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It is time to get the "True facts out, in contrast to the imagery and illusions that are dispensed ubiquitously by the behemoth of Redmond. If you can identify individuals open to rational argument that are not already bought off by the latter, please feel free to employ any part of the model letter: ideas, text, citations to make your points. This has now become a necessity to get some sort of rational balance between citizen rights and currently overwhelming corporate power.

There is a curious lack in the Linux community -- the number of community-led Linux distributions for commodity mobile phone hardware is zero. There are PDAs for which it is possible to get a GSM/GPRS SD card; there are mobile phones such as the

Welcoming in the new year is People Behind KDE bringing us one of the little known stars of KDE development.

  LXer Encore Feature: 1-1-2006

LXer editor Don Parris takes a straw poll that he believes points to the fact that Windows is becoming more and more irrelevant. Read and weigh in!

Investors are a finicky bunch.

One year you're cool. The next you're, well, so last year.

Consider Red Hat. The company was one of the Triangle's biggest dogs in 2004. The stock sank almost 30 percent on concerns about the health of the Raleigh company's business. It sells subscriptions to Linux computer software, which functions like Microsoft's Windows.

But in 2005, the stock shot up like a weed on a sunny spring day. Red Hat shares rose 104 percent, making it the top gainer among 28 public companies based in the region.

LXer Day Desk: 11-27-2005

Prohibition of alcohol (1920-33) in the US failed. People thought it would reduce crime and corruption, solve social problems, reduce the tax burden created by prisons and ghettos, improve health and hygiene. It was a miserable failure on all counts. It affirms the economic theory, which predicts that prevention of mutually beneficial exchanges fails.

DABE Solutions Ltd., UK and Estonian based software company, announced that it will not charge customers for most of the future business software products anymore.

I am a girl on the internet. Yes, I said it. A girl on the internet. There really are quite a few of us. I can type. I can play games with the best of you. And you, my friend, are about to get owned by a girl.

I've been watching and observing the internet for quite some time now. It's like a science project with the usual control and variables. The control is: I am a girl. The variables are the medium through which this fact is expressed. The results all point to the same paradoxical conclusion: I am a girl, but girls do not exist on the internet.

Now that you've unwrapped and fired up that new Christmas PC (is it your third or fourth?), have I got a project for you: We're going to fix your old PC.

Boy, are we gonna fix it. I can almost guarantee you it will run appreciably faster than your new unit. It won't ever get clogged up with spyware. It will never crash. And it will come with all the software you'll ever need, and if you need more, you can download it for free. A nice one-day project.

Welcome to our issue number 27 of Fedora Weekly News.

Lawrence Rosen publicly backed Microsoft's Open Office XML as sufficiently open to all parties to warrant its use as an open data format. It was because of this stance, I thought LXer readers would be interested to learn upon what basis he came to this decision and to learn if he has any doubts. This is the second part of the interview where he is pursued by a gang of three. It was an interesting battle, see the aftermath and let us know who won. Our hope it will be freedom for all.

Lawrence Rosen publicly backed Microsoft's Open Office XML as sufficiently open to all parties to warrant its use as an open data format. It was because of this stance, I thought LXer readers would be interested to learn upon what basis he came to this decision and to learn if he has any doubts. To say more would be unfair to the interviewee, hence, please read his responses. While the interview is short there is much to consider.

Robin Miller is after your granny. Again. He's trying to entice her with the delights of free open source software. He's trying to make it look easy and fun to play around with open source. First, there was his Point & Click Linux book. Now he's out trying to tempt the uninitiated with an alternative office productivity via his new book, Point & Click OpenOffice.org. When is someone going to put a stop to it?

A couple of weeks ago, my article Managing MySQL on Mac OS X was published, detailing some of the best Mac options for interacting with the popular database management system. There were some good tidbits in the comments of that article that I'd like to pull out as a followup.

LXer feature Sometimes as a Linux user, you wish you could buy any computer with Linux preinstalled, or if that's not possible, just without an operating system, but that's not the reality. If that isn't possible, is it possible to buy any computer with Windows pre-installed, and then, return the unused Windows, and ask a refund for it? That's a question many non-Windows users ask themselves. The answer however, isn't clear to consumers. There's only one way to find out: ask your hardware manufacturer. Or do they neither know the answer? Time to find out.

Open source must in some way present itself as a bit of a dichotomy to Adobe, now that it has acquired Macromedia. It is generally accepted that open source solutions foster innovation and adoption. However, with an open file format and a free player, is it possible that some projects could eventually challenge Flash's own role by creating competing tools?

In this interesting interview with Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL AB, TxtEdMacs finds the kind of information many people want to have but simply don't know how to ask.

For example, Marten says: "We are not competing with Oracle, because they are the kings of existing database applications. But when it comes to new development and new paradigms, that's where MySQL fits in".

  LXer feature

Fabio Marzocca represents a new class of innovators in the twenty-first century. He's living proof that talented people can make a contribution to global technology even when the corporate maw would eat them up and spit them out. In what other era of human endeavor would such an individual be allowed to make a difference?

Fabio: Ubuntu developer, but also member of the Italian Ubuntu LoCoTeam, father of two children, and for his employment, dealing with company management and reorganizations.

LXer interviewed him, and asked him questions about his personal life, his view on Linux and Ubuntu in particular, and about two applications of which he is the developer and maintainer: the BUM graphical Boot-Up Manager, and the Baobab graphical disk-space viewer.

We invite you into his life to see what the future may bring.

What is the future of Linux and Free Software? A rigid little cult that accept only the Right People? Or a community that truly practices "Free as in Freedom"?