August 2005 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

OSDL promoting the idea of a patents commons
by Ian McDonald 10 Aug '05

10 Aug '05

Have a look at: http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/08-0…

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New Zealand Linux Wiki
by Craig Box 10 Aug '05

10 Aug '05

Hi everyone, At the last WLUG committee meeting, we discussed the topic of the "NZLUG view" into the WLUG wiki. The issue is that we have a very complete archive of Linux knowledge related to New Zealand that some people incorrectly believe "you have to be a WLUG member to use". The WLUG committee are committed to making our wiki useful and accessible to everyone, while retaining its identity as "the official WLUG website". We would like the wiki to be relevant to all of NZ's Linux users, not just those involved with WLUG or NZLUG. We also respect that much of the content has specific relevance to only New Zealand. Much discussion took place on the various options to rectify this situation, with the two main options being: * Remove the "NZLUG view" until a national organisation is in place * Rebrand the "NZLUG view" as a New Zealand Linux Wiki, now The committee decided that the first option may send the wrong signals regarding our intentions, and has therefore decided to offer the alternative view under the tentative name of "New Zealand Linux Wiki", and publicise it to all New Zealand LUGs. Feel free to check out the modified site at http://wiki.linux.net.nz/. Comments are welcome (offlist in the first instance please). Regards Craig

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Artwork required
by Craig Box 10 Aug '05

10 Aug '05

Hi, Anyone with an artistic bent willing to do a bit of simple artwork for a website related to WLUG? Please contact me off list. Thanks, Craig

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Upcoming WLUG committee meeting (1 week today)
by Meeting Reminder bot 09 Aug '05

09 Aug '05

As per the WLUG charter, please note that there is a WLUG executive committee meeting one week from today. If you wish to get an item on the agenda for this meeting, please email it to secretary(a)wlug.org.nz. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- WLUG Committee Meeting To have something added to the agenda for this meeting, please email secretary @ wlug.org.nz. Provisional agenda: # Minutes from previous meeting # Matters arising # Correspondence # Treasurers report # General business

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Linux tutorial on hardware
by Ian McDonald 08 Aug '05

08 Aug '05

Hi there, There is quite a good tutorial gone online at: https://www6.software.ibm.com/developerworks/education/l-lpic1101/ You do need to register to read. This looks like material that can be used towards LPI exams. Regards, Ian

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RE: [wlug] suse linux goes community
by David Nicholls 08 Aug '05

08 Aug '05

9.3 seems to have bumped up its detection of hardware I'm pleased to say. It managed to detect an old scsi card that 9.1 & 9.2 both did not pick up. As a consequence I now have my tape drive & cdrwiter back... Yay! You can also choose a gnome install for suse (it's been my default choice since 9.0) although a few people up @ the uni seem to prefer the kde install. Cheers... david -----Original Message----- From: Oliver Jones [mailto:oliver(a)deeperdesign.com] Sent: Monday, 8 August 2005 10:55 pm Subject: Re: [wlug] suse linux goes community Hmmm... the System admins at work were waving around copies of SuSE 9.3 the other day. I only just installed FC4 on my Laptop and I'm happy enough with that. Certainly the Geekiest of the Sys Admins at work seemed to think SuSE was nice. Though he still uses primarily FC. I've toyed briefly with a SuSE 9.x Live CD just after I got my Laptop. It didn't detect all the hardware as well as FC3 did so I didn't dally with it long. Also, I'm not a big KDE fan. Good too see that Novell is being more open about SuSE development though. The whole Cathedral built from OpenSource bricks idea is not so good IMO.

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suse linux goes community
by David Nicholls 08 Aug '05

08 Aug '05

you might find this interesting... <http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050802-5162.html> SuSE goes community 8/2/2005 11:40:34 PM, by Ryan Paul <mailto:segphault(a)sbcglobal.net> The community dynamic perpetually stimulates the progress, development, and communication that enable distributions like Gentoo, Fedora, and Ubuntu to maintain their position at the pinnacle of Linux popularity. In an attempt to create a community of its own, Novell plans to announce <http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1843097,00.asp> the creation of an OpenSuSE community at LinuxWorld in San Francisco. Novell intends to make the entire body of SuSE Linux source code available to the public by the end of 2006 via its future OpenSuse.org web site. Novell believes that collaboration with the Linux community will substantially benefit Novell as well as Linux developers and consumers. Novell's open source marketing director, Greg Mancusi-Ungaro says "We're trying to make it easier for application developers to come to Suse, create forks, create packages and build the software." Source code accessibility will bring new developers into the fold, which could potentially yield exceptional new technologies. It will also broaden the base of active testers, which will enable Novell to squish bugs faster. Despite plans to make the new, fully open incarnation SuSE Linux widely available at no charge via Internet downloads and CD give-aways, Novell will also sell OpenSuSE in boxed sets. Distribution and availability are key in this game, and the marketing minds at Novell are well aware of it. According to Mancusi-Ungaro, Novell previously "made [SuSE] not widely available--just retail stores or a packaged download from an FTP. It's not the easiest way to gain a large user community." He says that Novell now plans to "give away thousands [of copies] at user group events." Migration towards a community model is always a very positive change for everyone involved. The value of a strong community is possibly best seen in Ubuntu (which means "I am what I am because of who we all are"), a widely popular Linux distribution that places an incomparable emphasis on collaboration. Ubuntu was named best community of the year, and best distribution of the year in the 2004 Ars Technica Linux Awards <http://arstechnica.com/columns/linux/linux-20050102.ars> and continues to be a favorite of the Linux.Ars crew. By establishing a well-knit community of users and developers, Novell hopes that SuSE will be able to achieve the level of success and notoriety attained by open distributions like Ubuntu. SuSE has always been a popular commercial distribution, and now by actively engaging its fans in the development process, it could become one of the new Linux leaders, both on corporate desktops and in the homes of individual users. Novell is already the proud custodian of countless imperative Linux technologies like Mono, Evolution, Hula and Beagle. OpenSuSE will give Novell even more leverage as it struggles against fierce competitors like RedHat and Mandriva. The notion of an open SuSE is not a new one. In May, Jason Perlow wrote an article for Linux Magazine in which he states: "It's pretty darn clear to me that to make mojo, SuSE Linux Professional needs to look deep into its roots and re-birth itself as a public, open-source project similar to Fedora." Now that Novell has heeded the call of the community, SuSE will have an opportunity to grow and evolve in ways that it never could before, and Novell will have many excellent opportunities to capitalize on increased community interest. David Nicholls Computer Support Consultant d.nicholls at waikato.ac.nz School of Science & Engineering / Dept of Chemistry The University of Waikato Hamilton, New Zealand

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Software Info, Wiki with file attachments?
by Andrew Thrift 08 Aug '05

08 Aug '05

Hi, Just wondering if anyone knows of a PHP based wiki that allows users to attach binary files to a page. e.g. a page called "ServicePack4" could have a description and attached a copy of Service Pack 4. Users would also be able to attach files themselves. I have a use for it internal to our company for keeping track of information relating to client sites. Regards, Andrew Thrift

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RE: [wlug] Announcing Planet WLUG
by Lindsay Druett 07 Aug '05

07 Aug '05

Looks cool :) I could get the person of the month up and running again :) > They're a great way to get a summarised view of what is happening in a > community. > > WLUG's planet can be found at http://planet.wlug.org.nz/ surprisingly > enough. > > If you have a a blog and want to be added let me know.

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Announcing Planet WLUG
by Matt Brown 06 Aug '05

06 Aug '05

Hi, WLUG now has a planet. If you've not heard of one of these before it's basically a blog aggregator. Some of the more famous planets are at http://planet.gnome.org/ http://planet.debian.org/ http://planet.ubuntu.com/ They're a great way to get a summarised view of what is happening in a community. WLUG's planet can be found at http://planet.wlug.org.nz/ surprisingly enough. If you have a a blog and want to be added let me know. Cheers -- Matt Brown matt(a)mattb.net.nz Mob +64 275 611 544 www.mattb.net.nz

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