"All of this applies to meetup.com as well as eventbrite.com

There are two things wrong with eventbrite.com. The superficial flaw is that it requires running nonfree Javascript code. That's superficial in the sense that it could be fixed easily, but it's a fatal flaw until they do fix it; running nonfree Javascript code deprives people of freedom, people ought to refuse to run it, and it is wrong to ask users to run it. See The #Javascript Trap : http://gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html

The deeper problem of using eventbrite to register people for an event is that it collects data about them and gives it to a company (with big brother reading over its shoulder).

If you want to register attendees for an event of any kind -- whether it is for business, for pleasure, for education, or whatever, please do it the ethical way: don't make them run any nonfree software, and don't make them send personal data (not even to you). That's how the #FSF does it. We don't insist on getting a person's real name. When we charge for attendance, we accept payment in cash at the door.

When you invite specific people to a private party, perhaps you know exactly who is coming because each one is your friend. It is natural for you to know that — just don't dox your friends to a company such as eventbrite! "

FACIL, pour l'appropriation collective de l'informatique libre (FACIL) est un organisme québécois sans but lucratif dont le mandat est de promouvoir l'adoption, l'usage et la démocratisation de l'informatique libre.

À propos du nom

L'acronyme FACIL signifie FACIL, pour l’appropriation collective de l'informatique libre. Il s'agit d'un acronyme récursif comme celui du projet GNU (GNU’s Not UNIX) de la Free Software Foundation.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a nonprofit with a worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom. We defend the rights of all software users.

This document available in more than 50 languages contains the Free Software Definition and information about copyleft, rules about packaging and distribution details, export regulations, and other legal considerations. It is also good starting point for activists and enthusiasts to understand the important of using the right words, the difference with Open Source and more.

"New Zealand electric racecar developer Greenstage is close to finishing an open source project called 'Tumanako,' which would allow owners of electric cars and motorcycles to tweak the code in their vehicles. Electric vehicle gearheads grouse about proprietary code that keeps current, torque and speed within very conservative limits. 'In racing, you need the system to push all those parameters to the limits. You only need the system to survive until just past the finish line,' says Bill Dube, the owner of the record-setting KillaCycle. Open source code could also be used to build any type of electric vehicle, from cars and submarines to motor-launched aerial gliders, from scratch. It's like Linux for your Chevy Volt."

OpenTBS is a plug-in for the TinyButStrong Template Engine.

TinyButStrong is a PHP Template Engine which has special template syntax and allows you to design templates in their natural editing tools. But it normally works only for Text files, including XML and HTML.

With TinyButStrong and its plug-in OpenTBS, you can use the template engine to merge OpenOffice documents and Ms Office documents with lot of facilities. All OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Office Open XML (OOXML) can be merged with OpenTBS, and also XPS files (XPS is a PDF competitor provided by Microsoft). In fact, all zip archives containing Xml/Html/Text files can be merged with OpenTBS.
What is special to OpenTBS:

Design your templates directly with OpenOffice or MS Office.
No exe file needed to merge documents.
No temporary files needed to merge documents.
Output directly as an http download, a new file on the disk, or as a string (for file attachment for example).
Works with both PHP 4 and PHP 5.
No PHP extension is required (If the Zlib extension is enabled it becomes easier to use templates, see more detail below)

You should know Template Engines and more specifically TinyButStrong to use OpenTBS.

The Peruvian government and Microsoft signed an agreement to use Windows XP and Office, as well as other educational resources in the laptops as part of an OLPC pilot program, minister of education José Chang announced last week (18 September).

The move makes Peru the first country worldwide to test the change in the operating system of the OLPC devices.

Chang justified the change from Linux to Windows by saying public school students in Peru "need to use the most modern tools with the most global use".

Lately there has been quite some debate about “free services” and what they mean to their users. A lot of it started with the excellent article “Don’t be a free user” by Maciej Ceglowski which described a few unpleasant truths.

http://matt.lee.name

Internet anti hero/idiot. Ex-UK, now US. Opinions are mine, etc. Follow @fsf or @foocorp for others.

http://joshuagay.org

I'm interested in free software & free textbooks. I live in Cambridge, MA USA.

NYC, NY, USA, Earth
http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn

Executive Director & President, Software Freedom Conservancy. Director, FSF. Software Freedom advocate. GPL Enforcer. Occasional developer.

People often ask the Free Software Foundation (FSF) what license is recommended to use for their project. The FSF has written about this publicly before, but the information has been scattered around between different essays, FAQ entries, and license commentaries. This article collects all that information into a single source, to make it easier for people to follow and refer back to.

The recommendations are focused on licensing a work that you create—whether that's a modification of an existing work, or a new original work. These recommendations do not address the issue of combining existing material under different licenses. If you're looking for help with that, please check the FSF license FAQ.

JavaScript License Web Labels is a format that the FSF proposes webmasters use to publish license information and source code for the JavaScript they deploy on their sites. It looks simple enough to be accessible to any visitor, but provides enough detail that automated tools can confirm that all of a site's JavaScript is actually free. Such software will make it practical for people to run free JavaScript and refuse nonfree code. Tools like this are already being developed: LibreJS is a plug-in for Mozilla-based browsers that will support JavaScript License Web Labels.

Starting tomorrow I will be in Boston for the annual conference of the Free Software Foundation, “LibrePlanet 2012“. We’ll be four people from Quebec (actually 5, just got last minute confirmation of another former colleague!), wanting to learn about what has been been brewing abroad and also wanting to share about our experiences here in Quebec.

The group has been formed to promote education and promotion of Freedom across technology, arts, and content. This includes formats, licenses, software, hardware and more. Our scope is Quebec, Canada where we wish to support individuals and organizations with similar goals. The goals are similar to those of the Free Software Foundation. Our primary objective is to act as a liaison between similar international organizations and relay what's happening in Quebec to them (and vice-versa). We hope this will lead to increased cooperation, effective use of resources, and stronger messages going tp everyone as a result of global actions being executed locally.

Le groupe a été formé pour encourager l'éducation et la promotion de la liberté de la technologie, des arts et du contenu. Cela inclut les formats, licences, logiciels, le matériel et plus encore. Notre champ d'action est le Québec, au Canada, où nous tenons à soutenir les individus et organismes ayant des objectifs similaires. Les objectifs sont semblabes à ceux de la Free Software Foundation. Notre objectif principal est d'agir comme liaison entre les organisations internationales similaires et relais ce qui se passe au Québec pour eux (et vice-versa). Nous espérons que cela mènera à une coopération accrue, l'utilisation efficace des ressources, et la diffusion d'un message clair, résultat d'actions globales au niveau local.

Thinking of submitting an application to the Windows Phone Marketplace? Better check the fine print in the developer agreement. Microsoft has a message there for many free and open source developers: You are not welcome.

The PlayStation 3 is a compromised system. Its master key is all over the Internet, custom firmware allowing third-party software to run on the hardware is a click away, and Sony is furiously trying to stop this information from spreading. The company asked the courts for a temporary restraining order keeping those responsible from any further sharing of the keys or information about cracking the PS3, and is suing for damages.