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A few weeks back Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux, asked it's users which non-free applications they'd like to see made available in their Apps Store. The idea as far as I can work out is to take these figures to vendors like Adobe to try and convince them to port applications like Photoshop and Dreamweaver to Linux. The idea is to prove to Adobe that there's a market for their investment. There's one small problem however.

With every new form of communication we need to find how existing etiquette fits in and what is considered crossing the line, but first we need to find where the line is generally accepted to be. This is different for everyone and is mostly in the eyes of the beholder. This Dent triggered this post, but I'll address this further down.

Trust is vital in any relationship; without it there is nothing. If you don't trust someone, you can't rely on what they are telling you, or agreeing to is what they mean or can deliver. Yet traditions mean that parents all over the world are breaking the trust of their children by blatantly deceiving them and lying to them. The fact that it's "for a good cause" does not change the fact that the bond of trust is being intentionally broken.

Up until about a week ago I've jumped from one free host to another with mixed results. After prolonged periods of downtime I decided to jump once and for all to a paid host. Free hosting is perfectly workable if you know the limits and are prepared to juggle different accounts for different things. My new host is not only capable of having the site accessible 24 / 7 but gives me much more freedom to really start to work.

I've noticed recently arguments continue to pop up on Identi.ca around the GNU / FSF with their supporters who seem to try to force people to call Linux "GNU Linux" and can't see the hypocritical stance they're taking. Before I begin, let me point out that I broadly agree with the goals of the FSF, I believe the GPL licence is brilliant, I choose and advocate the use of free software when it's up to the task and therefore a viable option. I'm just getting sick of the same argument over and over again.

In an ideal world we'd all run free software. In an ideal world we wouldn't have any non-free software on the devices we use. That world is not today. Yes you can make that ethical choice and live by it, but you will have to choose your hardware carefully, as well as auditing your software to ensure it's free. You'll also have to live without some of the benefits of modern computing too, until the world changes enough to embrace free software.

If you want to buy music online, it comes as mp3 (non-free), so you can make the choice that no online store is fit for purpose, cut yourself off from that until it offers free codecs, and rip your music from CDs into free formats. If you want to watch videos online, you're gonna need Flash (non-free). Yes, there is the Gnash project to provide a free alternative, and I wish them all the success, but it's not there yet. So you can choose a flaky free alternative, or cut yourself off of sites that stream videos in Flash. There are some sites who stream in other formats, and HTML5 will help but it's not there yet, and most of the world uses Flash, as bad as it is. If your graphics card which you spend a lot of money on does not have a free 3D driver, you can choose not to have the 3D acceleration from the card, and lose a large part of what you bought the card for.

Not everyone who uses a product cares about the political / ethical / philosophical underpinnings that go with it either. Plenty of people use something because they like it, and it works for them. I don't use Firefox because it's free, I use it because in my opinion it's the best browser available. Granted it could do with some changes and spend some time on a diet but I choose it because it's the best.

Plenty of people come to Linux and free software in general come from a proprietary world, where some of them learn what a proprietary world is and what the alternative is. They've already gotten used to proprietary solutions to their needs. They've already spent money on iPods, iPod accessories etc. You don't punish a child for doing something wrong if they don't know it is wrong. If you are clueless to the whole culture / ideas / politics / philosophy behind free software, you can't possibly make your choices based on how the options fit into that. Of course we should encourage people that when they replace these devices, to choose a free-compatible device if they can, but this again comes down to freedom of choice.

If you are free to choose, then you are free to choose non-free. If you deny that choice, then you are not free to choose. This also applies to the naming of Linux / GNU Linux. If you are free to choose, then you are free to choose to call it simply Linux. By constantly fighting the same fight over and over and over again about "people should call it GNU Linux" while at the same time claiming you're fighting for individuals "freedom to choose" you are a hypocrite. What it boils down to is "you are free to choose what we approve of, if you don't, we'll keep on at you until you do".

I don't know how much GNU stuff is inside the Linux distro I use, and I don't care. I don't audit every piece of software I use from an ownership point of view, I install them and use them. I bought a PC, and recently a netbook to actually use them as odd as that may sound. To me a "Linux distro" is a collection of apps large and small, from millions of different contributors around the planet rolled into one .iso that I can download, burn and install. Imagine if every disparate part of it demanded to be included in the name? Yes I know that "linux" is the kernel before anyone feels the need to "educate" me.

"We are proud to announce the new GNU / Linux Ubuntu 10.04 Firefox, Evolution, Rythmbox, Gimp, Empathy etc"

I'm not gonna waste time listing every app for that example, but that'd just be the start of the name, it's initial so to speak. Those were only the visible GUI apps off the top of my head, what about all the underlying services and daemons, they deserve to be included right? Are we only including the ones installed by default? What about the rest of the stuff in the repos? Do we organise the name based on how permissive the licence involved? How about alphabetical?

We have a hard enough time getting mainstream attention because money has bought those slots, and money from proprietary companies promote proprietary solutions as the only solutions. So we get a two minute slot on a mainstream radio show to explain what free software / Linux is, and the entire two minutes is taken up just saying the name of one distro, which is just a two minute stream of gibberish jargon words that nobody listening understands. How can this possibly help educate people to the choices they have or bring new users in?

We have a hard enough time trying to gain mainstream acceptance in a world brainwashed by proprietary solutions, and we know they use anything and everything against us, to weaken our cause. A lot of what they use is intentionally wrong or misleading, we know this. We all see this every day. One of the things they use against us is the fact that we're all fragmented and fighting the whole time, so how can we be a credible alternative to a FTSE100 company. Argument (as in healthy debate) is good, it helps refine ideas, but the same divisive arguments over and over play into their hands.

Before I came to Linux, there was three major "flame wars" for want of a better word.

• Gnome V KDE
• Emacs V Vi
• GPL V MIT

This would divide people, people with the same goals in mind. It was used against us, to paint us as divided. Divide and conquer is an age old tactic, as much as infiltrating and eroding or undermining from within is. Thankfully the people I see from both Gnome and KDE see this, they know working together is the healthy future for both projects, and that if one of them draws new users to Linux, then they both gain. The world has moved on from the cli world that started the Emacs and Vi wars, so it's no longer an issue. Some old schoolers have their own preference either way, but most new users won't have a need for either, so have no opinion on it. They've now gone beyond fighting to little jabs we prod each other with in a fun and light hearted context. Most of us know that fighting over personal choice is pointless, as each of us are different. XFCE works fine for me, no argument about any other DE or WM is likely to sway me, although I do try out others from time to time, where the experience itself may sway me to switch. This is healthy.

Free software licences are also a bone of contention with strongly held and equally valid viewpoints either way. There are of course a lot more licences that just the GPL and MIT but since these have come to represent Linux (GPL) and BSD (MIT) they are generally the most divisive. For the most part, we've grown to the belief that there is no "best" and that we're broadly on the same side, so we can agree to disagree on the stuff that does not really matter to most people, and focus our priorities on where we can improve.

I see MIT licensed software as easy pickings for corporations who want to absorb it and modify it for their own aims, claim credit and give nothing back to improve the project for others. I see the GPL as a necessary protection from those corporations. I see BSD / MIT as on the same side, with the same broad goals, not as something that needs convincing of the error of it's ways. It's still free software.

We do still have some groups of people who either enjoy arguing online, think they can win a debate on personal choice, or think there is a "best" and that whatever they're arguing for is "the best", so they provide all sorts of "proof" for their assertion. This is unhealthy. It sends the wrong message to outsiders and plays into the hands of our detractors.

The word Linux is two syllables lin-ux, it's easy to say and it's stuck. For right or wrong, it's stuck. Just as people call KDE "KDE". Nobody is gonna call it "the K Desktop Software Collection" or whatever the new name is, no matter how much they brow beat people. By constantly trying to shove that change down people's throats it will only alienate them. If they are broadly on your side in the first place, you're doing more harm than good. If they're new, they may easily turn around and leave with the impression our detractors paint us as being made reality. In which case you lose a potential new user who will spread their experiences by word of mouth to their friends, again doing more harm than good.

The reasons I see repeated over and over again are bogus too, like it being in the interests of the users to call it GNU Linux. No, it's in the interests of users and developers to use free software, the only people it serves to call it GNU Linux, is GNU. I'll assume they added GNU onto the start by choosing to name them alphabetically too, as I never see them advocate the name Linux GNU. There seems to be a fresh argument every other day by some GNU person trying to force others to call it GNU Linux. The only people who care about the name are the GNU people who are seemingly unable to see their hypocrisy. Nobody else cares, yet we have to face the same groundhog day over and over and over again.

I admire the aims of bringing this world into existence, I really do, but it's as near as the prospect of having a choice of two or more honest politicians to choose from in an election. In the current system you can't realistically see one honest politician, let alone a choice. It'll take a long time to happen. In the meantime, life goes on.

My original title for this post was going to be "GNU Fascists" but I decided it was too hostile, so I toned it back. The bottom line, is that freedom is not conditional that you agree with something, it's the freedom to disagree. Those who won't accept that are not promoting freedom.

No this is not some post announcing a wedding anniversary, nor is it a piece about gay marriage, it's an observation about grammar, coincidence and how life could have been very different, especially for women. It occurred to me the other day how the meaning of a word changes with a simple apostrophe, and in one example gives an insight into traditional beliefs that some people hold.

In English, the apostrophe is used in two ways, either as a gap between two words:

• she'll (she will)
• they're (they are)

Or the apostrophe is used to show ownership of a word:

• Sarah's scarf (a scarf belonging to Sarah)
• John's bike (a bike belonging to John)

Many people use apostrophes to denote plurals of words. As far as I know, this is wrong. I try to avoid this myself for that reason.

• The road's are busy today (The roads are busy today)
• Can't see the forest for the tree's (Can't see the forest for the trees)

So given this understanding of how English works, and where (not) to use an apostrophe, imagine adding an apostrophe to this well known phrase:

• Mr & Mrs (Mr & Mr's) or (Mister & Mister's)

It has no word after it to become a shortening apostrophe. It does not quite fit the ownership rule because it has no following word, but it does read like:

• Owned by Mister
• Property of Mister

This accidental observation or coincidence may be an insight into how many cultures view women as property of their husbands rather than equal partners in a relationship. It does bring a new light to:

• Whatever is mine, is mine and whatever is yours is mine.

You could joke that there was no apostrophe in the original texts, but a fly being squashed on the wrong part of the page made it appear as an apostrophe, and history has taken the path we currently experience because of that fly. If it had died on another page, or another part of the page, it would never have been interpreted as an apostrophe.

I am no expert in the English language or it's grammar rules, but I did learn a few things at school and over the years since. Language changes over time, as do the rules governing what to use when. I try to stick to the rules as I understand them when I'm writing.

An article from the BBC on fuel poverty today got me wondering. An increasing number of people are now in fuel poverty, sitting in cold homes because they can't afford to turn the heating up, or having to eat less food so they can heat their homes. when money is tight, people have to cut back on non-essentials to pay for the essentials.

Fuel poverty is defined as where someone spends more than 10% of their household income on heating their home. Note the %? It's variable, depending on the income. The TV licence is not. £10 per month for life; well until the BBC shmooze the government again and it increases yet again, for a subscription to a mainstream entertainment service you can't cancel, even if you don't watch it.

Subscriptions to entertainment services are just one example of where people cut back to save or prioritise money.

So I wonder:

• How many of these people officially classed as in fuel poverty have a TV licence.
• How many of these people now sit in fear of the doorbell in case it's a Capita employee for the TV licence money.
• How many of these people will end up in court or jail for not paying their TV licence.
• How many of these people would consider it "value for money".
• How many of these people would cancel the BBC if they could.
• How many of these people appreciate Mark Thompson's assurances that "nobody is interested in learning about salaries", while on his own £800,000 salary.
• How many of these people agree with the idea that "you must pay the best to get the best".
• How many of these people appreciate the fact that most of the BBC output is mainstream commercial content in nature, designed to pull audiences from other commercial providers.
• How many of these people appreciate that Mark Thompson pays the same for his TV licence on a salary of £800,000 as they do, he may even get his free as a perk of the job.
• How many of these people see that the TV licence is flawed in the same way the Poll Tax was; a flat fee regardless of income or ability to pay.
• How many of these people think the BBC is "on their side" when it's funded by an unfair tax.

Anyone who claims it's "good value for money" is trying to spend YOUR money for you. Only YOU have the right to decide that. Often the people who say that are at least comfortably well off, and can afford to go buy a major new electrical device at the drop of a hat, or book a week abroad, shove it on the credit card and watch as it gets lost in the middle of loads of other transactions for car payments, mortgages etc The point is they are well enough to have the ability to spend on a whim, without planning much ahead. Just sign the Direct Debit and forget about it. It might only be Xp per day, but that should be YOUR choice on how to spend it, not theirs.

The people who do consider it "good value for money" and are willing to pay for what they get can do so. It wouldn't be the same price however, as the price is designed to be spread out across a LOT of people who can't afford it but have no choice. If there was a choice, a LOT would unsubscribe, pushing the price right up as it'd have a LOT less people spreading the cost. Then would they consider it "good value for money?" Some would, but many others wouldn't.

This is NOT the same daily experience for many. Many people have had to cut back on as much as they can to make ends meet. They have to move money from one place to another, knowing bills are overdue. They have to delay buying stuff they really need to pay for the most urgent things. They have to work out exact days for payments to try and ensure enough money in their accounts to cover a payment. In short, they need every £ they can squeeze, so £10 per month for an entertainment service is not likely to be considered "value for money" to them.

If you have £20 spare each month before the TV licence and after paying all your family bills to act as petty cash for little extras, that £10 is a 50% of that spare cash. If you have £200 spare in the same situation, £10 is only 5% of it. Income does matter.

The Thatcher government was brought down by the people refusing an unfair tax and her being unwilling to bend to reason; well a tax that benefits the rich and penalises the poor. The BBC still have the same unfair tax 20 years later. What makes it worse is the fact that there's so much competition in full flow that there's no excuse for the BBC to compete.

Don't worry though, the BBC top brass are "the best", so they know the game is up. They're also upstanding honest people who have the licence fee payers interests at heart, so they wouldn't try to extend their time at the trough to enrich themselves, as people sit in cold homes, hungry with a TV licence inspector knocking on the door.

Please note this post has elements of sarcasm......for those who are unable to tell the difference.

As my blog seems to be down as often as it's up over the last couple of weeks I thought I'd explain why. I use FBH as my host. This site is on server 6 (of 6), which seems incapable of lasting a few hours without Apache locking up and requiring an admin to restart it. The problem in the amount of downtime comes from the fact that there is only one admin to do this.

FBH are a new company, so there will be some teething issues like this one. They are well aware of it and are as frustrated as the users with sites on server 6. They are looking into having a script detect when the server needs a restart and attempt to restart it automatically, or email an admin if it fails to restart. When this is implemented the downtime will be minutes at most, assuming the issues further up the chain still persist.

They have been trying to work with their hosts to find out why this continues to be a problem. To date this has achieved nothing from the server uptime perspective. Since just before Christmas I've had to start 9 support tickets, yes NINE. All for the same thing. Sometimes I get lucky and the admin is not sleeping, so it can be restarted quickly, other times the site is down for several hours before coming back alive. The other day was the 8th ticket, which was acted on (server restarted) just before I went to bed, and when I woke up the site was down yet again. I think it was the 8th, the 9th was last night and my site is only just back up now after the 9th ticket.

I expect it'll be onto double figures in the support ticket count by the end of the weekend.

It's now at the point where I expect my site to be down when I visit it. I am now surprised when I visit and it's actually accessible. It does seem to have the reliability of a Windows server, despite being a 64bit CentOS server. I'm not sure RedHat or CentOS have any plans to use FBH as a showcase for reliability any time soon.

As much as my site seems to be up as much as it's down I am trying to give them the benefit of some time to get it right, I know they're working on it and every new company has some teething issues at the start. It just gets more and more annoying to do so with such large gaps in the "basics of being a webhost" results column.

Perhaps the lesson is just as much "don't touch whoever FBH use as their host".

I have each blog post show the number of views, but can't get any sort of accurate guide if the site's been inaccessible for hours when people have been trying to click through from RSS readers etc. I hardly get any comments, but I've noticed that trend in a lot of very good blogs so it's not an issue other than I don't know how many (if any) spend time writing a reply to a post only to have the server lock up on them before then can submit and they don't know.

I'm wary of updating parts of Drupal in case it can't complete the update and leaves a nightmare to try and fix. Even as I edited a couple of typos in this post it gave me issues in not being able to connect to the database to make the changes, meaning I had to gingerly go back, make them again and hope that the newly restarted server hadn't locked up again.

The one thing that's keeping me with FBH (for now) is that the staff do seem to care, and hopefully whatever is causing the lockups will be fixed so the site stays up for a decent length of time uninterrupted. In the meantime, expect regular prolonged outages.

Sorry.

Having just read this article in the Guardian it has some troubling elements I thought I'd post about. For a long time the actions of the Israeli government and military have been protected in the international arena by the US throwing their veto on any accusation, regardless of how valid or otherwise it may be. Israel in return have gotten used to giving the middle finger to any other country who dares criticise it's policies, declaring legitimate concern or condemnation as "anti-Semitic".

I'd love to see that protection lifted and the Israeli policies being treated with the same rules as everyone else. Where there is evidence to proceed with an investigation and prosecution, that should happen. If that leads to a guilty verdict, then so be it. If that means that Israeli officials and military figures are arrested as part of these trials and investigations, then so be it. I don't trust Israel to conduct those investigations, as the conclusion is "self defence" before it starts. I don't trust either the UK or US to conduct them either for the same reasons, not counting the fact that neither the US or UK have any moral right to try Israeli citizens for alleged crimes carried out outside US or UK territory.

The International War Crimes Court is where it needs to be held, where the accusers can provide their evidence and witnesses, and the Israelis can put their defence, evidence and witnesses. Let the courts decide on the evidence it sees and hears. The problem here is that neither the US or Israel recognise the court, as they feel it's going to be against them for political reasons. The whole point of the International court was that it was there to provide somewhere for justice if the relevant governments either couldn't or wouldn't allow trials of their nationals or accusations of war crimes on their soil. The national governments are always given the first opportunity to investigate and bring to trial if evidence supports it.

This should apply to all nations and their actions, not just Israel, the US and the UK. There are plenty of actions carried out by others too, which should also get the same treatment. Always go with the evidence. The one sided protection of Israel regardless of it's actions is a problem.

This article has no indication of what happened and when, but it's safe to assume this is the agreed outcome of some meetings. So I'll pick out a few quotes that drew my eye.

Israeli leaders have grown increasingly frustrated about the threat of legal action against individuals and said they would be pressing Scotland to change UK law in meetings today in Jerusalem.

Countries and companies lobby each other all the time, often resulting in some laws being changed, but this appears to be an extension of immunity that Israel has enjoyed and sees some reality creeping in to threaten a cosy arrangement. So does it work?

The government is determined to protect high-ranking Israeli officials from arrest in the UK, the attorney general said, as it emerged that a further visit by the Israeli military had been cancelled.

"The government is looking urgently at ways in which the UK system might be changed to avoid this situation arising again," Scotland said. "Israel's leaders should always be able to travel freely to the UK."

I'd say that'd be a yes, although it's still at the "seeking" stage, so who knows. If I were a betting guy, I'd bet on "yes".

"In my view, it is not constitutionally proper to give the attorney general involvment at the arrest stage. We would not have a politician standing next to a policeman who decides whether or not to arrest someone, why should we have a politician standing next to a judge?" - Daniel Machover

I happen to agree with Daniel Machover on that one.

My point is that you either back a system of international justice, or you don't. In the UK the govt claim to back it, but this type of stuff is just another example of "one rule for one, one rule for everyone else". For laws to be taken seriously, they have to be applied equally and without prejudice on which parties are involved. For governments to be taken seriously, they have to let the laws be applied and not interfere when it's their mates facing an arrest warrant or investigation.

If these laws or changes do get written into the statute books in the UK, what does that say about the Ministers who changed them? I'm not sure. I'm guessing the UK are just so used to making demands of foreign governments to have laws changed to suit them that they don't think about it. It's more about returning a favour than anything more serious. Does that show how far MPs are removed from the people that they can't see what they're doing? Well, bell towers and duck ponds were being judged as acceptable things to claim expenses from tax payers money for so maybe it does.

Android is a smartphone OS developed by Google. It's Linux based with all of the flexibility and security that entails. Some manufacturers have already jumped on the Android game, one of which is the Motorola Droid. As the year unfolds, many more will follow.