Comments on: Happy Birthday to GNU

By: daniel

daniel — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 18:58:27 +0000

Stephen’s name came up in conversation recently while I was visiting my mother and it reminded me of this video. After she watched it she spent a few minutes on gnu.org before downloading and installing Ubuntu. I consider that a success.

By: trojjer

trojjer — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 03:11:49 +0000

So Stephen Fry likes free software and hates Microsoft, but is seemingly “big on Apple”. Oh well. At least Apple does have a lot of “F/LOSS” code in its products, when it suits them… I wish he’d clarify though, as to the nature of the primary OS he’s running on that MacBook Air — and whether or not it’s dual-booting.

Continuing the theme of pointing out the “non-free” approach to media that is contradictory to the message of the video itself, note the following section of the terms of use for this site:

“You are permitted to download and print content from the Website solely for your own internal business purposes and/or personal use. The Website content must not be copied or reproduced, used or otherwise dealt with for any other reason. You are not entitled to modify or redistribute the content of this Website or reproduce, link, frame or deep-link it on any other website without the express written permission of The Sampsonian Co Pty Ltd.”

Come on, “deep linking”? What a joke. Although people have been successful in court cases involving a plaintiff suing a defendant for merely linking to a website in a way that the owners didn’t agree with… Seemingly disregarding fair use and parody rights.

By: vikramkrishnan

vikramkrishnan — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:58:54 +0000

A good reason in my view to use free software (I know this sounds really arrogant) is that frequently people who work on free software are researchers from reputed universities such as MIT, Stanford, CalTech etc. This automatically leads to very high standards. Whereas Microsoft hires people on the basis of the fact that they are replaceable, so that the company as a whole does not suffer in the case they are removed or resign. (Standard industry procedure)

By: howlingmadhowie

howlingmadhowie — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:08:44 +0000

james: the question is, what is the most i can do with a computer and retain my freedom to be a good member of my community? to share, to help and to contribute. if a task requires proprietary software there are some of us who would rather not do that task.

By: BKB

BKB — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:28:43 +0000

Hi Stephen,

You might like to know that Linus Torvalds pronounces his name like “Lynn-us”, not “Line-us”, and he pronounces Linux like “Lynn-Ux”.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8

I think it’s worth getting it right.

By: james.

james. — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 22:02:43 +0000

While GNU has provided us with so many useful things, limiting one’s use of applications to only those with a free licence is something that to me makes no sense at all.

When it comes to applications that are used for a career (for example Photoshop for Photographers, Dreamweaver for Web Designers, Final Cut for Editors, etc.) it is essential that they work quickly, smoothly and with any problems being solved – and the only way this can be done is by paying developers and designers to build these applications, which can only be done to a constant standard and quality if the applications are proprietary and people pay for them.

The thought of editing photographs using GIMP on some clunky home built computer running Linux/GNU makes me feel so very glad I spend the extra Â£’s on an Apple MacBook and a Photoshop CS3 licence.

Having said that there are some brilliant open source applications such as Firefox and VLC. So while GNU and Open Source are absolutely brilliant, without proprietary software computers would be a lot less user-friendly and a lot less reliable.

By: thirstforwine

thirstforwine — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:55:32 +0000

I am a Gnu – Oh look! A gNother Gnu

http://blip.fm/profile/thirstforwine/blip/175879

By: flywheel

flywheel — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:21:05 +0000

Hello

As an old fan and eager user of Open Source software – I’m quite thrilled.
As usual the message is presented in an elegant, concise, philosophical way, understandable for most people and with a hint of great humor.
A moment to cherish.

@Jon T : “Yep, thatâ€™s it, Open stuff means it only plays with other Open stuff, and you have to download it first, then open it in the appropriaâ€¦.ah sorry, bored with that game.”

Well – actually no it does not only play with other open stuff. An old time favorite – VLC is often used by MS-Windows users as as supplement for MS-WMP, since it is capable of playing difficult ASF/WMV/WMA/AVI files. But no it isn’t bundled with MS-Windows, since it is not an MS application, you have to fetch and install it yourself.

Live long and prosper…

By: Ralph Corderoy

Ralph Corderoy — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:03:24 +0000

Some kind so has uploaded the video to youtube so it’s easier for some people to view. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dcxtEKShXA

By: popey

popey — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 08:05:46 +0000

@doctormo the video itself is under a less than fully permissive license. You can see this for yourself by clicking the link above and reading the resulting words. It’s released under cc-nd 3.0 which is less permissive than (say) the GNU GPL. Just an observation.