Background When you install or first run a Microsoft operating system, the computer wants to communicate with a server at Microsoft to learn if it is a legally obtained copy or not. If the OS isn’t deemed legal by Microsoft’s server, or if there’s no response from Microsoft’s server, the OS will run with what [...]
Champaign County Illinois, USA uses a pair of ES&S machines to prepare and count (plus physically store) the ballots. Use of the ballot preparation machine is optional—one can fill in the bubbles manually with a pen or pencil. This first machine can also (at the voter’s option) scan a completed ballot and report to the [...]
Save some room for Apple, whose behavior would be as objectionable as Microsoft if Apple had the clout Microsoft does. Apple distributes proprietary software, thus denying its users software freedom. Apple’s proprietary word processor doesn’t support OpenDocument (ODF), a file format for electronic office documents which is fully published and available for any developer to [...]
There were [...] sixteen Democrats in the Senate, forty-one Democrats in the House — this could not have been passed without the Democrats. And so, in essence, this congress is very — there’s very little difference between this congress and the congress that gave Bush the PATRIOT Act without reading it, gave Bush the authorization [...]
GNU Software Freedom Law Center FSF blogs Electronic Frontier Foundation Nina Paley Richard Stallman