Older blog entries for Burgundavia (starting at number 93)

QOTD
Quite easy - they'd be allowed to do that just like these people are allowed this. You may not like it personally, but that is beside the point. Ubuntu (and GPL and other free licenses) do not put a restriction on who can use it beyond following the license terms. Left-wing or right-wing; religious or rational; army or peace organization; chemical industry or Greenpeace; Israel or Palestine; Superman or Lex Luthor - all are allowed to use it freely if they follow the terms." - Jan Moren on ubuntu-devel

Add/Remove ..., reviewed

Seems somebody has finally taken notice of Add/Remove Programs, something that has only been in Ubuntu since 5.04. Read the review here.

However, this brings up an interesting point. Click and Run (CNR) in Linspire gets a lot of press. This is likely because CNR is marketed as a separate entity from Linspire (the distro). In fact, there was even talk of bringing CNR to Ubuntu. So how do we market Add/Remove in the same way? Should we "bundle" the Ubuntu repositories with Add/Remove under some umbrella brand? (Please email meas I have no comments on this blog)

Matt, I struggled with your Firefox issue for long time, but then I had an Epiphany.

And there shall be one less silo...

There is good news on the Linux printing front: The de jure standard of OpenPrinting (a part of the FSG/LSB) has merged with the de facto Linux printing information and driver clearing house, linuxprinting.org.

However, I still see one major issue: That of CUPS. While it is a good piece of software and the de facto standard on Unix machines, CUPS is dual licensed and thus the creators have little commercial interest in helping an initiative to make better Open Source printing drivers for they would cut into the sales of their own product, which they proudly proclaim has over 5300 drivers. Which this Linux Planet review mentions as a selling point of ESP Print Pro, the commercial version of CUPS, over CUPS. Is it time for one of the big Linux vendors, either Novell or Red Hat, to buy out Easy Software and end this dual licensed insanity?

With a , it appears the DCC has slid into history. As these sort of things usually do (think UnitedLinux or UserLinux), there is no formal end, merely radio silence. Likely Ian leaving for FSG and MEPIS moving to Ubuntu were major factors in killing it. However, despite it's acrimonious beginnings, I mourn the passage of the DCC. Any organzation that gets people out of their little silos and talking to each is a good thing.

Clue infects the CBC

In happier news, it appears we have our first mention of Ubuntu at the CBC. In an article on the EOL of Windows 98/ME, we have a mention of Linux, specifically Ubuntu. They even have feeds of some of their stuff in OGG format (lower left, above the listening guide).

While new and interesting ideas about Evolution appear stalled, a group of new applications have been sneaking up to show us all a better, faster, lighter email and calendaring app.

For starters, there is Tinymail, written by Philip Van Hoof. This is followed by Dates and Contacts, which I think are pretty self explanatory. So you say, what about the 148 lines of Python? Well, Chris Lord, who is working on Dates and Contacts for Opened Hand, glued all those three together with a mere 148 lines of Python. The source, just to prove it.

What about the backend? Well, Ross Burton, also of Opened Hand, has been working on an embedded Evolution-Data-Server. Not only does it talk dbus, it even takes up a fraction of the space.

And the best part? No data migration (I hope). For a test I am going to be trying out this awesome combination this weekend. All hail the next evolution of Evolution!

Seems somebody shut down a Toronto High Schools Linux lab. There is a great deal of confusion whether this is part of a general school board policy or simply the actions of a lone principal. Either way, it is sad to hear.

CLUE (The Canadian Association for Open Source) has an interview with the teacher, Ed Montgomery, here.

Seems some people in the GNOME camp are getting to enjoy the "service" from Continental. While my trip with them to New Orleans was fairly uneventful, I have noted that their flight attendants are rude, their 1-800 people are rude and unhelpful, and they seem to be allergic to the idea that people might need to change times and names on flights. Now contrast that with excellent and friendly service from Westjet, both with ticket changes and their flight attendants. Maybe these old airlines really just die...

New Orleans

I have arrived in the lovely city of New Orleans. The weather here is stinking hot and the city is mess. You can walk five blocks and see everything from abandoned buildings with the Katrina searchers tags on them to glitzy brand new Holiday Inns. Plus everybody here seems to have a new car. I guess all that FEMA money came in handy. More later...

As some of you may already know, I have been away for work at the Canadian Library Association's annual conference in Ottawa for the past 5 days. If you have emailed or otherwise tried to contact me and have not been able to reach me, I apologize. I am currently sorting through my email now.

Given there is no rest for the wicked, I am off to the American Library Association's annual conference in New Orleans this Wednesday and I will be away until the 2nd of July.

All this travel means I haven't done much on the Ubuntu front nor can I say that I will be able to respond any message is any sort of timely fashion. On the flip side, the number of libraries DiscoverStation (and thus Linux) is growing! Now I just need to convince my company to base off of Ubuntu. Oh, and stay tuned for something interesting from my company and Ubuntu. (or just read dapper-changes )

It seems a some people are confused about my previous blog post. I just wanted to clarify a few things:

1. This is mostly a social issue, not a technical one
2. As such, even if an existing tool is not perfect, if you can get the people that make it onboard to help write an NG version, you have won. Hence the reference to system-config and Fedora.
3. I don't want the world to be written in Python. I mentioned Python because Ubuntu has a love affair with it, which naturally attracts more Python people and thus we can more easily maintain such code.
4. Each distro having its own configuration tools is complete madness. Note that our friends in the KDE world are just as stuck. (although Guidance might go a long way to solving this)

I didn't want to offend anybody and I am sorry if I did. It is just frustrating to see all this duplication when there are so many other cool things to be working on.

Cheers :)