Miro 2.0

Written By: - Date published: 7:14 pm, February 11th, 2009 - 26 comments
Categories: uncategorized - Tags: ,

Opensource. Free. Cool.

26 comments on “Miro 2.0 ”

  1. Lew 1

    AYB: It’s not opensource – it’s Free Software ; )

    L

  2. Looks a lot like the video equivalent of Songbird.

  3. Contrary to the first poster this is open source software.

  4. Felix 4

    it,

    More like the video equivalent of Spotify

  5. illuminatedtiger:

    lew, I think, was trying to make a little joke. Miro is licensed under the GPL which was written and published by an organisation called GNU.

    Advocates of the GNU prefer the term “Free software” as they believe the term Open Source misses the point. This is a common clash of similar ideologies in the FSF/GNU community and the source of much /facepalming from the outside.

    Effectively though, Free software is open source, but open source isn’t always free software.

    This could have all been avoided if the English language could disambiguate between Free (beer) and Free (speech). About the closest we can get is Gratis vs. Libre

  6. djp 6

    Are there any decent channels for it yet? Last time I tried it was when it was called Democracy Player

    Sidenote: it is interesting that it is often lefties that are into free/opensource software

  7. Felix 7

    Chris S,
    Effectively though, Free software is open source, but open source isn’t always free software.

    No, free software is not always open source either. iTunes, utorrent and Internet Explorer are the first three examples that spring to mind, I’m sure you can think of many more.

  8. Chris S

    Funnily enough Richard Stallman still had a go at the term “free software” when I attended one of his talks. Then again he’s like that on most things.

  9. djp 9

    Felix, Chris S was talking about the GNU definition of free software (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)

  10. Lew 10

    Felix,

    No, free software is not always open source either. iTunes, utorrent and Internet Explorer are the first three examples that spring to mind, I’m sure you can think of many more.

    You have it the wrong way around. Free software is necessarily open source, but open source is not necessarily free software. Hint: it relies upon a definition of “free” other than “costs nothing”; as they say “free as in freedom, not as in free beer”. Hence Chris S’s distinction between “gratis” and “libre”. This would be clear if you’d read the links in his post : )

    djp,

    Sidenote: it is interesting that it is often lefties that are into free/opensource software

    Yeah, lefties and libertarians; one of the few places they tend to see eye to eye.

    L

  11. Felix:

    I’m surprised uTorrent isn’t opensource being one of those few Windows applications that was written with WINE in mind.

  12. Whanake 12

    Yeah, but don’t blow out your download limits. RSS can be very addictive.

    Whanake.

  13. Felix 13

    Yeah I’m aware of that Lew, it’s just a really silly term.

    it,
    Yeah, seems odd indeed.

  14. djp,

    Not that you’d understand but yep, and they are generally more inclined to give their energy and labour away for free too.

  15. expat 15

    UUUUuuum, no.

    Let’s not descend into left/right parochial generalisations that are patently not true.

    People of any political persuasion participate in technology related (or other) for free / open source organisations.

    I do and you’d consider me to be right of Gengis Khan (while some at KB would see me left of Michael Cullen).

    How ’bout that Min. Wage increase huh?

    I reckon the EPMU et al should match it by rebating union fees to those on the minimum wage.

  16. expat 16

    UUUUuuum, no.

    Let’s not descend into left/right parochial generalisations that are patently not true.

    People of any political persuasion participate in technology related (or other) for free / open source organisations.

    I do and you’d consider me to be right of Gengis Khan (while some at KB would see me left of Michael Cullen).

    How ’bout that Min. Wage increase huh?

    I reckon the EPMU et al should match it by rebating union fees to those on the minimum wage.

    What do you reckon people?

  17. all_your_base 17

    And there I was, trying to be careful by saying both “opensource” *and* “free”. At least everybody agrees it’s “cool”. 😉

  18. expat 18

    we agree, once… don’t get too comfortable with the situation though.. 😉

  19. Daveo 19

    Expat: The EPMU doesn’t really have a lot of minimum wage members as their membership is heavily made up of skilled tradesmen – engineers, printers, linesmen and the like. Unions with a lot of members at or near minimum wage (like Service & Food or Unite) usually have graduated fee structures based on income.

  20. expat 20

    Sure fine. Rebate on the same scale as the tax reductions. The union movement should be pitching in during these hard times if they want to honour their heritage – thats why they were formed.

  21. Daveo 21

    Rebate on the same scale as tax reduction? I’m not sure what you mean, or even why that’s relevant.

  22. expat 22

    Give back unions fees to those who need it most as unions were formed to protect the workers most at risk during recessionary times

    Its relevant because people are suffering this recession.

    Don’t be obtuse.

  23. Daveo 23

    Obtuse? Not at all. Unions cost money to run mate, you can’t just go cancelling your revenue stream because it’s a nice thing to do.

    Have you even thought this through? Or is this just another cheap dig at the unions from right-wingers who don’t understand what they’re about?

  24. Kimble 24

    “Unions cost money to run mate, you can’t just go cancelling your revenue stream because it’s a nice thing to do.”

    Businesses cost money to run mate, you can’t just have the government chewing up more of their revenue stream by increasing the minimum wage just because it is a nice thing to do.

    The Unions SHOULD discount their fees. Unions are there to improve the life of workers right? So in a year when wage increases arent likely to happen, why WOULDN’T an organisation with that as its goal decrease the levy on their host to improve their life?

    Unless of course the Union is less about helping workers and more about helping themselves than they want you to believe.

  25. Daveo 25

    Kimble: Unions are non-profit organisations and they’re mostly struggling financially as it is, particularly the ones with members on or close to the minimum wage. Unite for example barely even pays its organisers, many of them are voluntary.

    I can therefore only laugh at this whole narrative about unions “helping themselves” instead of their members. It’s bollocks – unions are mass democratic associations, not profit-seeking corporates out to screw money from their clients to improve their profit margins.

    There simply isn’t the money to reduce fees and in any case even a 20% cut would only mean an extra dollar a week for a full time worker. And that’s hardly worth sending the union to the wall for a dollar a week now, is it?

    Nor is there the demand. In fact in all my discussions with workers on various worksites this year not a single one has demanded fee reductions. No union that I’m aware of has had a resolution through its democratic body for reductions. In fact, the only people who’ve even raised the idea have been right-wingers who have a dislike for unions. Funny that, isn’t it?

  26. expat 26

    Its is funny Daveo, not for the reason you think though.

    Your arguments sound like a recalcitrant member of the BRT arguing against raising the MW.

    The major unions in this country have very strong balance sheets, they should return some of that wealth to their members during this recession.

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