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Document Freedom day - because freedom counts

A week or so back I announced the m108 project aimed at getting some freedom into Church resources. The Church needs to stop the trend of restricting what we permit God’s family to do with the stuff he has inspired us to make so we can worship, learn about and fellowship with Him.

Those who know me will know I care about freedom, be it free software or free culture. Today (31 March 2010) is Document Freedom day. Across the globe people who care about freedom will be marching, speaking and even eating cake with the aim of promoting free(dom) documents. In a nutshell, document freedom is about formats and standards. It’s no good giving freedom in use of a work if the file format prohibits that very freedom by forcing people to buy a particular piece of software.

This fits directly in with m108 if you ask me. Given that we are seeking to bring back sharing within the body of Christ (and I don’t mean “sharing” as a euphemism for evangelism here) it makes sense to me that the file format is important. Suppose I share with you a song I have written. I give you access to the lyrics, the recording and the music. Now suppose the lyrics are in (say) Microsoft Word format. Aren’t I forcing you to get a copy of Word to use it? Even if you use one of the great alternative programs that can read Word documents (like OpenOffice.org) ; what happens iif/when Microsoft change the format? Unless I convert it as we go, my lyrics may be left behind, orphaned in a world of upgrades. Similarly with the recording. MP3 is the ubiquitous format for such files – to the point where it’s fast becoming a label for any digital audio file regardless of the format (bit like biro or hoover). But MP3 is covered by patents and is owned by a corporation. Right now they are quite relaxed on how they let people use “their” format, insisting only on payment if you make a program that creates or plays MP3s. But what happens if they decide to increase their fee? What happens if they start to get a bit more greedy, then a bit more. We’ll be stuck, we’ll be held to ransom. There are open formats for media files, such as OGG, FLAC etc. and providing media in those will ensure longevity of the freedom we want to share.

I’m not going to insist that those contributing to m108 (or whatever it finally gets called) use only open document formats and standards – that’s why I’m posting this here and not on m108. For a start I’m not aware of an open format for music scores but then I know little of such things anyway. I do think it’s vital that open formats be encouraged within the project. If only to ensure the freedom and sharing we are trying to engender doesn’t get held to ransom by the corporate greed we are trying to avoid within the Church.

When the Church invented printing it didn’t hold onto its invention but shared it and the technology used within it. It changed the world forever. The Church may not be inventing this technology or the open standards within it but we should be equally ready to use it to change the world.

Further to my earlier post, the Equitas IT Solutions website is now fully operational. It contains information about how Equitas can help charities, non-profits and small businesses use free software to their benefit. It also contains articles, guides, how-tos and downloadable resources which are freely (in both senses of the word) for you to read and use.

Equitas IT Solutions – fairness, quality, freedom.

You may have noticed that it’s been a bit quiet round here lately – sorry about that. I’m a bit busy setting up a new venture. Equitas IT Solutions is an organisation (without formal status yet so just me being self-employed for now) which aims to provide voluntary and community organisations (such as charities and churches) with IT solutions that are fit for purpose, cost-effective and use a balanced approach. “Fairness, quality, freedom” is our mantra by which we mean you get a fair deal, quality service and freedom to choose, use and enjoy your IT.

The human equivalent of all that is that I have grown tired of the amount of times I see charities, churches and small businesses “sold” IT solutions which are not always in their best interest. Sometimes this is because they’ve not fully understood what they’re asking for, sometimes it’s about “compatibility” which usually means “what everybody else uses” and in the worst cases it’s about getting a quick sale. I’m not saying all or even most IT providers are built this way but my experience tells me there are fewer that are not than there probably should be. Certainly I think there’s room for some fairness in the way this kind of things happens. Examples? a small charity was quoted £30000 to develop and host a website with 12 pages and a small business quoted £18000 to replace an “ageing” (e.g. four years old) fileserver and five PCs (which may not have been needed).

Nip over to the Equitas IT Solutions website http://www.equitasit.co.uk (which is a little sparse at present I’ll admit) if you want to know more. No matter what your size we are happy to help.

I’ve mentioned both my affection for free software and Free Software Magazine before. Well now I can link the two as I have had two articles published in the latest issue (15) of FSM.

The first is a beginners guide to understanding free software which does exactly what it says on the tin (I hope). The second is a review of GRAMPS which is a free software licenced genealogical application.

If you are interested in free software or just want to know what the fuss is about I recommend the first one. The second will be of interest if – like myself and many – you are interested in family trees and the like.

I’ve recently found Free Software Magazine, a freely downloadable (or web readable) magazine about – um – Free Software. By which they mean Freedom and not zero cost.

As you know I’m an FOSS afficianado and I have to say this publication is very well produced, the writing is good, the production quality is high and of course, being zero cost, it is great value for money )

If you are interested in Free/Open Source software or in computers in general and want to know about the sorts of things available on Free Software licences then I recommend you subscribe.

As you may have guessed I use both GNU/Linux (Debian) and Firefox at work and home. Within Debian I use the KDE desktop and for some time it has bugged me no end that firefox (and Thunderbird for that matter) use the GTK dialogs (as used in GNOME. Now there’s nothing wrong with these per-se but what bugs me is that I choose to use KDE and therefore pretty much all my desktop applications use the typical KDE open, save and print dialog boxes – except Firefox and thunderbird and try as I might I couldn’t find a way to switch them over….

Until now…

Kde – How To: integrate Firefox with KDE – Ubuntu Forums

Above is a link to a Ubuntu forum (Ubuntu is another GNU/Linux distribution based on Debian) which explains how to get firefox to use the KDE dialogs. It works a treat and can be transposed to Thunderbird as well. For those who don’t want to hop over there – or in case the post isappears in the future, here’s the relevant details…

1. Find the system-wide firefox components directory. For Debian it is /usr/lib/firefox/components.
2. Edit the file called nsFilePicker.js in that directory (you may need to be root)

3. Find the following piece of code compMgr.registerFactoryLocation(FILEPICKER_CID, “FilePicker JS Component”, // really long comment here “”, // really long comment here fileSpec, location, type);

4. Edit it to look like this

   compMgr.registerFactoryLocation(FILEPICKER_CID, “FilePicker JS Component”, // really long comment here FILEPICKER_CONTRACTID, // really long comment here fileSpec, location, type);

   1. Save the file

   2. You’ll now need to refresh the firefox chrome registry which is easiest done by installing or removing an Extension (Look under the tools menu) and restarting firefox.

That’s it. If you want to make similar changes to Thunderbird edit the nsFilePicker.js file in the thunderbird components directory (in Debian this is /usr/lib/thunderbird/components/”).

On restarting firefox the standard GTK open, save and print dialogs are all replaced by the typical KDE ones for your system. Incidentally this also resolves a problem with firefox defaulting to letter size paper for printing (not good if you’re not in the USA).