Last week was Thanksgiving in the United States. Traditionally, Thanksgiving is a time when people give thanks for free and open source software, open standards, and very low-power-usage laptops that are waterproof, dustproof and can be dropped by children. In this regard, Thanksgiving was very traditional this year.
In thinking of who or what I should be grateful for this year, I couldn't help but think of the person who has given the world so much, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web. Sure he's received a ton of formal recognitions, including knighthood from the Queen of England. But the Queen gives out knighthoods to just about anyone these days, including people convicted in a court of law. Formal recognitions are just not as meaningful as informal ones.
So here's a little song I composed to thank Tim Berners-Lee.
I'm distributing my version of the song with a Creative Commons license, so that it can be passed around, as long as you don't sell it. (Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States)
I've created two QuickTime versions of my recording that can be installed on refurbished computers that are being sold or given away. These videos are being distributed via the Internet Archive. One of the files plays on computers as far back as 1998. The other file is an MPEG4 file that plays well on more modern computers, including Linux systems.
A bunch of people doing computer refurbishing -- some as volunteers and some as their full-time job -- share questions, answers and discoveries on the Refurbishers email list on Google Groups. I'm proud to count myself among the people on this list.
Thanks, Tim. You've done good. Let's see how many others can follow suit.
The blogger has been working to bridge the digital divide for 20 years in the Washington DC-area. He loves Macs, adores Linux and likes Windows. Reader responses welcome in the comments below or at philshapiroblogger@gmail.com
