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January 31, 2002 |
From: tres <class5@pacbell.net> To: letters@lwn.net Subject: Happy Birthday Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 04:02:26 -0700 Linux Weekly news, known to me as Linux Daily/Hourly/Whenever news, is one of my favorite sites for Linux and Open Source/Free Software news. I probably refresh http://lwn.net/daily 2-3 times per day; just to see 'What's up'. I really like the fact that the legal and political issues are given equal weight with the technical and business issues as they are all equally critical to the ongoing success of all free and open projects. As distasteful and uncomfortable as this side of the revolution is at times we must all, at the very least, remain aware of the issues. If possible write a letter or call your elected representative and express your views. Free and open projects are disruptive technologies and big business knows this. They will use all the means at their disposal, including lobbying Congress, to stifle this change in thinking. Although we don't have the financial resources that these Mega-Corporations have, we have something that they don't: numbers. It is time that we started to wield that weapon more often. If we can't get the attention of the politicians as a few people that 'think outside the box' then we should try to get the attention of the media. Perhaps if we can get their attention then they can get that of the politicians. Most of them have web sites and email addresses. If enough people ask the question then it might get asked on the 6:00 news! </Rant> Sorry about that. The real reason of this letter is to say to LWN: Thanks and Happy Birthday. GREAT SITE!!! Tres | ||
From: <bodvar@atlanta.is> To: letters@lwn.net Subject: LWN turns four -- thanks Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 09:30:15 -0000 In your Editorial, Jan. 24, you say: "Meanwhile, we would like to say "thank you" to all of our readers who have kept us going for so long. Writing for this audience is a great pleasure." IMHO, great thanks should go to the founder, manager, teacher, mentor and principal of the free "Basic Linux Training" course, Mr. Henry White (http://www.basiclinux.net), who has from the beginning made this e-mag a weekly feature and thus inspired many to visit the site. Also my thanks to you for holding out such a fine publication. I feel that some of the best things you are doing, besides writing fine articles, is giving references to articles of other publications. I can always rely on LWN to give me the essence of what is going on in the Linux community and its surroundings. Thursdays are now, with or without Mr. White's postings, the day of visiting LWN. Bodvar Bjorgvinsson Iceland. mailto:bodv@vortex.is | ||
From: John McKown <joarmc@swbell.net> To: letters@lwn.net Subject: DeCSS and "fast cars" Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 14:13:19 -0600 (CST) From what I just read, Jon Johansen is being detained for "contributory copyright infringement." I guess this is because he is associated with DeCSS and the MPAA insists that this can be used to "pirate" DVDs. First, is there any evidence that it has been used in this way? And another thing, why doesn't somebody make law enforcement go after all the car designers and manufacturers? I know very well that they deliberately and with intent design and manufacture vehicles which can exceed even the highest speed limit in the US. These people must be stopped from doing this. Even their ads on TV suggest this as possible. Have you seen many car ads where the driver is driving safely? No, they look like they'r in the Baja rally, but on a normal street. Why should I, as the user of a "fast car" be the only one responsible for my actions in its use? I think that the next time I get a speeding ticket, I will have my lawyer supoena Mazda as a co-defendant since the manufactured and sold a car which was capable of being used to break the law. -- John McKown | ||
From: Grant Taylor <gtaylor@picante.com> To: letters@lwn.net Subject: Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 16:57:10 -0500 > HP Recently released its hpijs inkjet printer driver under a BSD > license, making it the first free printer driver to come from a > printer manufacturer. It's not the first free driver at all! HP, Samsung, and undoubtedly other vendors have provided free drivers for various printers before. HP's driver is interesting because it covers almost all of their current inkjet line. This is an order of magnitude better than previous one-printer drivers, and immeasurably better than the one-printer binary-only nonfree drivers from other vendors. With this work HP has also provided the germ of a new Ghostscript driver interface which will make driver installation substantially easier in the future; this "hidden" accomplishment is worth pointing out, too. -- Grant Taylor - http://www.picante.com/~gtaylor/ Linux Printing Website and HOWTO: http://www.linuxprinting.org/ | ||
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