"Git has sometimes been described as a versioning file-system which happens to support the underlying notions of version control. And while most people do simply use Git as a version control system, it remains true that it can be used for other tasks as well.

European Commissioner McCreevy is pushing for a bilateral patent treaty with the United States. This Tuesday 13 May in Brussels, White House and European representatives will try to adopt a tight roadmap for the signature of a EU-US patent treaty by the end of the year. Parts of the proposed treaty will contain provision on software patents, and could legalise them on both sides of the Atlantic.

SSH is one of the most secure communication methods we have. It’s encrypted, and even the passwords can’t be sniffed. But it’s not invincible. Weak passwords can be brute forced and open ports invite automated bots looking for that open port 22. But there’s a number of ways we can harden our ssh server.

Digistan has just published an open letter signed by some high-level figures. It calls for people to adopt the right approach in the embrace of open standards. It’s worth a quick glance.

"...On 26 june a prophet came to CERN. Complete with long hair and a bushy unkempt, Richard Stallman looked every bit the part. His message was software should be free. [...] The year that Stallman came to CERN, Tim had published a note in a CERN computing newsletter drawing the laboratarie's attention to GNU. [...] «When we speak of free software ... we are refrerring to freedom, not price».

"... «We call upon public libraries around the world to remove the unethical Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technologies currently locking down many of their digital collections. DRM compromises public trust for the sake of providing limited access to popular works to some in the short-term.

After I reviewed Alien Arena last year, some readers criticized my choice of that first-person shooter (FPS) as the best free software game I had played. Several suggested Nexuiz would have been a better choice. At the time, I had not played it. Now that I have tried Nexuiz 2.4, it has become my favorite free software FPS.

A long time Ubuntu user tries Kubuntu Linux 8.04 live CD with KDE 4.0 desktop and shares his experience.