On Sun, 2008-05-04 at 23:57 +0930, Karl Goetz wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-05-04 at 11:49 +0200, Carsten Agger wrote:
> > Toni Ruottu wrote:
> > > Some of my friends are quite serious about free software. At least most
> > > of them still run some pieces of non-free software occasionally. What I
> > > see them doing is, they encapsulate the non-free software in some way to
> > > make sure they can get rid of it reliably once they don't need it
> > > anymore. One of them uses Gobuntu because it gives him an easily
> > > maintainable base. He then has his non-free in separate directories that
> > > he can delete when he wants to get rid of those pieces.
> > >
> > > It seems quite clear that this is one of the use cases that Gobuntu
> > > should handle. I suppose the non-Gobuntu Ubuntu folks would be happy to
> > > see such tools too. This seems also something that gNewSense folks
> > > wouldn't care about as they would rather kick out the users who were to
> > > run a piece of non-free software.
> > >
> >
> >
> > This is an interesting idea. There already is a basic version of this
> > program, vrms (= "virtual RMS") which will list all non-free packages on
> > your system.
> >
> > Essentially, a "non-free manager" like you suggest would list the user's
> > non-free packages in a GUI with an option to select them and remove
> > them. I could write such a program (to start with, it could essentially
> > be a graphical user interface to vrms).
>
>
> How would this differ from the restricted drivers manager, apart from
> its wider scope?

I suppose it wouldn't. I'm not sure I understand your question. Why do
you ask?


> > Do people think there's a significant use case for this application, and
> > do anynone have more functionality related input (i.e., wishes)?
> >
> > br
> > Carsten
> >
> > --
> > http://www.modspil.dk
> >


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On Sun, 2008-05-04 at 17:36 +0300, Toni Ruottu wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-05-04 at 23:57 +0930, Karl Goetz wrote:

> >
> > How would this differ from the restricted drivers manager, apart from
> > its wider scope?
>
> I suppose it wouldn't. I'm not sure I understand your question. Why do
> you ask?
>

I ask because i thought i might have misunderstood. usual stuff
kk

>
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2008/5/4 Toni Ruottu <toni.ruottu@iki.fi>:
> I wrote earlier:
>> > It seems quite clear that this is one of the use cases that Gobuntu
>> > should handle. I suppose the non-Gobuntu Ubuntu folks would be happy to
>> > see such tools too. This seems also something that gNewSense folks
>> > wouldn't care about as they would rather kick out the users who were to
>> > run a piece of non-free software.
>
> I owe an apology to gNewSense community. I assume that a tool like vrms
> (provided that it worked) would not suit gNewSense very well, as I
> suspect gNewSense folks would see it as a way of stating that it is ok
> to run non-free software as long as you are aware of it. Anything going
> further than this claim was unnecessary exaggeration. I'm sorry about
> that.

I use gNewSense on one computer, Fedora on two others (one being an
OLPC XO) and Debian on a 3rd, all with no additional non-free software
but without removing the bits that ship with those distros, and own a
Nokia mobile phone.

I am on a journey towards having no proprietary software, and until
last month, RMS himself was on that journey and had not yet arrived;
he used a laptop with a proprietary BIOS, but now uses an XO with the
proprietary wifi software deleted.

Saying "its okay to run non-free software as long as you are aware of
it" is better than "its okay to run non-free software and not be aware
of it" - but doesn't go far enough.

I say, its not okay to run non-free software, but if you do, please be
aware of it and take steps to stop using it as fast as you can -
that's what I am doing.

A reimplemention of VRMS that works with the major families of
contemporary GNU/Linux distributions (Fedora and Debian derived ones)
would help enourmously with being aware of how much proprietary
software one runs.

I sincerely hope you will develop such a program, because I think it
is sorely needed :-)

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Dave Crossland <dave@lab6.com> wrote:

> A reimplemention of VRMS that works with the major families of
> contemporary GNU/Linux distributions (Fedora and Debian derived ones)
> would help enourmously with being aware of how much proprietary
> software one runs.
>
> I sincerely hope you will develop such a program, because I think it
> is sorely needed :-)
>

I might, at a later point - basically, it might be executed as two steps:

1) make VRMS work as intended, or write a clone that does work
2) make a GTK-based GUI applet similar to Add/Remove programs listing the output from 1) with name, description and an option to remove and maybe a "purge all non-free packages" option.


However, Karl has suggested that as a C programmer I might start looking at this bug:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg-server/+bug/6765

so I'm beginning to look into it. Might take a while to fix, though - appears most of the GLX code in the Xorg server is under a non-free license, either the "GLX Public License" (a few files) or the "SGI Free Software License B" (a lot of files!). The first thing that comes to mind is to try to attempt (ask nicely for) a relicensing, but if this not possible, a lot of code needs to be rewritten (or the GLX functionality taken out, at least for Gobuntu and gNewsense, since the code is non-free).


br
Carsten

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On Sun, 2008-05-04 at 20:42 +0200, Carsten Agger wrote:
> Dave Crossland <dave@lab6.com> wrote:
>
> > A reimplemention of VRMS that works with the major families of
> > contemporary GNU/Linux distributions (Fedora and Debian derived ones)
> > would help enourmously with being aware of how much proprietary
> > software one runs.
> >
> > I sincerely hope you will develop such a program, because I think it
> > is sorely needed :-)
> >
>
> I might, at a later point - basically, it might be executed as two steps:
>
> 1) make VRMS work as intended, or write a clone that does work
> 2) make a GTK-based GUI applet similar to Add/Remove programs listing the output from 1) with name, description and an option to remove and maybe a "purge all non-free packages" option.
>

If you want to hack around with VRMSy things, i'd suggest fix that
instead of make a clone and have to get it packaged

>
> However, Karl has suggested that as a C programmer I might start looking at this bug:
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg-server/+bug/6765
>
> so I'm beginning to look into it. Might take a while to fix, though - appears most of the GLX code in the Xorg server is under a non-free license, either the "GLX Public License" (a few files) or the "SGI Free Software License B" (a lot of files!). The first thing that comes to mind is to try to attempt (ask nicely for) a relicensing, but if this not possible, a lot of code needs to be rewritten (or the GLX functionality taken out, at least for Gobuntu and gNewsense, since the code is non-free).
>

It would affect Debian as well.

If your willing to do legwork you should really start at the top and
work down -
- start by contacting SGI to relicence
- ask xorg if you could work with them
- talk to the debian xorg team
- talk to whoever worries about xorg in ubuntu
- say bugger it and start hacking.

The other option is bugger the top layers and go direct to coding


kk

> br
> Carsten
>
> --
> http://www.modspil.dk
>
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Hi,

two weeks ago a 'back-to-basics' approach for releng was announced. also,
it was announced the releng is looking for volunteers.

judging from the amount of traffic on this list, there was no response. or
is this not the right medium?

sign me up, though...

kind regards
Thilo

Thilo Bangert wrote:

sign me up, though...


What exactly are you volunteering for? Like all the non-devs (4 of them) who
have offered help, I'm not going to find you a place in releng.


There are a few arches without release coordinators (or whose coordinators are
pulling double duty). Do you want to take over for x86 or one of the couple of
arches that armin76 handles (sparc64 and ia64, iirc)?


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Andrew Gaffney <agaffney@gentoo.org> said:
> Thilo Bangert wrote:
> > sign me up, though...
>
> What exactly are you volunteering for? Like all the non-devs (4 of
> them) who have offered help, I'm not going to find you a place in
> releng.

sounds reasonable. bug triaging, testing, building releases and such is
what i had in mind. ultimately helping setup the automated builds...

> There are a few arches without release coordinators (or whose
> coordinators are pulling double duty). Do you want to take over for x86
> or one of the couple of arches that armin76 handles (sparc64 and ia64,
> iirc)?

release coordinator sounds a little too fancy for the kind of contribution
i had in mind. but then again who know what the duties of that guy are?

where is work currently coordinated? it doesnt appear to be this mailing
list

Thilo Bangert wrote:

Andrew Gaffney <agaffney@gentoo.org> said:

Thilo Bangert wrote:

sign me up, though...

What exactly are you volunteering for? Like all the non-devs (4 of
them) who have offered help, I'm not going to find you a place in
releng.


sounds reasonable. bug triaging, testing, building releases and such is
what i had in mind. ultimately helping setup the automated builds...


I'm 90% done with setting up the automated builds. I've got a nice script I
wrote here:


http://sources.gentoo.org/viewcvs.py/releng/trunk/tools/catalyst-auto?rev=581&view=markup

At this point, I'm waiting for someone to get off their butt and fix bug #238685
so that I can complete a full build. On the arches that don't build on poseidon
(everything except x86/amd64), there will be a command in post_build() in their
respective .conf files that uses a specific SSH key to sync the build materials
to poseidon. They will then be automatically pulled to osprey (IIRC) for mirroring.



There are a few arches without release coordinators (or whose
coordinators are pulling double duty). Do you want to take over for x86
or one of the couple of arches that armin76 handles (sparc64 and ia64,
iirc)?


release coordinator sounds a little too fancy for the kind of contribution
i had in mind. but then again who know what the duties of that guy are?


Well, with the previous model, the arch coordinators were the suckers who did
the building and fixed bugs.


With our new model, the builds are mostly automated, so the coordinators will
just be the folk that occasionally poke the builds for their particular arch,
instead of babysitting them.


where is work currently coordinated? it doesnt appear to be this mailing
list


The #gentoo-releng IRC channel and releng@ alias.

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