- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Introducing Software Freedom Day 2005!
by Craig Box 07 Jun '05

07 Jun '05

Henrik Nilsen Omma writes.. Hello, Mark September 10th 2005 on your calendar! It is the second annual Software Freedom Day. We will be staging a range of events around the world to raise public awareness of Free and Open Source Software. This is a global grassroots effort, and we invite the Free and Open Source Software community around the world to join in the celebration and help spread the word! Over 70 teams joined the celebration in 2004, organising a range of events at schools, universities and public places. This year, we have every opportunity to grow and make an even greater impact on community awareness. What will happen? ----------------- You may celebrate the day locally however you would like, but we encourage you to engage in some sort of outreach activity to spread the FOSS message in your community. For example, you could organise a seminar or an installfest or simply invite people to meet up in the park for a picnic. If you want to participate, please stop by the SFD website [1] and register a team so that others in your area can find you and hook up. Our website and wiki have pictures and reports from some of the SFD2004 events, so you can get an idea of what worked well. If you participated last year, please join us again, and please share your experiences with the new teams. How does it work? ----------------- As last year, we will prepare special promotional materials for distribution by the SFD teams. In 2004 this included ISO images of a custom version of TheOpenCD and a custom version of Knoppix along with some printed materials. Due to our budget constraints we were only able to produce CD covers while the local teams did a great job of burning their own CDs and copying materials. This year we will create a single CD containing both a Live Linux image and some Windows-FOSS for this purpose. We have funding from our primary sponsor for up to 15.000 of our custom CDs shipped out to 150 teams world-wide! We In addition, other supplies (such as t-shirts and balloons) will be available, but the quantities and distribution process of these items is not yet determined (depends in part on the availability of additional funding). By June 15th we will provide a simple supply request form where established teams can request CDs and possibly other materials for SFD. Be sure to get in your application for supplies before the July 1st deadline so we can get the supplies produced and distributed in time for the event. What can I do? -------------- The best way to participate is to start forming a SFD team and start planning local celebrations. Make sure you register as an official team [1] so you can apply for sponsorship of materials. We also need help with lots of things on the global level: Writing: We would appreciate well-written articles about SFD or about FOSS in general that can be submitted to local media or distributed on the day. Form letters that can be sent to schools, businesses government organisation, etc. will also be useful. Material Design: We have some artwork already, but we need designs for the SFD 2005 CD labels and covers, as well as T-shirts, balloons, stickers, or even temporary tattoos! If you or your friends have some artistic inclinations feel free to pop into the SFD Forums to share your ideas and your work. Donations: SFD funds cover the costs of material and logistics support that we provide. The more funds we have available, the more material and logistical support we can provide for teams world-wide. So don't feels shy about donating :) Any surplus funds can be used for advertising in the week before the event. Donations can be made online at the SFD website. Getting in touch ------------------ Please stop by our forum or join #sfd on freenode IRC. We have set up a temporary mailing list here [2] where people can hook up, but we will provide more regional lists as the needs arise. Best wishes and happy Software Freedom Day 2005! - The SFD Team [1] http://softwarefreedomday.org/ [2] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/theopencd-sfd2005

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RE: [nzlug] Sarge is out
by Michael Honeyfield 06 Jun '05

06 Jun '05

w00t.. now ubuntu, linspire and libranet will be able to update their base.. oh wait.. ;) -----Original Message----- From: James Clark <jamesc(a)bofh.co.nz> Sent: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 10:05:11 +1200 To: Waikato Linux Users Group <wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz>, nzlug <nzlug(a)linux.net.nz> Subject: [nzlug] Sarge is out http://www.debian.org/News/2005/20050606 James. ------------------------------------------------------------------- To remove yourself from this list, email nzlug-request(a)linux.net.nz with "unsubscribe" in the body of the message.

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Website Redesign
by Matt Brown 05 Jun '05

05 Jun '05

The more observant of you may notice that the WLUG Wiki is sporting a fancy new look. We'll probably roll this theme out across the other resources (Library / Webmail, and Planet WLUG (coming soon)) when we get some spare time. As with all new things there might be a few bugs lurking in the new theme, if you spot any please let me know. While I am semi-interested in comments on the new layout, I'm going to have a very low tolerance for comments like "the fonts look ugly" or "the fonts are too big" unless you're actually interested in making a positive contribution to improving the situation (and that generally means the email includes a diff for the .css that you think fixes the problem). Thanks to John, Perry and the others who have helped in the implementation of this new theme. Graphic design credits go to my wife Katalina. Kind Regards -- Matt Brown matt(a)mattb.net.nz Mob +64 275 611 544 www.mattb.net.nz

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Kiaora CD is 'piracy' ?!!
by zcat 05 Jun '05

05 Jun '05

I gave my wife a few spare copies of Kiaora CD to sell on Trademe (mostly just to get the name out there) and they were pulled. When I asked why, we got the following reply; Dear Susan, Thanks for contacting us. You are not allowed to list CDs containing programs that you do not hold the copyright for. These CDs contained a number of programs freely available on the internet. CDs of this nature are considered piracy and will be removed. If you have any further questions or if I can be of any further help please do not hesitate to contact me. Regards, Sophie I sent a fairly grumpy reply back citing the GPL, RMS's page on 'selling free software' and so on, but now Sue's quite upset and refuses to have anything more to do with it. What else can I do. TM seems to have some 'very confused' ideas of what constitutes piracy, and I have a hard time calmly explaining the issues when I feel like they're calling me (or Sue) a criminal and removing perfectly legitimate listings with no compensation. -- Disclaimer: Any disclaimer attached to this message may be ignored.

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Gnome 2.10
by Oliver Jones 01 Jun '05

01 Jun '05

Hmm. After all that fricking around with Synaptic I can hardly notice the difference between Gnome 2.10 and 2.8. *sigh*. There are a few cool new applets, CPU freq monitor, trashcan, etc. And I think some of the games use SVG for graphics instead of PNG's (though I'm not sure if 2.8 didn't have that already). It doesn't seem as stable... in some areas. Though the package quality of the nrpms.net Gnome RPMS is not so great so this is probably more a problem with the RPMS than GNOME 2.10 as a whole. There are a few nice new apps. Seahorse (GPG encryption key manager), Evince (Cairo based PDF & PS viewer) considerably slower at rendering than gpdf :( but does provide nice thumbnails in Nautilus. Of course nothing beats Acrobat for rendering PDF but Acrobat takes an age to start. "Fast task switching", aka starting a new X session on another VT, is kinda neat. Remote desktop sharing would be handy in some cases. Coaster is an extremely simple CD/DVD burner which looks good/useful. GnomeBaker on the other hand looks like the startings of a K3B replacement, but with not as many features yet. Other than that, not a whole lot of difference. Of course the RedHat menus have gotten all buggered up with weird entries. Mainly from 3rd party rpms. As for some of the mono apps... well I've not played with them too much. Had a brief look at Muine, tomboy, f-spot and Beagle. Beagle will be cool. But it is quite rough around the edges at the moment. f-spot is good but 'alpha'-ish. Muine will be excellent when it supports more than mp3. Nearly all my music is in .m4a (AAC) format for my iPod. Muine uses GStreamer as a backend but GStreamer as shipped by NRPMS.net doesn't support AAC. Ah well... life on the bleeding edge... ;) Regards -- Oliver Jones » Roving Code Warrior oliver(a)deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 » www.deeperdesign.com

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RE: [wlug] I must be mad, aka Gnome 2.10.
by Craig Box 01 Jun '05

01 Jun '05

Oliver Jones wrote: > I've currently having Synaptic download Gnome 2.10 and all the latest > Mono RPM flashness from nrpms.net. I must be mad.... mad mad mad I > tell you. I almost feel the breakages now... ;) > > My system will be so heavily patched with 3rd party RPMS it will > barely feel like FC3 anymore. ;) You realise that FC4 is 5 days away, right? (As is Sarge, for that matter!) Craig

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I must be mad, aka Gnome 2.10.
by Oliver Jones 01 Jun '05

01 Jun '05

I've currently having Synaptic download Gnome 2.10 and all the latest Mono RPM flashness from nrpms.net. I must be mad.... mad mad mad I tell you. I almost feel the breakages now... ;) My system will be so heavily patched with 3rd party RPMS it will barely feel like FC3 anymore. ;) Regards -- Oliver Jones » Roving Code Warrior oliver(a)deeperdesign.com » +64 (21) 41 2238 » www.deeperdesign.com

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Acceptable use of the WLUG Mailing List
by Meeting Reminder bot 31 May '05

31 May '05

The WLUG Mailing List is the discussion-list extension of the Waikato Linux Users Group (Incorporated). As such, we expect members of this list to adhere to the principles espoused in the official WLUG Charter[1], in particular, Rule 6, which covers the activities on this mailing list. While this is an Acceptable Use Policy, the WLUG Committee do recognise the need for informal discussion among list members, and draconian administration is not the goal here. Please keep in mind, however, that your comments to this list do represent the WLUG, and while it is good to be seen as an organisation with a sense of humour, some comments may do major harm to our credibility as a serious advocate of GNU/Linux and all things Free Software/ Open Source related. List discussion should * be honest * accentuate the positive, without hyperbole or blatant misrepresentation * maintain a reasonable level of spelling and grammar * not indulge in ad hominem attacks * not continue inflammatory or abusive threads * not be unprofessional or petty, especially with respect to the names of other software companies * not promote or denigrate political, cultural, or religious views * not indulge in marketing or advertising, other than on a private sale basis, or advertising of jobs - which may be announced once only * not reproduce copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder * not defame any person or organisation Posters who consistently violate these guidelines will be dealt with at the discretion of the List Maintainer. If you feel you have been unfairly dealt with, you have recourse to any member of the WLUG Committee[2]. Certain mailing list etiquette should also be maintained: * please use only plain text (not HTML) * reply inline or below when quoting, rather than on top * trim quotes (don't reply quoting a 10 page message with a single line of reply) If you have any questions, start reading at http://www.gweep.ca/~edmonds/usenet/ml-etiquette.html. These points have been established over a long time on this list. If you want to question them, please do it off list. As list users, use your discretion when pulling people up over etiquette - please reply off list, and if there is a serious breach, the list administrator will probably have dealt with it off-list already. [1] http://www.wlug.org.nz/WlugCharter [2] http://www.wlug.org.nz/WlugCommittee

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Bug in Wanted Wikis process?
by Ian McDonald 31 May '05

31 May '05

Hi there, One thing I have noticed at http://www.wlug.org.nz/WantedWikis is that some of the entries shouldn't be there. e.g. CategoryDialUpISP which is only referenced in http://www.wlug.org.nz/CategoryIsp but there it has a ~ in front of it to say that it is not a Wiki Word. There are lots more of these to be found.... Is this a known bug or just not been fixed? Ian

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FW: Help in setting up linux
by Craig Box 30 May '05

30 May '05

RMC Donnelly [rmcdonnelly(a)linuxmail.org] writes... Hi Im looking for some help in the Waikato area and Im hoping one of your members can be of service. Please excuse me if I say all the wrong things, or call stuff by the wrong names as all of this stuff goes way over my head. The problem I have is this: my partner has just installed open office on my mums pc which is good, but we live on the Kapiti Coast and she lives in Thames. We will courier her pc up to her, but this is where the problem starts. We need someone who is familiar with it to plug it in and configure it properly (I think thats what my partner said has to be done??) Is there any one of your group who lives close to Thames or is able to help us out with this? We would be willing to pay for their time and travel. My mum will need a little help in getting started on it too - how to do the basics and how to get onto the internet - shes 78 and is used to using only Microsoft products. We got rid of the microsoft stuff as Andy (my partner) says its unstable and full of security risks. Are you able to put a call out to your members and see if anyone is able to help us. Thanks for your time and once more please excuse my stupidity and ignorance - Im not the techy one in this household (as you probably have noticed LOL) Cheers Ruth Donnelly

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