Linuxers July 2006

linuxers@mm.ilug-bom.org.in

102 participants
166 discussions

Darwin and the further evolution of FOSS
by vvcrishna＠radiophony.com 02 Jul '06

02 Jul '06

Thought some of you might enjoy reading this well presented argument from Darwin (it's a bit long, so I have divided it in four parts, each numbered at the top of the post). Darwin (1) The values of freedom and openness are crucial to understanding itself, so that civilization and public welfare now depend on them, as I argue below. These values may find their best expression in the free and open source software (FOSS) movement, and the foresightful example of FOSS developers should now be beneficially applied to many other disciplines in the context of a global and public Internet. It is crucial that we occasionally take time to discuss the reasons _why_ we release our source code, and this is one of those occasions. There are good reasons for the freedom and openness which are characteristics of FOSS development, reasons which should receive wider attention now that they can be readily communicated to other arenas. The consequences of doing otherwise are often catastrophic. For example, it incomprehensible that Genentech could consider withdrawing a cheap cure for blindness (ARMD) from the market. http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/random-bits/2006-june/001374.html The mechanism of this drug is public knowledge. http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_id=14183567&forum_id=60… This abhorrent situation is a great example of the kind of thing that will happen if people don't get behind the values of freedom and openness that we are espousing. Please let Genentech know that you find what they are doing offensive. Publicize the mechanism so that new compounds can be obtained as replacements. For the future, continued vociferous public activism is required to prevent such outrages from occurring in the future. It becomes clear that the compounds which come from common roots, fruits, and vegetables are a shared human heritage and the free and open source of the future. Tannins are another interesting case in point, because as molecules, and as anti-oxidents, they are similar to resveratrol (resV), and that molecular mechanism has been anchored to the public domain via a prior art declaration. It is a so-called CR-memetic, which may increase healthy human longevity by many decades. Here are some links about it. Resveratrol mechanism posts from GNU-Darwin list http://proclus.gnu-darwin.org/gdposts.html CR protocol for human bodies http://proclus.gnu-darwin.org/bootstrap.html Here is some important recent news about it. http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?s=&act=print&client=printer&f=237&t=… It is exciting to suppose that people can get off the pharmaceuticals that they are taking with calorie restriction or CR-memetics. I personally am trying to get off the cholesterol drug Pravachol, a statin compound, starting a few of weeks ago. Write me, and I'll let you know how it turns out. From the article... "Fontana says ... evidence of "younger" hearts in people on calorie restriction, suggest that humans on CR have the same adaptive responses as did animals whose rates of aging were slowed by CR." I think that it is time to look at the tannins in tobacco leaves. There may be other treasures lurking there too. As you may be aware there is ample public research into any possible beneficial compounds that may be obtained from tobacco leaves. The mechanisms are there waiting to be discovered. If you want to post them, just reply to me and I'd be delighted to host them. The public establishment of prior art is a time-honed method of entering inventions into the public domain. We now have other methods at our disposal as well. If you are planning to establish prior art against future CR-memetic related patents, you might want to have a look at www.creativecommons.org. Perhaps it goes without saying at this point that you should please choose a license that provides for free and broad public access to your memetic. In that way you will assure that the public health is served by anchoring them to the public common, where they cannot be exploited by those who would withhold them for their own profit. The DRM situation is precisely analogous to this. Can you imagine doing science in a world where your ability to read and write your data is filtered through secret protocols that are hidden from you? I recommend the Defective By Design campaign to fight the outrage of DRM, which is incompatible with the scientific pursuit. http://www.defectivebydesign.org/

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Creative - or, uncommonly, licensed by M$
by vvcrishna＠radiophony.com 02 Jul '06

02 Jul '06

Lessig needs no introduction: a very well-reasoned and productive argument. The following was posted by Lawrence Lessig on June 21, 2006. http://www.lessig.org/blog/ Just got off the plane to Rio where we're holding the second iCommons iSummit, so this is a bit delayed. But today, Microsoft has released a free Office plug-in that enables you to mark Office documents (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) with Creative Commons licenses. This has been in the works for a while, and is an extremely cool development. The plug-in will modify the FILE menu, adding an item "Creative Commons" and then when selected, link the user out to the CC site to select a license to be inserted into the license. The first document licensed with the tool is a speech by Brazil's Culture Minister and supercool musician, Gilberto Gil, about tropicalism. (en) (pt). Before I got on the plane yesterday, I was on some press calls about the announcement. Many were surprised CC and Microsoft would work together. Ever the naive law professor, that surprise surprises me. Office is a tool for creating. Giving the creator more control over that creativity is a way to make the Office platform more valuable to creators. And by incorporating CC licenses, more valuable to the public. "But isn't it strange for MSFT and Lessig to team-up?" I was asked. Well, I have yet gotten the team jersey, but no, it isn't. Microsoft has been on the right side of a number of important issues spectrum, net neutrality, identity and I'm very glad they're on the right side of this issue too. Giving creators the tools to mark their creativity with the freedoms they intend it to carry is a fantastically good thing to do. "But it's just for the Windows platform, isn't it?" True enough. Now we need some enterprising sort to make a plug-in for Office on the Mac, as well as Garageband, OpenOffice, and many others. Let the competition begin.

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Ext4 Filesystem Development
by Sameer Bagwe 02 Jul '06

02 Jul '06

Proposal and plan for ext2/3 future development work Source: http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/6/28/454

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Re: [ILUG-BOM] big indian banks dont allow firefox
by Roshan 01 Jul '06

01 Jul '06

> A tip to all webdevs who apply for a job. If you > have a crappy website, > don't put it on your resume. How does one define a crappy website? Just curious to know, what an employer looks for when he's hiring a web developer. __________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new http://in.answers.yahoo.com/

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FW: Judge voids most of SCO claims
by Arun K. Khan 01 Jul '06

01 Jul '06

Some of you may have read about the 28/Jun/06 SCO v/s IBM hearing. For those who have not, here is a summary: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060630152635501 -- Arun Khan Linux is like a wigwam - no gates, no windows, apache inside

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Re: Re: [ILUG-BOM] Help with CGI
by ryan coelho 01 Jul '06

01 Jul '06

On Wed, 28 Jun 2006 Kenneth Gonsalves wrote : > >On 28-Jun-06, at 11:03 AM, ryan coelho wrote: > >>I have been wanting to configure cgi-bin with apache. I have done it before and now I am having no luck. >> I want to do this on Red Hat 9. > >afaik it is configured out of the box - what are you trying to do? > > >-- regards > >Kenneth Gonsalves Hi Kenneth / All, Thanks for your instant support. What I am trying to do is simply run the Linux O.S. commands using CGI + Apache. This is so I can run simple scripts and show output through HTML. So far I have done the following. a) In httpd.conf ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/local/apache2/cgi-bin/ b) Started Perl /usr/bin/perl -w & Now I am not exactly Knowing What to do . If someone can give me in simple steps a simple configuration and sample CGI script + I will be reading the links sent by you guys Regards Ryan Coelho >Associate, NRC-FOSS >lawgon(a)au-kbc.org > > > > >-- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers

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Linuxers July 2006