Dr. Matt Lee (mattl)

Web standards, accessibility, free/open source software, old UNIX/TV/Music and occasional wargaming

Smart UI: Google Groups (2008)

Google Groups is an alternative to being on a bazillion mailing lists, and has an interface to Usenet as well.Google Groups is not free software, but rather a web application. The debate on how free software and web applications should work rages on.To me, Google Groups is far more like.. any discussion forum, than an application like Gmail or Google Docs.I just joined a new group, and was presented with this:This is really smart, and something that GNU Mailman should offer, so I fil

Why is Opera not free software? (2008)

A few years ago, Opera stopped charging money for its browser, but they would show you ads at the top of the screen while you were using it. If you wanted to get rid of the ads, you could pay them.Then they removed the ads and made the ad-free Opera available gratis.My question is – why is Opera not free software? Why can’t I download the source code to Opera and modify it, study it and distribute it?Often I see people bemoaning the lack of Opera support for things on forums, blogs and