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[Alug]EU software patent threat
by Chris Lale 31 May '03

31 May '03

There is still time to lobby your MEPs. Please spare 5 minutes to send an email registering your concerns. The proposed directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions comes before the European Parliament later this month. Patenting of software is a threat to all business models, but especially Open Source (including Free) software. It also penalises software developers and users of all types of software. Dan Bricklin (who invented the electronic spreadsheet in 1979 but did not patent it) explains why at http://www.bricklin.com/patentsandsoftware.htm You can find MEP's email and letter post addresses at http://www.europarl.org.uk/uk_meps/MembersMain.htm Other sources you may wish to draw on are Alex Hudson's useful site: http://www.softwarepatents.co.uk/ Analogy with music for non-techie people: http://www.coolscience.co.uk/free-software/software-patent-music.html Illustration of the infamous "technical effect" criterion: http://coolscience.co.uk/free-software/software-patent-techeffect.html European Parliament written question E3927/02 and answer. MEPs will be reassured but you might not be: http://www2.europarl.eu.int/omk/OM-Europarl?PROG=WQ&L=EN&PUBREF=-//EP//TEXT… If you are keen, the proposed directive COM (2002) 091:http://europa.eu.int/cgi-bin/eur-lex/udl.pl?REQUEST=Seek-Deliver&COLLEC… Paper on Open Source and software patents http://eu.conecta.it/paper/Open_source_software_patent.html Cheers, Chris -- +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | ___ Chris Lale <ctlale(a)netscape.net> | | / \ | | | <_/ My PC runs Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 (http://www.debian.org). | | \ Robust, secure and free operating system + applications. | | `- | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+

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RE: [Alug]GNU/Linux Partition Utilities
by Keith Watson 30 May '03

30 May '03

> From: Paul Tansom > > ** Keith Watson <keith.watson(a)kewill.com> [2003-05-28 09:53]: > > > From: Paul Tansom > > > > > > Not actually booted my CD and tried it, but apparently yes parted is on > > > Knoppix apparently (can't find the link I found the quote on, but it was > > > from Knoppix 3.2 onwards). Some other useful links you may be interested > > > in: > > [snip] > > > > Thanks for the excellent links Paul, especially the one for PartImage. > > > ** end quote [Keith Watson] > > No problem. It happens to be something I'm looking into myself, partly > for speeding up the install process for machine (Windows 98 primarily > unfortunately), and partly to recover some data on a couple of drives > I'm having problems with. > > One seems to have a duff sector which is preventing access to a > partition (Fujitsu 20G, newest drive I had until I bought a replacement, > but not one of the notorious ones), and the other (again a Fujitsu, but > 13G this time) which seems to have lost partition information on the > transfer to another machine. > > I'm trying to work out whether Parted will recover things for me, or > whether I'm better off to go with one of two commercial solutions I've > found: > > Acronis RecoverExpert - looks good because it supports Linux Ext2, Ext3, > ReiserFS, and Linux Swap as well as the traditional Windows formats, but > the demo is only the Windows GUI version (not the boot disk). This has > a few issues booting with the drive 13G drive connected (so I can't get > any idea of whether it will recover it) and with the 20G it just shows > the partition as duff (it seems as though it simply recovers lost > partitions rather than fixing corrupt ones). > > Active Partition Recovery - only supports FAT and NTFS partitions, but > the boot disk can see and read all the partitions in question and show > me the data, so it has a distinct attraction in that respect! > > Both about 30usd - if anyone has used either of these, or Parted or > another utility to recover a partition problem I'd be interested to > hear. > > Oh, my tape backup is giving me hassle too - I'm not a happy penguin at > the moment. Having said that, my Linux machines are going strong and it > is only my Windows 2000 that is givin me hassle (duff hardware and the > tape backups which verified fine are not allowing me to access them now > that I've lost the boot drive that they were created from - classic > backup!). > > -- > Paul Tansom: - contact paul(a)aptanet.com for more information > Internet and Intranet Solutions -- http://www.aptanet.com/ > I think you meant this to go to the list Paul :o) I've always used PartitionMagic (I've got Version 6.0 but they're up to 8.0 at present) which has served me very well. but it's not GPL or GNU/Linux though credit where it's due. Amazon has the latest release of PM for 40UKP and also the back release 7.0 at 25UKP <http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/202-8112773-2091046> Never been unlucky enough to have to recover from the sort of problems you describe but I've no doubt someone on the list will have some war stories to tell :o) Regards, Keith ____________ The shortest answer is doing. George Herbert

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RE: [Alug]New Member Intro RE: [Alug]New Member Intro
by Dan Beimborn 30 May '03

30 May '03

Hmm, I sent it once and it was rejected due to my "From" not being subscribed, then I subscribed properly and resent it. I guess this first one also got approved. Sorry for the dupe DB Hmm, I sent it once and it was rejected due to my "From" not being subscribed, then I subscribed properly and resent it. I guess this first one also got approved. Sorry for the dupe DB ps- :) From: "Keith Watson" <Keith.Watson(a)Kewill.com> To: <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> Subject: RE: [Alug]New Member Intro Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 11:47:29 +0100 >> From: Dan Beimborn >> >> Hi Folks, ...snip... Anyone else get a strange feeling of deja vu? :o) Keith

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[Alug]New Member Intro
by Dan Beimborn 30 May '03

30 May '03

Hi Folks, I'm a recently-relocated Sysadmin/Network Guy/Web Guy/Bottle Washer from California (San Jose) where I worked for a software company that did firewall/HA & Linux appliances in the storage space. I have a lot of background in TCP/IP/network/security/exotic routing on Linux systems, and also had a great time getting linux running inside old arcade cabinets. I also used to beta test Linux games for id software, but sadly I discontinued that relationship before I could get any copies of Doom 3 for Linux! My wife is a Norfolk girl, and after years of thinking about it, we finally decided to move here (Holt) to take advantage of the sun & heat we missed out on living in cold, dark California. I'm in the hunt for work doing just about anything with Linux, though my specialties are perl/apache/mysql and firewall/security/networking. Looking forward to pelting the natives with penguin dolls whenever the chance arrives (you do that here, right? right?) DB

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[Alug]Wine
by Edenyard 30 May '03

30 May '03

Has anyone here ever had any experience of using Wine to run anything useful? I've tried installing it twice now on my Slackware 8.1 system. Sure enough, it runs solitaire (from an old Win3.11 disk I have) as claimed in teh documentation, but it chokes completely on anything and everything else that I've tried, specifically catalogue-CDs from the likes of Farnell, RS, Texas, etc., including one old one that I KNOW has been run on W3.1. I have wine-20030408 and kernel 2.4.18 on an Athlon 1000 with 256Mb RAM. I installed it using ./tools/wineinstall as instructed and running ./tools/winecheck gives a score of 85%+, so I think I've got at least most of the config right. Most of the error messages start 'fixme: ', which suggests to me that perhaps it isn't even intended to work. I don't have a Windoze partition on either of my PCs, but my understanding of the Wine documentation is that I don't need one. A 500+ Mb package just to run solitaire (and, to be fair, winmine....) seems pretty useless to me. Is it really intended for running 'real- world' applications or I being really dumb here? If it really is as bad as it seems, is there any alternative emulator (or whatever they're called) for running these catalogue-CDs? Any help appreciated, thanks! Gerald.

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Re: [Alug]Wine
by Edenyard 30 May '03

30 May '03

Dan Hatton wrote: > > If they're anything like the catalogue CDs I've used, they rely on the > presence of Internet Explorer. I've just checked, and although IE6 > will run under wine (in the sense of a window appearing, with menus > that will drop down,) it doesn't seem keen to do much. Also, as you > don't have a Windows partition, I guess you'd need to install it. I > have two nasty feelings about this. > I remember back in the dark old days when I existed on a mixture of DOS mainly with a little Doze 3.1, these exact same catalogue CDs ran then. That certainly didn't have this Explorer thing on it, so I suppose that I have to hunt for another reason for its failure. In any case, wouldn't Explorer be just for looking at .html pages? (Excuse ignorance on this - I've never used it!) Cheers, Gerald.

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Re: [Alug]Wine
by Edenyard 30 May '03

30 May '03

Adam Bower wrote: > > 500Mb?! that sounds a bit wrong to me. Unless you have all the source kicking > around and have built it from scratch. > I had source code and the .tar.gz was about 8Mb I think. Looking in the source directory after compiling, MC makes it 429Mb, of which the largest chunk seems to be the /dll subdirectory at around 305Mb. Also, there's around 107Mb in /usr/local/lib/wine and some other executables, etc., dotted around. Do you think I've done something silly? Why would it generate so much in the source directory that doesn't seemingly make it into /usr/something-or-the-other? > > There are packages that are around 35Mb > (compressed tgz for slackware so admittedly it will be bigger when installed) > maybe try one of them? > I don't relish the thought of downloading 35Mb on a modem that seems to connect at 44000 at fastest! I only had the source because Ian Douglas was kind enough to copy it onto a CD for me. Maybe when I get around to looking at Slackware 9.0 I may find the TGZ package on there. > > Anyhow I have used Wine to run Microsoft Office in Linux before, and I use it > to run Digiguide for windows also, I think a couple of years back I also made > Half-life work so it does indeed work with a fairly broad selection of > applications. > To be fair, I have now actually found 1 CD that runs on it and that's a car workshop manual CD. However, I'd already extracted the set of PDFs from this CD and copied them to my HDD so that I could read them with acroread, so it's a bit pointless using wine for that. What I really desperately need is for the RS and Farnell cats to run. No luck there, though.... Gerald.

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[Alug]SCO Unix IP Claim : Well that's the end of that then!
by Keith Watson 29 May '03

29 May '03

Press Release: Novell Challenges SCO Position, Reiterates Support for Linux <http://www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2003/05/pr03033.html> Keith ____________ AIR, n. A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor. Ambrose Bierce - The Devil's Dictionary

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Re: [Alug]New Member Introduction
by Dan Beimborn 29 May '03

29 May '03

> Which part of california? I thought it was always sunny there ;) San Jose. Yes, actually it is sunny there all the time. Sunny enough to burn your skin in 15 minutes, year round. Hooray for that. I find myself not missing that (yet). > Pelting natives with penguins? How about the weather right now? ;) > And have some cold beer! Hmm, though culturally I should be a cold fizzy lager swiller, I tend to like nice pints of bitter served at about 55/60 degrees. My company ordered about 450 1u servers from a company called "Penguin Computing". Each one had a little 4" plush penguin doll in it. At one point, we put at least 400 of them in a large cardboard box and tipped them onto the head of a microsoft partisan in the office. Photos exist, but I can't find mine now! DB

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[Alug]Worth trying locally?
by tom potts 29 May '03

29 May '03

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=9746 __________________________________________________ Yahoo! Plus - For a better Internet experience http://uk.promotions.yahoo.com/yplus/yoffer.html

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