 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 31, 12 January 2004 |
Content:
Welcome to this year's second edition of DistroWatch Weekly. Our apologies to all those who have had trouble visiting this site over the past week - this was caused by a failure of one of the machines providing DNS services for DistroWatch.com. The domain is resolving again, but in case a similar problem happens in the future, just a reminder that you can still visit us at http://66.111.55.60.
Xandros - a community player?
The first reviews of the recently released Xandros Desktop 2.0 are in and it is nice to see that the product continues to gather praise. With all its usability enhancements and innovative approach to desktop computing, Xandros Desktop has quite possibly done more than any other Linux company to bring our favourite operating system closer to non-technical users as a viable replacement for Windows. As such, Xandros deserves our admiration.
But product quality aside, there is one dark aspect of the company that is rarely mentioned in reviews: Xandros's involvement -- or lack, thereof -- in the Linux and Open Source Software developer community. It is a well-known fact that Red Hat employs a famous kernel developer, or that SUSE sponsors KDE and ALSA. Even some smaller Linux companies are actively contributing, a good example of which is Lindows.com's sponsorship of Gaim and other Open Source projects. These types of sponsorship deals benefit all of us - one doesn't need to be a Red Hat, SUSE or LindowsOS user to take advantage of the new features in the Linux kernel or the improved cross-platform compatibility in the latest version of the popular instant messenger. But what about Xandros? Besides the general "bug fix contributions" and a few proprietary, undistributable and closed-source applications, what exactly has Xandros done to contribute to the development of Linux and Free Software? Has it sponsored any Open Source project? Has it released any of its own work under GPL? No, as far as we know, it has not.
Given the above, should we, as a community of Linux users, support a company which bases its products on Linux and other Open Source Software without making any solid effort to contribute back? Or should we just accept that Xandros is a business, which needs to make a profit to survive and therefore is not expected to do us any favours? It would be nice if the company was capable of sponsoring third-party projects or willing to release some of its own code for the benefit of the rest of us, but is this a realistic expectation? Please discuss below.
SystemRescueCD for partition management
Have you ever needed to make some major changes to your hard disk partitions and wondered which tool to use? If so, forget the US$70 Partition Magic and download the free SystemRescueCD instead. It comes with two excellent graphical partitioning tools, which can be used without installing and configuring XFree86 (they work with the help of QtEmbedded). These are QtParted and PartGui. Between them, they are capable of creating, formatting, deleting and resizing many partition types, including FAT, NTFS, ext2/ext3, ReiserFS, JFS and XFS (resizing of JFS or XFS is not supported) and manage other aspects of your hard disks. All partition management is done in a nice graphical environment, very similar to Partition Magic itself, except that the SystemRescueCD is a lot more functional and it costs exactly zero dollars.
While the partitioning ability of SystemRescueCD is probably its most interesting feature, the CD comes with a number of other interesting utilities. One of them is Partimage, a Ghost/DriveImage clone for Linux, which is able to save and restore any partition of a hard disk into an image file. Also included are many file system and archiving tools, as well as a CD burning utility and even a free virus scanning program - Clam Anti-Virus. See these screenshots and read about the product's features for further information.
The latest version of SystemRescueCD is 0.2.9 and you can download it from here (the ISO image is about 80MB in size).
MadPenguin.org turns one
"It was one year ago today (12:00AM January 12, 2003) that Mad Penguin officially came online. In that time, we have covered more ground than similar sites that have been around for many more years. In short, we have kicked some serious penguin booty, and we have all of you to thank for it... our readers. It seems like only yesterday that MadHunter emailed me proclaiming that we had 12 users online at the same time. It was such a big accomplishment at the time considering that we were running the site on an old server out of my third bedroom on a cable connection. Soon, the site took off and it took over my Internet connection with its bandwidth usage."
This is a good time to open a bottle of your favourite beverage and celebrate: MadPenguin.org is definitely one of the more imaginative Linux web sites on the Internet: with original content, comprehensive reviews, wealth of tips and tricks and other useful information, it is worth a bookmark and a daily visit! Congratulations and many happy returns!
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| Released Last Week |
SLAX 3.0.25
A new bug fix release of the SLAX live CD is now available: "This release is mainly a bug fix one, but there are also some new features. The most interesting news are: fixed USB mouse detection; added floppy automounting; fixed dbdiff (configsave and configrestore); added auto-configrestore from flashdisk or floppy or disc partition; added kdepim (kmail etc); added Czech (cs), German (de), Brazilian (pt_BR) and French (fr) KDE language support; fixed loadlin (DOS) parameters, I didn't test it yet but it should boot from DOS; modified HorizSync in X config file to get better display." The full changelog.
Onebase Linux 2004
The Onebase Linux project has unveiled a new web site, as well as a new release - Onebase Linux 2004: "We are pleased to announce this new revolutionary Onebase Linux release that incorporates lots of new features and major changes in its package manager." Read the rest of the official announcement.
Devil-Linux 1.0.4
Devil-Linux has been updated: "Due to the new kernel vulnerability I released version 1.0.4 of Devil-Linux. Changes: removed gcc, binutils, distcc from standard; backported kernel 2.4.24 patches (rtc info leak, mremap vulnerability); upgrade-config now correctly sets directory permissions and owner/group; jail script has new command DELETE; domino jail script now empties the lib and etc directories before creating the jail..." See the rest of the changelog.
SystemRescueCD 0.2.9
A new version of SystemRescueCD has been released. From the changelog: "Updated the kernel to Linux-2.4.23; added several floppy disk images: FreeDOS, Memtest, Gag; added LDE (Linux Disk editor); added sys-apps/ms-sys (Like the DOS "sys" command); updated Samba to 3.0.1; updated QTParted to 0.4.1 (many bug fixes); updated partimage to 0.6.3_beta14 (bug fixes); many minor updates."
GoboLinux 010
After two release candidates, the new GoboLinux 010 has been released: "A new look for a new era! GoboLinux 010 is out, with lots of improvements over 007. Among the new features are: a new installer, hardware detection, new custom themes. As usual, a number of packages were also upgraded." Visit the GoboLinux web site to read the announcement and to find out more about the project.
MandrakeMove
MandrakeSoft's live CD product, MandrakeMove is now available for free download: "Everything for Office, Multimedia and Internet on a single live CD: the final version of MandrakeMove Download Edition is now publicly available for download. Make your Windows friends discover how powerful and friendly Mandrake Linux is: this couldn't be easier than with MandrakeMove! MandrakeMove also offers a commercial version with handling of a USB stick that automatically stores personal data. Now available for purchase at MandrakeStore."
AL-AMLUG Live CD 0.4
The AL-AMLUG project has released a new version of the AL-AMLUG Live CD: "A new release of the Arch Linux based distribution of AL-AMLUG Live CD 0.4 is now available for download. Version 0.4 is a compressed file system (zisofs), running a bit faster. It's an 376MB ISO image (before 693MB) with more programs (XMMS multimedia player, pppconfig and nfs-utils), upgraded hardware detection, improved HD installer with network configure script, and a new font (ttf-ms-fonts) setting." Read the official announcement and further details at the AMLUG Project Logbook.
Buffalo Linux 1.1.0
Buffalo Linux 1.1.0 has been released: "This MAJOR release includes five kernels, all based on 2.4.24. Also includes the available updates from Slackware 'current'. Many bug fixes and much better integration with Codeweavers' CrossOver Office. Also available as separate downloads are the 2.4.24 kernels for: i486, i586, i686, ipent3, ipent4 -- these can be used to upgrade the earlier 'rc3' to the latest kernel (if desired). The 1.1.x series will continue code cleanup and patches and will likely include a kernel 2.6 option in later releases."
OpenDesktop 1.0
OpenDesktop is a product of OpenDesktop.net, an open source developer community of Chinese software developers. The project is sponsored by several large software companies, universities and research centres from around China. The OpenDesktop distribution is designed for business and home desktop market and its main features are simplified installation procedure, high compatibility with Windows and ease of use. It is based on Fedora Core and released under GPL. The project's first stable version was released over the weekend, and is now available for download. More information at OpenDesktop.net (in simplified Chinese).
PHLAK 0.2-1
The Professional Hacker's Linux Assault Kit (PHLAK) project has announced a new updated release of PHLAK, version 0.2-1: "PHLAK 0.2-1 released! Some of the major bug fixes include: ifconfig issue when installed fixed; documents with formatting problems fixed; includes some new Knoppix autodetection scripts; many more... A few new features are: a cleanup of the 'cruft' (that's why it's a smaller ISO, don't worry all the tools are still there); document system redesigned and more docs added; added option to the syslinux option screen (phlak desktop=sneaky)..." Read the rest of the announcement.
Development releases
Other releases
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
Aurox Linux 9.3
Aurox is working on a new Aurox Linux release, version 9.3: "This release will contain many changes. First of all, Aurox 9.3 will be based on Fedora Core. Since Red Hat stopped developing their distribution we cannot base our work on Red Hat 9, which will be soon outdated. We believe that free community spirit will help the Fedora Project. Aurox 9.3 (and further) will have all the features that were present in previous versions: multimedia support (MP3, DVD, all kinds of video files), educational software, games. Since the very beginning of Aurox we emphasised language support -- Aurox 9.3 will have Polish installer as usual (a feature still missing in Fedora). Aurox 9.3 will provide KDE with its original look & feel and a "Light Desktop" for slower machines. Expected release date: 15 March 2004. If you want to help, visit our site and subscribe to aurox-devel list!"
Agnula/DeMuDi 1.1.0
The AGNULA GNU Audio Distribution project is entering its final testing phase before the release of version 1.1.0: "As we approach the release of AGNULA/DeMuDi 1.1.0 (which should hopefully go out on Jan 15, 2004) we'd like to spread awareness on the availability of the debian packages we've been working on in the past weeks. These packages are built against a frozen snapshot of Debian Unstable (and specifically, the snapshot frozen at 15/11/2003) but they should work on Sarge systems too, as there hasn't been any major upgrade between the two. They won't work without major overhaul on Debian Woody systems, unfortunately - please read our information about how to use a subset of our Debian packages installing from CD or installing over the network on a stable Debian system." Read the rest of the announcement.
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| Web Site News |
Bosnian translation
Many thanks to Dino F Avdibegovic for his translation of DistroWatch navigation menus and common phrases into Bosnian. If you'd like to see this site in your language, please take a look at this page for further information.
DistroWatch T-shirts
Thanks to the effort by HackerThreads.com and their talented graphics designers, we are pleased to offer you the official DistroWatch T-shirt! It costs US$16.95 (that's close to nothing in euro terms nowadays :-), and wearing it will make you the object of enormous envy of any passers-by, as well as an instant attraction by the opposite sex. Guaranteed, or your money back! But even if you are not interested in buying one, do take a look at it - you'll more than likely agree that it's one of the better Linux T-shirts out there!
New additions
- JoLinux Linux. JoLinux is a Brazilian Linux distribution designed for desktop use. It is based on Slackware Linux.
- Kalango Linux. Kalango Linux is a Brazilian Linux distribution designed for desktop use. It is based on Kurumin and uses the Debian package management tools.
- ASLinux. ASLinux is a Spanish desktop Linux distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux.
- Bluewall GNU Linux. Bluewall is a GNU/Linux Distribution that allows you to install a system from a small set of preconfigured binary packages based on Debian GNU/Linux (stable/unstable). Bluewall doesn't have any specific installation procedure, the idea behind it is that you can get installed GNU/Linux in the way you want, using command line tools and treating every part of the OS as modular as possible. Bluewall is a minimalistic live CD distribution for x86 platforms.
- OpenDesktop Linux. OpenDesktop is a product of OpenDesktop.net, an open source developer community of Chinese developers. The project is sponsored by several large software companies, universities and research centres from around China. The OpenDesktop distribution is designed for business and home desktop market and its main features are simplified installation procedure, high compatibility with Windows and ease of use. It is based on Fedora Core and released under GPL.
- Soyombo. Soyombo is a Mongolian live CD distribution based on Morphix and built by the OpenMN project. The OpenMN project is also working on Mongolian support for GNOME, KDE, OpenOffice.org and other applications.
Soyombo - a Linux distribution with support for Mongolian (full image size 711kB)
New on the waiting list
- FRUSTIX. FRUSTIX is a live CD Linux OS which can be booted right off of a CD drive. Booting from this CD gives you a complete basic Linux with some applications and games.
Removed from the waiting list
DistroWatch database summary
- Number of distributions in the database: 236
- Number of discontinued distributions: 26
- Number of distributions on the waiting list: 61
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| Reader Feedback |
DistroWatch in Investor's Business Daily
- A reader wrote: "Congratulations on being quoted in today's (Jan 8, 2004) edition of Investor's Business Daily."
No, we are not ready for an IPO just yet, but we were still pleased to see that Investor's Business Daily took interest in Linux distributions in its article entitled "Smaller Versions Of Linux Start Popping Up". Besides mentioning your favourite Linux web site, the author also talks about Puppy Linux, Damn Small Linux, LinuxInstall.org and a few other Linux distributions. The article is available to subscribers only at investors.com.
That's all for this week, see you next Monday :-)
Ladislav Bodnar
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • T-Shirts (by Leo on 2004-01-12 15:27:47 GMT)
Hey Folks, have you taken a look at the DistroWatch T-Shirts (Ladislav pointed a link above) ? Really really nice, ideal gift for your friends, lovers and whatnot ;-)
2 • you could say the very same thing about every distro (by John Helms at 2004-01-12 15:31:07 GMT)
This is a great site. Plenty of information about all the various distros, up to date and informative. Your comments about Xandros are off base. I am not going to waste time pointing out where their contributions are and what they are. I am instead going to say that you need to widen your "contributions" statement to include EVERY distribution listed on this site. Rather than singling out one why don't you make that statement about all of them since you likely have no more proof the rest are contributing any more than you have proof Xandros is not.
3 • BitDefender (by Folle Rec at 2004-01-12 15:31:52 GMT)
I understand BitDefender has released a "distro-on-disk" that has a full suite of anti-virus features, as well as read/write support of NTFS. Would this count as a Linux distro (it is Knoppix based).
About Xandros... even if they don't contribute back to the community, I have no problems with them. It is a matter of choice. That is their choice, to not contribute back. As long as their product can access any other Linux machines, and any other Linux machines have no trouble with Xandros machines, then no problem. Once it turns proprietary, that will be the time to not give them any praise. Maybe others can try and copy the good things they are doing instead.
4 • xandros (by Xandros user on 2004-01-12 18:00:37 GMT)
Take it easy......
Xandros is still a very young company and they have contributed back many fixes and enhancements to the major products.
I don't think they are profitable enough to monetarily sponsor projects to any great extent, but to tell the truth, I really think that they will in the future.
Sure, they're the same age as Lindows, but lindows was founded with much more money and are probably making significantly more than xandros as well.
As long as they continue to contribute code back to the community, they're doing their part. Anything else is gravy...
5 • Xandros (by Latch at 2004-01-12 18:03:12 GMT)
(General) First we expected them to give us what we want for cash.
(Linux) Then we expected them to give us what we want for free.
(Xandros) Now we expect them to give us what we want for free, and also give cash to open source projects?
Next you'll want the newest release delivered to your house by the Xandros company president, on shiny new platinum-coated CDs.
6 • xandros (by jxn at 2004-01-12 19:05:26 GMT)
until they generate any real profit (which I don't think they're doing), I don't feel insulted by xandros's alleged lack of contribution. Sponsoring other projects is great (hell, I think everyone should donate to oss projects they use), but I don't know how much financial freedom Xandros has got. Last time i heard (probably no reliable source...but, it's all I've heard) they were in kind of a crunch. I personally would rather use a distro who gives back and reward them for it...I don't think I'll be buying xandros, but I'd be more likely to if they gave back. ultimately, it's their prerogative.
7 • RE:you could say the very same thing about every distro (by tymiles@yahoo.com at 2004-01-12 19:33:34 GMT)
Not true. Yes you can get on a LOT of companies but at the same time like SUSE who put a large part of their Yast tool out in GPL there are a LOT of companies who do give back.
Like it says in the article you can see who supports who by their sponsorship. Even if it's not money!
I mean hey, Gaim did a ton of work on their IM client for instance, then you are going to put it in your OS, tweak it etc! Then charge people for it and not give Gaim anything at all back, not even the tweaks! Come on, that is not right!
Even if it's just design ideas, tweaks, better installer ideas. Even just recompiles or mirrors for Gaim to host their software. Give something back. Geee!
8 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2004-01-12 20:19:00 GMT)
>not give Gaim anything at all back, not even the tweaks!
Sorry but that's simply not true. Gaim is GPL, Xandros nor anyone else can't change the code and then not release it back without being in violation of the lisence. Where did you get the information that Xandros has changed Gaim code and not released it back?
9 • re: you could say the very same thing about every distro (by Elijah Newren at 2004-01-12 20:26:12 GMT)
I believe John Helms' comments are off base, and I totally disagree with the assertion in the subject of his message (i.e. that the same thing Ladislav said about Xandros could be said about every distro)--Ladislav even gave examples to show why it wasn't true for some of the major distros. I could provide more if that isn't enough for you.
Also,John, if you believe Xandros has given things away to the community, then why don't you provide some proof? While I don't agree with everything Ladislav says, I have found that he doesn't make statements without having the research to back them up. Personally, I can't speak about Xandros because I know little about it. But if you want to disprove Ladislav's statements, all you need to do is provide one counter-example.
10 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2004-01-12 20:47:22 GMT)
Xandros conforms to the GPL. That's all they are required to do. As a still small for-profit company they can not and should not release thier proprietary code. I don't think they're any position to simply give away either money or the code that is the foundation of thier distro.
11 • There are some other distros do not even comply GPL (by sundar on 2004-01-12 23:18:44 GMT)
If a distro uses GPL, it should make the sources available. ( I am not taking about their properierty code/apps).
There are some distros, do not show sources they are using with their distro.
They should make the source code available (what ever they use) along with their compiled binaries to recreate the distros. I like only those kind of distros.
12 • The Xandros source code is here (by cc at 2004-01-13 01:30:35 GMT)
The Xandros source code is here:
http://www.xandros.com/source_code.html
They have fulfilled their GPL obligations.
Is that enough? I think that is an individual decision of each user. But if that is the criterion you want to apply, then I agree with previous posters that it should be applied equally and evenly to /all/ distributions.
Is there a table at distrowatch.com which lists each distribution and all of the open source projects which it sponsors? I have a hunch that, with a few notable exceptions, the vast majority of disributions don't do much outside sponsorship. Where are all those projects that Libranet is supporting? (And I don't mean to pick on Libranet -- it is an outstanding distribution.)
13 • re: you could say the very same thing about every distro (by Elijah Newren at 2004-01-13 01:48:06 GMT)
I believe John Helms' comments are off base, and I totally disagree with the assertion in the subject of his message (i.e. that the same thing Ladislav said about Xandros could be said about every distro)--Ladislav even gave examples to show why it wasn't true for some of the major distros. I could provide more if that isn't enough for you.
Also,John, if you believe Xandros has given things away to the community, then why don't you provide some proof? While I don't agree with everything Ladislav says, I have found that he doesn't make statements without having the research to back them up. Personally, I can't speak about Xandros because I know little about it. But if you want to disprove Ladislav's statements, all you need to do is provide one counter-example.
14 • Xandros - a community player (by ladislav at 2004-01-13 03:39:44 GMT)
It seems that the majority of you feel that there is nothing wrong with a commercial Linux company not sponsoring Open Source projects or releasing some of their work under GPL. Personally, I'd rather support a company that does so, but if you disagree, fair enough. I won't bring up the subject again.
15 • Taking without giving anything back can be OK (by Robert Lindsay at 2004-01-13 08:04:27 GMT)
I know everyone will feel free to correct me if I'm wrong ;-)
One of linux's main strengths is its freely shared and modified nature which encourages everyone to contribute. That may be in the way of code, patches, graphics/icons, bug reports, ftp space, ideas etc. (just about anything really).
Taking without giving anything back can be OK. There will always be a certain percentage who just take, so no point worrying about it. But what happens if the percentage who take everyone elses contributions and withhold their products/distros from the those who provided 95-99% of the code - becomes the norm?
Another worrying trend is indemnification - as in Novell and HP's indemnification. Big companies intending to sell linux to the business community en masse but with a contract that prevents these companies from making any modifications (and in turn giving back any improvements.) Question: Is it still linux if it can't grow?
It's all too easy to lose sight of thousand of individual projects that are constantly evolving thanks to the enthusiastic communities of developers and users who form around and nuture these projects. This is really the soul of Gnu Linux!
I sometimes wonder why harvesting and culling the work of others into a more or less polished commercial distro ( with strings attached) commands so much loyalty. Perhaps marketing has become increasingly more important than development.
That's my 2 cents worth. BTW just because I prefer the sweat to the spin doesn't mean I'm completely against the commercialisation of linux - I'm just allergic to lock in and inertia.
Best regards to everyone in 2004
rob
16 • Jamd and Ares Desktop (by I_love_linux on 2004-01-13 08:59:24 GMT)
Ladislav,
what happened to Jamd and Ares Desktop is called 'a merger'
That could have been the case if Jim Luchas was one of the developers of Ares Desktop.
But he has decided not to, for wathever reason.
So lets call things with their name: Jamd linux is no more, is a discontinued distribution.
And there is a NEW distro in town called 'Ares Desktop'
Just for the sake of clarity.
17 • More About Xandros (by Sergio G on 2004-01-13 09:16:41 GMT)
Come on people!
This might be slightly offtopic, but I have read the Xandros license agreement and it sounds incredibly similar to the Microsoft EULA, it gives me the creeps.
From which point of view is Xandros still an open source project? Maybe from the point of view that it USES open source...
18 • Xandros (by Rich~! at 2004-01-13 11:36:44 GMT)
I might be wrong, but I remember that a lot of people that work closely with Xandros also contrbute heavily to the WINE project. In fact, I think that there is a close relationship between Codeweavers and Xandros (owned b the same group).
Also, the reason that Xandros has the licensing they have is because they have a LOT of commercial Linux programs in the distro - namely Crossover Office and Crossover Plugin.
AFAIK, the version without the Crossover is a lot cheaper. Given what they do, a totally "free download" version would be little different from a Mepis/Libranet/Knoppix hard drive install.
SO the distro isn't Free as in beer. I think it's worth the money, the sources to the GPL portion of the software is made available and it just works, especially when you don't want to waste a lot of time configuring and tweaking.
19 • RE: Xandros (by Rich~!) (by Tyrone Miles at 2004-01-13 13:26:42 GMT)
Codeweavers and Xandros are 2 different companies (And that is why you get almost no discount on the price of Crossover.)
As a matter of fact Lindows gave Codeweavers $500,000 when the company first started up to help with Wine dev. But Crossover did not end up in Lindows because of problems between Lindows and Crossover on price.
My question is has anyone tried to make workable OS from the Xandros source? That way once and for all everyone will know how much they give back.
20 • Editorials (by Leo on 2004-01-13 17:26:00 GMT)
Dear Ladislav
May I make a small suggestion ? How about a separate section with editorials ? Even if it goes in the "dw weekly" section, how about a separate subsection, with different background colour, clearly separated from the rest.
I suggest this for the following reason; people come to DW for info, rather than for opinion, primarily. Some users seem to get upset with your editorials, and perhaps the reason is that they think you are giving your opinions as part of the rest of the objective informational content.
Splitting your own opinions apart from the rest of the objective info might be the way to go
Anyway, my 2 cts
21 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2004-01-13 17:55:16 GMT)
>My question is has anyone tried to make workable OS from the Xandros source? That way once and for all everyone will know how much they give back.
That wouldn't prove anything at all. You'd have a mixed debian distro without an installer, how would that prove anything about how much Xandros has contributed back to open source? Xandros contributes thier changes back to the community as required by the GPL, just as a lot of other distros do.
Here's a list of KDE commits from the Xandros:
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-cvs&w=2&r=1&s=xandros&q=b
22 • RE: 'Editorials' by Leo (by Sergio G at 2004-01-13 23:17:34 GMT)
I disagree.
This is Ladislav's web site, his 'home' and we can't deny him the right to utter an opinion.
After all DW weekly is not any different than any weekly magazine where you would find editorials.
Besides info without opinions is almost impossible, unless it is generated by a computer. And even a computer will reflect the opinions of one or more programmers (Debian apt for instance shows a sort of 'personality')
Besides I want to hear Ladislav's opinions, without having to look for them elsewhere, because to the best of my understanding they are always in the best interest of the linux community and the respect of true open source spirit.
Without men like him very soon linux would be no different than M$.
Just read the Xandros licence agreement to convince yourself.
23 • No subject (by Anonymous on 2004-01-14 04:24:22 GMT)
>Without men like him very soon linux would be no different than M$.
Just read the Xandros licence agreement to convince yourself.
Which is shorter, less restrictive and less filled with legalese than the Lindows licence, yet no one seems bothered by that.
http://www.lindows.com/lindows_products_OSEULA.php
24 • RE: RE: 'Editorials' (by Leo on 2004-01-14 15:19:41 GMT)
Sergio
I think we disagree less than you think, but you also missinterpreted my post. I know Ladislav, I very much respect him, I may or may not disagree with what he says now or then but he seems to be a very ethical person.
The point is, I never meant that he should NOT express his opinions. In fact I am just suggesting that it might be a idea to separate purely editorial from mainly informative pieces.
You have a point, providing information always is subjective to some extent, and I know it, but there are degrees of objectiveness. Look, take a good newspaper, the one you mostly respect. You'll find that they have news (as objective as they can try to make them), but they also have one or two editorial articles per edition. I was suggesting the same for DW. That's all.
Also, Ladislav has made such a fantastic website because he *listens*. He takes good ideas from suggestions here and there and implement them if they make sense to him.
Finally, I do agree with the general sentiment of his editorial on Xandros, with some differences, but this is a different story.
thanks
Leo
25 • Xandros (by Sauja on 2004-01-14 15:33:07 GMT)
Rob,
Good post. Clear and articulate and most of all just.
As to your question: "I sometimes wonder why harvesting and culling the work of others into a more or less polished commercial distro ( with strings attached) commands so much loyalty?"
All I can say is this: It just works. You take it out of the box, but the CD in and go. For Joe user, that is enough to command loyalty.
Sergio G.
I'm glad you read the Shoot Out on OSNews, no doubt where you heard about Xandros Licence, to bad the author failed to not that it is very similar to the Lycoris, Lindows and a pile of other distro's, (excepte as pointed out Libranet, which in essence says the same thing).
All,
Whether Xandros complies with the GPL is not in question. If it was the could be legal action.
What is being put in to question is whether GPL compliance is enough. Or is contributing fixes and patches enough. Or to be a community player, must a company sponsor or lead a GPL project. Where is the line? I certainly don' t know.
The fact is neither the author or any posting here (myself included) seems has any idea (or proof for that matter) just how much or how little Xandros, (or Lycoris, or Ark, or many other distros) actually contribute back to the community.
Sauja
26 • RE: Xandros (by ladislav at 2004-01-14 16:48:45 GMT)
The fact is neither the author or any posting here (myself included) seems has any idea (or proof for that matter) just how much or how little Xandros, (or Lycoris, or Ark, or many other distros) actually contribute back to the community.
I think it's essential to separate community projects from commercial companies. Ark is a community project - everything they do is out there on the servers and everybody can have it at no cost. It would be unfair to demand that they support an Open Source project with cash, since they don't make any money off Ark Linux. Ark Linux _is_ the community.
This is not the case with Xandros, Lindows, Lycoris, Libranet and other commercial companies. Because they are taking free software from the community and because they make (or attempt to make) money off it, it would be only fair if they set aside a percentage of their income to support Open Source projects. It's not a requirement and it won't break the GPL if they don't. But it would be nice. If they don't make any money, they could release some of their code under GPL. Or some other gesture that would say: "thank you for all the free software we've taken from the Linux community, here is something to show our appreciation".
Of course, they don't have to. But judging by some of the posts above, many people don't understand this concept.
27 • Re: 'Xandros' by Sauja (by Sergio.G on 2004-01-15 06:23:26 GMT)
Yes, I read that review, but I happened also to read personally THE REAL THING, BEFORE that review.
28 • Indian Giver! (by Mike on 2004-01-15 17:32:52 GMT)
Sorry, native American giver.
I'm a leech. I use Linux all the time and I haven't contributed one iota back. And I could too, I'm a programmer, I understand this stuff. Hell, I use Linux for my work. There's loads of people like me. Linux needs us. We swell the ranks. If the Linux community can't cope with their work being greedily commercialised, they'd better shut up moaning about Microsoft, becuase they'll never challenge Windows if they don't allow themselves to be exploited.
Xandros has contributed something very valuable that can't be counted in lines of code. They've helped bring Unix to the masses. Don't overlook it.
Incidentally, does anyone actually use Xandros? Personally I'm a Debian man; can't stand all that closed source stuff and those EULAs.
29 • RE: Indian Giver (by Sergio G. on 2004-01-15 19:18:38 GMT)
I also use Debian, among others, but 'slightly modified' (Libranet)
Libranet is not free as 'free beer' but my understanding is that both their source and 'licence' are fully GPL, meaning that you can have the source (for a small fee) and can freely redistribute Libranet.
This issue has been brought up many times at the Libranet Forum and Jon and Tal, the developers, have never contradicted this point of view.
30 • But How About A Real Controversy :-) (by John Lowell on 2004-01-15 21:07:09 GMT)
Have to agree with Ladislav, if you're going to take something away and make a profit on it, remember where you came from. On the other hand if you're giving, don't kvetch about it how much it's costing you to do so; just give already.
I mean why don't we get some real controversy going here. Anyone for a Stallmann vs. Torvalds follow-up? :-)
John Lowell
31 • MadPenguin (by madhunter at 2004-01-18 06:21:06 GMT)
Happy Birthday, MadPenguin.org!
32 • Wakeup newbss.. if there is a distro that contributs allot is Xandros (by Martin heimer on 2004-03-08 20:15:30 GMT)
I was waiting a long time to see such Linux, this company makes more face to Linux than other distros, they got the idea, and take it seriously !!!
Keep up the great job, and Xandros, , , your contrib is greater than many others, and you promote Debian in a great way , I love Debian, always did, and am happy to see how far (yes FAR good) Linux has became...
Sitting at home and tweaking Linux is one thing, and is great, BUT making a distro to the Mass, is tacking things serious... Thats whats gonna run on my network (end users, people who dont care about is its microsoft or linux, they just wanna get to work)....
Number of Comments: 32
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