Fsf-friends May 2003

fsf-friends@gnu.org.in

29 participants
60 discussions

KDE has tea with Stallman... one view
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 07 May '03

07 May '03

URL : http://phil.freehackers.org/writings/tea-with-stallman.html KDE has tea with Stallman [1]Philippe Fremy Tea with Stallman For Linux Solutions 2003 (see my [2]report) , the french KDE team thought that we could take the oppurtunity to improve our relationship with RMS. He seems to accepts KDE as fully free software now. So we invited him for a tea, to show him the latest KDE and discuss. He accepted. As promised, RMS came to visit us and see KDE after his conference. We thought he would just had a quick look but it turns out that he stayed for an hour! We had tea, we had biscuits, we had chairs, knoppix with KDE 3.1 and a laptop for demonstration. One question I wanted to ask him for a long time is how often he runs X . The answer was the one I had forcast: "sometimes". Most of the time, he is using emacs in terminal mode for more or less everything. He asked me what I was doing and I talk about [3]KVim. He said something like: "I can't tell if I am more sorry for vim or for KDE". We then talked a bit about emacs and if an embeddable version could be made for KDE, like for the vimpart. Gerard ask him if emacs was using gettext and could be translated. It turns out emacs is not using gettext, which is a reason why it can not be translated. There are incompatible API for this but someone can tackle the problem. He asked whether KDE people were saying "Gnu/Linux" or just "Linux", and Open Source or Free Software. I told him some of us are using KDE/Gnu/Linux which pleased him as an answer. We told him quickly what was in KDE 3.1 and gave him a Knoppix with KDE 3.1 and OpenOffice, all in french. We thought he would then leave but he was willing to see KDE running. So Sebastien started demonstrating him Konqueror and other stuff. Sebastien was willing to make a quick overview of everything but Richard quickly stopped him, asking him to go very slowly, explaining each key he types and what exactly happens on the screen. He spotted a bookmark named Linux and asked immediately what was in it, Linux or Gnu software ("Should not that be Gnu/Linux) ? It turns out it was just a list of bookmark related to Free Software (freshmeat, linuxfr, dot.kde.org, ...). While discussing, we discovered that he was not subscribed to the linux kernel mailing list, he just receives cc: sometimes. He did not know about Kernel Traffic so we showed him (with konqueror of course). He was disappointed not to see his recent thread about Linux and Gnu/Linux mentionned. He receives something like 300 mails every day, and one third of that is spam. We showed him the konsole embedded into Konqueror. The first thing he did was to run emacs in text mode, which was successful. So we had emacs inside konsole inside konqueror. Fun! After that, he took the mouse and start wandering throught the control center. He checked a few things and seeemed to find it interesting. He had problems with the french keyboard, so we enabled a dual french/english keyboard. Since he was mainly a terminal user, I showed him the multi-terminal capability of konsole. This highlighted a bugs in emacs: it does not notice that the konsole window is resized. I told him vim could do that but he did not let the flamewar start :-) . I told him there is a kind of signal emitted by the terminal when it resizes (I don't remember exactly) and he wants me to send him more information on that. He asked for a C binding that would be used equally with Gnome/Gtk or KDE/Qt. I told him that this was more or less what WxWindows does, and that apart from that, this is not a good idea. First, both toolkits, although they have the same api, are internally very different. Second, it would prevent people from using the real interesting features of KDE or Gnome. He insisted quite a lot on that. This allow him to remind us that KDE is C++ and C++ is still not recommended for Gnu Software. I asked if C was still the recommended language and he answered negatively. He just points out that the FSF actually does not recommend C but recommands against C++! After one hour, he had to leave to visit other booth. All in all, this was a very nice and interesting meeting. He consider now KDE as a fully free desktop and we even discussed the possibility of getting into the Gnu project. He did not oppose the idea although many KDE hackers would probably not accept. Philippe Fremy

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SITEWATCH: www.ilug-cal.org
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 07 May '03

07 May '03

URL : http://www.ilug-cal.org Logo [1]home � [2]meeting minutes � [3]faq � [4]list messages � [5]articles � [6]list faq � [7]lug cds � [8]mailing lists � [9]pictures � [10]sponsors � [11]polls � [12]search � [13]user account � [14]links Welcome to iLUG-Cal Submitted by [15]webmaster on Tuesday, January 21, 2003 - 14:46 * About us: The Kolkata chapter of the Indian Linux Users's group (ILUG-CAL) is a non-profit, volunteer driven organisation dedicated to the propagation and usage of GNU/Linux in Kolkata, and in West Bengal. The organistion tries to provide suppport to the GNU/Linux community in Kolkata, as well as to increase the usage of GNU/Linux among the general computer users community in the city. It also organises workshops, seminars, etc for the local student community. * Membership: Anyone who is interested in GNU/Linux, or wants to try it out, or wants to learn more about it is welcome to join. One can become a member in two ways - either by joining the [16]mailing lists or by attending a [17]meeting. * Meetings: Meetings are held every month, usually on the 2nd Saturday - and the venue is usually announced on the mailing list. Meeting on Saturday, 10th May 2003 Submitted by [18]webmaster on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 16:30 We have a meeting on the 10th of May, 2003 (Saturday) from 16:30 (IST) onwards. Please click on the "Read More" link below for more details. [19]add new comment � [20]read more [21]Meetings Slap the credits everywhere! Submitted by [22]sankarshan on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 19:50 Sankarshan (sankarshan(a)ilug-cal.org) writes as: A recent article on [23]Newsforge, by Hank Reiser (the architect of the Reiser filesystem and founder of namesys)makes for interesting reading. The article is posted below, while for the newsforge link click [24]here Slap the credits everywhere! by [25]Hans Reiser - [26]add new comment � [27]read more "Exec Shield", new Linux security feature Submitted by [28]webmaster on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 17:04 Here's the announcement: We are pleased to announce the first publically available source code release of a new kernel-based security feature called the "Exec Shield", for Linux/x86. The kernel patch (against 2.4.21-rc1, released under the GPL/OSL) can be downloaded from: [29]http://redhat.com/~mingo/exec-shield/ The exec-shield feature provides protection against stack, buffer or function pointer overflows, and against other types of exploits that rely on overwriting data structures and/or putting code into those structures. The patch also makes it harder to pass in and execute the so-called 'shell-code' of exploits. The patch works transparently, ie. no application recompilation is necessary. [30]add new comment � [31]read more [32]News Gitobitan Online - a noteworthy effort Submitted by [33]sankarshan on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 11:39 [34]Somendra M Bhattacharjee of Bhubaneshwar has finally gone ahead and done it. Over an extended period of time, Somendra has been toiling over the important project of putting Rabindranath Tagore's Gitobitan online - something the Bengali speaking population worldwide would appreciate. It is finally available [35]here. [36]add new comment � [37]read more Get ready for another 'office suite' shakeout Submitted by [38]cybersiddhu on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 10:59 It seems that we are in the verge of watching the battle of best 'office suite' - combo-pack of softwares to perform common tasks like word processing, spread sheeting, presentation and e-mailing. And this time, hopefully it will not be a smooth sailing for the market leader Microsoft's "Office". [39]Full story [40]add new comment [41]Home Users Linux is... The Bachelor! Submitted by [42]webmaster on Saturday, April 19, 2003 - 05:52 [43]O'Reilly Net is featuring a hilarious article called "Linux is... The Bachelor!", which begins with..... Sun stood with one hand on her hip and the other twirling her long, pretty blonde hair. "I really like Linux. I think he's really got it together. I mean he has so much energy. I can definitely see myself as Mrs. Linux." . Read the entire article [44]here. [45]add new comment [46]News Bitstream/Gnome Release Vera Font Family Submitted by [47]webmaster on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 13:53 [48]Bitstream, a leading developer of font technology and digital fonts and our very own good old [49]GNOME have released the Vera font family under an open source/free license. The set of 10 fonts can be downloaded from [50]http://www.gnome.org/fonts/. I have personally downloaded the fonts, and to be honest - they rock!!! For the full press release on the deal, click [51]here. [52]add new comment [53]News Website updated Submitted by [54]webmaster on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 02:02 As many of you know, [55]www.ilug-cal.org is run on a Free (GPL'ed) content management system called Drupal ([56]www.drupal.org). We had started with Drupal 4.0.0, and this morning I upgraded the system to Drupal 4.1.0. This upgrade adds a number of new features and optimization (including better performance and faster response). I expect the transition to be as smooth as possible. However, I would request all who are visiting the site to notify me immediately if they find any error (if a page is not rendered, or if a comment cannot be posted, or if there is any error from PHP). My email address is [57]webmaster(a)ilug-cal.org. In case of *extreme* emergency, ring me up at 24632431 and lemme know (I am at home throughout the day now). [58]add new comment [59]LUG News Review of "The Not So Short Introduction to LATEX2" Submitted by [60]Indranil Das Gupta on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 10:58 A review of "The Not So Short Introduction to LATEX2" done by [61]Rohit Vishal Kumar. The reviewed resource is an useful starter's guide to learning LATEX 2 by any TeX/LaTeX newbie. The review covers the structure of the above book and mentions where to get hold of this rather handy resourse. You can download Rohit's review from [62]here. [63]2 comments [64]Study Material

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[Fsf-friends] Invitation to join the Free Software Consortium www.fsc.cc
by Jaco Aizenman 05 May '03

05 May '03

The Free Software Consortium is a new initiative and business model to promote and comercialize free software. It is Global, descentralized and coordinated through the net. The FSC is very interested to have Indian members. There is a need for lawyers, technical people, political advisors, marketing people, etc. For more details and inscriptions please visit www.fsc.cc Feel free also to ask any questions to jaco(a)fsc.cc

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COMMENT: Slap the credits everywhere
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 04 May '03

04 May '03

URL : http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/04/28/1859244 Slap the credits everywhere! Friday May 02, 2003 - [ 03:00 PM GMT ] [20] Print this Article Topic - [21]Open Source - by [22]Hans Reiser - Free software is ego-propelled. People don't get paid, they get famous. Yet we as a community do far too little to prominently credit the names of the authors. I propose we change that by adopting a few simple practices. Free software is like radio and broadcast television -- easily accessible and available to anyone who wants it. As software programming gets to be as big as entertainment programming, it begins to copy it in other ways. We should consciously pick which of those ways we want and as a community create taboos to enforce them now before we drift into bad habits that take become de facto rules. Do we want free software projects to be as well-funded as soap operas? It would be nice if it were so. Do we want ads inserted into people's screen backgrounds suggesting they lose weight and look stylish by smoking Camels? I think not. Do we want people to know the names of the authors of all of the software that they frequently use? Sure -- it would result in more and harder-working authors. I propose that we as a community insist that all distros make the default screensaver be one that randomly displays a different detailed credit for one of the authors of Linux software every 60 seconds. I propose that we insist the default splash screen for booting also display a random detailed credit describing the software one of the authors wrote. I think we should make this crediting of authors a license requirement for our free software. Why is it necessary to make it a license requirement? Won't everyone just go along with it if it is a good idea? If you think that, you have not met many marketeers in suits. To a marketeer, consumer awareness is money, and there is no reason why anybody but their company should have any. Their job is to ensure that they get the highest possible fraction of consumer awareness. Marketeers tightly control credits on their products so that only the company gets credit on anything they can control. This is why distros install splash screens with their name and no one else's on them into kernels they mostly did not write. The splash screens serve the purpose of emphasizing their brand name and obscuring everyone else's. A very minor reason, but the only one they speak of publicly, is that it obscures information average users don't understand with a nice graphic by a third-rate corporate artist. (Anyone else think we ought to have an open art contest for that boot splash screen?) This is why distros drop the K from all the KDE programs: somebody else is trying to establish a brand name, and that is a market threat they want to cut off. This is why they change the user interface of desktops they didn't write to display their logo instead of the desktop authors' logos. Using the work of others without giving them credit is plagiarism. Academia has long had in place mechanisms for dealing with plagiarism and other failures to attribute. In academia, authors' work is examined by an independent review board before publication. If you don't attribute, your reviewers laugh at you, you have to add the attribution, and you might not get published at all if the error was not an honest one. There is a constant continuing struggle to catch failures to attribute, but the social mechanism is in place and fairly effective. By contrast, with free software publishing, the distros -- and appliance vendors -- determine the proper share of the credit. Because the distros have a vested interest in their brand, they don't even bother to try to give appropriate credit to the creative talent, let alone the people and companies that fund the work. Perhaps you think that those who contribute only money should get less mention than those contributing code? I disagree. Have you ever worked a day job to fund other coders? Pure hell, let me tell you, especially if you are also so essential that time off becomes unacceptable. Money is unimportant only to those who don't work to create it. Steps in the right direction This proposal is just the first round of struggle over this issue. There are going to be lots of issues to solve in the details of how authors ensure that their credits are not stripped out of their work. For instance, how do you define what is fair crediting if there are many authors? What if you don't agree with someone's assessment of what is their fair share of the credits? Do you either suffer with it or do without their software? This is not a new problem -- or don't you think actors argue over the size of their name on the screen? At some point we'll need an arbitrator to solve these disputes. At first, this will probably be the original author, but since the original author is not disinterested, it will eventually need to be someone else. Original authors who name their software after themselves (ahem) have an advantage as an arbitrator of credits in that it is easier for them to worry less about their presence in the rest of the credits. (I encourage more people to do as Linus and I have done. It is mostly the guys working for me who need the kind of mention I'm suggesting if they are to get their deserved due. Naming software is the best possible way to credit authors. Look for pieces of reiserfs to acquire programmer names in the future.) The Free Software Foundation has finally begun to do something about giving proper credit. As a prelude to V3 of the GPL, the Free Software Foundation has moved to the GNU Free Documentation License. The [23]GFDL allows authors to make their credits or their political statements irremovable. That's a step in the right direction, but what about making the credits visible? It seems V3 of the GPL only protects credits in the source code, and does nothing to guarantee that users actually see the credits of the authors instead of the credits of the marketeers. In other words, it is 99% irrelevant. Fewer than 100 people have read the source code to reiserfs, and while those 100 are important, they aren't as important as 99% of the public. Nobody responsible for deciding whether to sponsor us has ever read the source code that I know of. Protecting credits only in the source is inadequate. If you agree, perhaps you can help me influence V3's authors to provide relevant protection from plagiarism. If that doesn't happen, I will try to convince the community that we need to move to an anti-plagiarism license instead. Unfortunately there are those who don't want their software burdened with even credit for the authors. Debian, for instance, seems to be leading the resistance to the GFDL. But maybe this is a burden we should shoulder if we want better software. What do you think? I would love to see an arbitrator determine who gets what mention on the outside of GNU/Linux distribution boxes. When Richard Stallman isn't even mentioned on the box as an author because doing so does not further the mindshare capture effort of the distro, well, this is just wrong. I don't have to agree with Stallman's socio-economics to abhor seeing his voice obscured by suits who don't equal his contribution in code and leadership. I hope you agree with me. Hans Reiser is architect of the Reiser filesystem and founder of [24]namesys .

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RMS in France with the KDE team
by Amol Hatwar 04 May '03

04 May '03

Hi all, The KDE team recently exhibited their stuff to RMS. RMS gave a nod and called KDE Free :). More info can be found at this link: http://phil.freehackers.org/writings/tea-with-stallman.html ah. ______________ It's most certainly GNU/Linux, and not Linux. Read more here: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html

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Slapping Credits on Free Software
by Amol Hatwar 04 May '03

04 May '03

Hi all, I recently caught this story on slashdot. It's about Hans Reiser's (ReiserFS fame) view about making software author's names more visible. He also talks about FSF and V3 of the GPL. I'd suggest people who develop software to have a look :). Here's the link: http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/04/28/1859244 Regards, ah. _____________ It's most certainly GNU/Linux, and not Linux. Read more here: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html

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Survey for Free Software/Open Source developers... (attn: South Asia)
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 03 May '03

03 May '03

URL : http://siepr.stanford.edu/programs/OpenSoftware_David/FLOSS-US_announcement… FLOSS-US The Free/Libre/Open Source Software Survey for 2003 [1]http://www.stanford.edu/group/floss-us/survey.fft A Survey of Software Developers FLOSS-US is an online survey currently being conducted by researchers at Stanford University's Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). It is a part of the study of the Economic Organization and Viability of Open Source Software undertaken by SIEPR's Knowledge, Networks and Information for Innovation Program (KNIIP) which is being supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. This survey has been designed in cooperation with Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (MERIT and Infonomics, University of Maastricht), who led the FLOSS survey of Open Source/Free Software developer communities, carried out with the sponsorship of the European Commission during 2002. [[2]http://floss1.infonomics.nl] To establish comparability with the previous sample of voluntary respondents, FLOSS-US asks questions on the same range of topics that the original FLOSS survey addressed, including: � Motivation: monetary / non-monetary, reputation, pleasure, creativity, jobs � Expectations: what do you expect of others? What do they expect of you? � Organization: efficiency, quality, comparison with commercial software � Law: intellectual property licenses, authorship, public domain � Technology: preferred programming tools In addition, developers are invited to provide information about their experiences and opinions on several other issues, such as: extent and intensity of OS/FS activities and project roles; relationships with commercial enterprises based on Free/Libre/Open Source software; support of OS/FS projects by proprietary software firms. Announcements of this new online survey will be posted in languages other than English, and at sites likely to be visited by developers in regions outside as well as within western Europe and North America. We will make public tabulated responses for each of the questions as soon as the survey period is closed, and the results of our further analyses will also be published on the SIEPR/KNIIP website. We are committed to protecting respondents' privacy: no personal identifiers will be stored with your answers and responses will be reported in aggregates that will prevent inferences about individual identities. If you are an Open Source/Free Software developer, please assist this research: go to the questionnaire at [3]http://www.stanford.edu/group/floss-us/survey.fft and fill it out! At the end of the questionnaire you will find links to to the SIEPR/KNIIP website and further information about our project. When you have submitted your response there will be an opportunity to comment on the questionnaire itself, and to request any of the publications that will be based upon analyses of the survey data. References 1. http://www.stanford.edu/group/floss-us/survey.fft 2. http://floss1.infonomics.nl/ 3. http://www.stanford.edu/group/floss-us/survey.fft

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Hi Friends
by Tarun Gaur 02 May '03

02 May '03

Hi New and old friends, Was out on a trip. could not contribute much to the amazing world of fsf. A short note to say hi to all my friends who believe in the spirit of free software. Regards to all, Tarun _________________________________________________________________ Hot new gizmos. Check 'em out. http://www.msn.co.in/Computing/Gizmos/ Right now!

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Re: Educational case studies
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 02 May '03

02 May '03

Could FSFIndia help to make this possible? Tks, FN On Fri, 2 May 2003, Doug Loss wrote: > Frederick, > > Could you ask the responsible people at Trivandrum and at Kannur to > make case study entries for their Linux implementations at > <http://casestudy.seul.org>? I'd appreciate it. Thanks! > > -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) | http://www.fredericknoronha.net Freelance Journalist | http://www.bytesforall.org http://goalinks.pitas.com | http://joingoanet.shorturl.com http://linuxinindia.pitas.com | http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks ------------------------------------------------------------------------- T: 0091.832.2409490 or 2409783 M: 0 9822 122436 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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[link] school tool
by Suraj 02 May '03

02 May '03

There is this wonderful project that is starting off. The reason why I'm posting this here is that this tool, though is technical good, seems very shady - in that 1. it wants to dual license its code, 2. the site claims the free version "might" be under the GPL. So we should all participate in this projects and vote for GPL and make sure that if this tool reaches the same fate as that of source forge we can atleast fork off a new free project and take it further. -Suraj -- BEGIN LINK -- [1][mainlogoleft2.png] [2][mainlogotsf.png] Navigation: [3]Home [4]Documentation [5]Vision [6]Specification [7]Architecture [8]Roadmap Community [9]Mailing Lists [10]Resources [11]Contact [12]SourceForge.net Logo [clear.gif] Welcome to the SchoolTool Project SchoolTool is a project to develop a common school administration infrastructure that is freely available under an Open Source licence. Our vision is to create a platform that is equally compelling for schools and colleges in First and Third World countries, that supports best practices in school administration and which is readily customised to suit local regulatory requirements. Our hope is that the first version of SchoolTool will: * be available under a variety of licences including at least one Open Source licence (probably the GPL). * support critical school administration tasks: student registration, timetabling, attendance tracking, test results tracking, report writing and web portal functionality * support a web interface for remote deployment and administration * meet regulatory requirements and local customs in South Africa, the UK and the USA You can read more about the SchoolTool Vision, and the detailed SchoolTool Requirements. We are developing SchoolTool largely in Python, which makes it platform-independent (it should run on Linux, UNIX, the Mac OS and Windows). Key target platforms for support are Linux and WindowsXP. You can read about the SchoolTool Architecture. Development of SchoolTool is hosted on the SourceForge network. If you have an interest in effective school management then please join the mailing list and help us to make this a robust tool that suits your needs. SchoolTool development is funded by [13]The Shuttleworth Foundation, a non-profit organisation that supports social innovation based in Cape Town, South Africa. We are always looking for new and innovative ways to improve education, please take a look at our web site and send us a proposal! Latest News: 2003-04-27: Mailing List Created. Please see our SourceForge Project Summary page and join the schooltool-devel mailing list if you would like to participate in the discussion. 2003-04-21: SchoolTool Reborn. Development recommences, Mark Shuttleworth will lead project from London. Initial target is system that meets basic requirements for schools in US, UK and SA. References 1. http://schooltool.sourceforge.net/ 2. http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/ 3. http://schooltool.sourceforge.net/index.html 4. http://schooltool.sourceforge.net/docs.html 5. http://schooltool.sourceforge.net/vision.html 6. http://schooltool.sourceforge.net/spec.html 7. http://schooltool.sourceforge.net/arch.html 8. http://schooltool.sourceforge.net/roadmap.html 9. http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=63502 10. http://schooltool.sourceforge.net/resources.html 11. http://schooltool.sourceforge.net/contact.html 12. http://sourceforge.net/ 13. http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org/ -- END LINK -- -- +-------------------------------------------------<suraj(a)symonds.net>--+ | Besiege the seekers, if they have to seek, not | | to seek those who have no qualms in hiding | | (dreading alms - 7), Thirukkural | +--<http://www.symonds.net/~suraj/>------------------------------------+

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Fsf-friends May 2003