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June 26, 2008 saw the United States Supreme Court make a ruling on an issue near and dear to my heart – gun ownership. For those who don't care or simply were unaffected by the ruling, the issue that was being discussed was “does an individual have a right to own a gun in America?”

Conventional wisdom say “Yes” and for nearly two hundred years, Americans have been able to possess firearms, despite increasing regulation and red tape to obtain and carry them. In Washington DC, this regulatory nightmare came to a head. In DC, it was legal to carry a registered firearm if you had a permit. The problem? DC doesn't allow people to register weapons and issues no permits. Now, I object to the ideas of permitting and registration in general, but in this specific issue the combination of permit requirements and non-issuance of permits essentially amounted to an all-out ban.

Dick Heller, a security guard, sued the District of Columbia over this and the lower courts ruled that the US Second Amendment (A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.) covered the “collective” “people” and not an individual. Since DC residents were “protected” by a military, the right was not being infringed. A higher court disagreed, saying individuals do have the right. The District of Columbia people didn't find this acceptable, so appealed the ruling to the highest court in the USA, the Supreme Court.

In short, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 ruling that gun ownership is in fact, an individual right. For the liberty-oriented like myself, the 5-4 numbers are scary. Is “shall not be infringed” really that hard to understand that it splits the court nearly evenly?

Conservatives and miniarchists declared the Heller case a victory because “the government still defends our rights”. Myself and others considered it a loss, because in the ruling they said specifically "nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms."

In short, even though it's an individual right, the government people can still regulate it.

Now, all of the talk of the wording of the Constitution matters very little to me, I consider it a flawed document, built on a flawed premise. That said, a lot of people do cling to the thing as if it's a holy document and the government people have supposedly agreed to follow it's rules, so it's important in my mind to bring Constitutional issues to light to show “government” for what it is – a group of people doing business at the threat of violence.

The District of Columbia, rebuffed by the Supreme Court, has begun a gun registration program and granted amnesty for 180 days to encourage people to register their firearms now. One man, Dick Heller tried to do so this morning. Yes, this is the same Dick Heller who initiated the lawsuit and won. Now that the Supreme Court has overturned the DC ban, he stood waiting for the 7 am registration to open to register his .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol and a .22-caliber revolver, pretty standard fare firearms.

Mr. Heller was turned away.

An unnamed DC spokes-bureaucrat says that “the gun was a bottom-loading weapon, and according to their interpretation, all bottom-loading guns are outlawed because they are grouped with machine guns.”

In a now-famous internet quip.... WTF!

The importance of this distinction is huge. With the exception of revolvers just about every handgun ever produced is a bottom loader. I'm no gun guru but I can't think of a single one that's NOT a bottom loader.

Much in the same way as the DC government people passed laws effectively banning handgun ownership by not issuing licenses, they are still, even after losing in the highest court in the nation, using deceitful methods to skirt around the issue, to comply without really complying.

Let this be proof to everyone who called the Heller decision a "win" that individual right to gun ownership has not, indeed, been protected. Dick Heller, the man who sued and won, is still not able to legally have his firearm.

Let this show the miniarchists out there: Even "winning" is a loss. The government people's actions are all directed towards control for one reason or another, and once they have control they do not give it up. It is the nature of government to expand and grow, not to shrink. Let this case show you, as cases over and over have shown, that you can not defeat government people oppressing you by turning to the government.

It was J.R.R Tolkien who says of his work, the Lord of the Rings, "You can make the Ring into an allegory of our own time, if you like: an allegory of the inevitable fate that waits for all attempts to defeat evil power by power".

My server crashed last month due to hardware failures and I lost about 3 months of my site, including many pictures, user comments, blog articles and such. I decided then to redo my site because it pissed me off due to limitations, and since nobody reads my blog, I didn't think people would care.

I was wrong twice. Firstly, it appears that people do, in fact read my blog. It's syndicated in several places, linked to by some major electronics sites, scattered throughout the blogosphere. Not only that, but when I posed my hiatus-for-a-rebuild notice, I got several e-mails from people giving me encouragement to keep blogging, tips for restoring my site and so on.

In no specific order, I'd like to extend thanks to Manuel who simply wasn't satisfied with silence, asked questions and made sure it got out to the world. He also encouraged me to blog about building a Django blog, which I may do, or may not do, but it's something that might add more content here, and I always welcome relevant suggestions for that. :)

Thank you Philip, who saw that content was missing and let me know how I might find it again. Afterwards, he and I had a conversation about Openmoko's lackluster website and his contacting of Sean Moss-Pultz. Good to know people are taking steps to get action, rather than simply complaining.

Jeff, who wrote with apologies for unsolicited e-mail honored me. I'm just a regular guy with a blog and my e-mail address is public. I write about what I love, mainly technology (Free Software in specific), liberty and freedom. I'm always happy to answer questions or just shoot the shit, my e-mail is listed in the “Contact Me” link on the side of my site and I do always welcome e-mail. Hell, it was the e-mail I received that really motivated me to keep my site active (the increase in traffic, and wanting to keep that doesn't hurt though...), so if you like my site let me know, it'll keep me doing it.

Thank you Milos, who alerted me that a link to one of my most popular articles was broken and allowed me to fix it. I really like keeping traffic to my site flowing, I do appreciate it.

Thank you David, who took the site recovery bit a step further and actually scoured Google Cache for some of my missing articles, then e-mailed them to me to ensure it wasn't lost.

Er Lern, thank you for being the first to contact me with suggestions after the site failure. I think I got that e-mail literally in less than 24 hours which was amazingly fast considering that I assumed nobody read the site.

Thank you to everyone else who e-mailed and I missed, I'm sure I've missed several. But more than just for sending me e-mail, thank everyone who reads this. It makes me feel awesome knowing that people out there are passionate about the same things I am. It's also good because I see the world in a way that a lot of people don't, and it's a viewpoint that many people aren't used to hearing, so knowing that the messages are getting out makes me feel as if I'm actually accomplishing things. Thank you all, truly.

I planned to stop blogging for a while, intent to rebuild my site as I wanted it using Django. I have found that learning a new programming language and toolkit forces me to adjust my entire coding paradigm. In short, it's not something I've adjusting to quickly. I'm also quietly wondering if I really care about learning Python at all as I've lately been becoming more and more frustrated with computers in general.

Anyway, the world doesn't stop moving just because I stop blogging, and the encroachments upon liberty keep happening, so I feel as if the call of duty is sounding over and over and I'm ignoring it, so... I'm back. I'm going to stick with Jaws for a bit longer, chugging out posts in OpenOffice Writer and pasting them in when I'm done. Really, I think I'd be doing that with Django anyway, since it didn't include spell check. :)

Jaws 0.80 is in second beta, so perhaps that will fix some of my gripes, and since I actually know PHP, perhaps I could expand Jaws out somewhat, but that's neither here nor now.

Just a quick update. On Friday, July June 21, 2008, the server that hosts this website suffered a drive failure. As the techs went in to hot swap and rebuild the drive, the master drive also failed resulting in complete data loss.

Being my personal site, I hadn't been making backups regularly so I lost about 3 months worth of stuff, including the Freerunner review and the Photo tour of the ASU.

I decided at that point that my website sucks. :) I currently use Jaws CMS which is decently good but not great. The reason I chose to use it, though, was because I like pictures and all of the other blogs suck at managing pictures the way I want them – taggable and on my server. Flickr is probably the closest, but I didn't want to be limited to their storage space, service changes and stuff. Jaws lets me put images in multiple albums without duplicating the images, so I used it.

Unfortunately, the AJAX in the admin interface causes conflicts and sometimes I have to reload a page. The search system suck badly, sometimes matching falsely and not displaying matches. But the ugliest part, frankly, is the RSS feed. When I'm editing an article, it auto-saves to draft mode, but for some stupid reason, it actually posts to the RSS feed, so if my article is long (and unless this is your first visit to my site, you know I post long posts often. I actually meant “quick update” and I'm on 250 words.) it actually syndicates a half finished, often broken, blog post which may or may not be updated later.

Because of this, I'm actually writing this blog post in OpenOffice.org Writer which I'll cut and paste into the CMS. Jaws CMS does a remarkably poor job in all of helping me manage my content so I'm ditching it.

I've been trying to teach myself Python, but at work I deal primarily with PHP so I can't really sit down and just hack. I decided to take this opportunity (the drive failure, if you've already forgotten) to force myself to resolve two issues – my site that sucks and my laziness preventing me from exploring Python.

I've decided to try, at the least, to redo my site using Python, and more specifically, using the Django framework which Debian actually packages. :) This means that my normal few-times per week content won't be posted even though there's some infringement of liberty or some advance in Openmoko's progress or something else worth chatting about. Frankly, I'm lazy, and the less content I need to transfer, the happier I am. So this may be my last blog post for “a while” as I learn Django and ask questions and devote my spare time to that for a bit.

In the mean time, this site will remain up, with some broken articles. :)

There is a lot of speculation about the April Software Update (ASU). Is it a single image you install, or is it a line of development? Is it a rebranded Qtopia or something new? How's the sounds quality? What Wifi management tools will there be? Is there a package installer? What does it look like?

I thought I'd take some time today to hopefully answer those questions, and more importantly, show lots and lots of screenshots, because everyone likes screenshots. :)

When you first boot the Freerunner, the screen backlight fades in gradually to reveal the familiar orange and black Openmoko start splash. After a few seconds, the screen turns to the black with white scrolling text that just about every Linux user in the world is familiar with.

Then come the boots. As a bit of geek humor, probably chosen by Raster, there is a pair of boots on the boot screen. A green bar slides in and begins loading. A great example of the early stages can be found on this flash demo.

By default, the ASU image is set to a grid system application launcher.

For those uninterested in this view, there is a bit more unique take on it using the slider mode.

Atop the action at all stages of using the ASU is Illume, which essentially functions as the system tray and task bar. Here, you can launch the keyboard, launch the settings panel, enter the Enlightenment settings (note, this is slated for removal and doesn't directly affect the use of ASU), switch to a running application or close an open application.

Let me visually cover those things, in order. First, the keyboard:

The keyboard is a QWERTY like keyboard that has a dictionary lookup built in. To bring the keyboard down you tap the “qwerty” area of the Illume bar. To begun typing, simply hit a letter. To see a more complete list of words meeting your typed characters, click the white triangle on the keyboard. There is a shift key which displays upper case numbers. If you look, you'll see that some keys are missing. If you make a line on the keyboard going up or down the keymap changes to special characters (!,@./) and numbers, making the keyboard usable on a terminal. Though, in fairness, I didn't check to see if there are CTRL or ALT keys which might affect that use.

The settings panel is opened by clicking the wrench icon on the Illume slider. In here there are settings for all kinds of things. I won't go in depth with them all, the most “visible” is probably the option to set the slider or icon grid launcher modes.

The Enlightenment settings, as an E17 user would recognize, are kind of a “left over” from the development. These settings are planned to be removed, since the functionality of them is either irrelevant for Openmoko or will be absorbed into other applications.

One of the best features of the Freerunner, in my personal opinion, is the ability to utilize GPS without a non-free driver. Because of this, a basic GPS application has been included with the ASU. It's really very much a placeholder or prototype now, as the only thing it seems to do is display a map that can be zoomed or moved around and prompts that it fails to get a GPS fix. I'm not exactly sure of the name of this application, in all honesty. I'm used to calling it “Diversity” thought I've also heard the name “Splinter” tossed around and I'm not sure of what the distinction, if any, is.

The second big hardware change for the Freerunner was the inclusion of wifi. In order to connect to wireless networks, there is a program called “Campwifi” that once launched, probes for networks. While not viable in this shot, I have managed to connect to an open wifi access point “in range” of my apartment and been assigned an IP address. I personally have no experience with wifi at ALL aside from what I've gleaned from reading tutorials over the last few years so I'm not sure if some of the encryption and authentication schemes are implemented – with only one unsecured wifi AP within range of my apartment, it's not been an issue for me yet. Hopefully I'll be able to check that out more as I'm able to shift away from the 1973 and towards the Freerunner as my day-to-day phone.

Another nifty feature of the ASU is the Assassin package manager, a GUI front end to opkg. Once you launch Assassin, you're presented with a list of categories to choose from, and some of those categories contain items that can be installed. So far, there aren't too many packages listed. Certainly far less than show with an opkg –list. It leaves my mind to speculate as to how this is important – perhaps Assassin will present users with action based installs (Install US Maps for GPS) or be used for more than just software applications for things like ebooks and ringtones. With an open platform, the mind runs amok.

Once an application is selected, there's one big “Touch here to install” button which is very simple to figure out what to do. Once pressed, you're prompted again to confirm at which case the install begins and completes.

From the screenshots you can see I installed “openmoko-messages2”, an application from the 2007.02 line that was based on GTK. At one point, when the switch to Qtopia was announced, there were a lot of GTK fans upset. It seemed to die down a little bit when it became clear that GTK would still be usable on the phone so I wanted to be sure I got a shot running a GTK application. It looks hideous because the GTK theme wasn't installed, but any GTK theme could be applied and hopefully there will be a matching one in the future. If there was any remaining doubt, GTK is alive and well within the ASU framework.

Finally, I'll show a few “glitches”. Firstly, the video processing on the Freerunner is slower than the 1973 thanks to the Glamo. I found that after a while of using the device (and with over 40 screenshots, it was “a while”) the transitions (Illume slides down, launched applications slide down) began getting choppy. I found reducing my frame rate to 10 fps helped this quite a bit but was still noticeable. Additionally, NONE of the Qtopia apps would launch in slider or grid mode. Setting the display variable I was able to launch Qtopia Media Player which complained about lack of Qcop and then segfaulted as I closed it. But you'll see that there are no screenshots of the Qtopia apps since they wouldn't launch “normally” for me.

You'll see below that occasionally applications crash. I've been shown the “Enlightenment crashed” white box a few times, and recovery happened. Every now and then, a half rendered Enlightenment window would pop up but not show me anything good. I had to use my tiny screwdriver stylus to close that box, my fingers are too big for that. Lastly, while earlier versions of the ASU had scrollbars, this version does not. However, when scrolling in certain areas, a distortion appears in the area where a scrollbar would be. These, luckily, appeared in screenshots.

The ASU, while certainly not usable as a daily phone, is certainly full of promise! I'll be tracking this closely and writing reviews as applications become more complete and the images become more functional.

Just a small blurb. An IRC friend of mine today sent in a friend because I frequently talk about the message of liberty. It's kind of awkward, in one sense, because I keep wondering why people go "I've got a friend who is pro-liberty, you should talk to him!". I find it questionable because my friend is ALSO pro-liberty and I wonder if it's simply that he doesn't have the same sort of support network as me. I currently live in Maryland, a place where liberty is seldom brought up and even more infrequently the cause of action. I, however, have been to New Hampshire to visit the Keene area activists because I am a Porcupine and will be moving to New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project. I know there is a functional, rational and active group of people who feel so strongly about freedom that they're comfortable tossing the ideas out there.

So I will begin putting up plugs (what I call advertisements for purposes other than making money) on my site, hopefully in a tasteful manner. I began by putting up a banner for Free Talk Live, a podcast I listen to every day because it is 100% pro-freedom. Ian and Mark, the regular co-hosts are both among the Keene area activists I've met and they're great people who both moved from Florida as part of the Free State Project. They're syndicated on over thirty radio stations across the USA and there's one station in Tobago that picks them up. They're also continually rated #1 podcast in the political/cultural section on a respected podcast ranking site.

Everything on their site is free, you can download their podcast 6 days a week totally free of charge. It's one of the many ways I manage to stay hopeful throughout my day and I thought I should pass that on.

I'm finding it hard to report on the police state in America now. Not because it's disgusting to see peaceful people having violence brought against them. It is disgusting. It's not because the public sits by and ignores or worse, rationalizes and endorses, this activity.

It's hard to report on the police state in America because no self-respecting police state article is complete without references to Nazi Germany. The problem is, the more I think on it, the more I realize that even the Nazi's left people alone if they cow toed. In general, you were permitted to live your life in Nazi Germany as long as you didn't speak or act against the military machine.

The Nazi's didn't jail people for having their grass too high. The Nazis, to the best of my knowledge, didn't turn SWAT teams on people for dancing without a permit.

Tom commented on this article to point me to the Swing Kids, a group of Nazi opposing dancers. Thanks Tom! Unfortunately, I'm not sure if this makes me say "Oh, okay, so maybe the American jackboots aren't worse than Nazis" or if it makes me say "Yep, there's proof. Both the Nazi's and the American jackboots do this.."

That's exactly what's happened in Detroit, Michigan. The Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit (CAID), an art exhibit and gallery that has been open for nearly three decades, was spinning music inspired by or created in Detroit. Detroit, once the motor capital of the world, also has a dazzling history of music, being the birthplace of Motown Records and the genre called “Motown”. Detroit is also know as the birthplace of the techno genre, but that wasn't being celebrated this night. As greats like James Brown, Aretha Franklin and The Meters played, patrons of Funk Night danced freely.

Many patrons here come for the atmosphere. Unlike bars and nightclubs, visitors to CAID are interested in music, fun and dancing. A night out is for the enjoyment of it, not hopes of “hooking up”. CAID patrons tended to be more educated, more intelligent and more artistic than the nightclub crowed shunned by many.

The night's revelry ended as military equipped police kicked the door in, ordered patrons “On the floor!” as they panned the crowd of dancers. As CAID patrons complied, police used their feet to push questioning dissenters into the floor.

After terrifying the dancers, police began issuing tickets for “loitering where alcohol was being served illegally”, 130 tickets total. Outside, unknown to the patrons, police tow vehicles were moving cars to the impound lots in scores. Forty-four cars in total the police seized, charging the people $900 each to reclaim their own property, “generating” $39,600 in “revenue” for the city police department, ignoring entirely the windfall the county will take in if and when those loitering fines are paid.

The reason for the raid? Police raided for “dancing without a permit.” According to Aaron Timlin, a man who walked from Detroit to New York wearing a cardboard box to promote an art exhibition and current executive director of CAID, the police visited him on May 30th and informed him dancing would require a permit.

"Everyone thinks it's ridiculous we have to have a permit for dancing," said Timlin. In response to the raid, the tickets and the theft of vehicles, Timlin is organizing an 8-day long festival with live music and dancing. "We're going to dance without a permit. If we get a ticket, we'll fight the ticket and change the law. People should be able to dance where they want.”.

Yesterday afternoon my wife sent me an instant message that said “It's looking like a hurricane here! It's dark as night and really windy, be prepared, it's moving your way.” For clarity sake, my wife works 50 miles east of where I work, and we both work about 50 miles south of where we live, forming a triangle.

As the storm rolled past her and over me, I didn't think too much of it having experienced storms all of my life. The people around me tend to overreact to storm, however, and there was commotion and bustle which got me out of work, so I'm not exactly complaining.

Come that evening, I decided to get pizza from an out-of-the-way pizza place. It's a place that makes wonderful calzone style sub sandwiches. The chain is from Michigan, where I grew up, but they have franchises around the region. There are a few stores, located several hundred miles away from each other, that have “migrated”; typically as someone from Michigan moved into other areas and missed the chain.

The store is located about 10 or 12 miles southeast of the highway I take on my commute home, so going there tends to be a “special” occasion. Nothing was particularly special about last night, but I was feeling in a good mood and wanted a ham and cheese sub, so I went for it. Traffic to the highway was pretty bad because of the storm and on the George Washington parkway I passed no less than three cars that had been crushed when a downed tree fell onto bumper-to-bumper traffic.

As I was exiting the highway towards the pizza place, I noticed it was unusually dark. For a few seconds I attributed it to the tail-end of the thunderstorm but as I drove closer into the city I realized the area had no electricity. This was more and more apparent as it moved from a single apartment complex to storefront after dark storefront.

There's some kind of strange, privative feeling that settled over me then, a stark reminded that electricity hasn't always existed. I suddenly realized that every movie I've watched about “colonial times” included the odd, persistent “glow” that everything surrounding a major metropolitan area takes. The same luminescence that gives the night sky an orange-red glow. Some call it “light pollution” but that's similar in my mind to calling the Mona Lisa “color pollution”. People like light, and it has a purpose.

Anyway, as I'm driving closer and closer to some central streets in Gaithersburg, I realized something else. My drive was very smooth, which is not normally the case in metro cities.

And then I noticed why.

With no electricity, there were no streetlights.

Now, I'm normally a safe driver, having logged hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of miles (a former professional driver) with no accidents at all. I took my drivers test in over a foot of snow, so it's not always been the greatest conditions either. I'm well aware that other drivers aren't as comfortable behind the wheel as I am.

Another thing to help set the scene is that many American have busy lives, and more so when you get into the city. Gaithersburg is not exactly a “large” city, but in the metro DC area the end of one city is the beginning of another. It could be considered the outer rim of “Washington DC” which means it's decidedly “busy” in it's own right. Gaithersburg residents are busy Americans, which means a large number of them “eat out” at night – what we say when we buy a meal prepared by someone else, usually a restaurant. When the electricity goes out, most people don't have a way to cook food if they have food at all. Normally, you'd get in the car and drive to a local place that has food, but the power was out for a lot of people. This was, after all, a large storm.

So we're talking a large, fairly urban area full of people who must leave the city and go to a city “a few cities” away in order to eat dinner. This means a lot of people were on the road at that moment, most all heading in my general direction; towards the highway.

The notion of rainy, nighttime roads, several thousand cars and no traffic control devices is enough to send chills down my wife's spine, but it was perhaps one of the greatest affirmations of human capacity, and indeed a serious validation of my voluntaryist perspective.

Without the artificial means many people are used to blindly obeying, traffic was moving more efficiently than it normally does. There were no people sitting idle at red lights because the light was red. People with no light pulled to the line, came to a stop, evaluated if they could make the turn safely, and did if they could.

Three lane roads that meet at a 4-way stop worked well too. Rather than sitting in your middle lane as the empty lane next to you had a green arrow, people going in any direction came to a stop, evaluated the situation and acted. In some cases, I noticed a flash of headlights to communicate with other drivers or a wave of the hand to say “Go ahead”.

Free of the lights and signs most people are so accustomed to, there was still order. Free of arbitrary rules, human thought and evaluation created efficiency.

There are very few things more powerful than what I saw last night – because my eyes were open to it I've experienced one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. It was moving in a way that putting words to can't quite describe.

There is no better testament to human capability than seeing order arise when everyone in that situation is obviously treading unfamiliar ground.

What does it take to get this? It takes something jarring before people “wake up”. Watching normal drivers on any given day I see people too confidant, those who will speed through an intersection knowing “the other guy” “has” to stop. Too many people who drive aggressively because they “know” they have the “right of way”. It takes a removal of “all the rules” to remind people that they are responsible for themselves. It takes darkness and uncertainty before they really become aware that they're in control of a ton of metal and enough energy to move that ton of metal at 60 miles per hour. To really make them aware that a press of their foot can send, or stop, their vehicle towards other people doing the same.

It takes people who refuse to blindly follow the direction of a sign, a light or a line. It takes people using critical thinking skills and being responsible. It takes a little bit of uncertainty, concern and respect for other people.

The benefits of this were efficiency. I looked up Gaithersburg on Wikipedia and I see that the metro area has roughly 5 million people in it. I recall that UPS, the parcel delivery company, saved millions of dollars by routing their deliveries to remove left turns.

How much oil might have been saved if all of those 5 million people idled at a red light for 2 seconds less every time they drove to or from work? How much might have been saved if the power went out like that three of four times a year?

When I advocate voluntaryism, I'm often met with fears of chaos. I'm met with fears of chaos at the hands of other human beings. For the longest time, I've held my views with a bit of skepticism – belief with no concrete proof. Until last night. Today, I awoke for the first time confidant and sure that humanity has the capacity to operate without having some government put signs and lights directing their lives every few hundred yards. Today I awoke knowing that human beings, myself and those around me, could operate responsibly. Today I saw on a the “chaos” that the skeptical fear and use government to shield themselves from.

All too frequently I find that most people greatly misunderstand the philosophies of liberty. Perhaps those of use who love liberty are guilty too – very often it seems we are “anti-government” rather than pro-liberty. But as much as those overused cliches are tossed about, I think they still miss the greatest point, one that as a liberty lover even I am just beginning to see is the whole POINT.

Voluntaryists are positive people. We don't dislike the government because they're “big” and we're weak. We don't advocate personal responsibility because we believe we're better suited to survive than others. We don't believe we'd be better off if we had to “cut the dead weight” that many accuse us of believing since we stand opposed to welfare programs.

Voluntaryists are optimists, not pessimists.

Hard to accept? How can someone who believes that we'd be better off without government? How can someone who finds fault in so much be a positive person? Let's dig deep and evaluate our outlook.

Without government, most people think the world would turn to chaos, where the “strong” picked on the “weak”. This assumption believes that without forced order, people want nothing more than to harm other people. They can't explain why they believe this, really. Very few people who use this argument are eager to bash my face in and steal my property, they're good people, it's “the other people” who they fear. A survey of the entire world would find the vast majority of people are good people, but assume everyone else is not. Do you really WANT a society to prosper when you live in fear of “everyone else”?

Voluntaryists reject the idea that “law” is what keeps people “in order”. We love order, just not law. Voluntaryists believe that human beings have specific natural traits – we all must eat, for instance. We all walk in a certain way unless we have a disability. To be human means that certain traits are always inherent. Even our dispositions are affected by our natures, throughout history almost every human being has found ways to communicate with other humans, is this just chance or is there something in our nature that brings this about?

As humans we recognize that each person is inherently different. One individual may be taller, another shorter. One may have red hair, or black or no hair at all. One may be social, another socially awkward. One may be mathematically smart or totally inept at the abstract concepts. There are, for every human being, weaknesses we have and strengths we possess. I, for instance, do poorly with physical and spatial assessment – I can't put a basketball through a hoop with any frequency; I find visualizing complex structures or estimating distance to be difficult. Even my best guess is often “way off”. I have an uncanny ability to recall information. I possess higher abstract reasoning skills than most people I associate with. I'm not better or worse for any of these things, I am merely different.

Those differences are key. Because I can't visualize structures very well, it's difficult for me to build them. Even if I managed that, it would be difficult to make a structure (like my house) sturdy. Because of my weaknesses, I rely on other people in order to prosper. Our differences as human beings are what makes wealth inherent in all of us – from the richest like Bill Gates to the poorest farmer in Africa. To be different is to be valuable.

In building my house, I seek out the value of my neighbor who can visualize and produce elaborate structure. He in turn taps the wealth of the logger who has a green thumb and can make wood, the trucker who can navigate well, the numerically adept accountant who handles the money, the skillful risk analyzer of the bank that financed my home and so on. The differences between humans, and the desire to increase individual wealth means that we must turn to our neighbors. Even the most selfish person gains very very little by hurting and destroying other people.

Humans need not pass laws to ensure order and protection – no law dictates that you hold the door for someone as you're exiting a building, but you'll see this with surprising regularity if you only look. For anyone who doubts the capacity of humans to interact on a voluntary basis, to find exchanges that are mutually beneficial, examine your own daily routine. You'll see the majority of all daily interactions are nothing but these exchanges – my abundant wealth (computer skill, for instance) for your abundant wealth (advertising prowess, for instance) where we BOTH feel we gain in the end. Very few humans fuel their daily routine with violence. Even on an extended network, how many people does the average person know that fuel their daily lives by violence? Voluntary interaction is by far the most common kind, covering the vast majority of our lives.

Those exchanges are the “invisible hand”. The very differences that make us unique create the marketplace.

Why then, do we hate governments? Keeping in mind that all humans have inherent wealth, we look at governments with scorn because governments commit violence and destroy wealth that we can (and indeed, must) tap. When governments pass a law prohibiting the use of drugs, for instance, they're prohibiting a drug dealer from tapping his wealth in a manner that he chooses to. “Surely this man could be growing rice to feed the poor?”. Perhaps he doesn't want to – Richard Stallman could certainly be told to work at Microsoft and it would produce a more stable Windows operating system. But Richard Stallman won't, doesn't want to and should not be forced to give his wealth to Microsoft – he should be free to enter it into the marketplace as he sees best. No person derives their wealth from a single point, either. The only person able to say what would be the best way to enter that wealth into the market is the person who possess it. Remember that the marketplace requires both sides to find benefit in the exchange in such transactions. Would a drug user find the same value in a small baggie of rice? This creates a distortion in the natural balance of wealths possessed by each individual, and artificially devalues certain kinds of wealth.

A single mother, who raises her children in a safe home could create wealth as a babysitter or daycare provider. Because she cares about her own child it is likely that she has the capacity to keep other children safe. This woman possibly can cook as well, and may have some level of capacity as an educator (reading to children is a good thing and does stimulate brain function). Governments “regulating” this

by mandating a certain number of adults to children, a certain width to the doorways (which a residence would always fail), licensing and so on does nothing but make it harder for her to enter her value (she probably has much more time than money) into the marketplace in a manner that would provide her beneficial return. After renovating her home, getting licensing, having inspections and funding all of this, it's likely that she'll not be able to compete price-wise which artificially inflates the wealth-value ratio (called “price”) of her service and devalues her incentive to enter the marketplace at all. Governments, when they aren't actively using violence, diminish and distort wealth.

Sadly, governments tend to use violence as well as the ever-present threats of violence. If a person chooses to exchange his fairly earned (by mutually beneficial exchange of goods and services among willing parties) for a bag of cannabis and smokes it in the privacy of his own home, the government frequently uses force against him. Frequently governments use force to put cannabis smokers in prison or kill them

when they do not cooperate. Imprisoned carpenters are not able to exchange their value, preventing others from tapping it. More so, governments frequently impose theft on non-destructive people in the marketplace, again shifting the natural flow of goods and services artificially, limiting the amount of wealth people in the marketplace can use to build on their existing wealth and in turn reintroduce to the marketplace.

Voluntaryists hate governments because governments initiate violence to back up everything they do. Voluntaryists hate violence because violence harms people. Voluntaryists condemn the harming of other people because free people always produce value. Even when one is stealing from the rich to give to the poor, wealth is destroyed but in the process wealth (be it time, raw materials or human value) is consumed which in the end deprives the marketplace more than the gain that was desired.

We don't dislike the government because they're “big” and we're weak. We dislike governments because we believe everyone is strong and they prevent people from realizing it. We don't advocate personal responsibility because we believe we're better suited to survive than others. We advocate self responsibility because we believe everyone has value and if it be tapped would sustain them. We don't believe we'd be better off if we had to “cut the dead weight” that many accuse us of believing since we stand opposed to welfare programs. We believe that welfare programs simply create excuses not to tap the wealth that people possess. Nobody needs a handout because nobody is valueless.

Since I made my purchase of the Neo1973 back in January, I have been doing almost daily reviews of the Openmoko software and posting those reviews to the device owner's mailing list as well as contributing the reviews to the Wiki.

To continue this, Openmoko Inc. has provided me with a Freerunner sample before they even go on sale to developers. Developers and early adopters don't have to wait too much longer now since mass production has begun. As soon as the distribution centers have product to ship, the Openmoko.com store will begin offering the devices for $399 USD (or a 10-pack at $3,690 as part of the reseller system).

For those unfamiliar, the single biggest feature improvement for most people is Wifi capability though the addition of accellerometers opens some creative (and sometimes goofy) avenues to explore. For Free Software enthusiasts, Openmoko has eliminated the need for a non-free GPS device driver so Freerunner users can now make use of GPS features without comprimising the integrity of their devices.

Below, you can see a detailed selection if images I took as I unpacked my new Freerunner.

Unlike the Neo1973 shipping, the Freerunner is less "geeky" and more chic. As a geek, I liked the clamshell of the 1973's packaging, but I had to appreciate the almost jewlery-like feeling I got from opening the Freerunner's case. My wife loved the Freerunner inset in dense foam, and the clean simple presentation of the device first and foremost. The user sees the device they purchased first, rather than fumbling around with manuals and accessories.

The Freerunner doesn't come without accessories, however.

Tucked underneath the dense foam are several useful accessories, including my personal favorite the AC wall charger. It should be noted that this is a pre-release sample so may not even be indicative of what the developers get. I think it is 100% certain that the AC adapter is included though, which eliminates the Linux PC tether almost required to use a Neo1973. In addition, there are two adapters for international electrical sockets, a 512 MB microSD card, a black headset, a USB cable and a LASER/LED/Pen Stylus.

After unpacking the box, I took several more photos which can be seen in my Openmoko Image Gallery but I'll try to find the best ones.

On the right side of the Freerunner you have at the top the AUX button, a headphone jack and a speaker port. On the left side of the device there's a spot to connect an external GPS antenna. Below that is a mini-USB port with the POWER button directly below with a speaker port at the bottom.

For users of the Neo1973, there are two signifigant visible differences. First, the band around the sides is now black, a change I personally like quite a bit but it entirely cosmetic and predicated on personal preference. If you look carefully, you can see that the AUX and POWER buttons are transluent on the Freerunner. This is because the Freerunner has incorporated 3 colored LED's into the hardware to provide traditional visual cues that many people expect in a mobile device. Blink to indicate an unread message or notify of missed calls, or indicate hardware status like "Connected to a Bluetooth device".

A non-visual change affects the USB port. Though limited to USB 1.1 speeds, the Freerunner's USB port is capable of host-mode operation, opening the door to allow the Freerunner to do things like read USB thumb drives (or privacy keys!). There's some apprehension about how this would affect total battery life, but the possibility exists if the user would like to take advantage of it.

Another noticable difference for users of the Neo1973 is the microSD card and SIM card slots. On the Neo, both cards have a slide-lock system which holds the cards in place. On the Freerunner, only the SIM card is slide lock. The microSD slot has an "arm" on each side that needs to be lifted up and to secure, needs simply to be pressed back in. For me, I had to lift each arm individually in order to insert the microSD card. While not hard at all to use, I was expecting a slide-lock, even after being warned. :) I can say with certainty that the Freerunner's parts are a bit sturdier than the Neo's which is great. I'm a rather large guy with big fingers, so not having to deal with thin delicate metal was nice. The SIM card latches firmly on the Freerunner and stays put.

Once the device was reassembled, I took it over to my PC and plugged up the USB cable. Having been told that one of the engineering goals was to allow the Freerunner to power on with USB power only, I decided to try it. I held down the POWER button a bit longer than the Neo1973 requires and immediately noticed a wonderful difference. On the Neo1973 the screen simply illuminates, going from off to bright instantly, but on the Freerunner, the screen "warms up" by fading. This little touch goes a long way to giving the feel that the device is in fact being polished and prepared for a mass market release.

I did notice, however, that the battery indicator showed an almost full battery immediately. This was fine, but it means I'm still not sure what the Freerunner is capable of doing power wise via USB. The critical thing for me is that the device could boot via USB and a dead battery to allow fast charge mode instead of having to wait an hour like you do with a "sleeping" Neo1973. Time will certainly tell on this one.

Soon I will begin evaluating the ASU (April Software Update) which is the beginning of the new Openmoko software stack which incorporated applications from Qtopia while expanding on them and supporting a whole range of software applications, including some promising things in development for Openmoko.

As I have time to use this new software and come up with review criteria, I will begin writing daily (or so) software reviews similar to the ones I've done before. In addition, I plan to continue to track the progress of the ASU as it's adapted to run on the Neo1973.

I just thought I'd drop an update about my favorite Free Software project. :)

Today I got word from Steve (The production manager) from Openmoko Inc. that mass production of the Openmoko Freerunner - the long awaited GTA02 - will begin May 9th, 2008.

So you have 3 steps: build phone. test phone. ship phone.

Then we take orders. I was very adamament about having phones in the disty ready to ship before I opened the web shop.

This means soon, Openmoko Freerunner will be going on sale. :) More great news!

I'll certainly post again when it's on sale, and once I have mine.

For the past several years, I've been a proud supporter of the Free Software Foundation. The ideals of Free Software have always rung true to me, and I've not only adopted Free Software solutions in my home (even my wife runs GNU/Linux) but advocated for others to evaluate what they find important and adopt free software themselves.

So when I pulled my funding last month from the FSF, I was asked "Why?" from some friends. "Do you not care about free software anymore?"

I still care deeply.

Free Software is, at it's most very basic for me, a matter of property rights. To me, it is an affront to property rights to sell or give something someone and enforce conditional restrictions upon them. If Oster sells you a toaster, they have NO right to prevent you from taking that toaster apart, studying it, adapting it and using those adaptations in the marketplace. Free Software then, has ALWAYS been about me holding my right to study that which is mine - and affirms that everything on my computer is in fact MINE.

Due only in part to Free Software, the activist nature within me has been awoken. Even more than with free software, I feel it's important to stand for what I beleive in and make decisions that reaffirm that believe. The newest belief if that government, in some way shape or form, is the cause of most of the day-to-day gripes I have. That isn't the point of this blog entry though...

What has become clear to me is that the Free Software Foundation is not truly comitted to user freedom. Furthermore, they're quite willing to use the guns of government to enforce their "freedom". Freedom is free market freedom. Freedom is, at it's very base, the right to choose. I'm still firmly comitted to the ideals of Free Software, but I stand against the Free Software Foundation, as I stand against anyone, who feels it's morally justifyable to use the guns of government to enforce compliance with ANYTHING.

If free software is better, free software will stand it's own ground, and hundreds of men with military weaponry can't part with it. Bad ideas, however, don't seen the threat of violence to be abandoned, as it makes no sense to continue with it. Free Software stands and fights it's own battles, using only consumer opinion to oppose Microsoft and Apple and Adobe. I'm quite content to leave it there, and in order to do that I found it necessary to pull my funding of the Free Software Foundation.

Viva Libre!

As a child going through the schools setup, administrated and funded by the US Government (which in turn gets it's money by taxes) I was taught to hate Nazi Germany. Not only did they burn Jews for being Jews but their police state laid waste to all of the values that people faught for and died to protect. Soldier-police could barge into a person's home to carry out searches under the guise of searching for closeted away Jews. This pretense, however, was abandoned as the soldier-police were granted the power to arrest on suspicion that someone had comitted a crime. Asking the solider-police "Why?" was forbidden and would put you on a list of "Enemies of the State".

This invasion of a person's home, lives and livelyhood was evil, something all vigilant Americans shouldn't tolerate.

On the flip side, we chanted the Pledge of Allegiance in a symbol of blind patriotic faith. Once done, we'd sit down and study about how the American patriots rose up against British tyranny to found "the best nation in history". Part of this indoctrination includes the premise that the checks and balances created a nation in which a police state couldn't form.

In that false sense of security, the majority of the population stopped being weary.

April 11th 2008 saw what some media outlets are calling the "largest regional crime crackdown ever taken". Large is an understatement. This undertaking, given the US Military-style name "Operation Sudden Impact" included agents from 53 federal, state, municipal and local agencies to apprehend terrorists.

Terrorism, huh?

Channel 5 News in Memphis, Tennessee reports Federal agencies raided several Memphis businesses in a coordinated effort to find information about possible terrorism ties.

The operation has been named known as "Sudden Impact."

At the same time, it is also being reported that The 100 sheriff's deputies working Saturday night and Sunday morning also recovered 12.2 grams of heroin.

What this says is pretty clear: Drugs are terrorism in the eyes of the police. Futhermore, with the police now working with the military (the National Guard was one of the 53 agencies involved) to "fight crime" AND "fight terrorism" it's pretty clear that under the eyes of the soldier-police crime itself it terrorism.

They issued citations for 202 traffic violations.

Speeders are now terrorists. If there was any doubt that the soldier-police were here in America, armed and ready to act, this should eliminate it all. Speeders are terrorists. "What we have found traditionally is that terrorists are involved in a number of lesser known type crimes," said Mark Luttrell, Shelby County sheriff.

Like the Nazi Ghestapo, all pretense of fighting a public enemy has even gone. The FBI along with hundreds of officers said they are looking for anything out of the ordinary. This statement from a national news outlet (CBS) has a two-fold impact. Firstly, doing something "out of the ordinary" itself constitutes police-soldier attention and secondly, but NOT attaching outrage and disgust to this statement, that it's already become common practice.

Welcome to America, with liberty and justice for all.

This way please.

There's an adage that states "A picture is worth a thousand words". I've had many experiences before where I agreed, but today... Today, I have that experience in the way it was meant to be. I've seen a picture that brings to mind a thousand words that I can't possibly put to paper (so to speak).

This monument was made in New York, USA. It was shipped to the southwest United States and erected on a concrete circle to stand proudly as a symbol of the American friendship with the bordering nation of Mexico. Clearly, the monument was designed to stand tall and allow people to look at it from all sides, walking along the concrete circle and crossing into both the USA and Mexico to see it entirely.

There is another adage that springs to mind, shaded in tones of irony and disdain...

"Good fences make good neighbors."

I'm a Debian user. One of the strongest points in the Debian world is the package management system that is both binary and source based. In addition to the software, Debian maintains strict rules regarding the package management process to ensure high-quality packages with the minimum of conflicts.

Sometimes, however, those conflicts occur especially running the "rolling" testing or unstable distros. Frequently the issues come when updating "sets" that contain many packages, such as KDE or Gnome, when one piece didn't build but other chunks are there. Being able to pull down the source code and build it on your own system before it hits your mirror can be a lifesaver.

In addition to building missing packages, Debian's source based repositories are the only "safe" and "easy" way to mix sources - something I've personally had to do to leverage the large number of packages in GetDeb that are designed for Ubuntu but will build and play nice with Debian systems.

I've been meaning for a LONG time to sit and write out a tutorial on how to easily use the tools, but someone else has done basically that so I'll merely link there and call it a day. :)

http://www.ducea.com/2008/03/06/howto-recompile-debian-packages/

Matt Hartley wrote an article about why he believes Ubuntu beats Debian. My responce is below.

Firstly, let me apologize if I am addressing the wrong Matt Hartley. There is no easy way to contact the author on Juniper Media's sites so I had to resort to Google.

Secondly, I'd like to give my response as a long time GNU/Linux user, developer and Free Software advocate.

You begin you article with a phrase, and a basic assumption, here:

"Like Fedora or OpenSuSe, it was developed with all users in mind. Unfortunately, what many of the geekier users to this day fail to wrap their minds around is that this "Windows thinking" they complain about is more or less about ease of use, versus "choice.""

This is incorrect. You make the assumption that the goal of all GNU/Linux distros is to be "the most popular" and this can't be further from the truth. From Fedora's front page (http://fedoraproject.org) you can find: "Fedora is a Linux-based operating system that showcases the latest in free and open source software. Fedora is always free for anyone to use, modify, and distribute."

This does not imply it's built "for anyone" or "for everyone" - it's built to showcase Free Software; it is incidentally AVAILABLE to everyone.

The OpenSUSE project says this "Promoting the use of Linux everywhere, openSUSE.org provides free, easy access to the world's most usable Linux distribution, OpenSUSE. The OpenSUSE project gives Linux developers and enthusiasts everything they need to get started with Linux." (http://en.opensuse.org/Project_Overview) I will say, however, that (politics aside) SUSE Linux (the non-free version of GNU/Linux packaged and sold by Novell - please note the distinction between that and OpenSUSE) actually manages to hit it's target audience ("average" corporate users) pretty well.

We now come to the Debian project: "The Debian Project is an association of individuals who have made common cause to create a free operating system." (http://www.us.debian.org/intro/about) What can't be seen in this plain text message is that the word "free" links to a page (http://www.us.debian.org/intro/free) explaining about Freedom, not price.

As a side note I'd like to mention a non-Linux based operating system here: OpenBSD. As you may or may not know, OpenBSD releases every version coupled with a song used to address issues in the Free Software community, and often with OpenBSD specifically. The 4.2 release song debuted this week and features a verse:

"Slow and steady wins they say but this is not a race It's not about who takes a prize for first or second place

Imaginary rings of brass Were traded for real goals The vision and the mission lost For those with corporate souls"

That line there has actually made me rethink the use of GNU/Linux in favor of OpenBSD. It seems so many people are focused on GNU/Linux adoption that they've forgotten why GNU/Linux was something people should adopt in the first place.

"The idea that the average new user really ought to consider becoming more educated with Linux in order to merely use it is just plain silly."

We (in America) require that all drivers be licensed - they must demonstrate an understanding of traffic laws and safe operation of the vehicle. This isn't to make their cars "more difficult" to use, these are in place because failure to know and follow these things puts others at risk. I'm not in favor of an "internet license" but I sincerely believe that a basic understanding of computers, how they function and how they interact with OTHER COMPUTERS is crucial to the ability to use them. Failure to understand and attempt to prevent botnets and spam bots is NOT an excuse for allowing your computer to be used by them. Drivers have accidents and even the best sysadmin will see a compromised system in his or her lifetime but when you are horribly lax from a disinterest in learning, you are just as responsible fro the damages you cause others. Education is MY attempt to mitigate that damage.

"I hope that most people remain clueless as it does help make sure that our favorite companies giving away their distributions can still successfully provide tech support as a business for their product. Even for generally basic tasks."

I find it somewhat ironic that Linux and GNU were created (and purposely opened) to prevent such a thing. Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and others stake their fortunes on keeping users restricted. GNU/Linux's sole strength is that it empowers them.

If users had the understanding of "basic tasks" the software economy wouldn't collapse. I'd argue that it may actually make it stronger. You have to know that in my belief of this I was raised by my grandmother who is a technophobe. When cellular phones came out they were "useless" and then "too expensive to be worth it" and then "too confusing" and now it's "impossible to live without". There are a ton of things today that we take for granted, like managing a few gigs worth of music (iPod-like devices), having online video conversations (Both real time via Ekiga and in cut-time with YouTube responses) and filling out a form to have a complete, attractive website generated with no understanding of code (CMS). These things didn't pop up because they're simple, they popped up because people who understood the basics took it a step further. EVERYONE has a point when they say "I don't know" and need to hire someone to meet a need. If we raise the bar a little bit it just means that the support people will be cranking out new innovative products to meet needs.

"If you place most people into the "command line" world while expecting success, you will instead hear the pitter-patter of their feet as they run back to their previous OS."

They'd also be a bit freaked out if you placed them in the operating room during surgery... Which is exactly why we keep them out of the operating room. We don't argue that operating rooms are "failures" because they're messy. The same applies for operating systems. the average user has no real reason to USE a command line and can operate a system without access to it. But for the digital "surgeons" who use the command line to keep servers up, to develop the next great application or to backup, sort and compress THEIR music collection faster than the GUI allows seeing the command line is a GREAT thing, not a failure. Ubuntu allows users to have a CLI-less system - Debian, being not designed for the "average user" includes is and expects you to use it. The only thing I see out of place with that whole situation is people who load Debian expecting an all GUI system. As out of place, I think, as those who grab Windows Vista expecting to do some hardcore NT kernel hacking - a hard thing to do with no source access.

"Who is primarily being driven to Ubuntu over Debian? It appears to be a mix between those who need consistency with their desktop; meaning not being asked which desktop they prefer to use, etc, and those who simply wish to have the bleeding edge thrown at them with their Linux installations."

That may be the group going to Ubuntu, I won't refute that. However, Ubuntu doesn't offer a choke hold on that market. Ubuntu rebases on Debian every 6 months and then goes into "freeze" until a new release hits. This means that users of Debian Sid and users of a "just released today" Ubuntu version aren't too far off and users of that same system in five-and-a-half months will actually have a more bleeding-edge system with Debian than with Ubuntu. The users who install the betas and release candidates would then fall out of the "average" realm into the "tester" realm, which I consider to be a critical part of development.

As to the consistency argument I'll agree and disagree. A default install of Debian is a Gnome install, just as Fedora and Ubuntu are. When you start adding non-default applications (Amarok, k3b) your "consistency" begins decreasing. This is a problem with the divide between Gnome and KDE, not with any strength or weakness in Ubuntu or Debian. It should be noted, however, that making the choice between Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu is not something "average" users have enough information to know without at least SOME basic understanding of the differences. A "Desktop Installation" of Debian, however, is Gnome. You have to do some "extra" work to install KDE or XFCE later.

"Until Ubuntu came along, you had to hold up a stick to see Debian development move."

Actually, I'll agree here both as a Debian server admin and as a Debian desktop user. I recall trying the "new" Warty releases of Ubuntu thinking "This is Debian's stuff just... snazzier". It wasn't newer, it was just flashier. Debian saw a decline in user base and took some notes from Ubuntu without compromising it's original objective - a Free Software operating system.

You seem to hold that up as a reason Ubuntu "beats" Debian right after a blurb about how Ubuntu depends on Debian. I feel this best explains why Debian and Ubuntu COMPLIMENT each other rather than explaining why one wins in COMPETITION with another.

"Yes, that was mean -- get over it,"

Interestingly, because I believe that comment was made in all seriousness AND is factually valid, it's the LEAST "mean" comment in the entire article. :)

"Let me simply go on record as saying that Ubuntu, while a fantastic distro, has little interest in seeing Debian become anything more than yet another cog in the greater Ubuntu machine."

Interesting that half-way through both of our views switch: as a Debian user I feel the need to defend Ubuntu here. :)

Mark Shuttleworth IS Ubuntu in most senses that matter. He manages large things like the project management policy but also weighs in (and sometimes rules) on small things like the default desktop wallpaper (Ubuntu Edgy Knot 3 had the sexiest startup and shutdown sounds in ANY OS, ever, but was pulled by Mark for being too flashy. Incidentally, you can download those sounds from my site: http://www.foreverdean.info/kevin/downloads/Sounds.tar.gz). Mark Shuttleworth was also a Debian developer and was committed to the ideals of the Debian project - namely Free Software. This is evident in the Ubuntu Philosophy (http://www.ubuntu.com/community/ubuntustory/philosophy) and by official and non-official initives by Mark (http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/130 and http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/131).

Mark started Ubuntu mainly because he felt that as good as Debian was, by not focusing on the desktop SPECIFICALLY Debian wouldn't ever been the premier desktop operating system. He contemplated running (as all Developers can do) for Debian Project Leader but ultimately decided that since being the most popular desktop wasn't Debian's goal, he's create a fork that did aspire to that. Any reluctance on EITHER side seems best explained by a conflict in project aims (untested real-time audio patches aren't very important in a stable server install) rather than a desire to have Debian in it's role as a "cog". Mark more than anyone recognizes that as soon as Ubuntu has cogs and not a community it is already a failure.

"Ask any Mac user and they will tell you a thousand reasons why they enjoy their Mac: it just works, the software, etc."

I would dump GNU/Linux in a heartbeat if Mac OS X were liberated today. Not because of the consistent interface, easy to use tools or "it just works" but because it's a damn powerful mash-up of hacker-friendly tools and user-friendly applications. Then again, if Apple released the Cocoa interface as Free Software GNU/Linux would gain that as well and also be build on totally Free Software. Hrm... Perhaps Apple, not Microsoft, holds the "missing key" in making GNU/Linux "adoptable".

"In the end, it comes down to whom the distribution is trying to target. Debian is a fantastic purist distro. And Ubuntu is one of a few great options for complete newbies."

I couldn't agree more.

"However, it's when these two worlds cross within the Linux universe that things get a bit sticky."

I am under the assumption that you make a living as a journalist with geeky passions - that said I understand the point of these tantalizing articles is to grab a reader and keep them reading. However, I appeal right now to the geek in you. When those two goals are mistaken as the same goal it creates tension and misunderstanding. As long as journalists, bloggers and end-users see Debian's "failure" riding on the numbers of users then both Ubuntu and Debian (and in fact, all of GNU/Linux) have been attacked. I mean, sure, Ubuntu has more users than Debian, but Windows has more users than all GNU/Linux and BSD and Mac OS X users combined. Obviously, Windows isn't a measure of ideological, ethical or technical merit but by placing the burden of popularity on a specific distro you imply that having more users makes it a success - a comparison every distro will always fail at.

It would be a beautiful day when users of GNU/Linux stop competing with each other to gain users and start competing with Windows and Mac OS X on the values that are important to them. Ubuntu is more usable than Windows (I'd also argue than Mac) and Debian is more Free than Windows (and Mac). Almost every Debian user and developer would rather see someone use Ubuntu over Windows - in this case both projects gain by working together rather than bashing one another.

We all fail when we get caught up chasing imaginary goals rather than attaining the ones we can.

Something OpenBSD recognizes quite a bit.

-Kevin Dean

I was reading today, like i usually do, and began to get irritated by a phrase that I see repeated over and over: The Linux Community.

Now, this is not to say that there aren't people devoted to GNU/Linux, this is to say that there is not a single community. Communities have common goals, values and ideals. Truthfully, when it comes down to it, GNU/Linux has one of the weakest "communities"; we don't even agree about the purpose of having GNU/Linux!

I use GNU/Linux because it is Free Software. I specifically use Debian because I like the way that it is implimented and because the Debian Project's Free Software Guidelines give me marginal confidence in what I'm installing.

There are people who install SimplyMepis to add non-free software to their system, considering Debian's "lack" of non-free packages to be a problem. "Opinions are like assholes", it's been said, "everyone has one" and they almost always stink.

I don't have a problem with opposing view points, I do, however have a problem with publications (that focus on monetizing GNU/Linux) trying to hone in on the "Linux Community". You're "insight" is misleading in many cases. "The Linux Community" does not want restrictive applications ported to GNU/Linux. "The Linux Community" does not oppose Microsoft's Evil Marketing. "The Linux Comunity" is not vibrant, fragile, touchy, quasi-religious.

We are individuals. We all have our own reasons for using GNU/Linux, and even when some of those reasons overlap, the motivations behind them often differ.

PC World reported today that Fragmentation Threatens Mobile Linux Momentum.

At first glance, I was reading over this article thinking that it may be a prudent argument, of course application developers want their applications to run on many different devices.

It was not until I got to this point that I realized why this argument is completely irrelevant, or at least misleading:

This problem hurts users interested in applications that are incompatible with their handsets. Also affected are software developers who have to make multiple versions of the same application for different handsets.

Having been in the Free Software world for so long, I almost forgot - seriously - that in some parts of the industry, people who WRITE the applications still insist that THEY should be responsible for every aspect of them. Rather than pass the source off to the framework developers, they bear the burden of patching, debugging, testing and deploying the following things.

And then I realized that this article didn't really discuss application vendors, it discussed restrictive application vendors.

Vodaphone "will soon require that all of their handsets run only two or three specific operating systems as a way to ensure that applications will work across all phones".

"Without consolidation, they see costs related to supporting mobile Linux soaring"

Mobile vendors, I have a simple solution - liberate your software! License your applications under a Free Software license and extend you applications to the users of those devices. Nokia can show you a good way to start.

By leveraging the power of the community, you can reduce deployment costs, ensure higher compatibility and, best of all, stop supporting an industry that believes it can exist only by subjugating it's customers.

Viva Libre!

Right now "Open Source" is in a bit of a jam. Why? For years projects/companies have been using the term "Open Source" to describe closed products.

It's a situation Free Software advocates understand dearly - for years we've been trying to explain how the term "Open Source" is confusing when it's goal is to describe the exact same freedoms Open Source supposedly heralded as a business's dream.

"Open Source" is no longer a method to introduce Freedom to business, it's a buzzword to mean "Shareware"... Projects that doesn't view it that way have a fair share of Free Software developers anyway.

I'd argue that true "Open Source" developers should re-adopt the term Free Software - rather than explaining why you're REALLY Open Source, you can explain why it's Free as in Freedom and how that's not bad to business. :)

Anyway, that's not the point of this entry, it's just the train that led to my complaint of the day.

While checking Linux Today over the past several months I've noticed a growing trend. Firstly, they're reporting more anti-freedom opinions that ever before (oddly, there's more ads for Microsoft too...) and increasingly, authors of articles there are not open to receive comments and feedback on what they write.

Check it out yourself... Glance over Linux Today (or any news site, for that matter) and check out the first 5 articles that interest you a bit. Read the articles, and then try to find the e-mail address of the author.

Bloggers tend to have their addresses out more than "News sites", but many bloggers even don't have their addresses easily accessible.

I'm guilty of this, and I didn't even know it.

Bloggers, this is a call to make yourself accessible! You've got opinions you feel important enough to share, you should be open to feedback on them!

News Sites: I don't read your articles if I can't contact your authors. That means that I don't click your ads (as a webmaster, I DO click ads for sites I like - bandwidth, servers and staff aren't free!). That means the VALUE of your site decreases just that much.

The internet is open, like it or not. It's a multi-way platform, like it or not. Don't take without giving, don't speak without listening.

I'd like to, now, thank two people (and give props to their sites) for being not only open, but friendly as well.

Scott Ruecker of LXer.com and Michael Larabel of Phoronix.com. Thanks guys, you set great examples!

My e-mail address is kevin@foreverdean.info - I'll find somewhere to put it to make it easier to find. :D

I came across an article today that caught my interest. It can be found here [OSweekly.com].

Below is my reply, bolded text is quotation from his article.

Matt,

Firstly, thank you for the mainly neutral article on Libre vs restricted software. Granted, I don't expect anyone to be fully neutral but I do expect that legitimate, professional writers address topics in such a way.

I've very firmly in the "purist" category. Many years ago, while running Windows XP I got fed up with constant issues and sought out an alternative. I ended up installing an old (and admittedly pretty bad version) of Debian, perhaps Potato. It didn't suit me, and I ended up installing a few other things. I managed to settle for a while on SimplyMepis, a distro known for blending Libre and restricted software for "ease of use" and "hardware compatibility."

However, I began noticing many of the same issues as I did on Windows, crashes, lockups and glitches. Granted, it was much better than XP, but still annoying enough to hamper my productivity.

As I learned more and more about my system, I came to understand that while GNU/Linux was technically superior, it wasn't something inherent in GNU/Linux itself, but stemmed directly from the freedom protected by the GPL and other Free Software licenses.

I now run 100% software libre on my own computers, including my system at work. I wasn't born some software nut, or raised in a nut case family distrustful of everything, I learned to value my freedom, and see it all as an ethical issue, from HAVING it.

Knowing a bit of my progression, I'd like to address a few things from your article.

"I suspect that many purists are concerned about possible contamination of open source as a whole and fear the potential for quality being lost in the shuffle. In short, who knows what their deal is?"

At this point, it's no longer about technical superiority for me. That's why I moved to GNU/Linux. However, I've come to believe that "Freedom" is the greatest for of superiority. If an operating system supports one hard drive, one video card, one processor and respects my freedom, it's superior to a system that supports ten thousand devices and trods on my freedom. My personal fear when discussing "Closed source" software is that people will adopt GNU/Linux without understanding WHY it's better, and because of this, they won't learn to value their freedom. As more restricted software is "standard" on GNU/Linux, quality will gradully decline - ultimately GNU/Linux will be just as buggy as Windows and just as restrictive. Everyone looses in this case.

"To those who still choose to harbor harsh feelings toward proprietary software, I think I would point out that like it or not, some distros have been and will continue to include it. Now, I’m neither downing this fact or supporting it, I’m merely pointing out that this is a fact of life and we might as well make the best of it."

I don't harbor harsh feelings towards non-free software; I think the vast majority of so-called "purists" don't either. We've come to realize that restricting users is unethical; it violates the concepts of community. Information such as art and science should be shared freely: without benefiting humanity these things are useless endeavours. Instead, our issue is with the mentality that restricting users is okay, and even more, that restricting users should be "common". If Microsoft or Adobe has a program today that is restrictively licensed and tomorrow releases it unchanged under the GPL the unacceptable actions have been removed. The code is the same, but it's now Libre!

"That and to back off when criticizing the distributions that have finally met the needs of the common user through straightforward simplicity."

I'm a bit confused by this statement, truthfully. Both because I'm unsure how you intended it, and because I know I already have strong views about what it implies.

I see nothing wrong with making an operating system simple. I'd not use a system that wasn't simple. This statement was tacked on behind another statement involving "purist" distros which makes me believe you're implying that "Imposing license restrictions on users makes things simpler, more straightforward and better."

This is where I disagree, if that is what the statement meant. Back to my previous point of GNU/Linux getting it's technical superiority as a RESULT of freedom. But to add more, I can't find a single instance where I'd feel it's beneficial to be restricted to do something with my computer.

If a wifi card doesn't have libre drivers then that card is a paperweight, it holds no more value than the materials it is composed of. The problem is that users buy hardware designed for Windows and feel irritated that it doesn't work with GNU/Linux. Having had the opposite happen, I know the irritation. I've been building systems for GNU/Linux for years, and I've got no complaints. On the flipside, I don't expect Windows to install flawlessly on that same system (for the record, i've tried and I have yet to have a sound card work without "tweaking").

"Another factor that is helping in noticing the rise in proprietary software inclusion with specific distributions is the complete lack of open source alternatives."

I disagree here. The issue isn't so much that this software is being added, but that users believe it's needed. The example you proceeded to give was a movie editing application.

While many people will immediatly react to this sentiment, I'll say it. If you can't do it with libre tools the thing shouldn't be done. I have told that to a screenwriter and CG artist who depends on many restrictive tools. I have told that to employeers right before quitting jobs.

"I believe another simple fact of life is that people are going to have to get used to the issue of Windows migrants bringing their need for specific applications along with them. This would certainly explain the explosion is WINE popularity for sure."

I believe it's sad if this is where anyone's settled. I don't feel antipathy to those that use restrictive software, I feel sadness, actually. Nobody likes feeling powerless. America is dependant on "foreign oil" and it makes us feel restricted. We're all on a budget, we have a limited suppy of money, and it rankles everyone at some point. Depending on ONE tools so much that it paralyzes you, and prevents you from making certain decisions is sad and a bit scary to me. Imagine the state of the world if mechanics couldn't choose to use one brand of tools over another, or if doctors were required to use one brand of drug irrespective of it's effectiveness or the side-effects. The same thing applies to software, perhaps even more so considering that alternatives can be created with freely shared knowledge and time.

"So, if we are so quick to allow proprietary applications in WINE, why the resistance and even downright resentment with proprietary applications then? Simple, the rules of the GPL disallow it. This may not seem fair, but regardless, this is simply how it is."

Many people use Wine to run games or restrictive Windows applications. I once asked "If GNU/Linux is a libre OS, why make a tool to run restrictive applications?" I asked the same thing about the existance of the ReactOS project (http://www.reactos.org/).

Wine and ReactOS are essentially bug fixes to the problem of restrictions. In a world with several mature, Libre operating systems, it is understandable to try to introduce people to freedom gradually. Let people try GNU/Linux and bring over that application or two they are still dependant on: in time they'll learn to do without it.

The problem Wine and ReactOS case is that people look at it from the other side: even GNU/Linux has non-free things, so it's not so bad. As more and more people come to GNU/Linux because they CAN bring their non-free apllications the messages, ideas and concepts of Freedom are dilluted more and more.

I firmly believe that GNU/Linux does only ONE thing better than Windows, and that is be a Libre OS. When you sacrifice that, all is lost, because now you have a restrictive, buggy system and it doesn't support "all" of the hardware around.

Thanks for taking the time to read that. :)

-Kevin Dean

I understand fully the idea that libervisco is expressing here, positive thoughts lead to other positive thoughts. It's a clinically proven fact. It's the basis of countless rehabilitation programs, depression support groups and self-help books.

However, the idea that gore, or violence or death are some kind of evil is oddly askew.

When I think of gore, and mindless slaughter, I think of the Holocaust. Of the millions killed and tortured. While this isn't a pleasant thought I think it is good to remember the carnage. Both to prevserve the memories of the victims, and as a warning to the world: this is human nature.

Horror movies are no different, I think. In some way, such stark depeictions of evil remind us that humanity is, by and large, good. In some way, these movies poke fun at the murders and psychopaths of the world. The plots are often so disconnected that it takes a suspension of reality to even follow them.

It's escapism at it's finest. A reminder that we DON'T deal with these things daily. Like a roller coaster ride, it's thrilling, scary and perfectly safe. And when it's all done, you appreciate the steady ground just a little bit more.

Jason kindly pointed me to a letter written by Steve Jobs. Jason's e-mail was titled "Open DRM", which piqued my curiosity like "Boiling Ice" would have. :)

The article can be found here for those who are interested.

Text in italics are quotes from the letter.

With the stunning global success of Apple’s iPod music player and iTunes online music store, some have called for Apple to “open” the digital rights management (DRM) system that Apple uses to protect its music against theft, so that music purchased from iTunes can be played on digital devices purchased from other companies, and protected music purchased from other online music stores can play on iPods.

Steve, this isn't something that is new, or even off the wall. A product that can NOT do this is not protected, it is mangled and defective. Consider, for a moment, how the public would have reacted to the popular iPod had it been accompanied with a brochure explaining what you can and can not do with songs from iTunes. Imagine this brochure was, by law, required to be visible and accessible to the public BEFORE they made such purposes.

To begin, it is useful to remember that all iPods play music that is free of any DRM and encoded in “open” licensable formats such as MP3 and AAC.

Firstly, I am a member of the Free Software community. They say a write must always remember his audience. Giving the source, or specifications to a bit of software is not enough. You must give the FREEDOM to use that source as well.

Secondly, MP3 is not even "open" format. It is restricted just as much as the Apple or Zune DRM schemes. If it's as open as you say, please point me in the direction to a source download of an MP3 encoder that is legal inside the US. There is not one. Like I said, source code and being "open" is not enough. You must also give the Freedom to use it. Patent law in the US prohibits anyone from using the MP3 format without a "Thompson" license, just as your DRM schemes prohibit iTunes songs elsewhere. The same goes for the AAC format, which is merely a container for another patented and RESTRICTED audio format.

If you are sincere about "openness", why not mention Ogg or FLAC, both are availible as Free software, and in addition to liberty, is also free (gratis)?

Music on CDs can be easily imported into the freely-downloadable iTunes jukebox software which runs on both Macs and Windows PCs [..]

I point everyone to The Free Software Definition when they mention that software is free. Those are the binary executables, for Window and Mac, but where is the source code? "Access to the source is a precondition". iTunes is not Free, it's cheap. Furthermore, Apple sells a hardware device. A device which, incidentally, is USB Mass Storage compliant. This means that it will function on ANY computer that can read a standard USB device, such as a hard drive or the iPod. This means GNU/Linux, FreeBSD (from which OS X is derived), GNU/Solaris, BeOS (et cetera) have little problem connecting to, and displaying content on this device. Where are the "freely" available downloads for these operating systems? Where, even, are Apple's links to software for these platforms that can provide the functionality that you deprived the iPod owners of?

encoded into the open AAC or MP3 formats without any DRM. This music can be played on iPods or any other music players that play these open formats.

It is not mentioned here that this is illegal in some nations (such as the United States, which Apple is headquartered in) because of laws lobbied for by the RIAA and MPAA, and passed without consent of the democratic public. The same companies, in fact, that "requested" DRM be incorporated into the iPod in the first place, as Mr. Jobs later states himself.

The solution was to create a DRM system, which envelopes each song purchased from the iTunes store in special and secret software so that it cannot be played on unauthorized devices.

Can you honestly speak that sentence without feeling chilled to the core? I can not read it without. "Secrets" do not belong in software. Doing so deprives users the right to retain control of their OWN PROPERTY. If Ford or GM put in place systems designed to make it impossible for drivers to see, for instance, the type of coolant in their radiator, they would be rejected by the automotive community faster than they could produce such cars. The ONLY reason such things haven't happened YET in the software world is because the general populace is being lied to and kept innocent of the "secret". I paraphrase a top Disney executive who said "If customers realize there is DRM, we've already lost.". Please be mindful of the Pixar/Apple/Disney connection...

Secondly, who determines weither a device is authorized? If your answer was anything other than "The owner of that device" you're dead wrong. If I buy a CD, it better damn well play in a CD player I build myself, else it's defective. I ask you, can iTunes do that when DRM is in place? Then what does that make an Apple product??? Defective!

a key provision of our agreements with the music companies is that if our DRM system is compromised and their music becomes playable on unauthorized devices, we have only a small number of weeks to fix the problem or they can withdraw their entire music catalog from our iTunes store.

It must suck salty donkey testicles to feel so powerless to a monopolistic regime, doesn't it? The users feel it even worse!

To prevent illegal copies, DRM systems must allow only authorized devices to play the protected music.

False! To prevent illegal copies, the device must know the intent of the person making the copy, and know that that intent will never EVER change. And as far as I know, the product is the iPod, not iGod.

If a copy of a DRM protected song is posted on the Internet, it should not be able to play on a downloader’s computer or portable music device.

Another customer-squashing falsehood. With the use of public-private key encryption it is possible to post files online, even mass distribute them, and ensure that ONLY the people that content is intended for are able to use them. To prove the point, here is an encrypted file with a polite message to Mr. Jobs, should he be able to access it.

This kind of protection, limited to the customer, not the device, is perhaps as close to the only form of "DRM" I might find acceptible. However, there is one problem. Like ALL property I own, there will come a point where I may wish to transfer ownership of this property. Even THIS can't grant that right, and as such, is flawed to the point of being unusable.

In other words, even if one uses the most sophisticated cryptographic locks to protect the actual music, one must still “hide” the keys which unlock the music on the user’s computer or portable music player.

Interesting you should use this arguement. :) I personally posed a VERY similar question to Richard Stallman himself on this... "At what point" I asked, "does the pursuit of privacy cross the line into DRM? Is it the intent of the distributor, or the technology that is employed, or somehting else?" I suppose I was wondering if it's inherently evil for me to provide a computer to someone, but never give them the password. His answer was simple. So simple in fact, that I didn't think it could be real. Geeze, how stupid I was then. His reply was, and I quote "Freedom is control over your own life. Power is control over other people's lives. Privacy protection is the former, while DRM is the latter. " Thank you RMS!

The "Big Four" record companies Mr. Jobs refered to were distributing content. At the point they give that product to the customer, they loose control over it. The same way, in fact, that Smith & Wesson looses control over IT'S products when in the hands of the customer. The same way GM and Ford and McDonald's and every other company, craftsman and product producer on the planet has for time immemorial. If they wished to control how it was used by PAYING customers, they should not have sold it. That's a very simple tenant of property ownership. Putting a password on your own content, that's control. Putting a password on someone ELSE'S property is restriction. Put this in perspective; without a warrant the police can not seize your home, or your car, or your cell phone. Why then, is it legal to allow a corporation to seize control of property you legally and rightfully purchased? I don't know, but I speak strongly when I say it is immoral.

No one has ever implemented a DRM system that does not depend on such secrets for its operation.

Exactly. DRM is intended to restrict, not protect. Secrets allow restriction, not protection.

The problem, of course, is that there are many smart people in the world, some with a lot of time on their hands, who love to discover such secrets and publish a way for everyone to get free (and stolen) music.

Firstly, when you consider "many smart people" to be a "problem", you've got a very skewed idea of humanity. What does that say about your customers? "Many" of which own iPods? Do you cater to the non-problem idiots? Or are your smart customers "problems"?

Before and during the American Civil War there were a lot of people with "a lot of time on their hands". Most of them were fighting for Freedom, to liberate black American slaves. They fought for Freedom. It takes a lot of time, people opposing freedom often have a lot of resources. Even at that time, they were seen as "radicals" to bring down "the system" and destroy the economy. Interesting parallels, really.

Granted, there are SOME people who will bypass the DRM to take advantage of that copywritten content, but those people are a very small minority, and compared to the loss of customers because of the choice to restrict Freedom, they do little damage.

I state here and now, so nobody can ever say people do nothing... I do not own an iPod, and despite my wife's wishes to get one, I will not spend my money on it. There, that's one customer, and living proof that DRM has cost you business.

we have given users the most liberal usage rights available in the industry for legally downloaded music.

Unlimited access to content I paid for. Playable on any device I own. Without time limits (save natural, reversable degradation), without limit to number of times played, and fully transferable should I choose to do so. Anything shy of that is restrictive, not "liberal". Liberal would be unrestricted and gratis. Your idea of "liberal" is not good enough.

Music purchased from Microsoft’s Zune store will only play on Zune players; music purchased from Sony’s Connect store will only play on Sony’s players; and music purchased from Apple’s iTunes store will only play on iPods.

And all three companies continue to profit from this, while customers suffer. The kicker? All three companies could capitalize on the competitors marketshare if ONLY the products were interoperable. Imagine, when a customer chooses YOUR business because of better quality, better selection or better service rather than because of what device they were given for Christmas.

[...] customers are being well served with a continuing stream of innovative products and a wide variety of choices.

I disagree. Customers are being restricted because of the current state of the industry. When a customer looses the right of CHOICE in a free market economy, there is nothing WORSE. SHAME if you believe it works well.

Today’s most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full. This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. The remaining 97% of the music is unprotected and playable on any player that can play the open formats.

Reading between the lines, I extrapolate "The majority of music stored on iPods is not downloaded from industry approved methods, namely, iTunes." Let's be extremely generous and say that three-quarters of that non-iTunes content comes from local singers, or indie bands, or the enlightened artists who choose not to allow the recording industry to control their art. This content would all be legal, and freely distributable. The other 24.25 percent would have to be accounted for with music Mr. Jobs refered to above as "free (and stolen)".

Given these figures and your words... "Research tells us that the average iPod" contains more "stolen" music than "is purchased from the iTunes store [...]".

iPod users are clearly not locked into the iTunes store to acquire their music.

With all of those figures, you failed to explain how much music on iPods is from Apple's competitors, such as Microsoft's or Sony's respective music stores.

The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. [...] This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat.

Finally, something I can't shoot down.

we would switch to selling only DRM-free music on our iTunes store. Every iPod ever made will play this DRM-free music.

Just a hypothetical, in the event that this ever happens. Will these restriction free iTunes then be able to remove or disable to DRM on songs already purchased?

Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. [...] Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly.

There are a LOT of people who oppose DRM. Perhaps visit Defective By Design. To see a more glaring impact of those of us resisting, have a quick look at an Amazon.com listing for the iPod. Notice that at the time of writing this item was tagged 33 times as "Defective By Design". It should alarm Apple that the most popular consumer electronic device of the millenium (for now, let's give the iPod props for sales. ) is identified not by it's features, but it's limitations.

WAKE UP APPLE. There are potential customers that will not buy your product because of DRM.

Steve Jobs challenged the populace to lobby the Music Industry and demand that they remove the chains of Digital Rights Mutilation. Now, I challenge Apple.

If protecting user Freedom is important to you, and (as Steve Jobs said himself) providing the best situation for customers, refuse to do business with companies using DRM.

This might seem stupid business sense at first glance, but one you realize the impact of iTunes, you'll see how crucial you are. EMI (one of the big four) has already begin limited DRM unencumbered songs. Refuse to do business with them until they go all the way. With EMI out of iTunes, they'll listen. Like Apple, they do not want to loose out on a booming industry. The same stands for BMG, Sony and Universal as well.

Once Apple refuses to push DRM, the industry will respond. We'll then be a huge step closer to the utopia that Steve mentioned. Customers will be served better.

Maybe then, Apple will be able to sleep with itself at night.

-Kevin Dean