December 2001 - openSUSE Edu - openSUSE Mailing Lists

Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] UK govt seeks to embrace open source software ?
by Edgehill e-mail service 17 Dec '01

17 Dec '01

I Like the idea - and maybe the metaphor police could even build their own gorilla? <grin> ---------- > From: Damian Counsell <linux(a)counsell.com> > To: suse-linux-uk-schools <suse-linux-uk-schools(a)suse.com> > Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] UK govt seeks to embrace open source software ? > Date: 16 December 2001 13:24 > > Bruce Miller wrote: > > >http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23413.html > > > The interesting part of this story about the government "embracing*" > open source is that, once again, the beancounters have provided the > motivation for any hint of change in a typically prehistoric British > organization. (Never mind that open source fits perfectly with New > Labour's professed "communitarian values"---sometimes they can't even do > ideology properly...) > > "Yes, the "UK Government will seek to avoid lock-in to proprietary > IT products and services", but the bottom line here is... well... > the bottom line. The increased used of open source solutions will > come about because they're cheaper than closed source software." > > I predict the following. First the cave-dwellers of Whitehall will use > open source as a big stick with which to beat the 800lb gorilla (M$) in > order to get a cheaper corporate desktop. Then they will pause between > bouts of licence-wrangling to examine the stick more closely and realise > they could actually make quite a nice desktop of their own with the same > piece of wood. > > Now you guys can call the metaphor police. > > > *Hey, "embracing"---is H.M. Govt. licensing even its vocabulary from M$ now? > > -- > Damian COUNSELL http://www.counsell.com/ > > > > > -- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-unsubscribe(a)suse.com > For additional commands, e-mail: suse-linux-uk-schools-help(a)suse.com > >

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[suse-linux-uk-schools] Why can't I telnet?
by Damian Counsell 17 Dec '01

17 Dec '01

Here's a summary of setting up telnet for linux: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&threadm=3AF2B5B9.1010702%40corel.com , but Chris is right; telnet is indeed evil. -- Damian COUNSELL http://www.counsell.com/

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Re: DMCA
by Paul Munro 17 Dec '01

17 Dec '01

Derek raised some very important points in his posting re: DMCA and its effects. I noticed that you (Derek) are a Software Developer, and you stated in your posting that you would be very annoyed about someone using your "ideas" and grabbing some of your market share from the use of such ideas (perhaps in the form of a similar program etc). This is where I get very confused. You see- for a long time I have listened to copyright protectors declaring to consumers that they need to copyright their software so that all benefit. Funny, I don't see any benefit from keeping back what amounts to "ideas" and "information" and making it "mine"--unless of course you pay the monies for me to give you a license to look at them/use them. Ideas simply should not be copyrighted or patented. Information should be a free vehicle for the expansion and progression of freedom and the human race full stop; exploiting a consumers power to spend by tying up your "ideas" in a package is fine, and some may think this is reasonable, but when you then say that that same information is yours alone and cannot be "copied" neither in word nor deed--that's dangerous. If this was how early scientific leaders dealt with their findings and research results, we would all be living in extreme conditions. Information, in its raw form, should be entirely open. That same information should be exploitable by all and for all. To patent schemes or information or applications is wrong and antithetical to sharing and furtherance of society and even business. I know I may get flamed heavily for this stance, but the reason I got into free software is because of the above arguments. Being tied into a proprietary tag, paying their price, and yet owning nothing of the product really annoys me! Being told that my ideas when transmitted over an open standards based networking medium (the Internet) become the property of an intellectual property owner and cease to be my ideas and information annoys me; when consumers don't have the power of choice and then are told that they neither have choice nor the right to look at the code that powers their machines--that annoys me. When programmers pretend that their money comes from software sales based on spurious mathematics on how much development time and therefore product value inherently survives because of that--that gets my back up. When programmers declare their programs and information "theirs" and not to be copied or used without royalty fees--that annoys me. That's just me though. The DMCA is purely a money making scheme (it would seem to me). The problem with the web at this time is that too many people see it as a source of revenue and not enough people see it a s free flow of information and ideas that could benefit all--communications serving people and not just business. Business users of the web are mostly to blaim for wanting more patents and more proprietary technology: "I'll have my slice of the web and you have yours; you'll pay to see mine and I'll pay to see yours.Either way we make lots of cash from consumers who will need to see both sets of information". For me, the fear is that the DMCA will further alienate the non-programmer and consumer and therefore lead to dumb PC users who can only use what nanny says they can, and only if they have a proper licensed software product. Linux is something that challenges all this trash. They don't like it for that! Linux users generally care about the free, open, flow of information and that's what the DMCA wants to deter. Again- these are just my opinons on the topic. I may be wrong. You may disagree with me. That's fine. What I'm sure we all want though is to maintain that free, open flow of information. That source code you hold in your hands, found on your Linux disks, stands for the most powerful things that man has ever accomplished- freedom and choice, sharing, and openness. Aren't these to be more protected than some programmer's small income from software sales? PS: I am not saying that programmers should not get paid ;-) I am saying that the monies they make from software sales ("bits" as Eric Raymond calls them) is very small compared to money they make from in-house programming and other related tasks. Software sales could generally be stopped tomorrow and hardly any programmers would lose from it--that's not where they earn from (unless you program for M$). Just thought I'd clarify that! Paul <hiding under table waiting for flames>

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Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Re: DMCA
by Frank Shute 17 Dec '01

17 Dec '01

On Fri, Dec 14, 2001 at 08:11:46PM -0000, Paul Sutton wrote: > > Like visio, innovated then MS took them over, what would microsoft do if > other companies could not innovate for them, > > And MS they say that the Open source community can't innovate as fast as > Microsoft, Like most of their pronouncements it's complete garbage. All the major innovations have come from academia where collabaration is a central tenet of the scientific discipline. To name just one: the WWW - courtesy of CERN. Academia has always been `open source' and that's where most of all future innovations will come from too. As a company they have not innovated one significant thing except the construction & subsequent use & abuse of a monopoly. Not one thing! With all their money....pitiful.... & an indication that they're too bloody idle to innovate. After all, why do they have to innovate? The money is still streaming in. -- Frank *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Boroughbridge. Tel: 01423 323019 --------- PGP keyID: 0xC0B341A3 *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* http://www.esperance-linux.co.uk/ A "critic" is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased -- he hates all creative people equally.

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Installing xine
by Stephen Ogden 17 Dec '01

17 Dec '01

I was wondering if anyone could help me. I am trying to install xine. xine-lib has installed without any problem, but then when trying to install xine-ui I get the following error: checking for ptrdiff_t... yes checking for xine-config... /usr/local/bin/xine-config checking for XINE-LIB version >= 0.9.4... no *** Could not run XINE test program, checking why... *** The test program compiled, but did not run. This usually means *** that the run-time linker is not finding XINE or finding the wrong *** version of XINE. If it is not finding XINE, you'll need to set your *** LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable, or edit /etc/ld.so.conf to point *** to the installed location Also, make sure you have run ldconfig if that *** is required on your system *** *** If you have an old version installed, it is best to remove it, although *** you may also be able to get things to work by modifying LD_LIBRARY_PATH *** configure: error: *** You should install xine-lib first *** Now /usr/local/bin/xine-config does exist .. so I don't know why I can't compile xine-ui .. can anyone advise? Many thanks -- Azrael ("\''/").___..--'''"-._ `0_ O ) `-. ( ).`-.__.`) (_Y_.)' ._ ) `._ `. ``-..-' _..`--'_..-_/ /--'_.' .' ((i).-'' ((i).' (((.-' Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with a cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat. _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com

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UK govt seeks to embrace open source software ?
by Bruce Miller 16 Dec '01

16 Dec '01

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23413.html

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Am I Misunderstanding This?
by Alistair Williamson 16 Dec '01

16 Dec '01

I am trying to set up a DHCP server running. My /etc/dhcpd.conf file reads as follows: default-lease-time 28800; max-lease-time 57600; option subnet-mask 255.255.255.0; option routers 192.168.0.15; ddns-update-style ad-hoc; #define local network subnet 192.168.0.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 { range 192.168.0.50 192.168.0.254; } #make sure the router gets a fixed address host router { hardware ethernet 00:02:E3:18:1A:8E; fixed-address 192.168.0.15; } dhcpd starts ok - but no host is issued with an IP address (I can now ping into and out of the server). I don't have any routing tables or a DNS set up - would this have an effect? I don't see how I can translate names to addresses when the adresses are dynamic. All the domains are set to 'localhost' - although we do have a FQDN (estfeld.doncaster.sch.uk) it is administered by an ISP and I understand if I include this in the domain name - trouble will ensue! Can anyone see what I'm doing wrong? Cheers, Alistair

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UK closer to switching 500k desktops from MS Office?
by Bruce Miller 16 Dec '01

16 Dec '01

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23409.html

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TV cards with Suse7.3
by Alan Davies 15 Dec '01

15 Dec '01

Have upgraded from 7.0 to 7.3 (suse) Fanastic. KDE2 is really impressive. Sadly it takes a performance it when used as multi user to PC stations running Xservers....but still impressive. Never had my Btv484 card running - an MM100PCTV card - which is listed as being supported. Did not set it up initially - but went back to Yast2 later. Could not find moTV documented in SUSE manual - but xawtv is there - along with a program called kwintv which is not documented (in SUSE multimedia-video menu). Used KwinTV and ran the tuner wizard - and it found 7 programs. Nothing on the screen. But - I can capture stills which appear to be Black and White only. To have it so nearly working is maddening. Is this likely to be my aging S3 graphics card - does it need a good 3D card? Or am I still missing some configuration? Where do I go to seek help/advice? Oh - and the teletext works fantastically - caching pages for really fast access - I'm really impressed with that. Now if only I could see the picture... -- Alan Davies Head of Computing Birkenhead School

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Why can't I telnet?
by Dave Williams 15 Dec '01

15 Dec '01

Hi everybody I am setting up an old Pentium with a 1GB drive as a print server. I've installed Suse 7.2 but I had to use minimal install (graphics) and add in those bits I though were relevant - KDEbase, cups, inet, samba, telnet server, ftpd, various yast bits. I can ping in and out and I've started inetd after checking inetd.conf was set to start telnet and ftp. Used ps aux to check that inetd is running. But - telnet and ftp both refuse to work when accessing from another machine. I need tips on what to look for? TIA Dave Williams

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