As we mentioned on Monday, the Free Software Foundation's Defective by Design campaign against DRM paid the U.K. a visit yesterday with protests outside the BBC's London and Manchester locations against the use of Microsoft DRM technology in their highly debated iPlayer software.
The BBC iPlayer has been in development for a number of years now, costing the BBC public £130 million (nearly $260 million) to date. The use of Microsoft's DRM technology has been highly contentious, especially with the appointment of Erik Huggers (previously director of Microsoft's Windows Digital Media division whose technology the BBC now employs in their iPlayer software) as controller of the BBC's future media and technology group which is managing the iPlayer project.
The BBC is a publicly funded body, governed by the BBC Trust who protect, amongst other things, open access and independence form corporate influence. The BBC has been told to make the player platform independent, however Mac and Linux users are likely to be out in the cold for some time.
Download Squad decided to visit the protest and spoke to Peter Brown, Executive Director of the Free Software Foundation, about the reasoning behind the protests and what the campaigns hopes for the future. We've made the interview available either as a text transcript after the break, or via the Download Squad podcast feed.
In their ever-continuing quest against security flaws in Firefox, the Mozilla Corporation has just updated Firefox to the awkwardly numbered version 2.0.0.5. Eight flaws are fixed in this release - three of which are marked as critical. Those of you wanting to know exactly which vulnerabilities have been fixed might want to check out the Vulnerabilities page at the Mozilla homepage.
If you're already running Firefox 2.0.0.x, then the auto-update mechanism will inform you of the update "within 24-48 hours" and Mozilla folks are also reminding folks that they have ceased support for Firefox 1.5.0.x, stating "you are highly encouraged to upgrade to the Firefox 2 series". For those of us using specialised builds (such as the Intel or PowerPC Mac OS X-optimised Bon Echo versions), we'd hazard a guess that updated versions of those are also on their way in due course from the respective third parties who build them.
Fortune Magazine has a detailed article examining Microsoft's relationship to free and open source software. Although the story reads mostly as a history of Microsoft, Linux, and GNU, there are a few interesting new tidbits, including the number of patents Microsoft claims Linux and other free software infringes on: 235.
Microsoft holds thousands of patents for its software, and won't say exactly which bits of code violate which patents. But apparently the Linux kernel alone violates 42 patents, while the Linux graphical user interface infringes on another 65. Microsoft says Open Office violates 45 patents.
Linux.com is running a great article Easy video creation using only FOSS software--FOSS, of course, meaning Free and Open Source. It's not a comprehensive tutorial--you're still going to have a lot of learning to do--but it does tell your best options for creating and editing video without spending a dime. The short version is like this:
Cinelerra - Non-linear digital video editor and compositor
Since that's a lot of software to download and install, the article recommends Elive, a Debian-based Linux distribution that comes pre-built with Cinelerra, video drivers and codecs, and video and DVD playback apps. Head over to Linux.com for more details on gettting your open source video-editing rig up and running.
User groups, for all their pedantic and geeky reputation, are a source of tremendous power and motivation in some communities, and it seems the more remote the community, the more robust the local user group. The island nation of Trinidad and Tobago are no exception to this rule.
The 700MB CD image includes desktop and educational applications, games, graphics programs, various server software, Internet programs and a host of sound and video applications. This is the kind of software collection that makes you (the geek) look like you (the superhero) when you burn and share it, evangelizing open source and helping less computing savvy friends and family find some really useful FOSS applications.
In their ever-continuing quest against security flaws in Firefox, the Mozilla Corporation has just 
