MINI WUF proudly wears a new Bullfrog sticker!

As spring weather rolls around, one of the joys that I have come to expect is participating in the Tar Heel MINI Motoring Club’s Bullfrog Run.  I say I’ve come to expect it since it is something that I only know about due to my MINI ownership and participating with the THMMC.  This year’s run was the third annual running of this particular run for the club.  Members of the club have been running the route for several years; but in memory Rob Baker they started running the route as an annual event and dubbed it the Bullfrog Run.  I never met Rob as he had passed on before my membership started.  He was described as a great driver (who really knew what to do with his DS Justa), a great club member, and a great person.  His example also spawned the MINIs Motoring Against Cancer banner.  And for this particular run, we took up a collection that yielded a $120 donation to the American Cancer Society.

MINIs gathering for the run

I’m glad to say that I’ve been to all three of the Bullfrog Runs.  Besides the nature of the event, it is special to me now because the first Bullfrog Run was also my first ever event that I attended with the THMMC.  So even though my MINI adventure started in February, the running of the Bullfrog always feels like the “anniversary” of when I started with the THMMC. (more…)

Just thought I’d post up a quick entry about Document Freedom Day.  This is coming up on March 31st.  As indicated on the web site for the “event”:

Document Freedom Day (DFD) is a global day for document liberation. It will be a day of grassroots effort to educate the public about the importance of Open Document Formats and Open Standards in general.

As any regular reader of this blog is aware (is there such a thing as a reader of this blog, much less a regular one?), I’m a big fan of OpenOffice.org for all of my “office” documents - text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.  Among the reasons I like OOo is the fact that it is free and that it uses the OpenDocument Format for saving files (and of course there is the “it is just plain better” reason).  Use of the ODF format helps others as they do not have to use specific software to open the files that I generate.  Theoretically, they do not even have to use an office productivity suite since the files are in an XML format (maybe not theoretical as I once had to go through the process of open the native XML file when I was helping someone troubleshoot some file corruption).

Those two factors in my opinion make a strong argument as to why governments and public administrations should switch to ODF.  There are plenty of applications available that can open an ODF file, many of them free (like OOo).  By using these documents, citizens are not forced to go out and buy any specific software application.  So, the government stays neutral with respect to vendors and the marketplace.  And, it does not seem to me that government should be forcing citizens to buy software just to be able to read/open a government document.

Unfortunately, even now, in my position I continue to get Excel spreadsheet files from HUD for the conduct of official business.  I’ve been tempted a few times to write back to them and inform them that “I do not have Excel - how am I supposed to use their document?”  I have a feeling they’d be at a loss as to how to answer.

Hope you’ll think about this some.  And maybe make a switch to some other document format.  You may even have a chance to try out OpenOffice.org.

Ran across this slideshow on the Baseline magazine web site. I seem to spend a lot of my effort promoting OpenOffice.org, Firefox, and Thunderbird. There are lots of other F/OSS applications I use as well. Don’t want to lose sight of the fact that I’m a big fan of Linux. Still hoping I may be able to convert my employer to Linux. Change is always tough though. Anyway, the facts from the slideshow include:

1. Linus Torvalds developed the Linux kernel while still a student at the University of Helsinki in 1991.
2. Last year, 75% of Linux code was developed by programmers working for corporations.
3. In December 2009, IBM announced a new mainframe system designed for Linux.
4. IBM chose Linux for what is expected to be the world’s most powerful supercomputer, Sequoia, due in 2011.
5. Linux powers 446 of the world’s top 500 supercomputers.
6. Some 95% of the servers used by Hollywood’s large animation studios are powered by Linux.
7. The first major film produced on Linux servers was 1997’s Titanic.
8. Director James Cameron again chose Linux servers for box-office smash Avatar.
9. Google runs its web servers on Linux.
10. Google has contributed about 1.1% of the code in the current Linux kernel.
11. Linux has a strong following in smartphones and other devices in the consumer electronics world.
12. Palm’s WebOS, Google’s Android and Nokia’s Maemo smartphone operating systems are built on top of the Linux kernel.
13. TiVo uses a customized version of Linux for its appliances.
14. In 2009, Linux had 33.8% revenue marketshare of servers, compared to Microsoft’s 7.3%.
15. As of January 2010, Linux still only has a 1.02% marketshare within desktops.
16. Torvalds created Linux based on the GNU General Public License (GPL).
17. Torvalds wouldn’t have written his own operating system if GNU had had a kernel at the time.
18. The GNU Project then lacked drivers, daemons and a kernel.
19. Under the GPL, any person or group distributing the Linux kernel must make the source code available to the recipient of the package.
20. Said Torvalds: “Making Linux GPL’d was definitely the best thing I ever did.”
21. Torvalds failed to register the name “Linux” when he first started his open source ventures.
22. In 1994, William Della Croce, Jr. filed for trademark in the U.S.and asked for royalties from Linux distributors.
23. Torvalds and his lawyers won the battle for the Linux name in 1997.
24. There are over 300 distributions of Linux actively deployed today.
25. Linux gained traction beyond the coder cult with 1993’s Slackware distribution, which was easier for non-programmers to use.
26. The Debian distribution was one of the first truly community-oriented Linux coding projects.
27. Debian’s code base remains the foundation for other distros such as Ubuntu, Knoppix and Xandros.
28. Debian v. 4.0’s source code containes 283 million lines of code.
29. $7.37 billion: projected cost to produce that amount of code in a commercial environment.
30. The first commercially-produced, live-CD distribution of Linux was Yggdrasil, released in 1992.
31. Red Hat was one of the first commercial Linux distributions to truly cater to the enterprise.
32. Ubuntu was the first Linux distro to be offered by a major OEM (Dell) to desktop users.
33. The Xandros distribution helped make the netbook craze possible when it was chosen by ASUS for the first iterations of the EeePC.
34. Linux-based Apache wasn’t named for Geronimo’s tribe, it was called “a patchy server” for its cobbled-together source code.
35. In 2002, The Register claimed Microsoft spent $421 million just to fight Linux.
36. In 2003, the SCO Group earned enmity by claiming that IBM transferred UNIX code into Linux and asking for redress.
37. The Indian state of Kerala made it mandatory for all of its high schools to run Linux on their computers.
38. The federal government of Brazil favors Linux operating systems over all others in its PCs.
39. In 2009, Brazil carried out the largest thin-client deployment of Linux to date, with 350,000 nodes.
40. IDC projects that Linux support sales will top $1 billion by 2012.