Terminator, The Matrix, I Robot and many other movies deal with an exciting topic of what happens when humans gain the powers promised by a certain technology. Will the robots rebel? Could internet turn into SkyNet? Will advanced nano technology allow building bombs that make nuclear weapons seem like sticks and stones? What about merging ourselves with technology?
In so many ways further technological development seems akin to playing with fire and powers once only prescribed to gods. Are we up to the challenge? Are we ready? And if not, how can we become ready? Technology could give us the power to destroy, but it could also give us the power to create a world of unimaginable prosperity and freedom. It could be used to enslave, but also to liberate the potential of each individual.
We need to identify the *good* uses of technology and we need to evolve our social and cultural mentality to the point where destruction and enslavement wont even be a temptation anymore. If that ideal is an utopia, if it cannot be reached then perhaps we are already doomed.
A long coming interview between the Libervis Community and Sun Microsystems representative is finally here. We have asked Patrick Finch, the leader of the OpenSolaris Content project and one of the guys working on FLOSS within the company, questions which we believe might be of interest to anyone who uses or values Free Software.
An article that has recently been published by the Fortune magazine and through CNNMoney.com called "Microsoft takes on the free world" is one I would regard as historic. In three pages it clearly and honestly describes what is happening between Microsoft and the Free Software movement revealing certain points which are rarely seen in the mainstream media. After reading the article one can't be too confident that Microsoft will succeed, which inspires confidence to the opposite; that the Free Software revolution is imminent.
After celebrations over Dell announcing that it will soon be selling GNU/Linux Ubuntu desktops and laptops we are seeing a bit of an uproar after, just a week later, Microsoft announced it's partnership with Dell akin to the one it made with Novell last November.
When I first read Kathy Sierra's last blog entry I felt angered and annoyed, to a point of just wishing to stay agnostic to the whole case as a display of primitivism that the collective intelligence of the blogosphere will resolve by itself.
Let's break this thick glass once and for all. Patching free operating systems like GNU/Linux with proprietary pieces is not mandatory for world prevalence. And it sure is not mandatory for basic functioning of the system anymore either, so you can't exactly use the "RMS used proprietary UNIX to build GNU" argument anymore. We have the complete Free OS. We have three of them. Now we have to go further and build a market around them, on our own or with help of others. We have to do it either way.
1. Mixing oil with water: the prevalence of a mixed operating environment
