Daily Archives: Monday, July 29, 2013

  • FSFE objects to claims of free software’s ‘predatory pricing’

    Steve WoodsOpen Source, Politics, Tech

    FSFE logoIn a recent anti-trust submission to the European Commission, a coalition led by Microsoft falsely claimed that the distribution of free software free of charge hurts competition. FSFE has written a letter to the European Commission’s competition authorities to refute this claim and point out that free software is critical for an open, competitive IT market.

    In its letter, FSFE urges the Commission to consider the facts properly before accepting these allegations at face value. “Free software is a boon for humankind. The only thing that it is dangerous to is Microsoft’s hopelessly outdated, restrictive business model,” says FSFE president Karsten Gerloff.

    In essence,the so-called “FairSearch” coalition is asking the European Commission to favour a restrictive business model over a liberal one – exactly the opposite of what competition regulators should do to achieve a fair and open market.

    “Free software is not about price, it’s about liberty, a guarantee of competition and vendor independence. Asking to cripple free software in order to allow proprietary vendors to sell their locked-down systems is just absurd” says Carlo Piana, FSFE’s General Counsel. “The most substantial threat to competition in the mobile space today are software patents, and we have repeatedly urged anti-trust authorities to address this problem,” he adds.

    FSFE is asking the European Commission to dismiss the “FairSearch” coalition’s unfounded claims on predatory pricing and not make them part of whatever steps it decides to take in response to the group’s filing.

  • Sea greens

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities

    Yesterday I left the confines of Bristol and travelled down to the Bristol Channel coast.

    While there I was there I made time to visit an area of salt marsh to forage for marsh samphire (also known as glasswort), which is currently in the midst of its short season, which consists of the months of July and August only.

    image of marsh samphire
    Marsh samphire (Salicornia europaea)

    Samphire can be eaten raw or cooked. In the latter instance, no salt needs to be added to the cooking water as the plant has an inherent high salt content. It has a fresh, salty taste, crisp texture and makes a great accompaniment to fish and shellfish dishes, eggs or such specialities as salt marsh lamb. As samphire gets older and larger, the core of the plant becomes more stringy and the succulent flesh has to be stripped off the stringy core.

    Until the start of the 19th century, marsh samphire also had industrial uses: before the introduction of the LeBlanc process for the industrial production of soda ash, marsh samphire ashes were long used as a source of soda ash (mainly sodium carbonate) for making glass and soap.

    As regards the origin of the noun samphire, it is believed to be a corruption of the French name herbe de Saint-Pierre, i.e. “St Peter’s herb”.