The world in which you live, the soil you stand and walk on, the city you call your home, the shape of the continent you roam - who made them?

1. God
2. The EU or it's member states
3. Big Bang
4. Natural emergence

Well, I admit, that you might choose different answers, but I hope, that no one answered "The EU".

Geographical data is given, like coastlines - or created by a huge network of collaborating humans, like states and cities. It concernes everybody and somehow no-one at all, as it seems. Well, at least we can say, that it doesn't belong to anybody - except for god, the big bang or [Fill in anything, that fits your believes].

The EU at least seems to look a bit differently at this issue after several rounds of its complicated, pyramidal and inefficient decision process.

If you don't think, that legislation should give governments the copyright of what belongs to everyone - then make your opinion count:

Petition for Public Access to Geographic Data in Europe

Sign this petition and not only help preserve your rights, but also show, that there are people who care about what the government does! Show them, that there are ways to collaborate with a huge amount of human beings!
The day will come, when people proposing free access to information will be heard right from the beginning. Let's defend our rights and speed this up..!

I'm No. 502 - you can still make it to be one of the first 1000! ;)

It has been some days now, that krugle has been announced. But this could really be an interesting step towards the idea of global knowledge sharing. I haven't yet grasped, how krugle will technically do, what it promises - but it is a huge and interesting mission. Making code searchabe, annotatable and accessible to anyone - wherever that code resides or was invented. Google has gone evil since some time now - and if no free alternative arises, krugle supposably will, too! Or it will be bought by Google - which doesn't make any difference!
Never the less I'm eager to see the technology behind it and the site working. :)

I was very happy four days ago, when I heard, that Novell contributes in a truely Open Source manner to the 3D enhancement of the X-Window system. Them doing everything right and integrating it into X.org, where every window-manager profits from, made me even happier.
About a year ago, when I first heard about M$'s Windows Vista, which shall get a fancy 3D Desktop environment, I was a little concerned, that this might slow down Linux adoption for the masses, since eye candy counts more for them, than technological advantage. I already tested the X.org compositing extension, but it is slow and unstable though not providing much more than transparency and shadows. John "maddog" Hall recently made a good point about the 'Vista-threat' though: Microsoft has a problem says maddog @ itwire.com. The extreme hardware requirements being a big obstacle for the adoption of Vista - which was an eyeopener and a little relief.

What though really, really relieved me, was seeing, that Novell's XGL is up to whatever there comes! :)
Yes, there is a video available, check it out! It's worth it!! Prepare to stand in awe! Novell has some on their web-site, but here is a downloadable XVid-version:

Compiz Window Manager Released
Get it! And spread it!

M$'s Vista Vapourware doesn't stand any chance against XGL:

• Vista needs high-end machines to run
  • One In Two PCs Won't Run Vista's Interface @ slashdot.org
• XGL is said to run even on Intel's i810 integrated graphics-chip
  • Which is believable since it utilizes the OpenGL standard
• Vista's technology just plain sucks - using DirectX9 at least
• Vista's eye candy and usability enhancements are ridiculous compared to XGL
• XGL runs even faster than a classical 2D-Desktop

Looking Glass was already a good start, but flawed from the ground up, not having enough performance - fixing this and getting it stable seems like a task, that's not really worth it. But now, with XGL, Linux got an already bleeding-edge 3D-Desktop and considering, that most Linux Desktops are better in usability and feature-count than Windows counterparts, it's only a matter of time, when we will do stuff, that you for now only know from Sci-Fi movies. Vista lost already, it looks dusty though it's still only vapour! M$ was pushed onto the loosing lane a big bit!

Thanks Novell!

I don't know if I should laugh or cry...

Have a look at this:
A Word-Wise Firefox Extension @ internetnews.com

and repeat those questions with me:

• Did I think about having that translation possibility since 2 years?!
• Did I today stumble across a great how-to on doing it?!
• They get assloads of money for it?!?
• They have a patent on it?!?!?
• They have Vint Cerf and Ted Nelson on their bord of advisers?!?!?
• What do I do wrong?!?!?!?!

In an open world, is marketing really the only thing, that makes you get something to bite between your teeth?

Since three years it is possible in germany to make one's tax return online without having to print anything or even running to the post office. It's not a web interface, but a special program, called Elster Formular:

Elster Homepage

One of the main problems with this solution is, that there is no Linux version of this program - it is completely tailored for Windoze users. (More severe is, that it is no free solution, but well... let's start small.. ;) ).
Lately I experimented with Wine again, mainly because I needed to use Flash for a university project. Because I heard a lot about WineTools, I also installed them and was amazed. Install of core Windows components was no hassle (I now have IE running here for cross testing web-site designs.. yes, it sadly is a core component ;) ). Perhaps even a little more interesting was the choice to install some mysterious DCOM on which Elster Formular relies and therefore refused to install on Wine in my first try. Looking some further I even found Elster Formular in the list of supported programs!

Well, now today I again had to do my monthly tax return and went to try it out with Wine. Doh, WineTools installed last years version - ok, get the latest from the Elster webpage - install - no problem!! :)
Then doing the tax computation. I had some flickering, but I have that with IE, too. I guess, it's because of my graphics driver - my bro has no problems with flickering in IE. Apart from that everything went smooth as a baby's butt. Great! :)

Don't get me wrong - we need a native Linux solution and we need a free solution - but this is great news never the less! :)