[4766] in linux-announce channel archive
Linux-Announce Digest #59
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Digestifier)
Mon Feb 28 16:13:07 2005
From: Digestifier <Linux-Announce-Request@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu>
To: Linux-Announce@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu
Reply-To: Linux-Announce@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 16:13:04 EST
Linux-Announce Digest #59, Volume #5 Mon, 28 Feb 2005 16:13:04 EST
Contents:
[SLUG] Suncoast LUG Meetings (paulf)
[ADMIN] comp.os.linux.announce report for Mon Feb 28 00:05:02 CST 2005 (cola-admin@stump.algebra.com)
The Free Software Foundation's Campaign for Free BIOS ("Frederick Noronha (FN)")
Theo de Raadt presented with the 2004 Free Software Award ("Frederick Noronha (FN)")
TuxMobil News 02/2005 (Werner Heuser)
Zlibc-0.9k - Transparent access to compressed files (Alain Knaff)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: paulf@quillandmouse.com (paulf)
Subject: [SLUG] Suncoast LUG Meetings
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 22:22:24 CST
*************************************
* Suncoast Linux Users Group (SLUG) *
* Meeting Schedule *
*************************************
ST PETERSBURG ********************************************
28 February 19:00-21:00 St Petersburg
(usually last Monday of each month)
******************************************************
* Guest Speaker: Taran Rampersad of linuxgazette.com *
******************************************************
St Petersburg Public Library, Main Branch
Auditorium
3745 Ninth Ave North
St Petersburg, FL 33713
727-893-7724
See http://www.suncoastlug.org/meetings.html#stpete for directions.
BRANDON **************************************************
3 March 20:00-22:00 Brandon
(first Thursday of each month)
Brandon Barnes & Noble
Brandon Town Center
Brandon, FL
See http://www.suncoastlug.org/meetings.html#Brandon for directions.
NEW PORT RICHEY ******************************************
5 March 13:00-15:00 New Port Richey
(first Saturday of each month)
New Port Richey Public Library
(second level meeting rooms)
5939 Main St.
New Port Richey, FL
See http://www.suncoastlug.org/meetings.html#npr for directions.
TAMPA ****************************************************
8 March 19:00-21:00 Tampa
(second TUESDAY of each month)
Hillsborough Community College
Dale Mabry Campus
Conference Center (far east of main campus)
4001 Tampa Bay Blvd
Tampa, FL
See http://www.hccfl.edu/pollock/Docs/DM-Map.htm for directions.
SARASOTA/BRADENTON ***************************************
15 March 18:00-21:00 Sarasota
(third Tuesday of each month)
Sarasota Coffee & Tea Co.
1419 5th St (5th and Central)
Sarasota, FL 34236
See http://www.sarasotacoffee.com/contactus.htm for directions.
DUNEDIN **************************************************
26 March 10:00-12:00 Dunedin
(usually fourth Saturday of each month)
Dunedin Public Library
Community Room A or B (see notice on site)
Dunedin, FL
See http://www.suncoastlug.org/meetings.html#dunedin for directions.
***********************************************************
ACTIVITIES:
Meetings include:
1) Presentation: As indicated.
2) Question & Answer Session.
3) Raffle and free stuff!
Bring your boxes, questions, problems, and plenty of good cheer!
(And don't forget to start your installs early!)
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------------------------------
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 00:06:19 CST
Subject: [ADMIN] comp.os.linux.announce report for Mon Feb 28 00:05:02 CST 2005
From: cola-admin@stump.algebra.com
Reply-To: cola-admin@stump.algebra.com
Subject: comp.os.linux.announce report for Mon Feb 28 00:05:02 CST 2005
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce
Date: Mon Feb 28 00:05:02 CST 2005
This is an automated report about activity of our newsgroup
comp.os.linux.announce. It covers period between the
previous report and the current one, ending
on Mon Feb 28 00:05:02 CST 2005.
Note that we do not report the number of articles cancelled
after they got approved, because the cancellations are done
manually. Typically messages get cancelled by requests of
posters themselves.
Lastly, the statistics below are skewed towards higher numbers because
there are always some test messages from moderators themselves who
approve and reject them to make sure that our robomoderator functions
properly.
Approved: 27 messages
Rejected: 9 messages
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------------------------------
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 11:48:17 CST
From: "Frederick Noronha (FN)" <fred@bytesforall.org>
Subject: The Free Software Foundation's Campaign for Free BIOS
http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/free-bios.html
Campaign for Free BIOS
Chips and Motherboards that support LinuxBIOS
The Free Software Foundation's Campaign for Free BIOS
In 1984 the GNU Project set out to make it possible to operate a computer
in freedom--to operate it without any non-free software that would deny
the user's freedom
At the time, the obstacle to this was simply the operating system. A
computer won't run without an operating system, but all the modern
operating systems of 1983 were proprietary, user-subjugating software.
There was no way to use modern computers in freedom. We set out to change
the situation by developing a free software operating system, called GNU.
When the kernel Linux became free software in 1992, it filled the last gap
in GNU. The combined GNU/Linux operating system achieved our goal: you
could install it in a bare PC, and run the computer without any installed
non-free software.
Strictly speaking, there was a non-free program in that computer: the
BIOS. But that was impossible to replace, and by the same token, it didn't
count.
The BIOS was impossible to replace because it was stored in ROM: the only
way to to put in a different BIOS was by replacing part of the hardware.
In effect, the BIOS was itself hardware--and therefore didn't really count
as software. It was like the program that (we can suppose) exists in the
computer that (we can suppose) runs your watch or your microwave oven:
since you can't install software on it, it may as well be circuits, not a
computer at all.
The ethical issues of free software arise because users obtain programs
and install them in computers; they don't really apply to hidden embedded
computers, or the BIOS burned in a ROM, or the microcode inside a
processor chip, or the firmware that is wired into a processor in an I/O
device. In aspects that relate to their design, those things are software;
but as regards copying and modification, they may as well be hardware. The
BIOS in ROM was, indeed, not a problem.
Since that time, the situation has changed. Today the BIOS is no longer
burned in ROM; it is stored in nonvolatile writable memory that users can
rewrite. Today the BIOS sits square on the edge of the line. It comes
prewritten in our computers, and normally we never install another. So
far, that is just barely enough to excuse treating it as hardware. But
once in a while the manufacturer suggests installing another BIOS, which
is available only as an executable. This, clearly, is installing a
non-free program--it is just as bad as installing Microsoft Windows, or
Adobe Photoshop, or Sun's Java Platform. As the unethical practice of
installing another BIOS executable becomes common, the version delivered
inside the computer starts to raise an ethical problem issue as well.
The way to solve the problem is to run a free BIOS. And our community has
developed free BIOSes--for instance, LinuxBIOS, which is a modified
version of the kernel, Linux. However, few computers can run them. Whereas
"PC clones" were and are quite similar, and fully-documented as regards
what the kernel and user-space programs need to know, the commands that
the BIOS must execute in order to initialize the machine are varied, and
in most cases secret. How to install a new BIOS is also secret on many
machines. And so far, most manufacturers have not given us the necessary
cooperation of providing these specifications. Some desktop machines can
run a free BIOS, but we don't know of any laptop that can do so.
The FSF uses laptops donated by IBM over the past few years. This was one
among several ways IBM cooperated with the GNU Project. But the
cooperation is incomplete: when I asked for the specifications necessary
to make LinuxBIOS run on these laptops, IBM refused--citing, as the
reason, the enforcement of "trusted computing"
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html Treacherous computing is,
itself, an attack on our freedom; it is also, it seems, a motivation to
obstruct our freedom in other ways.
Not all of our community perceives the non-free BIOS as an acute problem.
Much of our community supports the open source philosophy, which says that
the issue at stake is choosing a development model that produces powerful,
reliable software. The open source philosophy doesn't say that "closed
source" software is unethical, only that it is likely not to be as
reliable. People who hold those views might care about the loss of freedom
imposed by a non-free BIOS, because in their philosophy, freedom is not
the issue. For us in the free software movement, freedom is the main
issue; we have to solve this problem, whether they help or not.
How You Can Help
Since requests for manufacturers' cooperation have not solved the problem,
another approach is needed. Now we are asking you to help.
For instance, simply installing a new BIOS in the machine is a substantial
challenge. Most manufacturers don't publish the information on how to do
this. If you can figure this out for some recent model, especially a
laptop, that would be a substantial contribution.
Cooperation from the manufacturers would make that work unnecessary.
However, to gain cooperation we need to press for it.
The most uncooperative company is Intel, which has started a sham "open
source" BIOS project. The software consists of all the unimportant parts
of of a BIOS, without the hard parts. It won't run, and doesn't bring us
any closer to a BIOS that does run. It is just a distraction. By contrast,
AMD cooperates pretty well.
You can help our campaign by buying AMD CPU chips and not buying Intel,
and by publishing statements about what you're doing. Likewise, buy
motherboards that support free BIOS. See
http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/free-bios.html for information on which
companies cooperate and which models and motherboards are supported.
When you do this, tell your friends and your coworkers. And please tell
us, too--please write to bios@gnu.org to tell us that you have chosen what
to buy because it supports a free BIOS.
You can also help our campaign by writing to manufacturers such as Intel,
saying they ought to cooperate with a fully free BIOS. Calm but strong
disapproval, coupled with stating an intention to take action accordingly,
is more effective than venting rage. Please send a copy of your message to
bios@gnu.org, so we can monitor the support for this campaign. The more
mail they get, the more effect, so please do add your voice to ours.
We would like to offer positive inducements as well as pressure. Our idea
is to endorse, for a period of time, the first manufacturer in a given
category of machine (for instance, laptops) that cooperates fully with
free BIOS. To make this offer effective, we would like to collect a long
list of people who say they intend to make their choices according to our
endorsements. See http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/free-bios.html for how to
add your name to this campaign.
Once this campaign has built up strength, we will publicize offers of
endorsements and begin inviting manufacturers to accept them. We will ask
for your help at every step.
Created by peterb Last modified 2005-02-28 10:27 AM
FORWARDED VIA:
============================================================================
Frederick Noronha (FN) Nr Convent Saligao 403511 GoaIndia
Freelance Journalist P: 832-2409490 M: 9822122436
http://fn.swiki.net http://fn-floss.notlong.com
============================================================================
Where the needs of the world and your talents cross, there lies your
vocation. --Aristotle
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------------------------------
From: "Frederick Noronha (FN)" <fred@bytesforall.org>
Subject: Theo de Raadt presented with the 2004 Free Software Award
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 11:50:57 CST
http://www.fsf.org/news/fsaward2004.html
Theo de Raadt presented with the 2004 Free Software Award
* Send this page to somebody
* Print this page
FOSDEM - Brussels, Belgium - Saturday February 26, 2005. At the award
ceremony for the 2004 Advancement of Free Software.
FSF President and founder, Richard Stallman, presents this year's award to
Theo de Raadt.
For recognition as founder and project leader of the OpenBSD and OpenSSH
projects. Theo de Raadt's work has also led to significant contributions
to GNU/Linux and other BSD distributions. Of particular note is Theo's
work on OpenSSH. Theo's leadership of OpenBSD, his selfless commitment to
Free Software and his advancement of network security, were cited by this
year's award committee.
Every year, three finalists are nominated for the award by the Free
Software Community. This year's other two finalists were Andrew Tridgell,
recognized for his work as the originator of the Samba Project, and Cesar
Brod, recognized for his advocacy work and leadership for the advancement
of Free Software in Brazil.
Previous winners of the Free Software Award
* 2003 Alan Cox
* 2002 Lawrence Lessig
* 2001 Guido van Rossum
* 2000 Brian Paul
* 1999 Miguel de Icaza
* 1998 Larry Wall
This year's Award Committee:
* Suresh Ramasubramanian
* Raj Mathur
* Frederick Noronha
* Hong Feng
* Frederic Couchet
* Enrique A. Chaparro
* Vernor Vinge
* Larry Wall
* Alan Cox
* Peter H Salus
* Richard Stallman
The Free Software Foundation sponsors the annual Award for the Advancement
of Free Software, to recognize and honor those that have made a great
contribution to the progress and development of Free Software (free as in
freedom as defined in the Free Software Definition), through activities
that accord with the spirit of software freedom.
Any kind of activity could be eligible -- writing software, writing
documentation, publishing software, even journalism -- but whatever the
activity, we want to recognize long-term central contributions to the
development of the world of software freedom. "Accord with the spirit"
means, for example, that software, manuals or collections of them (online
or on CD) must be entirely Free. Work done commercially is eligible, but
we give this award to individuals, not to companies, organizations, or
teams. You can support the award and the work of the Free Software
Foundation here.
Created by johns
Last modified 2005-02-28 09:30 AM
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------------------------------
From: Werner Heuser <Werner.Heuser@web.de>
Subject: TuxMobil News 02/2005
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 12:54:20 CST
Hello,
a few days ago I have got a link to the 3,000th Linux laptop
installation report submitted. This is a milestone showing the
increasing popularity of the installation survey.
Please support our work by submitting news and Linux reports about
laptops, notebooks, PDAs, mobile phones and portable media players.
The "TuxMobil News Digest" for February 2005[1] has good news
for Linux PDA, mobile phone, laptop and notebook users. Here is an
extract of the most important or most interesting messages.
If you are missing news, applications or documents, don't
hesitate to contact me.
Werner Heuser
|=| Monthly Highlights
|=| Make your laptop shock resistent. Do you want to use a
CompactFlash card as the only disk drive in a laptop?
PCMCIA root fs boots from a floppy disk using a PCMCIA drive,
(I suppose you may boot from an USB stick, too), some laptops are
even capable to boot from a PCMCIA drive directly:
http://www.agol.dk/elgaard/pcmciaboot/
|=| Complete Monthly Digest
[1] http://tuxmobil.org/mobile_news_2005_02.html
|=| Daily RSS, Archive, Submission Form, Subscription
You may find the _daily_ TuxMobil News RSS/XML channel, the archiv and
a news submission form at http://tuxmobil.org/newsfeed.html
BTW: You may subscribe to the complete _monthly_ digest there, too.
--
|=| Werner Heuser = Berliner Str. 122 = D-13187 Berlin = Germany
|=| <wehe at tuxmobil.org> T. 0049 - (0)30 - 349 53 86
|=| http://TuxMobil.org UniX on Mobile Systems: HOWTOs,Software
|*| This is no time for phony rhetoric -- Lou Reed
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------------------------------
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 14:54:42 CST
From: Alain Knaff <alain.knaff@lll.lu>
Reply-To: alain@knaff.lu
Subject: Zlibc-0.9k - Transparent access to compressed files
A new zlibc release is available. This is mainly a maintainance
release. It's major benefit is compatibility with current glibc
version (workaround for the private __libc_open function, which should
cover most cases) and Solaris (tested on Solaris 10).
Zlibc allows executables to uncompress their datafiles on the fly. No
kernel patch, no recompilation of the executables and the libraries is
needed.
Zlibc (sources and RPM) can currently be found at the following
places:
http://www.tux.org/pub/knaff/zlibc
http://zlibc.linux.lu/
and soon at:
ftp://ibiblio.unc.edu/pub/Linux/libs/compression
There is an zlibc mailing list at zlibc@tux.org. You may subscribe to
it by sending a message with 'subscribe' in its body or subject to
zlibc-request@tux.org, or by visiting the following URL:
http://www.tux.org/mailman/listinfo/zlibc
The sha1sums are:
ca8fd4ea0590e976ce6ca24fe8055946ef33e944 zlibc-0.9k-1.i586.rpm
e9fb3a65a7ac7b1210f5a0236720ffec55cac086 zlibc-0.9k.lsm
5ba50a4c26aca6275d5fd5b7b8357a42ad66b936 zlibc-0.9k.tar.gz
How it works:
=============
This package overrides the "open" function (and other similar system
call functions) of the C library. this package uses the LD_PRELOAD
variable to redirect the dynamic linker to use the relevant functions
of uncompress.o instead of the shared library.
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------------------------------
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