Richard A. Johnson

Read “Right”…</sarcasm>

“I think this is the biggest accolade you can be given because it means your fans have gone out and bought your records. And that’s why we make records – for our public.” – Sir Elton John, 3/16/1999 at the launch of the RIAA® Diamond® Award

Your fans will continue to buy your records as long as you are good enough! You can easily be replaced by local artists who are better and free. Oh, and Sir Elton, you have never written an album “for our public.” You have only written albums for “your pockets,” just like every artist who is governed by New York, Los Angeles, and the Nashville morons. Groups that write albums “for our public” don’t join hands with the RIAA and tend to put their music out there for free. You and the RIAA need to learn the definition of piracy and pirates. Piracy is to steal cargo at the high seas, I don’t know who you all think you are, but your cargo isn’t worthy of any of the seas, maybe a retention pond holding raw sewage.

If people want to share the music they have purchased, then so be it. Remember, if your music is “good enough,” people are going to buy the CDs no matter what. The idiots who distribute music without sharing (note I didn’t call them pirates) or not purchasing only make up a small percentage of the people SHARING music. If I bought it, I own it, and I can do whatever the hell I want with it. I hope that New York teen tears you apart in the courts!

Oh, who I am kidding, you don’t care!

Well, about 100 people did care as they lined up yesterday at the local Best Buy to be met by DuPage County Sheriff, Best Buy managers, and Defective by Designs Bad Vista’ers. Hopefully I will have some pictures soon. All I can say is I froze my ass off in that yellow HazMat suit. And if any of you in Chicago still have prehistoric Comcast (wannabe) digital cable, you might have caught us on CLTV. We chanted, we handed out information, and we shivered! It was still fun.

“I must tell you everything in my soul tells me that we should do what I called
plan (b) yesterday. We need a simple fast storage system. LH is a pig and I don’t see any solution to this problem. If we are to rise to the challenge of Linux and Apple, we need to start taking the lessons of “scenario, simple, fast” to heart.” – Jim Allchin

This is old news, as it is the last line in the email Jim Allchin sent that said if he didn’t work for Microsoft that he would buy an Apple. I have been following the class action that Iowa (Comes) has against Microsoft. It is interesting to see that even the executives in Microsoft, may not be affraid of their position, but do realize they are wrong. Of course Jim states that they (Microsoft) has lost their vision whereas Apple hasn’t, and in a way neither has Linux.

So my question is this. Could Microsoft really rise to the challenge of Linux and Apple by taking in the 3 lessons listed above? How does scenario, simple, fast relate to the freeness and openness that our community exuberates? Is their recent bedding down with Novell a part of their “Plan B”? Granted this email was from the latter of 2004, but recent (01/19/2007) court hearings showed that Microsoft still feels the same. Hopefully with the upcoming weeks, more information about Microsoft wanting to “whack” Dell for selling Linux solutions will come to light because of Iowa. Iowa not only grows corn, but they also take on Microsoft. GO IOWA!

On a side note, Norway is taking on Apple to defeat one of their DRM applications. Norway, as do I, believes that iTunes music should be able to be played on more than the iPod. I stand behind you Norway and wish you the best in this endeavor. Apple, just like Microsoft, doesn’t play fair, so be careful.

Now, seeing that other countries are doing their part fighting off the giants, maybe it is time that Mr. Bush shoves a bomb up his ass (don’t flame me, I voted for him twice damnit) instead of Baghdad, and let’s go after these giants here in the US. Come on Congress, wake up and smell the Open Source I bet senators would go for Linux and Open Source if we were to put a few extra million dollars in their pockets (little do they know that Linux and Open Source would save them money, in turn putting more money in their pockets). Since when has the mafia moved from Chicago and New York to D.C.?

The BadVista campaign is an advocate for the freedom of computer users, opposing adoption of Microsoft Windows Vista and promoting free (as in freedom) software alternatives.

I had been meaning to blog this but totally forgot until just checking out my FSF membership information. There is some pretty good information on their site, plus I will support the FSF and GNU anyway possible.

January, 26^th, 2007 – KDE 3.5.6 is released to the masses. For those of you using Kubuntu, either 6.10 (Edgy) or 7.04 (Feisty), there is a package upgrade just for you. Feisty users only have to do an update as the new packages have already been uploaded. Edgy users need to add some repository love and make sure they have the great Jonathan Riddell’s super-duper GPG key installed for security purposes. More information about the general release can be found HERE, and those of you with Kubuntu Edgy can find out how to upgrade HERE.

Linux, Open Source, Hackers, and a lot more are wrongly accused of a variety of things every day.

• You can’t play games on Linux – WRONG You can play pretty much every game in Windows within Linux, granted you have to use emulation (i.e., Wine or Cedega), but you can play them and play them just as well.
• Linux is to hard – WRONG If an 80 year old woman who has never touched a computer in her life can use it, then it obviously isn’t to hard. Linux has become a lot easier in recent years since GNOME, KDE, and others have worked hard on usability.
• Linux is for hackers – WRONG Linux is for everyone! Whether you are a coder, a gamer, a musician, or just a typical user, Linux is for you just as much as Windows or Mac OS X is. Also for those of you who think hackers are bad, read the next line and re-train your vocabulary.
• Hackers broke into my system – WRONG A script kiddie or a cracker has broken into your system. Hackers are ethical programmers who don’t want to take advantage but create more advantages to what is there. Hackers are the people who write the code that make Linux, Microsoft, Mac OS X, and anything else on your computer do what it does. Crackers are the bad people, hackers are the good people. Stop confusing the two, this goes especially to Merriam Webster, other dictionaries, major media outlets, and our very own governments. Put this as a mental note, and remember it forever, don’t always believe what you read, especially this blog!
• Open Source isn’t good for the IT world – WRONG The IT world wouldn’t be where it is today without Open Source. Besides being a culture that enjoys all of their freedoms, Open Source pretty much rules what you do and see on the Internet. Open Source allows many to view the code and offer fixes immediately whether they are simple bugs or major security issues. Open Source makes it possible for fixes to be made available within hours. Closed source or binary code makes it impossible for many to view it and offer opinions, so you will always have to wait for that small team in Redmond or wherever they are to figure out how to fix the solution. Think of Open Source as a collaborative effort among millions of diversified individuals to bring you the greatest and most secure applications. Diversity is good thing right?

There are many other misconceptions or false accusations that tend to annoy me as I am sure it annoys many others as well. There are many great people who talk about Open Source and Free Software, but hardly to you ever hear them shoot down the falsities that many people put on them. If we are going to remain a culture, it is time we stand up to the IT bigots who try to shame us or better yet the ignorant media and our not-so-perfect government (this goes for every government in the world). So, what can we do as a culture to spread the positive word about us and to put to rest the bogus misrepresentation that is put on us?