Syam
> I guess the other members are on an 'ignore the troll' attitude. Still..
> So if the KDE project demonstrates their cross platform capability on a
> Windows machine, that's shame on them too, huh?
> That particular presentation was on a web based tool, and the OS does
> not matter at all.
> Really, you should get lost!
Shyam, some people were looking for an opportunity to speak ill of some
other people, and they finally found a crumb. Just let them have their
say. I was wondering what they were doing when windows was being used
for presentation. They could have got up and protested then and there. I
am sure people would have appreciated that. There was no ban on free
speech there.
The only mistake that the organisers did was not to tell the speakers to
use only Free Software. This is understandable since one does not
normally expect a speaker in FSFS conference to use Windows. As far as I
could see, no one used MS Windows in the Policy track. I don't know
about the technology track since I never went there. As you know, there
are some technology-oriented people who are not very much bothered about
freedom.
In any case, there has been high appreciation of the conference from
people who participated and people who spoke. Here is, for instance, a
small part of a long post by Stefan Merten:
"I'm just on the way back home from this great conference which took
place in Thiruvananthapuram in the state of Kerala / India. I must say
I'm really deeply impressed."
Best
--
V. Sasi Kumar
Free Software Foundation of India
http://swatantryam.blogspot.com
+1 GNU
:-)
--
Joju Joshua
Its very easy for people to stand outside and criticize. They preach
all they want. They are never seen in action though. I don't think
they have the correct idea yet. Free Software has nothing to do with
Windows. Sun's people came with Windows Laptop. Their bad. It was
their choice. They didn't force it on anyone else did they ? What is
wrong with Windows-themed UI if it makes someone's transition to GNU a
little bit easier ?
I have been to most of FSUG tvm's events and i havent seen the critics
volunteering/contributing in any meaningful way. These people have
never responded to newbie queries in this mailinglist. They are just
here to offload a bunch of bullshit so they can start off flamewars i
think.
Carryon the bullshitting. If you really care about FS, do something
constructive instead of staying in ivory towers and criticizing stuff.
You certainly do have the freedom to express your beliefs. I did
participate in the conference and the vast majority felt that it was a
very good conference. This was, in many ways, better than the previous
one because we had more very good speakers compared to last time. I had
quoted what one person wrote in a list after the conference, and others
have mailed me personally. Several people told me a similar opinion at
the conference itself. So I don't subscribe to your view that it was a
waste of public money. Of course, you are free to have your opinion.
But I admit that some comments like
"If a newbie says ,"XYZ make video card is not recognized in Fubuntu" . A Pure Volunteer will reply , " Dude, you are using the wrong distro. Use UDORA with kernel 2.X.X" .
are really valid.
I dont think the lug is infested with them( may be an occasional one here are there)
But Syam was just joking.
--
പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്
<GPLv2> I know my rights; I want my phone call!
<DRM> What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak?
(as seen on /.)
Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now!
http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign
What makes Fedora set apart from some rather popular distro is its
commitment to provide Free Software only and not mix proprietary
software. We definitely recommend some distributions over other
because we believe they play an equal role, give back to the community
and stay committed to Free Software ideals.
"Fedora is always free for anyone to use, modify, and distribute."
http://fedoraproject.org/
So there is a personal preference and a philosophical strength to
Fedora. In that particular thread if you see, we did try to help him
with his problem.
I'm quoting Syam's mail here
"Did you try using an image which resides in your home directory? If
mounting of partitions fails during boot (for whatever reason), the
wallpaper iage might be inaccessible.
I'm not sure if that's the problem. Please check and revert. And if it
doesn't work, feel free to download Fedora 10 tomorrow and install
it.. he he.. "
That he he was clearly a joke and he indeed clarified it in a later
post. And if you back to that thread there was 13 messages and 5
people responded.
> This particular mail is what is used in the Sunil's blog.( i am not sure ,
> but I think one or other similar instances were there, may be I am wrong, I
> dont recollect it correctly)
>
Do you really think that blog reflects the situation correctly?
> Well, my intention was not to tarnish anybody,
> I am here to support and use FS and to povide some contributions if
> possible.
Since this was an incident you have seen first hand, you can infer
about the intentions of the original blogger.
Cheers
Praveen
The code is available at Zyxware. We will be publishing it on
freedomwalk.in and sf.net soon but if you want it earlier you can drop
by to get your copy.
It is written in python and it is "running to win" :-) on GNU/Linux
Anoop John
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.zyxware.com
http://www.anoopjohn.com
http://www.thondomraughts.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Be the change you wish to see in the world", M. K. Gandhi
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That is what we think Free Software is about
"We are talking not merely about a form of production or a system of
industrial relations, but also about the beginning of a social
movement with specific political goals which will characterize not
only the production of software in the twenty-first century, but the
production and distribution of culture generally." - Eben Moglen
http://moglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/maine-speech.html
- Praveen
I suggest you talk to hackerdom folks
"You can place your suggestions for additions in the event using your
wishlist option while registeration"
Here is everything you need
http://freedomtoaster.org/Build
Hope you don't forget to tell us when you have built your toaster.
Its is clear. We should have been careful, and we have to be careful
in future. It clearly shows we are ready to admit our mistakes and
correct them. Free Software community does not stop at FSFS. We have
events to come and we invite you to get involved and help us be
vigilant about these kind of tracks. Would you join us in Hackerdom
and FOSS Meet@NITC?
I bet you meant freedomtoaster.in :-) See we are extra vigilant these
days. Our efforts are paying off. Kudos to all the Free Software
community members. It is the success of our efforts that shows even
smallest mis step won't be tolerated.
Cheers
All I'm asking is to go back to the thread you mentioned, re read it
again and come back and tell us if you still think what the blog syas
about this particular example is correct. We all make mistakes. But we
are ready to correct it when we notice it. We are all human beings.
Cheers
I'm quoting Syam's mail here
There was a request from Arun fro help. I'm sure you will be leading
the team to get all the talks and videos+transcript online. Thanks for
showing your interest and volunteering to do it.
I hope you will also accept the invitation from Arun to join in the
finance committee meeting.
Everyone has his choice to be pragmatic (Open Source) or idealistic
(Free Software) or in between (FOSS). But all Free Software community
asks is not to mix us these and don't use pragmatic values to
represent Free Software. Both of them are separate movements and work
together on common issues like software patents.
As much you have the freedom to be pragmatic, you can't force us to be
pragmatic either. But at the same time, both of us can debate why what
we believe is better. And work together keeping the differences. We do
that all the time. We don't have to agree on everything. We just have
to work on things both of us agree to.
> me is the fanatical behavior seen (Novell protest comes to my mind). A
> guy even suggested that I am traitor simply because I said I use some
> of the 'proprietary software'!
You are mixing up things and being unclear about issues. As you
mentioned earlier about the patent menace, it is a big issue and what
Novell did to the patent equation was very damaging to the community.
Novell's deal gave legitimacy to Microsoft's patents claims on Free
Software and it divided the community between those who pay royalties
to Microsoft and those who do not. It was clearly a deal that went
against the spirit of the GPL and community had to come up with better
wording in GPLv3. And what is your position with respect the the
Novell-Microsoft deal? Do you support it?
>
> Freedom to me also includes my ability to choose what is best for me.
Nobody is questioning that. Free Software is about choosing what is
ethically right for the society. You may disagree with, that is
perfectly OK. But don't tell we should change our values. We can work
together on issues that concerns both of us keeping our differences.
Sun has a commitment to release their software as Free Software and
they have demonstrated in the past by releasing OpenSolaris and Java.
Though the FAQ is pretty unclear, I got another link where they stated
it will be released as Free Software
http://java.sun.com/javafx/faqs.jsp#2
And, on the important question of what in JavaFX is going to be open sourced:
Q: Is the JavaFX Runtime the same thing as the JavaFX Script which
is to be "open sourced" as per the FAQ?
Nandini R: Yes, it is and the runtime will be open sourced.
Alright, good to read the clarification that the runtime will be open sourced.
http://www.oreillynet.com/onjava/blog/2007/05/javafx_new_wysiwyg_editor_rama.html
Novell's idea is different. The main issue with Novell's deal with
Microsoft is patents. They have provided legitimacy to Microsoft
patent claims on Free Software and they have divided the community
into those who pay Microsoft and those who do not making Microsoft's
job of suing Free Software users without including their own customers
(one of the biggest reason why they don't do it at the moment). It
also against the spirit of the GPL. They found a loop hole in the
wordings and exploited it. GPL v2 talked about patent license and what
Novell did was patent license in effect - they used the word "covenant
not to sue" to evade GPL. But the community fixed the loop hole in
GPLv3 by saying any deal that result in "not getting sued for patents"
irrespective of the words and tricks will be a violation of GPL.
Sun is the largest (lines of code) contributor to Free Software and
they have difficulty in dealing with code that they have licensed from
third parties when they release it a s Free Software.
When they announced java will be Free Software, there were some code
which Sun does not own in java which needed time to rewrite. And they
have kept their commitment by rewriting all the parts which were not
free. So from the past experiences with Sun we have a reason to
believe their word.
But as Arun mentioned if more people volunteered for the technology
track we could have avoided this. I hope you will help with any
upcoming conferences to ensure these kind of things won't happen.
- Cheers
Java is Free Software released under GPL v2.
http://www.sun.com/software/opensource/java/faq.jsp#g1
Nobody said it is 100% Free Software. Arun said not many volunteered
for technical track and the focus was on policy track. I was just
pointing out how Sun promised to release their software earlier and
how they kept their promise. If you remember RMS and Eben were present
when Sun *promised* to make java completely Free.