For today's children, an education is not complete unless it comes with some form of computer interaction. In order to become fully functioning adults, these kids need to learn basic computer skills. Unfortunately for many schools, this goal runs in opposition to slashed budgets and bureaucratic apathy. What is an educator to do when he realizes that the computers that kids need are not going to be part of any budget the school has to offer?

Thanks to I Love Ubuntu, we have at least one answer answer. Robert Litt, a 6th grade teacher from Alameda County, faced just such a predicament. He needed to provide his students with computers but had no money and little support from the administration. So he set about building the computer lab his students needed using donated computers and the Ubuntu Linux operating system.

Why go with Ubuntu over the much more common Windows? Cost.

Most of the computers’ problems could be fixed by wiping the disks and reinstalling the operating system—but buying new software for every donated computer would be prohibitively expensive. So Robert began to research more affordable options. An acquaintance at the Alameda County Computer Recyclers suggested he use a free operating system, such as GNU/Linux.

This is one of the key issues of those hit with budget constraints. Computers can be expensive and having a proprietary operating system such as Windows can add to the cost. By going the Linux route, Robert was able to stick to his $0 budget and still provide the neccesary computers for the students. His early success in bringing in 18 computers led to additional excitement from both students and staff. He was then able to expand the computer lab to 70 computers through these means.

This success in building a quality lab has expanded the ability of the teachers at the school to teach meaningful computer skills to the students.

“The digital divide is growing in a hidden statistic,” Robert says, “the actual teaching of technology in a meaningful way.” He shows students how to do math on spreadsheets, how to make simple websites, how to put together slide presentations, all on free software. These are the computer skills that, students tell him, they are later expected simply to know.

By going this route, Robert was party to keeping the cost of education down, something that many people are trying to accomplish. It also brings in a fresh approach to teaching in the digital age. By stepping outside of his comfort zone when it comes to computers, Robert was able to expand his skill set. He now has an opportunity to share that new knowledge and skill with the students and hopefully expand the way in which they interact with technology. Something these kids and and future kids will be doing far more frequently.

We've discussed in the past just how ridiculous it is that Microsoft has a "licensing program" for Android -- someone else's technology. And, of course, for many years, Microsoft has been running around insisting that Linux infringes on hundreds of its patents, though it gets pretty shy when asked to identify them. Every so often, Microsoft convinces some company to cough up some protection money for being Linux users -- though usually it's for companies selling Linux-based hardware.

Now Microsoft has convinced Amdocs to fork over some cash for running a Linux-based service. While (of course!) details are sparse, Microsoft made sure in the press release that it was clear that the license was for "Amdocs' use of Linux-based servers in its data centers."

This really does seem somewhat offensive. Microsoft is getting other companies to pay it for software that it had absolutely nothing to do with (and which many people use, in part, because it keeps them away from having to pay Microsoft).

The conflation of tools and technologies with the ways people use them is a big problem in the copyright debate. One of the many, many examples is the way the anti-piracy crowd treats "torrent" as a dirty word. Google endorsed this last year when they started dropping it from their search autocomplete results, and as Mike pointed out at the time, just imagine they had done the same with "mp3" a few years ago when that was supposedly synonymous with piracy. Defenders of this kind of filtering don't take such a forward-thinking stance, and their typical response in the torrent debate is to assert that the majority of BitTorrent traffic is likely infringing. Of course, that's not really the point: you don't look at the ratio of infringing use to legal use, but rather at the legal use by itself—if it's substantial and meaningful, then you have to go after the infringing users, not the technology as a whole.

Torrents have many legitimate uses. BitTorrent is simply a good protocol for sharing large files with large groups—they are perfect for films, video games, music and of course software. Linux distros are a commonly cited example, since they are always available by (perfectly legal) torrent, but this is often brushed off as if it's an excuse and torrents are not really necessary for this. Geek icon Wil Wheaton puts a bullet in this notion with a recent post on his blog, clearly demonstrating why he turned to BitTorrent for a copy of Ubuntu:

One of the things that drives me crazy is the belief in Hollywood that bittorrent exists solely for stealing things. Efforts to explain that this is not necessarily true are often met with hands clamped tightly over ears, accompanied by "I CAN'T HEAR YOU LA LA LA."

As an example of the usefulness of bittorrent for entirely legal purposes, I present the following comparitive images:

In case you can't see, the torrent is going about six times faster than a direct download, needing less than 10 minutes as compared to nearly 45. It's a simple example, but an effective one: P2P sharing is simply better sometimes. Google prides itself of directing people to the best possible information, but when their users start searching for the latest version of Ubuntu or the new Counting Crows album, they won't see autocomplete suggestions for this perfectly legal (and potentially superior) means of obtaining what they want. Seems like that runs directly counter to Google's mission. It may only be a minor annoyance, but it's also pointless, and it will only get worse as more and more people embrace torrents for legitimate distribution.

We've talked a lot about the difference between gatekeepers and enablers, and how the latter are becoming more important than the former. Both are types of middlemen, of course. And there have been some reasonable discussions about how enablers can become gatekeepers at times. Indeed, this is something to be aware of, and we should worry about it and speak out when we see evidence of it happening. For example, ebook platforms have become great enablers, allowing lots of new written works to be published, promoted, distributed and sold. In 2002, 250,000 books were published. In 2010 the number was over 3 million -- with much of that being thanks to the easy publishing of ebooks, and the platforms that made it possible to publish a book without a gatekeeper.

But... sometimes those enablers turn into gatekeepers. Witness the news, via Slashdot, that Barnes & Noble removed Linux Format magazine from the Nook store because the magazine dared to publish an article entitled Learn to Hack. It is true that they were using "hack" in the (increasingly less common) definition having to do with breaking into other computers and networks, but the framing of it was mostly around understanding these things to keep yourself secure. Still, do we really want platforms like Barnes & Noble acting as gatekeepers concerning what people can and cannot read?

A constant theme here on Techdirt is that it's not the idea that's crucial, but the execution. Here's someone who seems to agree:

People like to idolize the "ideas" and "inspiration", but in the end, almost anybody can have an idea. Getting things actually done is where people stumble.

The person speaking those words -- Linus Torvalds -- certainly hasn't stumbled much. In January 1992, only about 100 people in the world were using his Linux kernel, which he had written as a 21-year-old student in his Helsinki bedroom, on a PC with 4MB of RAM. Twenty years later, Linux sits at the heart of some 300 million Android devices, with 850,000 more being added every day, and runs 91% of the world's top 500 supercomputing systems.

The idea of writing a kernel for Richard Stallman's GNU operating system was obvious to everyone -- it was the key piece still missing. In fact, a year before Torvalds started Linux, Stallman himself had begun working on a version called the Hurd, along with a few fellow coders of his Free Software Foundation.

Despite this impeccable pedigree, the Hurd is being used today by only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions running Linux -- further evidence that it's really not the idea, but the execution that counts.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

The Raspberry Pi is a $25 credit-card sized computer that has succeeded in making GNU/Linux not just newsworthy, but downright desirable. The initial batch of boards sold out in minutes, and eager customers crashed the server where it was being sold. The original vision of the Raspberry Pi was to promote amateur programming and to re-invigorate the teaching of computing in the UK (and elsewhere) by providing a very low-cost and easily hackable system. Naturally, though, its open source code allows it to be applied in many different situations. Here, for example, is a plan to create a secure chat system for activists that can be used in countries where communications are routinely under surveillance, using a program called Cryptocat:

Because of their low-cost and small size they can then be shipped to activists and NGO's in areas where free-speech is difficult.

"This is especially useful for activist organizations, human rights organizations, any group composed of a few dozen people who need to have an internal secure communication service," said Mr Kobeissi.

Small, portable Raspberry Pi computers set up to run Cryptocat, he believes, may be a quick way to build such a service.

An interesting consequence of Moore's Law and the ready availability of free software is that powerful computers can now be produced for just tens of dollars, and in an extremely small package. The low cost means that organizations supporting activists can send in many such systems to countries with human rights problems, and replace them if they are discovered and confiscated or destroyed. The size makes it much easier to import them discreetly, as well as to conceal them in countries that try to keep computing under tight control.

And it's not just the Raspberry Pi that will be making this possible. Its high-profile success is likely to mean that in due course other systems will be produced that are cheaper and smaller. That will ensure they are even more popular with the educational market and hackers -- and even more problematic for oppressive regimes.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Neppe alerts us to the news that Microsoft has claimed yet another victory in its war on the Linux Operating System. According to multiple reports, including Thinq_, the Register and others, Casio has coughed up an undisclosed amount of money to "license" the Linux operating system from Microsoft.

Microsoft has been claiming since 2007 that Linux infringes on 235 patents. If you go back to 2004, it was just 228. Despite the lack of any public list of these patents, Microsoft has been able to use them quite skillfully in convincing a number of software and hardware vendors to pay licensing fees. Microsoft claims that such licensing deals are for the benefit of the companies who pay up.

So just what are the benefits of paying Microsoft a licensing fee for free software, especially when said software was not developed by Microsoft? If these quiet settlements are any indication, the sole benefit would be to avoid being dragged through the courts by one of the largest software developers in the world. Seriously, what other benefit is there? Is there a collection of patent trolls jumping at the chance to sue companies using Linux that have yet to surface thanks to Microsoft's cradling licensing deals? Not that I have read about. The only patent holder jumping at the chance to sue over Linux is Microsoft itself.

What this really looks like to me is an old school protection racket in which the resident mob enters the new business or residence and demands protection money in order to protect said establishment from some malevolent threat.

We had hoped that after SCO lost its lawsuit (yet again) last summer that the whole SCO vs. Linux legal fight would finally, finally, finally be dead (finally). But, of course, that was wishful thinking. Zombie SCO came back for another whacking, and , as mentioned on Slashdot, another whacking it got. The ruling is worth reading if only for a nice, concise summary of the entire legal dispute and SCO's various attempts to reanimate its very dead corpse.

My favorite part may be a rather minor point in the larger fight, but part of the legal fight involved SCO claiming slander against Novell for telling the world that SCO didn't actually hold the copyrights for UNIX. SCO tried to claim that this hurt its business, and Novell reasonably countered that the thing that really hurt SCO's business was its own actions -- and, as part of that, showed the jury a BusinessWeek article about how SCO was "The Most Hated Company in Tech." SCO claimed this was hearsay, but the court didn't buy it, noting that it was one minor image seen by the jury over a much larger trial, but, more importantly, noted that "there was repeated testimony and argument over the course of the trial pointing out the unpopularity of the SCO Source program."

While there are lots of lessons to be learned from the nearly decade-long SCO legal fight to claim control over Linux and demand a toll from just about everyone, one key lesson is that going legal is no way to build a business that people like or respect. The crux of a strong market system is that it enables transactions where all parties are happy with the results, and all parties feel they came out better off. When your entire business model is to force people to pay, rather than providing real value for which they want to pay, you're positioning yourself for failure.

A bunch of folks have been passing on variations of the story that Google has lost the patent infringement lawsuit filed against it by Bedrock Computer Technologies, concerning patent 5,893,120. The jury has ordered Google to pay $5 million for that infringement. $5 million is pocket change to Google, but hopefully it'll continue to fight. There are some interesting points concerning this case. We had mentioned it in the past, mainly to note the "oddity" of Bedrock suing two tiny Texas companies (one of which was apparently defunct) along with Google, MySpace, Paypal, Yahoo, Amazon, Match.com and AOL. We assumed that this was a really sleazy trick to keep the case in East Texas, which is the favorite spot for patent trolls to file lawsuits. There's also the fact that the owner of Bedrock is David Garrod, a patent lawyer who has also worked with PubPat, the group that seeks to stop some of the more extreme abuses of patent law.

Of course, that's all sideshow information. The real fear here is that Bedrock might now be in a position to claim that many Linux users all around the world (especially on the server side) are infringing on the same patent, which might create some pretty serious headaches. Considering how many businesses use Linux servers, this seems like a patent that can be used extensively against all sorts of companies, whose work has absolutely nothing to do with this patent. It could create a new tax for any business using Linux.

Slashdot has the story of someone involved in the SCO case finally showing off some of the "evidence" that SCO believed proved Linux infringed on SCO's copyrights. Of course, with the case basically dead due to a court ruling (one of a few) that SCO never actually held the copyrights in question, this might not matter, but it's still interesting to view -- and, yet again, suggests how incredibly weak SCO's case is. The "evidence" is in a blog comment on an otherwise unrelated blog post by Kevin McBride, a lawyer who is the brother of former SCO CEO Darl McBride, the mastermind (or puppet, depending on who you talk to) behind SCO's strategy.

In that comment, Kevin McBride lists out 46 different "examples" of code that SCO claimed was copied from Unix into Linux. In case those files conveniently disappear, a Slashdot user conveniently republished the comment and archived the files. If you look through the files, you don't have to be a programmer to start questioning the copyright claims. Most of the lines are not direct copies at all, and seem to be on really, really, really basic functions -- the type of thing that just about anyone would program to create that functionality. In other words, it's difficult to see how there would be any copyright on that code at all, since it was hardly original or requiring any form of creativity. Others in the Slashdot comments point out that some of the code appears to have originated in BSD code, outside of what SCO was claiming it held rights to, and others suggest at least parts of the code came from a separate third party. Furthermore, even looking through the files it's difficult to find many cases where you could even claim "cut-and-paste copying" as was alleged. There does appear to be similar implementations of similar features, but that's quite different than copyright infringement.