Today’s Google’s announcement of a Linux supported version of their Picasa product sent some ripple efects through the Open Source community pond… This article shows some interisting different ways people reacted to it, from the “holy cow, this is so cool Batman!” to the “… but they’re using Wine for this?” comments. I particularly went through a roller coaster of emotions myself, going through several different “stages” as wave after wave of the news came up in my RSS Reader.

This last May 17th there was a controversial article published by the brazilian news magazine Veja (http://vejaonline.abril.com.br) on how the adoption of Open Source alternatives by the Brazilian goverment led to a major decline in technological advances as well as increased the overall spending on technical support. Though a very brief piece in the magazine, Mr. “Duda” Teixeira’s article’s message was loud and clear to the average brazilian reader: Open source is a major mistake!

I just received an email stating what I thought would be inevitable: Linux World Expo & Conference will no longer be held in Boston! Add to that the fact that it hasn’t been held in NYC for the last 2 years, this could mean the end of my long streak of participation at the event! :/ Year after year the event took on a more business-like approach, and colorfull couches and hang out areas were slowly converted to formal meeting lounges and the geeks were no longer the majority in attendance.

Time Travel: I received a good number of replies to my hypothetical question of which figure from the past you would be interested in meeting (in case you could travel back in time). Some of the answers were fairly interesting and it made me wish I had increased the hypothetical question to include more options… ;) Anyhow, here’s a short list of all the names: Franquin Kenji Miyazawa Siddartha Einstein Da Vinci Victor Hugo Asimov Alan Turing Daniel Balavoine Tolkien Gandhi Osamu Tezuka Plato Socrate Galileo Buddha Hitler the first man Bertrand Russel Pope John Paul II Hey Matt, I liked your choices too!

Hipothetically speaking, if I were giving the opportunity to travel back in time and meet 2 people, anyone, from the past, I wouldn’t hesitate to say: Jesus Leonardo Da Vinci in that order. Can you imagine what it would be like to be able to “pick their brains”??? What about you?

So yesterday I found out that Sun will (finally) get on the Open Source wagon… I’ll refrain from commenting on why I think they (Sun) have made this choice… What I really want to know is: When will Madobe (Macromedia+Adobe) wake up and smell the coffee???

Due to the proximity to the release date for Dapper Drake, Ubuntu Linux’s latest version scheduled to be released this June first, I have completely stopped working on my pet project, BillReminder. The translation effort to bring Open Source goodness to the Brazilian masses has a higher priority in my agenda, but the coding itch is still there! BillReminder is completely written in C#/Mono and makes use of the newly incorporated Windows.