Partendo da un post di Gianluca sulla decisione di Mark Shuttleworth di nascondere, in futuro, alcuni pezzi di Ubuntu per renderli più appetibili e sorprendenti, rilasciandoli poi sempre con licenza libera, ma di fatto sottraendoli allo sviluppo e al giudizio della comunità del software libero, mi è venuto un commento un po' più articolato che non mi piaceva relegare ad un commento su Google Plus.

Quindi lo scrivo qui.

Prima di leggere il commento magari leggetevi il post di Gianluca, la fonte che lui ha citato sul post e la fonte originale della notizia, ovvero l'annuncio di Mark Shuttleworth stesso sul suo blog.

Poi, se volete, leggete il commento qui sotto.

Donation this year is for Wikipedia.

"Jimbo" Wales' funding message is about usual topics, and I can say I like such base message.

I'm quite used to make donation to non-profit projects I use, and I can't miss Wikipedia. After criticism Wikipedia gets on a regular basis for different aspects, I find myself browsing some wiki page every day to get information, curiosities and insights on very different topics.

And I can found them on Wikipedia, perhaps not precise, sometimes with a bad written e perhaps some other times even deliberately wrong. But they are here.

So I think Wikipedia is worth of my 20 euros.

On the series Olimpic Games^TM (registered trademark), I've noticed a little case of technologic discrimination, in this case for users of GNU/Linux systems:

"In osservanza degli obblighi di protezione delle dirette imposti dal CIO, le stesse dirette saranno disponibili per il web sui sistemi operativi OS e Windows, sui tablet e smartphone in modalità WI- FI solo attraverso applicazioni specifiche (es. Rai.tv e Rai Sport)."

Source: http://www.stadiosport.it/42159-olimpiadi-londra-2012-in-diretta-tv-streaming-tutte-la-manifestazione-live.htm

Trying accessing live streaming on rai.tv websites (as a regular subscriber of company services) from my GNU/Linux PC I see following message:

"Siamo spiacenti. La visione del contenuto non è accessibile per motivi legate alla gestione e disponibilità dei diritti."

Message seems to be (one more time probably) that on system different from Mac OS and Windows is not possible to have things made legally.
I think more transparency sould be used with users in such case, informing them that is not matter of "right" and "legality", is just a money affair.
Insufficient capability to manage legal rights means to be not able to make profit, or at least not to be sure you can make profit. To be clear,this is legitimate, since many people work to offer me such service I cannot expect to get it for free.

But I consider unfair trying to "suggest" it's a kind of illegal what, in fact, is just a problem of getting paid for a service for who offer such service.

In this case limitations seem to be imposed from CIO, and it's where artcile title came from (remembering of a post from Seth Godin "Jumping the Olympic® shark").

In general, about Rai, this topic have generated, and generates, duscussions from many years, since Rai uses Microsoft technology for streaming services which it's not available on GNU/Linux systems (except for some geek tweaks with poor results) and which was for many people, including me, a very bad strategic choice.

Ingredients:

• A new supplier (of anything)
  
• A calendar (even digital)
  
• A potential customre (me)
  
• An inspection to do
  

Preparation

Wait for a need to do a work.
As it happens call new supplier and make an appointment writing it down on calendar (even digital).
Schedule own commitments at home and work to ensure presence of all people involved in appointment.
On choosen day, calendar (digital) rings 15 minutes before new supplier should arrive.

Wait for 15 minutes.
Wait for other 15 minutes.

Pick up the phone and note that supplier is in the middle of an urgency had he was unable to warn you he's canceled appointment.
Ask if he can reschedule appointment later in the day and arrange to be called from him later.

End call.
Be thrilled.

Et voilà, il cattivo inizio è servito.