The first freedom of Free Software is the freedom to run and use a program for any purpose you see fit. If you restrict commercial usage, then that software is no longer Free. In addition, the GPL forbids this type of additional restriction from being placed on the software when you distribute it.

Other software licenses may be more permissive in this regard.

The beautiful thing, though, is that because development discussion is held in open, publicly archived mailing lists and all development is done in logged, publicly accessible source code repositories, the interested observer can investigate and come to the real conclusion on his own to see whether either party's explanation makes sense.

The games are fun, they work on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and the charities are good causes.

This is pretty much just win-win for everyone, a great way to not only *get* some nice games on Linux but *support* games on Linux, and to support a bunch of good causes as well. I'm less familiar with these games than the last bundle but I'll check them out and likely donate if I like even one of them.

I'm liable for first posts.

This would be a fantastic idea. Not only would the rules be transparent and non-ambiguous, but the potential for experimentation and self-analysis would be incredible. Python is definitely one of the better languages to use for this, as it tends to be very readable and self-explanatory as far as programming languages go.

While I don't think what they're doing is good or smart, I suspect this would really only affect the GPLed clients accessing the Second Life servers run by Linden Labs and not client use on any private servers that are running. And Linden does have the right to manage the data they store on their servers as they see fit.

The beauty of the GPLed client is that users and developers can choose which servers to point their clients at--and pick the ones that have terms they agree wtih.

Err, let's pretend I looked it up originally that Nile is from the Greek word Neilos. ;)

Well, I can't tell you about 4,000 years ago, but 3,000 years ago in Archaic Egyptian, the Nile was variously called iteru or H'pi.

The name "Nile" is probably from the Arabic name "an-nil" (you'll have to imagine that's an i with a straight line over it--Slashdot hates Unicode).

Frankly, I'd much rather see OpenMicroBlogging being used and promoted rather than the Twitter API. It's used in StatusNet and identi.ca and allows for seamless subscriptions between various OpenMicroBlogging-enabled sites. It's sort of like the XMPP/Jabber of microblogging.

StatusNet also supports the Twitter API, but I don't know of any clients that let me point to identi.ca instead of Twitter. I use Gwibber, though which natively supports both of them and more.

Thus marking the first time Slashdot has posted a breaking news story. ;)

The RIAA's actions continue to provide amusement for me. But it's all increasingly irrelevant in my life. Just like when I watch a DVD at someone else's place and I realize there's all kinds of wanings against copying and commercials at the beginning. At home, I just use VLC and immediatelly get the main menus.

The RIAA has to face the court of public opinion eventually. I think the Amazon.com MP3 store and iTunes show what remarkable success DRM-free music can have online. Unfortunately for the RIAA, so do Jamendo and Magnatunes....

No, SFTP is the SSH File Transfer Protocol and has nothing to do with FTP. If you like scp, you'll love SFTP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSH_file_transfer_protocol

Frankly, the ease of transferring files back and forth is really one of the things I miss most when using other operating systems.

Not really, since if you can log in via SSH, there's an SSH server on the other side. :)

fish:// is great because you don't need SSH, it'll work over rlogin sessions, too, which is excellent. I didn't remember about this one. Thanks!

That's one of my favorite features, too. In Nautilus, just type 'sftp://SOMEADDRESS' and you're all set.