to the widest possible audience for testing and love. To my mind, that’s a huge contribution,” he wrote. “Increasingly, though, Canonical is in a position to drive real change in the software that is part of Ubuntu. […] So we are also hiring a team who will work on X, OpenGL, Gtk, Qt, GNOME and KDE, with a view to doing some of the heavy lifting required to turn those desktop experience ideas into reality.”

Thats right! X, OpenGL, Gtk, Qt, GNOME and KDE. Major! Go Mark Shuttleworth. Go Canonical.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080911-canonical-to-fund-upstream-linux-usability-improvements.html

We lost alot this weekend. :(

kwjr — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 23:07:53 +0000

We lost alot this weekend.

The OiNK story – half truths defined

kwjr — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 01:57:00 +0000

As reported by the BBC.

“…Users were only invited to join the site if they could prove that they had music to offer, according to an IFPI spokesman.”

Half truth. Users were invited to join the site if they were given an invitation by a current member. Invitations could come from friends and family, message boards, various websites - invitations could even be purchased.

“…They were encouraged to distribute recordings in the torrent file format with other OiNK members, and have to keep posting such music to the site to maintain their membership.”

Again, half truth. Many (most?) users never posted a single recording to the site. The requirement for maintaining an OiNK account had nothing to do with your ability to “post” music to the site and everything with share ratios.

I’m picking at words here a bit, but clearly what people will take from the spin of these statements is that the OiNK staff were ruthless criminals, robbing both the record industry and their membership blind. I won’t speak to the legality / morality of file sharing here, but these witch hunts will not win the RIAA-type organizations (RIAA, IFPI, FACT, ARIA) any supporters.