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--------------.--------------------------------------------.------------ alug-announce | Newsletter of the Anglian Linux User Group | Weekly(ish) --------------'--------------------------------------------'------------ ** Please send articles for this letter to announce@lists.alug.org.uk ** *** Please send replies to main@lists.alug.org.uk, not announce... *** ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today's Topics:
1. New Linux supplier to businesses based in the UK (John Hully) 2. Fwd: Association For Free Software (AFFS) becomes associate of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe) (MJ Ray) 3. alug, hello and install day (dave.griffiths) 4. Fw: Eurolinux UK patent consultation alert (Ricardo Campos) 5. Linux Install Day 2002 -- UEA, 9th June, 2pm (MJ Ray)
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Message: 1 To: announce@lists.alug.org.uk From: "John Hully" john.hully@briggs-hully.co.uk Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 16:01:34 +0100 Reply-To: "John Hully" john.hully@briggs-hully.co.uk Subject: [Alug Announce] New Linux supplier to businesses based in the UK
Hello,
I'm following the instructions on http://www.lug.org.uk/contacts.html to contact the UK LUG community in order to inform them that http://www.linuxforsale.com is opening for business, and will soon have an online store.
The site is aimed at the business community primarily, but everyone is invited to visit.
Regards, John
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Message: 2 To: announce@lists.alug.org.uk From: MJ Ray markj@cloaked.freeserve.co.uk Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 10:03:34 +0100 Subject: [Alug Announce] Fwd: Association For Free Software (AFFS) becomes associate of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe)
Yay!
Subject: Association For Free Software (AFFS) becomes associate of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe) From: "Georg C. F. Greve" greve@fsfeurope.org Reply-To: greve@fsfeurope.org Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 17:44:50 +0200
[for immediate release]
London/Hamburg, May 22nd 2002
"Association For Free Software (AFFS) becomes associate of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe)"
The FSF Europe proudly announces that the UK based "Association For Free Software" (AFFS) is now an associate organisation of the "Free Software Foundation Europe" (FSF Europe).
AFFS has joined with the FSF Europe to actively support its activities, to work for Free Software in Europe and to facilitate cooperation with organisations in other countries.
The AFFS currently focuses on the preparation of PR material to inform the public and to lobby politicians in the UK. Part of this effort is drafting an introduction to Free Software for non-specialists and to prepare demo versions of the Debian GNU/Linux operating system for live demonstrations.
Through various liaisons the AFFS is actively involved in bringing the benefits of Free Software especially to schools, other educational institutions, politicians and - of course - the public in the UK, to help create a critical mass of people using Free Software.
Members of the AFFS also engage themselves in attending fairs, exhibitions and relevant public and non-public meetings of UK governmental institutions. The aim is to provide a recognised point of contact in the UK for information about Free Software. This is achieved by simultaneously establishing links with the press, MEPs, MPs and local politicians throughout the UK.
"Although the AFFS is based in the UK, it fully recognises and appreciates that Free Software is a world wide effort to bring the benefits of the information age to everyone on this planet. This requires international cooperation and coordination. The association with the FSF Europe is probably the most important step yet for the AFFS to achieve this goal." said Dr. Marc Eberhard, a committee member and one of the founders of the AFFS.
"Experience indicates that it is crucial for the adoption and understanding of Free Software within a country to have the community of that country organise itself in competent local organisations." said Georg Greve, President of the FSF Europe. "Therefore we were very happy to see the UK community taking the big step forward with the creation of the AFFS and we gladly welcomed them in our network of associate organisations. This brings UK people, press and politics the chance to interface with Free Software and the FSF in a more immediate way than ever before."
About the Association for Free Software:
The Association for Free Software is a non-profit association with the primary goal of promoting the adoption of Free Software in the UK.
More information: http://www.affs.org.uk
Contact: AFFS c/o Luminas Ltd 7 Webster Close Norwich NR5 9DF UK
Phone: 0709 2312239
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe) is a charitable non-governmental organisation dedicated to all aspects of Free Software in Europe. Access to software determines who may participate in a digital society. Therefore the freedoms to use, copy, modify and redistribute software - as described in the Free Software definition - allow equal participation in the information age. Creating awareness for these issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving people freedom by supporting development of Free Software are central issues of the FSF Europe, which was founded in 2001 as the European sister organisation of the Free Software Foundation in the United States.
More information: http://fsfeurope.org/
Contact: Georg C. F. Greve greve@gnu.org Tel: +49-40-23809080 Fax: +49-40-23809081
Further press contact information is available at http://fsfeurope.org/press/.
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Message: 3 From: "dave.griffiths" griffy.uk@btopenworld.com To: announce@lists.alug.org.uk Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 22:26:36 +0100 Subject: [Alug Announce] alug, hello and install day
Hello to all.
I'm Dave Griffiths, I'm 28 and currently living in Marham, near Kings Lynn in Norfolk. I currently use winXP on my home computer but have meddled with linux, with little or no success in the past (Redhat, Mandrake and currently Suse 7.2)
I have been onto IRC and chatted in #alug and #brits, probably upsetting a few people but learning also. I am intending to go to the Install day at UEA in june, and I'll bring along my pc if thats ok. Edward has convinced me to ditch suse and try debian, so any help on the day will be more than welcome !
Current PC spec:
Asus A7V socket A motherboard Athlon 1.2 @1.4 t-bird cpu 384mb 133 ram 17" compaq monitor 40,30,17 gig ide drives Nvidia geforce3 vid card Hercules Gametheatre XP soundcard
Suse does seem to install ok with everything but the soundcard running fine. The soundcard runs on a different driver, and the volume is so low its practically impossible to hear unless plugged into my hi-fi. The only other problems are more my doing through lack of knowledge than the software itself, unlike windows !
I normally use my pc for internet use, gaming, and home/office use with a printer, scanner and digital camera. I am looking to use linux for more of the same, but intend to start learning something useful with my pc, maybe html, perl, c++ or something else, suggestions for a newbie most welcome.
Although a total linux newbie, I started out with computers at the age of 7 with a vic-20, progressing to spectrum, atari, amiga, dx2-66 pc all the way to my present machine which i built myself. I often help others at work etc with building and upgrading their home pc's and solving the many windows problems they encounter ! I look forward to learning more in the future.
Dave Griffiths
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Message: 4 From: "Ricardo Campos" corez23@linuxmail.org To: announce@lists.alug.org.uk Date: Fri, 07 Jun 2002 14:37:43 +0000 Subject: [Alug Announce] Fw: Eurolinux UK patent consultation alert
This should be of interest to some people.
----- Original Message ----- From: FFII/Eurolinux: Holger Blasum blasum@ffii.org Date: Fri, 7 Jun 2002 00:43:46 GMT To: corez23@linuxmail.org Subject: Eurolinux UK patent consultation alert
Hello Ricardo Campos
Recently you signed the European petition against software patents (http://petition.eurolinux.org/). Thanks for your support!
We would like to remind you that the UK Patent Office is asking for public comments on the European Commissions proposal for a directive on the "patentability of computer-implementable inventions". You can find some more background information at
http://www.linux.org.uk/ http://swpat.ffii.org/players/uk/
The specific questions that the UKPO asks are at
http://www.patent.gov.uk/patent/notices/misc/softpat.htm
However, in addition to these questions you may also wish to comment on whether you agree to the UKPO's interpretation of the first consultation round, whether you think the admission of patents on "software with a technical effect" will be useful etc.
Another hint: Only the last 3 pages of the 22-page Commission document at
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/indprop/comp/com02-92en.pdf
are the actual proposal, for a more detailed critique see
http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/
You may want to state whether you allow, encourage or forbid the UKPO from publishing your statement on their website.
You can send an additional copy to
petition@eurolinux.org
so as to have your statement published on the petition page. Moreover you can send your drafts to petition@eurolinux.org to ask for our comments.
The official deadline is today (07 June 2002, though if you send sth on the weekend it will also arrive by the next working day on Monday), nonetheless maybe keep it short and simple (e.g. citing examples where your company is affected).
I apologize this comes very short-termed; if you want to support Eurolinux to do these things (maybe from an UK viewpoint) more long-term in future you are welcome to write to petition@eurolinux.org or to me.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact us or to join the European software patents mailing list (http://www.aful.org/mailman/listinfo/patents/)
Also pls do not hesitate to send any critique or comments to petition@eurolinux.org (there will be a confirmation message which hopefully won't deter you).
If you like surveys ;-), please tick
[ ] I have already written to the UKPO [ ] I will write to the UKPO [ ] I will not write to the UKPO this time [ ] I don't like being "alerted", don't spam me again
Kind regards,
Holger Blasum, FFII (a Eurolinux member organisation) (Alan Cox and Hartmut Pilch also had endorsed a draft version of this letter.)