"My previous reference for practical linux commands was surprisingly popular
with over 3.5 million hits in nearly 5 years. So I've decided to start compiling
another list of somewhat more involved/esoteric commands."

"There are lots of resources available online to learn about Free and Open Source Software. If you want to understand the essence and ideals of this movement, a great start would be to read the following 4 books..."

The Icelandic government has released a policy on free and open source software. In short, the policy states that when buying software free and open source software should be considered on an equal footing with proprietary software, that software based on open standards shall be chosen, that lock-ins to specific vendors should be avoided (choosing free software is one means to achieve this), that bespoke or customized software shall be reusable (and free and open source software achieves this), and finally that students of Icelandic educational institutes shall have the opportunity to learn about and use free and open source software on a par with proprietary software.

This policy applies to all state institutions and organizations operated with public funds.

“When students learn only proprietary software, they will qualify only as computer operators and never learn about using the nuts and bolts of the profession. This is one of the reasons why there are no innovative products that come out of this country,”

Spend any time in the open source community and you'll quickly run into the notion that all software should be free and open source, quite literally, to its core. That's a noble idea, but is it a practical -- or even wise -- approach for software developers to take? Jerry Carter, Director of Engineering for audit and authentication software vendor Likewise says no. Read on as he explains why:

“Open Source” advocate: «...I associate much more with the "Open Source" (also as Richard defines it) camp, and am open to the existence and use of proprietary software...» --

"Once software users freedoms are protected the methodology that we know as Open Source becomes possible and its advantages become apparent. But without the guiding principles of Free Software the neccessity and direction of Open Source cannot be accounted for. Open Source has no history or trajectory, it cannot account for itself or suggest which tasks are neccessary or important.

"...In 1998, some of the people in the free software community began using the term "open source software" instead of "free software" to describe what they do. The term "open source" quickly became associated with a different approach, a different philosophy, different values, and even a different criterion for which licenses are acceptable. The Free Software movement and the Open Source movement are today separate movements with different views and goals, although we can and do work together on some practical projects..."

I needed a good way to explain software freedom to people who have little to no computer experience (possibly parents or grandparents, kids, stay-at-home moms/dads, etc.), so I created the following blog post. Many of these people could benefit from free software, but aren’t going to learn about it through mainstream media.