Free Beer

Herring gulls clamouring for the scraps from the Arcturus as the Spitfore pulls into Dunbar Harbour.

Big Beer

There's no beer in the picture, but I went for one (or two) afterwards to chat about Pugsleys with Davey the local Pugs expert. I decided I'm going to get myself a Pugsley Black Ops. Ho. yus.

The reference to Free Beer is an old computing concept - "Free as in free speech, not as in free beer". This abstract concept is espoused by the FSF and I agree with them.

But what's happened now is that the really big beasts have weighed in, bought companies which promoted free software, and screwed everybody up. Here: Oracle suing Google for using Java in Android. This is a big deal, dull as it may seem. And it can be stopped by the US government stopping Software Patents, as have the EU.

Sleep well.