Today at 12:00:25 GMT - No comments

All is well that ends well?!

I thought I am the only fundamentalist who notices when a distro is not GPL-compliant, but it seems I was wrong. Take a look at this thread on LQ.

(1) Alien Bob (Eric Hameleers), a Slackware contributor, comment #8: "I'd like to see that newcomers are not being referred to a parasitic distro like Easys, but instead taught how to use Slackware itself."

(2) Wilbär (Carsten Niehau), from the easys development team, comment #21: "easys is 100% Slackware compatible. it is intended to make the first steps with Slackware easier."

(3) Alien Bob replies as comment #22: "OK, I will no longer talk about parasites. Let me explain a bit better what I meant. [...] I was looking for the sources of the easys distribution (as required by the GPL too by the way) but was yet unable to find them. Will these sources and scripts that create the distro be made available? It is like with Vector and Zenwalk - they too use Slackware and create "a better Slackware" but fail do distribute their changes to the original Slackware as well as the source code of the packages. [...] Here lies the difference between a real fork and derivative distros like Easys. A fork will change over time to become a new distro with it's own qualities - look at SuSE (Slackware fork) and Ubuntu (Debian fork). In comparison, Easys takes the bulk of Slackware, adds some GUI tools, and re-brands it. On the next release of Slackware, the same process repeats itself. This is not what I call a fork. You let the Slackware developers do the 'hard work' to provide a stable base and then claim that your distro is stable. This is not an accomplishment of Easys though. I hope that the future development of Easys will show that you are truely deviating from Slackware and become a distribution that stands on it's own feet. If not, my original opinion of Easys stands."

(*) I would note that his remark about Zenwalk is true, but with Vector it's not: Vector Linux does offer the full source code of everything! (Check out here, the sources are complete!)

(4) Robby Workman (ta-daaa!), comment #27: "This is a major sticking point for me as well; it's a big part of the reason that I don't care for LinuxPackages.net either. The GPL obviously requires making complete sources available from the *same* place the binaries are obtained, but aside from that, it's just the polite thing to do. It's *very* frustrating that some projects don't seem to understand that."

(5) He also opens a new issue, at comment #32, the automated and mindless replacement of "Copyright 2001, 2003, 2004 Slackware Linux, Inc., Concord, CA" with "Copyright 2001, 2003, 2004 Bluewhite64 Linux, Inc., Concord, CA" in Bluewhite64 Linux 12.1. (This goes on for several comments, but it's not worth mentioning.)

(6) Alien Bob is back on the main topic at comment #44: "People who wonder why I stressed that these parasi^H^H^H^H^H^Hfork-off distros should make their full sources available to the public, should read this page to get some clarity about what violations of the GPL they are guilty of: http://gpl-violations.org/faq/sourcecode-faq.html."

(7) Marcus Moeller fails to understand (comment #46): he believes it's only about ALICE and the easys-specific additions to Slackware! (He seems not to understand the GPL.)

(8) Alien Bob provides the explanations (comment #47): "I cannot find any of the source code and scripts for the "original Slackware packages" that are part of your distro. The GPL license of that source code requires that you offer download facilities for these sources on the same server as where the binary code is beingmade available; i.e. it is not sufficient to point people to any Slackware mirror. You have to host copies of them. This is a lazyness that more forks than just easys are guilty of."

(9) Marcus Moeller is defending himself, although ignorance is not an excuse (comment #48): "I did not know that we needed to copy the source tree. Thought linking is just enough. [...] I am going to prepare a mirror of the packages, asap. The download locations to the source files have been published in the forum, before. Now they are bundled on the Download page."

(10) A few more considerations and suggestions from Alien Bob, comment #49: "If you are going to add the sources for the Slackware packages that are part of easys to the easys repository that would be great. The GPL is something to be taken seriously. What you could consider for easys (it is something that I have wanted to build in the past) is revamping it into a custom Slackware installer distributed as an ISO, where the installer asks for a Slackware repository as part of the installation process (on a DVD, CD set, network server, NFS, you name it). That way everybody wins - Slackware will remain the distro that is going to be installed; your easys gains fame as a Slackware installer for those who need another language than english'll , and this Easys Slackware installer can take care of post-install configuration for the end user as well (including the installation of add-on packages that are not in Slackware itself - compare it to the several Gnome add-on installers like GnomeSlackBuild, Gware and Dropline Gnome)."

(11) One more finding (I noticed the 2 applications myself), at comment #52: "But TextMaker and PlanMaker are nor Slackware packages, nor GNU/Linux applications. You should correct this."

Of course, maybe they only referred to the unmodified packages from Slackware that are used in easys...

Well, I'll cut the crap. Some excuses were posted, etc. etc. Nevertheless, the easys download page is still sending you to different servers for YALI, ALICE and the Slackware packages...

Yesterday at 22:32:04 GMT - 4 comments

Stolen picture, but I'm giving something back as a gift to TLP :-)

I was an avid SW listener before the Internet was the owner of our souls...

OK, since I stole this picture from TLP (but how can he prove it's his picture? it's posted on ImageShack), I want to give him something back.

First of all, starting from Science, Religion, God: Discussions by thinkers, you can find about Does science make belief in God obsolete? (Thirteen views on the question) — all the essays also as a nice PDF —, where I'd like to quote from Christopher Hitchens: «Religion, remember, is theism not deism. Faith cannot rest itself on the argument that there might or might not be a prime mover. Faith must believe in answered prayers, divinely ordained morality, heavenly warrant for circumcision, the occurrence of miracles or what you will. Physics and chemistry and biology and paleontology and archeology have, at a minimum, given us explanations for what used to be mysterious, and furnished us with hypotheses that are at least as good as, or very much better than, the ones offered by any believers in other and inexplicable dimensions.»

Then, I'd like to share the fact that when Foreign Policy (the April 2008 issue) is posting "a preview" of Epiphanies: Richard Dawkins, they manage to actually post the FULL TEXT, as Richard Dawkins's "epiphanies" were only 7 in the magazine!

Web-only and totally free, another 7 "epiphanies": More Epiphanies from Richard Dawkins.

I am smart, ain't I? :-)

Yesterday at 21:42:52 GMT - 2 comments

It might sound very bizarre, knowing that I was using Rawhide quite some time before F9 was released. However...

...I am not impressed by the way Fedora 9 is becoming "yet another Ubuntu" (with a slower package management system though).

I know about the novelties in F9, and I have previously expressed my concerns with regards to:

 pk-application being released when it's like in Alpha stage (with known issues like the need to install packages one by one, and pkcon being buggy);

 the specific use of PolicyKit that would push users into authorizing themselves FOREVER to add/remove and update packages without being NEVER asked again for a password (this can only be revoked through polkit-gnome-authorization, which is still not for the average Joe);

 the over-complex and confusing GUIs of the revamped system-config-firewall and system-config-services (possibly other system-config-* tools too).

While Fedora has less users than Ubuntu (hopefully, most conscious ones though), it has already "collected" some not-so-good reviews in addition to the enthusiast ones. I won't give credits to everyone, but I consider some of them relevant, e.g.:

 Linux examined: Fedora 9

 Fedora 9 Post Install Problems (coming back with Fedora 9 Touchpad Problem Solved)

 Bill Beebe: Fedora 9: I'm not impressed

 Fedora 9 - handle with care

 Upgrade to Fedora 9

Not much as criticism, eh?

It depends. To me, it's quite enough: Fedora 9 doesn't appeal too much (and neither does Ubuntu 8.04).

P.S.: I want to mention THE MOST IDIOT ARTICLE ON EARTH, by "The VAR Guy": Five Reasons Red Hat Should Ignore Consumer Linux Desktops. (Sure, let's only use either Ubuntu, or Window on desktops, right?)

Yesterday at 21:24:44 GMT - No comments

An interesting... gift from Fidel :-)

I became aware of this one month later, but it's always better later than never.

In one of his regular "Reflexiones del compañero Fidel", El Líder Máximo refers to Romania as the bad example of how things can go when a formerly socialist country goes capitalist!

The original document in Spanish — Bush, los millonarios, el consumismo y el subconsumo — can be found either on Granma Internacional, or on Juventud Rebelde.

Unfortunately, los compañeros de Granma forgot to translate these reflections in English, French, etc., the way they did with other notes, older or newer. Juventud Rebelde comes to rescue one more time: Bush, Millionaires, Consumption and Under-Consumption (NOTE: the translator misspelled a name that was correct in the Spanish version, so please read "Iosif" instead of "Losif").

«“Not one article in the mainstream press refers to the social differences, the unemployment, the inflation and the other evils that arrived with capitalism.

"On the Internet, however, you can see the other side of the coin: a group of 300 Romanians —the richest in the country—, have accumulated more than US $33 billion, which, according to the ‘Top 300’ section of the weekly magazine Capital, is equivalent to 27 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.

“While those living below the poverty line are in the millions, the Eastern European nation has one citizen with a fortune calculated at between US $3.1 and $3.3 billion. His name is Dinu Patriciu, and he recently sold a part of the Rompetrol oil company to Kazakhstan’s Kazmunaigaz group for $2.7 billion euros.” Nearly 4 billion dollars.

“Dinu dethroned (...) Iosif Constantin Dragan, who fell to seventh place with a fortune of between US $1.5 and $1.6 billion, according to the publication.

“Gigi Becali, owner of the Steaua Soccer Club, is now in second place with a fortune of at least US $2.8 billion, accumulated primarily in the real estate industry.

“Former tennis player and businessman Ion Tiriac, the second richest Romanian in 2006, with interests in banking, insurance and automobiles, is now third with a fortune of over US $2.2 billion.”

Thus reports Elson, in detailed fashion, in this section of Granma.

Let us not forget that Romania was a socialist country with a fairly well developed oil and petrochemical industry, blessed with a fertile soil and a climate favorable to the production of protein and calorie-rich foods, to name but a few sectors.

As in Cuba, there were those with theories about easy access to consumer goods: imperial ears and eyes hungry for these dreams.»

Yesterday at 20:29:23 GMT - 2 comments

Yeah, Adobe Digital Editions sucks much more than Microsoft Windows, to name a popular 'public enemy'.

Some time ago, I bought some e-book from HarperCollins, without knowing what "e-book" means to them.

Of course, it means that you have to use a unique software, Adobe Digital Editions, which is at the same time:

 closed-source;

 Windows and Mac-only;

 not having any equivalent, thus being in a monopoly position;

 not imposing to the "downstream" e-book sellers to properly inform their customers that "Adobe Reader" is NOT Acrobat Reader;

 having a shitty EULA that no normal person ever reads and fully understands (unless a lawyer is paid to come to help), EULA which is...

 ...discharging Adobe from all the responsibility ("Adobe provides no technical support or remedies for the Software"), while the activation of the software and e-books is made on Adobe's site, not on the publisher's site;

 and, worse of all (worse than Microsoft!), Adobe Digital Editions will force you to upgrade to its latest edition, should you still want to be able to read the books you have paid for!

So I had version 1.0.467 of their crappy reader, the latest version was 1.5.791, and it refused to open unless I would upgrade to the latest version!

So I was forced to perform the upgrade.

Then, I could not open the book until I "authorized" the computer. Hey, but why should I do that?! Wasn't it already "authorized" to read the book I paid for?!

It asked me for an Adobe ID. Heck, what the fuck is that? OK, "Did you forget your Adobe ID?" offered to retrieve it for me, but then... "We cannot find the e-mail address you entered." (I tried with all my e-mail addresses.)

How was I able to read the book with Adobe Digital Reader version 1.0, but not with 1.5? I could not "authorize" my computer to read the book I paid for, so Adobe simply stole from me!

ADOBE. PIECE OF SHIT. I hope the guy who decided that users MUST always upgrade to the latest edition will be hit by a car and will die soon. I am prepared to go to hell for this wish — but let people who steal from me go there first!

May 16, 2008 at 16:39:42 GMT - No comments

I am quite happy I discovered what bothered QDevelop. Cross-platform as it is, it can be a PITA under Windows!

QDevelop is a nice Qt4 IDE. I can't tell much about all the other choices, restricted to the subset of them that are cross-platform (except that Code::Blocks can't read .pro files; and I have not tried Monkey Studio), but QDevelop is practical enough, written in Qt4, for developing Qt4 applications... even under Windows.

The problem was that it didn't liked some .pro files, freezing at various points, while processing something about some file.

(Head scratching process involved.)

The clue was suggested by a CLOSED issue, namely Issue #134. Read the comment #4 (my comment!), which was added to mark that the problem is real, and that a solution exists.

It needed a newer ctags.

May 16, 2008 at 13:15:33 GMT - 11 comments

I am sure Negroponte knew it from day zero.

The Inquirer: OLPC goes with XP - official

 «One Laptop Per Child project has signed up with Microsoft to make Windows XP available on the OLPC. The move will only bump up the price of the low-cost device by $3, says Microsoft.»

 «"This will have a huge impact on the psychology of OLPC. It brings us more into the mainstream of people's minds," said Nicholas Negroponte, OLPC's founder and chairman.»

The New York Times: Microsoft Joins Effort for Laptops for Children

 «“The people who buy the machines are not the children who use them, but government officials in most cases,” said Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the nonprofit group. “And those people are much more comfortable with Windows.”»

 «The project's agreement with Microsoft involves no payment by the software giant, and Microsoft will not join One Laptop Per Child's board. 'We've stayed very pure,' Mr. Negroponte said.»

Rants... on Slashdot:

 «Under Linux, I assume all the necessary applications are included, whereas under XP, they have...... notepad?»

 «Don't be ridiculous. It's got MS Paint too.»

 «Congratulations, it's dead. Can OLPC be saved from Negroponte?»

 «I believe MS has finally set an appropriate value on their OS. $3.00 is a fair price.»

 «Sorry, Negroponte you've sold your soul. We believed, we helped, YOU SUCK.»

Microsoft über Alles

UPDATE: Also on OSNews: Microsoft Demonstrates Windows XP on the XO. Cute comments:

 «These machines are going to be owned by malware within minutes of getting on the web. I fully expect Norton to step in with an offer of $3 anti-virus too, just to incapacitate the machine even further. Truly, this project has now been doomed.»

 «I'm glad to hear thought that Microsoft is still fair and open about its objectives on our beloved planet. [...] helping to transform education and foster a culture of innovation, and through these means enable better jobs and opportunities. [...] Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.»

May 16, 2008 at 09:22:35 GMT - 2 comments

It seems we will have a new winner in town sometime in the (near) future...

«Tazpkg has been updated to 2.1, the package [manager] provides now a graphical user interface, so you can install, remove, search or upgrade packages in a few clicks. After upgrade you will find a new entry in [the] "System Tools" menu. The main window will display the list of installed packages, just double-click on a packages line to get infos and actions. All feedback are really welcome.»

W00t! It's indeed tazpkg-2.1.tazpkg (needing the latest GTKdialog, gtkdialog-0.7.20.tazpkg), and you'll find it under /usr/bin/tazpkgbox.

Hopefully I'll have some time to play with the latest cooking ISO this weekend... (it looks like ça gaze et ça boume chez SliTaz).

BONUS: People who really don't have anything better to do during this weekend could take a look here too.

May 16, 2008 at 08:26:15 GMT - 1 comment

...but KDE4 might do just like GNOME: release every 6 months.

It's not only that Mark Shuttleworth wants a big synced release, but it looks like we'll see an "aligned" release schedule with KDE4 too!

Of course not everyone is happy with 6 months — I wrote a plea for a more reasonable release cycle some time ago —, knowing that you're either in feature freeze for 3-4 months on a 6 month cycle, or you are not able to ensure a proper quality, when the freeze is too short. But hey, there is a magic of the 6-mo release cycle everywhere!

Aaron Seigo has a few ramblings on 6 month cycles and Plasma, and he seems to be discovering that later is sooner, and less is more: «over 3 years time a 9 month cycle (with 3 months of stabilization) gives me 20 months of feature dev while 6 months gives me 18 months. That sounds similar enough, but the windows are tiny in the 6 month cycle, meaning more punting which in turn means that many features will be delivered in 12 months time to the user rather than 9.»

There is an anonymous comment trying to reach a compromise with "what's good for users" (the 6-mo release cycle) and what's good for developers ("use the karma they have to do what they like best"), while still releasing 4.1, 4.2, 4.3,... every 6 months, but «we'll take our time to give you really, really big new features.»

I personally believe that the only good development model is what we had with the Linux kernel prior to 2.0. The odd-number branch for "unstable" and the even-number branch for "stable", with no pre-established release dates. (It is ready when it's done.)

Tom Albers has an answer for Aaron Seigo. Roughly, I couldn't find any pertinent idea in the answer, except for the denial of everything as not substantiated yet: «How on earth is it possible to judge that, when the very first cycle is not even completed. Even the full feature freeze has not started. I always learned from my mother (hi mam!) that I need to give it a try for a couple of times before deciding it does not work.»

(Well, I have learned from my father a different thing: if it ain't broken, don't fix it.)

Aseigo has a Re: Re:, where I enjoyed this part: «If you're wondering why previous release cycles didn't cause such angst, it's because if a cycle is longer than you need or short enough to match natural short-term iterations it's not a big deal. KDE always tended to have longer-than-strictly-needed cycles which made them fit really well a broad cross section of the project and, I would argue, thereby actually increasing the development pace.»

Sebastian Kügler: Are we breathing in the same rhythm? «Now the interesting case is that Phonon, which is new in Qt's 4.4 release is also provided by Qt. Phonon now breathes in a 9 month release cycle in Qt, and a 6 months one in KDE. So one could argue that it's a smart idea to breathe in the same rhythm as Qt does. We could follow up every release of Qt with a KDE release. This does not solve the initial problem I think, which I think is "different parts of KDE have different heartbeats". Neither Tom nor Aaron have really questioned the way we currently deal with SVN before releases.»

But let's face it, it's always about the distros! «One of the reasons why the Release Team initially decided to adopt 6 months releases is to make it easier for downstream (distributions, for example) to ship a recent version of KDE. The thing is that those distributions also have different heartbeats, OpenSuse comes 8-9 monthly, Fedora comes 6 monthly, others as well. Now we're trying to sync with upstream, in different heartbeats and downstream in different heartbeats. Right now, we have the unfortunate situation that we're just too late for OpenSuse 11 (which is really one of the symptoms of "heartbeats out of sync").»

Aseigo is back, and he's dreaming in the "never froze the trunk" scenario: «My dream situation would be to have 2 weeks of devel, 3-4 days minimum to stabilize that work (but longer if necessary), rince and repeat with natural breaks for things like life's little interferences, bug fixing orgies and what not.»

There are two problems though:

 How do you know that a certain point is "stable"?! «At each known stable point we'd push the changes in the branch back to mainline for others to use and test.»

 When is a release occurring? Every 6 months? «When a release time comes up, we'd sync the last stable point to the release branch and continue on working.»

Robert Knight now, singing in tune, but actually insisting on what Mark Shuttleworth had to say, giving that 6 months works well for Ubuntu. However, there is a nice idea in there: «It would be wrong for KDE to specifically pick a distribution to sync with. Instead pick a date which 'conveniently' matches that of other software at the same level in the stack.»

Aseigo replies, mostly to disagree that "regular, predictable releases which are synced with appropriate other projects provide a sense of rhythm and structure": «To whom? And to what end? It turns out that this rhythm is mostly to downstream, and the structure is completely based on the sense of perception not anything concrete. We can provide for downstream's desire for rhythm, but we don't need to harmonize release cycles with every other "appropriate" project.»

In the end (but don't miss the comments!): «So, to reiterate: I'm not against time based development, I'm just not in favour of binding development time frames to the artifice of 6 month release cycles that have exactly one benefactor (distros) and many who pay (upstream and eventually the users).»

Well, they all forgot about the kittens anyway...

May 16, 2008 at 08:16:22 GMT - No comments

That is, they have acted with upstream the wrong way. When you know they're complaining of Ubuntu for not sharing the bug fixes with them... you can now have a better definition for 'hypocrisy'.

SJVN has a much milder article on Computerworld (Fixing Debian OpenSSL), but it manages to put it in plain English here: Open-Source Security Idiots.

And this part was ringing a bell: «Then, insult to injury, because Debian never passed its ‘fix’ on to OpenSSL, the people who would have caught the problem at a glance, this sloppy, insecure mess has now been used on hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of servers, PCs, and appliances.»

Without discharging Debian from all their responsibility, I was notified that the OpenSSL developers have been informed, but they were stupid too!

Here's Kurt Roeckx posting on openssl-dev about the idiot removals, however asking:

What I currently see as best option is to actually comment out
those 2 lines of code.  But I have no idea what effect this
really has on the RNG.  The only effect I see is that the pool
might receive less entropy.  But on the other hand, I'm not even
sure how much entropy some unitialised data has.

What do you people think about removing those 2 lines of code?

And here's Ulf Möller from OpenSSL.org answering back as innocent as a virgin:

Not much. If it helps with debugging, I'm in favor of removing them.

They're not much better at OpenSSL.org. They should have kicked Ulf Möller off!