December 2002 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Re: [wlug] [Off-Topic] Free Software Consortium in search of Consultants and Agents in your area.
by Glyn Webster 23 Dec '02

23 Dec '02

> We would like to invite you to be a founding members of the FSC either as a > Consultant and/or an Agent. > > http://www.fsconsortium.com I felt supicious. The only contact information is email addresses on the two FSC domains, and two office addresses in Florida and Cuba. No names. However, they do want you to supply your name, phone number, email address and anything else that comes to mind, and send them $250. I have a feeling they'll keep the money, sell their database of contact details to spammers, and if they're found enough suckers, set some sort of weird pyramid scheme: > From the business generated by the Free Software Consortium, the Agent > company will receive 20% of the value of the contract, and the Consultant > or Consulting company will receive 80%. There is a Latin American Free Software Consortium associated with the UN, but it's not these guys. This appears quite real: UNESCO promotes a free software consortium in LA&C http://lacnet.unicttaskforce.org/en/vernoticias.asp?cod=0000000034 Consorcio de Desarrolladores y Usuarios de Software Libre http://www.unesco.org.uy/informatica/consorcio/ Merry Christmas and bah humbug, Glyn -- Glyn Webster ~ Simplicity himself. ~ glyn(a)wave.co.nz

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Sponsorship
by Craig Box 13 Dec '02

13 Dec '02

There's a few points that have come up in the Netraverse discussion I'd like to add my 2c to. 1. Sponsorship. It's fair enough to assume that companies will want some 'return' on their sponsorship, from their logo printed on the T-shirts that they paid for through to a simple listing on our web site. If we were to accept Netraverse's offer, post to the list (one time) that they were sponsoring us - hell, this debate has done more to raise awareness of the existance of their company and their product than one post to the list ever would. Note that there is already a page at http://www.wlug.org.nz/WlugSponsors page, where we currently pay our dues to Computer Upgrades 2000 Ltd for buying our domain name for us. Net4U will be added to that page as soon as we get hold of Sahil and get Hoiho hosted (We've been trying, but he hasn't been available.) If we were to ad a small link, even perhaps a banner, to that page, then we'd be fulfilling our requirement to Netraverse and I don't really think I'd call it selling out. 2. There are people who use Linux for every explainable reason. Some use it because it is beer-free, and couldn't give a toss about the source code being available or that it's protected by the GPL (Free with a capital F). These people are no less worthy of supporting - some might not even know about the source code ideals because the mass media are really good at saying "Linux is free" and not explaining what that means. 3. Programmers have to eat just as much as expensive consultants do. It's considered OK for people to make money supporting Linux, and I think it should be just as welcomed that people make money writing Linux applications. How many Windows programmers do you think have "paid their dues to Microsoft" (for creating such a nice mishmash of cruddy abstractions and calling it an OS? :) While it's very nice to think that every application for Linux will be OSS and Free, that's not necessary. If Adobe ported Photoshop to Linux and charged for it, it would be worth paying for. There is no full OSS equivalent. Perhaps the action of this happening might even charge people to work on something like The GIMP until it _is_ a full OSS equivalent. People without too much knowledge or interest in computers want to be able to make a quick educated decision about what is good and what is not good, or have a trusted advisor make that decision for them. As Daniel was saying, Linux isn't the answer to every question. It might be one day, but even then, it might not be totally OSS. We shouldn't go burning potential bridges over ideoligical disagreements. While at this point there's only a 'free' copy of Win4Lin at stake, which seems like another VMWare, it's a decision that might pop up in future when it comes to sponsorship, and it's good that it's being discussed now. Craig

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Free Software vs Open Source.
by Oliver Jones 12 Dec '02

12 Dec '02

Someone posted to the list about the reason for the term Open Source. The term Open Source was coined by Eric S. Raymond. He founded the Open Source Initiative. (www.opensource.org) The reason he chose this term was because of his own perceived confusion with the word Free. He figured that if Free Software was to be promoted to the business community it needed a more business friendly name. He figured, rightly, that ,ost business people would associate free with dollars and not liberty. Hence the term Open Source. The Open Source Initiative promotes Open Source Software mostly because of pragmatic ideals. Eg, OSS is cheaper, higher quality, easier to adapt, etc etc. The Free Software Foundation however still uses the term Free (as in Liberty) Software. RMS founded the FSF and remains its most vocal and well known personality. The GNU System (GCC, Bash, binutils, fileutils, GNOME, etc etc) is all copyright the FSF. The FSF is a much more idealistic organisation. RMS often makes the distinction that Free Software and Open Source Software are different and that he does not endorse Open Source. This is true. Something can fall under the Open Source definition but not be 'Free Software'. Generally in the FSF's view only software covered by the GPL is really Free Software. Though there are probably some other licenses that are very similar to the GPL that could be classed as Free Software Licenses too. The Open Source Definition is more relaxed. Stuff with BSD and MIT licenses are Open Source but probably not 'Free Software' as the FSF would define it. Anyway to really educate yourself about the difference between OSS and FS you should read up about the topic on www.opensource.org and www.gnu.org. Regards -- Oliver Jones > Senior Software Engineer > Deeper Design Limited. oliver(a)deeper.co.nz > www.deeperdesign.com > +64 (21) 41-2238

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Re: [wlug] Netraverse
by kyle carter 12 Dec '02

12 Dec '02

On Fri, 13 Dec 2002 11:28, Oliver Jones wrote: > > I dont see it as whoring.. i see it as evaluating software, closed source > > or open, it is evaluating a software package. > > I actually find the 'we only want to use open source software' ideals of > > RMS grating.. its the outcome, whatever is used to do the job, WHO > > CARES. ie using word or staroffice .. if you only want to print a > > letter.. who cares what software made it.. the important thing is the > > letter gets to the paper. > > "I only want to wear my shorts. Who cares if it is made by well paid > New Zealanders or exploited little Jamu from Indonesia." ;) yep.. i cant tell where my shorts come from, however i also make a point to support trade aid. > I take it that Kyle only uses Linux because it is "free, as in beer". I use it because it does what i want.. it masquerades, firewalls and runs my webserver reliably. the free is just a bonus. > > > Now why would we need to do that? ;) > > > > People do need software that is only available under windows currently... > > even if its only 1 package for windows out of the 10 they use, if that is > > a critical app, they arent going to change > > This is true. I still haven't found a decent Small Business accounting > app, up to the quality of QuickBooks, for Linux. OpenSource or Closed. > Though in this case software line Wine can obliviate the need for a > Windows license. Exactly.. 1 app you need cross-platform ability for currently. -- Kyle Carter

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Re: [wlug] Netraverse
by Daniel Appleton 12 Dec '02

12 Dec '02

> How about a sponsorship page then? I for one am > certainly not against > the LUG having sponsors. That sounds good. Daniel http://greetings.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Greetings - Send your seasons greetings online this year!

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