"In my previous discussions of copyright, I mentioned that I was reading Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig. I've finished the book, so now I'd like to offer my thoughts..."

"So I have an announcement: I have written, and published, A Book [...] Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software ..." -- From the book description: "Drawing on ethnographic research that took him from an Internet c start-up company in Boston to media labs in Berlin to young entrepreneurs in Bangalore, Kelty describes the technologies and the moral vision that binds together hackers, ge

"Programming AI using standard programming languages, e.g., C/C++ or Java is not a good idea. It's too general purpose language. I'm considering to select between (Common) Lisp ..." -- Cool, but it's better on GNU systems ;-)

"This tutorial an elementary introduction to teach non-programmers how to customize their work environment; it can also be used as an introduction to programming basics. It includes numerous exercises and sample programs; the author also walks you through the actual source code of several GNU Emacs commands. A handy reference appendix is included..."

What is this book about? Well, if you are new to GNU/Linux, and wish to hack AVR microcontrollers, this book should help you do it.

But then, why is it not called `Hack AVR microcontrollers with Debian GNU/Linux’? Well, that was what I thought I would call it, but then I changed my mind.

Maybe, I can show how to design circuits with gEDA, build PCB’s, simulate circuits, do mathematical computations … stuff like that. In that case, this becomes a more general book.

After a productive and valuable conversation with my publisher, Random House, they've agreed to permit The Future of Ideas to be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license. You can download the book for free here, or above.

Recently, a few of us had a discussion about translating the book to Malayalam. GNU/Linux is now available in a lot of schools - and a local language version would be a boon to many smart kids who are capable of learning things by themselves. I suggested that we have a go at writing an `orignal’ book - mostly because I was having this pet idea of writing a book for kids for a long time.

"Ever since I started on this "Wicked Cool Emacs" project with No Starch Press, I've run into all sorts of amazing geeks who have been working on something similar. [...] I would love to work on this book with other people. I think that it would become an even better book than I could write by myself, just as Emacs is better because all these people have worked on it.