Ladies and gentlemen, the doors are opened on the Neon project. Neon is no more than a new service by Amarok, which offers nightly builds to the users who want to try the lastest available version. It should be noted that is not a stable version, but it’s intended to be used by everyone who wants to help find bugs or to join development for Amarok.

If you are using Kubuntu Hardy Heron and you are interested on installing it, just add this line to /etc/apt/source.list and install the amarok-nightly package:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/project-neon/ubuntu hardy main

More information | Official Amarok site

People are ignorant, but we already know that. As usual, I’ve read something really stupid on Twitter this morning. It said: I hope Apple will develop for everyone [every OS]. I think it would be one of the worst things to ever happen. Why do people want to install non-free software on free systems? If we want a truly free system, we cannot accept non-free software in our system. If people keep installing, running or developing non-free components, GNU/Linux will be turned into a fuzzy combination of free and non-free software. And we also could find free software which depends on non-free packages. The freedom movement would have failed if this happens.

People wants to install non-free software on free systems because they have not idea. They have not been educated using the free software principles. They don’t understand why the software should be free. They are confused between the free software and the open source movement. The universities doesn’t teach anything about the free software principles, even many teachers don’t know anything about free software. People wants to install non-free software on free systems because they don’t know what the free software is.

The insistence of running Adobe Photoshop on GNU/Linux is a good example of this. I’m not going to talk about the Photoshop/The Gimp challenge, although I manage well myself using The Gimp. Each user should know that Adobe Photoshop has a horrible license which it doesn’t allow the freedom to run, modify and redistribute it. The Gimp (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is available under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL), so we have the freedom to run, copy, change, study, distribute, improve the software and release our improvements. That’s how the community gets benefits. The Gimp, like free software, contributes to human knowledge, whilst Adobe Photoshop, like non-free software does not.

I read a message in a mailing list that could not have shocked me more. It said: Google also sponsored some work by Codeweavers to improve [Wine] support for Photoshop (’cause so many people want it) What a bad news for the free software! That’s not what people want, that’s not what GNU/Linux was made for. Why don’t Google support The Gimp instead of a Wine support for Adobe Photoshop?

I’ve seen on Entre tuxes y pepinos a curious lettuce with the Ubuntu Logo! The company is called El corral de los niños (The children’s farmyard) and it has been seen in Badajoz. And from what I have read, I would like to advise that it can contain bugs

The beta version of the latest Ubuntu, Hardy Heron 8.04, has been released. The official release will be on April 24th 2008.

Link | Ubuntu releases

We are just at the beginning of the countdown for the new Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron release. We will be able to enjoy the final version in 4 months. I’ve read at UbuntuLand a list of some new features of Hardy Heron. The following features are noteworthy:

• Auto Detection of Monitor Frequency
• Xorg 7.3 (This feature missed the Gutsy Gibbon deadline)
• Install on an existing filesystem without overwriting /home
• Better and more robust detection of hardware
• New default theme for Gnome (style, wallpapers, colours, …)
• Handling Full Disks
• Dual/Multi Monitor Support (Currently you have to manually tweak Ubuntu if you want to use more than one monitor)
• Apparmor Integration
• GDM Face Browser
• Deleting duplicate libraries

The release of the new KDE 4 will match simultaneously with the development cycle of Kubuntu 8.04. As we’ve said before, Ubuntu 8.04 will be a LTS (Long Term Support) version. Jonathan Riddell sent an email to the Ubuntu MailList telling Kubuntu 8.04 will be released with the option of using either KDE 3.5 or KDE 4. The difference is Kubuntu 8.04 with KDE 4 will not be LTS. Anyway, people who keeps a KDE 3.5 release will receive the usual 18 months of support for that release.

El lanzamiento oficial de KDE 4.0 Desktop se retrasa hasta Enero de 2008, así lo indicó ayer KDE News. La causa es que KDE quiere arreglar unos cuantos fallos antes de lanzar (sabia decisión), por lo que la fecha de salida se ha fijado el día 11 de Enero. Los desarrolladores saben que podrán sacar una versión más pulida y con un mejor funcionamiento en Enero. Aún así, el desarrollo de la nueva versión de KDE y un montón de aplicaciones se consideran estables y listas para usarse.

Un día divagando por el metro de Londres me llamó la atención un anuncio publicitario que decía algo como Nigeria… it’s more than what you think, o Nigeria… es más de lo que tu piensas traducido a nuestra maravillosa lengua vernácula. El caso es que lo vivido en Nigeria los últimos días es de película. El gobierno de Nigeria firmó un acuerdo con Mandriva que consistía en 17.000 equipos para las escuelas públicas del estado africano, donde tendrían preinstalado una versión especial de Mandriva Linux enfocada principalmente a temas educativos.

Cuando Mandriva estaba a punto de realizar la entrega, el gobierno nigeriano hizo saber que iban a instalar en sus equipos el maravilloso sistema operativo Windows en un futuro. Sí, porque Nigeria es más de lo que tu piensas. Esta reacción le sentó como una patada en los … a Mandriva, que hasta llevó a François Bancilhon escribir una carta abierta a Steve Ballmer, el excéntrico FEOCEO de Microsoft. Podemos leer frases como estas:

Wow! I’m impressed, Steve! What have you done to these guys to make them change their mind like this? It’s quite clear to me, and it will be to everyone. How do you call what you just did Steve? There is various names for it, I’m sure you know them.

Of course, I will keep fighting this one and the next one, and the next one. You have the money, the power, and maybe we have a different sense of ethics you and I, but I still believe that hard work, good technology and ethics can win too.

La última estrofa es impresionante, creo que representa la ímpetud y consistencia de las personas que apoyan el software libre. Me recuerda mucho a una cita que vi en un impresionante anuncio publicitario de Red Hat Linux en el blog de mi amigo DraXus. La cita, cuya autoría pertenece a Mahatma Gandhi, decía así:

Me da asco estas acciones por parte de Microsoft. Creo que se deberían tomar medidas por competencia desleal. Mientras la esperanza siga presente, el software libre ganará la batalla.

Ahora podemos disfrutar de la experiencia que nos proporciona Compiz Fusion en tres dimensiones, ¡y literalmente! Hace unos días me topé con un plugin para Compiz que es capaz de dibujar una anaglifo a partir de nuestro escritorio en 2D. Está basado en el fenómeno de síntesis de la visión binocular, que dónde a partir de dos imagenes distintas con canales de color distintos, se puede apreciar una tridimesionalidad. Cabe decir que necesitamos unas gafas 3D, con una lente de color rojo en el ojo izquierdo y otra de cyan en el ojo derecho. El efecto que se crea es muy bueno, a pesar de que los filtros que se usan no consiguen una reconstrucción cromáticamente buena. Aún así el efecto es bastante bueno, valga la redundancia.

Plugin | Anaglyph Compiz Fusion

Ya está disponible para descarga la versión final de Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon. Podemos destacar entre las diversas mejoras la inclusión de nuevo soporte para hardware, soporte para múltiples monitores y búsqueda integrada en el escritorio, además de otras funcionalidades en la Server Edition.