Happy Software Freedom Day!

Apparently, today is the Software Freedom Day.  If you are asking yourself the question: “What is Software Freedom Day?”, the official website has an answer for you.

Software Freedom Day is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Our goal in this celebration is to educate the worldwide public about the benefits of using high quality FOSS in education, in government, at home, and in business — in short, everywhere!

Being a great fan of, user, and contributor to Free and Open Source Software I think that this is an excellent idea.  I also understand the benefits of always having it on a weekend day, so that meetings could be organized easier.  But I have to say that I am not a big fan of using moving dates for holidays.  It makes it difficult to remember and prepare to.  Just have a look at how popular Sysadmin Day is and that one is celebrated for years now.

Either way, happy Software Freedom Day!  If you are a contributor to Free and Open Source Software, I thank you and hope you will get more appreciation for the work you do.  If you are just a user, I hope you will find a way to contribute soon, even if that is just buying a beer to a contributor next to you.  And if you are a poor soul who haven’t heard about Free and Open Source Software, please educate yourself – you are missing out. You can start with Wikipedia pages for Free Software and Open Source Software.  If you need any help, feel free to contact me or anyone else who is already a member of the cult.  One thing is for sure though.  It doesn’t matter if you believe in Free and Open Source Software or not, if you are reading this – you’ve definitely used and benefited from it.  No?  Yes you did.  You are on the Internet, aren’t you…

Flickr blog creative : Live Album

I’ve seen my share of creative Flickr uses – applications, groups, forums, comments, tutorials, and more.  But one of the most creative Flickr-related things that I know, remains to be Flickr’s own blog.  Every day they choose a theme and share inspirational images that suit that theme.  And given that they have plenty of images to choose from, as someone who tried a few “a thing every day” projects, I know how difficult it is.  And still they manage.  Some days it’s simpler, some days it’s not.  For yesterday, September 16, 2011, for example, the theme was Live Album.  Have a look at the images that they share and their blog post. That’s nothing short of awesome!

Pantone Inc and Open Source

I came across an interesting paragraph in Wikipedia page on Pantone Inc.

Pantone asserts that their lists of color numbers and pigment values are the intellectual property of Pantone and free use of the list is not allowed. This is frequently held as a reason why Pantone colors cannot be supported in Open Source software such as GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) and are not often found in low-cost software.