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[Alug]GPL, freedom and bread
by Ben Francis 04 Jun '03

04 Jun '03

I've just been reading several documents at gnu.org explaining the benefits of free software over proprietary software (indexed here http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html) After reading these articles/essays I very much feel that following the guidelines of the GNU Public License is the single best way to develop software in most if not all cases and holds benefits both for developers, end users and society as a whole. However, I still feel that if I were asked to justify this view to someone I would have trouble doing so, because my understanding of the underlying concepts is still a little sketchy. In particular, I can quite readily accept that writing software under the GPL is the best way and I'm the kind of person that would still program even if I was not being paid to do it. However, the harsh reality is that programmers need money to put bread on the table and apparently some geeks even have families to support! Just say someone were to program full time and released all of their code under the GPL, where does their bread actually come from? Short of selling their body on the streets (which may be frowned upon by aforementioned family) or starting up a farm and becoming self sufficient, where does the doe come in? I believe that job satisfaction comes over money every time, but there are still sources of money in free (as in speech not beer) software and the documents make it quite clear that you can quite legitimately sell such software for whatever price the market will pay, providing you follow the guidelines so that the freedom of the software is maintained. If a baker buys his own flour, he owns the bread he bakes and can sell it. If I write software but I don't own it, I can still sell it, but people can get it for free from elsewhere and can get it from a friend, which as an alternative to paying 9.9 times out of 10 they will. At the moment this may not be such a problem as people may prefer to buy the software in a package with an instruction manual and bundled support for the program. However, I would argue that the ideal program would be intuitive to the point where it required no documentation or training and support is mainly for when things go wrong, which an ideal program wouldn't. In instances where a form of support or source of information IS required, which will always happen, the online community can often offer support that is equal to that of paid support for free, and this is actively encouraged within online forums and instant messaging. With the spread of broadband internet connections swapping information or programs between people is becoming even easier and cheaper than copying a CD to the point where the cost per byte is negligible, which is the way it should be. The only source of income that therefore remains is writing bespoke solutions for a particular customer where that customer would pay you to port your program to fit their own business practises rather than work on the features you would normally put as a high priority. However, if this is also released under the GPL will the number of cases not be very small and no basis for a decent sized income? I don't like the fact that my only concerns stem from the need for cash, but it is, unfortunately, a necessity. I'm posting this rather long message here because I know there are veterans on the subject lurking in the corner (or not) who may be able to enlighten me. I believe the answer to my questions lie on well trodden ground and hopefully those answers will help me in my active support for free software. If there is an easy answer, then forgive my ignorance but I make no apologies for asking silly questions, someone has to ask them :) Thanks for your time, Ben "tola" Francis --- there is no spoon... damn, now I have to eat my yoghurt with a fork.

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RE: [Alug]Redhat, Mandrake, and Gentoo Disks
by Jonathan Dye 04 Jun '03

04 Jun '03

MJ Ray wrote: > Jonathan Dye <jonathan.dye(a)automationpartnership.com> wrote: >> think) and call it something else (I think they've called it Pink >> Tie) because of copyright issues. > > I thought that was because of trademark law being used to deny the Red > Hat name to others, not copyright? That is probably correct, I should have checked the correct terminology/reason before just automatically typing 'copyright'. JD _____________________________________________________________________ This message has been checked for all known viruses by the MessageLabs Virus Scanning Service

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RE: [Alug]Redhat, Mandrake, and Gentoo Disks
by Jonathan Dye 04 Jun '03

04 Jun '03

Martyn Drake wrote: > On Tue, 3 Jun 2003 11:27:35 +0100 Jonathan Dye wrote: > > > www.linuxemporium.co.uk have several distribtions (both download and > > retail versions) as well of lots of other stuff and they'll > mail them > > to you. I'm not sure how nominal the fee is though. > > It should be noted that they won't sell the downloadable copies of Red > Hat, but everything else can be picked up there for reasonable cost. Yes they do. Thay have had to remove a couple of rpms (all pictures I think) and call it something else (I think they've called it Pink Tie) because of copyright issues. JD _____________________________________________________________________ This message has been checked for all known viruses by the MessageLabs Virus Scanning Service

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Re: [Alug]Wine
by jamie.french＠talk21.com 03 Jun '03

03 Jun '03

This is funny, I tried to get Wine working last night as I want to run KazaaLite. I dont have much time in the evenings and all I got to work was progman! Need to do some reading. Aside, does anyone know of any P2P clients like Kazaa which run under Linux? Take Care, Jamie Best Regards, Jamie French -------------------- talk21 your FREE portable and private address on the net at http://www.talk21.com

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RE: [Alug]Redhat, Mandrake, and Gentoo Disks
by Jonathan Dye 03 Jun '03

03 Jun '03

Dan Beimborn wrote: > Hello folks, > > I'm new to the area here (as I may have inadverently > announced twice!), > and I'm sitting on the end of a modem (you'd think I'd use a chair..). > > Anyway, I'm used to schlurping down godawfully huge ISO > images over my > lunch hour, so not sure exactly how one acquires sets of redhat, > mandrake, and Gentoo in modem land. Could anyone either recommend a > source that burns them for a nominal fee, or someone who'd > burn them for > me in the area? www.linuxemporium.co.uk have several distribtions (both download and retail versions) as well of lots of other stuff and they'll mail them to you. I'm not sure how nominal the fee is though. JD _____________________________________________________________________ This message has been checked for all known viruses by the MessageLabs Virus Scanning Service

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RE: [Alug]animation software and C++ training
by Jonathan Dye 03 Jun '03

03 Jun '03

Simon Jude wrote: > Also, slightly off topic, we are about to buy a number of software > packages that come with APIs and SDKs so that we can > customise them if we > wish (and require a training course in Arizona!). Can > anybody suggest any > good books or training courses for learning C/C++? Have a look at the book reviews at www.accu.org. JD _____________________________________________________________________ This message has been checked for all known viruses by the MessageLabs Virus Scanning Service

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[Alug]Redhat, Mandrake, and Gentoo Disks
by Dan Beimborn 03 Jun '03

03 Jun '03

Hello folks, I'm new to the area here (as I may have inadverently announced twice!), and I'm sitting on the end of a modem (you'd think I'd use a chair..). Anyway, I'm used to schlurping down godawfully huge ISO images over my lunch hour, so not sure exactly how one acquires sets of redhat, mandrake, and Gentoo in modem land. Could anyone either recommend a source that burns them for a nominal fee, or someone who'd burn them for me in the area? I'd be most appreciative, I might even have a spare penguin plushie I could trade :) DB

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[Alug]DVD Burning & Bootable DVDs
by Dan Beimborn 03 Jun '03

03 Jun '03

It's been about 6 months since I last tried DVD burning under linux, and there was a way to do it with a Pioneer DVD-R that I had using non-gpl software that had short built-in expiration dates. Has anyone here had any luck with it? I did some hunting and haven't turned up any new GPL ways to do it yet & I'm hoping someone has since written free tools to do this with. The next step I'm looking into is to make a bootable DVD, which I assume would follow the same steps as a bootable CD with the el torito image etc. Has anyone here had luck making bootable CDs that could help beyond what the howtos out there say to do? DB

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[Alug]Fwd: [Debian-uk] Software patents pubmeet in Cambridge
by markj＠cloaked.freeserve.co.uk 02 Jun '03

02 Jun '03

I think I'll be there... From: Wookey <wookey(a)aleph1.co.uk> Subject: [Debian-uk] Software patents pubmeet in Cambridge Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 17:16:21 +0100 (BST) A few of us in Cambridge are trying to increase public/geek/programmer awareness of EU software Patent legislation which is pending, and things are currently balanced between very bad, and quite reasonable, legislation. The issues are complicated. Any of you who are local and would like to be better informed, especially in order to make intelligent points to your representatives, would benefit from coming along. Here's the blurb: ----- Hi there, Join other software developers and Intellectual Property practioners at a pubmeet to in Cambridge discuss the proposals. As you may know, the EU is working on a directive covering software patenting. The next vote is scheduled for the 16th or 17th of June in the JURI subcommittee, which deals with legal affairs and the internal market. The final vote on the proposed directive by the European Parliament is currently scheduled for the end of June. The outcome of the process could affect individual software developers as well as small and larger companies but there isn't general awareness about the issues. Meet at the Free Press, Prospect Row, 8pm Thursday 5th June. The Free Press is a non-smoking pub. Look for a notice saying Patents or ask at the bar. Admission free. Let me, Jeff Veit, know that you are coming - email patents(a)tanasity.com because if the numbers are too large we will switch venue. Final notification by email on the afternoon of the 5th. Your email details won't be shared with anyone. Check http://www.tangledtime.com/patents.htm for latest news on the meeting. If you aren't interested or are interested but are unable to attend but a colleague or friend might be interested please let them know - this meeting has been organised quickly and hasn't been widely publicised and I am only sending one mail to each company/group that I think may be interested. Best wishes, Jeff Veit Wookey -- Aleph One Ltd, Bottisham, CAMBRIDGE, CB5 9BA, UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 811679 work: http://www.aleph1.co.uk/ play: http://www.chaos.org.uk/~wookey/ _______________________________________________ Debian-uk maillist - Debian-uk(a)chiark.greenend.org.uk http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/debian-uk

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[Alug]XP install
by Paul Tansom 02 Jun '03

02 Jun '03

OK, not a good title for a Linux list, but I couldn't resist commenting on my first attempt at installing Windows XP (Professional) given that people often say Linux is hard to install. First off, there seemed very few questions to answer - Windows assumed it knew best for just about everything, and boy was it wrong?! The end result goes something like this: A: - my 3.5" floppy B: - my 5.25" floppy C: - my ZIP drive D: - my DVD ROM E: - my CD RW F: - same CD RW as above G: - same CD RW as above H: - same CD RW as above I: - same CD RW as above J: - same CD RW as above K: - same CD RW as above L: - same CD RW as above M: - my hard disk with Windows XP installed on it Next comes the networking side of things: IE - fine, can browse the Internet and is pretty fast, can also browse my local Intranet Explorer - cannot see any other machines on the network, when it should be able to see two other Windows 2000 boxes

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