Comments on: Freedom Technology Christmas and Open Source/Free Software

By: gem2001

gem2001 — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 18:15:35 +0000

I absolutely LOVE open source software. I don’t use any microsoft products. open source is lightyears ahead of windows. I highlyy reccomend open office.

Gina from WAOD

By: Cliff Samuels Jr

Cliff Samuels Jr — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:00:18 +0000

Using most Open Source applications is in the realm of most computer users today. Using LINUX still takes a little more computer savvy but Ubuntu 7.10 is closing the gap. Also for Freedom Technology Christmas, you can provide training on using the software or device as a gift. How many people do you know how can not program numbers into their cell phone..

Cliff

By: Thin Black Duke, aka Kevin

Thin Black Duke, aka Kevin — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 02:45:05 +0000

Brotherkomrade – Thanks. I agree. It’s great to see more black bloggers interested in the free and open source movements. Man, I kinda miss those old days, though. The geek enthusiast in me still loves the command line. But yeah, you couldn’t give a computer with Linux on it to your grandmoms.

Have you checked out Ubuntu 7.10 yet? It’s slick!

Roberto – Oh yeah, I’ve got a few Open CD discs. I rarely use Windows any more, and when I do it’s on a virtual machine, but they were quite handy back in the day.

By: Roberto Galoppini

Roberto Galoppini — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 08:24:00 +0000

Hi Kevin, you might have heard about the Open CD Project, collecting Open Source software for Windows. The project now is dead, but on its behalf is born The OpenDisc project that apparently come just from the same 'source'.

By: brotherkomrade

brotherkomrade — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:50:07 +0000

This is so cool to see more and more black bloggers talk about the free software and open source movements.
I always try to put it out there that our people need not have to be stuck in the commercial, closed source world of Windoze and Macintosh (with is just Unix under the hood.) I’ve worked with Linux of and on when you really did have to work under the hood more in the early ’00s, then Fedora, Debian, and Ubuntu came and changed all that. Really, the Linux community of developers who focused more on the desktop environments like Gnome and KDE has more to do with Linux as a whole becoming more ‘friendlier’ for Linux newbies and computer newbies in general.
I worked with Fedora Core 4 up until a year ago, then started working with Ubuntu http://brotherkomrade.net/index.php?blogid=1&archive=2007-07&catid=1 . There are some things you still have to do under the hood; especially if your hardware is new (64-bit processor) to get some apps to work, but hey, it was like that in the 90s for Windoze.

By: Thin Black Duke, aka Kevin

Thin Black Duke, aka Kevin — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 04:01:14 +0000

Hi, Jamiah, Yeah, there is pretty much an open source equivalent to any program out there. I can't speak to whether or not they are all as good as their commercial equivalents, but in many cases they are, or are getting close. Check out the Open Source Alternative site for a good list of the best open source alternatives out there. For instance, alternatives to Final Cut Pro. As for communicating with non-open source folks, there's usually not that much of a problem. An .mp4 file or a .pdf file is the same regardless of the program that created it, and when there is a conflict in formats, a high quality program should allow you to save to a windows format. So, even though Open Office uses the .odt format, you can open a .doc file with it and save your documents as .doc files as well. When handling complex documents with a lot of fancy formatting and such, things can get lost in the translation, but for the most part it all works well.

By: www.christmasforallofus.info » Freedom Technology Christmas and Open Source/Free Software

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 22:35:06 +0000

[...] ageorgegal wrote a fantastic post today on “Freedom Technology Christmas and Open Source/Free Software”Here’s ONLY a quick extractI love the idea of Freedom Technology Christmas, and so in the spirit of FTC, I want to promote and encourage the use of open source software as a means for black folks to further empower themselves technologically, intellectually, … [...]

By: Jamiah

Jamiah — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:40:51 +0000

I champion the movement towards open source. And I like the cost of it! My only question would be when communicating and/or sending documents to non-open source folks would they have difficulty opening up attachments? And as you’ve written, is there an open source equivalent to every non-open source program, e.g. Final Cut Pro; Dreamweaver, etc.?

By: Thin Black Duke, aka Kevin

Thin Black Duke, aka Kevin — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:58:00 +0000

“You would still have to be a little more technical savvy to use Linux.”

I’m not so sure any more. Of course, since I fall on the tech savvy side of things, I may be the wrong person to gauge. It seems to me, though, that the biggest hurdle to using Linux nowadays would be learning how to do things differently than you’re accustomed to–no different than switching from Windows to OSX. There’s always going to be a learning curve.

My purpose here, however, is not to convince the Afrospear to switch over to Linux en masse (although that would be nice ) but rather to draw attention to the world of open source productivity software out there that we can be using to further our goals.

By: hathor

hathor — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 10:24:05 +0000

You would still have to be a little more technical savvy to use Linux.