GIMP, Firefox, Marble, Gallium3D, BenNanoNote; a whole world beyond the mirror

GIMP, Firefox, Marble, Gallium3D, BenNanoNote; a whole world beyond the mirror Andreas Posur Auflage 1 Version

08/2010 0.0008

Foreword 2 1. Starting our voyage 4 1.1 Open Office 5 1.2 Firefox 6 1.3 GIMP 7 1.4 Marble 8 1.5 Gallium3D 9 1.6 Ben NanoNote 10 1.7 Of cars and engines 11 1.8 The farer worlds and human's meetings 12 1.9 Of GNUs, short poems, suns and "libre" ­ apples. 13 1.10 Recursive Acronyms and and their consequences 14 1.11 From Windows­Assistant to the full writeboard 15 1.12 Distributions and other weirdnesses inside a car 16 2. Overview of libre projects, their profits, and their makers 17 2.1 Diversity is good (or: Why there are 3 surfaces?) 18 2.2 KDE (Sorted by times of their development) 19 2.3 GNOME 20 2.4 XFCE/LXDE 21 2.5 Window­Manager (Fluxbox, Openbox, ICEVM etc) 22 2.6 Hardwareproblems (and what are doing FOSS­Folks about it?) 23 2.7 Receiving help (and posting the right questions to the right people) 24 2.8 A little FOSS project­knowledge (from first commit to Upstream) 25 2.9 Humanitarian FOSS (An optimal connection?)

26 2.10 Libre Culture and politics (A more difficult thing...)27 2.11 The 4 Waves of Free Culture Adoption 28 2.12 The year of the Linux Desktop (Proposal: Lifetime Vaporware Award) 2.13 Games and Pr0n0graphy under Linux as driver of innovation 30 2.14 Adobes manifestating nightmare 31 2.15 Fluiding of democracy with Liquid Democracy 32 2.16 Hackerspaces and Coworking (Meta) 33 3. Libre Culture and its "Products"34

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GIMP, Firefox, Marble, Gallium3D, BenNanoNote余 a whole world beyond the mirror Andreas Posur Foreword This series of different terms was chosen in to be chronological. Most of you (dear readers) shouldn't be able to link the tiniest amount of this list together, (besides the chronological hint, which I gave before). Not only time is important here, other relations are important too.

What exactly is this: The mirror, that guides us to worlds far away? Frankly said, everything what's hampering us of seeing the whole picture. A better world would be (in my humble opinion) the human horizon.

Especially the often neglected field of computer soft足and hardware horizon is meant here. Our planet does know as a whole just one computer software: Windows: But that is so fundamentally wrong, because of the existence of not just personal computers (pc) as calculating and computing slaves, there are macs (got his name from a famous Scottish apple) and all the other things out there for Millions of households.

Why I should explore anything?, I need my stuff only for working and if it does not it what it is supposed to do, I'll return it, and the company gets fire below their feet, if they're failing to fix the problem!.

Why that strategy isn't that clever (even harmful) is, I'll come to those things later on.

Most of Mankind will be struggeling to understand this very book, I didn't get it for years and I am still in the beginning of understanding.

This book which has the title: Cathedral and the Bazaar...written by an Eric Raymond (Who again is this...?)

"CATB" covers methods of devloping and deploying software, and exactly on shoulders of giants like him, are the lines written, which I want to provide to my readers.

Additionally, problems that occur when discovering new worlds will be addressed to.

With that feeling I do wish all "Discoverers a pleasant journey and many precious experiences on the side of that way..... (advantage: a Computer, to check everything out) Andreas Posur (Founder of the World Of Kyeldon Project)

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1. Start As this approach should be guiding and leading to a long journey, it is necessary doing that with stages. Because of this fact I am going to try to be as long as I can in "sight" of old known terrain of most readers.

I am going to start with something, of which you perhaps have heard of: terms "Open Office" and Firefox.

If there is a program for all offices worldwide, it is if you look at the pure numbers of installations the (commercial) Office­Suite of the worldwide reknown company from Redmond(Washington). and when now people want to browse the internet, they will do it mostly from a platform called "Internet Explorer" and other products from the Microsoft Universe...

If there's a program for all agencies throughout the whole world, it is because of the raw installation count of some "tienda de las imagenes" of a company not explicitly mentioned here (called like the brickstone), and when those people want to access the internet, they'll do so, most of the time with an application what is called like a typically african thing (What one can do with animals and large amounts of money).

Are there kinds of hard working women/men out there, who do buy computers, but aren't hard working individuals or even ad/marketing agencies? And if true what does that have to do with me/my life?

Everything starts again with the internet, this network what combines several important interwebs world wide (eg: nsn) together. That "net" acts very different from what people are trying to make of it, assuming wrong things based on false predicates.

Also I am not an expert by any means, actually I am still learning (perhaps. forever), what the wonderful possibilities, but also the inherental dangers of world wide simutaneous communications may mean to us as societies.

For now we are possessing an Office­application worth 500$/ 200£ ­ 1800$/600£, a "View"­the internet software for free, a Allround DTP­Graphics solution for ad­agencies on totally strange Systems for more than 2000 € and last but not least the authoring of Internet pages here.

If Money is no problem, everything is wonderful and man/woman may start feeling comfortable new software or her/his licensed Software. Now not that many folks have the financial ressources to spend a little "treasure on software licensing", and these people are using, was cracked than than made accessible for everyone, (illegal though) or sb is buying a software version of the functionality (still functioning), what is then crippled and limited...a bit sad, if Money can't raised to obtain a full time job offer, today it is required that, one intervenes for a (more or less depleting) full time employment which is to obtain.

Those men will be thrown out of this process, it is called "Digital Gap".

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What then to do?

Well: A lot of Things, but read at first: There are "Surrogates"足Alternatives, Nobody does to have to buy the full price product. If no money can be taken to afford such software, it's really getting difficult. But even here one has man in the mean time a real (getting better all time) chance to Software and to its own right to education..... (what do you think, are we going to fuel our knowledge desire?)

First of all our "Surrogate" to M.... O.... is called "Libre Office.org" and orignated from the Hamburg Ltd. "Star Division" which did sell out this company to the one which is named like "Stanford", those company whose name sounds like an university network. (To be sold then, to a company whose name sounds like "the seer".). Who played than a bad trick on it, gaving it further, (Finally a last "Fork" was made (together with the new found foundation).

And here even the first word "LIBRE" has here a somewhat centralized meaning: This was a "fork" of the pre足existing openoffice.org Software architecture, and the OpenOffice.org Community which turned in to a "Libre Office Community".

Responsible was herefor, that other deciders haven't been too comfortable with those world from which I want to report here. Reiterating Software Code to the process and get and peoples attention, to bugfix, extend, enhance...

Why on Earth should sb do stuff like this? (Nodbody received money for doning it.).

The more people fostering around the code, securing, hardening it, the more safe did the farther became. (Even more colourful and brilliant).

Libre Office is in fact a M$ Office Alternative... good where are lying the main differences?

This thing was built for running under the most exotic CORE platforms, but significantly slower (at first) and then when started slickier. They aimed within a funding campaign for 50.000 and they got them after four days.

There are in fact another differences which one should simply point to. But I'll mention those only when decent terms have been explained.

LibreOffice.org is in the comparison of a new office superstar (still) known by just 1 in 10 people. But now we're heading to a location where it looks different: The "Internetbrowsers" 5

The viewers for the worldwide net, everyone is calling Internetbrowser: For years battles were fought to determine who or what guides the "surfers" through the worldwide web, in 1995 the Supertanker won the race and began to each computer (PC) also its internetbrowser (IE...(mostly to molest the concurrent product)).

But whith the last breath Netcscape Communications Inc. opened up the sourcecode of their browser and from that another success story arose (phoenix), which scattered (SoftwareWorld) in their self­resemblance wearing the code name phoenix, (Unfortunatly to change soon). I'm reporting the "sky­rocketeer", which dumped all versions of the commercial viewing programs from Redmond in 2010. And is going to raise some steep competition with an internet viewer, which is called like a metal.

Firefox <­Phoenix <­ Mozilla <­ Netscape Communicator Many things were (about the FireFox) were reported, I'm hesitating here to tell again I want to only point the readers attention to a video here, (which was licensed to share), it is called: "REBEL CODE" Firefox is OPEN SOURCE as equipped with an important foundation in the background, which backs the backs of the volunteer developers. The next source for thier success and riseup is here also the integration of a search engine, whose discoverers named it after a such a huge giant number.

Firefox is not only going to be polished by developers from the whole world, in fact companies are founded that push up Firefox with so called "Extentions" and then perhaps earn with that support for those extensions.

One may notice now, that the innvoation speed is far nore high, than the colleagues around the Chief Executive Operator Steve Ballmer but also Steve Jobs.

Now (in regular basis), at dev stage an open source projects infrastructure is showing up, and finally the last proprietary entrepreneur profits from those developments. And not only the ordinary enhancements are incredible. Technologies of other "products" from the same in­ house are usually very well integrated and speeding up development pace . appr. 30 Million (not bundled) Firefox downloads there are meanwhile and this seemed to be the very Beginning.

The browser of the coloured company with the big number is now located in Germany in the third place surprisingly of the company the browsers with the ad agencies. That had surprised me.

Well, where office applications are mostly mono­culture, everything looks meanwhile very different. Our voyage starts now....

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GIMP.... (Der GIMP, die GIMP, das GIMP?) Well, slow here: where do we come across the word?

Every time if we get to know for a "free" replacement of the (fotoladen)­application of the "ad­ agency company" with the stone name. Of course they're using, mainly MACs), due to the seldomness of that events we're researching for a nice replacement without further costs.

Lost found. Name: Paint.NET (available on all windows machines and a feature list like a commercial "image editing" (that discipline) program). Paint.NET is developped open source and performs not too bad.

But what would you have done 5 years ago where there was no Paint.NET on the horizon? If you wanted to have some impressive features for images (hopefully free) ?

Woodstock: There was only GIMP (free and libre) Well ­ to get a loong story short: "GIMP" originally spoken: "the GIMP"!

GIMP as very often in this book a more or less complicated acronym of names like General Image Manipulation Program/ and because of changing the license to GnuPublicLicense it is called now; GNU Image Manipulation Program.

GNU...GNU? well, yes GNU is NOT Unix (Originally intended Software like Windows or MacOS) Then what is GIMP is able to do exactly? To tell the truth here, in the humble beginnings not that much, but this stuff quite stable and, consequently "different", because it came from the far grounds, where Software is made by everyone.

In the beginning nobody exept some "very geeky/smart guys" could use and even develop it.

Because of this it took some time until "Wilber", das GIMP Mascot got a little more known.

Well, let's sum up here; in the past GIMP was hardly to use und one had to move to a difficult voyage in unknown areas....(wildwest­comparisons here are intentional).

But how is it today? what has changed...

Meanwhile software "galaxies" but software galaxies did enttangle themselves, means, that you can start immediately if wanted without leaving the own "home galaxy".

GIMP is very likely going to be a "professional" program, which most people are often using, (the last persons, who want to use this program might be ad­agencies). There are now some books about this in "Joe­Reader" book stores.

Alrighty then, our journey is still limited to our home galaxy but not for long...

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Marble (why is this mentioned here?)

Our company with the six coloured characters and the mathematics­spleen had meanwhile some things, which others would like to have too. Although this company has some great amount of money around the world to make it a little more colorful.

For example: a globe, which can be used by everybody (to get a broader view of the world), additionally it does not cost anything. Because of having this company that amount of money, they can afford at times offering those products without costs.

As some proverb say; not everything sparkles, shines and if (not exactly You, but other individuals) want to have data (of that globe) e.g for a non­governmental­ organisation with information and onto include their website for others directy and letting participate in those data, then our colourful company denies it, prohitbits it, because of they had "high" development costs, but the organisation (which needs those data) has unfortunatly nothing to it.

Because of this reason, was founded, what commonly develops a map for everyone, usable for 3rdparty developers, even for free for their purpose (third parties included here). This map grows rapidly with that funny name: OpenStreetMap. Well...no..., this is not (that) much to do with the name (of the Software) "Marble", but this is to happen soon. At this point of time, you simply cannot install Marble right away into you home base: but this is going to be made more easy soon..

For now one has to get used to marble, traveling to the another world and to a cultural shock as well.

To get things straight: Marble is an Open­Source globe which is with help of coders worldwide & developers brought to life, and here a possible application is: an open "street map" ;­). And lately "OpenRouteService" was added to our globe.

More of that is possible to add certain different layers to it. Vegetation hin zur thermal situation of this world which surrounds us.

Not only Marble is made mature within a broader group of professionally working developers, but as well as the GIMP and all the other representatives of their kind are going to be shaped by a community anywhere inside these Worlds far away.

This software is also part of a software for education with in parts academic aspirations where very motivated people are to look about such programs and functions.

Marble itself has now reached the first "birthday" and therfore is in the eyes of most PC­Users a fullblown Program, what a NON­Guru could want to use then.

Marble has because of this open development process the whole professional enthusiasm some very neat and hopefully soon integrated potential to show which might have a much bigger impact soon.

Now we're leaving our home galaxy and cross unknown territories!

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Gallium3D Well, here we are ... but WHERE might that be, and where should we head to?

Here again some short background infos: Gallium is a piece of software which distributes functions and possibilities to other programs.

Such thing is a "library" in technical terms Well, at least we know what basically a library is, and that Gallium3D would be something like that... but why the heck do we need that? Most of commonly developed (commercial) software programs have such things with them and MANY from them! But here everything is about a special library; ­ which had been mentioned earlier. .... Gallium ­> Chemistry? says nothing to me,..... but hey; I know 3D, from computer games, cinema movies etc....

Yes exactly, this is totally the right direction for the solution. computer games (e.g: in 3D) are nowadays mostly under windows where they are developed most and are famous like (more or less) CocaCola. Movies have the same technology in them.

Under MacOS it is some sort of worse regarding graphical support of the 3d­graphics card (e.g graphics processor).

As an example exactly this graphics processor is an example for hardware, which isn't that optimal supported. Included, but where? In GNU, which had for that long time no "engine", and till the devs had made the conclusion to build an engine, which somebody could use. Exactly where development is open and many people are profiting from it, the underlaying buisiness model could evolve then., but making money out of it is more than difficult..

Therefore certain hardware will always be probably in the next forseeable future very badly supported and the free community had to find a way to write software, for which simply there were no commercial drivers. And some companies played hardball to be sure that no software would be there and not authorized.

For the correct driving (remote) of two/threedimensional software, a whole new language had been created. BANG! Here comes the "Open Graphics Language" ­ OpenGL and because of that only being the chassis, they needed like under windows a reduced set of instructions for saving time.

Now one can easily point this alltogether in the right direction, that this language with the reduced set of instructions (which had been created for windows), of course not heading to the free worlds. There had to be an alternative. (Anything what worked).

Result is exactly die that 2D/3D Graphics Library "Gallium3D" which is under heavy development right now could gains some "real" traction in the next future.

This library is probably going to be included into all open systems.

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The far grounds began to change: Embodied matter, was what was locked up before, expensive too, and teuer, seemed to open up as well: Ben NanoNote What's Ben? (Ben: hebrew for son, or arabic ibn...)

Nope, that was non­sense here; běn It's chinese and means beginning.

Beginning of what? Beginning of something, which came from the far grounds, and should be used within our little world too.

In the beginning it was, that one could link to a tiny little laptop, but it was far more than that.

The interior had beens served to connect computer networks with computer networks.

(At least the software for this).

NanoNote was developed further.

Further to something, what isn't interesting to most people at all, but for a tiny group of specialists yes!, and those people are doing awesome stuff with our little odd "laptop". And here included a special warning: This "beginnning" device really was only the start of a bigger something, namely "copyleft/open hardware". As proposed earlier, I'll get back to this later on.

Then what can this little thing do better than all the rest?, For now nothing, but its potential is impressive.

Far grounds are getting more and more space and competing for the best of everyone, where everybody is profiting from everybody else, and actually everything is shared...

There it is possible, simply to print out, what had been forgotten a while ago in the "DIY"­shop.

No matter if computer, cellphones, printers, cameras or similar, the far grounds are coming nearer very fast (exponentially fast).

Communities (not really wealthy) are coming together and revolutionize our understanding of producer and consumer.

Even with things, which were WAY to expensive, is that principle used. Who could have been imagined that, with that approach even cars could be designed?

"For the world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air."

(Taken from: J.R.R Tolkien: the lord of the rings III, return of the king, chapter: Many partings: Well, let's push further: the (provisorical) engine of the GNU...

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Of cars and engines GNU is the "angedachte" operating system, what didn't want to be like it's older siblings.

A little explanation here: the car is the operating system and the engine of it the corresponding operating system core.

What's that why I have to know that?

Well, with Windows: the 足 "Kernel" is working invisibly under the surface and with our special "OS" his elder sibling it wasn't that different. Name of the Predecessor was UNIX. That was derived from the name Multics and even Multics had ancestors.

Well, let's go to UNIX and its engine "GNU" first. THE "GNU"足 hint: GNU's Not Unix, that's GNU written without acronyms, wasn't usable really, at least not it is like today. The engine "car" was missing. What should we do then?

Best thing is: waiting. What for? for a young finnish cs student, builds one, because it needs something similar like the car GNU...

This fine young finnish student started "just for fun" an engine, which the discoverer of GNU then could use finally, to be able to start his/her own concept.

Name of the engine LINUX (originally FREAX) I don't know if our readers did hear the name linux, at least has that Microsoft heard and ihn (with that license) in connection with cancer. Similar to the open letter to Hobbyists "offene Brief , which circled around for some time.

Therefore has community towards the far grounds and those people are of the opinion not to need Microsoft anymore. At first it was difficult, because linux not looking that good as it looks today, but this has changend dramatically now.

And the thing that no one may steer or drive with an engine alone, especially drive comfortable, some interiors had to be established here to satisfy the higher expectations. Meanwhile there is not much where LINUX wasn't heard yet, more and more authorities begin to think about the car with the fast engine and some neat improvements incl. accessories to it.

From a tiny zippo bag to SuperComputing (Quantum computing) Linux is used on most broad range of IT systems ever.

A recent study says, that most Linux Kernel Developers are employed within companies and are getting paid the work on the Linux Kernel.

The far grounds and the meetups of the people...

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The far grounds and the meetups of the people...

As I said before the far grounds came nearer and more and more people settled there.

People are meeting at "mass events, like LinuxTag" (as booth presenter, community­member but interested beginners too)...

People are meeting meta­project Special happenings like the Gran Canaria or Berlin "Desktop Summit of KDE, GNOME (I referring to that later)"...

People are meeting at special events like LibreGraphicsMeeting (das ausschließlich for development and their projects gedacht war....)

People are meeting on so called "Sprints" where people have a predefined task, work on accordingly, to solve that in a very short amount of time.

People are meeting on mailing lists (simliar E­Mail, but NON Off­Topic), everyday and exchanging news.

People are meeting on IRC (Almost every bigger project has such a channel) People are meeting on services like Twitter, Facebook etc...

People are meeting wie dem GSOC [Google Summer of Code, YESS, that is the math nut company.]

People are meeting in the interwebs at unbelievable locations, nope people are meeting in real life.

The far grounds were rarely habitated, but the increase of the destined settlers, is getting more attention world wide.

Even programs like (similar to the program, mit dem ein europäischer Kabelsender is laying for very long time lange under fierce competion) are going the audio video transport programs + zugehörige "Codecs" opened more and more and was getting distributed.

Further are awards laid out, which a good project may win, das geht von Geld hin zu goods donations zur server hardware (that is used, for presenting projects in the world wide web).

Often some are saying about people who leave their country behind, they'd be clever, a little socially hindered (Cliché, again) and would way to much think about their computers.

The latter may be correct.

Of the interior of the GNU car and its possibilities.

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Of GNUs, poems, sun and "free" ­ apples.

GNU operating systems exactly as well as windows or even MacOS I did define so quasi also car, in reality everything's a little more complicated.

As Unix is a special model series and GNU his younger brother a model of that series, the Operating System Solaris (made by the company named University Network, die now auch bought out herself by the latin sounding Firma out), is a role­model of Unix, exactly as an example AIX, HP­UX, IRIX... etc.

The "Sun" as Solaris has been also called, is exactly like Unix, der "Predecessor" of GNU ist ebenfalls der second Vorgänger des ganz fresh Illumos(­Sonnne) Project. Which had been abundoned by the company with the latin sounding name (more or less).

Where am now? Ah, well ... at the "poem"... This poem sounds like a japanese poem written in five strophes in a special form of rhyme. It was brought to life because an earlier project hasn't got the financial backing what everybody hoped for., compared to the, windows OS or this one with the apple logo.

For years nobody recognized the previous project, the developers company had been sold worden, it had been offered throught alll serious and impossible "Teleshops" ­ to naive and simple customers, who had absolutely no clue, what it was that they had bought without knowing better.

To stick a little longer with the "car" metaphor: It used to be looong time ago einmal a model with a exquisit Roadholding and certain acceleration speed.

The "free apples"...

That OS of the company with the design gurus, whose sales arguments are referring to this, like the sort of scots apples mentioned before, changed their complete car model to provide it with a fast Unix­Engine, which stood for much more stability, flexibility, as well as scaleability.

Well, because of some who put great amout of value on the interiors, the engine was not that important and was relicensed libre under the leadership of the company itself, because of other developers to improve everything. Unfortunately this engine was for some of the developers not libre enough, There was way to little effort of that big company, because of this that promising project died too. But finally another project had decided to raise still the flag and to offer the engine other thrilled geeks for steady improvements.

And this was only the tip of the iceberg for different operating systems respectively car­models (brands).

Let's look at the interior now, which is putting some high value in the car for most users..

(Oh No, before I think I have to say something to "recursive acronyms")

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Recursive Acronyms and their consequences: GNU, GNOME, KDE, GIMP, XFCE, HURD...

In the far grounds some special kinds are of naming things and manners established, . Much to the suffering of some tourist, who actually was on a visiting tour. "recursive acronym"?...

Yeah, ok, At first I'll have to tell, what's the meaning of "recursive". The funny people from the far grounds were in parts some real maths足freaks und did treat everyone exaclty like this. "recursive" simply means: it is "calling" itself. Example given: faculty within mathematics has been defined also recursively.

A recursion opposites a thing which, many of us got to know long before: the Iteration (called Count足Loop): Count from 1 to 20 in steps of two... During the recursion: Count足down von 20 herunter as long, until your result isn't negative any more (below zero). Towers of Hanoi too could be a good example for a recursion.

The word what we want to say: it is calling itself, as long as a stop sign.

"An acronym" ... even simpler: Some sort of abbreviation.

Now we're able to decode the first bits of information: "GNU's Not Unix" = "GNU "GNU Network Object Model Environment" = GNOME "GNU (General) Image Manipulation Program" = GIMP" GNU "HIRD of Unix足Replacing Daemons" and HIRD stands for "HURD of Interfaces Representing Depth".

"KDE Desktop Environment Software Compilation" = KDE SC "XForms Common Environment" = XFCE Some of these "elder" recursive acronyms are meanwhile obsolete now and didn't get any attention because of this they weren't surveyed not any more. But no rule without exception.

Especially this one, which is referring to the organisation for supporting of "libre" Software, their members sometimes which are/were referred to as nerves killing trolls.

Let's look at the interiors of those cars....

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The car and its interior: Window­Helper to full blown workplace Even here not everything works as expected, if somebody takes a car in der faraway worlds, to do certain things.

Short break and return to our known solar system and its most famous computer­brand Windows; There it isn't necessary to ask for a special interior furnishing for our car, because there is only ONE standard model, which lets you steer your vehicle.

Besides that will almost nobody wants to get to know the engine and be informed, what is possible damit alles tolles machen kann. Often is taken in this country simply Schema­F, without a thought to something different.

But inside the faraway worlds, as said before, many things are working different, it is rather unusual there (falls mal etwas nicht am Auto gehen sollte, in eine Werkstatt zu fahren und zu sagen, man möge sich doch bitte about their problems kümmern, for they are paying these things. These practices are highly unusual there, the slogan: I can do it alone, else my mates or colleagues from the community are helping me.

Main interior equipment alone differs from the fact, that one is free to choose completly varying interieurs for his vehicle, where at Windows is only Einheitsware accepted. That, what most people are able to imagine under windows, is nothing more than a simple desktop environment.

Under GNU/Linux is is at the very moment: KDE SC, GNOME, XFCE, LXDE (Names were explained earlier) What then is GNOME exactly? Well, a desktop "surface" laden with opportunities, and a constistent user guidance is being developed in an open project.

Same is meant here übrigens also for KDE SC, nur ist here der underlying framework much higher and mightier than GNOME. XFCE is also a desktop environment, but mainly thought for older and weaker computers. It's used with the same underlaying toolkit, as under GNOME. (Same toolset) LXDE: Is sort of new and for elder and/or weaker computers too.

What are called "Window­helpers" ...?

A Window­helper ­ called "Window­Manager" has the purpose to work different and reduced much more, as a complete desktop environment.

There are much more "window managers" than full desktop environments, where particular examples may differ a whole lot from others.

Now we've got all the desktop environments, we've got to say farewell to our former used analogy, und now we're going to look at special projects within free Software.

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Distributions and other pecularities inside a car At first Namedropping: Slackware, Debian, (Open)­SuSE, LFS, GENTOO, ARCH...

Solangsam hat sich unsere Automobil­Metapher wirklich überlebt..

Brief statement. The Names above are the so called Linux­distributions.

What Linux then is, (the engine of the GNU ;­), habe ich zumindest mal angerissen, what are now then those distributions?

Um, yes!, A car skeleton without engine and interior equipment (as leather seats) still needs other things to be able to drive, an all such things are in so called Distributionen verteilt, for each model there are several kinds of distributions.

For example a specialized program­package distribution (for example medical environment) has some very different focus than set up of a "normal" distribution for end users. There are ones for all purposes, one might imagine, for science community, exactly, like this for the municipal administration, or even a teachers position at a school.

There are several Linux distributions: Ubuntu, Debian, SuSE, Red­Hat, and much more.

Meanwhile is Ubuntu the largest and reknown distribution with some 12M users. Who or what is Ubuntu?: Better who pulls the strings behind Ubuntu? Well, his name, who started the avalanche, called Mark Shuttleworth, he founded a security­certificate­firm sold and made then a quite big amount of money, after this he visited ISS as a tourist (as first south african) and funded besides this the IT­company Canonical, which would become the main donor to the Ubuntu­Distribution.

Red Hat inc. was the first company to found a commercial Linux distribution of the same name and have its business model build around it. Over the years, they've released their commercial distribution as a Free Software community project called "Fedora" to focus on selling services instead. Fedora prospered into one of the major test beds for new Free Software technology and Red Hat still benefits by creating its SLA­covered enterprise distribution, RHEL, from its code base while Fedora remains Free Software. Free, fully compatible forks of the RHEL distribution itself exist, with CentOS being the most popular one.

One of the oldest distribution is form Nuremberg and was branded: SuSE (Software­ und Systementwicklung). She is related to times, in which Linux Kernel (Motor) fitted onto a nanotech space memory, and got after some buyouts of hat sich diese a net working specialist (offices wolrld wide) and it began to open up some time before community­version, make and spread some news around. OpenSuSE is called the community­distribution is being viewed of them to much too much automation critically, but exactly praised him for that.

Now our little journey is accelerating its pace and it's going into details, with the presentation of those libre projects and the persons behind "open" doors in the second chapter.

16

The libre/open projects, their profit, and their "makers".

Well then, at first it is really important to distinguish between some things.

F(L)OSS with that is "libre", open source | F(L)OSH with this Libre OpenSource Hardware is meant. Free Culture, with this the connection of all fractions is all about.

The most significant projects faraway worlds are those, who are focusing on societies: Namely: Wikipedia (for storing a good fraction of mankinds knowledge).

OpenStreetMap (as, Google, demands payments for third足party use of their content, I never saw such a pace of online GIS data online as OSM!) The GNU足Project aus such, as WITHOUT the founder, THAT MUCH wouldn't have had existed.

Wikileaks/OpenLeaks ("WL" atm highly controversial, due to Afghanistan) but in fact they're onthe right place here, as they want to be a "Safe Harbor" for all Whistleblowers world wide.

Ubuntu (because they are presenting a "simple", but powerful desktop to the masses, ranging from the poorest to the "filthy" rich ones).

Debian (as Ubuntu and others wouldn't be there without Debian and their codex) GNOME (because a more/less barrierfree desktop could break down walls, if everything shines and does stuff right and always: that's simply wonderful) KDE (There was upon a time a simple desktop who did want to replace Unix足"CDE", but what KDE made out of this, my respect for that) XFCE/LXDE (for trying, (vlt. to re足animate/power up deprecated Hardware/Software again) OLPC (an education project that offers childs opportunities of interactive, networked learning) I could continue this for hours and listen projects, which did much for society or about to do that. coming next: Diversity as a great benefit or: (Why it has to have four different Desktops?)

17

Diversity as a great benefit or (Why it has to have four different Desktops??)

Why on earth is options of choice beneficial when choosing IT足equipment?

Well, if a single Desktop would be sufficient, we wouldn't have others, but in fact there are different goals and ways to get there, e.g because of an older model that can't support, das nicht so simply a 3D graphics card of the newest generation, but what are you doing if a certain Desktop was bound to that.

Isn't it that you guys are simply "re足inventing the wheel"? Yes, possibly, there ought to be people, who are liking to have the choice for several cars. (who simply aren't all models).

Besides this it's only the tip of the iceberg here, with all other "Window Managers" and DEs we're close to 100 ... (but I can't go into details for now) SuperSportsCar = KDE Medium Class = GNOME Small Cars = XFCE No I don't think that this discrimination is fitting well for all times, I'm e.g. booting all the time the desktop which suits my tasks perfect, with best time and energy calculation here, or the choice reflects my situational mood. That may be also a fluxbox manager if I just wanted to look something up biefly.

Competition is good and therefore are some big configurations, which have been made inside one system, transfered to another one, and does a very well job here.

Distributions and their Desktops: (Why? explanation as follows:) Ubuntu (GNOME) OpenSuSE (KDE, GNOME) Mandriva (KDE) Fedora (GNOME) Debian (KDE, GNOME) etc...

But meanwhile one might install den eigens preferred desktop out of many distributions (additionally to the predefined ones). Distribibutions are having mostly a "Main"足Desktop (where is worked most) and the additional then, often with less effort (Manpower).

In nature most advantages have those, who have the best possibilties to adapt, and as adaption to different processes is being worked out at best with an open system, is FOSS a strong victor here. Commercial/Proprietary Software works best inside a locked足down capitalistism, without any disturbance.

Alone the latest financial crisis in Europe has made clear, that many europeans should spend less money (Software even for software).

KDE 18

1. KDE (In Chronology of their development) That, what really determines KDE, is an interlocked productive, enthusiastic, spread worldwide community of developers. Developers are there a "small" group witin the kde­pantheon. There are things done, for which a potential applicant might apply a broad range of abilities; Vom Übersetzer of the interactive space map from Englischen to Kisuaheli, organizing projects meetings, to the finance controller, who is examining spendings/savngs of KDE e.V. KDE in numbers (As long as I can guess): Developers: several thousand (active) [there aren't 10.000 yet, but who knows...] . I'd say projects probably 500, without knowing much better (fast pace) and representations in 30 countries.

What is the "magic" on the KDE Desktop? simply said, its configurability and stability simultanously which inspired floods of users, the most reknown and acknowledged version was 3.5.10... but only because why years ago the full version of 1­3 was worked on the very concept.

What happened next? Then version 4 hit the world, broke with all user Design­GUI rules for Desktops and brought an uncounted mass of professional to tears, as long as all 4.0 version users understood this as stable. (Parole from KDE here was: Only interfaces are stable!).

Frankly said: 4.0 ­ 4.X Many users understood it as a step in the wrong direction (some demanded KDE 3.5 back, there's even a fork under its name "Trinity") After a while not only stability improved, and most "must have features" returned, but meanwhile joe­user got explained the principle of PLASMA­activities.

KDE further is THAT Desktop with most levers, switches and sliders, the (controversial) highest elegance, des (probably most energy waste (of the three)), and that with the most big Portfolio on education and office­programes.

Main Projects: KDE Platform KDE EDU(cation) KDE GAMES KDE UTILS KDE Multimedia KDE Office KDE Documentation KDE Plasma KDE PIM KDE Usability KDE etc...

(This List does not imply (haha) to be finished and has no order in it) KDE in the humble beginnings was a soly Linux/Unix (CDE­Replacement) story, but developed further meanwhile to a player, who is able to play on the most different terrains. (LIN/WIN/MAC) but also (Netbooks, Mobile) and more...

GNOME

19

2. GNOME (The Chaser) GNOME (in early times: GNU Network Object Model Environment) today simply GNOME. GNOME, a world wide developer­community too, which is nearly unparalleled. The project has devoted itself a little stronger to the HIG (Human Interface Guidelines) as the KDE­project did. I want to say: GNOME ist clean, focused and sympathizes with the operating system of the version des macintosh­os­company. (osx­like[but no copy!])

The GNOME projects too are speaking for themselves; (But those are completely unordered) GNOME­Office (Abiword, GNUmeric) GNOME­Multimedia GNOME­GAMES GNOME­HIG GNOME­Accessibility GNOME­Utilities GNOME­Network etc...

GNOME is being viewed critically, as well as KDE, GNOME too made the change to 3.0 recently and this version is making some things VERY different. Additionally there are communities like Ubuntu, which want to feature a completly different Look & Feel for their Desktops, than many other distributors, who are working with GNOME. (Mono: or the "Angst" of (justified?) patent lawsuits KDE is GNOME's younger sister project of the FOSS­community. At first the developer tools weren't libre (liberty), and to have a good answer to that the GNOME Project was founded. You could spread around the GNOME developer tools and everything turned out to be fine for a while.

Then late after some long time, the market leader appeared and developed a platform with that multiple programming languages for a programming project were now possible. That on the other hand acknowledged several Open Source Hackers, and thus they created a "libre" replacement which (seemed obvious) was usable finally under GNU&|Linux. Unfortunately the market leader held furthermore patents on his invention and started to sue smaller companies (TomTom) and because of this, that much more and more GNOME­developers but users too asked themselves: Can we use MONO without dangers?) Or are we then a case for the patent lawyers...?

GNOME has some developers less KDE, but the numbers are improving. Meanwhile they're having a "paid" Website Administrator who's maintaining their project website.

Conference GUADEC (GNOME USER AND DEVELOPERS CONFERENCE) hat developed itself in the last years to one of THE meeting­points for GNOME Development where new ideas are presented.

XFCE/LXDE 20

XFCE/LXDE XFCE has a smaller community of developers, and is in fact a little younger. It is using the same underlying toolset as GNOME does.

Actually it was planned to implement XFCE/LXDE onto all desktops, in which a weaker processor powers the hardware. This had been implemented, but since then the installation on newer hardware isn't that rare any more, and the fan足community is growing steadily.

At first XFCE wasn't a full blown Desktop Environment, and it was really slim at first and then it got some real weight.

There aren't subprojects like XFCE足games.

Perhaps XFCE is inside the big bunch of developers who are meeting in Berlin and later on.

(GranCanariaDesktopSummit) now the Berlin Desktop Summit.

LXDE is becoming that what XFCE once was... Meanwhile it is the weakest part of this , which I do know.

Unfortunately the latter is still a somewhat early development stage and how might be actually speculated on the future, but the first impression as it is now a promise.

LXDE there are meanwhile XFCE as Ubuntu 足 Version. (the latter not officeal) And: LXDE seems to have the more development pace. (I not know if this counts) Seemingly with the latter, ambitions to leave the PC as natural workplace, and to proove Smartphone mostly Smartphones . There aren't that many but There are two products: N900 and Nexus I. XFCE and LXDE (and their applications) are still limited to the weaker ressource machines, because no porting hasn't been done yet.

Simply XFCE und LXDE used inside gerne for helping projects, da die Rechner dort mostly not european for replacing (Second Hand etc) A more personal note here: XFCE STILL have NO BLOG AGGREGATOR (say: Planet)! Even the much more young LXDE has got one...

IN case that (no matter for which reasons) none is wanted here, no problem.

The Window足Managers (Fluxbox, Openbox, ICEWM etc) 21

Window Manager (Fluxbox, Openbox, ICEWM) What is a Window­Manager, why do I need one, and of course which one is the best?

Nice try... but: There is NO best window­manager.

1. A Window­Manager ist according to Wikipedia a software, which is necessary for distribution, position, size etc of windows on a desktop... (Has got nothing to do with windows) 2. There are a plenty of window­managers: One of the most often used (without knowing many people: Metacity (sooner: Sawfish) and KWin)... But, do I have to know them? Hmm actually not, but hey why not? ;­) Metacity as basic foundation of the GNOME ­ Framework and is responsible for a "fast" window display. KWin is the self­developed window manager for KDE­SC by KDE Team, what has got a plenty of configuration options. Compiz Fusion, which is responsible b.o for the rotating cube faces in Linux.

The others: Most of them are very good too, you don't need to install a full blown desktop, to be able to work efficiently.

Fluxbox (I am using this often) E17 [Enlightenment](styled and functional) Ion2 (suitable only for geeks/pros, ... tried it out, after 5 min I understood the basic concepts... very efficient, not a waste of ressources and is getting operated with the KEYBOARD only) FVWM (Window­Manager for Unix­nostalgics (but still very efficient too)) IceWM (functional too, minmalistisic and the "Easy Mode inside EEEPC") (Openbox, Matchbox... *box) Problaby very similar to Openbox, Fluxbox...

Dvm (Dynamic Window Manager) Awesome (next­gen Window­Manager) Windowmaker (Is a rather weird concept, under OpenSuSE Mix of GNOME/KDE) Ok, why the heck do I need it? (e.g as standalone...)

This is dependent on your own personal preferences, I am using wm­s due to a special thing mainly: for efficiency! I very rarely have a surface, where I might do everything I want as fast as I want, like under a windowmanager and ressources also hadn't been compromised.

With a slim wm my netbook is consuming less energy for lasting plus an hour usually. This is especially good for our environment, because I haven't to ask for more power (hierzulande meist aus der Steckdose), and can act more freely.

All in all a fine thing.

Hardware problems, (and what is to be done about it from a driver's view inside the FOSS­ community) 22

Hardware problems (and what is to be done about it from a driver's view inside the FOSS­ community) Most of us do know it. One seems to have to print out some web form soon, our neighbour has some problems with her printer and as (one has no such thing), many are going to a friend, who is using linux. That used to be a problem. Meanwhile something has changed.

The more companies are participating within linux, the faster a driver for certain hardware is being developed (which is often included while booting). So KDE­SC DigiKam meanwhile supports the usual producers of Digitalkameras.

Simultaneously there are also popping firms up, who are having a completely self­developed hardware concepts inside their Rucksack. As an example: canadian company Traversaltech (who wanted their own interface / drivers of software and hardware which are libre).

Hardware under Linux works meanhile more and morre as an Open­Source Project without having a company, without having much money in the back, look at Openpandora project.

The Linux drivers Data­base is like always a rewarding help, you have for some distributions own data­bases and wikis.

Besides, what is always working (but only for specialists:) Write the special driver with Open Source/Free Software for yourself. Here certainly interesting: Website: Kernel.org. Meanwhile there is a course to program you own drivers at Linuxfoundation. Additional to this there's a list with hardware information and drivers too.

What is there as well, are many indepedent websiteswho are maintaining often a hw­data­base too, unfortunately they are very often out of date (sometimes way to much).

Conclusion here:, That the whole drivers situation especially with Linux changed dramatically, and it is going to improve much more soon.

Even Wikipedia isn't the worst place to ask for hardware in the FOSS­community. Here I can recommend the article graphics and hardware in FOSS (English) as first stop.

Actually those lines have the reason, to link to long­lasting products, but because of having mentioned earlier Wikipedia, I may drag the readers attention from here to a special linux (not only) hardware site. (in parts a bit controversial:) Phoronix. There are articles for nearly every Linux hardware problem.

To have everything finished here (no pun intended ;­) ), I have to link here the site: tuxmachines.org, where each linux customer is ought to find superb linux hardware here with a granted software pool with software drivers for this hard were.

Receiving Help (and pose the right questions to the right people) 23

2.7 Receiving Help (and pose the right questions to the right people) Or: What has this to do with Open Source Projects?

In object oriented programming everything is an object, and one might theoretically say that, in FOSS­Scene everything is a project (almost true but not completely)...

At first Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson came to the conclusion, the UNIX Documentation has to be reproducable. They invented the first man pages (man pages for manual pages).

Most distributions contain of man­pages for literally every Unix/Linux/OS command. (Meanwhile there is "non­developer documentation" in (X)HTML ­ Form.)

The ML (written out for Non­Geeks = the mailing­list) Also a UNIX relic, that enjoys broader audience, and is being still used. What's the ML and what can I do with it? The ML is a collection of e­mails (which are getting collected by servers (for a certain topic)) which were sent by different users (who pre­registered "themselves" on ML), with hopes of an early reply. There are "open" and "closed" MLs. Projects herefore are: ListServ, Sendmail, etc.

Discussion Boards:Welll, It is not that easy with the boards, mostly they are helpful and are making sense, but in fact you have to obey some rules here. Example given (IMPORTANT!) Don't [DO NOT!] feed the Trolls. OK, I'll have to explain this here. Insults of all kinds were happening in those discussion boards all the time, then Netiquette came, and since then the boards just only allowed trolling. (Troll:Net culture) To troll means annoying, teasing somebody, drive him/her to insanity. Sometimes it appears to me that the whole WWW is filled with trolls, but there are often only "querulants and other weirdos".

Of the smartness to pose the "right questions" to the "right people"...

As an example: one got installed Linux, is a complete "greenhorn" and is posting to: http://www.linuxlinks.com/portal/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=2. One is getting the correct answers, you'll have an audience for a long time, and one is getting the best hints/proposals.

That would be a perfect start for a Linux­Newbie "...

Now we're heading to the suboptimal case: One has also no clue about Linux, but a friend experienced Ubuntu before, who changed to "Aptosid{frmr: Sidux}", and this very friend (is exited about), wants to be part of it too. Not long then and (pretty fine, no commercial strategy behind) and this friend is looking forward to all those nice programs, He wants his pc as DVD Player Replacement, and now it is getting a little bit more difficult, but yes: There are boards, Let's go to the next board and asking, how is it with multi­media support and how you can do some special things with your hardware. BIG MISTAKE; AS in 100 percent of all cases completely getting NO fitting answers (some sort of correct)...."RTFM" ­ as most answer by geeks, who avoid writing longer texts online (means: Read the fine Manual ....exactly (the man pages for developers ;­)) And with those no leisure time user can or could do something with it or profit from. Aptosid is derived Debian and is mostly for expierenced users or professionals.

Last but not least it has GNU­Philosophy!

Some project knowledge in FOSS (from commit to Upstream) 24

What is actually an Open Source Project?

Roughly said: Anything, what is built around Software/Hardware for being constructed (not only Hardware) and being distributed freely then.

The infrastructure: Mostly important: How many people who are contributing actively, is it a rather small like a leisure time project or vast like e.g. the Linux足kernel?.

In the beginning there was the code... well it is still well forged, but meanwhile everything is being developed decentral.

Here are some very efficient "version control systems" which help you with those jobs, exmamines if documents are still valid, even more and more people are working on a version.

The first introduction to a project you'll find mostly when cleaning out computer/program "bugs" 足> Bug Hunting. The first writing of an improvment of the software or the elimination of a bug (inside a version control system) is called "commit".

Fork: (No, no dishes here). There are "official" ways of breaking a sourcecode into different pieces and break it and develop the parts then separately, to develop it (if the license grants that) into another direction. Forks are being made, if no commit was made over a long time, or those projects have no maintainer. (Maintainers are administrators and qa足specialists in one body, as they are proving, testing the code that was sent in.

Downstream: Developments, which are mostly done, from which the code is merged from many distributions and is being bundled into them. If we're looking closely to Ubuntu, then Mark Shuttleworth's community is downstream. As the Ubuntu 足 project is based on Debian, are if developments are made in Debian, and those developments are being pushed to Ubuntu then it is downstream.

Upstream: Developments, which are located in the projects cycle a bit more high above the forks and merges of Software are upstream. With our example e.g. is a development, which is made by Ubuntu people, to push it to Debian as even to GNOME, as the Ubuntu project is rooted on the GNOME libs base with an Unity Desktop Scheme for now.

Open Source/Free Software projects are often complex things which consist of an amount of more special sub projects. Especially the open spirit of such projects is always a "rough" thing as, there are competely different views on things and ways to do something involved.

Humanitarian FOSS (an ideal connection?)

25

Humanitarian FOSS (An ideal connection?)

(Though FOSS also means hardware projects... One should find a more fitting term here) Free Culture in development assistance.

OLPC, Sahana, Ushahidi, CrisisCamp, Linux4Afrika etc...

Foolishly said, actually a great thing, as not that much money has to be spent for purposes, which aren't representing the original development assistance targets. (e.g buying of license fees). But to the point that I am repeating myself here, the avalanche didn't launch yet and proprietary products (which are copied mostly illegally) are used most.

OLPC and Sugar One Laptop per Child was/is the brainchild of M.I.T Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte and is supposed to an education project for kids from 6 years from allover the world. The mass hype has vanished for now and people can work more effective.

Sugar: The Desktop­GUI­Usability Suite of the OLPC has a new identity deploys the OLPC GUI (surface) now separately.

Linux4Afrika A project from southern Germany from FreiOSS e.V. Thousands of older computers are being refurbished, installed with free software, maintained, Advice personnel is being brought to Germany by plane, is getting an instruction in usage, and after this everything is sent to Africa by ship. The L4A ­ project meanwhile has a decent status and won two times the award of Unesco Millenium project.

Ushahidi Founded in Kenya, by hackers during the "civil war". A platform for catastrophic help inside the world wide web. In English this name means: Witness, unfortunately mostly self­explanatory. In Haiti had that website then its breaktrough. Questions, Who are you, how did you know that ... occurred... But even the US­military is fond of this project. "Your site saves lives" ­ FAZ quote.

Sahana Free and Open Source Disaster Management System. A platform, which analyzes a complete catastrophe and offers "lost people tracker" and "NGO register". services CrisisCommons: CrisisCommons have been founed because of the world wide CrisisCampls next to a US­ university. Those camps have spread over north america to the south and even to europe. At those meetings aid­hackers set up programs for all possible and even impossible aspects of the Haiti catastrophe and those ones even could help during the Pakistan floods. Their webproject is meanwhile even a complete enrolled Help organization.

Free Culture in Politics (A more "mixed" reception thing) 26

Free Culture in Politics (A more "mixed" reception thing) First of all some name dropping here; WIKIeaks, FreiFunk, The Pirate Bay, Net Neutrality and many things more...

Why is free culture so much difficult for politicians?

Ganz einfach, weil die meisten Politiker jahrzehntelang andere Modelle vorgelebt bekommen haben, und sie (oft) der Meinung sind, was einst war, müsse weiterhin Bestand haben, daher auch der Versuch die Regeln der realen Welt einfach auf das Netz zwischen den Netzen überzustülpen.

Ganz besonders deutlich wurde dies am Beispiel der Netzsperren: Argument hier: Ich kann sie nicht löschen lassen, weil jemand anders es nicht will, es ist zur Sicherheit unserer Kinder, die Menschen haben Schwierigkeiten diese zu umgehen, die Schwelle wird erhöht...

Nun gut; Alles Argumente die man prinzipiell erstmal gegen sich hat.

Aber: Keiner der damals Involvierten kannte sich anscheinend mit der Netz­infrastruktur aus: Die Kollateralschäden wären wohl fast unvertretbar gewesen: Auf einem Server lagerten zum Beispiel 1000 Präsenzen, und nun kommt ein Politiker, der sagt es müsse alles unter der Nummer: XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX gesperrt werden, und weil wir die Pakete ohne reinzusehen übertragen, müssten wir gleich den ganzen Server sperren. (Attribut: weltfremd) Wikileaks (Oder: wie man als idealistischer Hacker die Welt verändert) Wikileaks ist eine Platform die zum "schnellen" verbreiten von Sicherheitslecks in Firmen und Behörden gedacht ist. Der australische Gründer ist ein idealistischer Hacker, der ein weltweites Netzwerk von gleichgesninnten aufgebaut hat, um die überall sonst angefeindeten Whistleblower deren sonst der ganze Hass der Firma/Behörde gilt, eine sichere Möglichkeit zu geben, mittels Originaldokumenten gegen Lügenpropaganda etwas unternehmen zu können.

Leider ist auch hier der Grad recht schmal von Menschen, die Firmen/Behörden/Wikileaks ruinieren wollen, und so musste sich das Team besondere Maßnahmen zur Dokumentenprüfung einfallen lassen.

The Pirate Bay Eigentlich nur eine Seite mit Verknüfungen, aber quasi der Teufel der Inhalteverwerter. Pirate Bay, jaa, es stimmt, hatte einen übergroßen Teil an Verknüpfungen zu Dingen, die weder legal noch halblegal waren. Böse Zungen behaupteten 90% illegal... naja... Wichtig vor allem bei der Ideologie der Macher: Jeder Mensch sollte Zugang zu dem Wissen anderer haben. Nach einer ungemütlichen Gerichtsverhandlung hat man den Gründer verpflichetet mehrere Millionen Schadenersatz zu leisten, und die Piratenbucht wird immer mal wieder vom Netz genommen, aber nie für lange. Inzwischen verbreitet Flattr die Kunde (weltweit) von hochwertigen Werken und der Gründer ist wieder in seinem Element, dass das Teilen zum höchsten Gut erkoren hat.

Netzneutralität Für die Hacker des CCC eine recht klare Angelegenheit (vor allem in der Definition) aber für die Politiker der Internet­Nachzüglerparteien wird es dort schon schwieriger, da oft der Sachverstand fehlt und man ohne groß zu Prüfen, die Aussagen anderer übernimmt.

Die 4 Wellen der Free Culture Verbreitung 27

Die 4 Wellen der Free Culture Verbreitung "At first they ignore you", then they'll laugh at you, next they fight you, finally you win."

Die Lawine entsteht.

Zuerst gab es die Menschen, die (weil vorher alles frei gewesen war, es nicht ertragen konnten und angefangen hatten, freie Kopien für alle möglichen Werkzeuge früherer Tage herzustellen, sogar für Betriebssysteme, dann angefangen auf diesen Betriebssystemen Programme die etwas taten zu verbreiten.

Beispiele hierfür: Ganz klar Richard Matthew Stallman, ohne das alles vermutlich VIEL länger gedauert hätte, oder so nicht hätte entstehen können. VIELEN DANK! Das GNU Projekt (von welchem Anfangs schon die Rede war hat also jetzt endlich einen geistigen Mentor und eine stark beherzte Community.

Der Linux Kernel ohne den die Leute um RMS vermutlich HURD noch immer nicht hätten veröffentlichen können (aber das ist eine pure Mutmaßung) die Lawine kommt ins Rollen.

Viele Leute haben inzwischen den Nutzen von GNU und auch Linux erkannt und fangen an, komplette fertige Pakete zu schnüren, die es dem einfachen Nutzer "wesentlich erleichtern", freie Software zu installieren. ("Ich muss es wissen, ich war einer der SuSE (Professional?) 7.0 Nutzer und wäre ohne die Distribution (die ich siebenmal installiert habe, bevor es funktioniert hat) echt nicht weitergekommen.

Als Distributor allen voran hat in den früheren Tagen (Ja, Slackware gab es auch) Debian die freie Software bekannt gemacht (bei Profis) und heute ist es dann eher Ubuntu, und morgen vielleicht ...?

Die Distributoren haben irgendwann angefangen nicht nur verbesserte Installationsroutinen zu schreiben, sondern es ging so weit, das man angefangen hat das komplette Desktop­Erlebnis verbessern zu wollen, vorher allerdings ging es um die Rechenknechte in den Rechenzentren und wie diese zu optimaler Leistung angestachelt werden konnten. die Lawine verdoppelt ihr Tempo Ganz einfach dessen, weil nun sehr viele Menschen gemerkt haben, wie effizient Free Culture werden kann und angefangen haben eigene Business Modelle (mit IPO ROI) zu erschaffen, und sich auch darauf zu verlassen.

Bestes Beispiel hierfür: Die Firma Red Hat, welche aus den Überresten der Firma Cygnus entstanden war, und angefangen hatte, HPC­Server mit Linux auszustatten und zu warten.

(Von ihr stammt ja auch die Fedora Distribution). die Lawine verdoppelt ihr Tempo nochmals Jetzt kommt das gesamte Ökosystem der freien Kultur zum Tragen, die Botschaft: Wir sind überall, und werden immer mehr. LinuxFoundation, MeegoOS (als JointVenture),...

Das Jahr des Linux Desktops (proposed for Lifetime Vaporware Award) 28

Das Jahr des Linux Desktops (Vorschag: Lifetime Vaporware Award) So lautet einer der beliebtesten Witze wenn man über GNU related to Linux spricht.

"Nächtes Jahr ist das Jahr des Linux Desktops" HAHAHA! Gut gelacht, wir warten ja alle schon seit zehn Jahren darauf.

NUR: Was ist "Das Jahr des Linux Desktops?" Ist es dann, wenn der "Marktanteil" in einem Jahr auf 10++ Prozent steigt?, Ist es wenn alle Werbeagenturen Linux als Frontend mit dem GIMP, Inkscape, Scribus, Trio einzusetzen?, Ist es wenn KDE (das ja ursprünglich mal rein Linux war, (in einer fabelhaften Qualität) auf jedem Win/Mac zu finden ist?

Fragen, über Fragen.

Nebenbei gesagt, Linux hält ja schon seit ganz schön langer Zeit, den Marktanteil mit der höchsten SuperComputer bishin zum Mainframe. Im Webhosting Bereich ist es ebenfalls führend: 50%­67%, dann kommen jetzt noch Android/Meego auf Smartphones und sogar Tablet PCs. Warum? Siehe letzte Seite.

Der Desktop scheint momentan noch die allergrößte Hürde, und es dürfte noch eine ganze Weile lang dauern, aber gut, solange auch nicht mehr, da die Free Culture Szene sich durch exponentielles Wachstum auszeichnet. (Schwarmintelligenz usw) Ubuntu soll Mulittouch bekommen (Stand Natty Narwhal). KDE arbeitet fleissigst an KDE­ Plasma für mobile, weiterhin dürfte es nicht mehr lange dauern, bis Krita auf Tablet PCs (inkl.

WeTab) eingesetzt wird.

Als ich vor ein paar Seiten von Hardware für Linux schrieb und die Firma Traversaltech erwähnte, so kann ich hier nun anfügen, das diese Firma das "OpenGraphics" Project gestartet hat, das sich u. a um die Verbreitung von hochwertiger Hardware GPUs (die nativ auf Linux laufen werden) bemüht. Gerade wurden die ersten Boards getestet. Das Gallium3D Projekt, das ja auf Mesa aufsetzt, könnte hier ebenfalls Fakten schaffen. Noch kommt OPENGL nicht gegen DirectX an, aber mit nativer Hardware und einer komplett freien Ideenfindung kann vieles möglich werden.

Richtig, Linux ist NICHT Windows (und soll nicht jedem OttoNormalNutzer gefallen), aber wenn die Entwicklung so weiter geht, dann wird sich hier einiges verändern und granitbeschwerte Businessmodelle werden gnadenlos umgebogen oder zerstört werden. Es ist ein bisschen so, wie beim großen Drachen.

Computerspiele: JAHA, Windows ist das Maß aller Dinge, Dort kommt Linux noch nicht in Jahrzehnten dran... Entwicklungen von RARS, über TORCS hin zu Speed­Dreams, die sich bislang in Jahrzehnten vollzogen haben, könnten, sobald entsprechende Popularität erreicht ist, ganz neue Releasezyklen bekommen...

Spiele und Pornographie unter Linux als Innovationstreiber 29

Spiele und Pornographie unter Linux als Innovationstreiber Zur Pornographie kann ich keine Angaben machen, da Linux­Nerds im allgemeinen als asexuelle Wesen angesehen werden (und von solchen Leuten, geht ein Großteil der Innovation aus) Zur Spielesituation unter Linux: Im Dornröschenschlaf. Aber wie lange noch?

Zu den Fakten: ganz früher gab es mal ein paar Freaks die sich zu zweit oder zu dritt hingesetzt haben und in einer Aktion von mehreren Nächsten ein "Rogue­like" zu coden und dann weiterverteilen.

Heute hat sich die Situation geändert und wir stehen auch dort erst am Anfang: Da sich das Bazaarmodell weitgehend durchgesetzt hat, zumindest in der freien Kultur, haben sich mittlerweile Projekte gebildet wo 15+ Leute sehr häufig (noch öfter demnächst) an Gemeinschaftsprojekten sitzen und diese zur Reife bringen. Hat jemand von Ihnen, werte Leser schon mal etwas von dem Wort "Flattr" gehört? Nein, dann gebe ich eine kurze Erklärung, was es ist, was es will und warum das noch wichtig werden könnte.

Flattr ist sowohl eine schwedische Firma (als auch schon fast ein Free Culture Projekt) die sich zum Ziel gesetzt hat, den Künstlern im Netz die verdiente Anerkennung auch (recht unkomplizert) zukommen zu lassen. Die Medienbranche und die (vorallem deutsche) Blogger­ Community haben sich als Early­Adopters darauf gestürzt und wurden zu großen Teilen enttäuscht. Warum? Naja, weil es eigentlich weniger für traditionelle Medien gedacht war, als für die FOSS­Szene deren Produkte schon sehr viele honorabel fanden, (nur es war zu umständlich) und deswegen demnächst vielleicht das doppelte an Zeit in entsprechende Projekte investieren können, da sie mehr Zeit zur Verfügung haben. Ein Mitglied vom Debian Team hat einen FlattrFOSS Aufruf gestartet und nun bekommt er täglich Geld für seine Aktivitäten überwiesen.

Mit anderen Worten: Wenn es demnächst (ähnlich wie das LGM, ein Entwicklertreffen geben sollte, bei der die FreeCultureGames Enthusiasten zusammenkommen, wird es weiter publik werden und andere Entwickler anziehen.

Am Beispiel (siehe letzte Seite), werde ich deutlich machen, wohin es gehen wird Zuerst gab es nur RARS: Robot Autonomous Racing Simulation und war dafür geschaffen die KI von Roboterfahrzeugen im wahren Leben durch Daten im Rechner als Rennspiel zu visualisieren. RARS war in der Science­Community recht hoch angesehen.

Dann kam TORCS (The Open Racing Car Simulator) ein "fork", bei dem es schon wesentlich menschenähnlicher zuging als beim Vorgänger, allerdings war die Steuerung eine mittlere Katastophe und die Gegner (logisch!) einfach nur brutal und krass (Ich kannte damals den wissenschaftlichen Anspruch von Torcs nicht).

Speed­Dreams ist DER FORK für TORCS, der wirklich für Aufsehen, in der Linux Community sorgen könnte, es ist hier nämlich Ziel eine höchstwertige Robot­KI mit einer anspruchsvollen Mulitplayer Rennsportsimulation zu kombinieren. Vielen Dank ans Team!

Adobes sich manifestierender Alptraum 30

Adobes sich manifestierender Alptraum GIMP vs PS... LOL ... PS ftw! GIMP Suxx big time (aber wie lange noch?)

Hier muss ich etwas ausholen Photoshop als Flaggschiff der Firma Adobe kennt fast jeder, es gibt fast keine Werbeagentur, die es nicht installiert hätte und ihr Geld mit PS Manipulationen verdient. Geschenkt! Auch eine recht große Anzahl an Hobbynutzern hat PS installiert, aber leider keinerlei gültige Lizenz dafür. Ganz speziell gilt dies hier für Entwicklungsländer.

Was kann Adobe also schlaflose Nächte bereiten?

Noch erstmal wenig. Aber abwarten und Tee trinken. Pantone ist DER patentierte Farbstandard auf dem die gesamte Adobepalette (und andere führende Firmen) aufsetzt und diese kann sich fast niemand sonst leisten. Aber auch hier hat sich etwas getan (und wird sich noch viel mehr tun), nämlich der erste OPEN COLOUR STANDARD wurde angepeilt, um die Pantone Dominanz zu brechen.

Fangen wir mal klein an: links herkömmlich(TM) und rechts Free Culture Adobe Photoshop ­ GIMP, Showfoto, Nathive Adobe Illustrator ­ Inkscape, Karbon14 Adobe Indesign ­ Scribus Adobe Lightroom ­ Darktable, RawTherapee, RawStudio Adobe Album ­ DigiKam, F­Spot, Shotwell Adobe Audition ­ Audacity Corel Painter ­ Krita 3DStudio Max, Maya ­ Blender Autodesk AutoCAD ­ Arquimedes Und diese Liste ist noch VIEL länger.... noch gibt es eine klaffende Lücke zwischen rechts und links, aber wie lange noch?

PS als Beispiel für einen Industriestandard, wird GIMP noch ziemlich lange vorgehalten bekommen.

Aber: Wenn die Sache demnächst weitergeht, wie sie jetzt weitergeht, dann könnte es interessant werden.

GIMP wird einen neuen Kern bekommen (3.0 und später) und dieser wird GIMP ganz schnell viel näher an Photoshop CS bringen als es den Leuten im Silicon Valley gefallen dürfte. Google muss ja derzeit für vieles herhalten, aber der Google Summer of Code hilft auch GIMP wirklich nicht wenig.

Im letzten LGM (2010) gab es einen Vortrag darüber, wie GIMP mit einem komplett neuem Kern denn aussehen könnte von Peter Sikking. Zu finden ist die Aufzeichnung, als OGG Theora, was auch mal wieder typisch FOSS­Comunity ist.

Ich könnte hier noch so viel schreiben, über die freien Projekte in der Grafik und ihrer Macher, dass ich übermorgen noch am Text sitzen würde.

Im Moment kann ich aber erstmal zwei Dinge emfehlen. graphicsplanet.org ist der Raum, in dem alle Blogeinträge von LG­Projekten gesammelt werden. & Das erste LG­Magazin!

Können die Piratenparteien die Demokratie "verflüssigen"?

31

Das Verflüssigen der Demokratie mit Liquid Feedback "Liq... Was?" noch die gehört.

Liquid Feedback ist eine Art direktes Rückkoppelungssystem des Demokratischen Prozesses innerhalb einer Partei. Wichtig hier ist zu sagen, das KEINE ENTSCHEIDUNGEN damit getroffen werden sollen, da immer nur ein "Meinungsbild" eingeholt werden soll.

"Liquid Feedback" ist so geschaffen, das eine Initiative, welche gemacht wurde, NIE direkt abgelehnt werden kann, sondern es sind immer nur "Anregungen" möglich. Die Piratenpartei war die erste, die das Konzept von den Machern intern ausprobiert hat und nun soll eine breitere Parteibasis die Möglichkeit haben, sich anzusehen, wer wie gestimmt hat.

Womit wir auch schon bei der ganz großen Problematik des LQFB wären, es ist nämlich alles und für praktisch ewig für alle einsehbar, wer wie abgestimmt hat, und das ist m.E ein handfestes Datenschutzproblem. (Und gerade die Piraten machen es sich damit ganz und gar nicht leicht).

Die ersten anderen Parteien scheinen interessiert, aber es fehlen noch "öffentliche" Beweise der Funktionalität. Auch hat es leider für ein negatives Image im Vorfeld gesorgt, dass die Parteispitze (u.a LVBerlin dieses System eingeführt hat, ohne vorher mit allen anderen darüber zu reden). Es wurde dann beim Bundesparteitag der Piratenpartei in Bingen 2010 dann akzeptiert und sollte großflächig eingeführt werden, allerdings verzögerten zahlreiche Bedenken den Start weiter, aber nun endlch scheint es zu klappen, und die Initiativen können eingereicht werden.

LQFB hat Ähnlichkeit mit dem "Brainstorm von mehreren FOSS Projekten", nur das dieser Ansatz deutlich weiter geht, als die meisten sonstigen Programme.

Eine weitere Besonderheit ist die Delegation von Wahlberechtigungen an Dritte. Liquid Feedback hatte im Systembetrieb im LV Berlin schon gut funktioniert, und ich konnte mir schon ein erstes Bild machen. Am meisten erstaunt hat mich die direkte Rückkoppelung und die Gestaltungsmöglichkeiten von Diskussionen (produktiv) im Rahmen von LQFB. Es muss zwar jeder, der offiziell ein Meinungsbild zu einem bestimmten Thema haben möchte, oder jemand, der eine Initiative startet, sich vorher als Piratenmitglied "outen", aber netterweise gibt es "Gast­Accounts" in denen man sich die ganze Sache ansehen kann, ohne die Gefahr des Manipulationsverdachts.

Vor allem bleibt es abzuwarten, wie all jene "Piraten" dieses System annehmen werden, die bisher der Technik feindlich gegenüber standen, und sich nur wegen dem Datenschutz und dem Recht auf Informationelle Selbstbestimmung in die Partei eingeklinkt haben und die bisher jeden Computer gemieden haben.

Ebenfalls noch sehr interessant wird die Frage sein, wie kommt Liquid Feedback eigentlich sonst auf dem Planeten an? Die Piraten haben ja ein internationales Netzwerk hinter sich.

Hackerspaces und Coworking 32

Hackerspaces und Coworking (Metaebene) Die Orte an denen sich der mondäne Hacker und die Häckse trifft und bei denen es eher familär bis freundschaftlich zugeht, ist wohl der "Hackerspace" bestes Beispiel hier: "C­Base" in Berlin.

Wer es nicht ganz so undergroundig mag, und vielleicht noch ein Kundentermin in einer anderen Stadt hat, für den bietet sich seit neuerer Zeit, die Möglichkeit einen Coworking ­ Ort zu besuchen, sich einzumieten, und dann dort den Kunden zu empfangen.

Die Welt der totalen Vernetzung hat schon manches mal eherne Gesetze umgeworfen, so zum Beispiel, das Arbeit entweder im Büro stattzufinden habe, oder auch, bei entsprechender Eignung auch als HomeOffice zu Hause. Mittlerweile dank (u.a universitärer (universeller) Vernetzung ist es ja bekanntlich möglich von fast allen Orten zu tun, allerdings, dass sich hier noch ganze Modelle des "wo arbeite ich, wie arbeite ich, wann arbeite ich"? in den Vordergrund schieben werden, und über welche noch intensiv zu diskutieren sein wird.

Zum Beispiel gibt es ja (war noch nicht dort, aber die Resonanz kann sich sehen lassen) das Linux­Hotel in Essen, wo in angenehmer Atmosphäre die abgefahrensten Projekte diskutiert, und aber ebenfalls gleich umgesetzt werden können. Die IT­Biblothek hätte wohl mancher Crack gerne zu Hause.

Hackerspaces selbst sind aber ganz schon anders, fast wie eine WG in der mann/frau sich trifft und dann gemeinsam bei einer Flasche Club Mate und einer Pizza, vom guten Italiener um die Ecke an wichigen Programmierproblemen sitzen kann, oder eine wichtige Präsentation zum Thema IT­Sicherheit halten kann, wo auch jeder mitreden kann. (Meist wird es hierbei etwas lauter).

Dann gibt es da noch diverse Kleinodien wie z.B GeekCruise (das Fahren auf einem Schiff auf dem die IT eine zentrale Rolle spielt, und das nicht nur auf der Brücke). Wohngemeinschaften, in denen man nur hineingelassen wird, falls man belegen kann, man sei ein getriebener Weltverbesserer mit Programmierkenntnissen...

Unsere Freiheiten waren wohl noch nie so groß wie zu dieser Zeit, allerdings muss hier auch gesagt sein, dass die meisten Hacker in Indien und Bangladesh wohl von Coworking und ähnlichem träumen.

Eine Liste mit den weltweit angesagtesten Hackerspaces findet sich unter der Hackerspaces TLD für Organisationen. Coworking Listen findet man auch schon wobei hier ganz eindeutig das Betahaus in Berlin hervorzuheben ist, allein schon deswegen, weil es das erste seiner Art in Deutschland war.

3. Kapitel Freie Kultur und deren "Produkte" 33