life, liberty, and the pursuit of open standards

Microsoft launches new open standards, interoperability push

Wow. If this is a legitimate offer, its a huge step in the right direction. They still need to work on making true patent-free open standards, but I’ll take this.

edit: After taking a deeper look, I’m having some doubts. There are real questions that need to be answered by Microsoft if they want to prove they are for real. Otherwise its just another marketing event. RedHat has their take on the whole thing here.

The Patry Copyright Blog: Yesterdays Design Hearing in the House

Is it any wonder most Americans think their government is full of idiots? I can’t wait for Ralph Lauren to patent the polka-dot. Techdirt has their own take: http://techdirt.com/articles/20080215/135455266.shtml.

SJ’s Longest Now » OLPC book & music drive and XO hackathon

Olin College’s OLPC Chapter is having a University Chapter Jam in Boston. They’re compiling free books and CC-licensed, live and published, content for a DVD.

Good luck!

Florida Linux Show

Originally uploaded by dantrevino

The Ubuntu Florida LoCo team took part in the just completed Florida Linux Show. It was a great time. We had a Face-to-Face social meetup on Sunday night before the show, and later that night hooked up with Josh, Eric, and Joel from the Georgia LoCo team.

After a few beers and some insights into the challenges of osx and vista, we declared the first, semi-unofficial, Georgia-Florida Dual LoCo Meetup a huge success.

8am Monday is tough after a night out with the with the Georgia and Florida guys, but we made it in, laid out the swag, and immediately saw a steady stream of visitors to the booth. We signed up some new members, helped out some people with installs, learned some things, and generally had a really great time. Thanks to Josh from the Georgia team for the CDs and case badges. Thanks to Canonical for the conference pack. Thanks to Rod for putting on a great show. Most of all, thanks to the Florida LoCo team, who had a great turnout at the booth and great support from those who couldn’t show.

Dinner/beers with John “Maddog” Hall, the OpenVZ guys, and the organizers capped a great weekend.

Looking forward to next year.


Photos are here: http://tinyurl.com/2nk9ar

Eh? Hey Cats, in case you hadn’t noticed, Jobs & co. just charged iPod Touch owners $20 for an “incremental update”. If you believe this wont start happening on a larger scale, I’ve got some swamp land to sell you…

Apple is a big pile.