Ubuntu Gaming Team

Check it out: The Ubuntu Gaming Team! This is a group all about promoting FLOSS games and Ubuntu.

There is a mailing list (which I am on) and irc channel (which I have not yet visited). If you are into FLOSS games and Ubuntu, give this group a look!

Ubuntu: Featuring Closed-Source Technology

I ran across an interesting idea on Brainstorm today: Idea #20508: Emphasize Ubuntu’s reliance on closed-source technology on Ubuntu.com

The title is a bit unclear, but the suggestion and the comments actually provide some interesting discussion material: is Ubuntu featuring and delivering freedom and openness? Or is it focused on “just works”?

I give up.

I’m giving up the mono-arguing game.

Apebox.org just posted the most comprehensive and best defense of mono I have ever read … and it’s still full of shit from tip to stern, but people are praising it like it was the work of Hume himself.

I haven’t yet encountered a pro-mono person that can directly address the issue without personal attacks, logical fallacies or other extraneous bullshit, and that includes the man himself on my own blog.

On the flip side, I’m often embarrassed by the behavior by some on “my side” of the issue. I do not want to be associated with that. I like to think I’ve held myself to a higher standard, and I hope I can walk away with that knowledge at least.

On top of all that, the ubuntu forums are “disappearing” threads that are critical of mono … and people seem perfectly alright with that. I spent a lot of time posting to a thread yesterday, only to come back on today to see it removed from the boards. Same thing on brainstorm with votes being “disappeared”.

Anyway, I have projects that I’ve been neglecting!

Disinformation Disinfected, Pt. 2: The False Dilemma

Huzzah! Continuing the series of addressing one small point of mono misinformation at a time! This time I’ll take a look at a common defense of mono which has a few of interesting bits to it, some obvious and some a bit more subtle.

Earlier in the series: Disinformation Disinfected, Pt. 1

Disinformation Disinfected, Pt. 1

One of the things that bothers me about Novell is there are a few very vocal people pumping out a lot of disinformation. Some of it I have touched on in passing, but I might just try my hand at pointing out one point at a time in a series of posts. Fear my blogging!

Most of the disinformation is in the areas of mono and Moonlight (no surprise there), but I’ll start with what I consider a clear cut case of hypocrisy from another controversial Novell project…

3 Moonlight Questions

I got into a discussion on IRC the other day with a mono supporter. One of the things that came up on a tangent was Moonlight, Novell’s implementation of Microsoft’s weapon-of-hope against Adobe’s Flash.

There are a few questions I haven’t seen directly addressed, so I put them here for your bemusement:

Open Source as a “Last Resort”?

I read a confusing article today about the Palm webOS that made an assertion I had not heard before: that Open Source was the “last resort” of a failing company.

Boxee does better

A while back I wrote a post called “Boxee – You are NOT ‘Open’“, where I took the Boxee project to task for what I considered absurd licensing. There was a bit of discussion, but nothing came out that I personally felt explained or justified what was going on.

Recently, Boxee moved into a “public alpha”, so I wanted to revisit the project and see what, if anything, changed.

Ways YOU can contribute to Ubuntu!

I thought I might make a list of ways to contribute to Ubuntu (or Linux in general), and provide my thoughts on them. I’ve tried to list them in rough order of “difficulty”, from easy to hard, where difficulty means how much effort it takes.

Windows XP on the OLPC

Hey hey! I was asked to write a short article on Windows XP on the OLPC, and it was just published at OLPC News! Check it out!

(This is something that turned up as a side note in my totally rocking non-patented MS on FLOSS project.)