"The sections below develop reasons for adoption of free software exclusively for school education. Towards the end, a list of policy guidelines and recommendations are provided for discussion. The document does not cover the pros and cons of using ICT for education. I will try to intervene during the deliberations on these issues. Why Free Software for education? ..."

"Yesterday, Portugal celebrated the so called Carnation Revolution. Since then, this day has often been called the “Freedom day”, because during the revolution, the Portuguese regime went from an authoritarian dictatorship to a democracy. Thirty four years have passed since Portuguese fought for their freedom, as in many other societies freedom is now taken for granted.

"...The principle engine of software development is the work and creativity of hackers. What induces them to strive and invent is a climate of liberty that leaves them in control of their own software. [...] To trust the hacker, to have faith in the hacker, is one of the elements of a value system that favours development.

Tony Mobily has this video telling why the adoption of this closed standard is a sad day for all lovers of freedom and interoperability in the open source world.

"On April/4/2008, Richard Stallman came to UAB to give a conference about GNU. You can view the WHOLE conference in Spanish at the end of this post (and some pictures as well). I strongly recommend you to view the video as it’s quite interesting..."

"...This isn’t anymore about closed vs. open formats, and you don’t need me to rub it in your face. It’s time to leave those non-free formats behind and look forward for a world of interoperability, a world of doors free to trespass in whatever way you want, and where no one will be able to take that freedom away from anyone else."

Recently, in this column, I spoke about how we can lose our free software choices if we don’t use them. Sticking with that choice is not always easy so how do we get others to make it, particularly in a world where the choice is often made for them. How can we advocate free software in a world where others don’t seem to care?

"...According to Richard Stallman, founder of Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project, who wrote an introduction article for the book, the society «needs information that is truly available to its citizens - for example, programmes that people can read, fix, adapt, and improve, not just operate» ..."