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This is how we got the scanner functionality of our MFC-J415W and MFC-8880DN "multi-function printers" working from our collection Ubuntu 11.10 and Linux Mint 12 (RC) desktops and laptops talking nicely to one another.

1. First get the brscan3 and brscan-key tools, which installs the brsaneconfig3 tool:

We've been very interested in the discussion about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (aka ACTA, a multi-lateral treaty put forward primarily by the US and Japan), which is being negotiated in complete secrecy by representatives of various sovereign countries (who have had to sign a non-disclosure agreement to participate).

The Internet Explorer browsers cause an issue for authenticated users in our Drupal site due to a fairly major limitation around external cascading style sheets. The IE browsers are limited 30 external style sheets which is an issue in modular web sites where the stylesheets are included automatically. Usually the last stylesheet to get included and therefore the one that gets dropped by IE is the one that controls the page layout.

A recent case saw a site looking fine for anonymous visitors but no page layout for logged in visitors. The theme css file was #34.

Several of us at Egressive went to two excellent, inspiring conferences in Wellington last week (18-24 January): Linux.conf.au 2010 and DrupalSouth 2010.

Egressive has made a submission to the Commerce Commission on the upcoming Patents Bill which, by not explicitly excluding them, allows for software patents. Patents are a government-granted, time limited to 20 years, monopoly designed to encourage innovation. In the case of software, 20 years is an eternity. Moreover, there's no indication that there's any shortage of innovation in the software industry without patents.

Many people ask us to explain what a Drupal theme is.  A theme is what makes a Drupal-based web site "look and feel" the way it does.  A Drupal theme is to a Drupal website as cladding is to a new house. A Drupal theme can be the web design equivalent to Spanish stucco or brick or weatherboard, or even rusted out scraps of roofing iron. Some work well in some conditions, not so well in others. Some are well suited to nearly all conditions but tend to require a bit more "fit and finish" and therefore cost.

Glen Moody has written an article that really resonates with me - it distills the rather bullet-proof arguments put forward by Richard M Stallman, more widely known as RMS - the tireless, brilliant, unflappably principled and famously cantankerous man who also gave the world the unprecedented (and often underappreciated) gift of the GNU

So what is open source software?

Over the years, we've had lots of graduates (both young and old) turn up at our door asking for work as software developers or system administrators. Most come from the local Polytech with an IT Diploma of some sort. Generally, they don't have sufficient experience or theoretical understanding to be helpful to us at Egressive. More troubling, however, is that they often seem to think that a) their study will get them a high paying job, and b) it's my duty to hire them, despite the fact that they don't really seem to have a deep interest in IT...

Egressive has installed a new PBX on one of our customer sites. The PBX runs an open source software product called Asterisk, which provides full PBX functionality including

Egressive is focused on delivering top quality web applications built on the Drupal platform. Drupal is free and open source, and so anyone can learn how it works and adopt it as their preferred tool just like we have. That means that Drupal offers a level playing field for competition.

The first thing that most people hearing about open source software for the first time understand is free... as in price. For some, that's motivation enough to try it - for others, the "there's no such thing as a free lunch" brigade, it elicits a sneer followed by the lush tones of a Microsoft Windows desktop popping into existence (generally accompanied by a "your anti-virus software is out of date!" message)...

Since 2005 when Egressive chose to adopt Drupal as our primary web application development platform, open source Content Management Systems (CMSs) have gone from strength to strength.Thanks to exposure in the popular media (such as this comparative article in LinuxWorld), open source CMSs have become the smart option for businesses and organisations wanting to maximise the effectiveness of their online resources.

Even though Microsoft Windows is completely proprietary software - the philosophical opposite of open source software - it is very widely used all over the world. Most of our customers use it in addition to Linux and other open source software. Luckily for Microsoft Windows users, plenty of open source developers have chosen to focus some of their efforts on open source software specially built to run on the Microsoft Windows platform (MS Visa, XP, 2000, NT, 98, CE, etc.).

Open source software is generally written by good software developers not by good marketers. It differs from proprietary software in two ways

The purpose of this story is to give you a idea of what the open source software world is, how it operates, and why it exists.