Free Stuff
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a non-profit corporation formed to educate about and advocate for the benefits of open source and to build bridges among different constituencies in the open-source community. They review and approve licenses as OSD-conformant namely that
- The software can be freely given away or sold
- The source code must either be included or freely obtainable
- Derived Works: redistribution of modifications must be allowed
- Integrity of The Author’s Source Code
- No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups: no one can be locked out.
- No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor: commercial users cannot be excluded.
- Distribution of License: The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those parties.
- License Must Not Be Specific to a Product
- License Must Not Restrict Other Software
- License Must Be Technology-Neutral
Popular new applications such as facebook (social networking), have given unprecented access to developersFacebook has given an unprecedented amount of access to developers. Users can browse and add third party apps. But there is also a crucial viral component - when a friend adds an application, it is noted in their news stream on their profile. Clicking on the item brings you to the app, where you can add and/or interact with it yourself.
The payoff is two way. Not only do developers get deep access to Facebook’s twenty million users, Facebook also becomes a rich platform for third party applications.
A new Microsoft initiative DreamSpark Offers Millions of Students Access to Professional-Grade Software Developer and Designer Tools.
If you have no aspirations of becoming a developer you might be interested to know that both higher and further education students in the UK can own Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 for £38.95 or pay £12.95 to use it for a year.
The specific criteria, now on their website is:
This promotion ends 30th April 2008. The full retail price of the software is £599.
Not to be outdone Adobe are also offering a free Academic license for their Flex Builder with charting development environment.
