Just as the English word “free” can mean “costing no money” or “liberated,” so can the phrase “free software” refer to two separate categories of software. In popular usage, “free software” refers to any software that you can download without charge. Some of it is commercial software, made by companies that hope to recoup the cost [more...]
Do you have to be a geek to use Linux? Not at all, but the more comfortable you are with geeky things the better able you’ll be able to deal with any problems that come up. But the same thing is true of Windows, too, isn’t it? If you’re not a geek, you might not be [more...]
Google sure caused a lot of confusion here! Their very vocal announcements of the Android project on 5 November 2007 raised the expectation that Android phones would contain open software and be readily hackable, but the only Android phone released to date has been locked down. What gives? One cause for concern was that the most [more...]