Tsikbal: from my perspective

As a geek, and a man, I find it sad that many men in the community don't give women a fair chance or respect them as equals. Women are as capable with tech as any man is, and should be ranked for their merits. No person should be given a role to play because of their gender, but because of what they want and their abilities. So, if a girl want to go into the field of math, engineering or science, she should be given all the support to go for it. If she wants to do so, she should have the same opportunities to carve a place for herself as any man has. Personally, many of my role models have been women. Marie Curie, Kari Byron, and Margaret Thacher are some of the examples of women that have done something that makes a difference in the world. There are hundreds of women that demonstrate that they are just as capable as men are, and sometimes they do it even when they face obstacles set in place by men just to see them fail. So when anyone say that women are not as c...

One of the areas where FLOSS can have a big impact, is on support on social causes by giving people a tool that isn't dependent on the interests of a single private vendor. When there is a way that allows the creation of software directly by those interested, without having to depend on someone or a company to act, more opportunities can be acted upon rapidly. Not only that, people can choose how and when is best for them to act upon any given situation. Or even if they want to engage it at all. People are empowered to really act, and do, as they thing is best for them. We could actually have a say on what information we want, and with who we want to share it with. We would be in control of what goes on not only with out real life, but also of our virtual one. All the freedoms we enjoy on the outside world, should be carried into the virtual world. There shouldn't be any question about it, it should be a given. As it happens on the outside world, people should ...

One of the great things of FLOSS, is that the end users gets a choose from several options what's the best for what they do. On top of that, the users get to customize even more if they think it would better for them by doing so. At the end of the day, the users are the ones who have the final say on what software to run and how it'll run on their systems. They have the freedom to study and modify the software they use, and share those modifications with others. It creates an ecosystem where all are equal, and people can truly come together to work on what's important to them. By working like this, the end product becomes greater than the sum of it's parts. People actually have a chance to enter something that brings them together to work on something that can has the potential to be far reaching, and be an agent of change bigger than any of them could be individually. FLOSS can give everyone a gate to discover about everything and anything there is an inte...

If we want to keep the world moving forward, while closing the disparity among the people, we need the people to have free access to it and be able to redistribute what's relevant to them. Closing access to information to anyone does more harm than good, since it limits the options any given person or group to find a solution to whatever problem they might be facing. After all, if there is any way to get solutions is to know what is going on. To get a clear picture of what is being faced, people need to be able to find information about it and to learn what others did whenever possible. If not, there can be disastrous consequences that could be avoided by simply allowing informations to be freely shared among people and communities. Information is a common good, and is not something that can be owned by any person or entity. By allowing information to be owned, it's values decreases exponentially. Mainly because the information stops being useful because it can...

For me it's sad and annoying when companies see that others start implementing their own version of something they pioneered, and instead of keep ahead by making their implementation better by adding new features they go the litigation way. In my mind, trying to get others out of the market by litigating against them is a waste of time and resources. Specially when they have already proven that they can actually come with products that are better and more innovative than the competition. If they keep working on ways to keep ahead of the rest by actually making better products, the odds is that people would keep choosing them. And let's face it, most of the time people choose they competition devices not because they are confused. Most often the choice is motivated by the fact that the implementation offered by the others is more appealing to that individual. It seems that some companies do believe that people are stupid, and can't seem to recognize one product ...

While I agree that OS vendors have the right to implement a code of conduct for developers. Yet, I don't think that also limiting what they can develop and how it can be developed on the OS. A great OS, is one that is open for all to develop whatever software developers thing there is a need of and for the user to be able to use the software that better fits his needs. Users should be who decide what software they want to use, and from which developer. The vendor should limit itself to checking that developers behave themselves according to the code of conduct that was set by the vendor. Otherwise, the vendor should be neutral on what runs on the OS. Without this level of openness, users can suffer from lack of choice and innovation. The vendor holds a virtual monopoly on what, and how, any piece of software can be implemented. Meaning that they can shut down any developer that does anything that competes on an area they don't want anyone to do so. In essence, the ...

Software would always be at the control of the user, who should have the final say on what the software does at all times. Not only that, the users should be able to study and modify their software as much as they please. All the components should be accessible to the user to be studied, or modified, as much as the user chooses to do. Once the the user has the software in his hands, there should be mechanisms that allow the user to do so without having to fear reprisals from the original developers. Being able to do study and modify the software run on their computers, the users become less dependent on a single single vendor to meet their needs. And if anything should happen to the vendor they relied on, it's a lot easier to find an alternate vendor that fills their needs without much pain. In some cases, the users themselves can take the software and work on it themselves. Which can give the user an extra layer of protection, and reduce dependence on outside influenc...

As computers and OS become more advanced, many are left behind mainly because they don't have the money to make the upgrade. It can be because the new OS is just to expensive, and sometimes it's because they have to buy a new computer to run the latest version. Sadly, for those not being able to run a modern OS on they computer are at a distinct disadvantage. With time, most of the software needed to interact and work with others stops being supported for their OS and they can't upgrade to the most current version because it won't run on their OS. Meaning that they won't be able to access much of the resources needed to remain current, lessening their chances to land new jobs or better their position. On this area, FLOSS can help leveling the playing field significantly. Having little to no cost to the user, it empowers users to run modern OS's and all the software that comes with it. Not only that, since there are several distros out there than are tar...

For me it's quite annoying to see how some media treats Apple as the only innovative consumer tech company out there. And everyone else coming with products that even resemble one of Apple's is clearly stealing. It seems that some hardcore Apple fan's have trouble acknowledging that other tech companies can come with their own implementations of software that end up looking like Apple's own their own. They seem to turn a blind eye, or just ignore the fact, that in many cases implementations look the same because there are only so many ways it's practical to do so. As such, many of the answers end up looking similar even though each came to it own their own. Many of the disputes, and courtroom battles, could and should be avoided taking this fact of life as it is. At the end, most of the people that goes to Android wouldn't have gone to Apple to begin with. As it turns out, there is enough market place for both the iPhone and Android ecosystems. ...

As a regular Linux, I use Ubuntu 12.04, and FLOSS user I can't but frown when I come across comments saying that FLOSS is not easy to use or that isn't stable for everyday use. After using Ubuntu for more than two years as my main OS, I haven't had any problem at all. The few crashes I've experienced had been of particular programs, and those haven't affected the system as a whole. And since Unity came along in the 11.04 release, I think Ubuntu has become easier to use and it looks better. There hasn't been a problem that I couldn't fix in an hour or less, and all came with easy to follow instructions to work the problem out. Ubuntu is the one Linux distro that I can recommend to people with little experience around computers, let alone people that want to jump to the FLOSS boat. It's easy to use, stable and comes with all the software that most people is going to need out of the box. And if you need to add something else, with the Ubunt...

When it comes to software, the most important thing are how innovative it is and how well it's implemented. And for most users the deal breaker is the implementation part, because it's what they see and use to interact with the software. No matter how innovative a piece of software, if it isn't correctly implemented it won't take off. Most people don't care about the technical part since they want to be able to use they software with ease, and for it to do what it says without a hiccup. All innovation should just work and do what it says without extra input from the user, the moment the user has to do things that aren't usually needed the magic is lost. It becomes a drag, and the user is most likely stop using the software. That's why developers should be careful integrating new features to their software, and only release them to the public once they are fully backed. No matter how good idea is, or how innovative it is, if you don't do it r...