The site does a thorough job of explaining the meaning and importance of this, but I will offer a brief summary here.

Many, if not most, people use proprietary software from companies like Microsoft and Adobe to create, edit, and manage their documents. Microsoft Office applications, Adobe Photoshop, and many others, create letters, spreadsheets and photos which are saved in a secret format known only to the company that created it. That’s great for the company that wants to control your access to your own data, determine how (and if) you can share it with others, and force you to upgrade if you want to keep support for your documents. Not so great for you, the creator/owner/manager of all these documents.

Another important issue is the preservation of documents in the digital era. There are documents from millennia gone by preserved on paper, scrolls, clay pots, even stone. The earliest known cave paintings are accessible to all who can see them. Who will read your Microsoft Word ’97 novel even five years from now?

I urge you to visit http://documentfreedom.org to learn more about the importance of document liberation. Start by freeing your own documents, then shine the light of freedom to light the way for others. Namaste.

A post on Mashable brought this to my attention. It should be no surprise that a CA Linux startup, A La Mobile, is the first to offer a suite of apps based on Android, Google’s mobile platform. Let’s hope open source can play an increasingly important role in the mobile and handheld scene. I’m interested to see what Android looks like. Googleis pushing hard to become the backbone of all our connectivity; I’m suspicious of their methods. The licensing issues in Android are fuzzy. Based on the Linux 2.6 kernel and other code released under various open source licenses, Android can never be “nailed down tight”, a condition Morgan Gillis claims is necessary for adoption by handset makers.

What we need next is clear to me: an open source hardware platform for mobile devices. The PC was open sourced by IBM in the 80’s, allowing other manufacturers, large and small, to offer competing designs. This was the single biggest factor in the success of the technology. Now, one of these mobile hardware companies with deep pockets needs to step up and release a design spec that can be developed openly.

Why can’t I purchase or build my own mobile device and choose my own OS and applications, select a carrier and enjoy communicating my way? Why do the carriers and handset makers dictate what my mobile communication experience will be? Wait a minute, I have an idea for a new project!

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Tags: Android, mobile, Linux, open source, A La Mobile

I don’t see how it can be a violation of any reasonable TOS for a user to employ a script to gather the information stored in their own account, the same data that could be harvested with a pencil and paper. The only possible issue is the load on the servers, not data ownership. Who owns the “relationship data” that exists in my cell phone? T-Mobile? Samsung? Ridiculous! I own it. It doesn’t matter that I used the tools and services these companies provided to make new social connections. They were paid for the use of those tools for that very purpose.

If the system load is the issue, that is a valid concern. The burden is on the providers of the service to offer a way to export your data in a way that taxes the system minimally. If they can’t afford to do this in the context of a free service, perhaps they need to reexamine their business model.

In Jean-Jacques Rousseau‘s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, he states:

The first man, who, after enclosing a piece of ground, took it into his head to say, “This is mine,” and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, how many wars, how many murders, how many misfortunes and horrors, would that man have saved the human species, who pulling up the stakes or filling up the ditches should have cried to his fellows: Be sure not to listen to this imposter; you are lost, if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong equally to us all, and the earth itself to nobody!

Why do I get the feeling he somehow had Bill Gates , et al, in mind!

But there is, of course, a second meaning to the subject of this post: LAMP – the Linux/Apache/MySQL/(Perl, PHP, Python) server platform on which so many web sites (including this one) are built. All free, as in free speech and as in free beer. It is BOTH of these types of freedom that have allowed the growth of the Internet and the spread of the free interchange of ideas (both good and bad) that is the byproduct of the Internet’s popularity.

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