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Software

An Open Source Legal Breakthrough 292

Posted by kdawson from the gpl-means-what-it-says dept.
jammag writes "Open source advocate Bruce Perens writes in Datamation about a major court victory for open source: 'An appeals court has erased most of the doubt around Open Source licensing, permanently, in a decision that was extremely favorable toward projects like GNU, Creative Commons, Wikipedia, and Linux.' The case, Jacobsen v. Katzer, revolved around free software coded by Bob Jacobsen that Katzer used in a proprietary application and then patented. When Katzer started sending invoices to Jacobsen (for what was essentially Jacobsen's own work), Jacobsen took the case to court and scored a victory that — for the first time — lays down a legal foundation for the protection of open source developers. The case hasn't generated as many headlines as it should."
Programming

Submission + - What is an "average" user?

Submitted by
rueger
rueger writes: "I'm working with a medium sized non-profit with several hundred members. We make extensive use of web resources and discussion lists. Our challenge is figuring out what level of support an "average" user needs. We like to to package help and support in ways that a actually teach end users to be self sufficient, but are struggling to decide how far that goes.

We're trying to establish a minimum skills and knowledge level that it is assumed that end users will have. Some are obvious — knowing how to surf the web in a browser and click on links. Knowing how to write and reply to e-mail. Word and Excel.

What we find though is that some things which we assume are widely known — like using CTRL-click to choose multiple items in a list — are a mystery to many users. As well, there are some people who for whatever reason just can't understand written instructions. And others who simply freeze when presented with a screen full of things that they have never seen before.

Right now we're bouncing between beginner level detail for the truly unskilled, and complaints from more experienced users that the instructions are "too long." In extreme cases we wind up phoning people and walking them though how to use our web based discussion lists. (Which admittedly are using a software package that sucks.)

So my question is: what are the minimum skills that are assumed for an "average" end user?"
Censorship

Submission + - ISP Deletes Your Audio & Video Files Nightly (exetel.com.au)

Submitted by
Mike
Mike writes: "Australian ISP Exetel automatically deletes ALL of your hosted audio and video files every single night in a ham-handed attempt to fight piracy. All mp3, mpg, mpeg, avi, wma and "any other multi media file type" is deleted by their robot scanner script. To prevent this you have to email them and "request to be excluded from the scan script". The presumption is that you're guilty by default if, for example, you dare to upload an AVI of your child's first steps. Is this insane, or what? How long will Exetel stay in business treating their paying customers this way?"
Power

Submission + - Thin Clients: Eco-Friendly Alternative to PCs (linuxdevices.com)

Submitted by
mrcgran
mrcgran writes: "This report is month-old, but still interesting: 'Using thin clients instead of conventional PCs would lower energy consumption by 51 percent and reduce CO2 emissions, concludes a recent study by the Fraunhofer Institute. The study compared thin clients to conventional business PCs. "The financial savings are significant but the impact on cutting CO2 emissions is what's really impressive. Saving 2.45 billion pounds of CO2 emissions would remove the equivalent impact of 106,521 average U.S. households each year."' Lots of Linux thin clients are springing up. Would you replace your conventional PC for one of them?"
Censorship

Submission + - Free Speech Takes a Hit in 'Bong Hits 4 Jesus'

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "The Supreme Court tightened limits on student speech Monday, ruling against a high school student and his 14-foot-long 'Bong Hits 4 Jesus' banner. Schools may prohibit student expression that can be interpreted as advocating drug use, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in a 5-4 ruling. Faring better with litigation was the student's father, who was awarded $200,000 after being fired over his son's legal fight by the company that insures the Juneau schools."
Power

Submission + - Solar Panels to get Real Cheap Real Fast (ecogeek.org)

Submitted by
hankmt
hankmt writes: "A worldwide shortage of silicon has kept prices of solar panels high. But as new technology comes to market and new silicon manufacturing plants go online all over the world, the market will have surplus of silicon and the price of solar panels will likely drop by over 40% in the next three years!"

Verifiable Elections Via Cryptography 409

Posted by kdawson from the but-suppose-they-don't-want-to-make-cheating-impossible? dept.
An anonymous reader writes, "Cryptographer David Chaum and his research team have invented a new voting protocol which allows voters to verify that their vote has been correctly cast and counted. This is enabled using a surprisingly low-tech technique of cryptographic secret sharing. The secret — your marked ballot — is split into two halves using a hole punch" You take half home and can verify later via a Web interface how your particular ballot was counted.
User Journal

Journal Journal: crazy mods... 2

Journal by nb caffeine
I love being modded down in a conversation by the mods in a conversation about sexism in video games (for calling the article a troll/sexist) and being backed up by a female.

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