Free/open source software has had a profound impact on the modern age of computing. It continues to grow with each day and has become a major competitor to even large software companies such as Microsoft. At this rate, free software will continue to develop to the point where it may very well be an entirely viable alternative to proprietary software (including operating system). However, what’s taking it so long?

The way I see it is - funding. The majority of free software projects are funded through donations. Yes, that’s a great way to fund a project and build up a community, however it also limits the amount of time you can spend on the project. Many open source / free software projects are done in the developers’ free time - they’re not really getting paid for their work. So development may be slow. Take for example my MyCustomBB project - under development for nearly two years but barely on track and already becoming outdated. I haven’t had enough free time. What can be done to address that?

“A report by Standish Group says that adoption of open source has caused a drop in revenue to the proprietary software industry by about $60 billion per year.” ~Wikipedia

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Well, I recently ordered a Sansa e280 from Amazon. I was looking for a good mp3 player that the open-source firmware RockBox supported. I noted that the v2 series was not supported, but Amazon did not state that it was such a model. You can imagine my disappointment once it arrived.

After debating whether or not to return it, I decided to keep it. v2s are out now, so v1 I assume will be discontinued - RockBox will eventually support it. And I’d like to provide aid to the RockBox team however I can. Unfortunately I have not looked into the firmware so I will not be much help in the actual development, however I will provide whatever information I can regarding the player, as the dev team does not own any v2s.

Using the Sansa e200v2 Series on GNU/Linux

So, in deciding to keep it, I ran into a few problems. It was a bit frustrating, and in order to help save you guys some of the frustration, I’ll post some information on how to use it with GNU/Linux. Specifically, Ubuntu Gutsy.

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A few days ago, I received my FSF membership goodies in the mail. Among these things were a bootable GNU/Linux membership card / CD-ROM, utility flash drive, a CD containing the source code for the files contained on the membership card, a small collection of articles and a very generous amount of creative stickers which I could not help but show everyone. Click on the image above to enlarge.

In an effort to give back to the open source and free software communities that has so positively affected both my life and career, I have become an Associate Member of the Free Software Foundation to provide my support. I encourage other open source supporters to do the same, or make a small donation toward the effort. For more information on membership, click the image on the lower-right hand column of this page.

With that said, GNU GPLv3 has been released and has some impressive improvements over version two. All my open source projects, most notably MyCustomBB, will adopt this new license.

I have also made my final decision not to return to developing for Microsoft Windows. All my open source projects will be cross-os / cross-browser, however I will no longer be developing projects exclusively for Windows. After getting Internet Explorer working on Linux (for developing websites to conform to its absence of standards), I have abandoned it completely and now exclusively use Linux (Ubuntu) and open source software.

Finally, on a lesser note, I’ve modified this blog’s theme to be a bit more fitting. Hopefully everyone likes it.

Not too long ago I decided to go open-source with my MyCustomBB bulletin board software. I couldn’t bear requiring licenses for it - I’m not that type of guy. I’ve wanted to create an open-source project for a while - a way to give back to the open-source community - so here it is.

Though open-source, the project’s design has not changed. It will still be the professional, completely customizable bulletin board that I originally intended. My goal is to give it all the features of current bulletin board systems, except make them a tad bit better. This will be an open-source alternative to major competitors such as vBulletin and InvisionBoard. Why do I think it will be better? Well, this is my passion. Those other guys seem to just be out to make money. I’m out to start communities.