Should the government pay for open source?

The most serious lock-in is still CAD.  Why do I say this?  Because there are no alternatives.  All CAD software is proprietary and all their codes are reverse-engineer legally proof.  Thats to say it is illegal to reverse engineer it, as far as can be told on a very messy and unclear situation that the companies in question promote.  CAD software is used for engineering work be that buildings or items - electronics, chairs, cars.  The individual has unprecedented control and ability in the modern age.  We can make our own circuit boards from Italy for example and have a small batch of a few hundred made!  But without a CAD program we, the public, are still locked out from this.

 As I have heard a compelling argument more recently - open source software, free software is about democracy.  It may not do the job of its commercial counterparts, it may be superior but it can work even if it does the job longer and messier.  As a user of open source programs and commercial programs I can without a doubt say that many of the open source programs do the job as quickly and cleanly as their counterparts.  But the argument is, now everyone in the world no matter where you are can buy a computer and with free (permitted access rather than free as in cash) internet access can download programs to make music, pictures, edit films, publish, write, compute and edit photos.  Everyone in the world now has a free voice.  But for CAD software.

In the interests of the nation things such as IPlayer was paid for by the BBC - it gave the people access to view BBC online, power to the people, freedom to the people - should the government in such interests not then promote and sponsor open source development as a means for, not the average person, not the common person, for EVERY PERSON to be able to do and take part in what they wish.  The American Ideal was that if someone worked hard enough they could make it, that everyone was equal and that the 'lowest' could train to become whatever they wish.  That is outdated.  Today why can everyone not partake in what they wish WHEN they wish.  Let us become once more Renaissance Men and Women.  Well rounded and knowledgeable and able in all things.  And if not - let us at least have the choice to be able to do so!

Creative Copyrights

Safe Creative Beta

Safe Creative is a beta site created for the masses out there to preform copyrighting functions.  Copyright for us in Europe is a simple affair for the average user mail yourself a signed sealed and dated copy of your creative endeavour.  But what about electronic forms?  Such as the ever-more common blog.  As well as electronically published media what about the ever growing market of creative commons.  How can you prove something has a copyleft license without taking full control.  Safe Creative electronically stores and dates your media that you submit and has a bulk register for blogs - although read its fine print blogs are a different form of copyright.

Copyright law basically states that the author has full parental rights to do wish as he chooses.  Allowing others use and reproduce from your work is your right.  Hopefully the likes of Safe Creative can give the average home user this ability.  So far they have only a certain amount of media that they will accept for now - in future they hope to be able to support all forms of creative material.  Don't forget even if you are releasing something as open source it can be good to keep that idea enshrined within it, to avoid a lot of the old arguments that have been eternally used by bigger corporations.  Registering ownership and authorship licenses can put the commoner on a par with the big corps.

Another nifty service it offers is Intellectual Property Certificates that they can issue to show that you do have authorship rights.

One thing while it is a nice idea until it is tested in court I don't know how much power and strength will be behind it.  The legal concept behind it does seem to be simple and sound.

This blog's license




  

So then scribus...

Scribus is tooted as the newest bestest open source product since Open Office!  And why, because of its interoperability with Open Office for one and its general compliance with publishing industry standards.  The open standard of the PDF, portable document format, is recognised as the PDF/x.  This was brought around by the W3C world wide web consortium, the body that set itself up to promote interoperability and forward progression of the web.  A PDF originally was a document format that could be produced and read on any system at any time and replicate flawlessly, words, layout and format.  Since technological progression however PDF's have so much dynamics and options within them creating a pdf is now a very complex business to get right.  Scribus was the first to come out with the pdf/x standard by an entire year margin.  Scribus is professional enough that some publishing houses, such as Urco Editora a spanish publishing house, use it totally.

I am working on a pdf at the moment combining multiple files together, the formatting has been done and each is set up in Open Office ready to go.  I decided I would give Scribus a go.  Its a simple insert pdf function I am looking for only.  Its not supported in Scribus, while Scribus will import pdf's only one page at a time, to be fair it will directly import Open Office material the same way.  So unfortunately that sends me back to using Acrobat for now.  I suppose if I was setting up a project I could start off with Scribus in mind and work towards it.  But it was a truly annoying situation.  For now Scribus will stay on the shelf!

Spread Open Media

Spread Open Media

is an interesting site.

Promotes and provokes a lot of thought.  Open source has been about for a long time now but with the new advances in media systems - graphics, video, office and sound; the open source community, which has also migrated from Linux to Mac and Windows.  Now non-power users but experts in their artistic fields can produce fantastic work with open source media.  To be fair deviant art and many other places have thrived for years now on the backs of amazing amateurs, people with more artistic talent than most professionals.  But now that those mentioned professionals are moving into the field we are seeing a migration to Open Media.  One of the other contributing factors is the I-Pod and the next generation phones etc that has pushed open digital as the final form of expression as well as creation.  Digital media are publishing forms.

Spread Open Media has a big push on with formats - if we are to create files in an open source / open format how do we feel about the formats we use and their openess?  Spare a thought for PDF, WMA, DVD's and MP3's all of which most companies have to pay a lot of money for the right to play and decode this information.  One reason why the X-Box didn't play DVD's until you bought its remote - it was to cover the cost of their license fee.  The same with MP's all MP3 players pay for the right to play them.  Open Source means releasing code, sharing it and your advances with the world so that it can be used as a stepping stone forward.  Libre Software is about freedom and the ability to use open sourced code and material to further yourself and anyone who comes along afterwards, to use it.  We need control.  The ordinary user needs control not the big high end companies.  The first step in this is about open and open source formats.  Store your information in a way that you have control now and forever.  Its about our ability to improve the format - currently in particular with sound the Open formats far surpass their counterparts.  Have a look at SOM and read through some of the articles.

In particular my two favourite programs is the MailOgging Campaign - a campaign to send emails / letters to the media supplying companies, hardware and digital shops, to support OGG formats.  And Operation Transcode - the first step to pushing open media forward is to convert your own files into Open formats.  Its a way of advertising the formats and their superiority and ethos.  Anyone getting material from you will see you convert it or your open format forms and ask about it.

GIMPing my way along

Hopefully by tonight I will have finished the first tutorial book of GIMP and get around to using of the online tutorials.  At this stage with GIMP I am a convert, a blissful radical.  GIMP does its job BETTER than anything else out there.  ITS job.  GIMP is a graphics editting tool and made for rasters and although it has countless plugins that is its main focus and its focus.  Just because it can do other things doesn't mean it should be judged comparitively to Illustrator - Photoshop yes.

My first forays with GIMP was 2002 and without any graphics experience etc it was impossible to get my head around or do anything with it.  The new GIMP has progressed a lot and as with a lot of user designed software the shortcuts and usability is not designed for people who have came from a specific program but for the idea of basic human ergnamoics.  GIMP is simple and quick to use - when you can do it.  Its selection and mask facilities are without doubt its forte, but then I suppose its customisable and massive libraries of scripts and filters could be said to be its forte.

Anyway with that I'll leave be.  GIMP works so long as you can understand the graphical manipulation.  Its better to get a GIMP book that describes how GIMP works with graphics and then play around with things rather than by trying to dummy your way into as is much easier to do in programs such as Photoshop.

My suggestion is the book / website  Grokking the Gimp