Broadly speaking, if you want to store digital audio, there are two ways to do the job:

1. Compress the audio (usually by throwing out parts of the audio information humans can’t hear) and store the rest.
2. Compress the audio without throwing out any part of the audio information.

The first alternative is called “lossy” because one loses information in the process. In exchange for fitting fairly high-quality audio into a tight space, the listener gives up quality. It’s common to find portable digital audio players that will play a variety of lossy compressed audio formats. Conversely, the second option is called “lossless” because you get out precisely what you put into the compression. People who care deeply about retaining the quality of the digital audio they listen to deal exclusively in lossless audio compression.

Ogg Vorbis and MP3 are examples of the first approach, FLAC is an example of the second approach.

Ogg Vorbis and FLAC are free for anyone anywhere to use for any purpose. In many countries MP3 is encumbered by patents; only those who can afford to pay the patent fee can use MP3 without fear of losing a patent lawsuit.

The Lossless Audio blog keeps up with developments in lossless audio compression. Here you can find a one-stop shop for learning about the latest developments in portable audio devices that play lossless audio formats and advances in compression Digital Citizen supports, including FLAC.

Edd Dumbill, a programmer, wrote about moving from a GNU/Linux system to MacOS X, a proprietary operating system. His complaints about GNU/Linux will resonate most deeply with the open source audience because a free software user will note the absence of software freedom discussion.

Dumbill notes that fonts look better on MacOS X. I find this to be chiefly a matter of taste, but it’s also worth noting that Apple holds patents on algorithms which prohibit free software users from rendering fonts in the same way (particularly at small sizes, like the sizes one uses on the desktop). Thus, competition is averted and Apple is hovering over any free software developer who dares to even activate routines which make fonts look the same (merely using software can put one in danger of losing a patent infringement lawsuit as Apple knows very well).

Which programs are better is also chiefly a matter of taste, but perhaps there is a need for a free software replacement for the programs Dumbill notes.

Hardware for Apple ought to work perfectly all the time because Apple has so little of it to “support” (quotes here because Apple has a history of not telling their users how to provide their own support for said hardware even when Apple stops manufacturing it, like in the case of the Apple Newton. I believe there is something comparable going on with making CDs that can boot straight into a non-MacOS system for so-called “old world” Mac hardware). This history ought to make anyone wary of buying Apple hardware.

Restricting playing movies fullscreen to those willing to pay seems funny to me because I’ve been playing movies fullscreen with free software. When Dumbill notes “video conferencing that works” he must not mean across platforms on open standards. Apple has a strong history of developing things that only work with other MacOS users (not including working between MacOS pre-X and MacOS X). When free software advocates develop software that only really works on free platforms, they’re accused of being insular and needlessly restrictive (usually by open source advocates). Funny how the same doesn’t seem to apply to proprietors. It’s almost expected or desired that they’ll make a system that only talks to itself.

Finally, the idea of using what’s best for one’s job is chiefly an open source argument—again freedom is left out of the debate entirely, one should pick among a restricted set of choices based on nothing more than one’s own immediate needs. No sense of building community need apply.

I think this is yet another illustration of how free software and open source advocates see things differently.

Robert X. Cringely blogs about the misuse of so-called “unlimited” usage. Entertaining so long as you’re not a Verizon customer. Apparently 5 gigabytes of data is the limit for their so-called “unlimited” plan. If you download more than that in a month, your connection is cut off and you’re expected to pay a fee for “early termination”.

This is actually two problems:

1. It’s easy to legitimately download more than 5GB in a month. Anyone who downloads free software operating systems and free media (as I encourage people to do) can accomplish this in a month. If you make media (another worthwhile activity), it’s even easier to generate more than 5GB of data in a month that you’d like to share with others, which requires uploading it to your server. Perhaps you don’t do this routinely, but as far as Verizon cares one infraction is enough to justify ending your service.
2. Paying a fee to the organization that cut you off for downloading too much is ridiculous on its face. This is akin to the logic a bully would use to try and justify beating you for disobeying capricious restrictions.

Years ago, I once had a similar dispute with a local ISP over this issue. I had a second telephone line I was willing to use exclusively for dialing into the ISP over an ordinary telephone modem. The ISP claimed I was using too much connection time, I told them that their plan indicated the usage could be “unlimited”. They claimed that this was subject to vague terms of using the service “too much” and cut off my access. They never even defined what “too much” was in any specific way, but even if they had it wouldn’t change the fact that their service plan was not “unlimited”.

Apparently it’s too much to ask that people actually use the word “unlimited” for its actual meaning and sell Internet access plans with defined limits on how much one can stay connected (in the case of a phone connection) and/or how much data one may transfer over that connection. You know, actually spelling out the details and abiding by them.

Microsoft’s “Windows Genuine Advantage” is a push for encouraging users of illicitly licensed Microsoft proprietary software to pay for legally licensed copies. Microsoft sends out a program with system updates which checks over the entire Microsoft Windows system and informs the user if the program concludes that some Microsoft program is not “genuine”.

Of course, “genuine” is the wrong word to use here. Microsoft’s issue concerns whether the license is issued to the user and legitimately obtained (again, according to Microsoft’s records).

So what happens if Microsoft’s software is wrong? Apparently what happens is you either decide to continue to be treated this way by your proprietor, or you decide to switch to free software instead.

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