Nuxified GNU/Linux Help Forums - Comments

I've seen the draft and I

Gustavo — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:15:28 +0200

I've seen the draft and I really like it.

Some remarks:

I think it would be great if the text in the header could be more eye-catching (slightly different colors, bigger fonts, and a different background or perhaps wrapped around a box... for example).
Also, I'd rephrase that text as: "There's more to software than price. Freedomware is good for you, your business and society".
There are two points that are basically the same thing (source code): "Now you can trust your computer" and "It works through source code", so I think we should merge them. What about

Quote:

You can now trust your computer. Technicians may inspect the "recipe" of any freedomware to check that it really works as expected and doesn't violate the users' privacy under the hood. On the contrary, the real behavior of a lot of common software, like Acrobat Reader or Windows, is only known by their makers. Doesn't the "He who owes nothing fears nothing" saying tell you something?
We call it "Freedomware", but don't explain why it's a matter of freedom (I think "freedom and authority over what is happening inside it" is not a good explanation on why it's a matter of freedom). In SoftwareLiberty.com we have a better explanation, I think.
I'm not fond of the "non-free" and "proprietary" adjectives for that kind of software. May I suggest "freedom-trampling software" instead? Altough it's perhaps too offensive for the context (who has a better alternative?).
I'd rephrase the second paragraph of "You can copy freedomware" as:

Quote:

Freedomware is like mathematics: You can use it for any purpose, including commercial, as long as you don't impose restrictions on the things someone else made - very sensible, isn't it?
I'd rephrase "Freedomware is easy to use" as

Quote:

Freedomware is easy to use and often technically superior to freedom-trampling software, since it's supported by many more individuals and organizations. Some famous examples, often just called "open-source" , include the Firefox browser and the Linux operating system.
We should add a conclusion paragraph, something like:

Quote:

Because now societies and individuals rely on software, it's an essential item like education or electricity and therefore it must be transparent and its access universal - requirements that can only be met with Freedomware.

PS: Here's a typo: "Freedomware, also called open-source or free software, gives you freedom and and authority over what is happening inside it."

This is a really great

Bjwebb — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:13:05 +0200

This is a really great idea. I have started using the term freedomware myself. Like you say, the style does need to be changed to fit the new purpose, but the text is good. I especially like the fact that it helps argue the fact that we're not all just tight with money (I am, but thats beside the piont ) One thing though, the footnote could do with explaining why we are not using the term free software.

Quote:

In practice the requirements are identical, although because the term "open" doesn't call to mind freedom, it may miss the point.

could be changed to

Quote:

In practice the requirements are identical. However, me prefer the name Freedomware becasue freedom is the most important thing. The term "open" misses the point and Free Software (although designed to refer to freedom) is often confused with freeware

[off topic] I think the

Gustavo — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:26:43 +0200

[off topic]
I think the right domain is getfreedomware.org
[/off topic]

Yep, a feature called

libervisco — Tue, 06 May 2008 18:12:08 +0200

Yep, a feature called "shared clipboard", which is set to "bidirectional" by default, can be set in machine settings, general section, advanced tab.

When running in seamless

Hassan Ibraheem — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:28:39 +0200

When running in seamless mode, does it support copy and paste from the host to the guest and vice versa? That, in my opinion, would be an interesting feature.
It supports copy/paste between guest and host with and without seamless mode. I only tried plain text though

When running in seamless

reptiler — Tue, 06 May 2008 08:10:19 +0200

When running in seamless mode, does it support copy and paste from the host to the guest and vice versa? That, in my opinion, would be an interesting feature.

As mentioned in my blog I use virtualization quite a lot.
I use Xen and QEmu/KVM for that.
I currently run the following systems/distros in those:

FreeBSD (KVM)
OpenBSD (KVM)
DesktopBSD (KVM)
Debian (Xen)
Engarde Secure Linux (Xen)
Fedora (Xen)
Mandriva (Xen)
Windows 2000 (Xen)

(I may have forgotten one or two here. I'm in the office, so I can't check.)

I plan to install the following some time soon:

FreeDOS
ReactOS
Nexenta

Also I will use a virtual environment to test the upgrade when Fedora 9 is released.

I can live without seamless mode, but wouldn't mind if Xen and/or QEmu/KVM would add it to their feature-list.

So far I have no reason to switch to VirtualBox, especially as it does not seem to support 64-Bit guests, which I need for EasyLFS64-development.
And with Xen, with a paravirtualized guest, I also get performance which is near equal to native speed. With full virtualization it's a bit slower, but still enough good to work with.

Awesome. I forgot about

libervisco — Mon, 05 May 2008 19:08:59 +0200

Awesome. I forgot about Haiku. I loved what that project is doing and am also curious to see where it is now. Thanks for a reminder.

I hope it works well in vbox.

Cheers

I firstly tried qemu, but I

Hassan Ibraheem — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:59:45 +0200

I firstly tried qemu, but I couldn't configure it (I remember something like my processor isn't supported by the acceleration module or something) so it was painfully slow, I thought all virtualization solutions will be the same, then decided to try out VirtualBox.
It's amazing really, I use it without noticing any lack of speed.
I use it in my college on my laptop to run Windows XP inside Ubuntu, for Visual Studio.
Someone saw me booting Ubuntu and told me, this is linux, I said yes, I'm going to launch windows now, he said "aha, virtual, but it's slow" I said "just watch"
When these courses are done , I can simply delete that Virtual Image with no worry
In a recent talk about VirtualBox after Sun's acquisition, It was mentioned the proprietary licenses for Modules outside OSE may be revisited.
I think I'm going to try OpenSolaris in VirtualBox soon.
Maybe Haiku too

Groklaw brought up the

Hassan Ibraheem — Sun, 04 May 2008 20:50:45 +0200

Groklaw brought up the issue too
it's said there's a fork underway, I'll try searching for that.

Quite outrageous. This

libervisco — Sat, 03 May 2008 19:08:40 +0200

Quite outrageous.

This seems like classical narrow mindedness. His logic apparently goes like this. The goal is to get the technology to as many children as possible. Microsoft has biggest market share and Windows is all these ignorant ministers know of, so it must follow that going with Windows means greatest number of children getting technology.

And I thought they were in the business of offering something new. I guess it didn't cross Negropontes mind to actually tell these officials about GNU/Linux and why is it being used and why is it better for them. I wouldn't be surprised if Negroponte ends up, in some of those countries, being a scapegoat for delivering these kids to the imperial hands of Microsoft and the USA. Well done.

New President for OLPC

Hassan Ibraheem — Sat, 03 May 2008 07:26:45 +0200

New President for OLPC [slashdot]
'The OLPC mission is a great endeavor, but the mission is to get the technology in the hands of as many children as possible. Whether that technology is from one operating system or another, one piece of hardware or another, or supplied or supported by one consulting company or another doesn't matter. It's about getting it into kids' hands. Anything that is contrary to that objective, and limits that objective, is against what the program stands for.'
so, infecting children with proprietary software doesn't conflict with the project's mission now.

I gotta say I wasn't aware

libervisco — Fri, 02 May 2008 16:32:17 +0200

I gotta say I wasn't aware OLPC had this much of an impact on the industry as a whole. So it made waves affecting textbook publishers, manufacturers in Taiwan and of course, through it all Microsoft itself. The big problem is.. OLPC that is dedicated to doing its thing with Free Software marks a big enough Free Software win for Microsoft and others whose interests are tied to the generally proprietary digital industry to just sit and let it happen. The problem is, apparently OLPC is not so dedicated to Free Software as we mistakenly believed.

Meanwhile, Negroponte is apparently playing some sort of a pragmatist. However, his comparing Sugar with Firefox and asserting that a Windows port of Firefox greatly helped increase its market share strikes me as odd. I mean, isn't the priority here to bring constructive educational tool to these kids, not to increase the market share of Sugar here in the western world? I might not have deep enough understanding of everything about OLPC so correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see Negroponte acting really rationally...

I'd say that it should be those kids and their parents who should be given a conscious choice about what kind of a platform would they prefer, a restricted one coming with a Windows bundle or an open one coming with GNU/Linux. Of course, this might be impractical so the decision ends up in the hands of those involved in the OLPC project. But then I think it is their responsibility, if they truly care about their posed goal, to pick and decidedly stick with a platform that brings LESS rather than more potential restrictions - and Windows just can't be that.

If OLPC goes with Windows, and even worse if this results in some DRM restrictions being pulled through Windows on those laptops, then that's just gonna be wrong and I wouldn't support such a project.

You might be referring to

libervisco — Thu, 01 May 2008 20:05:16 +0200

You might be referring to some GLX stuff, which they say here was removed. But since making it 100% Free Software is the core goal of the gNewSense project I'd bet everything in this release is 100% Free.

Of course, in case anyone finds something that isn't, a bug report can be filed here.

I'll probably try it out as well one of these days.

Cheers

Slashdot discussion

Julipan — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:11:29 +0200

There was a very interesting disscussion about Negropontes statements and the future of OLPC on Slashdot a few days ago:
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/28/1529201

Among the more interesting comments were posts from Bruce Perens, who took a very sceptical view, a support volunteer on the OLPC project, giving some insider perspective on the case, and a person familiar with the Taiwanese tech industry, explaining how the OLPC has impacted the OEM computer production.

great, I really want to

Hassan Ibraheem — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:00:42 +0200

great, I really want to check that out,
I read somewhere that there was some non-free OpenGL/Mesa related stuff and they were removed, any info about that?
the BLAG distro has also started a linux-libre version of the kernel which is a good thing for the goal of Freedomware.
I will try to clean up some space and install gNewSense on my desktop.