Over at Matheteuo Christian Fellowship, we've been working at launching our new e107 CMS. It simplifies the adding of new content and maintaining our web portal - which has always been one of our ministry's strong points. That said, it will take a little while to restore the volume of information we had generated in the past. However, we do have a basic framework in place and have restored a little of our original content, as well as numerous links.

Here's wishing you all a happy and prosperous New Year!

Don

Posted on Saturday 30 of December, 2006 [20:18:01 UTC]

The widely respected Free/Open Source Software advocate, Bruce Perens, revealed in a protest letter to Novell's CEO, Ron Hovsepian, that Hovsepian has actually pushed for software patents in Europe. According to Perens, Hovsepian even "reiterated Novell's support for strong software patent protection" during a panel discussion chaired by Perens. Perens' letter comes in the wake of a deal between Novell and Microsoft in which Microsoft has promised not to sue Novell customers, should there be a patent infringement issue.

While Novell has publicly supported the Free/open Source Software community's stance on software patents, they have been advocating the same. Call it straddling the fence. Call it hypocrisy. Call it whatever you want, but either you support or oppose software patents.

The FOSS community has long opposed software patents, recognizing them for what Perens called "a sort of shake-down racket" in which few, if any, software patents are ever fully enforced. Add to that the fact that many such patents are highly questionable because the U.S. Patent Office has little time to actually verify such patents, and you have a house built on sand. To be honest, software patents are about as sensible as patenting novels.

By itself, the deal could have been taken as a mistake on Novell's part. However, the discovery that Novell is really a strong supporter of software patents leads me to the conclusion that they should not be trusted. They may be able to win back my trust at some point, but they'll have to work awfully hard.

Posted on Friday 24 of November, 2006 [00:32:27 UTC]

The Charlotte Linux User Group will begin holding meetings on the 1st Saturday of each month at Central Piedmont Community College. We will work to involve the students and are working to get some decent presentations as well. Additionally, the UNCCLUG students may also come down as well. We have a re-designed website, and things are looking up. We'll keep plugging away at it!

Posted on Thursday 09 of November, 2006 [00:57:14 UTC]

Here's a great article about buying a computer with GNU/Linux pre-installed:
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/66518/index.html

Here's the actual list of vendors (See the top post):
http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/23168/

Lxer, where I am now Editor-in-Chief (since April), will soon make this list a little easier to view and add to. ;-)

Posted on Thursday 19 of October, 2006 [07:40:49 UTC]

The Charlotte Linux User Group is currently contemplating its future. Our chairman has resigned, leaving me in the position of "acting" chairman. We are currently talking about having two monthly meetings and formalizing our format slightly. The bad news is that our current slate of officers has done a poor job of ensuring the proper documents and contact information are available to the group as a whole.

Our LUG has faced the same challenges that most LUGs across the country face. I have been wanting to be involved in a LUG for a long time. We began last year having meetings on Saturday mornings, which meant that I could finally attend! Then early this year, we began holding meetings on a Tuesday evening, which ended my attendance. Now, though, in light of lessons I learned at the Ohio linuxFest, we will attempt to hold 2 monthly meetings, one on the 3rd Tuesday and one on a Saturday. We haven't determined which Saturday yet.

We're also looking at election time. We are currently postponing our elections for a couple months. This should give us time to get some things together so we can actually move forward. I have offered to run for chairman. We have at least one person who is doing agreat job as webmaster, and who has also been helping keep our meetings going. Surely he's officer material! We'll see what happens.

Posted on Thursday 19 of October, 2006 [07:36:27 UTC]

Check out the Software Freedom Day - Charlotte pics! We celebrated Software Freedom Day on Saturday, 16 Sep 06, at the University of North Carolina - Charlotte campus. We gave out books, CDs, caps and t-shirts. We had computers for people to check out GNU/Linux and tinker with various applications.

The UNCCLUG guys really did a great job of putting out the word across campus, and coming up with some free pizza from one of the local restaurants. The CharLUG crew showed up with PCs, caps and t-shirts. Everyone brought CDs and laptops.

Posted on Monday 18 of September, 2006 [23:26:08 UTC]

I recently wrote an article on LXer about Microsoft's skewing of the facts surrounding the development of the OpenDocument format. While Andy Updegrove pointed out the blatantly false statements, I went a little further. They really have some gall, turning down every invition to participate in the process from the beginning, only to turn around and pretend to be under attack from the competition! In the words of John Stocill (ABC News reporter), "Gimme a break!"

Posted on Thursday 22 of December, 2005 [04:53:31 UTC]

You can read about why several Christians, mostly clergy, spoke out against Microsoft's conduct in the Massachusetts OpenDocument battle at LXer.

Posted on Wednesday 16 of November, 2005 [22:33:52 UTC]

Fox News published an article by James Prendergast, who represents the Association for Technology Leadership, a Microsoft co-founded organization, regarding Massachusetts' decision to adopt the new OASIS standard document format, OpenDocument. Needless to say, Mr. Prendergast's comments in the article,Massachusetts Should Close Down OpenDocument, were not favorable to the OASIS format, but seemed to promote the interests of Microsoft.

I, along with a number of others (apparently) sent rebuttals to Fox News, and they finally published them: Your Mail: Open Debate About OpenDocument

My own rebuttal did not make the cut, but the ones they published were fairly representative of what I said. So I second the motion. The main thing is that Fox News published the rebuttals. Failure to have done so would have destroyed the notion of "fair and balanced", the motto displayed at the top of their (nearly) every web page. Anyway, read it over, and see what you think.

The fact that Massachusetts chose OpenDocument suggests that other organizations should consider doing the same. Their reasons for doing so were most definitely technical. I'll have to explore the need for churches and non-profits to adopt the OpenDocument format as their official formats soon.

Posted on Friday 14 of October, 2005 [03:53:53 UTC]

NewsForge and LXer are carrying the article about "Penguin in the Pew" becoming an on-line learning course! Richard Brincfield, the man behind the University of Phoenix' successful on-line elearning program has chosen to make "Penguin in the Pew", along with my essay, "IT as Ministry" available as an eLearning course, using Moodle. And yes, I'm teaching the courses.

Here's the LXer article.

Posted on Wednesday 12 of October, 2005 [14:51:48 UTC]