handyfloss

Yesterday I watched Domino, a movie loosely based on the life of a bounty-hunter woman, played by Keira Knightley.

Where can I start describing the movie? Take a look at the IMDb review I link above for a good description. I agree to some extent with that review, in that the movie is like a videoclip/reality show mixture, and the video and music setup is… different. I didn’t like the brave use of the photography they do in the movie, with unfocused shots and a camera movement akin to that of a monkey on crack, but I have to admit it is well done.

The IMDb review says the movie is about attitudes and roles, not about a plot… sorry man, but a movie is a plot. Otherwise it is a videoclip, a documentary or whatever. When I watch a movie, I want a story to be told and understood by the audience. In this regard, Domino fails misserably. There is a story (I think), but one is hard pressed to follow it, not because it is complex, but because it is not well told. I believe it is not the director’s intention, either.

To summarize, a movie I can not recommend. Could make a better use of the action scenes, develop the plot more, and shoot the video more “conventionally”. But then, it would not be Domino.

Well, probably not first, and not a big “use” either, but still…

Yesterday I mistakenly deleted an important file, and hadn’t noticed until 10 minutes ago. I make daily backups, using rsync, as I mentioned some time ago, in this blog entry.

The “bad” part is that, since the error was made yesterday, the last backup (made last night) was “corrupted” (had the file missing). The good part is that I make incremental daily backups of the last seven days, then weekly of the last 4 weeks, then monthly of the last 6 months (son-father-grandfather backup). I just checked the backup of the day before yesterday, and there it was the deleted file!

You can make an idea of the efficency of incremental backups if I say that I keep 15 backups of my home/ directory (1 “current”, 7 daily, 4 weekly, 3 montly, because I started 3 months ago) in two different machines (appart from my own, of course), which would amount to about 43GB in each machine, were they all complete copies. Being as they are incremental, they actually fill up 5.9GB of disk space in either machine (more than 7 times less).

For an idea of what incremental backups are, read this link of my blog entry. Actually, I also started a Wikipedia entry for “incremental backup”. Maybe you can watch it before someone sensible deletes it (it was a redirection to the backup rotation scheme” entry, but I do not think they are the same thing). You could even add something to that entry, to make it more complete.

Yesterday I watched Scary Movie 4. Yes, it is not the kind of movie I’d choose in ideal conditions, but first there wasn’t really much to choose from, and second I went to the cinema with a friend who was less than willing to watch something like The road to Guantanamo, or The assassination of Richard Nixon. So Scary Movie 4 be it.

At this point, I guess everyone knows that the Scary Movie series satirizes the horror movies in general, making parodies of some selected ones (for example, for that one they chose War of the worlds, The Village, and Saw I and II). Not only they poke fun at some movies, but also to popular characters as the stupid scientology advocate Tom Cruise, and the incredibly inept and fanatic George Bush, elected head of the UN “for his genuine wit”, as they say, ironically, in the movie. These two persons were elected among the five dumbest persons in the USA last year by their fellow citizens, by the way.

As for the movie itself, it is funny, but not wicked funny. It has a couple of really good spoofs, but they try to make so many jokes, about so many movies/characters, that 75% of the jokes are a bit flat.

Not a bad movie, but definitely perfectible.

The times, they are a-changing…

Indeed they are! The Dylan I saw and heard in the concert he gave yesterday in the Zurriola beach was not the one who earned his glory, but one living of his glory.

His voice has always been singular, but yesterday it was just degradated. He never let the camera get closer than a certain point, and we were so far away from the scenario that the giant panels were our only hope of catching a sight of his face. We never did.

He also made the whole performance seated in front of the piano, didn’t even introduce himself in the beginning, and actually said nothing during all the concert, except near the end, when he gave a brief speech of which I understood nothing.

I am no fanatic of Dylan, but I do like his most famous songs (“Blowing in the wind”, “Mr. Tambourine Man”, “Knocking on Heaven’s door”, “Like a rolling stone”), but also some others that are not that famous (“The times, they are a-changing”, “Don’t think twice, it’s all right”, “It ain’t me, babe”, “Maggie’s farm”…). However, yesterday he sang such twisted versions of them, that no one managed to identify half of them. He began with, The times, they are a-changing and Maggie’s farm, if I recall correctly… and I identified them by the lyrics, not the music. When he played Mr. Tambourine Man, the song was 3/4 through by the time people would recognize it.

Before Dylan played, Mikel Laboa did. He is getting really old, and it shows. He sang quite correctly (faithfull to his particular style, that not everyone understands), but his mental and physical health are deteriorating. Anyway, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy his songs. Some more than other, but all in all it was fine.

Como tantas otras veces en muchos sitios, he mandado un comentario kilométrico a Kriptópolis, y me ha apetecido copiarlo aquí (para vanagloriarme de los listo que soy, y alimentar mi ego, sí. Si tienes un problema con ello, monta tu propio blog, jejeje).

El post es una respuesta a otro comentario, cuyos “argumentos” también cito (En cursiva):

“[…] mil ojos no tienen porque ver más que dos […] eso es como decir que por decir mil personas que una pared es negra, tienen más razón que yo, que digo que es blanca.”

Si mil personas dicen que una pared es negra, y tú dices que es blanca, pero yo NO he visto la pared… lo siento, pero me fío más de 1000 desconocidos que de uno. Presuponer que los 1000 tienen que equivocarse es mucho suponer, ¿no?.

Es más, tienes razón: ni me fío de ti, ni me fío de los 1000 (malditos mentirosos). Quiero ver la pared yo. ¿Puedo?. Si la pared es libre sí. Si es privativa, no.

“Además lo que se hizo con Linux, gcc etc lo puede hacer cualquier empresa de software, se llama auditar software y no hace falta que sea software libre, pagas y ellos te lo revisan”

Dime a qué empresa pago para que me audite el código de Windows. ¡Ah, perdona, no puedo! Va a ser que es ILEGAL acceder a ese código… Te refieres a que Microsoft pida la auditoría… ya, ya. Me quedo más tranquilo.

“y para eso ningún loco se va a mirar el código entero, vamos el que se crea que de verdad se han mirado todo el código fuente vive en el mundo de yupi. Lo que se utiliza es la regla 80-20 (o 20-80 da igual), que viene a decir que el 80% de los fallos se concentran en el 20% de los módulos, y eso es lo que miran, el 20% del código, obviamente siguiendo ciertos criterios para seleccionar los módulos más propensos a errores.”

Perdona, pero tú sí que vives en los mundos de Yupi. El 80% de los errores estará en el 20% del código, pero NADIE sabe en qué 20%. Si se supiera no serían errores. Por eso hay que mirar TODO.

¡Pero claro que nadie se mira todo! Pero sí que es cierto que ENTRE TODOS MIRAMOS TODO. Es exáctamente igual que en las publicaciones científicas: nadie se lee ni un 0.01% de las revistas que salen (ni siquiera las de su campo), pero intenta colar una mentirijilla y ya verás como hay algún cabrito en Wisconsin o Kuala Lumpur que te pilla (suponiendo que la mentira pasara el filtro de los referees y sea publicada).

“Lo de que da más seguridad, más confianza, es indiscutible, pero que por eso sea más seguro es perfectamente discutible.”

Estás confundiendo causa con efecto: da más confianza porque es más seguro, no al revés. ¿Ves cómo la frase así tiene más sentido?

“También es verdad que al ser abierto es más fácil encontrar los bugs, para bien y para mal (no todos son buenos samaritanos que informan inmediatamente del bug al equipo de desarrolladores o directamente proporcionan un parche, habrá quien se lo calle y se dedique a explotarlo) como dice UnAlien.”

Esto es una tontería. Por cada persona que se guarde para sí el error que encuentre habrá 10 que lo reporten, y otros 10 que estarán dispuestos a arreglarlo. Si no hay dispuestos 10 a arreglarlo, es que a nadie le interesa. Aunque fuera al revés, y hubiera 10 descubridores maliciosos por cada “buen samaritano” (que NO es así), ese buen samaritano sería suficiente, con tal de que el software sea libre, y el samaritano pueda 1) encontrar la solución, porque puede leer el código, 2) corregir el error, porque puede cambiar el código y 3) distribuir las correcciones, porque la licencia lo permite.

“Si se encuentran más bugs en IExplorer es porque compensa más dedicarle esfuerzo pues tiene más cuota de mercado, igual que a Window$. Aunque no dudo que de disponer del código podría ser terrible.”

Si se encuentran más bugs en IE es porque los tiene (en primer lugar), y porque sólo los desarrolladores pueden corregirlos, si les da la gana y cuando les dé la gana, con lo cual la vida de los bugs es larga y fructífera.

Y también vale esto para los virus. Nadie se dedica a hacer un virus para una pieza de software que otras 1000 personas van a tardar 2 días en parchear. Simplemente no merece la pena. Para cuando “sacas” tu virus, el programa ya ha cambiado. Un desarrollador de virus necesita una plataforma estática que atacar, que sepa que va a ser vulnerable suficiente tiempo para que el virus haga algo (e incluso le dé tiempo a él a programarlo). Es curioso que creamos que los 5 niñatos que andan haciendo virus por diversión sí tienen capacidades superhumanas para leerse TODO el código y programar virus al instante, mientras que entre los 100000 usuarios de ese programa, a los cuales les parece vital su seguridad, no son capaces de leerlo y arreglarlo.

“JMG, no te engañes, esos cientos de programadores si ven el código es porque trabajan en alguna parte de él, sino olvidate, te puedo asegurar que si algo odia un programador es revisar y probar código, hacerlo sin que te paguen molesta, pero es que tener que ver código de otro eso ya es un castigo. Por eso, entre otras cosas, se intentan seguir metodologías de forma extricta, porque si esperas que un programador lo haga por gusto vas bueno.”

Correcto. Tienes mucha razón, depurar código jode mogollón. Pero no más que tener que usar un programa defectuoso que sabes cómo arreglar, pero su estúpida licencia te lo impide.

Te falla una cosa: en el software libre no hay esa distinción artificial entre programador y usuario. El programador no es un pringao que se lo curra para otros… El programador es él mismo un usuario, que quiere que el programa funcione, y como otro no lo arregla (o aunque también otro lo arregle), lo intenta arreglar él. Además puede elegir a qué proyectos contribuye, y de qué manera, cosa que ayuda muchísimo a la motivación.

“Asociar calidad o seguridad con software libre es totalmente incorrecto, el software es bueno si se hace bien”

Asociar seguridad con conducir sobrio es totalmente incorrecto; una conducción es segura cuando se conduce bien, independientemente de que vayas ebrio.

“y auditar software lo puede hacer cualquiera,”

¿Cómo? Software Libre lo puede auditar cualquiera, pero el propietario NO. ¿Sabes eso, no?

“Y esto no es que lo diga yo, es que también he asistido a una conferencia larguilla de Stallman, y he leido algunas entrevistas y articulos suyos y JAMÁS dice que el software libre sea mejor o más seguro que el privativo,”

Pues hablaremos de otro Stallman, porque yo también he asistido a una conferencia suya (podéis ver la entrada en mi blog), y dijo cosas muy interesantes sobre el tema, como por ejemplo relato en mi blog bajo los títulos “Funcionalidades malas” y “Errores”.

Claro que igual tú no defines “libre de malware” como “mejor”.

“simplemente que es “mejor para el usuario” en el sentido de que es libre, que te dá libertad, y es lo normal, ese tio sabe de informática y afirmar que tiene mayor calidad simplemente por licenciarlo bajo GPL, BSD etc sería mentirse a sí mismo, una licencia es una licencia, ¡nada más! Esto ya parece una religión, demasiada fé ciega.”

Cierto, Stallman da énfasis a la libertad (independientemente de la calidad).

Pero tu postura de decir que “afirmar que tiene mayor calidad simplemente por licenciarlo bajo GPL es estúpido” es un argumento de hombre de paja. Criticas una bufonada que atribuyes a gente que no la ha dicho. La licencia no cambia nada de la seguridad ni calidad del programa. Directamente. ¡Pero indirectamente claro que lo hace! Te estamos diciendo los mecanismos que ciertas licencias libres permiten, y gracias a los cuales el SL puede ser mejor, y sigues sin captarlo. Es como decir que dar periódicos grátis puede ayudar a que la gente esté mejor informada, y tú digas que igualmente la gente puede decidir seguir sin leer las noticias.

“el saber nos hace libres”

No es del todo cierto. El saber y el poder actuar según ese conocimiento, sin coacciones ni imposiciones. De nada me vale saber cómo arreglar un bug del IE, si su licencia no me permite que lo haga.

They say, “Evil prevails when good men fail to act.” What they ought to say is, “Evil prevails.”

Yesterday I watched Lord of War… and what a movie it is!

I was a little worried that this could be one of Cage‘s bad actings, because I have a kind of love-hate relationship with this guy. I like most of his characters, but some of them are not well played, kind of not very believable.

However, in this movie Cage acts quite well, as do all other actors and actresses. The movie is very well made, with a photography, and specially a soundtrack, that helps telling the story quite beautifully.

However, the main point of the film is its truthfull, even cruel, portrayal of not only the weapon smuggling, but also the corruption and complicity of the “respectable” governments, and casts a dark shadow over the humanity as a whole, I believe. All that is accomplished through the speech of the main character, Yuri Orlov (Cage), a Ucranian immigrant in the USA who becomes the world’s biggers arm trafficker. Orlov tells us everything about his life as a smuggler, his moral degradation, his perception of the world, how the whole arm business works…

This movie is a definitive must-see, if you want to open your eyes to some sad truths. If you don’t, just go watch Superman and enjoy the good white American boy saving the world, the democracy, the right to bear arms, the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

Today the power supply has failed again twice: first for some 15min; 10min later, for some other 5min.

Here goes the updated list of blackouts I have been able to compile, with comments if any:

1. 2005-Dec-13
2. 2005-Dec-21
3. 2006-May-26 (The card-based automated access to the Faculty broke down)
4. 2006-Jun-04
5. 2006-Jun-08
6. 2006-Jun-13
7. 2006-Jun-16
8. 2006-Jul-04 (Orpheus didn’t fall)

Summary: 8 blackouts in 204 days, or 25.5 dpb (days per blackout). 19 days since last blackout. Average dpb went down by 0.8.

First post in the series: here

Terrific movie! My weekly dose of cinema consisted this week on American Dreamz, a wild satire of some aspects of the western society (specially USA), but not forgetting to poke some fun at muslim fanatics, and everything in between.

The whole movie is a compilation of surrealist realism, incredibly believeable. The plot is a brutal parody of the reality shows like the Idol series, Popstars series, and Star Academy series (“our” pitiful Operación Triunfo is the Spanish branch of the latter), and also of the North-American government.

The president is played by Dennis Quaid, being portrayed as quite stupid a man, with an alcoholic past, a puppet of his Chief of Staff (Willem Dafoe), knowing little of international affairs, with verbal communication problems and a childish attitude with rapidly changing moods (rings a bell?).

The Chief of Staff (Willem Dafoe), is a 99% clon (or was it “clown”) of vice-president Cheney (who also was Chief of Staff under Ford, in the 75-77 period): egomaniac, manipulative, tyranical with this supposed boss, with bad temper and a foul vocabulary, and up to anything to stay in a power position. On top of that, he was also physically similar to our beloved friend-shooter (see Wikipedia).

The portrait of the acute hypocrisy of the show biz is not new, but this movie has it spot on. Specially interesting is Hugh Grant‘s character, the conductor of the American Dreamz show: selfish, shallow, slave to his job, which at the same time he hates and as hypocritical as famous.

Very funny, highly parodical, enjoyable but with a message of brutal criticism… watch it, have fun, and then make your considerations.

This week I am late with my chronicle of the movie I have watched, as every week, on wednesday. Real life sucks. Or at least, sucks one’s attention into it, which is similar.

The movie I will comment is Kurt Wimmer’s Ultraviolet (Ultravioleta), starring Milla Jovovich.

Now, we have a bad ass female main character, delivering a fair amount of pain and death into unsuspecting dummies, who just happen to pass by, or (idiots!) put themselves in her way. It reminds one of movies like Aeon Flux, Underworld, and Resident Evil (in which Jovovich also starred), and, like the three of them, it is a smelly piece of crap. And I am sorry to say so, because I am quite a fan of Jovovich.

I would like to say that these movies pack some action that saves them from oblivion… but that would be too kind a thing to say. Really good action is more than senseless special effects, pretty bullet-time scenes, or people shooting and kicking each other.

The heroine of this movie, like most others, is clearly inspired by William Gibson’s Neuromancer series character Molly Millions (by the way, Gibson’s books are very recommendable), as all modern cute-looking butt-kicking killing-machine girls are (think of Trinity in The Matrix). A kind of action heroine who is not like Molly Millions would be, for example, Lt. Ripley in Alien. She is also effective in her fight against the enemy, but she actually struggles and suffers, and doesn’t have ultra-fast reflexes, strenght and speed, with a weapon use that would make John Rambo go pale, and a martial art expertise akin to that of Bruce Lee on top of Tony Jaa, and then throw in some Neo skillz for good measure.

The movie Ultraviolet is too hard to follow, too little explained, too ilogical, and too silly. All in all, don’t expect much if you go to watch it. Or better still, save your money for another movie.

Este post está disponible en castellano aquí

Yeah, right, the president and founder of the Free Software Foundation, Richard Stallman, gave a speech at the Koldo Mitxelena culture center in Donostia, last monday 19th.

Stallman, introduced by Iratxe Esnaola

My friend Julen and I (Txema didn’t come along), therefore, went to the Koldo Mitxelena to attend his talk. I must admit we liked what we heard.

The first thing one notices hearing Stallman talk is that he’s a showman. The guy whas seated at a table, but stood up to give the talk, adducing that he was a little sleepy, and so standing up would help him not fall asleep. Subsequently, and owing to the fact that the microphone was a tabletop one, he proceeded to disassemble it and use it as hand microphone, dismissing the inalambric microphone he was promptly offered. Mind you, he did catch our attention.

Stallman, with the tabletop mic

The second thing one can realize is that he has a very clear vision of stuff, and that it is catchy, because he speaks in such a reasonable and gentle way. I should mention that he gave the whole talk in Spanish, and quite fluently, albeit with a heavy American accent.

He commenced his speech enumerating the four basic liberties the FSF proposes for a software piece to be free:

Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.

Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.

Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

He then explained why these freedoms are vital, and I will next repeat some of his arguments.

Moral dilemma

He said, for example, that Freedom 2 is necessary to avoid some kind of dilemmas towards which software with non-free licenses lead us. Let’s assume we have a legal copy of a certain program, and therefore, he have accepted its license. Let’s also assume that a friend asks us for a copy of it. In these circumstances we face a dilemma, because we have to chose the lesser bad from two bads. If we decide to give a copy to our friend, we’ll be breaching our license, and it is never good to break an agreement we previously accepted. On the other hand, if we don’t give her a copy, we will be depriving a friend of us of a potential benefit, which is not good, either.

Someone told me, after commenting her this issue, that there is not such a dilemma, because: “What if your friend asks you for 1000 euros?”. OK, I would probably consider it negatively, sure. But refusing to lend 1000 euros or our car to a friend is not like doing so with a piece of software. With the former, we lose a material good to share it, but with the latter we lose nothing. The software is like knowledge in general: if we share it it doesn’t get divided, but multiplied. We negate our friend a copy of the software piece just because an abusive license forces us to do so. We do not get any benefit from it.

According to Stallman, the lesser bat is to share with our friend, because we just break an abusive license. Anyway, breaking an agreement, however abusive, is not good. The correct thing is not to sign the agreement in first place. Then only way to avoid the dilemma, he said, would be either not having friends, or not aqquiring proprietary software. He supported the latter.

Problems of the Proprietary Software

He continued the talk speaking about some problems that the proprietary software has, and how the aforementioned freedoms can help alleviate them.

Bad functionalities

The programmers may have implemented into the program some functions that the user doesn’t want, namely:

1) A proprietary program may have occult functions, that the user doesn’t know of, let alone control.

An example of this are the spyware, which, without her knowing, send the user’s personal data to its manufacturer. Such programs include Windows XP, Windows Media Player and TiVo systems. The latter sends the manufacturing company information fo what TV shows the user records, and when she watches them. In the same manner, Windows Media Player sends Microsoft info about what the user plays in it.

2) A program may, directly, not work under some circunstances. Such a functionality the user won’t desire, for sure, but in many cases, this functionality is not only present, but publicly declared. This is the clase of the DRM systems, or “Digital Restriction Management”, as Stallman calls it. Basically, a DRM-ed media (say, a DVD or a CD) tells its owner when and how access its content, and some OSs, like Windows and Mac OS, have the technicall characteristic that they do abide by this DRM rules. The iPod, for example, is “equiped” with the abusive DRM FairPlay. You can read further opinions on DRM by Stallman here. You can also read about a Sony DRM called XCP in my blog.

3) A proprietary program may have a backdoor, introduced by the programer to, potentially, gain access to any machine in which her program is installed. There’s people saying that, for example, the recent WMF vulnerability in Windows is actually a backdoor, intentionally put by Microsoft. I have also found news like this one (2002), speaking about backdoors installed in Windows for allowing NSA control.

It is apparent that governments all around the world (China being the most prominent case) are increasingly having second thoughts on Windows use in their computers, the reason being the danger of it having backdoors to give Microsoft or the government of the USA access to them. As long back as in 2000, the CNN published some reasons why China was changing its mind over proprietary OSs:

Those concerns have risen up recently in the form of stated policies favoring the use of the Linux operating system in government agencies, as well as a recent flurry of government commentaries warning of a U.S. “back door” to Windows operating systems. Officials have said China must develop its own OS to prevent an electronic military attack.

Stallman cited a 2001 case in India. It looks like a couple of Al-Qaeda members infiltrated de Indian division of Microsoft, and tried to introduce a backdoor into de Windows code. I have found some info at noticias.com[es], merit.edu, or Security Awareness Incorporated.

It was originally NewsBytes who aired the news, but the original news is no more accessible, and its address redirects one to the home page of the online Washington Post. Some Microsoft-friendly media tried to understate the case, without many arguments. They didn’t deny these people worked for MS, only that “they didn’t find any backdoor trace”. With their stupidity record, it doesn’t look like much of a guaranty to me…

This foul attempt was (we believe) stopped, but… what if there have been another successful ones? The quid of the matter is that we can not know. Only MS programmers can verify the presence of backdoors introduced by rogue employees. Do you really trust them to do it? Hadn’t you better have right to verify it yourself, or any other user?

The tree harmful functionalities Stallman mentions are a direct consequence of the fact that proprietary software does not have any of the four aforementioned freedoms. Free software will never be subject to these “functionalities”.

Errors

Any software piece, free or not, can have bugs. The difference is that the free software, by means of the Freedom 1, permits the users fix the bugs they find, and, by means of Freedom 3, share with others their corrections. In fact, Freedom 1 is not enough to handle the programing errors. Not all the users are programmers, and even if they were, there are too many programs to keep track of. That’s why Freedom 3 is fundamental. With this liberty, even the users who can’t program benefit. The Freedoms 1 and 2 are aimed at the users, and the 1 and 3 at programmers, but in the end everyone gets the benefit.

Various subjects

Among other things, Stallman commented that the development of the free software is democratic, because it develops following the user criteria, even if anyone can pay someone to program what she needs (but no one develops, because it’s not popular). He compared this to the autocratic development of the proprietary software, where the user ends up accepting whatever the programmer wants, instead of the other way around.

He also wondered about the hability to choose and the liberty. He said that being able to choose between different proprietary softwares (e.g. Windows and Macintosh) equals being able to choose our master, because once the election is made, we will fall in a dependency routine. The actual freedom is not having any master. Being able to choose is not necessarily freedom.

He talked on about freedom, and said that we have to fight for freedom when it is possible to win (no one asks to fight if it is useless), not when it is sure that we’ll win. If we all wait until the victory is assured, no one will take the first step, until it’s too late. We have to fight, and we have to expect the fight to be hard, even facing the eventuality of losing.

Near the end of the talk, he made a summary of the history fo the GNU software, and free software.

He also spoke about Trusted Computing, a system backed by some lobbies to make sure the computer does what the maker, and not the user, wants. In short, what it makes is pass some of the power the user has over her computer into the hands of the maker, so that the computer obeys the latter, not the former. That’s why Stallman proposes the term Treacherous Computing, because it makes the computer betray its user. According to him, using the term “trusted” or “treacherous” is a matter of what side of the fence we are. Stallman said this is a “conspiracy against the users, but not even secret nor ilegal!”.

Free Software and Education

He ended the talk saying that public education should use free software exclusively, for 3 reasons:

1) Economic savings. This is the most frivolous reason, but no less valid. There are no license fees, so you save money. This would be most advantageous in a public resource (education) that is deficitary in most countries. However, this advantage can be eliminated by the proprietary software companies giving away the licenses to schools and universities. In fact, that they do.

This, obviously, is not done out of generosity. The companies that give away their licenses do it to lock-in future users. They take advantage of the education system to train kids in the use of their products, and do it for free. When the student leaves the academic resources, he will have no more free licenses, and the company she works for won’t, either. But she will do have the need to use that software, because it is what she knows how to use. I consider that public education should not fall for it, and play their game so sheepishly.

2) When a student is puzzled by something, she asks the teacher. If the teacher can not answer, the student can try to find the answer by herself. Both options are impossible with the proprietary software. If a student wants to know the innards of her Windows computer, not only the teacher will not be able to dispel her doubts, but she will be forced to tell her that it is forbidden to even look for the answers. This is not what an educative system should encourage.

3) Moral education. The school must give a moral education, making the students see what is right and what is wrong. Sharing with others is right.Producing something for the common good is right. Looking for errors in one’s and others’ work, and working to fix them is right. Asking and answering freely is right.

Final details

Being the showman he is, and after a round of questions, Stallman delighted us with his Saint IGNUtius impersonation, given that many say he’s a Saint, and he doesn’t want to negate it.

Stallman, preaching

However, he made it clear that in the free software religion there is no god nor master, that anyone can be a saint, and that priesthood doesn’t imply celibacy.

It must be said that the sanctity aura he displays is NOT an old hard disk. In the past, it might have been, yes, but it transformed into his aura, for a major good :^)

At the end of the talk he signed some autographs, and took some pictures with his fans. He also gave away pro-GNU stickers, and sold (yes, sold!) some GNU keychains and pins, to raise funds for the FSF.

Stallman, signing for me a GPLv2 preamble I took there