Installing Python Eggs In Linux
Ok i am a little late to the party with these wonderful Python packages.. however installing them in Ubuntu (or any flavor of Linux) couldn't be easier. All you need is the python-setuptools package.
sudo apt-get install python-setuptools
This package contains the easy_install command allowing you to install whichever egg you like using the following command.
sudo easy_install <.egg file>
If you don't want to install the package then you can get the source for easy_install from here. Once you are ready to get try some eggs have a look at www.python-eggs.org for links to loads of great resources.
FSF Windows 7 Sins
The FSF will start its Windows 7 campaign this week by launching the Windows 7 Sins website as well as sending 500 hundred e-mails to charities and non-governmental organisations about why they should use the Windows 7 launch as an excuse to review their open source policy instead of an upgrade. This follows the letters last month to 499 of the Fortune 500 companies (Guess who was excluded) saying the same sort of thing.
I think the letters are a good thing. Software policy in organisations should be constantly reviewed and with the current upsurge in Linux use it is important to maintain a campaign and awareness that is not too fragmented. Any open source movement will have the problem that it is difficult to advertise - how many distros are there? how can they all be cooperative with advertising? Well obviously they can't and that isn't really the point is it. People in the open source community just want adoption of any Linux distribution, it really doesn't matter if that is Red Hat, Ubuntu, SUSE or whatever as long as there is adoption. This is the role that the Free Software Foundation should be taking. Quoting the FSF website:
The FSF campaigns for free software adoption and against proprietary software. Threats to free software include Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), Software Patents and Treacherous Computing.
This brings me to my criticism of the Windows 7 Sins campaign. I don't believe (being a free software user) that as a group we should spend our time and money (donations) criticising competitors products. We should be pointing out why we are better not why they are worse.
I think the decision to run the Windows 7 Sins campaign has not been taken lightly however it reflects not only upon the FSF but on the whole open source community and it doesn't reflect well. The FSF are guardians of the community and should remain so however i do think these sort of campaigns demonstrate a loss of direction.