| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ___ ___ \ \ _______ ____________\ \ \ \\ __ /_/ __ \ __ \ \_ http://www.legaltorrents.com \___\______\_____ \___/__\___\ \__________\ ___ ___ ___ \ \________ ___ _______________\ \_ \ \___ \ _\ __ \/ _\/ _\ __ /\ _ \ _\_\___ \ \___\______\__\ \__\ \______\__\\__\___\_______\ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | [RELEASE?] 'Go Open' Vol. 1 - Episodes 1 to 6 - 2004, 30 minutes per episode 'Go Open' is a South African-created TV series that aired in late 2004, and is dedicated to open-source software. Created for a mainstream audience, the show features a hyperkinetic presenter and interviews and showcases from both the South African and world open-source/free software scene. As the official Go Open website explains: "The program will showcase success stories, interviews with the top local and international pioneers, and the latest products and news from the open source world." The creators of 'Go Open' (http://www.go-opensource.org/go_open/) have very kindly permitted the show to be shared freely with a Creative Commons license. This archive contains the first 6 episodes (from a total of 13) in a relatively compact MPEG-4 format. The series was sponsored by the Shuttleworth Foundation, the Meraka Institute, HP, and Canonical. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | [SPECIFIC INFO?] The series' official website (http://www.go-opensource.org/go_open/) has the following official episode descriptions: -- [EPISODE 1] Lead Story: Hollywood The Linux Movies Group is an organization for the advancement and mutual support of motion picture technologists using the Linux operating system. It’s the most popular operating system for animation and visual effects in the motion picture industry. Big Gun: Richard Stallman Richard Stallman is a notable programmer whose major accomplishments include GNU Emacs, the GNU C Compiler, and the GNU Debugger. GNU ? In 1985, he published the GNU Manifesto, which outlined his motivation for creating a free operating system called GNU, which would be compatible with Unix. The name GNU is a recursive acronym for “GNU's Not Unix”. Soon after, he incorporated the non-profit Free Software Foundation (FSF) to employ free software programmers and provide a legal framework for the free software community. In 1989 Stallman invented and popularized the concept of copyleft. By then, much of the GNU system had been completed, with the notable exception of a kernel. This final gap was filled by Linux in 1991, written independently of the GNU project using the GNU development tools and system libraries. The arrival of Linux, and the availability of a completely free operating system created some confusion, however, and most people now use the name Linux to refer to the whole operating system. Stallman has attempted to change this by asking people to call the operating system "GNU/Linux". Doing it:Firefox Mozilla Firefox. It’s an Internet browser, so you use it to surf the ‘net – just like Internet Explorer, or Safari if you use the Macintosh operating system. But this one has loads of innovative features, it’s secure, it’s very fast, lightweight - and it’s available on Windows, Linux and the Mac operating system. Open Source Means Business: FOSS in retailers Pick and Pay is a successful case of a large South African company rolling out open source software. They are using it for quite large portion of their business, till points and office. Staff have a choice in the offices as to whether they use open source or Microsoft, as long as there is productivity, the choice is essentially theirs. What is hot: QuakeOS In 1997, the computer gaming company id Software released a ground-breaking first-person shooter game called QUAKE II. It went on to sell over a million copies and was voted Game of the Year. In December 2001, id Software generously made the QUAKE II 3-D engine available to the public under the GNU General Public Licence (“GPL”). -- [EPISODE 2] Lead Story: Blogging Weblogging or blogging is a relatively new phenomenon, and an interesting decentralized social commentary and information propagation network. It has earned itself both accolades and criticism. Blogging grew out of online journals and diaries, of people simply documenting their day, or covering interesting things they had read on the web. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogging) offers the following definition: “A weblog, or simply a blog, is a web application which contains periodic, reverse chronologically-ordered posts on a common web page. Such a web site would typically be accessible to any Internet user. Part of the reason ‘blog’ was coined and commonly accepted into use is the fact that in saying ‘blog’, confusion with server ‘log’ is avoided. Blogs run from individual diaries to arms of political campaigns, media programs and corporations, and from one occasional author to having large communities of writers. The totality of weblogs or blog-related webs is usually called the blogosphere”. Big Gun: Don Marti Don Marti, a graduate of Indiana University, is Editor-in-Chief of Linux Journal. He is responsible for directing the editorial content of the magazine and its web site, LinuxJournal.com. He is best known for his outstanding support of the Linux community as a whole, and his community activism. Don helped organize Windows Refund Day and Burn All GIFs Day. He co-founded Electric Lichen, LLC, and joined VA Software (formerly VA Research) when it acquired his firm in 1999. Doing it:Workrave WorkRave will make you take a break from the rigours of the mouse and the monitor. If the Comments on this neat application are anything to go by, it’s well ahead of its competitors. Open Source Means Business: Brett Strydom, Systems Engineer Brett Strydom is a young man who exemplifies the determination to overcome serious obstacles. Born a sighted child, at the age of 6 he contracted an extremely rare degenerative eye disease. He was afflicted with blindness when the retinas of both his eyes became detached. At the start of his High School career, Brett developed what can only be described as a ‘passion’ for computers, and ‘nagged’ his family until everybody chipped in and bought him an IBM286. The fact that it wasn’t adapted to accommodate his special requirements didn’t deter him: he made a plan, as they say, and began a course of Computer Studies. Eventually, he acquired a Braille keyboard, and went on to study full-time at Wits, where he got a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Maths. What is hot: Drive By Internet Image We all know that to connect to the Internet, you need a telephone line and a modem, a satellite uplink, or some other means of tapping into 'the Net'. Unfortunately, in South Africa, the necessary telecommunications infrastructure is not always there to tap into. About a third of South Africans don't have a phone line, and roughly 88% of schools in the Northern Province lack an Internet connection. Telkom has promised to make access available to rural schools, but even where such access exists, the associated fees can be prohibitively expensive. Geek of the Week:Alastair Otter ALASTAIR OTTER – TECTONIC. He has been a journalist for a number of years, more specifically in running on-line news sites. Alastair has a passion for open source and is regarded as a local hero. His most recent project is an on-line news site dedicated to free and open source software (FOSS). Alastair shares his views on open source in South Africa and the role the media has played. -- [EPISODE 3] Lead Story: Mark Shuttleworth Mark was born and raised in South Africa, and studied finance and information technology at the University of Cape Town. He went on to found Thawte, a company specialising in digital certificates and internet privacy, developed using Open Source software. He sold Thawte to the American company VeriSign in 1999, and founded HBD Venture Capital and The Shuttleworth Foundation. In April 2002 Mark became the first African in space, as a cosmonaut member of the crew of Soyuz mission TM34 to the International Space Station. Mark maintains that 'If we are to lift Africa from her current circumstances, we will need a generation of learners that are gifted with curiosity about the world in which they live, and the tools to understand and shape that world'. With this in mind he and his Foundation have invested in projects such as TuxLabs, HIP2B2, The School Tool Project (to develop a common global school administration infrastructure that is freely available under an Open Source licence)and The Ubuntu Project, a community project with participation from many volunteers, sponsored by Canonical Ltd. Open Source Means Business: Gail Reid / TuXlabs Some 80 previously-disadvantaged schools in the Western Cape are now benefiting from the Shuttleworth Foundation’s TuXlab programme. The labs have been developed using old computers and Open Source software, which provides users with freedom not obtainable from proprietary software. The Foundation initiated the TuXlabs with the idea of providing an easy, cost-effective, and replicable model for giving educators and learners access to information technology and educational content. Big Gun: Dirk-Willem van Gulik Dirk-Willem van Gulik is a Partner at the Tribal Knowledge Group, with 15 years of Internet engineering, consulting and project management experience. His work on Apache has revolved around large enterprise systems such as portals, entitlement systems and Web interfaces to legacy systems. He has worked with a broad range of international standards bodies, such as the IETF on metadata, protocols, URIs GIS and other Internet standards. Prior to TTKG, Dirk held both VP of Engineering and VP of Research positions with Covalent Technologies, and prior to Covalent he worked on projects at the European Commission, the United Nations, telecommunications firms, satellite and space agencies. He has been on the board of directors of the Apache Software Foundation since its inception. In his free time he works on a co-operative Wireless network in his home town, Leiden. The network currently covers virtually the entire inner city. What is hot: Freedom Toaster This Shuttleworth Foundation project began as a means of overcoming the difficulty in obtaining Linux and Open Source software due to the restrictive telecommunications environment in South Africa, where the easy downloading of large pieces of software is just not possible. The Freedom Toaster is a conveniently located ‘Bring 'n Burn' facility, where users bring their own blank discs and make copies of the open source software they require. Initially the name came about directly as a result of the fact that Linux is a free Operating System and that you toast a CD with Linux. However, it later became apparent that the name encapsulates the philosophy of Open Source Software, where we have the freedom to choose which software we use, the freedom to change it if we like and the freedom to share it with anyone, for free. Geek of the Week: Neil Blakey-Milner NEIL BLAKEY-MILNER – a strong advocate of open source with a passion for FreeBSD, an alternative open source Unix flavour. Neil is also a massive python user, a high level programming language that is seeing an increasing focus because of its portability and flexibility. Neil is a true geek. -- [EPISODE 4] Lead Story: Intellectual Property in the 21st century Built within current Copyright law, Creative Commons is a new system that allows you to share your creations with others and use music, movies, images, and text online, marked with a Creative Commons licence. It’s been gaining prominence steadily since its inception a few years ago. Creative Commons provides the space for artists to control their future, using the Internet. Big Gun: Lawrence Lessig Lawrence (Larry) Lessig, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Creative Commons, is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the School's Centre for Internet and Society. Prior to joining Stanford he taught at Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago Law School. In 2002, he was named one of 50 top innovators by Scientific American. Lessig acquired a B.A. in economics and a B.S. in management from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in philosophy from Cambridge, and a J.D. from Yale. Although considered a liberal, he clerked for strongly-conservative Judge Richard Posner and Justice Antonin Scalia. A well-known critic of extended copyright terms, Lessig has been engaged in several notable cases. Doing it:Gimp GIMP – is a free image manipulation package. It has forked out into a separate film package “cinepaint” in use by many studios today. It's a powerful package with an efficient plugin architecture. Get it from their homepage Open Source Means Business: MWEB and SPAM Spam is an increasingly-common e-mail Inbox offender. This unsolicited and invasive form of communication has grown rapidly and vigorously, and is becoming a major problem. The growth can be attributed to a greater number of spammers, availability of easy-to-use spamming tools and a reduction in the response rates of e-mail users around the globe. Spam, per se, is not illegal in South Africa, but it is dealt with in section 45 of the Electronic Communications Act, 25 of 2002 (“the ECT Act”). A sender who fails to do one of three things is guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to an unspecified fine, or a maximum of 12 months imprisonment. Geek of the Week:Barry Irwin BARRY IRWIN – Practical security and spam measures. How to avoid getting viruses and spam. -- [EPISODE 5] Lead Story: Southern Smile Southern Smile is the engaging name given to a productive collaboration between countries in the developing world which share a common purpose in their dedication to the increasing use of Open Source software. This common bond between such countries as South Africa, Brazil, India and China, means the sharing of ideas and information, to the mutual benefit of all. Big Gun: Jon ‘maddog’ Hall Jon ‘maddog’ Hall has been in the computer industry since 1969, using Unix since 1977, and Linux since 1994. He has been a software engineer, systems administrator, product manager, marketing manager and professional educator. Jon has been the Executive Director of Linux International since 1995, the first four years as a volunteer. He has been employed by VA Linux systems, Compaq Computer Corporation in the Digital UNIX Marketing group and Bell Laboratories, among other companies. Open Source Means Business: Raymond Cossa In September, 2002, President Thabo Mbeki and HP CEO Carly Fiorina launched the Mogalakwena HP i-community, during the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). Established in the Limpopo Province and overseen by HP's Emerging Market Solutions division, the i-community is a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) between HP, the Limpopo Provincial Government and the Mogalakwena Municipality. What is hot: Freedom League The FREEDOM League of Geeks is designed to bring together the best of the Open Source world and the country-wide community of people eager to introduce as many new people as possible to the use of Open Source software. Anyone with the passion and ability can sign-up as an Open Source GEEK and receive all the materials needed to convert as many people and computers as possible. GEEKs will be able to log their installs and track their progress. -- [EPISODE 6] Lead Story: Distributed Computing Today’s home-PC’s are more powerful than we realize: more often than not, our normal activities on our PC’s rarely make use of its processing power. By parallel-linking ordinary computers in what is called Grid or Distributed Computing, the resulting computational power rivals that of so-called super-computers, at a fraction of the price. Prof. Alexander Holt, PhD(Edinburgh) of the School of Computer Science at Wits University, is an Open Source Consultant, and a specialist in large-scale system configuration. Dr Fourie Joubert obtained his PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Pretoria in 2000. He is a Senior Lecturer at the University and currently also manages the Bioinformatics and Computational Unit in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Pretoria, which is an ACGT core facility. This Unit is also the National Bioinformatics Node in Gauteng, and is involved in research, training (post-graduate and short courses) and service provision. Big Gun: Bruce Perens Bruce Perens is a prominent figure in the open source movement, with a long and distinguished record. He is a former Debian GNU/Linux Project Leader, the primary author of the Open Source Definition, a founder of Software in the Public Interest, founder of the UserLinux project, and co-founder of the Open Source Initiative (OSI). Perens also has a book series with Prentice Hall PTR called the Bruce Perens' Open Source Series. He is an avid ham radio enthusiast and maintains technocrat.net, which he styles ‘a more mature forum’ than Slashdot. He is widely believed to hold the record for the rate of Slashdot upmodding of his comments! Open Source Means Business: Tiger Brands Tiger Brands is one of South Africa’s biggest companies. Its largest sector is food manufacturing, including products such as breakfast cereals, confectionery, dairy products, canned and ready-to-eat foods, flour, salty snacks, and baked goods. Tiger's healthcare division manufactures over-the-counter and prescription medicines as well as hospital products. It also has operations in fishing, food retailing, and personal, home, and baby care sectors. In 2004 it spun off its food store unit Spar. Along with South Africa, Tiger Brands has African operations in Namibia and Zimbabwe. Other Tiger operations are located in Australia, Canada, Latin America, the UK, and the US. What is hot: 441 Call Centre “Four – for one” – or 441, as it’s familiarly called - is a South African innovation: a PC with one CPU and one hard drive, but with four monitors, four keyboards and four mice (or should that be 'mouses'?) This ingenious, cost-effective development is based on a customized Open Source software system, designed with developing countries in mind. It’s now being employed in the creation of a call-centre industry (SA Call Centre) in Limpopo Province – and is being piloted at the University of the North, with healthy results on the computing budget! 441 looks every byte a winner! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | [LICENSE?] Please note that 'Go Open' Vol. 1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ Thus, you are free to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work under the following conditions: - Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor. - Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes. - No Derivative Works. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the author. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |