The Ubuntu 13.10 upgrade has been going quite well...

I made the jump to Ubuntu 13.10, aka Saucy Salamander, since it came out on last Thursday. So far, I've liked the new version of Ubuntu and the experience as a whole has been great.

What I've liked the most, is the fact that the upgrade has been seamless. Other than minor things, like new icons, things have been business as usual. Which is great, since it means that I can keep going on as before with just a few things to have to get used to.

This is one of the reasons why I love Ubuntu, with every release things have been getting better while it keeps being pretty solid and stable. Ubuntu has become the OS of choice for me, and the one that I recommend each time I can. It's not perfect, yet it's the OS that better fits me and what I use the computer for.

It's one of the best options out there for people that new to open source software, and want to jump to an open source OS; while it's also pretty solid for people like me that know their way around a computer, but not want to mess to much with it.

If you want a modern, stable and user friendly OS, the new version of Ubuntu is the way to go.

Trademarks being abused...

You know trademark law is taken out of context when anyone can make this use of it. That BSA(Boy Scouts of America) can force Hacker Scouts to change its name, or face legal consequences because BSA holds the trademark on the world Scout.

It's quite offensive that anyone can deny the use of a word because of trademark. Specially in cases like this one, mainly because BSA is denying the use of the word Scout without a reasonable explanation on why Hacker Scouts are infringing on their trademark.

Besides, Hacker Scouts aren't some shady organization. What they do something beneficial for both society and the individual, by giving kids the skills to help be better prepared to face the world or simply enjoy it more. They job is a great way to introduce kids to the world of technology in a collaborative way, while using open source methods.

I believe that we need more people that work like Hacker Scouts do, because do all of a great service in our way to make a better society. Supporting such organization is something we should all do, and shouldn't be bullying them over the use of a word.

Please, visit the Hacker Scouts web page and support them if you can.

Lost hunger of knowing...

It's rather surprising how many people lose their sense of wonder, and just stop asking questions about the world around them. They seem contempt to just cruise by, without wanting to know more about whatever they come across. Some even feel threaten by anyone wanting to know more, even if the answers to the questions being ask could be beneficial to everybody.

Many fear that knowing how something works would make it less wonderful, that by the act of knowing you take value away. Knowing the inner workings of something would make it less marvelous, that it would make it less worthy in their eyes.

I don't agree at all with that at all, knowing actually makes things more wonderful. The fact that we know more about something doesn't take away, but adds to it. That we know more, means that we've more to wonder about. Knowledge about the universe we live in, not only our world, makes for a more wonderful and magnificent place.

That hunger of knowing how things work, and are related to each other, has made our lives fuller and worth living. It has added years to our lives, while being able to enjoy them in good health and has given us the chance to share more with our loved ones.

One thing that out thirst of knowing has shown us, is that there will be more questions to answer and greater riddles to solve. In many ways we might never know everything, which is a good thing because that way we can continue to move forward and be better. It's that never ending quest to know that will take us to new places.

Instead of teaching our children not to question, we need to give them the tools to do it in a way that will improve their lives. The sky is no longer the limit, I don't longer believe there is a limit if we keep looking for answers.

Open development for security protocols and standards...

One of the good things that came from what was leaked Edward Snowden, is that security protocols and standards are being checked for flaws and vulnerabilities. Some have been found, no doubt more will come in time, with steps being taken fix them.

With all the work being done to tighten security, and people being more aware about the importance of securing their systems to protect their privacy, it's important to keep an eye on that work so that their information is safe and their privacy respected. The importance of security protocols and standards are paramount on both cases, and thus the work to harden them is vital.

That's why there is a need to have them developed in an open way, so that they can be constantly checked and improved by as a large a community as possible. They will never be completely fool proof, but the open development can help to minimize the risk by allowing patches to be submitted sooner later later.

With more of our lives taking place on the digital realm, the protocols and standards used to protect our information can't continue to be developed behind closed doors. People need, and should have the right, actually know how what they use to protect themselves work and be able to study it freely. All development should be carried out openly, in a way where the validation of those protocols and standards takes the input of a wider community.

Security will be enhance with more people working together to make it better in an open and collaborative environment, not with less people working behind closed doors.

The right combination...

I've thinking about getting a tablet, yet I don't really think that it would be all that useful for me. My needs are better covered by the laptop smartphone combo, and tablets don't really fit my needs.

When sitting at home, the laptop computer is a lot better for me. I still use the keyboard a lot to write both on my blog or emails. While on the go, the smartphone fits my needs since it allows me to write short messages, share photos or short thoughts in a more practical way for me.

The combination of computer, smartphone and tablet is still rather dependent on how do you access information and if you need to create things using a computer. What any person should get is dependent on what they are going to do with those devices, since that device needs to conform to what that person needs to do with it.

What most people will have in common in most cases, is that we all are going to be using smartphones while on the go since they are the most convenient way to access or share information quickly when you just want do it quickly and you're aren't going to do it for a long period of time.

Tablets and laptops are easier to use for extended periods of time, just that they excel at different things. Tablets, for the time being, are better suited for consuming media and information. Their format suits better to consuming, rather than creating, content. I don't doubt that in the near future you'll be able to create content as easily on them, as you do on a computer, yet the time is not now.

Computers are still the best way to create content, specially work that need a lot of computing power. Also, it's more comfortable to work for extended periods of time on a computer than it is on a tablet.

For me, the perfect coordination is the laptop-smartphone.

What could have been...

While I was reading this article at Ars Technica, I couldn't help but to feel a bit of sadness and nostalgia. I really liked Nokia's mobile phones, and I had high hopes for their Symbian OS. By the time they released the N8 smartphone with Symbian^3 on it, I was really hopeful about the OS.

Another thing I really liked, was that Nokia had open sourced Symbian and that made it an option for me. The idea that my favorite mobile brand used an open sourced OS was very appealing, since I enjoyed using it. I would loved to see Nokia throwing it's weight behind Symbian, so that by now there would be two open source mobile operating systems at the market. The other being Android, which has matured a lot since it was released.

In a way, I'd have loved to see Nokia adopting Android when it stop using Symbian on their smartphones. In that case, I would still be on Nokia's field. In many ways, I felt betrayed when by the switch to Windows. Ever since they did so, I haven't even considered buying anything from Nokia. Before that, I was loyal to Nokia.

Now, it's to late for any kind of change. Seems that Nokia really went south, and it got lost somewhere only to become somewhat irrelevant at the smartphone arena.

It's a shame where Nokia has come, it comes to show that the future is not certain for anyone.

Sad mishandling of information...

One of the virtues of the Internet, is that it democratizes the flow of information. It allows individuals to share information, or to access it, in various ways, in any format they dim to be more convenient and at any time they have the chance to do so. Those who are interested on that information can access it the time that suits them best, and redistribute it to others that might find such information interesting or valuable.

More than ever before, the flow of information is free to flow not only from hand to hand or to a hand full of people. Now, information can be flow much faster and to much more people than it has ever been possible. Not only that, it no longer has the constraints of time and location to tie it down. Information generated at one corner of the world, can reach anywhere around the world in an instant.

It's sad, and enraging, that some governments try to limit that free flow of information or use it against the people. Even worse, is when they try to get access to private information without going through the passes they legally have to access such information.

The flow of information needs to be unimpeded by no one, but the person from who the information originated from. Each of us, must have every guarantee that we have full and total control of our information, and thus the way it flows. Our information should only arrive to our intended destination, and shouldn't be tempered on transit in any way, shape or form.

If the government thinks it needs to intercept it, it should be made to give a valid reason before it's allowed to intercept it to read it. The government shouldn't be able to do so without proving, beyond reasonable doubt, that it has a valid argument to do so.

While information is a common good, that belongs to us all, not all information should be treated like that. Some information is private to the individual, and that information should be treated as the property of that individual. All other information, specially that the is comes from public areas, needs to remain in the hands of the public.

The flow of information should be unimpeded, at all times, so we all can access it on equal terms.

Development doesn't define free software...

There is a lot of people who argue that free software should be developed on a community level, and there is a lot of resentment when it's development it's constrained to the walls of whoever needs that specific needs.

Yet, free software has nothing to do with how it's developed. It's about being able to access to the source code to study it, to modify it as you see fit, and to redistribute it without any restrictions that hinder you from doing so. If the license has no restrictions on those attributes, it's free software independently on how it's developed.

The choice of how to develop any free software is from the people who are going to be develop it, and it has to suits their needs. At the end, development is independent complying with what free software guidelines ask for.

If you don't want to use free software that isn't developed directly by the community, don't use it. But, that doesn't give you the right to go around telling people don't to use it or speak ill of those who choose to to develop their software without the help of the community.

The community should be picky about developers actually complying with what free software licenses ask them to, and not how develop their software. If they give free access to their source code to be studied, modified and redistribute it, then it's all well and dandy. That they respect what makes free software free, is far more important than how they develop said software.

Anything else than the core values of free software, it's more about personal taste than anything else.

You got to be kidding...

It's hard to take any legal system seriously, when just about anyone can sue over how a word is used to name a group or a product without taking the context of how it's used into account.

The lengths some take in order to "protect" what they think of as their intellectual property is just plain wrong. A case that comes as a perfect example of this point is the Boy Scouts of America treating to sue a group called Hacker Scouts over the use of the word Scouts.

I don't really know why should the Boy Scouts of America need to do this, since Hacker Scouts are dedicated to teach children raging from eight to 12 do protects having to do with science and engineering. Which is not the things that Boy Scouts do, but not something that is demeaning or that's unlawful.

Other than that both are Scouts, the other thing that both organizations have in common is that fact that both give out badges that earn by completing projects.

I can't see how anyone could confuse the two, or why Boy Scouts of America could have a problem with an organization like Hackers Scouts being scouts too. Both organizations are doing things that are great for both society and individuals, yet are doing so by different means.

Hacker Scouts should be allowed to keep the Scouts for their name, since I don't see them misusing the word or how they could be confused with the Boy Scouts. The organization is doing a great thing to promote science and engineering among kids, which is needed if we want to keep our world getting better for all.

I leave you the links to the page of the Hacker Scouts page and to the article in Ars Technica with the Boy Scouts of America actions against them below: 

http://www.hacker-scouts.org/

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/08/be-prepared-to-litigate-boy-scouts-pressures-hacker-scouts-to-drop-scouts/

Spread the word, and support Hacker Scouts to keep their name.

Jumping to GNU/Linux isn't as complicated as many say...

As someone that uses both Ubuntu and Windows on daily basis, I find it odd when I hear that you can't most of the things you can do with Windows on an machine running Ubuntu(or with any other GNU/Linux distribution for that matter).

While it's true that there is some software that's only available on Windows, it's hard not to come across with an analog on the GNU/Linux camp that can do the job at least as good than it's Windows counter part. For general computer users, in many cases there are actually several options to choose from to fit their needs.

For example, on Ubuntu you can use Firefox or Chrome to browse the Internet. There are several chat clients, like Pidgin and Empathy, if you are an active user of those services. Even Skype is available on Ubuntu, you can keep in contact with those of your friends and family who use it on regular basis.

If you need a robust office suite to work with, you have the option to use LibreOffice or Apache OpenOffice, among others. With them, you get all the thing you expect to come with a modern office suite.

These are just some of the examples, in many cases I've found that there are just some very specific needs that are obstacle to make the jump to an GNU/Linux distribution. The main reason I've come across, is the fact that a software needed hasn't an analog the GNU/Linux camp, or migration isn't possible because isn't practical to move the data.

After about four years of continuous use of either Ubuntu or Linux Mint, I can say I don't miss Windows at all. I found the transition to be quite easy, even thought there were some hurdles they where easy to ever come.

Most of those hurdles where just little habits, that I was able to change in a few days of constant use of the new operating system. Yet, I found that all the software I needed is available and works well. Some of the harder problems I came with, where solve fast with some visits to forums on the Internet.

It's important to note, that you don't need to have to much of a technical know-how to use Ubuntu or Linux Mint. While having it won't hurt, and helps to do some advance things, you won't be hindered on the use of Ubuntu or Linux Mint for every day shores like browsing the Internet or listening to your music.

If you want to have an operating system that gives you the freedoms that come with FOSS, and it's easy to use, I highly recommend using Ubuntu or Linux Mint. So, come on and join us on this side of the fence.

Building from a common pool...

Another of the things that are beneficial about FOSS(Free and open-source software), is that it gives developers and programmers a common pool of code to work on. Thus, their work is make easier and faster since they get to use the foundations set by other before them.

Not only that, it allows to innovations and improvements to come to the existing pool of code a lot faster. It also means that those innovations and improvements to spread a lot faster, since they are set on the common pool used by the people who actively use it to make their software. Meaning that all the software made from that pool shares from those improvements as they come.

From the user point of view, using FOSS means that they get software that is compatible with other software that draws from the same pool. In essence, it means that the user is software built from a standard that gives the freedom to know that the data used isn't dependent on a the software being used, but on the code that came from the common pool. The jump to another software can be done a lot easier, since there is the option of using another software that it's built from the same pool of code or the users can build their own software using the pool if there is no option already available.

In many ways FOSS gives programmers, developers and users a way to build standards that are freely available to all who need to use that pool of code. It democratizes software, by allowing anyone interested in using the code to use it or to give to in the best way they can.

By using a common pool of code to build software, there is more incentive to keep an eye on it by the community that makes use of it. To have robust and secure code at the pool, becomes vital to all since any vulnerability or bad code puts everyone at risk. It also means, anyone can contribute code that improves on it or secure vulnerabilities while all can check it for any flaws to make sure it adds value.

Drawing from, and giving to, a common pool means that all that do so are at least partially responsible to keep that pool healthy and safe to use.The effort to do that is shared by a lot more people, all of who have some stake on making sure that the pool is as good as it can get.